The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI)

The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI), based in Washington D.C., has been a leading member of the neoconservative advocacy community for nearly three decades and is one of the more prominent U.S. policy institutions. AEI’s advocacy agenda extends from free-market economics to militarist security policies. AEI says that it seeks “to defend the principles and improve the institutions of American freedom and democratic capitalism—limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and responsibility, vigilant and effective defense and foreign policies, political accountability, and open debate.Although AEI’s scholars have expertise in a range of social and domestic policy issues, the institute is well known for pushing militarist foreign and security policies that tend to reflect the views of neoconservatives and other hardline nationalists. Many of its scholars were vociferous public promoters of attacking Iraq—even before the 9/11 terrorist attacks—and pushed for an expansive “war on terror.” AEI was also closely associated with the now-defunct (PNAC), a neoconservative letterhead group that served as an important vehicle for forging a broad coalition of conservative political actors behind an aggressive post-Cold War U.S. agenda during the year’s leading up the 9/11 attacks.