American Enterprise Institute

The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a think tank founded in 1943 whose stated mission is to support the "foundations of freedom - limited government, private enterprise, vital cultural and political institutions, and a strong foreign policy and national defense." It has emerged as one of the leading architects of the Bush administration's foreign policy. AEI rents office space to the Project for the New American Century, one of the leading voices that pushed the Bush administration's plan for "regime change" through war in Iraq. AEI reps have also aggressively denied that the war has anything to do with oil.

In June 2003, AEI and another right-wing group, the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, launched a new website, called NGOWatch.org, to critique the funding, operations and agendas of international nongovernmental organizations, and particularly their alleged efforts to constrain US freedom of action in international affairs and influence the behavior of corporations abroad. According to AEI, "The extraordinary growth of advocacy NGOs in liberal democracies has the potential to undermine the sovereignty of constitutional democracies, as well as the effectiveness of credible NGOs."

Ralph Nader responds, "What they are condemning, with vague, ironic regulatory nostrums proposed against dissenting citizen groups, is democracy itself."

Personnel

Douglas J. Besharov, Resident Scholar and a Professor in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Maryland.
Robert H. Bork, Senior Fellow and rejected Reagan Supreme Court nominee.
Karlyn Bowman, Resident Fellow.
Montgomery Brown, publication staff member.
Virginia Bryant, publication staff member.
Kathryn Burrows, publication staff member.
Lynne Cheney, the wife of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, is an AEI senior fellow.
Richard Cohen penned a vociferous response to Dennis Kucinich's assertion that the war is about oil.
Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Resident Fellow and co-author of Women's Figures.
Michael Fumento
Newt Gingrich, Senior Fellow and former Speaker of the House [1995-1999].
Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, Senior Fellow and former U.S. Representative to the United Nations [1981-1985].
Kenneth Krattenmaker, publication staff member.
Michael Ledeen
Juyne Linger
John R. Lott, Jr. is a relentless opponent of gun control and the author of a book titled More Guns, Less Crime.
Michael Novak has spent the past twenty years or so working to build a new American Catholicism; one that revolves around unhinged capitalism and the power of the CEO, and countering the religion's traditional mission of social justice and service to the poor.
Richard Perle is also a vocal media supporter of the war.
Lee Raymond, CEO of ExxonMobil, is the vice chair of AEI's board of trustees.
Nazanin Samari, Research Assistant.
Leigh Tripoli
Ben J. Wattenberg, Senior Fellow and host of the PBS series Think Tank.

Funding

The Coors Foundation has been a funder of AEI. Between 1985 and 2001, AEI also received $29,653,933 from the following funding sources:

Castle Rock Foundation
Earhart Foundation
John M. Olin Foundation, Inc.
Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
Philip M. McKenna Foundation, Inc.
Scaife Foundations (Scaife Family, Sarah Mellon Scaife, Carthage)
Smith Richardson Foundation
Philip Morris

Contact Information

American Enterprise Institute
1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: 202-862-5800
Fax: 202-862-7177
E-mail: info@aei.org
http://www.aei.org

Publications

AEI publishes American Enterprise, a bi-monthly review of politics, business, and culture:
http://www.theamericanenterprise.org

External Links

Scholars & Fellows -- List of Scholars and Fellows from AEI web site.
Archive of Scholars and Fellows pages from web.archive.org
Media Transparency -- For a funding history of AEI.
Brian Whitaker, "US Think Tanks Give Lessons in Foreign Policy," Guardian (UK), August 19, 2002.