American Affairs

American Affairs is a quarterly American political journal founded in February 2017 by Julius Krein. The editors describe the journal as blending the literature and philosophy of the Claremont Review of Books with the political interests of National Affairs.

Its project has been described in Tablet as: "a dense, technically sophisticated form of neo-Hamiltonian economic nationalism, pushed in various forms by Michael Lind, David P. Goldman, and Krein himself," based on the contention that "a short-sighted American elite has allowed the country’s manufacturing core—the key to both widespread domestic prosperity and national security in the face of a mercantilist China—to be hollowed out," just as "Production and technical expertise have shifted to China and Asia, domestic capital has flowed into unproductive share buybacks or tech schemes (Uber, WeWork), and America has become a country with a two-tiered service economy, with bankers, consultants, and software engineers at the top and Walmart greeters and Uber drivers at the bottom."

Since its founding in 2017, American Affairs has become known for in-depth articles on trade and industrial policy, criticisms of globalization and financialization, advocacy of family childcare allowances and infrastructure spending, as well as for bringing together right and left-wing critics of neoliberalism. Aside from public policy, it has also covered political theory and cultural criticism. It has been characterized in the New Statesman as a "heterodox policy journal" featuring, for instance, conservative arguments in favor of a greater role for the state alongside left-wing arguments against identity politics and open borders. Notable articles include Krein's "The Real Class War" which "attracted attention from both left and right in November 2019 by upending the conversation over class in the Democratic primary."