American Politics and Political Institutions
AEI is home to several prominent analysts of trends in politics and public opinion, including Michael Barone, who joined AEI as a resident fellow in American politics in July 2007 and recently released The Almanac of American Politics 2008, coauthored with Richard E. Cohen. Norman J. Ornstein’s commentaries on national politics appear frequently in the national media. Mr. Ornstein acts as senior counselor to the Continuity of Government Commission, a joint AEI and Brookings Institution venture to ensure the stability of U.S. governmental institutions in the event of a catastrophic attack. In August 2006 he published a book cowritten with Thomas E. Mann, The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing American and How to Get It Back on Track, which discusses the causes of congressional decline and provides a blueprint for change. Mr. Ornstein also directs, along with John C. Fortier and Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution, the AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project, assessing the implementation and amendment of the Help America Vote Act. Karlyn H. Bowman regularly updates a series of public opinion studies on topics such as terrorism, business and tax issues, welfare reform, the environment, gay marriage, and work and leisure; she also edits AEI’s monthly Political Report newsletter and is embarking on a project that will examine the demographic and geographic changes in the electorate that have altered the sizes of different population groups and shifted their political orientation over time. Messrs. Barone, Ornstein, Fortier, and Ms. Bowman also conduct monthly sessions analyzing the 2008 races as part of the Institute's Election Watch Series. Ben J. Wattenberg is author of the forthcoming Fighting Words: A Tale of How Liberals Created Neo-Conservatism and host of the PBS television program Think Tank, which explores current social and political issues. In April, the AEI Press published Utah State professor Tony Peacock's latest book, Deconstructing the Republic: Voting Rights, the Supreme Court, and the Founders' Republicanism Reconstructed. Visiting Fellow Edward Blum's new book, which describes how the Voting Rights Act has contributed to diminished competitive elections and the ideological polarization of voting districts, was published in December 2007 by the AEI Press. David Frum's new book, Comeback: Conservatism that Can Win Again, was published by Doubleday in January, and outlines a new approach needed in the Republican party. Steven F. Hayward is currently working on the second volume of The Age of Reagan. In September 2006, the AEI Press published Democracy and the Constitution by Walter Berns, and in October 2006 Absentee and Early Voting, by Mr. Fortier.
AEI Legal Center for the Public Interest
The AEI Legal Center for the Public Interest (created from AEI's merger with the National Legal Center for the Public Interest in September 2007) is considering the broad range of legal issues facing the nation. The program includes research by leading legal and economic experts, featuring the work of AEI scholars Walter Berns, John R. Bolton, Ted Frank, Richard Johnson, Peter J. Wallison, and John Yoo. Upcoming conferences will examine the appropriate scope of civil liability for terrorism, and contingent fees for government-appointed private attorneys, and the annual Supreme Court Briefing. These efforts are supplemented by a robust publications program that includes AEI's Liability Outlook and legal research books. Mr. Frank is continuing to oversee the publication of a series of AEI-commissioned monographs on liability reform. Upcoming titles include Empirical Study on Attorneys' Fees in Securities Class Actions: Implications of the Alleged Milberg Weiss Kickback Scheme, by Michael Perino; Empirical Study of the Effect of the Sensitivity of Doctors to Medical Malpractice Liability Exposure, by AEI adjunct scholar Jonathan Klick; and An Empirical Study of Product Liability Law and General Aviation Safety, by Eric Helland and Alexander Tabarrok.
American Federalism
AEI’s Federalism Project, directed by Michael S. Greve, seeks to rehabilitate a constitutional, competitive federalism that disciplines both the national and state governments. Mr. Greve examines federalism’s legal, institutional, and economic dimensions through conferences, roundtable discussions, AEI’s Constitutional Outlook (formerly known as the Federalist Outlook) and scholarly and journalistic publications. Special emphasis is given to the U.S. Supreme Court’s precedent-setting federalism decisions. Recent areas of research include the Roberts Court's business-related decisions, the federal preemption of state law, and the litigation activities of state attorneys general. Federal Preemption: States' Powers, National Interests, edited by Mr. Greve and Richard A. Epstein, was published by the AEI Press in May 2007. Mr. Epstein's book Antitrust Consent Decrees in Theory and Practice: Why Less is More, in which he offers an analysis of the role consent decrees play in the antitrust law, was published in March 2007. Mr. Greve is also working on a book on the constitutional design of competitive federalism.
Demography
Population trends have long been a cornerstone of social, economic, geopolitical, and environmental concern. Nicholas Eberstadt is one of the country’s leading experts on the HIV epidemic and its potentially devastating effects on global economic and geopolitical security; he is currently focusing his research on the spread and consequences of the disease in Asia, Russia, and sub-Saharan Africa. He is leading a project that explores the nature and consequences of “demographic divergence” between the United States and Western Europe--its impact on Europe's economic growth, on its global influence, and on the future of transatlantic relations. Mr. Eberstadt is also conducting studies on the strategic impact of Chinese demographic trends, such as aging, mortality, and rising imbalances in birth-sex ratios. In 2006 he was appointed to the President's Council on Bioethics. In May 2007, the AEI Press published Global Population Aging and Its Economic Consequences, by Ronald D. Lee, which discusses the implications of the worldwide combination of low fertility and low mortality that is resulting in older, more slowly growing (or even shrinking) populations. In November 2007 the AEI Press published Europe's Coming Demographic Challenge: Unlocking the Value of Health, a monograph cowritten by Mr. Eberstadt and Hans Groth. This month, AEI hosted a major conference entitled "Was Malthus Right? Was Today's Global Food Crisis Inevitable?" with addresses by Senator Richard Lugar (R.-Ind.) and World Bank president Robert Zoellick.
