Conservative Brain Trust

Conservative Brain Trust traces the rise, fall, and rise again of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI). More than that, it is the story of one of Washington's leading think tanks, what it's like to work there, how Washington works, and how AEI influences policy, including policy on the controversial Iraq War. The book is a social science and political study of the role of think tanks in Washington policy-making; it is also, in part, a personal memoir of the author's adventures and perceptions in seeking to link academic research and American foreign policy.

Conservative Brain Trust traces the rise, fall, and rise again of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI). More than that, it is the story of one of Washington's leading think tanks: what it's like to work there, how Washington works, and how AEI influences policy, including policy on the controversial Iraq War. This is a wide-ranging review of the Washington think tank world, focused particularly on AEI. The book is a social science and political study of the role of think tanks in Washington policy-making and, in part, a personal memoir of the author's adventures and perceptions in seeking to link academic research and American foreign policy. What emerges is a portrait of AEI as an influential, but also troubled, think tank with access to the highest levels of the U.S. government. Irreverent as well as analytic, the author recounts his adventures and experiences in the think tank and policy worlds.

Chapter 1
Chapter 1. Introduction: The Call
Chapter 2
Chapter 2. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington: An Introduction to Washington and AEI
Chapter 3
Chapter 3. Into the Swim: A Jaundiced View of the Main Washington Foreign Policy Institutions
Chapter 4
Chapter 4. Think Tanks and Foreign Policy
Chapter 5
Chapter 5. Latin America on the Agenda: Foreign Policy in a Peripheral Area
Chapter 6
Chapter 6. Power and Policy-Making in Washingon, D.C.: How Foreign Policy Gets Made
Chapter 7
Chapter 7. The Democracy Initiative in American Foreign Policy
Chapter 8
Chapter 8. The Kissinger Commission on Central America
Chapter 9
Chapter 9. Am I Entitled to be Called ?Honorable??:Serving the White House at Home and Abroad
Chapter 10
Chapter 10. Congress, the President, and Foreign PolicyDecision-Making: Conflict and Confrontation
Chapter 11
Chapter 11. On the Lecture Circuit: Doing Well by Doing Good
Chapter 12
Chapter 12. Washington Adventures and Misadventures:Are We a Banana Republic or What?
Chapter 13
Chapter 13. The Looming Crisis of AEI
Chapter 14
Chapter 14. AEI in Collapse: A Farewell to D.C.
Chapter 15
Chapter 15. AEI Reborn and Reconstituted
Chapter 16 Conclusion