The American Affairs Foundation (AAF) is a nonprofit organization that publishes American Affairs, a quarterly journal featuring scholarly essays and research on public policy and political thought, mostly from a heterodox nonpartisan right-of-center perspective. ¹

American Affairs

American Affairs, formerly the American Affairs Journal, is a quarterly journal that intends to foster discussions of new policies that are outside of the conventional partisan lines and provide a platform for new voices based on achievement, originality, and experience. American Affairs supports the recognition of failure and encouragement of new ideas as healthy expressions of American optimism. ²

American Affairs aims to contribute to the effort of revival and realignment that it claims is needed in the U.S. American Affairs claims that the country’s reliance on decades-old definitions of conservatism and left-progressivism is feeding an ideological polarization more than addressing critical issues and the interests of voters. American Affairs is critical of so-called elites, claiming they ignore the problems of declining economic mobility, rising inequality, drug abuse, crime, social discord, and stagnating wages, growth, and productivity. American Affairs also criticizes foreign policies that it claims have failed or been strategically incoherent over the last twenty years. ³

American Affairs claims that nonpartisan expertise and bipartisan collaboration will not solve issues and instead promotes the study of rigorous policy analysis paired with bold and careful inquiry into the foundational principles. American Affairs further claims that it is necessary to seek fundamental analysis into why economic theory is so detached from and incomprehensible to our present reality, the role of markets in the current economy, and how free enterprise is defined, especially as the division between state and private sectors becomes more unclear. ⁴

Funding

The American Affairs Foundation is funded by donations from individuals, foundations, and businesses. While AAF does not disclose its donors, tax filings confirm donations from DonorsTrust ($350,000 in 2019) ⁵ and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation ($141,000 in 2019). ⁶

People

Alexander Alden is the former national security editor for American Affairs, a former senior fellow at the Center for the National Interest, and a former project director at the Center for Naval Analyses. Alden was acting assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations at the Department of State in the Trump administration. ⁷

Aaron Bondar is an associate editor at American Affairs and a Krauthammer Fellow at the Tikvah Fund. ⁸

Michael Cuenco is an associate editor at American Affairs and a contributor to UnHerd; ⁹ Palladium, published by the American Governance Foundation; ¹⁰ and The American Conservative. ¹¹

Julius Krein is the president of the American Affairs Foundation ¹² and the editor and cofounder of American Affairs. Krein, under the pseudonym Plautus, is also a cofounder of the Journal of American Greatness, a blog that promoted a political philosophy that its writers referred to as “Trumpism.” The journal featured scholarly arguments on behalf of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. It was later replaced with American Greatness, a right-of-center news and opinion website aligned with nationalist conservatism, with which Krein is not involved. ¹³ After rioting at the 2017 “Unite the Right” extremist rally in Charlottesville, Krein denounced his support of the Trump administration. ¹⁴

Gladden Pappin is a cofounder and deputy editor of American Affairs. Pappin is a research fellow and senior adviser at the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame. ¹⁵

Christopher Laconi is the treasurer of the board. ¹⁶

1. “About.” American Affairs Foundation, 2023. Accessed February 27, 2023. https://americanaffairsjournal.org/about/.
2. “Why a New Policy Journal?” American Affairs Journal, Spring 2017. Accessed February 27, 2023. http://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/02/new-policy-journal/.
3. “Why a New Policy Journal?” American Affairs Journal, Spring 2017. Accessed February 27, 2023. http://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/02/new-policy-journal/.
4.  “Why a New Policy Journal?” American Affairs Journal, Spring 2017. Accessed February 27, 2023. http://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/02/new-policy-journal/.
5. DonorsTrust, Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax (Form 990), 2019, Schedule I, Part II.
6. William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Return of Private Foundation (Form 990-PF), 2019, Part XV, Line 3.
7. “Alexander Alden.” U.S. Department of State. Accessed February 27, 2023. https://2017-2021.state.gov/biographies/alexander-alden/index.html.
8. “Meet the Krauthammer Fellows.” Tikvah Fund, 2023. Accessed February 27, 2023. https://tikvahfund.org/krauthammer-fellowship/fellows-2023/.
9. “Michael Cuenco.” UnHerd. Accessed February 27, 2023. https://unherd.com/author/michael-cuenco/.
10. “Michael Cuenco.” Palladium. Accessed February 27, 2023. https://www.palladiummag.com/author/michael-cuenco/.
11. “Michael Cuenco.” The American Conservative. Accessed February 27, 2023. https://www.theamericanconservative.com/author/mcuenco/.
12. American Affairs Foundation Inc, Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax (Form 990), 2020, Part VII, Section A, Line 1a.
13. “A New Trumpist Magazine Debuts at the Harvard Club.” The New Yorker, February 25, 2017. Accessed February 27, 2023. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-new-trumpist-magazine-debuts-at-the-harvard-club.
14. Krein, Julius. “I Voted for Trump. And I Sorely Regret It.” The New York Times, August 17, 2017. Accessed February 27, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/opinion/sunday/i-voted-for-trump-and-i-sorely-regret-it.html.
15. “Gladden J. Pappin.” Harvard University, September 2022. Accessed February 24, 2023. https://scholar.harvard.edu/pappin/home.
16. American Affairs Foundation Inc, Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax (Form 990), 2020, Part VII, Section A, Line 1a.