Culture and Freedom
One of the biggest challenges facing modern societies is maintaining a culture where virtue flourishes in tandem with freedom and material progress. AEI’s W. H. Brady Program in Culture and Freedom addresses this challenge and analyzes modern American social and cultural trends. Religion and the American Future, a collection of essays presented at an AEI workshop in October 2006, was published in April. The workshop brought together an array of thinkers from a variety of disciplines, to examine rising secularism in the West. Michael Novak lectures throughout the United States and Europe on topics such as business ethics, economic liberty, political philosophy, and religion. His newest book, Washington’s God: Religion, Liberty, and the Father of our Country, was released in March 2006, and he has finished writing his next, No One Sees God: The Dark Night of Atheists and Believers, which will be published by Doubleday this summer. Last year, Leon R. Kass retired as a member of the President's Council on Bioethics. He works on issues including the right to human dignity and the tensions between modern science and biblical religion. Lynne V. Cheney lectures on such topics as liberalism, feminism, and American exceptionalism, and in 2007 published her latest book, Blue Skies, No Fences: A Memoir of Childhood and Family. Christina Hoff Sommers is leading a project to consider the role of women in science, which will culminate in an edited volume of essays published by the AEI Press. David Gelernter writes on subjects such as Jewish thought, American culture and religion, technology, and artificial intelligence. His book, Americanism: The Fourth Great Western Religion, was published in July 2007 by Doubleday. Arthur C. Brooks recently joined AEI as a visiting scholar to research and write about the connections between culture, politics, and economic life in America. His newest book, Gross National Happiness: Why Happiness Matters for America, was published in April by Basic Books.
Government Program and Policy Evaluations
In keeping with the Institute’s longstanding commitment to limited but energetic government, AEI scholars seek to evaluate the effectiveness of existing federal policies and programs, and to promote continuing review of their performance. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks and the Gulf coast hurricanes of 2005, Kevin A. Hassett, R. Glenn Hubbard, Norman J. Ornstein, and Newt Gingrich have focused special attention on the government’s response to terrorist attacks and natural disasters. Roger Bate studies the performance of the U.S. Agency for International Development. AEI also conducted a major assessment of the 2007 Farm Bill debate and the long-term direction of U.S. agricultural policies, led by researchers Bruce Gardner and Daniel A. Sumner. In May 2007, AEI hosted an all-day conference releasing this project's research findings and policy recommendations, which are now posted on our website. Visiting scholar Richard Burkhauser investigates how public policies affect the economic behavior and well-being of vulnerable populations. He is working on a monograph on U.S. disability insurance policy.
Social Welfare
AEI’s current research on social welfare and welfare policy focuses on state welfare and Medicaid policy reforms under the federal Welfare Reform Act of 1996; the effectiveness of federal nutrition, rehabilitation, and vocational training programs; and private and community efforts to restore the social and economic fabric of inner-city communities. Douglas J. Besharov and Nicholas Eberstadt are leading a project designed to examine the measurement and true definition of poverty by assessing alternative measures of income, consumption, and other indicators of material well-being. Mr. Besharov is also conducting several studies on topics such as marriage, coresidency, and cohabitation as avenues off welfare; and the impact of welfare reform on child care, work programs, food stamps, and health insurance. In October 2007, Mr. Besharov released a major new study that reveals the true cost of government-sponsored early childhood education and care. Mr. Eberstadt is working on a monograph to be published this year, titled, The Poverty of "The Poverty Rate": Measure and Mismeasure of Material Deprivation in Modern America. In March 2006, the AEI Press released Charles Murray's latest book, In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State, which argues that the most effective way to combat the waste and inefficiency of federal social programs would be to abolish them completely and instead provide a fixed-rate annual cash subsidy directly to every American citizen.
Education
AEI’s Education Policy Program conducts original research on key issues of immediate importance in education reform, such as the No Child Left Behind Act, school financing and parental choice, educational accountability, curricular standards, teacher collective bargaining, and college financial aid. It also seeks out ways to "emancipate" education by harnessing the potential of American innovation to develop solutions to the sector's long-term challenges. In September 2007, Frederick M. Hess released No Remedy Left Behind: Lessons from a Half-Decade of NCLB, a book coedited with Chester E. Finn. He is also leading special projects on topics including the barriers to entrepreneurialism in American education and the ways in which empirical research is used (or not used) in school reform. In 2007, Mr. Hess launched AEI's Education Outlook, a publication that addresses the most important current issues in education policy. His latest Outlook is entitled "Teacher Labor Agreements: Formulas for Flexibility or Failure?" He is also directing a long-term book project that examines the common assumptions of American schooling and makes a historically based critique of the institutions and structures that have haphazardly evolved. Lynne V. Cheney writes and lectures on classroom instruction and curricular standards reform. Douglas J. Besharov is conducting studies on preschool education as a factor in early childhood development; on career and technical education as an alternative to college; and on the effects of college financial aid formulas. Mr. Hess recently edited When Research Matters: How Scholarship Influences Education Policy, and published Educational Entrepreneurship: Realities, Challenges, Possibilities; Tough Love for Schools: Essays on Competition, Accountability, and Excellence; and No Child Left Behind: A Primer, which was cowritten with Mike Petrilli. Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing American Schools Back to Reality, by Charles Murray, will be published by Random House in August.
Other sections of AEI's current research highlights:
