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.