Talks from the Hoover Institution: Recent Episodes
Hoover Institution
The Hoover Institution Center for Revitalizing American Institutions on Thursday, May 14, from 4:00 to 4:50 PM PT in Hauck Auditorium held a panel discussion on The Peril and Promise of Local Journalism in American Democracy.
News media have undergone massive change in recent decades. A variety of new information platforms have emerged, while traditional news outlets have at times struggled to make the transition into a digital-native era. These developments have been particularly acute at the local level, where many Americans now live in “news deserts.” Our eminent panelists discuss how these developments have fundamentally altered American politics, including regional disparities in representation, the accountability of government officials, and electoral campaigns. Additionally, we consider how the changes have shaped journalists’ responsibilities and media innovations.
The Hoover's History Lab and Center for Revitalizing American Institutions held National Treasure: How the Declaration of Independence Made America, a special book launch with the author, Michael Auslin on Tuesday, May 26, 2026 from 4:00 - 5:15 p.m. PT.
The inspiring story of the Declaration of Independence —the first to take us from its drafting by Thomas Jefferson to today— charts the many lives of a document that captures the soul of America on the 250th anniversary of the country’s founding.
An award-winning historian, Michael Auslin takes us from the boarding house in Philadelphia where Jefferson put quill to paper to the Declaration’s covert signing and its long, harrowing, and ultimately hallowed afterlife. We follow the parchment as it is hauled out of a soon-to-be-burning Washington in 1814 and see it hidden in a dank cellar, posted in classrooms, printed on handkerchiefs, and used to sell insurance and bundle coal. Through it all, Jefferson’s words have inspired implausibly varied causes, from suffragists and civil rights leaders to groups waging war on the US government. As Jefferson had hoped, the principles enshrined in the Declaration became a beacon to the world. But what lessons should we take from it today? Can this statement of ideals in whose name the signers pledged their lives and sacred honor bring a disparate nation together? As we gather to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founders’ bold experiment in democracy, Auslin reminds us that this enduring document was not just a call for freedom and equality but an eloquent statement of the principles that bind us together.
The Alliance for Civics in the Academy hosts "Can Civic Education be Liberal?" with Melinda Zook, Joseph Knippenberg, Benjamin Storey, and Dan Edelstein on Wednesday, May 13, 2026, from 9:00–10:00 a.m. PT.
Civic education and liberal education are often treated as complementary, but their aims can diverge in important ways. This webinar explores how efforts to prepare students for democratic citizenship intersect with, and at times strain against, the broader aims of liberal education, including open inquiry, intellectual autonomy, and critical skepticism. Panelists will consider how institutions can navigate these tensions while advancing a coherent vision of civic learning in higher education.
The Hoover Institution in DC hosts Ideas Uncorked: Competing Systems: U.S. Strategy in the Age of Chinese Authoritarianism on Tuesday, May 5 from 5:00–6:30 pm ET. The event features Elizabeth Economy, Sarah Beran, Matt Turpin, and Miles Yu.
FEATURING
Elizabeth Economy, Hargrove Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
Sarah Beran, former Special Assistant to the President and NSC Senior Director for China and Taiwan Affairs
Matt Turpin, former NSC Director for China and Senior Advisor on China to the Secretary of Commerce and Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution
Miles Yu, former China Policy Advisor to the Secretary of State and Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution
Taiwan is where the uneasy peace between the United States and China will be tested--and possibly broken. Beijing believes that "reunification" is inevitable. American military strength has preserved peace and stability for decades, but its advantages are eroding. Beijing has found critical gaps in U.S. strategy and is working to squeeze, isolate, and coerce Taiwan into submission without firing a shot. If deterrence fails, the consequences of a Taiwan crisis would be catastrophic--plunging the global economy into chaos, shattering U.S. alliances, and allowing China to dominate the region and reshape the world order. In Defending Taiwan, Eyck Freymann presents the first integrated strategy to deter war with China and preserve an honorable peace. Drawing on untranslated Chinese sources, military and economic analysis, and deep historical research, Freymann argues that Washington's deterrence strategy must extend beyond conventional military power and familiar threats of mutually assured destruction. America must work with allies to develop a bold new vision of technological and economic statecraft--and a plan to secure its interests if deterrence fails. Freymann examines China's full range of strategic options. The United States can deter them all. But to do so, it must integrate its military strength, economic leverage, technological leadership, and diplomatic influence into a single, coherent plan to prevent war.
The Hoover Institution Center for Revitalizing American Institutions webinar series features speakers who are developing innovative ideas, conducting groundbreaking research, and taking important actions to improve trust and efficacy in American institutions. Speaker expertise and topics span governmental institutions, civic organizations and practice, and the role of public opinion and culture in shaping our democracy. The webinar series builds awareness about how we can individually and collectively revitalize American institutions to ensure our country’s democracy delivers on its promise.
The Hoover Institution's Center for Revitalizing American Institutions held an engaging conversation on Understanding the Civilian-Military Relationship in American Democracy with General Christopher G. Cavoli, US Army (Ret.), General Joseph F. Dunford Jr., USMC (Ret.), and Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster on May 6, 2026, from 10:00-11:00 a.m. PT.
This webinar explores the evolving relationship between civilian leadership and the military in the United States—a cornerstone of democratic governance. Drawing on historical context, recent case studies, and expert analysis, the discussion examines how mutual trust, accountability, and respect for constitutional norms sustain healthy civil-military dynamics. Participants gain insight into current challenges, including political polarization, public perceptions of the armed forces, and the appropriate role of military voices in national security and domestic affairs. The session aims to deepen understanding of how civil-military balance reinforces both national security and democratic resilience.
Taiwan is where the uneasy peace between the United States and China will be tested--and possibly broken. Beijing believes that "reunification" is inevitable. American military strength has preserved peace and stability for decades, but its advantages are eroding. Beijing has found critical gaps in U.S. strategy and is working to squeeze, isolate, and coerce Taiwan into submission without firing a shot. If deterrence fails, the consequences of a Taiwan crisis would be catastrophic--plunging the global economy into chaos, shattering U.S. alliances, and allowing China to dominate the region and reshape the world order.
In Defending Taiwan, Eyck Freymann presents the first integrated strategy to deter war with China and preserve an honorable peace. Drawing on untranslated Chinese sources, military and economic analysis, and deep historical research, Freymann argues that Washington's deterrence strategy must extend beyond conventional military power and familiar threats of mutually assured destruction. America must work with allies to develop a bold new vision of technological and economic statecraft--and a plan to secure its interests if deterrence fails. Freymann examines China's full range of strategic options. The United States can deter them all. But to do so, it must integrate its military strength, economic leverage, technological leadership, and diplomatic influence into a single, coherent plan to prevent war.
For more information about the Hoover Applied History Working Group, visit: https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/applied-history-working-group
The Hoover Institution hosts Defending Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War With China on Tuesday, April 14, 2026 from 5:00-6:30 pm PT.
The book launch began with a welcome reception, followed by a conversation with Eyck Freymann, Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and Rush Doshi, C.V. Starr Senior Fellow for Asia Studies and Director of the China Strategy Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
The Alliance for Civics in the Academy hosts "Historical Thinking and Democratic Citizenship" with Mary Clark, Suzanne Marchand, Jeffrey Collins, and Jonathan Gienapp on Wednesday, April 22, 2026, from 9:00–10:00 a.m. PT.
Where does history fit within broader efforts to renew civic education in higher education? What can the historical method contribute to the development of civic competencies? And in an era of polarized historical memory, how can colleges and universities teach history in ways that strengthen democratic culture? This session examines the distinctive contributions of historical study in cultivating informed and engaged citizens. Panelists will consider how history departments and civic initiatives can collaborate to better align curricular goals and advance a shared vision for civic learning.
Wednesday, April 1, 2026
Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Institution Center for Revitalizing American Institutions webinar series features speakers who are developing innovative ideas, conducting groundbreaking research, and taking important actions to improve trust and efficacy in American institutions. Speaker expertise and topics span governmental institutions, civic organizations and practice, and the role of public opinion and culture in shaping our democracy. The webinar series builds awareness about how we can individually and collectively revitalize American institutions to ensure our country’s democracy delivers on its promise.
On April 1, 2026, from 10:00-11:30 a.m. PT., the Hoover Institution's Center for Revitalizing American Institutions, in partnership with the Hoover Technology Policy Accelerator, hosted an engaging conversation, In Science We Trust? Understanding Americans’ Confidence in Science, Scientists, and Scientific Institutions with Russ Altman, Mark Horowitz, Arthur Lupia, and Amy Zegart.
This webinar examines how Americans think about and trust science in an era of rapid technological change, political polarization, and misinformation. Through data-driven analysis and discussion, panelists explore trends in public confidence toward scientists, the institutions that produce scientific knowledge, and the social and cultural factors that shape these attitudes. Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of what strengthens or undermines trust in science—and what that means for policymaking, education, and the health of American democracy.
Thursday, March 26, 2026
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
The Hoover History Lab hosted Rural Banditry and Boko Haram: Governance, Security, and International Engagement in Nigeria on Thursday, March 26, 2026.
FEATURING
Ebenezer Obadare
Senior Fellow for Africa Studies | Council on Foreign Relations
Ugochi Daniels
Deputy Director for General Operations | International Organization for Migration
Robin Renee Sanders
Former US Ambassador to Nigeria
The Hoover Institution invites you to a virtual presentation of Wargaming the Pacific: Lessons from the Naval War College's Interwar Games on Tuesday, March 24, 2026, from 12:00-2:00 pm PT.
This webinar examines the interwar wargames conducted at the U.S. Naval War College before World War II and their foundational role in shaping U.S. naval doctrine and strategic planning. We explore how these games contributed to America’s success in the Pacific Theater, their enduring impact on U.S. military effectiveness, and the remarkable archival materials preserved by the Naval War College.
Margaret Hoover moderated a conversation with General Jim Mattis, former U.S. Secretary of Defense, and Ryan Holiday, bestselling author and modern interpreter of Stoic philosophy, on the character that sustains a republic. Drawing on experience in military command, classical philosophy, and the enduring example of America’s founding generation, including their shared admiration for George Washington, the discussion explored the virtues that have defined American leadership at its best: discipline, moral courage, humility in the exercise of power, and a profound sense of duty.
This live episode of Firing Line considered how those principles continue to define the American idea, and what they require of leaders and citizens alike in the decades ahead.
The Alliance for Civics in the Academy hosts "Building Civic Unity in a Religiously Diverse Democracy" with Eboo Patel, Robert George, Fr. Francisco Nahoe, and Josh Ober on March 18, 2026, from 9:00-10:00 a.m. PT.
Religious diversity is a defining feature of contemporary American democracy, yet it raises persistent questions about how civic unity is cultivated in shared public life. How can institutions of higher education prepare students to engage constructively across religious difference while sustaining common democratic commitments? This webinar explores the role of civic education in a religiously diverse democracy, examining pedagogical approaches, institutional frameworks, and normative principles that support civic unity without erasing pluralism.
The Hoover Institution Center for Revitalizing American Institutions webinar series features speakers who are developing innovative ideas, conducting groundbreaking research, and taking important actions to improve trust and efficacy in American institutions. Speaker expertise and topics span governmental institutions, civic organizations and practice, and the role of public opinion and culture in shaping our democracy. The webinar series builds awareness about how we can individually and collectively revitalize American institutions to ensure our country’s democracy delivers on its promise.
The Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI) held a webinar—co-sponsored by the Stanford Constitutional Law Center—about Judicial Importance, Independence, and Legitimacy in Polarized Times with Michael McConnell, Tom Clark, Genevieve Lakier, and Eugene Volokh on March 4, 2026, from 10:00-11:30 a.m. PT.
Have federal courts been too permissive—or too obstructive—of President Trump’s agenda? The answer often depends on one’s political perspective. Yet across the spectrum, there’s broad agreement that the courts have come under intense pressure and scrutiny in recent years. As the country has grown more politically sorted, the judiciary’s role in our system of self-governance has evolved and, for some, grown more contested.
Join us for a timely and thought-provoking webinar featuring scholars with diverse viewpoints who explore how the federal courts are functioning—and perceived—amid today’s polarized political landscape. Panelists examine questions such as: What is the judiciary’s role in safeguarding democracy? How can courts maintain legitimacy in a divided society? And how should we interpret recent high-profile rulings in the broader context of American constitutionalism?
Wednesday, March 11, 2026
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
Hoover Institution fellow Niall Ferguson and Andrew Preston discuss Preston's latest book Total Defense: The New Deal and the Invention of National Security.
Wednesday, March 11, 2026
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
The Hoover Applied History Working Group held Total Defense: The New Deal and the Invention of National Security on Wednesday, March 11, 2026.
ABOUT THE TALK
National security may seem like a timeless notion. States have always sought to fortify themselves, and the modern state derives its legitimacy from protecting its population. Yet national security in fact has a very particular, very American, history—and a surprising one at that.
The concept of national security originates in the 1930s, as part of a White House campaign in response to the rise of fascism. Before then, national self-defense was defined in terms of protecting sovereign territory from invasion. But President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his circle worried that the US public, comforted by two vast oceans, did not take seriously the long-term risks posed by hypermilitarization abroad. New Dealers developed the doctrine of national security, Andrew Preston argues, to supplant the old idea of self-defense: now even geographically and temporally remote threats were to be understood as harms to be combated, while ideological competitors were perilous to the “American way of life.”
Total Defense shows it was no coincidence that a liberal like Roosevelt promoted this vision. National security, no less than social security, was a New Deal promise: the state was obliged to safeguard Americans as much from the guns and warships of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan as from unemployment and poverty in old age. The resulting shift in threat perception—among policymakers and ordinary citizens alike—transformed the United States, spearheading massive government expansion and placing the country on a permanent war footing.
The Alliance for Civics in the Academy hosted "How Can Universities Strengthen Civic Education in K–12 Schools?" with Jennifer McNabb, Joshua Dunn, and Jenna Storey on March 4, 2026, from 9:00-10:00 a.m. PT.
Universities are increasingly reexamining their role as incubators of effective citizenship. An essential yet often overlooked part of this work is strengthening K–12 civic education. This webinar explores how efforts within higher education can support civic learning in K–12 schools, with particular emphasis on the academy’s role in training the next generation of educators.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Meira Levinson is a political theorist/philosopher of education who is working to start a global field of educational ethics that is philosophically rigorous, disciplinarily and experientially inclusive, and both relevant to and informed by educational policy and practice. In doing so, she draws upon scholarship from multiple disciplines as well as her eight years of experience teaching middle school humanities, civics, history, and English in the Atlanta and Boston Public Schools.
Meira has written or co-edited nine books, including Civic Contestation in Global Educationand Educational Equity in a Global Context(both 2024, with Ellis Reid, Tatiana Geron, and Sara O’Brien), Instructional Moves for Powerful Teaching in Higher Education (2023, co-authored with Jeremy Murphy), Democratic Discord in Schools (2019, with Jacob Fay), winner of the 2020 AERA Moral Development and Education SIG Outstanding Book Award, and Dilemmas of Educational Ethics (2016, with Jacob Fay). Her book No Citizen Left Behind(2012) won awards in political science, philosophy, social studies, and education and has been translated into Chinese and Japanese. Meira shares educational ethics resources on JusticeinSchools.org, materials to support K-12 educators working in politically charged environments at Educational Values in Action, and resources for youth activists and teacher allies at YouthinFront.org. Each of these projects reflects Levinson's commitment to achieving productive cross-fertilization — without loss of rigor — among scholarship, policy, and practice.
Meira earned a B.A. in philosophy from Yale and a D.Phil. in politics from Nuffield College, Oxford University. Her work has been supported by fellowships from Guggenheim, the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard, Harvard Radcliffe Institute, and the National Academy of Education. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty, Meira taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Jennifer McNabb is Professor and Head of the Department of History at the University of Northern Iowa, where she teaches courses on early modern European history and the history of England. She was Co-Chair of UNI's Civic Education Task Force, which created UNI's Center for Civic Education, and she was Co-PI for a National Endowment for the Humanities Connections Grant that developed UNI's first civic education curriculum: "Civic Literacy, Engagement and the Humanities." McNabb is also a Co-PI of a national grant that will establish the Iowa Civic Educators Institute, providing professional development opportunities for in-service and pre-service social studies and history teachers throughout the state. McNabb has received several awards for her teaching and has completed four courses for The Teaching Company’s The Great Courses on the Renaissance, witchcraft, sex, and marriage. She currently serves as a Councilor in the Professional Division of the American Historical Association and as president of the Midwest Conference on British Studies.
Joshua Dunn (PhD, University of Virginia) serves as Executive Director of the Institute of American Civics at the Howard H. Baker School of Public Policy and Public Affairs at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His research and teaching focus on constitutional law and history, education policy, federalism, and freedom of speech and religion. His books include Complex Justice: The Case of Missouri v. Jenkins (University of North Carolina Press), From Schoolhouse to Courthouse: The Judiciary’s Role in American Education (Brookings Institution Press) and Passing on the Right: Conservative Professors in the Progressive University (Oxford University Press).
Moderator
Jenna Silber Storey is the Ravenel Curry Chair in Civic Thought in the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies Division of the American Enterprise Institute, and Co-Director of AEI’s Center for the Future of the American University. She is also an SNF Agora Fellow at Johns Hopkins University and a Research Fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. She previously taught political philosophy at Furman University, where she was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and International Affairs, and Executive Director of Furman’s Tocqueville Program. Her writing has appeared in outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, First Things, and The National Endowment for the Humanities flagship journal, Humanities. Dr. Storey is the co-author, with her husband Ben, of Why We Are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment (Princeton University Press, 2021). They are currently working on a book titled The Art of Choosing: How Liberal Education Should Prepare You for Life.
The Alliance for Civics in the Academy hosts "What Counts as Success? Assessing the Impact of Civics in Higher Ed" with Trygve Throntveit, Rachel Wahl, Joseph Kahne, and Peter Levine on February 18, 2026, from 9:00-10:00 a.m. PT.
As higher education renews its commitment to civic education, questions about how to define and measure success have become increasingly urgent. This webinar examines the strengths and limitations of common metrics and considers how different measures reflect competing visions of civic purpose in higher education. Participants explore emerging frameworks for assessing civic learning and engagement, and discuss how institutions can align assessment practices with their educational missions and democratic goals.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Rachel Wahl is an associate professor in the Social Foundations Program, Department of Educational Leadership, Foundations, and Policy at the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Virginia. She also serves as Director of the Good Life Political Project at the UVa Karsh Institute of Democracy. Her research focuses on learning through public dialogue between people on opposing sides of political divides. Her most recent book is Keeping Our Enemies Closer: Political Dialogue in Polarized Democracies (University of Pennsylvania Press, forthcoming October 2026). Her prior research focused on efforts by community activists to change police officers’ beliefs and behavior through activism and education, which is the subject of her first book, Just Violence: Torture and Human Rights in the Eyes of the Police (Stanford University Press, 2017). Her research has been funded by donors such as the Educating Character Initiative, the Spencer Foundation and National Academy of Education, the Carnegie Corporation, and the federal Institute of International Education.
Joseph Kahne is the Ted and Jo Dutton Presidential Professor for Education Policy and Politics and Director of the Civic Engagement Research Group (CERG) at the University of California, Riverside. Professor Kahne's research focuses on the influence of school practices and digital media on youth civic and political development. For example, with funding from the Institute of Educational Sciences (IES), and in partnership with scholars from Ohio State, Brown, and UCR, CERG has launched and is studying the impact of Connecting Classrooms to Congress (CC2C). CC2C is a social studies curricular unit that enables students to learn and deliberate about a controversial societal issue and then participate in an online townhall with their Member of Congress. In addition, Kahne and CERG are currently studying the Educating for American Democracy Roadmap. This work takes place through a partnership with reformers and school districts in NM, OK, and LA. In addition to studying the impact of these curricular experiences on young people’s civic development, with John Rogers, we are currently devoting particular attention to the politics of democratic education. We are examining ways the political contexts of school districts shape possibilities for democratic education and the varied ways educators respond.
Professor Kahne was Chair of the MacArthur Foundation’s Youth and Participatory Politics Research Network. Kahne was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship. He currently chairs the Educating for American Democracy Research Task Force. Professor Kahne is a member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association. He can be reached at jkahne@ucr.edu and his work is available at https://www.civicsurvey.org/
Trygve Throntveit, PhD, was appointed Research Professor in Higher Education and Associate Director of the Center for Economic and Civic Learning (CECL) at Ball State University in August of 2025. During the previous five years, he served as Director of Strategic Partnership and Civic Renewal Programming at the Minnesota Humanities Center (MHC), and as Global Fellow for History and Public Policy at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. At MHC, Dr. Throntveit expanded the Third Way Civics (3WC) initiative for undergraduate civic learning--which he first developed with partners at Ball State and Southeastern Universities in 2019--into a multi-state program, training dozens of faculty in Minnesota, Indiana, Florida, Missouri, and Montana to infuse student-centered, active civic learning into their regular courses and helping several colleges and universities build the original, US history and politics version of 3WC into their general curricula. As a result of his work on Third Way Civics, was selected by Campus Compact and the Civic Learning and Democracy Engagement coalition to co-author an upcoming guide to designing and implementing rigorous civic learning opportunities across the undergraduate curriculum, and has delivered presentations and workshops on 3WC and civic learning more generally across the United States as well as Austria, Germany, Japan, and Korea. Trained as a historian, Dr. Throntveit is an active scholar in the fields of history and political theory as well as civic learning, having published articles and books examining past and present developments in US politics, foreign policy, and social thought and served for eight years as editor of The Good Society, the journal of the transdisciplinary Civic Studies field. He has taught at Harvard University, Dartmouth College, and Minnesota State University-Mankato, and has overseen public humanities programs bringing communities into productive conversation across their differences on issues as diverse as election integrity, US-Tribal relations, and water use. Dr. Throntveit lives and works in Minneapolis, where oversees the increasingly national 3WC initiative and also directs the Twin Cities-based Institute for Public Life and Work, which he co-founded with Harry C. Boyte and Marie-Louise Strom in 2021.
Moderator
Peter Levine is a philosopher and political scientist who specializes on civic life and has helped to develop Civic Studies as an international intellectual movement. In the domain of civic education, Levine was a co-organizer and co-author of The Civic Mission of Schools (2003), The College, Career & Citizenship Framework for State Social Studies Standards (2013) and The Educating for American Democracy Roadmap (2021). He is also the author of eight books, including most recently We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: The Promise of Civic Renewal in America (Oxford University Press, 2013) and What Should We Do? A Theory of Civic Life (Oxford University Press, 2022).
The Hoover Institution's Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region held a public session on Resilient Realists: How Taiwan Navigates Its Future in a Turbulent World on March 2, 2026 from 1:00-2:30 PM PT.
Since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical competition between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has rapidly intensified, and the global order has faced growing strains. Through it all, Taiwan has remained remarkably resilient. In the face of relentless diplomatic, economic, and military pressure from Beijing, Taiwan’s leaders have leveraged the island’s critical role in global technology supply chains, its reputation as a robust liberal democracy, and its strategic position in the Indo-Pacific to deepen engagement with key world powers. As many Americans question core assumptions of the post-Cold War global order, the PRC’s military power continues to grow, and the world stands on the cusp of a technological revolution in artificial intelligence, can Taiwan continue to navigate so deftly through turbulent geopolitical waters?
To address these topics, the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region at the Hoover Institution held a fireside chat featuring Dr. Hung-mao Tien, President of the Institute for National Policy Research (INPR) in Taipei and a former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Dr. Tien joined in conversation by Adm. (Ret.) James O. Ellis, the Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow, and Dr. Larry Diamond, the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Dr. Hung-mao Tien is the President and Chairman of the Institute for National Policy Research in Taipei, and board member of several foundations and business corporations in Taiwan. He also serves as a Senior Advisor to the President of the Republic of China (Taiwan). From 2000-2002, he was the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He also served as the chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation, the semi-official body in Taiwan responsible for direct exchanges and dialogue with the People's Republic of China, Representative (ambassador) to the United Kingdom, and presidential advisor to former President Lee Teng-hui. He has also served in an advisory capacity to Harvard University’s Asia Center, The Asia Society in New York, and the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. Dr. Tien has taught in universities in both the US and Taiwan as professor of political science. His numerous publications in English (author, editor and co-editor) include: Government and Politics in Kuomintang China 1927-37 (Stanford University Press); The Great Transition: Social and Political Change in the Republic of China (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press); and Democratization in Taiwan, Implications for China (St. Anthony’s Series, Oxford University), Consolidating the Third Wave Democracies, Themes and Perspectives (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press), China Under Jiang Zemin (Rienner), and The Security Environment in the Asia-Pacific (M.E. Sharpe). He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of political science and sociology at Stanford, where he lectures and teaches courses on democracy (including an online course on EdX). At Hoover, he co-leads the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and participates in the Program on the US, China, and the World. At FSI, he is among the core faculty of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, which he directed for six and a half years. He leads FSI’s Israel Studies Program and is a member of the Program on Arab Reform and Development. He also co-leads the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He served for thirty-two years as founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy. Diamond’s research focuses on global trends affecting freedom and democracy and on US and international policies to defend and advance democracy. His book Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency (2019; paperback ed. 2020) analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the United States and around the world and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad. His other books include In Search of Democracy (2016), The Spirit of Democracy (2008), Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (1999), Promoting Democracy in the 1990s (1995), and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria (1989). He has edited or coedited more than fifty books, including China’s Influence and American Interests(2019, with Orville Schell), Silicon Triangle: The United States, Taiwan, China, and Global Semiconductor Security (2023, with James O. Ellis Jr. and Orville Schell), and The Troubling State of India’s Democracy(2024, with Šumit Ganguly and Dinsha Mistree).
Admiral James O. Ellis Jr. is Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he oversees both the Global Policy and Strategy Initiative and the George P. Shultz Energy Policy Working Group. He retired from a 39-year career with the US Navy in 2004. He has also served in the private and nonprofit sectors in areas of energy and nuclear security. A 1969 graduate of the US Naval Academy, Ellis was designated a naval aviator in 1971. His service as a navy fighter pilot included tours with two carrier-based fighter squadrons and assignment as commanding officer of an F/A-18 strike fighter squadron. In 1991, he assumed command of the USS Abraham Lincoln, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. After selection to rear admiral, in 1996, he served as a carrier battle group commander, leading contingency response operations in the Taiwan Strait. His shore assignments included numerous senior military staff tours. Senior command positions included commander in chief, US Naval Forces, Europe, and commander in chief, Allied Forces, Southern Europe, during a time of historic NATO expansion. He led US and NATO forces in combat and humanitarian operations during the 1999 Kosovo crisis. Ellis’s final assignment in the navy was as commander of the US Strategic Command during a time of challenge and change. In this role, he was responsible for the global command and control of US strategic and space forces, reporting directly to the secretary of defense.
The Hoover Applied History Working Group hosted its virtual Winter 2026 Symposium on Thursday, February 12, 2026, 8:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time.
The Symposium theme is “America and the World at 250.” As the United States begins to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary, our intention is to review recent historiographical developments, revisit enduring debates, spark new ones, and relate them to contemporary world order and the crises facing America at home and abroad.
The Hoover Institution’s Global Policy and Strategy Initiative hosted a webinar to discuss Alternative U.S. Grand Strategies: Past, Present, Future on Tuesday, February 10, 2026.
In a new report for the Council on Foreign Relations, America Revived, Ambassador Blackwill argues that the United States faces the most dangerous international environment since World War II. He defines U.S. vital national interests, summarizes the history of American grand strategy, outlines and critiques five grand strategy schools (primacy, liberal internationalism, restraint, American nationalism, and Trumpism), and advances a new grand strategy—resolute global leadership. This approach merges the military power and global presence of primacy with the alliance networks, institutional engagement, and focus on legitimacy emphasized by liberal internationalism.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Ambassador Robert Blackwill is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School. He served as deputy national security advisor, presidential envoy to Iraq, and ambassador to India under President George W. Bush. Blackwill’s latest book, coauthored with Richard Fontaine, is Lost Decade: The U.S. Pivot to Asia and the Rise of Chinese Power (Oxford University Press, 2024).
Admiral James O. Ellis Jr. is Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he oversees both the Global Policy and Strategy Initiative and the George P. Shultz Energy Policy Working Group. He retired from a 39-year career with the US Navy in 2004. He has also served in the private and nonprofit sectors in areas of energy and nuclear security.
Philip Zelikow is the Botha-Chan Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. For 25 years he held a chaired professorship in history at the University of Virginia, where he also directed the nation's leading research center on the American presidency. For seven years before that, he was an associate professor at Harvard University.
The Hoover Institution Center for Revitalizing American Institutions webinar series features speakers who are developing innovative ideas, conducting groundbreaking research, and taking important actions to improve trust and efficacy in American institutions. Speaker expertise and topics span governmental institutions, civic organizations and practice, and the role of public opinion and culture in shaping our democracy. The webinar series builds awareness about how we can individually and collectively revitalize American institutions to ensure our country’s democracy delivers on its promise.
The Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI) held The Declaration of Independence: History, Meaning, and Modern Impact with Michael Auslin, Jonathan Gienapp and Jane Kamensky on February 4, 2026, from 10:00-11:00 a.m. PT.
As America observes the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the Hoover Institution’s Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI) provided a renewed look at the origins and enduring influence of this defining national document. Expert speakers examined the Declaration’s cultural and physical history, its philosophical foundations and contested meanings, and its evolving role in shaping debates about rights, equality, and self-government. Participants gained insight into how the Declaration continues to inform national identity, animate civic discourse, and guide the ongoing effort to fulfill the promise of America’s democratic ideals.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Michael Auslin is the Payson J. Treat Distinguished Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution. A historian by training, Auslin is the author of the forthcoming National Treasure: How the Declaration of Independence Made America and The End of the Asian Century. He is a regular contributor to leading print and broadcast media and was a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Library of Congress’s John W. Kluge Center.
Jonathan Gienapp is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a leading historian of the United States and its constitutional origins, with dual appointments in Stanford’s History Department and Law School. He is the author of two acclaimed books on American constitutional history and interpretation, and his scholarship on the Declaration and the nation’s founding informs lectures and public programs nationwide. A dedicated educator and award-winning teacher, he also works closely with institutions such as the National Constitution Center and the Brennan Center’s Historians Council to deepen public and legal understanding of constitutional issues. His public-facing writing, advisory work, and civics initiatives help connect historical insight to today’s constitutional debates.
Jane Kamensky is president and CEO of Monticello/The Thomas Jefferson Foundation and a leading historian of early America and the United States. She earned her BA and PhD in history from Yale University and spent thirty years as a professor and higher education leader, most recently as the Jonathan Trumbull Professor of American History at Harvard University and director of the Schlesinger Library at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. Kamensky is the author or editor of numerous acclaimed works. Her award-winning A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley earned multiple major prizes, and she coedited The Oxford Handbook of the American Revolution with the late Edward G. Gray. Her latest book, Candida Royalle and the Sexual Revolution, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. A dedicated public historian, she has served on boards and advisory councils, including the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and More Perfect. Her work has been supported by NEH, Mellon, and Guggenheim fellowships, and she is an elected fellow of several distinguished historical societies. She also invites readers to explore Monticello’s vibrant online book club.
The Hoover Institution and the Stanford School of Engineering convened policymakers, scholars, and national leaders in Washington, DC, for the official launch of the 2026 Stanford Emerging Technology Review (SETR).
This event features expert discussions on how emerging technologies—including artificial intelligence, semiconductors, robotics, and energy systems—are reshaping economic competitiveness, national security, and global geopolitics. Speakers examine how the United States can strengthen its innovation ecosystem, mitigate technological risk, and maintain leadership amid intensifying global competition.
Download the 2026 Stanford Emerging Technology Review report: https://setr.stanford.edu/.
The Hoover Institution Program on the US, China, and the World hosted, Insights from the 2025 US-China Economic and Security Review Commission Report: Findings and Recommendations, on Thursday, January 29, 2026.
This event features leading experts from the Hoover Institution and the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission for a discussion analyzing the key bilateral economic and security challenges faced by the US and China and their impacts on the broader international landscape. Congress created the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission to monitor, investigate, and report on the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship between the United States and the People’s Republic of China. Its annual reports to Congress address and make recommendations about pressing issues such as trade practices, technological competition, military strategy, and human rights concerns, with far-reaching implications for policymakers and stakeholders around the world. The Commission’s 2025 Annual Report was released in November 2025.
To view the report, click the following link: https://www.uscc.gov/annual-reports
FEATURING
Erin Baggott Carter is a Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. She is also an associate professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Southern California, a faculty affiliate at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute, and a nonresident scholar at the 21st Century China Center at UC San Diego. She has previously held fellowships at the CDDRL and Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. She received a PhD in political science from Harvard University.
Drew Endy is a science fellow and senior fellow (courtesy) at the Hoover Institution. He leads Hoover’s Bio-Strategy and Leadership effort, which focuses on keeping increasingly biotic futures secure, flourishing, and democratic. Professor Endy also researches and teaches bioengineering at Stanford University, where he is the Martin Family University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, senior fellow (courtesy) of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and faculty codirector of degree programs for the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design.
Mike Kuiken is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and serves as a Commissioner on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He is an advisor to the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP) and a member of Anthropic's National Security and Public Sector Advisory Council. He also consults with CEOs, boards, and senior leaders across investment, AI, defense, technology, and multinational firms globally.
The Honorable Randall G. Schriver is Chairman of the Board at The Institute for Indo-Pacific Security. In addition, Mr. Schriver is currently a partner at Pacific Solutions LLC. Most recently, Mr. Schriver served as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs from 8 January 2018 to 31 December 2019. Prior to his confirmation as Assistant Secretary, Mr. Schriver was a founding partner of Armitage International LLC, a consulting firm that specializes in international business development and strategies. He was also a founder of the Project 2049 Institute and served as President and CEO. Previously, Mr. Schriver served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.
MODERATOR
Glenn Tiffert is a distinguished research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a historian of modern China. He co-chairs Hoover’s program on the US, China, and the World, and also leads Stanford’s participation in the National Science Foundation’s SECURE program, a $67 million effort authorized by the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 to enhance the security and integrity of the US research enterprise. He works extensively on the security and integrity of ecosystems of knowledge, particularly academic, corporate, and government research; science and technology policy; and malign foreign interference.
The Alliance for Civics in the Academy hosted "Comparative Civics: Beyond Western Civ" with Dongxian Jiang, Shadi Bartsch, Simon Sihang Luo, and Peter Levine on December 10, 2025, from 9:00-10:00 a.m. PT.
There is broad agreement that effective citizenship requires a firm understanding of the history and principles of the American constitutional system. But what about the insights, lessons, and perspectives that can be drawn from foreign contexts? How might the study of other societies–including those with autocratic systems or markedly different cultural traditions–enhance one’s preparation for effective American citizenship? This webinar explores what global perspectives can teach us about citizenship and democracy at home.
Panelists:Dongxian Jiang: Assistant Professor of Chinese Studies, Department of Languages and Cultures, Fordham University.
Shadi Bartsch: Helen A Regenstein Professor of Classics; Director Emerita, Institute on the Formation of Knowledge, University of Chicago
Simon Sihang Luo: Nanyang Assistant Professor, Public Policy and Global Affairs Programme, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Moderator:Peter Levine: Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship & Public Service, Tufts University; Executive Committee Members, Alliance for Civics in the Academy
The Hoover Applied History Working Group hosted a special book-launch seminar: Spellbound: How Charisma Shaped American History from the Puritans to Donald Trump on Tuesday, December 2, 2025.
What happens when Americans lose faith in their religious institutions—and politicians fill the void? Please join us for a seminar that will discuss the forces that create leaders and hold their followers captive.
Everyone feels it. Cultural and political life in America has become unrecognizable and strange. Firebrands and would-be sages have taken the place of reasonable and responsible leaders. Nuanced debates have given way to the smug confidence of yard signs. How did we get here?
In Spellbound, Worthen argues that we will understand our present moment if we learn the story of charisma in America. From the Puritans and Andrew Jackson to Black nationalists and Donald Trump, the saga of American charisma stars figures who possess a dangerous and alluring power to move crowds. They invite followers into a cosmic drama that fulfills hopes and rectifies grievances—and these charismatic leaders insist that they alone plot the way.
The story of charisma in America reveals that when traditional religious institutions fail to deliver on their promise of a meaningful life, people will get their spiritual needs met in a warped cultural and political landscape dominated by those who appear to have the power to bring order and meaning out of chaos. Charismatic leaders address spiritual needs, offering an alternate reality where people have knowledge, power, and heroic status, whether as divinely chosen instruments of God or those who will restore national glory.
Worthen’s centuries-spanning historical research places a crucial religious lens on the cultural, economic, and political upheavals facing Americans today.
After the Hoover Applied History Working Group book-launch seminar on Tuesday, December 2, 2025, Hoover Institution fellow Niall Ferguson interviewed Molly Worthen the author of Spellbound: How Charisma Shaped American History from the Puritans to Donald Trump.
Watch the full book-launch seminar here: https://youtu.be/bXkccTi7ZDE
The Hoover History Lab and its Applied History Working Group in close partnership with the Global Policy and Strategy Initiative held The Arsenal of Democracy Technology, Industry, and Deterrence in an Age of Hard Choices on Thursday, November 20, 2025, from 4:00 PM - 5:15 PM PT.
The event featured the authors Eyck Freymann, Hoover Fellow, and Harry Halem, Senior Fellow at Yorktown Institute, in conversation with Stephen Kotkin, Kleinheinz Family Senior Fellow.
The US military stands at a moment of profound risk and uncertainty. China and its authoritarian partners have pulled far ahead in defense industrial capacity. Meanwhile, emerging technologies are reshaping the character of air and naval warfare and putting key elements of the US force at risk. To prevent a devastating war with China, America must rally its allies to build a new arsenal of democracy. But achieving this goal swiftly and affordably involves hard choices.
The Arsenal of Democracy is the first book to integrate military strategy, industrial capacity, and budget realities into a comprehensive deterrence framework. While other books explain why deterrence matters, this book provides the detailed roadmap for how America can actually sustain deterrence through the 2030s—requiring a whole-of-nation effort with coordinated action across Congress, industry, and allied governments.
Rapidly maturing technologies are already reshaping the battlefield: unmanned systems on air, land, sea, and undersea; advanced electronic warfare; space-based sensing; and more. Yet China’s industrial strengths could give it advantages in a protracted conflict. The United States and its allies must both revitalize their industrial bases to achieve necessary production scale and adapt existing platforms to integrate new high-tech tools.
FEATURING
Eyck Freymann is a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University and a Non-Resident Research Fellow at the U.S. Naval War College, China Maritime Studies Institute. He works on strategies to preserve peace and protect U.S. interests and values in an era of systemic competition with China. He is the author of several books, including The Arsenal of Democracy: Technology, Industry, and Deterrence in an Age of Hard Choices, with Harry Halem, and One Belt One Road: Chinese Power Meets the World. His scholarly work has appeared in The China Quarterly and is forthcoming in International Security.
Harry Halem is a Senior Fellow at Yorktown Institute. He holds an MA (Hons) in Philosophy and International Relations from the University of St Andrews, and an MSc in Political Philosophy from the London School of Economics. Mr. Halem worked for the Hudson Institute’s Seapower Center, along with multiple UK think-tanks. He has published a variety of short-form pieces and monographs on various aspects of military affairs, in addition to a short book on Libyan political history.
Stephen Kotkin is the Kleinheinz Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution as well as a senior fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He is also the Birkelund Professor in History and International Affairs emeritus at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School), where he taught for 33 years. He earned his PhD at the University of California–Berkeley and has been conducting research in the Hoover Library & Archives for more than three decades. Kotkin’s research encompasses geopolitics and authoritarian regimes in history and in the present.
The Alliance for Civics in the Academy hosted "Out of Many, One: Creating a Pluralistic Framework for Civics in Higher Education" with Paul Carrese, Jacob Levy, Minh Ly, and Brian Coyne on November 12, 2025, from 9:00-10:00 a.m. PT.
With increasing cross-partisan support for renewing civic learning in higher education, an important question emerges: how can colleges and universities create a framework for civic education that cultivates shared democratic values while honoring pluralism and diverse perspectives? This webinar explores this challenge in depth, highlighting guiding principles and exemplary approaches for creating a shared vision of civic education suited to a pluralistic society.
Panelists:Paul Carrese is Director of the Center for American Civics, and professor in the School of Civic & Economic Thought and Leadership, at Arizona State University, serving as the School’s founding director 2016 to 2023. Formerly he was a professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy, co-founding its honors program blending liberal arts and leadership education. He teaches and publishes on the American founding, American constitutional and political thought, civic education, and American grand strategy. His forthcoming book is Teaching America: Reflective Patriotism in Schools, College, and Culture (Cambridge, May 2026). He has held fellowships at Oxford (Rhodes Scholar); Harvard; University of Delhi (Fulbright); and the James Madison Program, Princeton. He served on the advisory board of the Program on Public Discourse at UNC Chapel Hill; co-led a national study, Educating for American Democracy, on history and civics in K-12 schools with partners from Harvard, Tufts, and iCivics (2021); and served on the Civic Education Committee of the American Political Science Association (APSA). He is a fellow of the Civitas Institute, UT Austin, and serves on the Academic Council of the Jack Miller Center for America’s Founding Principles and History, and the executive and on the executive Council of the APSA. He is a Senior Fellow with the Jack Miller Center, and in 2025 was an Alliance for Civics in the Academy Visiting Scholar at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
Jacob T. Levy is the Tomlinson Professor of Political Theory and associated faculty in the Department of Philosophy at McGill University. He is the founder and coordinator of McGill's Research Group on Constitutional Studies, whose Charles Taylor Student Fellowship is devoted to an intensive non-credit yearlong reading group of major works in the history of political, moral, and social thought.
Minh Ly is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Vermont. His book, Answering to Us: Why Democracy Demands Accountability, will be published by Princeton University Press in March 2026. Anna Stilz, distinguished professor at Berkeley, writes, "this powerful book . . . is a must-read for anyone interested in the fate of democracy in our times." Professor Ly’s research and teaching focus on democratic theory, the rights and responsibilities of democratic citizenship, economic justice, global justice, and civic education. His work has been published in the Journal of Politics, the European Journal of Political Theory, the Review of International Political Economy, and other journals. Before joining UVM, he was a Lecturer at Stanford University and a postdoc at Princeton. Professor Ly earned his Ph.D with distinction in political science from Brown and his A.B. from Harvard.
Moderator:Brian Coyne is an Advanced Lecturer in Political Science and serves as the Nehal and Jenny Fan Raj Lecturer in Undergraduate Teaching. He received his B.A. in Government from Harvard College in 2007 and his Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University in 2014. His dissertation, "Non-state Power and Non-state Legitimacy," investigates how powerful non-state actors like NGOs, corporations, and international institutions can be held democratically accountable to the people whose lives they influence. Coyne's other research interests include political representation, responses to climate change, and the politics of urban space and planning. In addition to Political Science, he also teaches in Stanford's Public Policy, Urban Studies, and COLLEGE programs.
The Hoover History Lab invites you to "Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future", a book talk with the author, Dan Wang, on Monday, October 27, 2025 from 4:00 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. PT in the Shultz Auditorium, George P. Shultz Building.
FEATURING
Dan Wang is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, in its Hoover History Lab and is one of the most-cited experts on China’s technological capabilities. He is the author of the forthcoming Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future (W. W. Norton [US] and Penguin [UK], Fall 2025).
Stephen Kotkin is director of the Hoover History Lab, Kleinheinz Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and senior fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He has been conducting research in the Hoover Library & Archives for more than three decades.
The Hoover History Lab held Thinking Historically: A Guide to Statecraft and Strategy, a book talk with the author, Francis J. Gavin on Thursday, October 02, 2025 from 4:00 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. PT in the Shultz Auditorium, George P. Shultz Building.
It seems obvious that we should use history to improve policy. If we have a good understanding of the past, it should enable better decisions in the present, especially in the extraordinarily consequential worlds of statecraft and strategy. But how do we gain that knowledge? How should history be used? Sadly, it is rarely done well, and historians and decision-makers seldom interact. But in this remarkable book, Francis J. Gavin explains the many ways historical knowledge can help us understand and navigate the complex, often confusing world around us.
Good historical work convincingly captures the challenges and complexities the decisionmaker faces. At its most useful, history is less a narrowly defined field of study than a practice, a mental awareness, a discernment, and a responsiveness to the past and how it unfolded into our present world—a discipline in the best sense of the word. Gavin demonstrates how a historical sensibility helps us to appreciate the unexpected; complicates our assumptions; makes the unfamiliar familiar and the familiar unfamiliar; and requires us, without entirely suspending moral judgment, to try to understand others on their own terms. This book is a powerful argument for thinking historically as a way for readers to apply wisdom in encountering what is foreign to them.
FEATURING
Francis J. Gavin is the Giovanni Agnelli Distinguished Professor and the director of the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins SAIS. Previously, he was the first Frank Stanton Chair in Nuclear Security Policy Studies at MIT and the Tom Slick Professor of International Affairs and the Director of the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas. From 2005 until 2010, he directed The American Assembly’s multiyear, national initiative, The Next Generation Project: U.S. Global Policy and the Future of International Institutions. He is the founding Chair of the Board of Editors for the Texas National Security Journal. Gavin’s writings include Gold, Dollars, and Power: The Politics of International Monetary Relations, 1958-1971; Nuclear Statecraft: History and Strategy in America’s Atomic Age ; and Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy (Brookings Institution Press), which was named a 2020 Choice Outstanding Academic Title. His IISS-Adelphi book, The Taming of Scarcity and the Problems of Plenty: Rethinking International Relations and American Grand Strategy in a New Era was published in 2024. In 2025, he published Wonder and Worry: Contemporary History in an Age of Uncertainty with Stolpe Press, 2025 and Thinking Historically – A Guide to Statecraft and Strategy with Yale University Press.
MODERATED BY
Stephen Kotkin is director of the Hoover History Lab, Kleinheinz Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and senior fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He has been conducting research in the Hoover Library & Archives for more than three decades.
In this wide-ranging Hoover History Lab discussion, Kleinheinz Senior Fellow Stephen Kotkin joins Research Fellow Dan Wang to explore the craft of history and its relevance to the present.
From his office in Hoover Tower, Kotkin reflects on his efforts to answer the big questions of history, guided by a methodology rooted in rigorous archival research, deliberate engagement with contradictory evidence, and a strategic approach to empathy in order to grasp the contexts and motivations that shape human choices at critical historical junctures. In constructing what he calls an “analytical narrative approach” with audiences, he explains how historians can apply their training and skills to show historical patterns, as well as illuminate drivers of change, relationships between structures and agency, and the workings of power: how it is accumulated, exercised, and leaves its mark on societies.
Wang and Kotkin talk about the enormous demand for historical understanding across society and sectors. In responding to that demand, Kotkin underscores the historian’s responsibility to reach both scholarly and public audiences, the dangers of using “junk history” to inform policymaking, and the need for emerging scholars to engage thoughtfully with Artificial Intelligence.
The conversation closes with Kotkin’s reflections about what historical perspective can show us about achieving sustained global peace and prosperity; details about his work and vision at the Hoover History Lab aimed at cultivating rising generations of scholars and meeting widespread public demand for policy-relevant history; and his recommendations for five books that the audience should consider reading.
ABOUT THE HOOVER HISTORY LAB
The Hoover History Lab is not a traditional academic department but instead functions as a hub for research, teaching, and convening—in person and online, in the classroom and in print. The Lab studies and uses history to inform public policy, develops next-generation scholars, and reinforces the work of Hoover’s world-class historians to inform scholarship and the teaching of history at Stanford and beyond.
The Lab’s work is driven by its principal investigators, who spearhead research and research-based policy projects. The Lab also encompasses a strong cohort of “staff scientist-equivalents”: research fellows ranging from the most senior, world-renowned scholars to a full slate of exciting next-generation talents who bring fresh, multifaceted insights to our research. Rounding out our team, some of our postdoctoral scholars serve as research and teaching fellows, and we also leverage the talents of exceptional Stanford undergraduates as our student fellows, who participate in leading-edge research, just as in a scientific laboratory.
This full-range approach to personnel, spanning all ages and levels of experience, ensures that the mission of the lab carries forward into the future and across to other institutions with a positive, powerful impact.
The following conversation was part of the KGB and Western Plots Against the Soviet Union event, hosted by the Hoover Applied History Working Group on on Friday, May 9, 2025.
ABOUT THE TALK
Stanford associate professor of history Amir Weiner joins Milbank Senior Fellow Niall Ferguson as part of a discussion of the Hoover Institution Applied History Working Group seminar series, previewing his forthcoming book, At Home with the KGB: A New History of the Soviet Security Service. Weiner examines how the Soviet security service-maintained control after Stalin—not through overt violence, but using methods such as psychological pressure, surveillance, and deeply embedded conspiratorial thinking.
The conversation explores how the KGB adapted, shaped leadership transitions, and ultimately failed to prevent the Soviet collapse—offering fresh insights into the Cold War era and the mindset of its most notorious alumnus, Vladimir Putin.
The Hoover Institution Center for Revitalizing American Institutions webinar series features speakers who are developing innovative ideas, conducting groundbreaking research, and taking important actions to improve trust and efficacy in American institutions. Speaker expertise and topics span governmental institutions, civic organizations and practice, and the role of public opinion and culture in shaping our democracy. The webinar series builds awareness about how we can individually and collectively revitalize American institutions to ensure our country’s democracy delivers on its promise.
The seventh session discussed Building Strategic Competence: An Urgent Priority for Government and the Academy with H.R. McMaster and Stephen Kotkin on Wednesday, May 7, 2025, from 10:00 - 11:00 am PT.
We might define strategic competence as the ability to integrate all elements of national power and efforts of like-minded partners to advance US interests. The nation needs leaders who can think in real time and understand what it takes to implement ideas and strategies on the ground. The academy has an important role in educating leaders to compete effectively in war and in competitions short of war. A reinvigoration of history in higher-level education is particularly important, as many courses in diplomatic and military history have been displaced by theory-based courses, which tend to mask the complex causality of events and obscure the cultural, psychological, social, and economic elements that distinguish cases from one another. Some theories risk sapping students of strategic empathy and encourage them to reduce complex problem sets into frameworks that create only the illusion of understanding. A growing interest in applied history in some universities is a promising development.
Hoover Senior Fellow Šumit Ganguly and Hoover Research Fellow Dinsha Mistree hosted a panel discussion and reception for the launch of "The Hoover Institution's Survey of India" at the Hoover Institution's Washington, DC office on Wednesday, April 30 from 5:30-6:30 pm ET.
The panel discussion featured a conversation with Senior Fellow Šumit Ganguly, twenty-fifth US Ambassador to the Republic of India Ambassador Kenneth I. Juster, Ashoka University Visiting Professor Ambassador Shivshankar Menon and Hoover Research Fellow Dinsha Mistree.
On behalf of Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and its National Security Task Force the Hoover Institution held a Taiwan Roundtable Discussion on Tuesday, February 18, 2025, from 5:00 - 6:00 pm PT.
Taiwan is facing a potential constitutional crisis. In December 2024, Taiwan’s opposition-controlled legislature voted to impose a 2/3 supermajority quorum for the Constitutional Court to hear new cases. The legislature then voted down all the new nominees to the Court, leaving it with only 8 of members and unable to meet the new quorum requirement. The government has appealed to the Court to meet anyway and rule that the new amendments are unconstitutional.
In this discussion, three experts on Taiwan’s politics and judicial system discuss the factors leading up to this confrontation, the options facing the court, and the potential for deeper reforms to strengthen judicial independence in the face of a deepening confrontation between the ruling and opposition parties.
ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS
Chien-Chih Lin is an associate research professor at Institutum Iurisprudentiae, Academia Sinica and an associate professor at the Graduate Institute of National Development, National Taiwan University. He received the LLM & JSD degrees from the University of Chicago. His academic interests focus on comparative constitutional law in Asia. Lin is the coauthor ofConstitutional Convergence in East Asia (2022) and Ultimate Economic Conflict between China and Democratic Countries (2022). His articles can be found in both peer-reviewed and student-edited law journals as well as edited volumes, including Oxford Handbook of Constitutional Law in Asia, American Journal of Comparative Law, and International Journal of Constitutional Law. He is the book review editor of International Journal of Constitutional Law.
Weitseng Chen is a faculty member at the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law, specializing in law and economic development, law and politics, and legal history in the context of Greater China. He has recently published several books, including Regime Type and Beyond: The Transformation of Police in Asia (CUP, 2023), Authoritarian Legality in Asia: Formation, Development and Transition (CUP, 2019), The Beijing Consensus? How China Has Changed the Western Ideas of Law and Economic Development (CUP, 2017), Property and Trust Law: Taiwan (with Yun-Chien Chang & Y. J. Wu, Kluwer, 2017), and Law and Economic Miracle: Interaction Between Taiwan’s Development and Economic Laws After WWII (in Chinese, 2000). Weitseng Chen earned his JSD from Yale Law School. Prior to joining NUS, he served as a Hewlett Fellow at Stanford’s Center for Democracy,Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and practiced as a corporate lawyer in the Greater China region with Davis Polk & Wardwell.
KharisTempleman is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and part of the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific. Templeman is a political scientist (Ph.D. 2012, Michigan) with research interests in Taiwan politics, democratization, elections and election management, party system development, and politics and security issues in Pacific Asia.
The Hoover Institution Program on the US, China, and the World hosted Digital Authoritarianism and Strategies to Promote a Democratic Digital Future, on Monday, April 28, 2025 from 4:00 – 5:30 PM PT in the Shultz Auditorium, George P. Shultz Building.
The People's Republic of China is collecting and analyzing unprecedented volumes of data from both public and private sources, within and beyond its borders, for social control. It is leveraging advanced data-centric technologies such as artificial intelligence, neuro and immersive technologies, quantum computing, and digital currencies to enhance and export its authoritarian governance model. This has led to an erosion of privacy, personal freedoms, and a climate of fear and self-censorship within the PRC. As the PRC exports its technologies to other countries, these authoritarian practices may spread globally. What are the most effective strategies for democratic societies to prevent the misuse of emerging technologies for surveillance and control by authoritarian regimes? How can we effectively track and monitor the global spread of data-centric authoritarian practices? What approaches can democratic governments and civil society adopt to develop and promote privacy-preserving solutions that offer viable alternatives to authoritarian methods, while ensuring accountability, transparency, and the protection of human rights? How can we engineer democratic values into the architectures of our technology platforms? In this event, our panel will examine the unique aspects of the PRC’s approach to digital authoritarianism and the opportunities for a democratic response.
The Hoover Institution Center for Revitalizing American Institutions webinar series features speakers who are developing innovative ideas, conducting groundbreaking research, and taking important actions to improve trust and efficacy in American institutions. Speaker expertise and topics span governmental institutions, civic organizations and practice, and the role of public opinion and culture in shaping our democracy. The webinar series builds awareness about how we can individually and collectively revitalize American institutions to ensure our country’s democracy delivers on its promise.
The sixth session discussed How Foreign Speech Restrictions Affect American Free Expression with Jacob Mchangama and Eugene Volokh on Wednesday, April 30, 2025, from 10:00 - 11:00 am PT.
Much of our speech to each other uses technology created by companies that operate throughout the world such as Google, Meta (Facebook), X, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple. Because these companies operate worldwide, they are potentially vulnerable to pressures from the countries in which they operate—if Google has assets or people in Germany or Turkey, then the German or Turkish government can force them to comply with German or Turkish law.
So long as countries have tried to regulate what tech companies do in their countries (e.g., what information Google shows to readers in Germany or Turkey), foreign restrictions end up having relatively little effect on what Americans can say to other Americans. But foreign countries are increasingly asking for worldwide restraints on things that are said on various multinational platforms (for instance, anything said anywhere aboutthose countries’ citizens or politicians), sharply risking undermining American’s free speech rights.
The Hoover History Lab hosted a Book Talk with Dan Edelstein - A Revolution to Come: A History of an Idea from Thucydides to Lenin on Tuesday, April 29, 2025 from 11:30 am - 1:00 pm PT.
Revolution! How did an event once considered the greatest of all political dangers come to be seen as a solution to all social problems? Political thinkers from Plato to America’s John Adams viewed revolutions as a grave threat to society and advocated for a constitution that prevented them by balancing competing interests and forms of government. The Revolution to Come traces how since the 18th century a modern doctrine of historical progress drove a belief in revolution’s ability to create just and reasonable societies.
SPEAKER
Dan Edelstein is the William H. Bonsall Professor of French, and Professor of Political Science and History (by courtesy) at Stanford. He studied at the University of Geneva (BA) and the University of Pennsylvania (PhD). Revolution to Come is his fourth book on European intellectual and political history.
MODERATOR
In addition to his Hoover fellowship, Stephen Kotkin is a senior fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He is also the Birkelund Professor in History and International Affairs emeritus at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School), where he taught for 33 years. He earned his PhD at the University of California–Berkeley and has been conducting research in the Hoover Library & Archives for more than three decades.
Thursday, April 17, 2025
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
The Hoover Institution held a Fireside Chat With Stephen Kotkin & US House Select Committee on China on Thursday, April 17th at 8:00am PT/11:00am ET.
Speakers:
Committee Chairman John Moolenaar, US Representative for Michigan's 2nd congressional district
Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi, US Representative for Illinois's 8th congressional district.
Professor Kotkin, Kleinheinz Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
Tuesday, April 8, 2025
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
The Hoover Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region hosted Trump and Taiwan: A Big, Beautiful Relationship or the Deal Maker’s Ultimate Bargaining Chip? on Tuesday, April 8, 2025 from 4:00-5:15 pm PT at Shultz Auditorium, George P. Shultz Building.
We are only in the first quarter of the first year of President Trump’s second term, but we’ve all already experienced a dizzying pace of activity. Whole federal agencies have been shuttered, some longstanding agency core missions have been upended, and we are suddenly in a trade war with unknown consequences. Ukraine has been dumped, then courted again. Canada is threatened with annexation, Greenland with invasion. In the midst of this chaotic approach to governance, the U.S. Indo-Pacific policy is still to be defined. There are some disruptions such as new tariffs (though forecasted long ago), and the suspension of development assistance, but one could also cite policy continuity (e.g. AUKUS and the Quad) and a slew of traditional, conventional practices (e.g. leader visits with joint statements and annual military exercises). Yet absent the release of strategic documents such as a national security strategy, and absent a major address by the President or Cabinet official, the overriding feelings in the region are uncertainty and unease. This very much includes Taiwan. While Taiwan has pro-actively taken steps to earn the “right” kind of attention of the new U.S. Administration such as announcing major investments in the United States and increases to its defense budget, many critical questions remain. Are we on the cusp of a closer, stronger relationship with Taiwan with enduring commitments, or are we building trade space for President Trump’s next big deal with China? Mr. Schriver will explore these important topics based on his three decades of policy work related to Taiwan and the Indo-pacific, as well as his services as a senior official in the first Trump Administration.
Join Hoover fellow and Director of the Hoover Institution's Wargaming and Crisis Simulation Initiative Jacquelyn Schneider for the launch of her new book "The Hand Behind Unmanned: Origins of the US Autonomous Military Arsenal" at the Hoover Institution in Washington, DC on Wednesday, March 26, from 5:30 - 7:15pm ET.
In this inaugural episode of Frontline Voices, host “IRON” Mike Steadman is joined by fellow Hoover Veteran Fellow alumnus Greg Eason. Mike opens up about his journey from growing up in a single-parent household, to becoming a Marine Corps officer, entrepreneur, and community leader. Together, they explore the idea of “normalizing excellence,” how their lived experiences shaped their outlook, and what it means to be a change-maker today. They also discuss the power of mentorship, faith, and resilience in overcoming adversity. This episode sets the stage for future conversations with veterans leading impactful work across the country.
Recorded on March 11, 2025.
ABOUT THE GUEST:
Gregory Eason is a real estate developer and investor focused on delivering high-quality housing experiences in emerging and underserved markets. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy with a degree in quantitative economics, he served as a gunnery and training officer in the Navy before transitioning out of the military and into real estate. He currently leads a build-to-rent project in Atlanta, and is an angel investor in a 185-acre development in North Augusta, Georgia. As a Veteran Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Greg explored innovative housing solutions and the intersection of economic mobility, faith, and community investment.
RELATED SOURCES:
- The Gap and the Gain by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy
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- Jim Collins' Stockdale Paradox Concept
FOLLOW THE GUEST ON SOCIAL MEDIA:
- Gregory Eason on LinkedIn
Wednesday, February 19, 2025
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
The Hoover Institution Center for Revitalizing American Institutions webinar series features speakers who are developing innovative ideas, conducting groundbreaking research, and taking important actions to improve trust and efficacy in American institutions. Speaker expertise and topics span governmental institutions, civic organizations and practice, and the role of public opinion and culture in shaping our democracy. The webinar series builds awareness about how we can individually and collectively revitalize American institutions to ensure our country’s democracy delivers on its promise.
The fifth session discussed Tested: Why Conservative Students Get the Most out of Liberal Education with Lauren A. Wright and Brandice Canes-Wrone on Wednesday, February 19, 2025, from 10:00 - 11:00 am PT.
Recent critiques of America’s elite universities have aptly asserted that college students are being coddled and shielded from points of view they disagree with, setting them up for failure. But this depiction excludes the starkly divergent experiences of conservative students, who face extraordinary intellectual and social challenges inside and outside college classrooms. These obstacles are double edged: while they expose conservative students to adverse and sometimes hostile social environments, decades of psychology research also shows they may ironically impart educational advantages by forcing conservative students to defend their points of view. Are conservative students being better prepared than liberal students for life after college by constantly engaging in a more rigorous mode of thinking? This is the first ever ethnography of conservative college students at the best universities in the United States. Featuring hundreds of interviews with students and faculty, it fills a gap in timely conversations about intellectual diversity in higher education.
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Institution Applied History Working Group (HAHWG), chaired by Milbank Family Senior Fellow Niall Ferguson, and vice-chaired by Hoover Fellow Joseph Ledford, held its annual History Symposium on February 11, 2025.
The Hoover Institution Applied History Working Group (HAHWG), chaired by Milbank Family Senior Fellow Niall Ferguson, and vice-chaired by Hoover Fellow Joseph Ledford, held its annual History Symposium on February 11, 2025.
The 2025 History Symposium has the theme of “Anti-Semitism: Past and Present.” World-renowned historians will reviewed recent developments in the historiography of this subject and related them to contemporary aspects of anti-Semitism, not least those exposed by the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel and their aftermath.
The Symposium featured a series of papers and panels focused on both new historical research and contemporary developments. Presenters include Mark Brilliant (University of California, Berkeley), Rosa Freedman (University of Reading), Jeffrey Herf (University of Maryland, College Park), Ethan Katz (University of California, Berkeley), Jonathan Karp (Binghamton University), Rebecca Kobrin (Columbia University), Olga Litvack (Cornell University), Daniel Sargent (University of California, Berkeley), Jeffrey Veidlinger (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), and Steven Zipperstein (Stanford University).
In addition, the Symposium held a special session featuring Deborah Lipstadt, the US Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism and University Distinguished Professor at Emory University, in conversation with Niall Ferguson.
Participation is by invitation only. For further information, contact jledford@stanford.edu
The Hoover Institution held an event titled, "India's Policy Landscape: Insights from the Survey of India," on Tuesday, January 28th, 2025, at 12 p.m. PT in the Annenberg Conference Room, George P. Shultz Building, and online (via Zoom).
This event discussed India's current policy landscape, using the Hoover Institution's inaugural edition of the Survey of India as a foundation for the discussion. The Survey of India is a comprehensive volume that provides an overview of developments in India across various policy arenas, including foreign policy, demography, economics, and education. Each of its eight chapters offers a panoramic view and an authoritative account of specific policy issues that are collectively shaping India's trajectory.
FEATURING
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Šumit Ganguly, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Director of the Huntington Program on Strengthening the US-India Relationship.
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Jack A. Goldstone, Virginia E. and John T. Hazel, Jr. Chair Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University.
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Dinsha Mistree, Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Research Affiliate at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and at the Neukom Center for the Rule of Law at Stanford Law School.
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Nirvikar Singh, Co-Director of the Center for Analytical Finance at UCSC and the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Economics, Management and Religion.
A discussion with three of America's most distinguished former governors - Jeb Bush (Florida), Jerry Brown (California), and Mitch Daniels (Indiana) - exploring the critical relationship between states and the federal government. Moderated by Michael Boskin, this conversation examines how these innovative leaders managed natural disasters, educational reform, fiscal challenges, and infrastructure development.
The three distinguished former governors share candid insights about dealing with federal regulations, balancing budgets during boom and bust cycles, and implementing effective education reforms. Highlights include Jeb Bush's groundbreaking education initiatives in Florida, Jerry Brown's fiscal management in California, and Mitch Daniels' successful privatization efforts in Indiana.
This timely conversation offers valuable lessons for current policymakers and insights into effective governance at both state and federal levels. Featuring:
- Jeb Bush, Former Governor of Florida (1999-2007)
- Jerry Brown, Former Governor of California (1975-1983, 2011-2019)
- Mitch Daniels, Former Governor of Indiana (2005-2013)
- Moderator: Michael Boskin, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
To learn more, read "American Federalism Today" by the Hoover Institution: https://www.hoover.org/research/american-federalism-today
Part of the Tennenbaum Program for Fact-Based Policy at the Hoover Institution: https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/tennenbaum-program-fact-based-policy
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
The Hoover Institution Center for Revitalizing American Institutions webinar series features speakers who are developing innovative ideas, conducting groundbreaking research, and taking important actions to improve trust and efficacy in American institutions. Speaker expertise and topics span governmental institutions, civic organizations and practice, and the role of public opinion and culture in shaping our democracy. The webinar series builds awareness about how we can individually and collectively revitalize American institutions to ensure our country’s democracy delivers on its promise.
The fourth session discusses Restoring Trust in American Elections: Challenges and Opportunities with Benjamin Ginsberg, Justin Grimmer, and Brandice Canes-Wrone on Tuesday, January 14, 2025, from 10:00 - 11:00 am PT.
Public faith in the reliability of American elections has been eroding for decades with both political parties voicing concerns at times since the 1980s. Democrats have often pointed to issues like voter suppression and systemic inequities, while many Republicans have embraced claims of widespread fraud. Since 2016, and particularly following the 2020 election, polls have shown a more precipitous drop in the public’s trust in elections. These divisions have raised critical questions: Are election results reliable? Is distrust in elections now an enduring feature of American political campaigns and does that impact the democracy? Are we destined to cycle through accusations of fraud and suppression with every contested result? What have we learned from the 2024 election process?
Friday, December 6, 2024
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
The Hoover Institution held a conversation with President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Mary C. Daly and Hoover Institution Senior Fellow, John H. Cochrane on Emerging Technology and the Economy on Friday, December 6th at 10:00 a.m. in the Shultz Auditorium, George P. Shultz Building.
About the Speakers
Mary C. Daly is President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, where she contributes to shaping U.S. monetary policy as part of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). A labor and public policy economist, Daly is devoted to research and to ensuring that it is translated into practices that improve the lives of everyone. In addition to her work with the Federal Reserve, Daly has served as a visiting professor at Cornell University and UC Davis, and has been an advisor to the Congressional Budget Office, the Library of Congress, and the Social Security Administration. Daly is known for her ability to communicate and is a frequent speaker in the U.S. and internationally. She also hosts an award-winning podcast, Zip Code Economies. Daly holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, a master’s degree from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, a Ph.D. in economics from Syracuse University, and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Northwestern University.
John H. Cochrane is the Rose-Marie and Jack Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is also a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and an adjunct scholar of the CATO Institute. Before joining Hoover, Cochrane was a Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, and earlier at its Economics Department. He was a junior staff economist on the Council of Economic Advisers (1982–83). His most recent book is The Fiscal Theory of the Price Level. Cochrane frequently contributes editorial opinion essays to the Wall Street Journal. He maintains the Grumpy Economist blog. Cochrane earned a bachelor’s degree in physics at MIT and his PhD in economics at the University of California at Berkeley.
Wednesday, November 20, 2024
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
On behalf of the Hoover Applied History Working Group, Dr. Niall Ferguson welcomes Anthony Gregory to vibrantly discuss his recent book, New Deal Law and Order: How the War on Crime Built the Modern Liberal State.
ABOUT THE TALK
This special book talk discovers how the 1930s redefined law and order, transforming liberalism and reshaping American government itself. We remember the New Deal as foundational to modern liberalism, but its crucial role in building the law-and-order state has gone neglected. This HAHWG seminar will look to Franklin Roosevelt’s war on crime for lessons on how political legitimacy relies on enforcement authority and consider the implications for today’s fraught politics of law and order.
The book is available for purchase here.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Anthony Gregory is a Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, at Stanford University. He is a legal and policy historian of the American state. He was previously an assistant professor in residence at Rhode Island School of Design’s Department of History, Philosophy, and Social Sciences. He earned his PhD in History at the University of California Berkeley, where he trained as an Americanist studying politics and law, and spent two years as a postdoctoral research associate at Brown University’s Political Theory Project before beginning at RISD. Gregory is the author of multiple academic publications on national security, constitutionalism, and legal theory and is currently working on modern American liberalism and criminal justice, particularly on how the New Deal war on crime legitimated and transformed U.S. governance.
Tuesday, November 12, 2024
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
The Hoover Institution Center for Revitalizing American Institutions webinar series features speakers who are developing innovative ideas, conducting groundbreaking research, and taking important actions to improve trust and efficacy in American institutions. Speaker expertise and topics span governmental institutions, civic organizations and practice, and the role of public opinion and culture in shaping our democracy. The webinar series builds awareness about how we can individually and collectively revitalize American institutions to ensure our country’s democracy delivers on its promise.
The third session discusses Polling: What Is on the Minds of Americans with David Brady, Doug Rivers, Daron Shaw, Lynn Vavreck, and Brandice Canes-Wrone on Tuesday, November 12, 2024, from 10:00 - 11:00 am PT.
Attempts to understand what is in the hearts and minds of American voters has become increasingly difficult, and recent polls leading up to elections have often turned conventional wisdom on its head. This session explores some innovative polling practices and what we learned from political polls during the 2024 elections, including from one of the largest national panel surveys that started in December 2023. Panelists discuss what was on the minds of Americans as they entered the voting booth this fall, and the strengths and limitations of our attempts to understand voters through polling.
Thursday, October 24, 2024, from 10:00 - 11:00 am PT
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
The Hoover Institution Center for Revitalizing American Institutions is proud to announce a new webinar series called "Reimagining American Institutions."
The Hoover Institution Center for Revitalizing American Institutions webinar series features speakers who are developing innovative ideas, conducting groundbreaking research, and taking important actions to improve trust and efficacy in American institutions. Speaker expertise and topics span governmental institutions, civic organizations and practice, and the role of public opinion and culture in shaping our democracy. The webinar series builds awareness about how we can individually and collectively revitalize American institutions to ensure our country’s democracy delivers on its promise.
In part two of our series on presidential transitions, Stephen Hadley, national security advisor, speaks with Condoleezza Rice, director of the Hoover Institution and national security advisor and secretary of state, about how an effective changing of the guard is critical to national security. Hadley will highlight advice from Hand-Off, an edited volume of thirty declassified National Security Council memoranda prepared by experts to smooth the transition between the Bush and Obama administrations. This conversation will focus on what must happen in the upcoming transition to ensure the United States is kept secure from national security threats posed by China, Russia, the Middle East, terrorism, proliferation, cybersecurity pandemics, and climate change—concerns that dominate America’s national security and foreign policy.
The Federalist Papers, a series of essays written in the late 18th century, advocated for the ratification of the U.S. Constitution and promoted the idea of a nation designed by intent rather than by accident.
On Tuesday, September 24th, 2024 at 12:00 PM PT, Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence celebrated the launch of the Digitalist Papers, which seek to inspire a new era of governance, informed by the transformative power of technology to address the significant challenges and opportunities posed by AI and other digital technologies.
This event was held at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, featuring presentations and dynamic discussions with the authors—experts in economics, law, technology, management, and political science—who have contributed essays to this newly edited volume. These essays explore how the intersection of technology with each of these fields might lead to better governance.
By assembling these diverse voices and releasing these essays ahead of the November election, we aimed to shift the conversation toward designing a more transparent and accountable system of governance. Our goal is to impact the development and integration of digital technologies and transform social structures for the digital age. Join us as we embark on this pivotal journey to redefine the future of governance.
This was an in-person event open to the public.
Authors include:John H. Cochrane (Stanford), “AI, Society, and Democracy: Just Relax”
Sarah Friar (OpenAI) and Laura Bisesto (OpenAI), “The Potential for AI to Restore Local Community Connectedness, the Bedrock of a Healthy Democracy”
Mona Hamdy (Anomaly and Harvard University), Johnnie Moore (JDA Worldwide and The Congress of Christian Leaders), and E. Glen Weyl (Plural Technology Collaboratory), “Techno-ideologies of the Twenty-first Century”
Reid Hoffman (Greylock) and Greg Beato, “Informational GPS”
Lawrence Lessig (Harvard), “Protected Democracy”
James Manyika (Google and Alphabet), “Getting AI Right: A 2050 Thought Experiment”
Jennifer Pahlka (Niskanen Center and the Federation of American Scientists), “AI Meets the Cascade of Rigidity”
Nathaniel Persily (Stanford), “Misunderstanding AI’s Democracy Problem”
Eric Schmidt (Former CEO and Chairman of Google), “Democracy 2.0”
Divya Siddarth (Collective Intelligence Project), Saffron Huang (Collective Intelligence Project), Audrey Tang (Collective Intelligence Project), “A Vision of Democratic AI”
Lily L. Tsai (MIT) and Alex Pentland (Stanford), “Rediscovering the Pleasures of Pluralism: The Potential of Digitally Mediated Civic Engagement”
Eugene Volokh (Stanford and UCLA), “Generative AI and Political Power”
Tuesday, October 8, 2024
Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Institution's Wargaming and Crisis Simulation Initiative presents To War or Not to War: Vietnam and the Sigma Wargames on Tuesday, October 8, 2024 at 2:00PM PT.
In 1964, America was slowly marching towards war in Vietnam. But what if that war could have been fought differently or avoided altogether? The Sigma Games, a series of politico-military wargames run by the Pentagon’s Joint Staff in the 1960s, sought to understand the unfolding conflict in Southeast Asia. These games, which involved top figures from the Johnson Administration—including National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, Air Force General Curtis LeMay, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Earle Wheeler—offer a chillingly accurate forecast of the war's potential trajectory.
Choose your character for an immersive experience. See the game unfold through the eyes of pivotal figures such as John McCone, Curtis LeMay, Earle Wheeler, and McGeorge Bundy in this interactive event.
This event introduces the games and turns to a panel of historians to explore the Sigma Wargames, their prescient warnings, and why these early insights failed to shape the Johnson Administration’s decision-making, ultimately leading to one of America’s most costly conflicts. The conversation, while a look into a key set of games at a historical moment in American foreign policy, says something more broadly at the impact of wargames on US foreign and defense policy as well as how influence is created (and hijacked) within strategic decision making.
PANELISTS
H.R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is also the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and lecturer at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.
McMaster holds a PhD in military history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was an assistant professor of history at the US Military Academy. He is author of the bestselling books Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World and Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Lies that Led to Vietnam. In August 2024, McMaster released his most recent book, At War with Ourselves: My Tour of Duty in the Trump White House. His many essays, articles, and book reviews on leadership, history, and the future of warfare have appeared in The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, National Review, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New York Times.
McMaster is the host of Battlegrounds: Vital Perspectives on Today’s Challenges and is a regular on GoodFellows, both produced by the Hoover Institution. He is a Distinguished University Fellow at Arizona State University.
Mai Elliott is the author of The Sacred Willow: Four Generations in the Life of a Vietnamese Family, a personal and family memoir which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and RAND in Southeast Asia: A History of the Vietnam War Era. She served as an advisor to Ken Burns and Lynn Novick for their PBS documentary on “The Vietnam War” and featured in seven of its ten episodes. She recently contributed a chapter analyzing “The South Vietnamese Home Front” for the soon to be published Cambridge University Press 3-volume work on the Vietnam War.
Mai Elliott was born in Vietnam and grew up in Hanoi and Saigon. She attended French schools in Vietnam and is a graduate of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. (She also writes under the name of Duong Van Mai Elliott).
Mark Moyar is the director of the Center for Military History and Strategy at Hillsdale College, where he also holds the William P. Harris Chair of Military History. During the Trump administration, Dr. Moyar was a political appointee at the U.S. Agency for International Development, serving as the Director of the Office of Civilian–Military Cooperation. Previously, he directed the Project on Military and Diplomatic History at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, and worked as a national security consultant. He has taught at the U.S. Marine Corps University, the Joint Special Operations University, and Texas A&M University. He is author of eight books, of which the most recent is Masters of Corruption: How the Federal Bureaucracy Sabotaged the Trump Presidency. He holds a B.A. summa cum laude from Harvard and a Ph.D. from Cambridge.
MODERATOR
Jacquelyn Schneider is the Hargrove Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Director of the Hoover Wargaming and Crisis Simulation Initiative, and an affiliate with Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation. Her research focuses on the intersection of technology, national security, and political psychology with a special interest in cybersecurity, autonomous technologies, wargames, and Northeast Asia. She was previously an Assistant Professor at the Naval War College as well as a senior policy advisor to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission.
Dr. Schneider was a 2020 winner of the Perry World House-Foreign Affairs Emerging Scholars Policy Prize. She is also the recipient of a Minerva grant on autonomy (with co-PIs Michael Horowitz, Julia Macdonald, and Allen Dafoe), a University of Denver grant to study public responses to the use of drones (with Macdonald), and a grant from the Stanton Foundation to study networks, cyber, and nuclear stability through wargames.
Dr. Schneider is an active member of the defense policy community with previous positions at the Center for a New American Security and the RAND Corporation. Before beginning her academic career, she spent six years as an Air Force officer in South Korea and Japan and is currently a reservist assigned to US Space Systems Command. She has a BA from Columbia University, MA from Arizona State University, and PhD from George Washington University.
Wednesday, October 9, 2024, 10:00 AM PT
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
The Hoover Institution Center for Revitalizing American Institutions is proud to announce a new webinar series called "Reimagining American Institutions."
The Hoover Institution Center for Revitalizing American Institutions webinar series features speakers who are developing innovative ideas, conducting groundbreaking research, and taking important actions to improve trust and efficacy in American institutions. Speaker expertise and topics span governmental institutions, civic organizations and practice, and the role of public opinion and culture in shaping our democracy. The webinar series builds awareness about how we can individually and collectively revitalize American institutions to ensure our country’s democracy delivers on its promise.
The first session discusses Presidential Transitions with Brandice Canes-Wrone and Christopher P. Liddell on Wednesday, October 9, 2024, from 10:00 - 11:00 am PT.
The only thing we know for certain about the White House in January 2025 is that there will be a transition. Designing and operating an effective White House transition is essential to the success of any presidency—and to democracy in the United States. Former White House deputy chief of staff Christopher Liddell, who has been involved in three presidential transitions, will discuss concrete nonpartisan steps and recommendations that would significantly improve how the White House functions and thus help rebuild trust in one of our most fundamental institutions, the presidency.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Brandice Canes-Wrone is the Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. Canes-Wrone is the founding director of the Hoover Institution Center for Revitalizing American Institutions. Her current research focuses on representation and accountability, including projects on elections, campaign finance, and partisanship. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Sciences and Letters.
Christopher P. Liddell has held senior roles in politics, the private sector, and philanthropy. He was White House Deputy Chief of Staff during the Trump Administration, and has been involved in three presidential transition cycles, including the White House operational head of the transition to the Biden Administration, where he played a key role. In the private sector, he has been Chief Financial Officer of several major companies, including Microsoft and General Motors.
A fireside chat with Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank Group on Tuesday, October 1, 2024 in Hauck Auditorium, Hoover Institution.
Condoleezza Rice, Director of the Hoover Institution and 66th US Secretary of State, Arun Majumdar, Jay Precourt Professor and Dean of SDSS, and Peter Blair Henry, Class of 1984 Senior Fellow at Hoover, conduct a fireside chat with President Banga on the importance of the World Bank leading "informed risk-taking" to catalyze blended (public and private) finance to fund investment in development and accelerate the energy transition.
For the past 20 years, the Brazilian Supreme Court has become one of the most influential political players in the nation. In the name of democracy and the fight against misinformation, the Court has authorized a flurry of arrests and media bans that have garnered international attention. But Brazil is not alone. It belongs to a long list of nascent democracies around the world that are struggling to contend with ever-expanding judicial power. Using Brazil as our model, the question before us remains: how and why has this power arisen and what does it mean for the future of democracy?
SPEAKER
Chief Justice Luís Roberto Barroso studied Law at the State University of Rio de Janeiro in 1980 and received his LL.M. from Yale Law School in 1989. After receiving his LL.M., Justice Barroso was a Foreign Associate with the American law firm Arnold & Porter. He also holds a JSD degree from the State University of Rio de Janeiro (2008) and attended Harvard Law School’s Visiting Scholar program in 2011. Justice Barroso practiced as a private attorney in Brazil before being appointed to the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court in 2013.
MODERATOR
Professor Diego Werneck Arguelhes is an Associate Professor of Constitutional Law at Insper - Institute for Education and Research, São Paulo. He holds J.S.D. and LL.M. degrees from Yale Law School, and LL.B. and M.A. (Public Law) degrees from the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ).
The Hoover History Lab and Hoover Institution Library & Archives held a special hybrid event with Benjamin Nathans, introduced by Stephen Kotkin, as he launched his latest book To The Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement.
Beginning in the 1960s, the Soviet Union was unexpectedly confronted by a dissident movement that captured the world’s imagination. Demanding that the Kremlin obey its own laws, an improbable band of Soviet citizens held unauthorized public gatherings, petitioned in support of arrested intellectuals, and circulated banned samizdat texts. Soviet authorities arrested dissidents, subjected them to bogus trials and vicious press campaigns, sentenced them to psychiatric hospitals and labor camps, sent them into exile—and transformed them into martyred heroes. Against all odds, the dissident movement undermined the Soviet system and unexpectedly hastened its collapse. Taking its title from a toast made at dissident gatherings, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause (Princeton, 2024) is a definitive history of a remarkable group of people who helped change the twentieth century.
Learn more about the book.
This hybrid talk with Benjamin Nathans, with an introduction by Stephen Kotkin, took place in the Shultz Auditorium at the Hoover Institution on the Stanford University campus at 4:30 pm PT.
About the Speakers
Benjamin Nathans
Alan Charles Kors Endowed Term Associate Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania
Stephen Kotkin
Kleinheinz Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution; Birkelund Professor in History and International Affairs emeritus at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs
Thursday, July 25, 2024
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann and Cambridge University’s Hugo Bromley join Hoover distinguished research fellow Glenn Tiffert for a conversation about an economic contingency plan for a Taiwan crisis, based on their new report, On Day One: An Economic Contingency for a Taiwan Crisis.
FEATURING
Eyck Freymann is a Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a nonresident research fellow at the China Maritime Studies Institute at the US Naval War College. He is the author of One Belt One Road: Chinese Power Meets the World (Harvard University Press, 2021).
Hugo Bromley is a research associate at the Centre for Geopolitics at Cambridge and an affiliated research associate at Robinson College, Cambridge. He is a historian of British manufacturing and global economic statecraft in the early modern and modern periods. Dr. Bromley received his PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2022.
Thursday, July 25, 2024
Hoover Institution in DC.
The China's Global Sharp Power Project at the Hoover Institution held the launch of On Day One: An Economic Contingency Plan for a Taiwan Crisis on Thursday, July 25, 2024, from 5:30-7:30 PM ET.
FEATURING
Dr. Hugo Bromley is a research associate at the Centre for Geopolitics at Cambridge and an affiliated research associate at Robinson College, Cambridge. He is a historian of British manufacturing and global economic statecraft in the early modern and modern periods. Dr. Bromley received his PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2022.
Dr. Eyck Freymann is a Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a nonresident research fellow at the China Maritime Studies Institute at the US Naval War College. He is the author of One Belt One Road: Chinese Power Meets the World (Harvard University Press, 2021).
Dr. Rozlyn Engel is Managing Director of the Treasury, Economics, and Commerce Division at the MITRE Corporation, a nonprofit corporation that has worked in the public interest for more than six decades. In her role, she leads MITRE’s efforts to support the economic policy community while also working to strengthen the integration of economic considerations into national security strategy and policy development. Roz joined MITRE in August 2022, after a long career at the intersection of economics and national security.
MODERATED BY
Dr. Glenn Tiffert is a distinguished research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a historian of modern China. He co-chairs Hoover’s project on China’s Global Sharp Power and directs its research portfolio.
Historian and author Luke Nichter will present on Watergate @ 50: Looking Back and Looking Forward at the next Hoover Institution Library & Archives hybrid event in the Un-Presidented Speaker Series.
Fifty years is often sufficient for revisionism to reshape our understanding of even the most complex and controversial subjects. Not so with Watergate. Today the history we have is remarkably similar to what journalists wrote in the 1970s. However, there is hope for a breakthrough in the near future.
Join us for this talk by Luke Nichter, American historian, professor of history and James H. Cavanaugh Endowed Chair in Presidential Studies at Chapman University, and author or editor of eight books, including most recently The Year That Broke Politics. With introduction by Victor Davis Hanson, the Martin and Illie Anderson senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
About the SpeakerLuke A. Nichter is a Professor of History and James H. Cavanaugh Endowed Chair in Presidential Studies at Chapman University. His area of specialty is the Cold War, the modern presidency, and U.S. political and diplomatic history, with a focus on the "long 1960s" from John F. Kennedy through Watergate. He is a New York Times bestselling author or editor of eight books, including, most recently, The Year That Broke Politics: Collusion and Chaos in the Presidential Election of 1968 (Yale University Press), which was chosen as a Best Book of 2023 by the Wall Street Journal.
About the Un-Presidented Speaker SeriesThe Un-Presidented Speaker Series highlights conversations with historians and experts of the Nixon era, and is presented by the Hoover Institution Library & Archives in conjunction with the exhibition Un-Presidented: Watergate and Power in America now on view in the Lou Henry Hoover gallery of Hoover Tower at Stanford University.
The China Global Sharp Power Project and the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region at the Hoover Institution held the Washington, DC launch of The Boiling Moat: Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan, a new book edited by Matt Pottinger, Hoover Institution Distinguished Visiting Fellow, on Tuesday, June 4th, from 2:30-4:00 p.m. ET.
The Hoover Project on China’s Global Sharp Power and Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region held The Boiling Moat event on Thursday, May 30, 2024 from 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm PT.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has openly expressed his intention to annex Taiwan to mainland China, even threatening the use of force. An invasion or blockade of Taiwan by Chinese forces would be catastrophic, with severe consequences for democracies worldwide. In The Boiling Moat, a new book from the Hoover Institution Press, Matt Pottinger and a team of scholars and distinguished military and political leaders urgently outline practical steps for deterrence. The authors stress that preventing a war is more affordable than waging one and emphasize the importance of learning from recent failures in deterrence, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Featuring Matt Pottinger, Distinguished Visiting Fellow, and Larry Diamond, William L. Clayton Senior Fellow. Pottinger and Diamond will be joined by contributors to The Boiling Moatproject: Gabriel Collins, Andrew Erickson, Robert Haddick, Isaac Harris, Michael Hunzeker, Ivan Kanapathy, Mark Montgomery, and Grant Newsham.
The Hoover Project on China’s Global Sharp Power held Hong Kong After the National Security Law on Tuesday, May 14 from 4-5:30pm PT.
This event presented perspectives on the current political and civic climate in Hong Kong since the passage of the National Security Law on June 30, 2020 and the imposition of Article 23 on March 23, 2024. How have these developments fit into the broader history of the struggle for democracy in Hong Kong? What has changed in Hong Kong’s once vibrant civil society? What is the latest on the trials of pro-democracy activists? How have diasporic advocates constructed a Hong Kong political identity in exile?
Four panelists—Ambassador James Cunningham, the Chairman of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong and former Consul General of the United States to Hong Kong and Macau (2005-2008); Sebastien Lai, a democracy advocate and son of jailed Hong Kong businessman and publisher Jimmy Lai; Sophie Richardson, the former China Director at Human Rights Watch; and Cherie Wong, the former leader of Alliance Canada Hong Kong (ACHK)—will discuss these issues and more in a conversation moderated by Hoover William L. Clayton Senior Fellow Larry Diamond.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Ambassador James B. Cunningham retired from government service at the end of 2014. He is currently a consultant, a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, an adjunct faculty member at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School, and Board Chair of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation. He served as Ambassador to Afghanistan, Ambassador to Israel, Consul General in Hong Kong, and Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations. Ambassador Cunningham was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania and graduated magna cum laude from Syracuse University. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Asia Society, the National Committee on US-China Relations, and the American Academy of Diplomacy.
Sebastien Lai leads the international campaign to free his father Jimmy Lai, the pro democracy activist and publisher currently jailed by the Hong Kong government. Having had international calls for his release from multiple states including the US and the UK, Jimmy Lai’s ongoing persecution mirrors the rapid decline of human rights, press freedom and rule of law in the Chinese territory.
Sophie Richardson is a longtime activist and scholar of Chinese politics, human rights, and foreign policy. From 2006 to 2023, she served as the China Director at Human Rights Watch, where she oversaw the organization’s research and advocacy. She has published extensively on human rights, and testified to the Canadian Parliament, European Parliament, and the United States Senate and House of Representatives. Dr. Richardson is the author of China, Cambodia, and the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (Columbia University Press, Dec. 2009), an in-depth examination of China's foreign policy since 1954's Geneva Conference, including rare interviews with Chinese policy makers. She speaks Mandarin, and received her doctorate from the University of Virginia and her BA from Oberlin College. Her current research focuses on the global implications of democracies’ weak responses to increasingly repressive Chinese governments, and she is advising several China-focused human rights organizations.
Cherie Wong (she/her) is a non-partisan policy analyst and advocate. Her influential leadership at Alliance Canada Hong Kong (ACHK), a grassroots community organization, had garnered international attention for its comprehensive research publications and unwavering advocacy in Canada-China relations. ACHK disbanded in November 2023. Recognized for her nuanced and progressive approach, Cherie is a sought-after authority among decision-makers, academics, journalists, researchers, and policymakers. Cherie frequently appeared in parliamentary committees and Canadian media as an expert commentator, speaking on diverse public policy issues such as international human rights, foreign interference, and transnational repression.
Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor, by courtesy, of political science and sociology at Stanford. He co-chairs the Hoover Institution’s programs on China’s Global Sharp Power and on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region.
The Hoover Project on China’s Global Sharp Power, Stanford’s Center for East Asian Studies, and Stanford's Department of History held What China Remembers About the Cultural Revolution, and What it Wants to Forget on Friday, May 10, 2024 from 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm PT in the George P. Shultz Building, Shultz Auditorium.
The devastating movement unleashed by Mao in 1966, which claimed around two million lives and saw tens of millions hounded, shapes China to this day. Yet in a country where leaders have long seen history as a political tool, the Cultural Revolution is a particularly sensitive subject. How does the Chinese Communist Party control discussion of the topic? And how has an era which turned the nation upside down been used to maintain the political status quo?
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Tania Braniganwrites foreign policy editorials for the Guardian and spent seven years as its China correspondent. Her book Red Memory: The Afterlives of China’s Cultural Revolution won the Cundill History Prize 2023 and was shortlisted for the Kirkus non-fiction prize, the Baillie Gifford prize and the British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding. It was named as one of the Wall Street Journal’s ten best books of 2023 and TIME’s 100 must-read books of 2023.
Glenn Tiffert is a distinguished research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a historian of modern China. He co-chairs Hoover’s project on China’s Global Sharp Power and directs its research portfolio. He also works closely with government and civil society partners around the world to document and build resilience against authoritarian interference with democratic institutions. Most recently, he co-authored Eyes Wide Open: Ethical Risks in Research Collaboration with China (2021).
The Hoover Institution held Strengthening Trust With India: Implications of the 2008 US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement on May 6, 2024 from 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm in Hauck Auditorium, David & Joan Traitel Building.
The conversation was between key figures who shaped modern US-India relations through the 2008 US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement, an emblem of strategic US-India partnership and a major innovation in sustainable energy to power India’s future. The engaging dialogue celebrates this important achievement and explores the future of US-India cooperation.
FEATURING
Condoleezza Rice – Tad and Dianne Taube Director and Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy
66th US Secretary of State (2005-2009)
M.K. Narayanan – National Security Advisor of India (2005-2010)
Shivshankar Menon – Visiting Professor
Ashoka University
David C. Mulford – Distinguished Visiting Fellow
US Ambassador to India (2004-2009)
Nick Burns – US Ambassador to China
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (2005-2009)
Eric Garcetti – US Ambassador to India
MODERATOR
Anja Manuel – Executive Director, Aspen Strategy Group
Special Assistant to the Undersecretary for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns (2005-2007)
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
The Hoover History Working Group held a seminar on Cliodynamics of End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites and the Path of Political Disintegration with Peter Turchin on Tuesday, April 16, 2024 from 1:30 pm - 3:00 pm PT.
The book is available for purchase here.
ABOUT THE TALK
Social and political turbulence in the United States and Western European countries has been rising over the past decade. Our research, which combines analysis of historical data with the tools of complexity science, has identified the deep structural forces that work to undermine societal stability and resilience to internal and external shocks. Here I look beneath the surface of day-to-day contentious politics and social unrest, and focus on the negative social and economic trends that explain our current “Age of Discord.” One of the most important, but little appreciated, such hidden forces is a perverse “wealth pump” that, under certain conditions, begins to transfer wealth from the “99 percent” to “1 percent.” If allowed to run unchecked, the wealth pump results in both relative impoverishment of most people and increasingly desperate competition among elites. Since the number of positions of real social power remains more or less fixed, the overproduction of elites inevitably leads to frustrated elite aspirants, who harness popular resentment to turn against the established order. In America, the wealth pump has been operating full blast for two generations. In historical terms, our current cycle of elite overproduction and popular immiseration is far along the path to violent political rupture.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Peter Turchin is Project Leader at the Complexity Science Hub–Vienna, Research Associate at University of Oxford, and Emeritus Professor at the University of Connecticut. His research interests lie at the intersection of social and cultural evolution, historical macrosociology, economic history, mathematical modeling of long-term social processes, and the construction and analysis of historical databases. A founder of the field of Cliodynamics, his books include End Times (2023) and Ultrasociety (2016).
A Post-9/11 Veteran Town Hall Discussion with veterans Jason Galui, Colin Frances Jackson, and Felicia Pinckney and Veteran Fellowship Program Fellow John Moses led by Hoover Fellow Jacquelyn Schneider.
Veterans’ experience abroad imparts a deep empathy for the world around them, with significant implications for the local communities to which they return. How does the post 9/11 veteran experience of combat or service abroad, and the profound relationships built between servicemembers and foreign allies and partners, impact how veterans view their responsibility to others when they return home? More specifically, for this generation of veterans, how do relationships built in Iraq and Afghanistan influence veterans’ advocacy with local and federal policies? How does the experience of the post 9/11 all-volunteer force manifest in democratic ideals at home?
March 7, 2024 – Chelmsford Unitarian Church, Chelmsford, MA.
Featuring
Jason Galui | Director for Veterans and Military Families, George W. Bush Institute: USA Veteran
Colin Frances Jackson | Chairman, Strategic and Operational Research Department, US Naval War College; USAR
John Moses | Hoover Veteran Fellow; Co-Founder, Massachusetts Afghan Alliance; Retired SFC, USA
Felicia Pinckney | Program Manager, Network Development for Home Base program, Massachusetts General Hospital; USA veteran
Moderated by
Dr. Jacquelyn Schneider | Hoover Fellow, post-9/11 Veteran, USAFR
A Post-9/11 Veteran Town Hall Discussion with veterans Gil Barndollar and Robin Johnson, Veteran Fellowship Program Fellows Matthew Brown and Claudia Flores led by Hoover Fellow Jacquelyn Schneider.
One of the greatest challenges for the All Volunteer Force is how to reintegrate a professional, volunteer military back into civilian society. For many previous generations, this re-integration was supported by veterans organizations, like the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which created a space for veterans to share experiences as they re-started their civilian life. However, the post 9/11 veteran generation has new challenges both in re-connecting with civilian life and in creating bonds between post 9/11 veterans that create positive societal impacts. The rise of social media as well as the diversity and the volunteer nature of this generation means that Vietnam-era structures and institutions designed for veterans may not work for building social bonds between 9/11 veterans and their communities. How does the post 9/11 veteran build social capital among each other? How do they connect with their communities? How can the post 9/11 veteran experience build social cohesion not only between veterans and civilians but also in the broader civil society?
Tuesday, February 20, 2024 – Denver, CO
Featuring
Gil Barndollar | Senior Research Fellow, Center for the Study of Statesmanship; USMC veteran
Matthew Brown | Hoover Veteran Fellow; President and CEO, Chimney Trail; USN Veteran
Claudia Flores | Hoover Veteran Fellow; Policy and Planning Director, Virginia Department of Veteran Services; USN Veteran
Robin Johnson | CEO, Best Medicine Brigade; President, HEAL*ARIOUS; USA veteran
Moderated by
Dr. Jacquelyn Schneider | Hoover Fellow, post-9/11 Veteran, USAFR
A Post-9/11 Veteran Town Hall Discussion with local veterans Cathy Cohn, Mikhail Venikov, Justin Adney and Veteran Fellowship Program Fellow Michael Wendler led by Hoover Fellow Jacquelyn Schneider, and featuring a special welcome by the Hon. Jackie Speier and Susan Manheimer, the former San Mateo Chief of Police.
The post 9/11 veteran is not defined by one campaign or conflict. That can be something that often divides this generation. However, the remarkable diversity of conflicts and crises in which this generation served created a veteran generation with experience not only in fighting wars, but also building schools, curing diseases, fighting fires, and providing humanitarian assistance in the face of natural and manmade disasters. This means the post 9/11 veteran generation is returning home with extraordinary skills to lead and serve within their local communities. How does the post 9-11 veteran experience translate to public service? What is the role of the guard and the reserve in creating a bridge between military and public service, especially for the post 9-11 veteran generation?
Thursday, December 14, 2023 – Elks Lodge, San Mateo, CA
Featuring
Justin Adney | Firefighter/Engineer, Santa Clara County Fire Department, Marine Reserve
Cathy Cohn | Navy Veteran, Science Educator
Mikhail Venikov | Army Veteran, Officer, San Mateo Police Department; Founder & CEO, RangerRoad
Michael Wendler | Hoover Veteran Fellow, Judge, County of San Mateo
Moderated by
Dr. Jacquelyn Schneider | Hoover Fellow, post-9/11 Veteran, USAFR
With special welcome by
Susan Manheimer | Chief of Police (Retired), San Mateo Police Department
Jackie Speier | Former US Representative for San Mateo and South San Francisco
One of the keys to China’s global rise has been its strategy of deploying sovereign wealth on behalf of state power. Since President Xi Jinping took office in 2013, China has doubled down on financial statecraft, making shrewd investments with the sovereign funds it has built up by leveraging its foreign exchange reserves. Sovereign Funds tells the story of how the Communist Party of China (CPC) became a global financier of surpassing ambition.
Dr. Liu offers a comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of the evolution of China’s sovereign funds, including the China Investment Corporation, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, and Central Huijin Investment. Dr. Liu shows how these institutions have become mechanisms not only for transforming low-reward foreign exchange reserves into investment capital but also for power projection. Sovereign funds are essential drivers of the national interest, shaping global markets, advancing the historic Belt and Road Initiative, and funneling state assets into strategic industries such as semiconductors, fintech, and artificial intelligence. In the era of President Xi, state-owned financial institutions have become gatekeepers of the Chinese economy. Political and personal relationships with prestigious sovereign funds have enabled Blackstone to flourish in China and have fueled the ascendance of private tech giants such as Alibaba, Ant Finance, and Didi.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Zongyuan Zoe Liu is Maurice R. Greenberg fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Her work focuses on international political economy, global financial markets, sovereign wealth funds, supply chains of critical minerals, development finance, emerging markets, energy and climate change policy, and East Asia-Middle East relations. Dr. Liu is the author of Can BRICS De-dollarize the Global Financial System? (Cambridge University Press) and Sovereign Funds: How the Communist Party of China Finances its Global Ambitions (Harvard University Press).
Dr. Liu completed her Ph.D at the Edwin Reischauer fellow at School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University. Prior to joining CFR, Dr. Liu was an instructional assistant professor at Texas A&M’s Bush School of Government and Public Service in Washington, DC, where she taught courses on global economy, economic statecraft, and Chinese foreign policy.
The Hoover Institution held a conversation on What is the Role of Future International Collaboration: Risks and Opportunities on January 22, 2024 from 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM PT.
Dr. Thomas Mason addressed aspects of research openness and the daily need to protect the information that is critically important to universities, National Labs, the federal government, and the private sector. The conversation was followed by a 30 minute Q&A.
As a national security science laboratory Los Alamos National Lab has worked to strike the right balance between openness of research and protection of information for over eighty years. The talk addressed the historic importance of open international collaboration in fostering rapid innovation with economic and national security benefits while still recognizing the need to manage the risks that come with international engagement.
SPEAKER
Thomas Mason is the President and CEO of Triad National Security, LLC (Triad) and serves as the Director of Los Alamos National Laboratory. Most recently he was the Senior Vice President for Global Laboratory Operations at Battelle where he had responsibility for governance and strategy across the six National Laboratories that Battelle manages or co-manages. Prior to joining Battelle, Thom worked at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for 19 years, including 10 years as the Laboratory Director. Under his leadership, ORNL saw significant growth in programs, new facilities, and hiring while achieving record low safety incident rates. Before becoming Laboratory Director, he was Associate Laboratory Director (ALD) for Neutron Sciences, ALD for the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), and Director of the Experimental Facilities Division. During his time in Oak Ridge, Thom was active in the community serving as Chair of the Oak Ridge Public Schools Education Foundation as well as Innovation Valley, the Knoxville-Oak Ridge area regional economic development organization. He moved to ORNL from the University of Toronto where he was a faculty member in the Department of Physics and previously worked as a Senior Scientist at Risø National Laboratory and a Postdoc at AT&T Bell Laboratories. For the past 30 years, he has been involved in the design and construction of scientific instrumentation and facilities and the application of nuclear, computing, and materials sciences to solve important challenges in energy and national security. Thom has a Ph.D. in Experimental Condensed Matter Physics from McMaster University and a BSc in Physics from Dalhousie University.
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS BY
Norbert Holtkamp is a Science Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Holtkamp is also a professor of particle physics and astrophysics and of photon science at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University
BACKGROUND
International collaborations and research openness have been enormously beneficial to the United States supporting rapid advances of world leading Science & Technology in our country. They brought a large group of incredibly talented people from around the world to come work with US science and technology industry. In the end, many of them stayed which provided a pipeline for innovation and business growth helping to maintain a standard of “world leading.” The simple fact that others successfully try to copy the process should encourage the US to continue. In a changing world though where the standards of research openness are not shared anymore, managing the risks better than in the past becomes essential.
Research openness and specifically international collaboration with friends and opponents always carries the risk of unwanted release of information. Industrial espionage in the private sector does have negative economic impact, can threaten national security, or lose competitive advantages. Over the past few years, there has been a significant rise in the systematic collection of intellectual property on a broad scale within the domains of private, public, and national security sectors. This development has had a profound impact on the global research community. Research openness is commonly understood and shared by much of the World’s science community and led by the US, for long was captured in a quite simple National Security Decision Directive (NSDD-189). Essentially: “It’s open until it’s classified”. While NSDD-189 wasn’t abandoned officially yet, effectively it has been in many instances. New definitions “CUI = Confidential but Unclassified Information,” central control of international collaboration agreements, top down managed travel restrictions of “going to” or “inviting in”, strictly enforced Conflict of Interest agreements are all existing elements in a new world that grapples with the balance between openness and benefit from it versus risk of losing.
The US needs a pipeline of trained engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs. Without inviting a substantial foreign national contingent into our schools and universities from which many will typically stay, it is not clear that US demographics would even allow the US alone to fill this pipeline. Whether it is the academic or private sector: it is essential to understand in more detail how international collaboration provided and can provide in the future economic benefit, intelligence insight, faster scientific discoveries, and sometimes even aiding diplomatic efforts and continue to bring the best and brightest innovators to the US.
As part of the project, each of these elements (faster scientific advance – economic benefit – intelligence & insight – demographics & talent recruiting) will be addressed.
December 1, 2023
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
The Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI) hosts its “State of American Institutions” conference on Thursday, November 30, and Friday, December 1.
In this panel, participants focus on the alarming lack of trust in US elections among citizens. With over one-third of the nation expressing doubt about the reliability of the electoral process, the participants maintain that there exists a critical need for strengthening confidence to avoid impediments to the nation’s political leadership in governing effectively. Various strategies are discussed to address this crisis in confidence. These include conveying research findings, much of which is conducted by Hoover scholars, to dispel misconceptions that assert US elections are compromised by significant voter fraud or suppression. Additionally, the panelists emphasize the importance of enhancing communication with voters, providing clear information about the safeguards in the electoral system. They also advocate for improvements in the way the media reports election results, aiming to temper the intensity of public discourse, particularly in tightly contested races.
For more information, visit https://www.hoover.org/events/state-american-institutions-center-revitalizing-american-institutions
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Ben Ginsberg, Volker Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution
Justin Grimmer, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution; and Professor of Political Science, Stanford University
Lieutenant Governor Deidre M. Henderson, State of Utah
Robb Willer, Professor of Sociology, Stanford University
Moderator: Sarah Anzia, Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution; and Professor of Public Policy & Political Science, University of California-Berkeley
ABOUT THE CENTER FOR REVITALIZING AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS (RAI):
In an objective, non-partisan spirit, the Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI) draws on the Hoover Institution’s scholarship, government experience, and convening power to study the reasons behind the crisis in trust facing American institutions, analyze how they are operating in practice, and consider policy recommendations to rebuild trust and increase their effectiveness.
Learn more: https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/center-revitalizing-american-institutions
December 1, 2023
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
The Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI) hosts its “State of American Institutions” conference on Thursday, November 30, and Friday, December 1.
In this panel, participants discuss the dearth of civil discourse at universities. It is suggested that university administrations are struggling to adapt to the pace of the social media environment and political pressures exerted on campuses from outside forces. Participants agree that faculty should focus on research and pedagogy. Instead of shutting down debate to evade controversy, they maintain, leadership in the academy should do a better job of listening and helping foster respectful conversations about society and politics with diverse points of view.
For more information, visit https://www.hoover.org/events/state-american-institutions-center-revitalizing-american-institutions
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Anna Grzymala-Busse, Senior Fellow (courtesy), Hoover Institution; and Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor of International Studies, Political Science, Stanford University
Jonathan Holloway, President, Rutgers University
Josiah Ober, Senior Fellow (courtesy), Hoover Institution; and The Markos & Eleni Kounalakis Chair in Honor of Constantine Mitsotakis Professor of Political Science and Classics, Stanford University
Keith Whittington, Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution, and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics, Princeton University
Moderator: Stephen Haber, Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, A.A. and Jeanne Welch Milligan Professor, Political Science, Stanford University
ABOUT THE CENTER FOR REVITALIZING AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS (RAI):
In an objective, non-partisan spirit, the Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI) draws on the Hoover Institution’s scholarship, government experience, and convening power to study the reasons behind the crisis in trust facing American institutions, analyze how they are operating in practice, and consider policy recommendations to rebuild trust and increase their effectiveness.
Learn more: https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/center-revitalizing-american-institutions
December 1, 2023
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
The Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI) hosted its “State of American Institutions” conference on Thursday, November 30, and Friday, December 1.
In this panel, participants discuss strengthening the American public’s trust in the US military. Despite the military enjoying greater trust compared to other institutions, its current level of 60 percent, as reported by a recent Gallup poll, still represents a recent decline. Participants suggest that rebuilding trust requires addressing the deficit of civics and history education. Further, citizens must understand that one of the pillars of US government is civilian control of the military. Participants also maintain that a component of restoring trust is preserving the warrior ethos and maintaining high standards of excellence among military personnel. The populace, participants maintain, should understand that the military is intended to protect and defend the country, and its mission should not be sidetracked by political agendas.
For more information, visit https://www.hoover.org/events/state-american-institutions-center-revitalizing-american-institutions
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
The Honorable Joni Ernst, United States Senator for Iowa
Peter Feaver, Professor of Political Science, Duke University
General Jim Mattis, Davies Family Distinguished Fellow, Hoover Institution; and former Secretary of Defense
Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution; and former National Security Advisor
Moderator: Stephen Kotkin, Kleinheinz Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution; and Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University
ABOUT THE CENTER FOR REVITALIZING AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS (RAI):
In an objective, non-partisan spirit, the Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI) draws on the Hoover Institution’s scholarship, government experience, and convening power to study the reasons behind the crisis in trust facing American institutions, analyze how they are operating in practice, and consider policy recommendations to rebuild trust and increase their effectiveness.
Learn more: https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/center-revitalizing-american-institutions
December 1, 2023
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
In this keynote luncheon, David Kennedy, a distinguished visiting fellow at Hoover and a history professor at Stanford, offers a historical perspective on the American primary process. He outlines the effects of rule changes that followed the 1968 election, mandating the transfer of delegates to candidates based on the voters’ will rather than the discretion of party leaders in nominating contests. Kennedy is followed by Davies Family Senior Fellow, Emeritus, David Brady, who presents data demonstrating how primary voters from both major political parties invariably elect congressional candidates on their respective party’s extremes, fostering a political environment with no incentive for compromise. The session concludes with remarks by senior fellow, Stanford political scientist, and pollster Douglas Rivers, who provides an analysis of the 2024 presidential election, describing polling data that demonstrates distinct advantages for Republicans.
For more information, visit https://www.hoover.org/events/state-american-institutions-center-revitalizing-american-institutions
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
David Brady, Davies Family Senior Fellow, Emeritus, Hoover Institution; and Professor of Political Science, Emeritus, Stanford University
David Kennedy, Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution; and Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History, Emeritus, Stanford University
Douglas Rivers, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution; and Professor of Political Science, Stanford University
Moderator: D. Sunshine Hillygus, Professor of Political Science, Duke University
ABOUT THE CENTER FOR REVITALIZING AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS (RAI):
In an objective, non-partisan spirit, the Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI) draws on the Hoover Institution’s scholarship, government experience, and convening power to study the reasons behind the crisis in trust facing American institutions, analyze how they are operating in practice, and consider policy recommendations to rebuild trust and increase their effectiveness.
Learn more: https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/center-revitalizing-american-institutions
December 1. 2023
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
The Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI) hosts its “State of American Institutions” conference on Thursday, November 30, and Friday, December 1.
In this panel, participants address how the US Congress can more effectively provide representation and regain the confidence of the American people. Panelists trace the decline in bipartisanship, attributing it to hyperpolarization that has grown across the twenty-first century. This polarization has resulted in legislative deadlocks, prompting occupants of the White House to act unilaterally instead of collaborating with Congress. Panelists identify egregious redistricting decisions as a factor contributing to polarization.
For more information, visit https://www.hoover.org/events/state-american-institutions-center-revitalizing-american-institutions
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Sarah Binder, Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, Brookings Institution; and Professor of Political Science, George Washington University
The Honorable Barbara Comstock, former US Representative (VA-10)
The Honorable Dan Lipinski, Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution; and former US Representative (IL-3)
Jonathan Rodden, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution; and Professor of Political Science, Stanford University
Moderator: Brandice Canes-Wrone, Director of the Center for Revitalizing Institutions and Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution; and Professor of Political Science, Stanford University
ABOUT THE CENTER FOR REVITALIZING AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS (RAI):
In an objective, non-partisan spirit, the Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI) draws on the Hoover Institution’s scholarship, government experience, and convening power to study the reasons behind the crisis in trust facing American institutions, analyze how they are operating in practice, and consider policy recommendations to rebuild trust and increase their effectiveness.
Learn more: https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/center-revitalizing-american-institutions
December 1. 2023
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
The Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI) hosted its “State of American Institutions” conference on Thursday, November 30, and Friday, December 1.
In this panel, scholars discuss the legitimacy of regulatory agencies in the executive branch. Concerns are raised about the unelected nature of the administrative state and its potential encroachment on the lawmaking authority of elected representatives. Scholars also address how regulatory agencies can bring technical expertise, emphasizing the integral role of presidential leadership and management in assessing the feasibility of agency decisions. It is further advanced that Congress could restrain regulatory agencies by bolstering its own staffing and resources, ensuring relevant expertise for effective oversight of executive branch decision making.
For more information, visit https://www.hoover.org/events/state-american-institutions-center-revitalizing-american-institutions
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Philip Hamburger, Maurice & Hilda Friedman Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
Michael McConnell, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution; and Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law, Stanford University
Andrew Rudalevige, Thomas Brackett Reed Professor of Government, Bowdoin College
Sharece Thrower, Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution; and Associate Professor of Political Science, Vanderbilt University
Moderator: Daniel Kessler, Keith and Jan Hurlbut Senior Fellow and Director of Research, Hoover Institution; and Professor of Management and Law, Stanford University
ABOUT THE CENTER FOR REVITALIZING AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS (RAI):
In an objective, non-partisan spirit, the Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI) draws on the Hoover Institution’s scholarship, government experience, and convening power to study the reasons behind the crisis in trust facing American institutions, analyze how they are operating in practice, and consider policy recommendations to rebuild trust and increase their effectiveness.
Learn more: https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/center-revitalizing-american-institutions
November 30, 2023
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
Governors Wes Moore (D-Maryland) and Christopher Sununu (R-New Hampshire) in conversation with Hoover Institution Director Condoleezza Rice offering perspectives on the state of American institutions on Thursday, November 30, 2023 at 4:30 PM PT.
Governors Wes Moore (D-Maryland) and Christopher Sununu (R-New Hampshire) in conversation with Hoover Institution Director Condoleezza Rice offering perspectives on the state of American institutions. In a bipartisanship spirit, the governors and Director Rice shared insights on how trust in and the efficacy of governmental institutions can be improved as well as the challenges of doing so in a polarized environment. Panelists shared their perspectives as chief executives and weighed in on reforms to improve democracy at all levels of government.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Governor Wes Moore is the 63rd Governor of the state of Maryland and is the state’s first Black Governor. Moore earned an Associate’s degree from Valley Forge Military Academy and College and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He earned his Bachelor’s in international relations and economics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and was the university’s first Black Rhodes Scholar. Moore served as a captain in the 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan and was the CEO of the Robin Hood Foundation. He also worked in finance with Deutsche Bank in London and with Citigroup in New York. He and his wife Dawn Flythe Moore have two children.
Governor Christopher Sununu is the 82nd Governor of the State of New Hampshire and is currently serving his fourth term, receiving in 2020 more votes ever than any candidate in state history. With Governor Sununu's leadership, New Hampshire is ranked the #1 state in the country for personal freedoms by Cato Institute. Chris grew up in Salem, NH. He graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) with a BS in Civil/Environmental Engineering. As an environmental engineer, Chris worked for ten years cleaning up hazardous waste sites across the country. Governor Sununu lives in Newfields with his wife, Valerie, and their three children.
Condoleezza Rice is the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution and a Senior Fellow on Public Policy. She is the Denning Professor in Global Business and the Economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In addition, she is a founding partner of Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, an international strategic consulting firm.
A Post-9/11 Veteran Town Hall Discussion between Hoover Fellow Jacquelyn Schneider, Congresswoman Chrissy Houlahan, LTG (ret) H.R. McMaster, and Veteran Fellowship Program Fellows Megan Andros and Dave Foster.
When veterans return home, they are not only supported by society, but also contributors to that society. Significant focus has been placed on the challenge of reintegrating post 9-11 veterans within a community that feels increasingly separated from the military. What is the role of the post 9-11 veteran in their local communities? How can the post 9-11 experience help solve local problems, like homelessness, disabilities, and community project financing? Can we move beyond “reintegration” to decrease the divide between an all-volunteer force and the society from which their members come?
Friday, November 10, 2023 – Valley Forge Military Academy and College, Wayne PA
Featuring
U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan | Pennsylvania's 6th District
LTG H.R. McMaster, USA (Ret.) | Hoover Senior Fellow
Megan Andros | Hoover Veteran Fellow 2021-2022
Dave Foster | Hoover Veteran Fellow 2022-2023
Moderated by
Dr. Jacquelyn Schneider | Hoover Fellow, post-9/11 veteran, USAFR
With special welcome by
Col. Stuart B. Helgeson, USMCR (Ret.) | President, Valley Forge Military Academy and College
The Hoover History held a Book Talk with Melvyn P. Leffler - Confronting Saddam Hussein: George W. Bush and the Invasion of Iraq on Friday, October 27, 2023 at 12:00 PM PT.
America’s decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003 was highly contentious at the time, and continues to divide opinion severely. In some ways it could be considered the most important foreign policy choice of the so-called post-Cold War era. Melvyn Leffler revisits this episode armed with a unique set of personal interviews with dozens of top officials as well as a wealth of declassified American and British documents. The new documentation is extraordinary, and Leffler vividly recaptures the emotions and anxieties that shaped the thinking of the president after the shock of 9/11 – hubris, yes, but also fear, and responsibility to protect the homeland amid uncertainty. Leffler reminds us that no one should be mistaken about Saddam Hussein's brutality, unpredictability, and intransigence, but subjects Washington’s decision-making to sustained, and judicious, scrutiny. Who made the decision for war? How did the decision take shape? Why did it not turn out the way its initiators intended? What lessons can we take from the Iraq War and its aftermath?
FEATURING
Melvyn P. Leffler
Professor of American History Emeritus
University of Virginia
MODERATED BY
Stephen Kotkin
Kleinheinz Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
Director, Hoover History Lab
Monday, October 30, 2023
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
A Hoover History Working Group Seminar with Matthew Lowenstein.
The history of the rise and decline of horse populations provide a framework to understand how humans could initially benefit from AI, only to become obsolete later on, challenging optimistic forecasts about AI's impact. The paper is divided into three main sections: 1) introduction, including a brief summary of the premises of the horse analogy, 2) an account of human and horse interaction over approximately 6,000 years, highlighting how technological advancement led to a rise in horse populations, followed by collapse, and 3) a theoretical exploration of AI existential risk, using the eventual collapse in horse populations as a proof of concept.
By drawing parallels between the human domestication of horses and a potential future dominated by Artificial Superintelligence (ASI), the paper shows specifically why neither Ricardian trade nor competition amongst different ASIs are likely to protect humans from existential calamity. The paper encourages a critical approach to future AI-human dynamics, drawing upon lessons from past human-animal relations. Though the analogy has limitations, it provides insights into any scenario where a more intelligent agent significantly impacts a less intelligent one.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Matthew Lowenstein is a Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He studies the economic history of modern China from the late imperial period to the early People’s Republic. His dissertation, which he is currently turning into a book, is a study of northern China’s indigenous financial system from the late Qing to the early Republican period (ca. 1820–1911). Other interests include the history of traditional Chinese accounting, the political economy of warlordism, and the history of central economic planning.
Lowenstein received his PhD in history from the University of Chicago and an MBA from Columbia Business School. Lowenstein previously worked as a securities analyst in Beijing and New York covering the Chinese financial sector. His nonacademic works have appeared in the Diplomat and Foreign Policy.
Secretary Condoleezza Rice & FBI Director Christopher Wray talk about Emerging Threats, Innovation, and Security with international partnersDirector-General Mike Burgess, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), Director General Ken McCallum, British Security Service (MI5), Director David Vigneault, Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), and Director-General Andrew Hampton, New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS) on Tuesday, October 17, 2023 at 10:30 AM PT.
Monday, October 16, 2023
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
The Year That Broke Politics describes the unknown story of the election that set the tone for today’s fractured politics. The 1968 presidential race was a contentious battle between Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Republican Richard Nixon, and former Alabama governor George Wallace. The United States was reeling from the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, and was bitterly divided on the Vietnam War and domestic issues, including civil rights and rising crime. Drawing on previously unexamined archives and numerous interviews, The Year That Broke Politics upends conventional understanding of the crucial campaign, showing how it created a new template and tone for election battles, which still resonates into today’s fractured political climate.
The book is the first rigorously researched historical account of the most controversial election in modern U.S. history to have cooperation from all four major sides – Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Richard Nixon, and George Wallace. Luke interviewed approximately 85 family members and former staffers, in addition to extensive archival research and access to new evidence that dramatically changes our understanding of the election.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Luke A. Nichter is professor of history and James H. Cavanaugh Endowed Chair in Presidential Studies at Chapman University. His area of specialty is the Cold War, the modern presidency, and U.S. political and diplomatic history, with a focus on the "long 1960s" from John F. Kennedy through Watergate. He has been a Visiting Fellow at the Norwegian Nobel Institute, an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow at the Massachusetts Historical Society, a Visiting Scholar at the University of Michigan's Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies, a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Oxford's Rothermere American Institute, and a Hansard Research Scholar at the London School of Economics.
He is the author of eight books, including most recently The Year That Broke Politics, which was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, as well as The Last Brahmin: Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. and the Making of the Cold War. He has been interviewed by, or written for, outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Fortune, CBS’s “CBS This Morning,” ABC’s “20/20,” National Public Radio’s “Here and Now,” and many more. Luke is also a former founding Executive Producer of C-SPAN's American History TV, launched during January 2011 in 41 million homes. He divides his time between Orange, CA, and Bowling Green, OH.
A Post-9/11 Veteran Town Hall Discussion between Hoover Fellow Jacquelyn Schneider, Maj. Gen. Angie Salinas, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.) Veteran Fellowship Program Fellows Donnie Hasseltine, Trill Paullin, and Adrian Perkins
Tuesday, October 10, 2023 - Patriot’s CASA, Texas A&M San Antonio
Veterans are both a reflection of and a contributor to our society. How post-9/11 veterans think about this relationship plays a large role in how this generation will leave their mark on American communities and military. Who, then, is the post 9-11 veteran? What relationship do they have with the American society to which they returned? What shared identity defines this generation of veterans? And how will their experiences shape their communities, our societies, our governance, and the force of the future? And what will be their legacy?
For more information, visit https://www.hoover.org/events/who-post-911-veteran-defining-generation.
Join the Hoover Book Club for engaging discussions with leading authors on the hottest policy issues of the day. Hoover scholars explore the latest books that delve into some of the most vexing policy issues facing the United States and the world. Find out what makes these authors tick and how they think we should approach our most difficult challenges.
In our latest installment, watch a discussion between Josiah Ober and Brook Manville, authors of The Civic Bargain: How Democracy Survives.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Is democracy in trouble, perhaps even dying? Pundits say so, and polls show that most Americans believe that their country’s system of governance is being “tested” or is “under attack.” But is the future of democracy necessarily so dire? In The Civic Bargain, Brook Manville and Josiah Ober push back against the prevailing pessimism about the fate of democracy around the world. Instead of an epitaph for democracy, they offer a guide for democratic renewal, calling on citizens to recommit to a “civic bargain” with one another to guarantee civic rights of freedom, equality, and dignity. That bargain also requires them to fulfill the duties of democratic citizenship: governing themselves with no “boss” except one another, embracing compromise, treating each other as civic friends, and investing in civic education for each rising generation.
Manville and Ober trace the long progression toward self-government through four key moments in democracy’s history: Classical Athens, Republican Rome, Great Britain’s constitutional monarchy, and America’s founding. Comparing what worked and what failed in each case, they draw out lessons for how modern democracies can survive and thrive. Manville and Ober show that democracy isn’t about getting everything we want; it’s about agreeing on a shared framework for pursuing our often conflicting aims. Crucially, citizens need to be able to compromise, and must not treat one another as political enemies. And we must accept imperfection; democracy is never finished but evolves and renews itself continually. As long as the civic bargain is maintained—through deliberation, bargaining, and compromise—democracy will live.
Tuesday, September 19, 2023 | 10:00 am PT / 1:00pm ET
The Hoover Institution held a Book Talk with Timothy Garton Ash: Homelands: A Personal History of Europe on Tuesday, August 29, 2023 from 5:30 PM - 6:30 PM PT.
This in-person-only event featured Condoleezza Rice, Michael McFaul, and Tobias Wolff in conversation with Timothy Garton Ash about his new book Homelands: A Personal History of Europe.
In Homelands, Timothy Garton Ash gives a unique account of the history of Europe since 1945, in which the United States has been a vital actor. This is history illustrated by memoir and reportage. Drawing on his extensive personal notes from 50 years of events witnessed, places visited and history makers encountered (from Margaret Thatcher to Vladimir Putin), Garton Ash charts the rise and then faltering of the quest for a 'Europe whole and free’. In this panel discussion, he was in conversation with two US scholar-practitioners who have played a significant part in that history, one of America's finest writers and a leading Stanford political scientist.
Featuring
Timothy Garton Ash, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and professor of European studies at Oxford University, is an internationally acclaimed contemporary historian. He is the author of ten previous books which have chronicled and analyzed the history of Europe over the last half-century. They include The Magic Lantern, his eyewitness account of the velvet revolutions of 1989, The File, his investigation of his own Stasi file, and In Europe's Name: Germany and the Divided Continent.
Condoleezza Rice is the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution and the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy. In addition, she is a founding partner of Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, an international strategic consulting firm.
Michael McFaul is the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution as well as a professor of political science, director and senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He also currently works as a news analyst for NBC. His areas of expertise include international relations, Russian politics, comparative democratization, and American foreign policy.
Tobias Wolff is the Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Professor, Emeritus for Stanford University's Department of English in the School of Humanities and Sciences. A short story writer, memoirist, and novelist, Wolff is most known for his works This Boy's Life and In Pharaoh's Army released in 1989 and 1994, respectively.
Moderated By
Anna Grzymala-Busse is the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor in the Department of Political Science, the director of the Europe Center, and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford. Her research focuses on religion and politics, authoritarian political parties and their successors, and the historical development of the state.
A Hoover History Lab Discussion between Kleinheinz Senior Fellow Stephen Kotkin and Sergei Guriev, provost and professor of economics at the Institut d'études politiques de Paris (Sciences Po)
Many analysts are skeptical about the effects of the sweeping sanctions imposed by the West on Russia – pointing to the Kremlin’s apparent ability to weather and circumvent the harsh measures. They say that Russia’s resilience to this onslaught is due to its geostrategic advantages including the sprawling Eurasian landmass and its relationships with China, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and a number of Central Asian countries that declined to join the sanctions regime. These skeptics also highlight perverse and unintended consequences of the sanctions, including driving economic activity underground, spurring criminal forms of commerce, and helping the Putin regime strengthen control over the private sector and oligarchs. What is the actual story? What are the facts, consequences, responses, paradoxes, and long-term effects of the sanctions on Russia? Has Russia become vulnerable economically? This conversation explores these questions and more.
For more information on the Hoover History lab, click here - https://www.hoover.org/history-lab.
August 15, 2023 Hoover Institution | Stanford University
Join the Hoover Book Club for engaging discussions with leading authors on the hottest policy issues of the day. Hoover scholars explore the latest books that delve into some of the most vexing policy issues facing the United States and the world. Find out what makes these authors tick and how they think we should approach our most difficult challenges.
In our latest installment, watch a discussion between Michael Hartney, a Hoover Fellow and Rick Hess, a senior fellow and the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute on Rick's book The Great School Rethink.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Rick Hess is a senior fellow and the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he works on K–12 and higher education issues. The author of Education Week’s popular blog “Rick Hess Straight Up,” Dr. Hess is also an executive editor of Education Next, and a Forbes senior contributor. He is the founder and chairman of AEI’s Conservative Education Reform Network.
ABOUT THE BOOK An invigorating examination of the potential for meaningful change in education, from one of the nation's most astute observers of schooling and school improvement.
In The Great School Rethink, education policy sentinel Rick Hess offers a pithy and perceptive appraisal of American schooling and finds, in the uncertain period following pandemic disruption, an ideal moment to reimagine US education. Now is the time, he asserts, to ask hard questions about how schools use time and talent, how they work with parents, what they do with digital tools, and how they meet the needs of their communities.
As Hess explains, to rethink is to acknowledge the realities of the education system while opening one’s mind to possibility. With characteristic verve and wit, Hess guides readers through his rethink process, a versatile and easily implemented approach to identifying issues and brainstorming possible responses. He encourages readers to explore what improvements might alleviate current pressures and frustrations, such as teacher shortages and burnout, declining student performance, and compromised learning time. Whether their goal is to achieve better student engagement, increase parent involvement, or implement personalized learning, readers will develop the mindset to ask the right questions, to fully understand the problem that’s being solved, and to evaluate the probable effectiveness of proposed solutions.
Brimming with challenging questions, robust exercises, and eye-opening data, this book is a must-read for education professionals, parent advocates, and anyone passionate about the future of American education.
Join the Hoover Book Club for engaging discussions with leading authors on the hottest policy issues of the day. Hoover scholars explore the latest books that delve into some of the most vexing policy issues facing the United States and the world. Find out what makes these authors tick and how they think we should approach our most difficult challenges.
In our latest installment, watch a discussion between Matt Pottinger is a distinguished visiting fellow and Sean Mirski a Visiting Scholar at the Hoover Institution on Sean's book We May Dominate The World: Ambition, Anxiety, And The Rise Of The American Colossus.
Thursday, July 27, 2023 | 10:00 am PT / 1:00pm ET
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sean A. Mirski is a Visiting Scholar at the Hoover Institution. Mirski is a lawyer and U.S. foreign policy scholar who has worked on national security issues across multiple U.S. presidential administrations. A term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, he currently practices national security, foreign relations, and appellate law at Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP. He previously served in the U.S. Department of Defense under both Republican and Democratic administrations as Special Counsel to the General Counsel, where he earned the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Award for Outstanding Achievement.
Mirski has written extensively on American history, international relations, law, and politics, including as editor of the book Crux of Asia: China, India, and the Emerging Global Order (CEIP 2013). Earlier in his career, he clerked for two U.S. Supreme Court justices and served as a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Named one of Forbes magazine’s “30 Under 30,” he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and holds a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Chicago.
ABOUT THE BOOK
What did it take for the United States to become a global superpower? The answer lies in a missing chapter of American foreign policy with stark lessons for today.
The cutthroat world of international politics has always been dominated by great powers. Yet no great power in the modern era has ever managed to achieve the kind of invulnerability that comes from being completely supreme in its own neighborhood. No great power, that is, except one—the United States.
In We May Dominate the World, Sean A. Mirski tells the riveting story of how the United States became a regional hegemon in the century following the Civil War. By turns reluctant and ruthless, Americans squeezed their European rivals out of the hemisphere while landing forces on their neighbors’ soil with dizzying frequency. Mirski reveals the surprising reasons behind this muscular foreign policy in a narrative full of twists, colorful characters, and original accounts of the palace coups and bloody interventions that turned the fledgling republic into a global superpower.
Today, as China makes its own run at regional hegemony and nations like Russia and Iran grow more menacing, Mirski’s fresh look at the rise of the American colossus offers indispensable lessons for how to meet the challenges of our own century.
Join the Hoover Book Club for engaging discussions with leading authors on the hottest policy issues of the day. Hoover scholars explore the latest books that delve into some of the most vexing policy issues facing the United States and the world. Find out what makes these authors tick and how they think we should approach our most difficult challenges.
In our latest installment, watch a discussion between Bill Whalen, the Virginia Hobbs Carpenter Distinguished Policy Fellow in Journalism and David Davenport, research fellow emeritus, and co-author of the recently released Hoover Institution Press book Equality of Opportunity: A Century of Debate on Thursday, June 22, 2023 at 10:00 am PT / 1:00 pm ET.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Davenport is a research fellow emeritus at the Hoover Institution specializing in constitutional federalism, civic education, modern American conservatism, and international law. Davenport is the former president of Pepperdine University (1985–2000). Under his leadership, the university experienced significant growth in quality and reputation. He is the cofounder of Common Sense California and the Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership. He also served on the board of California Forward, a major bipartisan reform group, and was a member of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s California Performance Review Commission. He is a former senior fellow of the Ashbrook Center, where he worked on civic education projects. With his colleague Gordon Lloyd, Davenport has authored How Public Policy Became War (2019), Rugged Individualism: Dead or Alive? (2017), The New Deal and Modern American Conservatism: A Defining Rivalry (2013); a fourth book, Equality of Opportunity: A Century of Debate, is forthcoming in 2023. These books offer distinctive ways of understanding both historic and current debates between progressives and conservatives in the United States. Davenport is also completing a coauthored book on the civic education crisis.
ABOUT THE BOOK
For over one hundred years, Americans have debated what equality of opportunity means and the role of government in ensuring it. Are we born with equality of opportunity, and must we thus preserve our innate legal and political freedoms? Or must it be created through laws and policies that smooth out social or economic inequalities? David Davenport and Gordon Lloyd trace the debate as it has evolved from America’s founding into the twentieth century, when the question took on greater prominence. The authors use original sources and historical reinterpretations to revisit three great debates and their implications for the discussions today. First, they imagine the Founders, especially James Madison, arguing the case against the Progressives, particularly Woodrow Wilson. Next are two conspicuous public dialogues: Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s debate around the latter’s New Deal; and Ronald Reagan’s response to Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society and War on Poverty. The conservative-progressive divide in this discussion has persisted, setting the stage for understanding the differing views about equality of opportunity today. The historical debates offer illuminating background for the question: Where do we go from here?
The Hoover Institution hosts The Siberia Job | A Book Event on Wednesday, June 7, 2022 at 5:00 pm PT in Hauck Auditorium.
Stephen Kotkin in conversation with John Kleinheinz to discuss the new book, The Siberia Job. Introduction by Condoleezza Rice.
PARTICIPANT BIOS
Stephen Kotkin is a Hoover senior fellow and a Professor of History and International Affairs at Princeton University. In addition to conducting research in the Hoover Library and Archives for three decades, he is also founder of Princeton’s Global History Initiative. Kotkin’s research and publications encompasses geopolitics and authoritarian regimes in history and in the present, and he has also participated in numerous National Intelligence Council events over the years.
John Kleinheinz is the CEO of Kleinheinz Capital Partners, Inc., the investment advisor for the Global Undervalued Securities Fund, a global-macro themed hedge fund which at its peak managed $4 billion. He returned outside capital to investors in 2013 after a successful 20-year career. John continues to manage the Fund, which is active in a variety of areas including Japan, US energy/technology markets and private equity. He is also a lead investor in efforts to develop high-speed rail between Dallas and Houston.
Condoleezza Rice is the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution and a Senior Fellow on Public Policy. She is the Denning Professor in Global Business and the Economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. In addition, she is a founding partner of Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, an international strategic consulting firm.
ABOUT THE BOOK
A Texas businessman travels to the furthest reaches of post-Soviet Russia in search of the country’s new wealth ― and finds new dangers as well. Based on true events.
After the demise of the Soviet Union, the newly-established Russian government privatized its industry by issuing vouchers to all of its citizens, allowing them the chance to be shareholders in the country’s burgeoning businesses. The slips are distributed among the population and auctions are arranged where they can be exchanged for actual shares. For the country’s rural populations living in abject poverty, the vouchers appear to be little more than pieces of paper, totally separated from the far-off concept of potential future fortunes.
But for Texas businessman John Mills and his Czech companion, Petr Kovac, the seemingly-valueless chits suggest a lucrative potential, worth much more than what the current owners are willing to sell them for. They travel to the furthest, coldest reaches of the country to acquire vouchers for the country’s national oil company, Gazneft, roving from town to town with suitcases full of cash. But they quickly learn that the plan has complications ― for example, the fact that the auctions at which these vouchers are traded for actual shares have been planned at the most remote, inaccessible locations possible to deter outsiders from buying in. And when the Russian mafia and the oligarchs in charge of Gazneft catch wind of their successes, the stakes become suddenly more deadly.
A thrilling adventure inspired by true events, The Siberia Job charts a course through one of the most impactful periods in recent Russian history, whose reverberations continue to be felt in the present day.
June 1, 2023
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
Join the Hoover Book Club for engaging discussions with leading authors on the hottest policy issues of the day. Hoover scholars explore the latest books that delve into some of the most vexing policy issues facing the United States and the world. Find out what makes these authors tick and how they think we should approach our most difficult challenges.
In our latest installment, watch a discussion between Bill Whalen, the Virginia Hobbs Carpenter Distinguished Policy Fellow in Journalism and Bertrand M. Patenaude, a research fellow and author of the recently released Hoover Institution Press book Bread + Medicine: American Famine Relief in Soviet Russia, 1921–1923 on Thursday, June 1, 2023 at 10:00 am PT/ 1:00pm ET.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Bertrand M. Patenaude is the author of The Big Show in Bololand: The American Relief Expedition to Soviet Russia in the Famine of 1921 (Stanford University Press, 2002).
Joan Nabseth Stevenson received her PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures from Stanford University. She is the author of Deliverance from the Little Big Horn: Doctor Henry Porter and Custer’s Seventh Cavalry.
ABOUT THE BOOK
A century ago, the Soviet Union faced a catastrophic famine, brought on by the disruptions of World War I, the Russian Revolution, and the Russian Civil War; draconian Soviet economic policies; and a severe drought. As millions of people faced starvation and hunger-related disease, the Russian writer Maxim Gorky issued an appeal for help, asking “all honest European and American people for prompt aid to the Russian people. Give bread and medicine.” One person was uniquely situated to answer the call: Herbert Hoover, chair of the American Relief Administration (ARA), who had achieved worldwide fame as the organizer and administrator of large-scale humanitarian relief operations during and following World War I.
American relief helped millions survive the famine of 1921–23. While the role of food aid has been well documented, Bread + Medicine focuses on the lesser-known story of America’s medical intervention, including a large-scale vaccination drive, and treatment of famine-related diseases such as cholera, typhoid, and typhus and hunger-related deficiency diseases, especially among children. The ARA’s medical relief program proved essential to the overall success of its mission. Bread + Medicine, richly illustrated with photographs, posters, and documents from the Hoover Library & Archives, tells that story in vivid detail.
Looking at Russia in 2023, it is now clear that much has remained unchanged from Soviet times. The biggest change is the elimination of communist central planning, which made Russia’s regime stronger despite the initial turmoil of the 1990s. This paper offers a clue as to why the communist economic management system had to go, and why the KGB’s foreign intelligence and trade cadres, many of them based in Leningrad, came out on top of the refurbished new-old system, and did so with a vengeance.
Tomasz’s latest paper explores the roots of the Soviet collapse as it unfolded in the port economy of Leningrad, and the critical lessons that a group of local KGB officers drew from that process. These lessons helped them to recover from the setbacks of 1991 and to eventually take the helm of the Russian Federation in the 2000s. It was the KGB-covered smuggling schemes of late communism that provided the model for the Putin regime to spread its crony ways domestically and corrupt Western institutions abroad. Washington Post reporter Kathryn Belton wrote that “What had begun as corruption within the system became a KGB-cultivated petri dish for the future market economy.” This paper expands this apt metaphor with concrete examples of how that mechanism worked in practice amidst the late communist realities of Leningrad's maritime economy.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Tomasz Blusiewicz is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. Blusiewicz is a historian of modern Europe and Russia, with emphasis on the intersection of economics, trade, and politics in the Baltic Sea region. He is currently working on his first book manuscript, Return of the Hanseatic League, or How the Baltic Sea Trade Washed Away the Iron Curtain, 1945–1991. In it, he develops a transnational perspective on the Baltic region, from Hamburg in the west to Leningrad in the east, and highlights the role played by Hanseatic port cities such as Rostock, Gdańsk, Kaliningrad, and Riga, all of which served as “windows to the world” linking Communist-controlled Europe with the globalizing world in the Cold War era.
Between 2017 and 2022, Blusiewicz worked as a history professor at the University of Tyumen, Russia. He helped to establish the only remaining English-language liberal arts college in Russia, the School of Advanced Studies, in the West Siberian city of Tyumen. There he designed and taught more than ten courses on modern history and international relations until March 2022, when he resigned from his position in protest against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Blusiewicz also designed, launched, and directed a master’s program in Analytics and Consulting in International Relations. This program was taught in English mostly by US-educated scholars and professionals until it was suspended by the authorities in March 2022.
A Hoover History Working Group Seminar with Jeremy Friedman.
In the first decades after World War II, many newly independent Asian and African countries and established Latin American states pursued a socialist development model. Ripe for Revolution traces the socialist experiment over forty years through the experience of five countries: Indonesia, Chile, Tanzania, Angola, and Iran.
These states sought paths to socialism without formal adherence to programs that Soviets, East Germans, Cubans, Chinese, and other outsiders tried to promote. Instead, they attempted to forge ahead through trial and error. All five countries would become Cold War battlegrounds and regional models, as new policies in one shaped evolving conceptions of development in another. Lessons from the collapse of democracy in Indonesia were later applied in Chile, just as the challenge of political Islam in Indonesia informed the policies of the left in Iran. Efforts to build agrarian economies in West Africa influenced Tanzania’s approach to socialism, which in turn influenced the trajectory of the Angolan model.
Ripe for Revolution shows socialism as more adaptable and pragmatic than often supposed. When we view it through the prism of a Stalinist orthodoxy, we miss its real effects and legacies, both good and bad. To understand how socialism succeeds and fails, and to grasp its evolution and potential horizons, we must do more than read manifestos. We must attend to history.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Jeremy Friedman is the Marvin Bower associate professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School. Previously, he was associate director of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy at Yale University. He studies the history of communism, socialism, and revolution over the course of the twentieth century, as revolutionary battlegrounds shifted from the industrialized countries to the developing world in the wake of decolonization.
He is the author of Shadow Cold War: The Sino-Soviet Competition for the Third World (2015), and has published in Cold War History and Modern China Studies, as well as The National Interest, The Diplomat, and The Moscow Times.
April 6, 2023
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
A Hoover History Working Group Seminar with Sir Paul Tucker.
Paul Tucker will be sharing his new book, Global Discord: Values and Power in a Fractured World Order, which considers the geopolitics and legitimacy of the international economic and legal system. The book develops an analysis of the history and future of the international order from the perspective of incentives-values compatibility, that is, the connection between self-enforcing equilibria and history-dependent legitimation principles. Using this framework, the book identifies vulnerabilities and design flaws in today’s international monetary order, trade system, investment order, and international financial system.
April 6, 2023 Hoover Institution | Stanford University A Hoover History Working Group Seminar with Sir Paul Tucker. Paul Tucker will be sharing his new book, Global Discord: Values and Power in a Fractured World Order, which considers the geopolitics and legitimacy of the international economic and legal system. The book develops an analysis of the history and future of the international order from the perspective of incentives-values compatibility, that is, the connection between self-enforcing equilibria and history-dependent legitimation principles. Using this framework, the book identifies vulnerabilities and design flaws in today’s international monetary order, trade system, investment order, and international financial system.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Sir Paul Tucker is a Research Fellow of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School. He was formerly the Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, sitting on its monetary policy, financial stability, and prudential policy committees. Internationally, he was a member of the G20 Financial Stability Board, chairing its group on resolving too-big-to-fail groups; and a director of the Bank for International Settlements, chairing its Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems. He was knighted in 2014.
He is the author of Unelected Power: The Quest for Legitimacy in Central Banking and the Regulatory State (2018), which charts how the extraordinary power of unelected central bankers and regulators needs to be structured and checked in the interest of democratic legitimacy. His other activities include being a director at Swiss Re, president of the UK’s National Institute for Economic and Social Research, a senior fellow at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard, a member of the advisory board of the Yale Program on Financial Stability, and a governor of the Ditchley Foundation.
March 27, 2023
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
A Hoover History Working Group Seminar with Luke Nichter, Geoff Shepard, and Dwight Chapin.
New evidence has surfaced in the fifty years since President Nixon’s resignation. This seminar gathers together three prominent authorities on Watergate, the biggest political scandal of the 20th century.
For 50 years, we were taught a carefully curated history of Watergate. It was the nation’s greatest political scandal: a White House-led cover-up, the only resignation of a sitting president, and the conviction of some two dozen members of Richard Nixon’s administration. However, with the opening of new archival material, a fuller history emerges that prompts us to challenge what was previously known.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Luke A. Nichter is a Professor of History and James H. Cavanaugh Endowed Chair in Presidential Studies at Chapman University. His area of specialty is the Cold War, the modern presidency, and U.S. political and diplomatic history, with a focus on the "long 1960s" from John F. Kennedy through Watergate. He is a noted expert on Richard Nixon's 3,432 hours of secret White House tapes, and a New York Times bestselling author or editor of seven books, the most recent of which is The Last Brahmin: Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. and the Making of the Cold War.
Luke’s next book project, under contract with Yale University Press, is tentatively titled The Making of the President, 1968: Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Richard Nixon, George Wallace, and the Election that Changed America, for which he was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for 2020-2021. The book draws on interviews with approximately 85 family members and former staffers, in addition to extensive archival research involving first-time access to a number of key collections that will recast our understanding of the 1968 election.
Geoff Shepard is an attorney and former official in the Nixon and Ford administrations. He came to Washington in 1969 as a White House Fellow, after graduating from Harvard Law School. He then joined John Ehrlichman’s Domestic Council staff at the Nixon White House, where he served for five years and worked closely with senior officials at the Department of Justice. As a result, he knew and had worked with virtually all of the major Watergate figures. He also worked on President Nixon’s Watergate defense team, where he was principal deputy to the President’s lead lawyer, J. Fred Buzhardt. In that capacity, he helped transcribe the White House tapes, ran the document rooms holding the seized files of H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and John Dean, and staffed White House counselors Bryce Harlow and Dean Birch on Watergate issues and developments.
Over the past decade, Geoff has uncovered internal documents within the Watergate Special Prosecution Force that call into question everything we’ve been told about Watergate. His first book, The Secret Plot to Make Ted Kennedy President (2008), focuses on the political intrigue behind the successful exploitation of the Watergate scandal by Kennedy administration loyalists. His second book, The Real Watergate Scandal, Collusion, Conspiracy and the Plot that Brought Nixon Down (2015), focuses on judicial and prosecutorial abuses in the Watergate prosecutions. His third book, The Nixon Conspiracy, Watergate and the Plot to Remove the President (2021), describes prosecutors’ work with the House Judiciary Committee to bring about Nixon’s impeachment.
Dwight Chapin worked as the Personal Aide to former Vice President Richard Nixon during his presidential campaign, becoming Special Assistant to the President after Nixon’s election victory. He became Deputy Assistant to the President in 1971, and visited China three times: with Henry Kissinger in October of 1971, with Alexander Haig in January of 1972, and with President Nixon in February of 1972. Chapin served as “Acting Chief of Protocol” for these trips. Chapin remained in his role as Deputy Assistant until he left the White House Staff in March 1973. Chapin was also President and Publisher of Success Magazine for five years, and later served in Asia as Managing Director of Hill and Knowlton Public Relations. In 1988 Chapin established Chapin enterprises, an independent communications consultancy, which he operated for the next thirty years.
Chapin published an in-depth memoirs about his time with Nixon, The President’s Man (2022), which relates his memorable experiences and concludes with new insights about the break-in that brought down Nixon’s presidency.
Join the Hoover Book Club for engaging discussions with leading authors on the hottest policy issues of the day. Hoover scholars explore the latest books that delve into some of the most vexing policy issues facing the United States and the world. Find out what makes these authors tick and how they think we should approach our most difficult challenges.
In our latest installment, watch a discussion between Terry Moe, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the William Bennett Munro Professor of political science at Stanford University, and Philip K. Howard, author of Not Accountable: Rethinking the Constitutionality of Public Employee Unions on Tuesday, March 28, 2023 at 10:00 am PT/ 1:00pm ET.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Philip K. Howard. Philip is a leader of government and legal reform in America. He is Chair of Common Good. In 2002, Philip formed Common Good, a nonpartisan coalition dedicated to simplifying laws so that Americans can use common sense in daily choices. His 2010 TED Talk has been viewed by more than 750,000 people. His 2015 report, “Two Years, Not Ten Years,” exposed the economic and environmental costs of delayed infrastructure approvals, and its proposals have since been incorporated into federal law.
ABOUT THE BOOK
“Elected leaders come and go, but public unions just say no.” Hiding in plain sight is a fatal defect of modern democracy. Public employee unions have a death grip on the operating machinery of government. Schools can’t work, bad cops can’t be fired, and politicians sell their souls for union support.
With this searing five-point indictment, Philip K. Howard argues that union controls have disempowered elected executives and should be unconstitutional.
Union power in government happened almost by accident in the 1960s, ostensibly to give public unions the same bargaining rights as trade unions. But government bargaining is not about dividing profits, but making political choices about public priorities. Moreover, the political nature of decision-making allowed unions to provide campaign support to friendly officials. Public bargaining became collusive. The unions brag about it: “We elect our own bosses.”
Sitting on both sides of the bargaining table has allowed public unions to turn the democratic hierarchy upside down. Elected officials answer to public employees. Basic tools of good government have been eliminated. There’s no accountability, detailed union entitlements make government largely unmanageable and unaffordable, and public policies are driven by what is good for public employees, not what is good for the public. Public unions keep it that way by brute political force—harnessing the huge cohort of public employees into a political force dedicated to preventing the reform of government.
The solution, Howard argues, is not political but constitutional. America’s republican form of government requires an executive branch that is empowered to implement public policies, not one shackled to union controls. Public employees have a fiduciary duty to serve the public and should not be allowed to organize politically to harm the public.
This short book could unlock a door to fixing a broken democracy.
Join the Hoover Book Club for engaging discussions with leading authors on the hottest policy issues of the day. Hoover scholars explore the latest books that delve into some of the most vexing policy issues facing the United States and the world. Find out what makes these authors tick and how they think we should approach our most difficult challenges.
In our latest installment, watch a discussion between Bill Whalen, the Virginia Hobbs Carpenter Distinguished Policy Fellow in Journalism and Morris P. Fiorina, a senior fellow and author of the recently released Hoover Institution Press book Who Governs? Emergency Powers in the Time of COVIDon Tuesday, March 7, 2023 at 10:00 am PT/ 1:00pm ET.
Guest Speaker: Matt Ridley
Matt Ridley gave a presentation that challenged the conventional wisdom of carbon emissions, arguing that CO2 may provide more benefits than costs to the environment.
Ridley outlined several benefits, principally the global greening of land and the oceans. When there is more CO2 in the atmosphere, vegetation can rely less on scarce water supplies. More CO2 would also result in higher yields and longer growing seasons, meaning that more land can be used for nature reserves. He maintained that more CO2 also translates into warmer winters and, in turn, fewer people dying from cold temperatures.
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Presenters: Niall Ferguson, Milbank Family Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution; and Steven Koonin, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution.
Chair: Ronald Bailey, science correspondent, Reason Magazine.
Steven Koonin argued that many advocates of sweeping mandates for climate change frequently peddle misinformation, promote extreme scenarios as the consequence of global temperature rises, and smear critics of their arguments as “deniers” and with other detractions. Koonin then presented several examples from his research that provide context for environmental trends that are usually omitted from the prevailing literature on the subject.
Niall Ferguson examined the rhetoric of proponents of drastic action against climate change, many of whom assert that, if the policies they favor aren’t adopted, the world will experience a catastrophe involving extraordinarily high temperatures, precipitation, and sea levels.
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Presenters: Mark P. Mills, senior fellow, Manhattan Institute; and David Victor, professor of innovation and public policy, University of California–San Diego.
Chair: Neil Chatterjee, senior advisor, Hogan Lovells, and former commissioner and chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Mark Mills argued that ambitious goals to achieve zero carbon emissions in the coming decades are delusional. He said that over the past 20 years, after $5 trillion spent worldwide, there hasn’t been any significant movement toward transitions to renewables. Today, global energy derived from wood exceeds that of solar and wind power combined (which make up just 3 percent of all fuels). Moreover, a rapid transition to these other renewable sources, including batteries, would require a level of mineral extraction never seen in history.
In his first of four points, David Victor described the fragmented policy action in countering various pollutants. In replacing carbon, some alternative energies are farther along than others. Meanwhile, some industries face bigger challenges from other pollutants, such as aviation through the emission of contrail clouds from jet engines. These and other segments of the economy have different features that will determine if a market-driven or a mandate-based approach is more effective at mitigating environmental damage.
Niall Ferguson examined the rhetoric of proponents of drastic action against climate change, many of whom believe that if the policies they favor aren’t adopted, the world will experience a catastrophe involving extraordinarily high temperatures, precipitation, and sea levels.
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Presenters: Christopher Costello, distinguished professor of resource economics, Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, University of California—Santa Barbara; and Barton “Buzz” Thompson, Robert E. Paradise Professor of Natural Resources Law, Stanford University Law School.
Chair: Dominic Parker, Ilene and Morton Harris Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution.
During his remarks, Christopher Costello articulated the advantages of markets over regulatory approaches to conservation and mitigation of harms inflicted on the environment. As an example, he described that the coastal waters of Santa Barbara are home not only to one of the most biodiverse maritime habitats in America but also to some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. These circumstances have resulted in large container vessels causing harm to maritime wildlife while traveling to and from the Port of Los Angeles.
Buzz Thompson provided another example of the feasibility of markets for environmental protection. Delivery of water from the Colorado River was weakening the flow of its stream and, in turn, endangering its fish population. He explained that limiting water to farmers would have been a daunting challenge. Understanding this reality, authorities instead paid farmers for access to their water rights so that they could strengthen the flow of the river.
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Presenters: Matthew Kahn, Provost Professor of Economics and Spatial Sciences, University of Southern California; and Maria Waldinger, Deputy Director of the Ifo Center for Labor and Demographic Economics.
Chair: Terry Anderson, John and Jean DeNault Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution.
Maria Waldinger provided a historical analysis of how societies have adapted to climate conditions. The oldest adaptation strategy was migration, she explained, which was more easily achieved when societies were nomadic and there were no political boundaries. More modern societies have adopted various processes to ensure their survival. She explained that crop failures were an omnipresent feature of European societies between the 14th and 19th centuries, a period of regional cooling that has been referred to as the “little ice age.”
Matthew Khan outlined to the audience how markets can provide optimal incentives for adaption to climate change and reduce its economic effects. If enough people are facing a challenge, markets are the mechanisms that can empower entrepreneurs to produce and deliver innovations, Kahn maintained.
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Presenters: Sanjai Bhagat, professor of finance at the University of Colorado–Boulder; and John H. Cochrane, Rose-Marie and Jack Anderson Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution.
Chair: John Taylor, George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Economics, Hoover Institution.
Sanjai Bhagat explained that ESG investing principles and new standards of corporate social responsibility are not based on the fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value. They are primarily centered, he said, on maintaining the well-being of societal stakeholders, including customers, employers, suppliers, and communities, as well as particular objectives such as environmental justice.
John Cochrane asserted that the Security and Exchange Commission’s plan to enforce ESG investment practices isn’t based on “saving the planet” but on bending corporations to serve a particular political agenda. Echoing Bhagat, Cochrane said the ESG mandates would not maximize shareholder value. It would instead deny capital to companies, lower their asset prices, and curb returns to investors. ESG mandates would also pervert markets, destroy competition, and encourage some companies to rent-seek from the government.
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Presenters: Terry Anderson, John and Jean De Nault Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution; and Dominic Parker, Ilene and Morton Harris Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution.
Terry Anderson began the conference sessions by providing definitions for mandates and markets in their environmental contexts. Mandates (or rules) means that politics and administrations assign environmental objectives and use fixed command-and-control mechanisms to achieve them. On the other hand, markets are based on processes whereby resource owners respond to changing values.
Dominic Parker examined the trade-offs of both market-driven and mandate approaches to environmental policies. He explained that there are cases in which mandates have proved effective, but that their policy outcomes should be analyzed with a nuanced perspective.
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Hoover director Condoleezza Rice introduced the conference by recalling the institution’s long history of researching environmental policy issues.
Rice explained how the imitable George P. Shultz was a pioneer in advancing environmental solutions. In partnership with Tom Stephenson, former chair of the Hoover Board of Overseers, the late secretary of state formed a task force dedicated to identifying pragmatic policies aimed at strengthening America’s energy security while providing environmental protection.
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February 14, 2023 Hoover Institution | Stanford University
Join the Hoover Book Club for engaging discussions with leading authors on the hottest policy issues of the day. Hoover scholars explore the latest books that delve into some of the most vexing policy issues facing the United States and the world. Find out what makes these authors tick and how they think we should approach our most difficult challenges.
In our latest installment, watch a discussion between Senior Fellow Terry Moe and Hoover Fellow Michael Hartney, author of How Policies Make Interest Groups: Governments, Unions, and American Education on Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 10:00 am PT / 1:00pm ET.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Michael Hartney is a Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and an assistant professor of political science at Boston College. Hartney’s scholarly expertise is in American politics and public policy with a focus on state and local governments, interest groups, and K–12 education politics and policy. His work has been published in top academic journals such as the American Political Science Review and the American Journal of Political Science and received press coverage in the Economist, New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. Hartney has also written for popular outlets including City Journal, Education Next, National Review, and the Washington Post.
ABOUT THE BOOK A critical, revelatory examination of teachers unions' rise and influence in American politics. As most American labor organizations struggle for survival and relevance in the twenty-first century, teachers unions appear to be an exception. Despite being all but nonexistent until the 1960s, these unions are maintaining members, assets—and political influence. As the COVID-19 epidemic has illustrated, today’s teachers unions are something greater than mere labor organizations: they are primary influencers of American education policy. How Policies Make Interest Groups examines the rise of these unions to their current place of influence in American politics. Michael Hartney details how state and local governments adopted a new system of labor relations that subsidized—and in turn, strengthened—the power of teachers unions as interest groups in American politics. In doing so, governments created a force in American politics: an entrenched, subsidized machine for membership recruitment, political fundraising, and electoral mobilization efforts that have informed elections and policymaking ever since. Backed by original quantitative research from across the American educational landscape, Hartney shows how American education policymaking and labor relations have combined to create some of the very voter blocs to which it currently answers. How Policies Make Interest Groups is trenchant, essential reading for anyone seeking to understand why some voices in American politics mean more than others.
February 6, 2023 Hoover Institution | Stanford University
A Hoover History Working Group Seminar with Beatrice de Graaf.
Beatrice de Graaf illuminates how, long before economic considerations set in motion the creation of the European Union, collective European security provided the first impulse for the integration of European norms and institutions.
After Napoleon's defeat in 1815, Europe’s victorious powers sought to forestall the reemergence of war and revolutionary terror by establishing the Allied Council. The Council transformed interstate relations into the first, modern system of collective security in Europe. Drawing on the records of the Council and the correspondence of key figures such as Metternich, Castlereagh, Wellington, and Alexander I, Beatrice de Graaf tells the story of Europe's transition from concluding a war to consolidating a new order.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER Beatrice de Graaf is a historian and a security researcher. She studies the emergence of and threats to European security arrangements from the 19th century until the present. Her book Fighting Terror after Napoleon: How Europe Became Secure after 1815, won the 2022 Arenberg Prize for European History. She is currently working on a translation of her latest book, Radical Redemption: What Terrorists Believe In, which combines testimony, history, psychology, politics and theology to understand how the search for radical personal redemption can lead to violence. Beatrice is a member of The Netherlands Academy of Sciences and of the Academia Europaea. She is the editor of Terrorism and Political Violence, as well as of the Journal of Modern European History. She is also a fellow at the Program on Extremism and the ISIS Files Project at George Washington University.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM The Hoover History Working Group aims to conduct and disseminate historical research on issues of national and international concern, and provide concrete recommendations on the basis of research and discussion. The mission of the Hoover Institution Library & Archives is to collect, preserve, and make available the most important materials about global political, social, and economic change in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We serve as a platform for a vibrant community of scholars and a broad public interested in the meaning and role of history.
January 27, 2023
Hoover Institution | Stanford University
A Hoover History Working Group Seminar with Margaret O’Mara.
The Hoover History Working Group hosted a seminar on The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America on Friday, January 27, 2023 from 12:00 pm - 1:20 pm PT.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER Margaret O’Mara is the Scott and Dorothy Bullitt Professor of American History at the University of Washington. She writes and teaches about the growth of the high-tech economy, the history of American politics, and the connections between the two. Margaret is the author of two acclaimed books on the history of the modern technology industry: The Code (2019) and Cities of Knowledge: Cold War Science and the Search For The Next Silicon Valley (2005). She also is a historian of the American presidency and author of Pivotal Tuesdays: Four Elections that Shaped the Twentieth Century (2015), as well as a coauthor of the widely used United States history textbook, The American Pageant. From 1993 to 1997, she served in the Clinton Administration as an economic and social policy aide in the White House and in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
ABOUT THE TALK Margaret O’Mara chronicles how entrepreneurship, venture capital, and state and federal funding transformed Silicon Valley into a crucible of American economic dynamism. She explores the rise of each era’s key companies and their products, as well as their changing relationship with government, including the slow evolution of computing capabilities as an issue of national security and economic competitiveness.
A Hoover History Working Group Seminar with Jon Davis.
Jon Davis puts the recent gyrations in the prime minister’s office in historical perspective, analyzing how various prime ministers since the postwar era have exercised authority. Rather than being entirely autocratic or collective in style, prime ministers continuously adjust their decision-making approach within their cabinets. This framework helps shine a light on the dysfunction that plagued successive British governments after the 2016 Brexit referendum, and that dysfunction's acceleration following the COVID-19 pandemic.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER Jon Davis is Director of the Strand Group at King's College London. Before joining King’s, Prof. Davis spent a total of eighteen years at Queen Mary, University of London, and rose to be Director of the Mile End Group (2004-2014), overseeing more than 100 increasingly high-profile events over more than a decade. Major project partnerships included those with No. 10 Downing Street and the Treasury. Davis worked for five years in investment banking at JP Morgan, Banque Paribas and Hambros Bank, and spent the year 2000 in the Modernising Government Secretariat of the Cabinet Office.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM The Hoover History Working Group aims to conduct and disseminate historical research on issues of national and international concern, and provide concrete recommendations on the basis of research and discussion.
Click the following link for more information https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/history-working-group
The mission of the Hoover Institution Library & Archives is to collect, preserve, and make available the most important materials about global political, social, and economic change in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We serve as a platform for a vibrant community of scholars and a broad public interested in the meaning and role of history.
January 25, 2023 Hoover Institution | Stanford University
In recognition of National School Choice Week (January 22-28, 2023), the Hoover Institution held an in-person panel discussion on the Past, Present and Future of School Choice on Wednesday, January 25, 2023 from 11:00 am - 12:00 pm PT.
The event was moderated by Condoleezza Rice, the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution, and featured a virtual interview with Mitch Daniels, the former President of Purdue University and former Governor of Indiana, as well as a school choice research roundtable discussion featuring Paul E. Peterson, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Anna J. Egalite, Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution, and Patrick J. Wolf, distinguished professor of education policy and endowed chair in school choice at the University of Arkansas.
FEATURED SPEAKERS Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. is the former president of Purdue University and the former governor of Indiana. During his tenure as governor, Indiana went from bankruptcy to a AAA credit rating, led the nation in infrastructure building, and passed sweeping education reforms, including the nation’s first statewide school choice voucher program. Prior to becoming governor, Daniels held numerous top management positions in both the private and public sectors. His was CEO of the Hudson Institute and president of Eli Lilly and Company’s North American Pharmaceutical Operations. He also has served as chief of staff to Senator Richard Lugar, senior advisor to President Ronald Reagan and director of the Office of Management and Budget under President George W. Bush.
Anna J. Egalite is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership, Policy, and Human Development in the College of Education at North Carolina State University and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. She holds a Ph.D. in Education Policy from the University of Arkansas, a masters in elementary education from the University of Notre Dame, and a bachelors in elementary education and history from St. Patrick’s College in Dublin, Ireland.
Paul E. Peterson is the Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Government and director of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University; a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University; and the senior editor of Education Next: A Journal of Opinion and Research. He received his PhD in political science from the University of Chicago.
Patrick J. Wolf is a distinguished professor of education policy and endowed chair in school choice at the University of Arkansas. He received his doctorate in government from Harvard University in 1995 and previously taught at Columbia and Georgetown. Wolf has authored or coauthored nearly two hundred scholarly publications on school choice, public finance, public management, special education, and civic values.
MODERATED BY Condoleezza Rice is the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution and its Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy. She is also a founding partner of Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, an international strategic consulting firm. From 2005 to 2009, Rice served as the sixty-sixth secretary of state of the United States, the second woman and first African American woman to hold the post. Rice also served as assistant to the president for National Security Affairs for President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005, the first woman to hold this position.
A Hoover History Working Group Seminar with Nicholas Mulder.
Mulder’s first book, The Economic Weapon, is a history of the interwar origins of economic sanctions, arguing that sanctions were a potent but unstable and unpredictable political tool whose importance to the crisis of the 1930s and 1940s is greater than usually assumed. Based on wartime blockade practices, sanctions offered a novel way to prevent war. The practice became embedded in the League of Nations and national state policy, and spurred new economic interventions, as well as anti-liberal bids for autarky.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERNicholas Mulder is assistant professor of history at Cornell University, as well as a Milstein Faculty Fellow. His research focuses on Europe’s political, economic, and intellectual history, with particular attention to the era of the world wars between 1914 and 1945. Most recently, he has also emerged as one of the leading commentators on the use of sanctions against Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.
Click here to read Nicholas Mulder’s Wall Street Journal article, “Don’t Expect Sanctions to Win the Ukraine War.”
ABOUT THE PROGRAMThis talk is part of the History Working Group Seminar Series. A central piece of the History Working Group is the seminar series, which is hosted in partnership with the Hoover Library & Archives. The seminar series was launched in the fall of 2019, and thus far has included six talks from Hoover research fellows, visiting scholars, and Stanford faculty. The seminars provide outside experts with an opportunity to present their research and receive feedback on their work. While the lunch seminars have grown in reputation, they have been purposefully kept small in order to ensure that the discussion retains a good seminar atmosphere.
The Hoover Institution and The Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) host In the Nation’s Service: The Life and Times of George P. Shultz - A Conversation with Condoleezza Rice and Philip Taubman on Wednesday, January 11, 2023 from 6:30 PM - 7:30 PM PT.
ABOUT THE BOOK
The definitive biography of a distinguished public servant, who as US Secretary of Labor, Secretary of the Treasury, and Secretary of State, was pivotal in steering the great powers toward the end of the Cold War.Deftly solving critical but intractable national and global problems was the leitmotif of George Pratt Shultz's life. No one at the highest levels of the United States government did it better or with greater consequence in the last half of the 20th century, often against withering resistance. His quiet, effective leadership altered the arc of history. While political, social, and cultural dynamics have changed profoundly since Shultz served at the commanding heights of American power in the 1970s and 1980s, his legacy and the lessons of his career have even greater meaning now that the Shultz brand of conservatism has been almost erased in the modern Republican Party.This book, from longtime New York Times Washington reporter Philip Taubman, restores the modest Shultz to his central place in American history. Taubman reveals Shultz's gift for forging relationships with people and then harnessing the rapport to address national and international challenges, under his motto "trust is the coin of the realm"—as well as his difficulty standing up for his principles, motivated by a powerful sense of loyalty that often trapped him in inaction. Based on exclusive access to Shultz's personal papers, housed in a sealed archive at the Hoover Institution, In the Nation's Service offers a remarkable insider account of the behind-the-scenes struggles of the statesman who played a pivotal role in unwinding the Cold War.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Condoleezza Rice is the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution and its Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy. She is also a founding partner of Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, an international strategic consulting firm. From 2005 to 2009, Rice served as the sixty-sixth secretary of state of the United States, the second woman and first African American woman to hold the post. Rice also served as assistant to the president for National Security Affairs for President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005, the first woman to hold this position.
Philip Taubman is a lecturer at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation. Before joining CISAC, Mr. Taubman worked at the New York Times as a reporter and editor for nearly 30 years, specializing in national security issues and serving as Moscow bureau chief and Washington bureau chief. He is the author of The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban the Bomb (2012) and Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage (2003). He is a Stanford graduate.
December 20, 2022Hoover Institution | Stanford University
Join the Hoover Book Club for engaging discussions with leading authors on the hottest policy issues of the day. Hoover scholars explore the latest books that delve into some of the most vexing policy issues facing the United States and the world. Find out what makes these authors tick and how they think we should approach our most difficult challenges.
In our latest installment, watch a discussion between Bill Whalen, the Virginia Hobbs Carpenter Distinguished Policy Fellow in Journalism and Russ Roberts, the John and Jean De Nault Research Fellow and author of Wild Problems: A Guide to the Decisions That Define Uson Tuesday, December 20, 2022 at 10AM PT/1:00PM ET.
Join the Hoover Book Club for engaging discussions with leading authors on the hottest policy issues of the day. Hoover scholars explore the latest books that delve into some of the most vexing policy issues facing the United States and the world. Find out what makes these authors tick and how they think we should approach our most difficult challenges.
In our latest installment, watch a discussion between Bill Whalen, the Virginia Hobbs Carpenter Distinguished Policy Fellow in Journalism and Adele Hayutin who is an Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow and author of the Hoover Press Book New Landscapes of Population Change: A Demographic World Touron Tuesday, December 6, 2022 at 10AM PT/1:00PM ET.
The modern university was born in Germany. In the twentieth century, the United States leapfrogged Germany to become the global leader in higher education. Will China challenge its position in the twenty-first?Empires of Ideas looks to the past two hundred years for answers, chronicling two revolutions in higher education: the birth of the research university and its integration with the liberal education model. William C. Kirby examines the successes of leading universities―The University of Berlin and the Free University of Berlin in Germany; Harvard, Duke, and the University of California, Berkeley, in the United States―to determine how they rose to prominence and what threats they currently face. Kirby draws illuminating comparisons to the trajectories of three Chinese contenders: Tsinghua University, Nanjing University, and the University of Hong Kong, which aim to be world-class institutions that can compete with the best the United States and Europe have to offer.But Chinese institutions also face obstacles. Kirby analyzes the challenges that Chinese academic leaders must confront: reinvesting in undergraduate teaching, developing new models of funding, and navigating a political system that may undermine a true commitment to free inquiry and academic excellence.
In his presentation, Dino Knudsen talks about how elite networks such as the Trilateral Commission relates to global and national governance, including how the Commission influenced the White House and the State Department in the 1970s.
Monday, October 17, 2022 Hoover Institution | Stanford University
Hoover Institution (Stanford University) – Before a full crowd of mostly students in the Hoover Institution's Hauck Auditorium, Secretary of State Antony Blinken engaged in a conversation with his predecessor Condoleezza Rice on a broad spectrum of issues impacting the security and prosperity of the United States and like-minded partners, including aggression by Russia and China against the post–Cold War security architecture, and how the free world can best grapple with challenges resulting from the rapid pace of technological innovation.
During the program, which was introduced by former secretary of defense James Mattis, Blinken reflected on the Biden administration's new national security strategy. As Blinken explained, the document underscores the importance of deterring Russian aggression, especially regarding Russia's ongoing assault on Ukraine.
Blinken said that although the Biden administration had hoped, in the tradition of its predecessors, for a stable and predictable relationship with Russia, President Vladimir Putin has been, and continues to be, a major disruptor in Eastern Europe and more broadly to international security.
In response to a question by Secretary Rice as to why Americans should care about wars that occur in faraway lands rather than place one hundred percent focus on matters of more immediate domestic concern, Blinken said that international rules and norms would be seriously undermined if a large country could with impunity redraw borders by force and subjugate a sovereign people against their will.
In upholding the liberal order, he argued that, although international institutions are far from perfect, they have been integral to helping prevent global conflict. As an example, he pointed to the UN General Assembly's overwhelming rebuke of Russia's annexations of Ukrainian territory.
"An extraordinary thing happened, 143 countries around the world stood up in opposition to the annexations, a sham referendum that Russia had used as justification," Blinken said. "That in and of itself is a powerful indicator of where the world actually is now on Russian aggression."
Blinken also explained how Beijing has challenged the liberal order that emerged at the end of the Cold War, as well as the nature of the Sino-American relationship that was forged half a century ago during rapprochement. He maintained that although there are adversarial features of the relationship that need to be managed, they shouldn't overshadow areas of cooperation in which the two nations can reap benefits for the global commons.
These issues include climate change and proliferation of infectious diseases. Of the former, Blinken explained that the United States is only as strong as the world's weakest link. Americans are responsible for 15 percent of global emissions. Using diplomatic tools at its disposal, the US needs to work with China and other major countries throughout the world to do their part in reducing greenhouse gases. Similarly, Blinken said, without singling out any one nation for mishandling their response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the world depends on a more coordinated public health response between the US and China to mitigate the deadly effects of infectious diseases, which are unconstrained by borders.
Blinken is, however, concerned by the detrimental effects of Beijing's aggression toward Taiwan. A conflict over Taiwan would cause an enormous global crisis—not least because of the enormous volume of commercial maritime traffic that passes through the strait, but also because of the disruption it would cause to semiconductor production, which industries and consumers across the world rely on as an essential component for various electronic devices and computing systems.
"I hope Beijing will come back to a place where it actually sees the merits in making sure that differences are peacefully resolved [and] that it doesn't try to force things through coercion, [or] even worse, through force," Blinken said.
Blinken described how the United States is present in international consortiums that establish norms that govern technology. He said that for the State Department, being at the table means that US leadership, in partnership with nations with a shared commitment to peace and prosperity, can help formulate technology policies that respect privacy, protect human rights, and bolster security. To this end, he says, Foggy Bottom has been active in the US-EU Trade and Technology Council to ensure the two major economic powers are closely aligned on areas ranging from export controls and investments made by foreign actors in industries impacting national security, to the fortification of critical supply chains, including the development of semiconductors.
Blinken maintains that these and other frameworks in which the US is actively involved are intended not only to increase technological competitiveness, but to do so in a manner that isn't to the detriment of any one nation, or to workforces, the natural environment, or ownership of intellectual property.
"Competition, when it's fair and it's a race to the top, is good. That's what our own system is all about," Blinken said.
In support of American competitiveness, Blinken also emphasized the importance of increasing America's capacity for innovation on the home front. He hailed the recent passage of the CHIPS Act, which facilitated funds for research and development as well as manufacturing to overcome the scarcity of the much-coveted semiconductor technology. He also praised investments made in green innovation under the Inflation Reduction Act.
Blinken explained that this year, in a matter of six months, the State Department established a bureau of cyber and digital policy under the leadership of former tech executive Nathaniel Fick, who was present at the Hoover event today.
Blinken also maintained that Washington and Silicon Valley needed to continue to engage effectively. In an appeal to his Stanford audience, Blinken said that the diplomatic community needed more talent to better understand technology and to support ways that it can be used to foster peace and prosperity.
"I am here to proselytize too," Blinken said, amusingly. "We want you. We need you at the department. This is an opportunity to pursue so many of the things you've been studying, working on, or are passionate about, but to do so, for those of you that are American, for your country."
In addition to the conversation with Secretary Rice, Secretary Blinken also visited SLAC, and attended a Stanford student recruitment event with Ambassador-at-Large Fick, hosted by Stanford Law School (SLS) Dean Jenny Martinez on behalf of the Cyber Policy Center, a collaboration between SLS and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. The event included approximately 100 students for a conversation about STEM career opportunities at the U.S. State Department.
The Hoover Institution hosted The Avoidable US-China War – A Conversation with Dr. Condoleezza Rice and Kevin Rudd on Thursday, October 6, 2022 from 4:30 - 5:30PM PT.
A war between China and the US would be catastrophic, deadly, and destructive. Unfortunately, it is no longer unthinkable.
Join the Hoover Institution and Asia Society Northern California for a special conversation with former Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice and former Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd on Thursday, October 6 at 4:00pm Pacific. At his only Northern California-based event, Rudd talks with Dr. Rice who heads Hoover Institution about his new book ‘The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict between the U.S. and Xi Jinping’s China.’
The relationship between the US and China, the world’s two superpowers, is peculiarly volatile. It rests on a seismic fault—of cultural misunderstanding, historical grievance, and ideological incompatibility. No other nations are so quick to offend and be offended. Their militaries play a dangerous game of chicken, corporations steal intellectual property, intelligence satellites peer, and AI technicians plot. The capacity for either country to cross a fatal line grows daily.
The Avoidable War demystifies the actions of both sides, explaining and translating them for the benefit of the other. Geopolitical disaster is still avoidable, but only if these two giants can find a way to coexist without betraying their core interests through what Rudd calls “managed strategic competition.” Should they fail, down that path lies the possibility of a war that could rewrite the future of both countries, and the world.
Join the Hoover Book Club for engaging discussions with leading authors on the hottest policy issues of the day. Hoover scholars explore the latest books that delve into some of the most vexing policy issues facing the United States and the world. Find out what makes these authors tick and how they think we should approach our most difficult challenges.
In our latest installment, we will feature a discussion between former Senator Phil Gramm, John Early and John B. Taylor the George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Economics at the Hoover Institution on Senator Gramm's and Mr. Early's latest book The Myth of American Inequality: How Government Biases Policy Debate co-authored by Robert Ekelund.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Senator Phil Gramm is an economist by training and has had a long and distinguished career in public service, academia and the private sector. Senator Gramm was the vice chairman of UBS Investment Bank, where he provided strategic economic, political and policy advice to important corporate and institutional clients. He served in the US Congress representing Texas for more than two decades, first as the 6th congressional district representative to the US House of Representatives, then later as senator. His legislative record includes landmark bills like the Gramm-Latta Budget – which reduced federal spending, rebuilt national defense and mandated the Reagan tax cut – and the Gramm-Rudman Act, which placed the first binding constraints on federal spending. As chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Sen. Gramm steered legislation modernizing banking, insurance and securities laws. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act amended the 70-year-old Glass-Steagall Act, allowing banks, security companies and insurance companies to affiliate through a financial services holding company. Sen. Gramm taught economics at Texas A&M University for 12 years before becoming a member of Congress. He has published numerous articles and books on subjects ranging from private property, monetary theory and policy to the economics of mineral extraction. As a visiting scholar at AEI, he will be working on a comprehensive plan to fix the US economy through reform of the tax code and entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare.
John F. Early is a mathematical economist, president of the consultancy Vital Few, LLC, and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. Early has also served twice as assistant commissioner at the Bureau of Labor Statistics where he directed the statistical design, economic analysis, and survey operations for the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES), Point of Purchase Survey (POPS), and estimates of pre‐retail price changes.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Everything you know about income inequality, poverty, and other measures of economic well-being in America is wrong. In this provocative book, a former United States senator, eminent economist, and a former senior leader at the Bureau of Labor Statistics challenge the prevailing consensus that income inequality is a growing threat to American society. By taking readers on a deep dive into the way government measures economic well-being, they demonstrate that our official statistics dramatically overstate inequality. Getting the facts straight reveals that the key measures of well-being are greater than the official statistics of the country would lead us to believe. Income inequality is lower today than at any time in post- World War II America. The facts reveal a very different and better America than the one that is currently described by policy advocates across much of the political spectrum. The Myth of American Inequality provides clear and convincing evidence that the American Dream is alive and well.
Watch a discussion between Barry Strauss, the Corliss Page Dean Visiting Fellow and Victor Davis Hanson the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow on Barry's latest book The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian at Actium.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Barry Strauss is the Corliss Page Dean Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Strauss (Cornell University) is a military historian with a focus on ancient Greece and Rome. His Battle of Salamis: The Naval Encounter That Saved Greece—and Western Civilization was named one of the best books of 2004 by the Washington Post. His books have been translated into ten languages.
ABOUT THE BOOK
A “splendid” (The Wall Street Journal) account of one of history’s most important and yet little-known wars, the campaign culminating in the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, whose outcome determined the future of the Roman Empire.
Following Caesar’s assassination and Mark Antony’s defeat of the conspirators who killed Caesar, two powerful men remained in Rome—Antony and Caesar’s chosen heir, young Octavian, the future Augustus. When Antony fell in love with the most powerful woman in the world, Egypt’s ruler Cleopatra, and thwarted Octavian’s ambition to rule the empire, another civil war broke out. In 31 BC one of the largest naval battles in the ancient world took place—more than 600 ships, almost 200,000 men, and one woman—the Battle of Actium. Octavian prevailed over Antony and Cleopatra, who subsequently killed themselves.
The Battle of Actium had great consequences for the empire. Had Antony and Cleopatra won, the empire’s capital might have moved from Rome to Alexandria, Cleopatra’s capital, and Latin might have become the empire’s second language after Greek, which was spoken throughout the eastern Mediterranean, including Egypt.
In this “superbly recounted” (The National Review) history, Barry Strauss, ancient history authority, describes this consequential battle with the drama and expertise that it deserves. The War That Made the Roman Empire is essential history that features three of the greatest figures of the ancient world.
Tuesday, May 17, 2022 Hauck Auditorium | Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Institution hosts India's Opportunities in the 2020s on Tuesday, May 17, 2022 from 6:00PM – 7:00PM PT in Hauck Auditorium at the David & Joan Traitel Building at the Hoover Institution.
You are cordially invited to a special event marking the launch of the Hoover Institution's new program on Strengthening US-India Relations India's Opportunities in the 2020s A Dialogue between Condoleezza Rice Tad and Dianne Taube Director, Hoover Institution, and N. Chandrasekaran Chairman, Tata Sons, with questions to follow.
SPEAKERS Condoleezza Rice is the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution and the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy. In addition, she is a founding partner of Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, an international strategic consulting firm. Rice served as the sixty-sixth secretary of state of the United States (2005-2009) and as President George W. Bush’s national security adviser (2001 to 2005).
Natarajan Chandrasekaran is Chairman of the Board at Tata Sons, the holding company and promoter of all Tata Group companies. Chandra joined the Board of Tata Sons in October 2016 and was appointed Chairman in January 2017. He also chairs the Boards of several group operating companies, including Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Tata Power, Air India, Tata Chemicals, Tata Consumer Products, Indian Hotel Company and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) – of which he was Chief Executive from 2009-17.
Hoover Institution, Stanford University July 21, 2022
This chapter examines the Chinese private paper money from the Qing into the early Republic. I argue that both state and civil institutions were crucial for the integrity of China’s paper notes. The state did not actively support paper notes, but nonetheless upheld a legal regime that honored the sanctity of contracts. For their part, business associations acted as gatekeepers, allowing only financially sound firms to issue notes. These privately issued notes thus circulated through the rural marketing system, stitching together neighboring agrarian and commercial economies far better than unwieldy copper coins.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Matthew Lowenstein studies the economic history of modern China from the late imperial period to the early People’s Republic. His dissertation, which he is currently turning into a book, is a study of northern China’s indigenous financial system from the late Qing to the early Republican period (1820–1911). He received his PhD in history from the University of Chicago and an MBA from Columbia Business School. Lowenstein previously worked as a securities analyst in Beijing and New York covering the Chinese financial sector. His nonacademic works have appeared in the Diplomat and Foreign Policy.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
This talk is part of the History Working Group Seminar Series. A central piece of the History Working Group is the seminar series, which is hosted in partnership with the Hoover Library & Archives. The seminar series was launched in the fall of 2019, and thus far has included six talks from Hoover research fellows, visiting scholars, and Stanford faculty. The seminars provide outside experts with an opportunity to present their research and receive feedback on their work. While the lunch seminars have grown in reputation, they have been purposefully kept small in order to ensure that the discussion retains a good seminar atmosphere.
Thursday, July 7, 2022 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Institution Library & Archives presents the Fanning the Flames Speaker Series. This twelfth and final session is moderated by Kaoru (Kay) Ueda, Curator of the Japanese Diaspora Collection. The event will feature a video screening of “A Virtual Exhibition Tour of Fanning the Flames: Propaganda in Modern Japan.” For the first time we will reveal to our virtual audience a view of the physical exhibition, located in the Lou Henry Hoover gallery at Hoover Tower, Stanford University. Dr. Ueda will also be joined by Library & Archives colleagues to talk about the processes involved with developing exhibitions like Fanning the Flames. Join us on July 7, 2022 (Thursday) at 4:00 pm PDT | 7:00 pm EDT (60 minutes).
To learn more about the accompanying book (edited by Kay Ueda, curator of the Japanese Diaspora Collection at Hoover) and to see past events, videos, and highlights, please visit our interactive online exhibition website, Fanning the Flames: Propaganda in Modern Japan. Please also visit our exhibition, now open through July 15, in Hoover Tower at Stanford University. For complete details please visit our exhibition web page.
PARTICIPANT BIO
Kaoru (Kay) Ueda is the curator of the Japanese Diaspora Collection at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives. She curated many of the materials used in the Fanning the Flames book and exhibition. Ueda manages the Japanese Diaspora Initiative, endowed by an anonymous gift to promote the study of overseas Japanese history during the Empire of Japan period. She is the editor of On a Collision Course: The Dawn of Japanese Migration in the Nineteenth Century (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2020).
Tuesday, June 28, 2022 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Institution hosts a Fireside Chat with Secretary DeVos and Secretary Rice on Tuesday, June 28 from 5:15 - 6:00PM PT.
In this timely discussion, DeVos will provide her candid thoughts about serving as Secretary of Education, her battles to put students first, the urgent need to transform America’s approach to education to meet the realities of the 21st century, and the dangers of "woke" ideology being force-fed to our kids. She will explain why she believes we are on the verge of finally shifting the balance of power in education in America to expand parental authority and put the unique needs of each individual student first.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Condoleezza Rice is the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution and the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy. From January 2005 to 2009, Rice served as the sixty-sixth Secretary of State of the United States, the second woman and first African American woman to hold the post. Rice also served as President George W. Bush’s Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (National Security Advisor) from January 2001 to January 2005, the first woman to hold the position.
Betsy DeVos is a leader, an innovator, a disruptor, and a champion for freedom. She is the nation’s leading advocate for education freedom for students of all ages, having served as the 11th U.S. Secretary of Education from 2017-2021. For more than three decades, she has been tireless in her pursuit of public policy reforms that get government out of the way and allow all students the freedom, flexibility, resources and support they need to choose where, when and how they learn. Her advocacy has helped create new educational choices for K-12 students in more than 25 states and the District of Columbia and expanded post-high school education options for students and adult learners alike. Betsy is also an accomplished business leader. She served as Chairman of The Windquest Group, a privately held investment and management firm based in Michigan. She is the former chair of the American Federation for Children, The Philanthropy Roundtable, and the Michigan Republican Party. Betsy is a graduate of Calvin College and is married to entrepreneur, philanthropist and community activist Dick DeVos. Together, they have four children and ten grandchildren.
Long before she was tapped by President Trump to serve as secretary of education, DeVos established herself as one of the country’s most influential advocates for education reform, from school choice and charter schools to protecting free speech on campus. She’s unflinching in standing up to the powerful interests who control and benefit from the status quo in education – which is why the unions, the media, and the radical left made her public enemy number one. Now, DeVos is ready to tell her side of the story after years of being vilified by the radical left for championing common-sense, conservative reforms in America’s schools.
In Hostages No More, DeVos unleashes her candid thoughts about working in the Trump administration, recounts her battles over the decades to put students first, hits back at “woke” curricula in our schools, and details the reforms America must pursue to fix its long and badly broken education system. And she has stories to tell: DeVos offers blunt insights on the people and politics that stand in the way of fixing our schools. For students, families and concerned citizens, DeVos shares a roadmap for reclaiming education and securing the futures of our kids – and America.
Wednesday, June 22, 2022 Virtual Meeting The Hoover Institution Economic Policy Working Group invites you to a panel discussion, California Homelessness: New Policies to Address an Intractable Problem, with Lee Ohanian, Kevin Kiley, and Michael Shellenberger.
This virtual event brings together three experts on California’s homelessness crisis to focus on understanding why this problem continues to worsen, despite spending record amounts every year, and on how alternative policies will reduce homelessness and more broadly improve the quality-of-life for all Californians.
The event will be structured as a panel discussion, moderated by Hoover Senior Fellow Lee E. Ohanian, who writes frequently about California homelessness in his weekly Hoover column, “California on Your Mind”. His columns focus on understanding why the more we spend, the more homeless we have, and how we must change policies, ranging from opioid abuse tolerance to affordable housing business costs, to make progress.
Assemblyman Kevin Kiley (R, Rocklin) is one of our panelists, and who is one of the state legislators who created the Republican Legislative Caucus’s plan consisting of 15 new bills to address homelessness. These ideas range from conducting data analytics to understand just who the homeless are, where they live, and how many have mental health and substance abuse problems, to reforming existing state laws to reduce the cost of building new housing, which currently exceeds $1,000 per square foot for cookie-cutter studio apartment units. Kevin is one of the young leaders within the Republican party. He has fought continuously to reverse AB 5, which makes it illegal for some Californians to work as an independent contractor, and he has written several commonsense Assembly bills to reduce living costs in the state, including suspending the State’s gasoline tax to address our extremely high gasoline prices.
Gubernatorial candidate and author Michael Shellenberger is our other panelist. Michael’s recent book San Fransicko: Why Progessives Ruin Cities has been on the bestseller list since its publication last year. The book powerfully and persuasively describes how well-intentioned policies, such as San Francisco’s willingness to tolerate illegal drug use and its refusal to prosecute drug-related crimes is damaging the city beyond recognition.
A review summarized the book’s theme as follows:
Progressives have embraced 'victimology,' a belief system wherein society’s downtrodden are subject to no rules or consequences for their actions. This ideology, cultivated in cities like San Francisco for decades and widely adopted over the past two years, is the key to understanding, and thus solving, our crises of homelessness, drug overdoses and crime.
This unique event will highlight how and why California has gone off track in addressing one of California’s most important issues and will show how California can constructively and humanely address this issue with new ideas. The first hour will be devoted to the panel discussion, followed by 15-20 minutes of Q&A.
Join the Hoover Book Club for engaging discussions with leading authors on the hottest policy issues of the day. Hoover scholars explore the latest books that delve into some of the most vexing policy issues facing the United States and the world. Find out what makes these authors tick and how they think we should approach our most difficult challenges.
In our latest installment, watch a discussion with Terry Anderson who is the John and Jean De Nault Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.
A discussion with Terry Anderson on his latest book, Renewing Indigenous Economies moderated by Bill Whalen at 10AM PT/1:00PM ET.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Terry L. Anderson has been a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution since 1998 and is currently the John and Jean De Nault Senior Fellow. He is the past president of the Property and Environment Research Center in Bozeman, MT, and a Professor Emeritus at Montana State University where he won many teaching awards during his 25-year career.
ABOUT THE BOOK
The history of Indigenous economies in the Americas presents a puzzle: When Europeans first encountered Indigenous peoples, they discovered societies with high standards of living, vast trading networks, and flourishing markets. But colonizers changed the rules of the game, and by the twentieth century, most Indians had been forced onto reservations and saddled with institutions inimical to their customs and cultures, and incompatible with wealth creation.
As a result of being wrapped in the federal government’s “white tape,” these once thriving societies are today impoverished and dependent. This volume charts a course for reversing the decline in Indigenous economies and establishing a path to prosperity based on secure tribal property rights, clear jurisdiction and governance, and fiscal and financial power. It explains how the rules of the game promote or hinder the development of wealth; gives an overview of institutional conditions in Indian Country today; and identifies improvements with significant potential to renew Indian economies. Both data and contemporary stories of success and failure illustrate how revitalizing institutional frameworks can restart the engine of economic growth to generate business and employment, raise living standards in Indian communities, and, most importantly, restore the dignity Native Americans once had and still deserve.
Juneteenth celebration focusing on the themes of education, celebration, and strengthening relationships.
Tuesday, May 31, 2022
On behalf of Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region, and its National Security Task Force the Hoover Institution invites you to Taiwanese at the UN: The Use and Abuse of UN Resolution 2758 on Tuesday, May 31, 2022 from 11:30am-12:45pm PDT.
In 1971, UN Resolution 2758 granted the seat occupied by the Republic of China in the General Assembly and the Security Council to the People's Republic of China (PRC). In recent years, the PRC has attempted to reinterpret this resolution as an endorsement of its "One China Principle," and it has promoted the fallacy that UN member states came to a determination that Taiwan was a part of the PRC. Yet, as the historical official records show, member states made no such determination about Taiwan's international status.
This effort around Resolution 2758 is part of a broader campaign by the PRC to expand its influence in UN-affiliated bodies. Taiwan remains the foremost target of this campaign. Since 2016, at Beijing's behest, Taiwanese representatives have been blocked from participating even as observers in international organizations such as the World Health Assembly (WHA) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The PRC has institutionalized and normalized its stance on Taiwan within these organizations by signing secret agreements, restricting the access of Taiwan nationals to the UN and its facilities, and embedding PRC nationals across various levels of UN staff. The UN and its specialized agencies have not made the texts of these agreements available to the public or to any entity beyond the main signatories, though leaked guidance memos provide insights into the scope of MOU contents.
In this event, Jessica Drun will discuss Beijing’s efforts to “internationalize” its “One China Principle" and to conflate it with UN Resolution 2758. Her remarks will draw on a recent report, co-authored with Bonnie Glaser of the German Marshall Fund, that documents Beijing’s expanding influence in UN-linked organizations. She will be joined by Chih-Fu Yeh, a PhD candidate in biology at Stanford University, who in December 2020 was improperly barred from joining a UNESCO-backed winter school session because of his Taiwanese nationality. Mr. Yeh will describe his own experience and highlight how overly strict interpretations of UN regulations and guidelines continue to impose real costs on Taiwanese citizens.
SPEAKER BIOS
Jessica Drun is a Nonresident Fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub. She has also held positions in the defense contracting space and the National Bureau of Asian Research. Ms. Drun specializes in cross-Strait relations, Taiwan politics, and U.S.-Taiwan relations and regularly provides commentary on these issues. She is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.
Chih-Fu Yeh is a PhD candidate studying microbial community ecology and evolution in Department of Biology at Stanford University. He was born and raised in Taiwan. In Winter 2020, Chih-Fu applied to a ICTP/UNESCO winter school session on quantitative systems biology, and was denied permission to attend the event because of his Taiwanese nationality.
Kharis Templeman is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and part of the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific. Templeman is a political scientist (Ph.D. 2012, Michigan) with research interests in Taiwan politics, democratization, elections and election management, party system development, dominant party systems, and politics and security issues in Pacific Asia, among other topics.
Thursday, May 26, 2022 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Dan Sullivan in conversation with Condoleezza Rice on Thursday, May 26, 2022 at 2:00 PM ET.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Dan Sullivan serves on the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee; the Armed Services Committee; the Environment and Public Works Committee; and the Veterans' Affairs Committee. He previously served as Alaska’s Attorney General and Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources. He also served as the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Economic, Energy, and Business under Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He is currently a Colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve.
Condoleezza Rice is the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution and the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy. From January 2005 to 2009, Rice served as the sixty-sixth Secretary of State of the United States, the second woman and first African American woman to hold the post. Rice also served as President George W. Bush’s Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (National Security Advisor) from January 2001 to January 2005, the first woman to hold the position.
Tuesday, May 17, 2022 Hauck Auditorium | Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Institution hosts India's Opportunities in the 2020s on Tuesday, May 17, 2022 from 6:00PM – 7:00PM PT in Hauck Auditorium at the David & Joan Traitel Building at the Hoover Institution.
You are cordially invited to a special event marking the launch of the Hoover Institution's new program on Strengthening US-India Relations India's Opportunities in the 2020s A Dialogue between Condoleezza Rice Tad and Dianne Taube Director, Hoover Institution, and N. Chandrasekaran Chairman, Tata Sons, with questions to follow.
SPEAKERS
Condoleezza Rice is the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution and the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy. In addition, she is a founding partner of Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, an international strategic consulting firm. Rice served as the sixty-sixth secretary of state of the United States (2005-2009) and as President George W. Bush’s national security adviser (2001 to 2005).
Natarajan Chandrasekaran is Chairman of the Board at Tata Sons, the holding company and promoter of all Tata Group companies. Chandra joined the Board of Tata Sons in October 2016 and was appointed Chairman in January 2017. He also chairs the Boards of several group operating companies, including Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Tata Power, Air India, Tata Chemicals, Tata Consumer Products, Indian Hotel Company and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) – of which he was Chief Executive from 2009-17.
Wednesday, April 27, 2022 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Institution hosts Book Talk: Hitler’s American Gamble on Wednesday, April 27, 2022 at 11 am PDT.
The Hoover Institution Library & Archives and History Working Group invite you to a book talk with co-authors, Brendan Simms, director of the Centre for Geopolitics at the University of Cambridge and Charlie Laderman, Hoover research fellow and senior lecturer at King’s College, London. Simms and Laderman will discuss their book, Hitler's American Gamble: Pearl Harbor and Germany's March to Global War (Hachette Book Group, 2021). This event will be moderated by Niall Ferguson, Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard.
PARTICIPANT BIOS
Dr. Charlie Laderman is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and senior lecturer in international history at the War Studies Department, King’s College, London (KCL). His first monograph, Sharing the Burden (Oxford University Press, 2019), explored the American and British response to the Armenian Genocide. It was awarded the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era’s H. Wayne Morgan Prize in political history.
Brendan Simms is the director of the Centre for Geopolitics and professor of the History of European International Relations at the University of Cambridge. He is an expert on European geopolitics, past and present, and his principal interests are the German Question, Britain and Europe, Humanitarian Intervention and state construction. He teaches at both undergraduate and graduate level in the Department of Politics and International Studies and the Faculty of History.
Niall Ferguson, MA, D.Phil., is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard, where he served for twelve years as the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History. He is the author of sixteen books, including The Pity of War, The House of Rothschild, Empire, Civilization, and Kissinger, 1923–1968: The Idealist, which won the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Prize.
Thursday, April 28, 2022 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Join the Hoover Book Club for engaging discussions with leading authors on the hottest policy issues of the day. Hoover scholars explore the latest books that delve into some of the most vexing policy issues facing the United States and the world. Find out what makes these authors tick and how they think we should approach our most difficult challenges.
In our latest installment, watch a discussion with Hoover National Fellow Shiran Victoria Shen, author of The Political Regulation Wave: A Case of How Local Incentives Systematically Shape Air Quality in China,moderated by Bill Whalen on Thursday, April 28 at 10AM PT/1:00PM ET.
Tuesday, April 26, 2022 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Ro Khanna, Buno Pati, and John Villasenor in conversation on Tuesday, April 26, 2022 at 10:00 AM PT/1:00 PM ET.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Congressman Ro Khanna represents California’s 17th Congressional District, located in the heart of Silicon Valley. Rep. Khanna sits on the House Agriculture, Armed Services, and Oversight and Reform committees, where he chairs the Environmental Subcommittee and is the Deputy Whip of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, serves as an Assistant Whip for the Democratic Caucus, and is the Democratic Vice Chair of the House Caucus on India and Indian Americans.
Buno Pati is CEO of Infoworks.io. The company’s software solutions are enabling enterprise organizations to fully leverage their data assets and realize faster time-to-value in the cloud. Prior to assuming the role of CEO in 2019, Pati held Executive Chairman and Chairman roles at the company from its inception in 2014. Pati brings over 20 years of experience as a CEO, entrepreneur, board member, and investor in technology companies. Pati is also a partner at Centerview Capital.
John Villasenor is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and is also on the faculty at UCLA, where he is a professor of electrical engineering, public policy, law, and management. Villasenor’s work considers the technology, policy, and legal issues arising from key technology trends, including the growth of artificial intelligence and the increasing complexity and interdependence of today’s networks and systems.
Tuesday, April 12, 2022 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Join the Hoover Book Club for engaging discussions with leading authors on the hottest policy issues of the day. Hoover scholars explore the latest books that delve into some of the most vexing policy issues facing the United States and the world. Find out what makes these authors tick and how they think we should approach our most difficult challenges.
In our latest installment, watch a discussion with Bruce Caldwell, editor of Mont Pèlerin 1947: Transcripts of the Founding Meeting of the Mont Pèlerin Society, published by the Hoover Institution Press and John B. Taylor the George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Economics at the Hoover Institution. The discussion is moderated by Bill Whalen, the Virginia Hobbs Carpenter Distinguished Policy Fellow in Journalism, and a Hoover Institution research fellow.
ABOUT THE EDITOR Bruce Caldwell was a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. A historian of economic thought, he is a research professor of Economics and the founder and director of the Center for the History of Political Economy at Duke University. His latest works is as the editor of Mont Pèlerin 1947: Transcripts of the Founding Meeting of the Mont Pèlerin Society, published by the Hoover Institution Press.
ABOUT THR BOOK Marking the 75th anniversary of the first meeting of the Mont Pèlerin Society, in 1947, this volume presents for the first time the original transcripts from this landmark event. The society was created by Friedrich Hayek as a forum for leading economists and intellectuals to discuss and debate classical liberal values in the face of a rapidly changing world and political trends toward socialism. Bruce Caldwell, a major scholar of Hayek, provides an informative introduction and explanatory notes to the source documents, drawn from the Hoover Institution Library & Archives, where they have been available to scholars. Now accessible to all, the transcripts reveal what was said on a wide range of topics, including free markets, monetary reform, wage policy, taxation, agricultural policy, the future of Germany, Christianity, and liberalism, and more. They provide insights into the thinking of men such as Hayek, Milton Friedman, Aaron Director, Frank Knight, Walter Eucken, Karl Popper, and other leading figures in the classical liberalism movement, illuminating not only their ideas but also their distinctive personalities. A photo section shows rarely seen images from the meeting.
Hoover Fellow Jackie Schneider follows up on your questions about the danger of cyberattacks from her PolicyEd video.
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In your video you point out that cyberattacks haven’t yet led to physical harm, but is that always going to be the case? We’re moving to a world with the “internet of things.” What sort of vulnerabilities might occur in the future that could lead to actual harm?
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Can you paint a picture for us on what active cyber warfare would look like from both civilian and military perspectives? If we were to enter a conflict with state actors like Russia, China or Iran, what would their cyberattacks look like?
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How can the public recognize foreign interference in cyberspace, especially misinformation campaigns? And do you have advice for how people can better protect themselves?
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Should we be worried about the government collaborating with private companies on the issue of cybersecurity? Are there privacy concerns that outweigh potential benefits?
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In your video, you mention “pre-emptively degrading” the capabilities of our adversaries in cyberspace. Why isn’t that treated as an act of war or at least a source of conflict in international relations? And what does that look like?
Click to watch the original video, “How Dangerous Are Cyberattacks?”
Tuesday, March 22, 2022 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Institution and Japan Society of Northern California host US Japan Global Dialogue on Tuesday, March 22, 2022 from 12:30pm - 7:30pm PT.
In a rapidly changing Indo-Pacific region, Japan remains America’s core ally, Asia’s most stable democracy, and the world’s third-largest economy. The US-Japan alliance is poised to enter a new era and expand its focus to cooperate on next-generation technology, development issues, civil society development, and maintenance of security. The Hoover Institution’s US-Japan Global Dialogue explores the future of this critical relationship. The dialogue launched on March 22, 2022 (United States) / March 23, 2022 (Japan) with a private, one-day hybrid conference hosted by the Hoover Institution. Attendees included both US and Japanese senior government officials, eminent scholars, and leading private-sector actors.
The conference began with a lunch hosted by the Hoover Institution and the Japan Society of Northern California followed by a panel discussion with Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), Japanese ambassador to the United States Koji Tomita, and former US ambassador to Japan John Roos in discussion with LTG (ret.) H. R. McMaster, moderated by Dr. Michael Auslin. It also included a Hoover Institution Library & Archives exhibit Histories Connect: Special Exhibitions of Japanese and Japanese American Collections with Dr. Kaoru (Kay) Ueda, Curator of the Japanese Diaspora Collection.
Later in the day, a closed hybrid conference covered the following topics: 1) improving security cooperation between the United States and Japan and with other partners; 2) deepening economic and financial cooperation; 3) deepening cooperation in the development and application of new technologies; and 4) protecting liberal values and democratic sovereignty in Asia and beyond. At the conference, one American and one Japanese expert each presented short papers on each topic.
PARTICIPANT BIOS H.E. Tomita, Koji Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to the United States of America Ambassador Tomita’s diplomatic career in the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) spans 40 years. Most recently, he served as Japan’s Ambassador to Korea, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Personal Representative for the G20 Summit in Osaka, and Ambassador to Israel. His relationship with the United States began when he studied in North Carolina for a year in college. Since he entered MOFA, he has also held leadership positions in U.S.-Japan relations, including Director-General of MOFA’s North American Affairs Bureau and Deputy Chief of Mission at the Embassy of Japan in Washington, D.C. Ambassador Tomita graduated from the University of Tokyo, Faculty of Law and joined Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1981.
United States Senator Bill Hagerty Senator Hagerty was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2020 and is currently serving his first term representing the state of Tennessee. His committee assignments include: U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, & Urban Affairs; U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations; U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations; and the U.S. Senate Committee on Rules & Administration. Prior to his election to the U.S. Senate, Hagerty served as the U.S. Ambassador to Japan, the world’s third largest economy and America’s closest ally in the region. Hagerty is a life-long businessman. He started his business career with the Boston Consulting Group, where his work took him to five continents, including three years based in Tokyo, Japan.
Ambassador John V. Roos John V. Roos is the Founding Partner at Geodesic Capital, a venture capital firm that bridges Japan and Silicon Valley by investing in growth-stage technology companies and helping them with market entry, strategy, and overall operational support in Japan. Previously, Ambassador Roos served as Chief Executive Officer and Senior Partner at Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich, & Rosati, the leading law firm in the United States in the representation of technology, life sciences, and emerging growth companies. From 2014-2020 Ambassador Roos served on the Board of Sony Corporation From 2009-2013 Ambassador Roos served as the United States Ambassador to Japan. Ambassador Roos received his A.B. with honors in Political Science from Stanford University and a J.D. from Stanford Law School.
LTG (ret.) H.R. McMaster H. R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is also the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and lecturer at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. He serves as the Japan Chair at the Hudson Institute and Chairman of the Center for Political and Military Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracy. He was the 26th assistant to the president for National Security Affairs. McMaster served as a commissioned officer in the United States Army for thirty-four years after graduation from West Point. He holds a PhD in military history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is author of Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World and Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Lies that Led to Vietnam. He is host of the podcast Battlegrounds: International Perspectives on Crucial Challenges to Security and Prosperity.
Michael Auslin Michael Auslin is the Payson J. Treat Distinguished Research Fellow in Contemporary Asia at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. A historian by training, he specializes in US policy in Asia and geopolitical issues in the Indo-Pacific region. Auslin is the author of six books, including Asia’s New Geopolitics: Essays on Reshaping the Indo-Pacific and is a longtime contributor to the Wall Street Journal and National Review. Auslin also cohosts the podcast The Pacific Century. Previously, Auslin was an associate professor of history at Yale University, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, the senior advisor for Asia at the Halifax International Security Forum, a senior fellow at London’s Policy Exchange, and a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Among his honors are being named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, a Fulbright Scholar, and a German Marshall Fund Marshall Memorial Fellow. He serves on the board of the Wilton Park USA Foundation.
Friday, March 18, 2022 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
In his latest book, Roger Lowenstein investigates not only how Lincoln and his secretary of Treasury, Salmon P. Chase, funded the Civil War. He also explores how Lincoln’s financial strategy catalyzed a long-lasting political and economic transformation of the United States.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER Roger Lowenstein is a financial historian, the author of NYT bestsellers such as Buffett, When Genius Failed, and The End of Wall Street, and the critically acclaimed Origins of the Crash, While America Aged, and America’s Bank. He previously reported for The Wall Street Journal for more than a decade, and his work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The New York Times, the Washington Post, Fortune, Atlantic, the New York Review of Books, and other publications.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM This talk is part of the History Working Group Seminar Series. A central piece of the History Working Group is the seminar series, which is hosted in partnership with the Hoover Library & Archives. The seminar series was launched in the fall of 2019, and thus far has included six talks from Hoover research fellows, visiting scholars, and Stanford faculty. The seminars provide outside experts with an opportunity to present their research and receive feedback on their work. While the lunch seminars have grown in reputation, they have been purposefully kept small in order to ensure that the discussion retains a good seminar atmosphere.
Wednesday, March 16, 2022 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Project on China’s Global Sharp Power invites you to "Cadre Country: How China became the Chinese Communist Party" on Wednesday, March 16, 2022, at 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm PT.
China’s communist party regards itself as engaged in a global information war. In his new book, Cadre Country, historian John Fitzgerald probes some of the key stories the party tells to advance its cause. In this talk, he focuses on one story that resonates in China and internationally, China’s ‘Century of Humiliation.’ Where does this term come from, when it is deployed, and why?
SPEAKER John Fitzgerald is an Emeritus Professor at the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. He served for five years as China Representative of The Ford Foundation in Beijing (2008-2013) before heading the Asia-Pacific philanthropy studies program at Swinburne University. His books include Big White Lie: Chinese Australians in White Australia, awarded the Ernest Scott Prize of the Australian Historical Association, and Awakening China: Politics, Culture and Class in the Nationalist Revolution, awarded the Joseph Levenson Prize of the US Association for Asian Studies. His latest book is Cadre Country: How China became the Chinese Communist Party (2022).
MODERATOR Glenn Tiffert is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a historian of modern China. He co-chairs the Hoover project on China’s Global Sharp Power and works closely with government and civil society partners to document and build resilience against authoritarian interference with democratic institutions. Most recently, he co-authored and edited Global Engagement: Rethinking Risk in the Research Enterprise (2020).
Wednesday, March 16, 2022
The Hoover Institution hosts Wargaming: Its History, Application, and Future Use on February 16, February 23, and March 16, 2022.
The March 16 session discusses how wargames impact national security and defense decision making and whether social science methods can inform these kinds of games.
SPEAKERS
Mr. Bob Work was the thirty-second Deputy Secretary of Defense, serving alongside three Secretaries of Defense from May 2014 to July 2017.
Dr. Micah Zenko is the Director of Research and Learning, McChrystal Group.
Dr. Stacie Pettyjohn a Senior Fellow and Director of the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS).
Tuesday, March 15, 2022 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Institution Program on Strengthening US-India Relations invites you to a virtual panel discussion on The Strategic Value of India on Tuesday, March 15, 2022 from 9:00AM – 10:00AM PT.
How should the US approach India? For much of the twentieth century, the relationship between the US and India could best be described as uneasy. Over the past two decades the countries have worked together to strengthen this relationship, mostly along cultural and economic lines. In this event, three leading experts make the case that the US must also recognize the strategic importance of India. Deeper relations between the two countries—and possibly even preferential treatment from the US side—could advance prosperity and peace.
SPEAKERS David C. Mulford is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. He served as the twenty-first U.S. ambassador to the Republic of India from 2004–2009. After completing his post in India, Mulford served as the vice chairman international at Credit Suisse where he worked with a range of clients across the integrated bank with a particular focus on governments, as well as corporate clients, across the globe. Mulford was undersecretary and assistant secretary of the US Treasury for International Affairs from 1984 to 1992. He served as the senior international economic policy official at the Treasury under Secretaries Regan, Baker, and Brady where he was the US deputy for coordination of economic policies with other G-7 industrial nations and took part in the administration’s international debt strategy, and the development and implementation of the Baker / Brady Plans, and President Bush’s Enterprise Initiative for the Americas.
Kenneth I. Juster is a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has over forty years of experience as a senior government official, senior business executive, and senior law partner. He recently completed service as the twenty-fifth U.S. ambassador to the Republic of India from 2017–2021. Juster previously served in the U.S. government as deputy assistant to the president for international economic affairs, on both the National Security Council and the National Economic Council, undersecretary of commerce, counselor (acting) of the State Department, and deputy and senior advisor to Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger.
MODERATED BY Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor, by courtesy, of political science and sociology at Stanford. He leads the Hoover Institution’s programs on China’s Global Sharp Power and on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region. At FSI, he leads the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy, based at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, which he directed for more than six years. He also coleads (with Eileen Donahoe) the Global Digital Policy Incubator based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center.
Tuesday, March 8, 2022 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
To celebrate International Women’s Day, please join us for a conversation with Katharine Beamer, Jendayi Frazer, Condoleezza Rice, and Kiron Skinner on March 8 from 3:00 - 4:30PM PT. Moderated by Jacquelyn Schneider, the group will discuss their experiences when working at the State Department and their roles in affecting change in America’s foreign policy through diplomacy and advocacy on the national and global stage. We celebrate the women who increasingly influence and shape the priorities, rules, and assessments of U.S. foreign policymaking.
Tuesday, March 8, 2022 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Join the Hoover Book Club for engaging discussions with leading authors on the hottest policy issues of the day. Hoover scholars explore the latest books that delve into some of the most vexing policy issues facing the United States and the world. Find out what makes these authors tick and how they think we should approach our most difficult challenges.
A discussion with Tim Kane on his latest book, The Immigrant Superpower moderated by Bill Whalen on Tuesday, March 8 at 10AM PT/1:00PM ET.
Friday, March 4, 2022 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
It should come as no surprise that history is at the heart of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russian President Vladmir Putin in July of last year argued as much in his essay, “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians.” But few if any Ukrainian or Western historians regard Putin’s argument as anything other than propaganda. Join us for a Historical Conversation with two distinguished scholars as we explore the end of the Cold War, NATO expansion, the rise of Vladmir Putin, and the events leading to today’s conflict.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Mary Sarotte is the Kravis Distinguished Professor at Hopkins-SAIS, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a visiting faculty fellow at Harvard’s Center for European Studies. She is the author of Not One Inch, which uses new evidence and interviews to show how, in the decade that culminated in Vladimir Putin’s rise to power, the United States and Russia undermined a potentially lasting partnership.
Chris Miller is Assistant Professor of international history at The Fletcher School at Tufts University and co-director of the school's Russia and Eurasia Program. His upcoming book, Chip War, explores how Soviet shortcomings in microchip production helped usher the end of the Cold War. He is author of We Shall Be Masters: Russia's Pivots to East Asia from Peter the Great to Putin (2021), Putinomics: Power and Money in Resurgent Russia(2018) and The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy (2016).
ABOUT THE MODERATOR Niall Ferguson is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. He is the author of sixteen books, including Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe. He is a renowned historian of finance, war, and international relations, having written The Pity of War, The House of Rothschild, Empire, Civilization, and Kissinger, 1923–1968: The Idealist, which won the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Prize.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM This talk is part of the History Working Group Seminar Series. A central piece of the History Working Group is the seminar series, which is hosted in partnership with the Hoover Library & Archives. The seminar series was launched in the fall of 2019, and thus far has included six talks from Hoover research fellows, visiting scholars, and Stanford faculty. The seminars provide outside experts with an opportunity to present their research and receive feedback on their work. While the lunch seminars have grown in reputation, they have been purposefully kept small in order to ensure that the discussion retains a good seminar atmosphere.
Thursday, March 3, 2022 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Institution Technology, Economics, and Governance Working Group invites you to a virtual discussion on Antitrust & the Future of Big Tech on Thursday, March 3, 2022 from 9:00 am - 10:00 am Pacific.
It’s no secret that the Biden administration and 117th Congress are targeting Big Tech. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are pursuing legislation that targets the market power amassed by companies including Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. Leaders at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division–key enforcement agencies–are also aligned against Big Tech; the FTC is actively prosecuting a lawsuit against Facebook for monopoly behavior.
Joe Lonsdale, Managing Partner at 8VC and Co-Founder of Palantir, joins us virtually to discuss how antitrust law may impact high-tech firms’ size and sway. He recently proposed in a February 7, 2022 Wall Street Journal article that Amazon should be split into two businesses – AWS and Amazon.com – not because big is “bad,” but because Amazon’s ability to undercut its competitors with below-cost prices may stifle the scope and speed of innovation in areas like logistics. We hope you will join us to learn more about what antitrust advocates are getting right, what they are getting wrong, and the potential impact of breaking up Big Tech.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER Joe Lonsdale is a technology entrepreneur and investor. He is the managing partner at 8VC, a US-based venture capital firm that manages several billion dollars in committed capital. He was an early institutional investor in many notable technology start-ups including Oculus (acq.FB), Guardant Health (NASDAQ: GH), Oscar (NYSE: OSCR), Illumio, Anduril, Wish (NASDAQ: WISH), JoyTunes, Blend (NASDAQ: BLND), Flexport, Joby Aviation (NASDAQ: JOBY), Cityblock, Orca Bio, Qualia, Synthego, RelateIQ (acq.CRM), and many others. Joe has been on the Forbes 100 Midas List since 2016 and was the youngest member included in 2016 and 2017, and ranked 18th in the world last year.
Before focusing on institutional investing, Joe co-founded Palantir (NASDAQ: PLTR) a global software company known for its work in defense and other industries, as well as for providing the platform to run the COVID-19 common operating picture for key decision makers in over 35 countries. After Palantir, he founded and remains as Chairman of both Addepar, which has over $3 trillion USD managed on its wealth management technology platform, and OpenGov, which provides software for over 2,000 municipalities and state agencies. More recently, he is also a co-founder of Affinity, Epirus, Resilience Bio, and other mission-driven technology companies, which he continues to create with his team out of the 8VC Build program. Joe began his career as an early executive at Clarium Capital, which he helped grow into a large global macro hedge fund. He also worked with PayPal while he attended Stanford.
PARTICIPANTS
Bradley Body, Mark Brilliant, Tom Gilligan, Taylor McLamb, Max Meyer, Elena Pastorino, Meghana Reddy, Manny Rincon-Cruz, Marie-Christine Slakey, John Taylor, Amy Zegart
Freedom Isn’t Free takes an analytical look at political, economic, social and moral trade-offs in a world in flux.
Wednesday, February 23, 2022
The Hoover Institution hosts Wargaming: Its History, Application, and Future Use on February 16, February 23, and March 16, 2022.
The February 23 session focuses on a discussion about wargame design and analysis and the role of social science and experimental research in wargame development.
The Hoover Institution invites you to join leading historians, political scientists, and national security decision-makers as they discuss the role that wargames that have played in international relations, how social science can help guide wargame design and analysis, and the future applications of wargames for policy problems and academic research. Based off the recently published article, "Wargaming for International Relations," the series is moderated by authors, Dr. Jackie Schneider, Hoover Fellow, Hoover Institution, Dr. Reid Pauly, Brown University, and Dr. Erik Lin-Greenberg, MIT.
Tuesday, February 22, 2022 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Institution hosts Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: A Conversation with Amy Zegart and Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday, February 22 from 3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. PT.
Please join us for a conversation with Amy Zegart as part of her tour with her new book Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence. The conversation will be moderated by Director Condoleezza Rice with an introduction by Michael McFaul.
“Today we face a critical juncture for American spy agencies, as big as 9/11 — only most people don’t know it,” says Amy B. Zegart, one of the country’s leading experts on intelligence and a professor at Stanford University. “New dangers come from tech, not terrorists. Emerging technologies like AI and social media are weakening the strong and empowering the weak, fundamentally changing dynamics of international conflict. To be blunt: The U.S. is losing its intelligence advantage.”
To help us better understand these looming threats, Zegart has written Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence (Princeton University Press; February 1, 2022). It’s the first comprehensive book on the past, present, and future of American intelligence—and outlines what’s urgently needed to protect our nation today. The book draws on over thirty years of research (including new research just for this book) and hundreds of interviews with current and former intelligence officials.
Weak intelligence makes us more vulnerable to attacks on our power grids, water supply, elections, corporate network servers, and nuclear weapons. Helping the American public better understand these evolving threats is crucial.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Amy Zegart is the Morris Arnold and Nona Jean Cox Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford University. She is also a Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Chair of Stanford’s Artificial Intelligence and International Security Steering Committee, and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. She specializes in U.S. intelligence, emerging technologies and national security, grand strategy, and global political risk management. The author of five books, Zegart’s award-winning research includes the leading academic study of intelligence failures before 9/11 — Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11 (Princeton 2007). Her forthcoming book, Spies, Lies, and Algorithms (Princeton 2022) examines technological challenges to American intelligence. Zegart’s research has been published in The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. She has served on the NSC staff, advised senior officials about intelligence and foreign policy, and most recently served as a commissioner on the 2020 CSIS Technology and Intelligence Task Force. She received an A.B. in East Asian studies magna cum laude from Harvard University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University.
Condoleezza Rice is the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution and its Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy. She is also a founding partner of Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, an international strategic consulting firm. Rice currently serves on the board of online-storage technology company Dropbox, energy software company C3, and Makena Capital, a private endowment firm; and is a member of the boards of the George W. Bush Institute, the Commonwealth Club, the Aspen Institute, and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. Previously, Rice served on various additional boards, including those of KiOR Inc., the Chevron Corporation, the Charles Schwab Corporation, the Transamerica Corporation, the Hewlett-Packard Company, the University of Notre Dame, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,and the San Francisco Symphony Board of Governors. From 2005 to 2009, Rice served as the sixty-sixth secretary of state of the United States, the second woman and first African American woman to hold the post. Rice also served as assistant to the president for National Security Affairs for President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005, the first woman to hold this position.
Michael A. McFaul is the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution as well as a professor of political science, director and senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He also currently works as a news analyst for NBC. His areas of expertise include international relations, Russian politics, comparative democratization, and American foreign policy. From January 2012 to February 2014, he served as the US ambassador to the Russian Federation. Before becoming ambassador, he served for three years as a special assistant to the president and senior director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council.
Thursday, February 17, 2022 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Peter Meijer in conversation with Michael McFaul on Thursday, February 17, 2022 at 1:00 PM ET.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Peter Meijer represents Michigan’s Third Congressional District. He served in the Army Reserves and was deployed to Iraq as a non-commissioned officer conducting intelligence operations to protect American and allied forces. In Congress, Meijer serves on the Homeland Security, Foreign Affairs, and Space, Science & Technology Committees.
Michael A. McFaul is the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution as well as a professor of political science, director and senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. From January 2012 to February 2014, he served as the US ambassador to the Russian Federation. Before that, he served for three years as a special assistant to the president and senior director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council.
Monday, February 7, 2022 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Institution hosts Talking about Trade: Prospects and Challenges in U.S.-Taiwan Economic Ties on Monday, February 7, 2022 at 10:00 a.m. PT.
U.S.-Taiwan economic ties are at a crossroads. In 2020, President Tsai Ing-wen lifted a ban on U.S. pork imports containing the feed additive ractopamine, removing a long-standing irritant in trade relations with the United States. Last summer, the Biden administration held bilateral talks with their Taiwan counterparts under the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) for the first time since 2016. In more recent months, the two sides have begun additional discussions about strengthening the resilience of global supply chains, including the supply of one of Taiwan’s most strategically important exports: semiconductors. In this discussion, Wendy Cutler of the Asia Society will comment on these developments and the prospects for deepening U.S.-Taiwan economic relations in a moderated conversation with Hoover Research Fellow Kharis Templeman.
Tuesday, February 1, 2022 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Join the Hoover Book Club for engaging discussions with leading authors on the hottest policy issues of the day. Hoover scholars explore the latest books that delve into some of the most vexing policy issues facing the United States and the world. Find out what makes these authors tick and how they think we should approach our most difficult challenges.
A discussion with Amy B. Zegart on her latest book, Spies, Lies, and Algorithms moderated by Bill Whalen on Tuesday, February 1st at 10AM PT/1:00PM ET.
Monday, January 31, 2022 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Project on China’s Global Sharp Power invites you to China on the Eve of the Winter Olympics: Hard Choices for the World’s Democracies on Monday, January 31, 2022 from 10:00 am - 11:30 am PT.
As China prepares to host the Winter Olympics, its economy is slowing, its real estate sector is in crisis, and its push for regional dominance is alarming its neighbors. At the 20th Party Congress this October, Xi Jinping is expected to win a third term as China’s ruler. What do these developments portend for China and the world, and how should the United States respond?
SPEAKERS George Soros is the founder of Soros Fund Management and the founder and chair of the Open Society Foundations. He began his philanthropic work in 1979 with scholarships for Black African university students in South Africa and for East European dissidents to study in the West. He has given away more than $32bn to advance rights and justice across the world.
Matt Pottinger is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. Pottinger served the White House for four years in senior roles on the National Security Council staff, including as deputy national security advisor from 2019 to 2021. In that role, he coordinated the full spectrum of national security policy. He previously served as senior director for Asia, where he led the administration’s work on the Indo-Pacific region, in particular its shift on China policy.
Oriana Skylar Mastro is a center fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University where her research focuses on Chinese military and security policy, war termination, and coercive diplomacy. She is also a non-resident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Dr. Skylar Mastro continues to serve in the United States Air Force Reserve for which she works as a strategic planner at INDOPACOM. She holds a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University.
MODERATOR Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He co-chairs the Hoover Institution’s programs on China’s Global Sharp Power and on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region.
INTRODUCTION Glenn Tiffert is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a historian of modern China. He co-chairs the Hoover project on China’s Global Sharp Power and works closely with government and civil society partners to document and build resilience against authoritarian interference with democratic institutions. Most recently, he co-authored and edited Global Engagement: Rethinking Risk in the Research Enterprise (2020).
WITH PARTICIPATION FROM Orville Schell is the Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at Asia Society and former dean and professor at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Schell is the author of ten books about China, including most recently Wealth and Power: China’s Long March to the Twenty-first Century (2013).
Friday, January 21, 2022 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Diem Coup, in November 1963, resulted in the overthrow and assassination of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem. The coup caused great instability and led to the deployment of the first U.S. Marines to the beaches of Danang in March 1965, paving the way for full-blown American military involvement in Vietnam. The history of the coup, including the leading role of U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., was established through the dramatic leak of the Pentagon Papers in 1971. After more than 50 interviews with Lodge’s former colleagues, Luke Nichter began to challenge the coup’s conventional history, ultimately uncovering a secret recording of Kennedy and Lodge from August 15, 1963, transcribed and made public for the first time, which shifts our understanding of the coup’s origin.
Luke A. Nichter is a Professor of History and James H. Cavanaugh Endowed Chair in Presidential Studies at Chapman University. His area of specialty is the Cold War, the modern presidency, and U.S. political and diplomatic history, with a focus on the "long 1960s" from John F. Kennedy through Watergate. He is a noted expert on Richard Nixon's 3,432 hours of secret White House tapes, and a New York Times bestselling author or editor of seven books, the most recent of which is The Last Brahmin: Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. and the Making of the Cold War.
Luke’s next book project, under contract with Yale University Press, is tentatively titled The Making of the President, 1968: Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Richard Nixon, George Wallace, and the Election that Changed America, for which he was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for 2020-2021. The book draws on interviews with approximately 85 family members and former staffers, in addition to extensive archival research involving first-time access to a number of key collections that will recast our understanding of the 1968 election.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM This talk is part of the History Working Group Seminar Series. A central piece of the History Working Group is the seminar series, which is hosted in partnership with the Hoover Library & Archives. The seminar series was launched in the fall of 2019, and thus far has included six talks from Hoover research fellows, visiting scholars, and Stanford faculty. The seminars provide outside experts with an opportunity to present their research and receive feedback on their work. While the lunch seminars have grown in reputation, they have been purposefully kept small in order to ensure that the discussion retains a good seminar atmosphere.
Monday, December 6, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Join the Hoover Book Club for engaging discussions with leading authors on the hottest policy issues of the day. Hoover scholars explore the latest books that delve into some of the most vexing policy issues facing the United States and the world. Find out what makes these authors tick and how they think we should approach our most difficult challenges.
In our latest installment, watch a discussion with Stephen Haber who is the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and an editor ofThe Battle over Patents: History and Politics of Innovation.Stephen is joined by contributors; Alexander Galetovic (Hoover Research Fellow) and Gerardo Con Diaz (former Hoover National Fellow).
A discussion with Stephen Haber on his latest book, The Battle over Patents: History and Politics of Innovation moderated by Bill Whalen on Monday, December 6 at 10AM PT/1:00PM ET.
Friday, December 3, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Michael Douma will be sharing a chapter from his new book on the cultural and economic history of Dutch slavery in New York. There is a long-established view that slavery in New York was neither efficient nor profitable, or perhaps only marginally profitable in its early years. And yet for two hundred years New Yorkers paid to acquire slaves to be put to labor for profit, not just to serve as household decoration. There were some 22,000 slaves in New York across the 18th century who could speak Dutch. Using novel archeological, bills of sale, newspaper, and probate records, the chapter demonstrates that slavery was a long-term investment in New York and that the prices of slaves remained stable over the long run.
Michael Douma is assistant research professor at Georgetown University, where he serves as the Director of the Georgetown Institute for the Study of Markets and Ethics. His research focuses on 19th century US history, the Dutch world, and the philosophy and methods of history. He is the author of The Colonization of Freed African Americans in Suriname, Veneklasen Brick: The Liberal Approach to the Past, and Creative Historical Writing.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM This talk is part of the History Working Group Seminar Series. A central piece of the History Working Group is the seminar series, which is hosted in partnership with the Hoover Library & Archives. The seminar series was launched in the fall of 2019, and thus far has included six talks from Hoover research fellows, visiting scholars, and Stanford faculty. The seminars provide outside experts with an opportunity to present their research and receive feedback on their work. While the lunch seminars have grown in reputation, they have been purposefully kept small in order to ensure that the discussion retains a good seminar atmosphere.
Wednesday, December 1, 2021 Hauck Auditorium | Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Institution hosts The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III on Wednesday, December 1, 2021 from 6:00 PM - 7:00 PM PT in Hauck Auditorium, at the Hoover Institution.
Please join the Hoover Institution's Working Group on the Role of Military History in Contemporary Conflict for a talk with Andrew Roberts, author of The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III. The discussion is hosted by Hoover Senior Fellow, Victor Davis Hanson. Please RSVP by November 29, 2021.
Most Americans dismiss George III as a buffoon: a heartless and terrible monarch with few, if any, redeeming qualities (picture the preening, spitting, and pompous version in Hamilton). But in 2017, the Queen of England put 200,000 pages of the Georgian kings’ private papers online, about half of which related to George III, and these papers have forced a full-scale reinterpretation of the king’s life and reign. Roberts, an award-winning investigative historian (Churchill, Napoleon), had unprecedented access to these archives. The result is the first biography of King George III in fifty years, and the definitive one for our generation. The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III will reverse this maligned monarch’s reputation, showing that George III was in fact a wise, humane, and even enlightened monarch who was beset by talented enemies, debilitating mental illness, incompetent ministers, and disastrous luck.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andrew Roberts is the bestselling author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny; Leadership in War The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War; Masters and Commanders: How Four Titans Won the War in the West, 1941-1945; Waterloo: Napoleon's Last Gamble; and Napoleon: A Life, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for biography and a finalist for the Plutarch Award. He has won many other prizes, including the Wolfson History Prize and the British Army Military Book of the Year. He is the Roger and Martha Mertz Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, a Lehrman Institute Distinguished Fellow at the New-York Historical Society, and a visiting professor in the Department of War Studies at King's College, London.
Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution; his focus is classics and military history. Hanson was a National Endowment for the Humanities fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, California (1992–93), a visiting professor of classics at Stanford University (1991–92), the annual Wayne and Marcia Buske Distinguished Visiting Fellow in History at Hillsdale College (2004–), the Visiting Shifron Professor of Military History at the US Naval Academy (2002–3),and the William Simon Visiting Professor of Public Policy at Pepperdine University (2010).
Thursday, November 18, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Senator Joni Ernst in conversation with Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Thursday, November 18, 2021 at 1:00 PM ET.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Senator Joni Ernst is the first woman to serve in federal elected office from the State of Iowa and is also the first female combat veteran elected to serve in the United States Senate. Having served 23 years in the military, Senator Ernst has dedicated her life to her state and country and is known for her independent leadership. Senator Ernst is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and founder of the AHA Foundation. She served as a Member of the Dutch Parliament from 2003 to 2006. While in Parliament, she focused on furthering the integration of non-Western immigrants into Dutch society, and on defending the rights of Muslim women. Her latest book, Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women's Rights,is available on Amazon.
Thursday, November 18, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Join the Hoover Book Club for engaging discussions with leading authors on the hottest policy issues of the day. Hoover scholars explore the latest books that delve into some of the most vexing policy issues facing the United States and the world. Find out what makes these authors tick and how they think we should approach our most difficult challenges.
In the second meeting, watch a discussion with Hoover Fellow Herbert Lin on his latest book, Cyber Threats and Nuclear Weapons, moderated by Bill Whalen on Thursday, November 18th at 10AM PT/1:00PM ET. Please join us at the Hoover DC office or watch our Livestream.
Thursday, October 7, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Join the Hoover Book Club for engaging discussions with leading authors on the hottest policy issues of the day. Hoover scholars explore the latest books that delve into some of the most vexing policy issues facing the United States and the world. Find out what makes these authors tick and how they think we should approach our most difficult challenges.
In this first meeting, watch a discussion with Hoover Senior Fellow Victor Davis Hanson on his latest book, The Dying Citizen: How Progressive Elites, Tribalism, and Globalization Are Destroying the Idea of America,moderated by Bill Whalenon Thursday, October 7th at 10AM PT.
Friday, November 12, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Not one inch. With these words, Secretary of State James Baker proposed a hypothetical bargain to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev after the fall of the Berlin Wall: if you give up your part of Germany, NATO will “not shift one inch eastward.” Controversy erupted almost immediately over this 1990 exchange—but more important was the decade to come, when the words took on new meaning. Gorbachev let his Germany go, but Washington rethought the bargain, not least after the Soviet Union’s own collapse in December 1991. Washington realized it could not just win big but win bigger. Their new approach: Not one inch of territory need be off limits to NATO.
On the thirtieth anniversary of the Soviet collapse, Sarotte uses new evidence and interviews to show how, in the decade that culminated in Vladimir Putin’s rise to power, the United States and Russia undermined a potentially lasting partnership. Not One Inchshows what went wrong.
Please click here to read the introduction to Prof. Sarotte's new book.
An expert in the history of international relations, Mary Sarotte is the Kravis Distinguished Professor at Hopkins-SAIS, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and visiting faculty at Harvard’s Center for European Studies. She is the author, among other books, of The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall and 1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe, both of which were selected as Financial Times Books of the Year, among other distinctions and awards. In the past, she has worked as a journalist at The Economist and Die Zeit, served as a White House Fellow, and held fellowships with the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton.
Norman Naimark is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Robert and Florence McDonnell professor of East European History at Stanford. His current research focuses on Soviet policies and actions in Europe after World War II and on genocide and ethnic cleansing in the twentieth century.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM This talk is part of the History Working Group Seminar Series. A central piece of the History Working Group is the seminar series, which is hosted in partnership with the Hoover Library & Archives. The seminar series was launched in the fall of 2019, and thus far has included six talks from Hoover research fellows, visiting scholars, and Stanford faculty. The seminars provide outside experts with an opportunity to present their research and receive feedback on their work. While the lunch seminars have grown in reputation, they have been purposefully kept small in order to ensure that the discussion retains a good seminar atmosphere.
Monday, October 25, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
In The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Porwancher debunks a string of myths about the origins of this founding father to arrive at a startling conclusion: Hamilton, in all likelihood, was born and raised Jewish. For more than two centuries, his youth in the Caribbean has remained shrouded in mystery. Hamilton himself wanted it that way, and most biographers have simply assumed he had a Christian boyhood. With a detective’s persistence and a historian’s rigor, Porwancher upends that assumption and explores the revolutionary implications of his findings for making sense of the American founding.
Andrew Porwancher serves as the Wick Cary Associate Professor of Constitutional Studies at the University of Oklahoma and an Ernest May Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. His most recent book is The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton. His prior books include The Devil Himself: A Tale of Honor, Insanity, and the Birth of Modern America, which was adapted for the stage in Dublin. He previously served as the Horne Fellow at Oxford and the Garwood Fellow at Princeton.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM This talk is part of the History Working Group Seminar Series. A central piece of the History Working Group is the seminar series, which is hosted in partnership with the Hoover Library & Archives. The seminar series was launched in the fall of 2019, and thus far has included six talks from Hoover research fellows, visiting scholars, and Stanford faculty. The seminars provide outside experts with an opportunity to present their research and receive feedback on their work. While the lunch seminars have grown in reputation, they have been purposefully kept small in order to ensure that the discussion retains a good seminar atmosphere.
Wednesday, October 20, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
One of the earliest casualties of the COVID-related school closures was school accountability for academic results, and many education leaders want it to stay that way. How do we assure families, students and communities that their schools are fully serving their role? What options are possible and which are politically infeasible?
The Hoover Education Success Initiative (HESI) hosts Has school accountability outlived its shelf life? on Wednesday, October 20, 2021 at 1PM PT.
FEATURED PANELISTS Michael Kirst, Stanford University, Panelist: Dr. Kirst is Professor Emeritus of Education and Business Administration (by courtesy) at Stanford. He is the longest-serving President of California’s State Board of Education, having served four terms from 1975 to 1982 and again from 2011 to 2019.
Checker Finn, Hoover Education Success Initiative (HESI), Panelist: Dr. Finn is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and member of HESI’s Steering Committee. He is President Emeritus of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and served as a member of the Maryland State Board of Education.
Secretary James Peyser, State of Massachusetts, Panelist: Secretary Peyser directs the Executive Office of Education in Massachusetts, which oversees early childhood education, K-12, and higher education. He is Governor Charlie Baker’s most senior education advisor. He chaired the MA Board of Education from 1999 to 2006.
MODERATED BY Melanie Barton, Office of Governor McMaster, Moderator: Melanie Barton is senior educator advisor to the Governor of South Carolina. Previously, she served as Executive Director of the South Carolina Education Oversight Committee, an independent nonpartisan committee comprised of education, civic, and business leaders.
The Hoover Education Success Initiative (HESI) focuses on providing state leaders with sound research-based recommendations to improve education in America.
Tuesday, October 19, 2021
Sir Nick Clegg joined Facebook in October 2018 as Vice President of Global Affairs and Communications after almost two decades in British and European public life. Prior to being elected to the UK Parliament in 2005 he worked in the European Commission and served for five years as a Member of the European Parliament. He became leader of the Liberal Democrat party in 2007 and served as Deputy Prime Minister in the UK’s first Coalition Government since the war from 2010 to 2015. He has written two best-selling books: Politics: Between the Extremes and How To Stop Brexit (and make Britain great again). Nick currently lives in California with his wife, Miriam, and three sons.
Topic: A Conversation with Nick Clegg on Global Regulation, Internet Governance, and Oversight Start Time : Oct 19, 2021 10:30 AM PT
Wednesday, October 13, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Until now, education insiders haven't needed a program to identify the players. After school closures, remote learning, hybrid models and other adaptations, COVID has raised awareness of the challenges of US K-12 education as never before. New stakeholders are on the scene and plan to remain.
The Hoover Education Success Initiative (HESI) hosts Who needs to be “in the room where it happens?” to improve US K-12 schools? on Wednesday, October 13, 2021 at 1PM PT.
FEATURED PANELISTS
Margie Vandeven was appointed commissioner of elementary and secondary education by the Missouri State Board of Education in December 2014 and served in that capacity until December 2017. She was reappointed in January 2019. She has over 30 years experience as an educator, administrator, and builder of effective partnerships.
Derrell Bradford is the President of 50CAN: The 50-State Campaign for Achievement Now, and the executive director of its New York branch, NYCAN. In his role, Derrell trains and recruits local leaders across the country to serve as executive directors of state CANs, advocacy fellows, and citizen advocates.
Christina Laster serves as the Director of Policy and Legislation with National Parents Union (NPU). Previously she worked in the San Diego Unified School District-Early Childhood and Special Education Program Offices. She formerly served as Statewide Community Organizer for the California Policy Center and as local NAACP Education Chair.
MODERATED BY
Margaret “Macke” Raymond is the Program Director for Education at the Hoover Institution, guiding the expansion of education research, policy analysis and engagement at the institution. She is also the founder and director of the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University, which studies efforts to improve student results in US K-12 education.
Friday, October 8, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Carter Malkasian will discuss how the American War in Afghanistan turned out the way it did. Based on his new history, The American War in Afghanistan, he will examine the overarching strategic questions of the war: how the United States failed in Afghanistan, what opportunities existed to reach a better outcome, and why the United States simply did not leave. His new book is a timely history, which has been praised as landmark and authoritative. It covers the different aspects and sides of the war, with detailed descriptions of Afghan (including Taliban) perspectives.
Carter Malkasian is a leading academic authority on Afghanistan, a former senior advisor to the US military commander in Afghanistan and then to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. He has extensive experience working in conflict zones, especially Afghanistan and Iraq, and has published several books. The highlight of his work in conflict zones was nearly two years in Garmser district, Helmand province, Afghanistan, as a State Department political officer. He speaks Pashto.
In addition to The American War in Afghanistan, he is the author of War Comes to Garmser: Thirty Years of Conflict on the Afghan Frontier, and Illusions of Victory: The Anbar Awakening and the Rise of the Islamic State.
Nearly three decades have been spent promoting school choice as a vehicle for improved academics and equity. COVID introduced new urgency into the need for options to meet the needs of students. Can school choice carry the day?
The Hoover Education Success Initiative (HESI) hosts Can we choose our way to better schools? on Wednesday, October 6, 2021 at 1PM PT.
FEATURED PANELISTS
Starlee Coleman is the CEO of the Texas Charter Schools Association. She has 20 years of experience turning public policy ideas into laws. Through strategic public affairs and PR campaigns, grassroots engagement, and coalition development, Starlee has contributed to the passage of dozens of bills in state legislatures, Congress, and at the ballot box. Before joining the Texas Charter Schools Association, she co-founded SchoolForward, a strategic public affairs firm to advance school choice and education reform nationwide.
Paul E. Peterson, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Panelist: Paul E. Peterson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a member of the Hoover Education Success Initiative, and founding editor of Education Next: A Journal of Opinion and Research. He is also the Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Government and director of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University.
Robert Enlow, EdChoice, Panelist: Robert Enlow is the President and CEO of EdChoice, which he has been involved with since 1996. He served as a fundraiser, projects coordinator, vice president and executive director before assuming his current roles in 2009.
MODERATED BY
Wayne Lewis, Houghton College, Moderator: Dr. Lewis was recently named the sixth President of Houghton College. He was recently the inaugural Dean of Belmont University’s School of Education. He served as Commissioner of Education for the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
The Hoover Education Success Initiative (HESI) focuses on providing state leaders with sound research-based recommendations to improve education in America.
Wednesday, September 29, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The general media is the primary source of information about efforts to improve public education in the U.S. Can they serve a critical role in the recovery of public education from COVID? Do we need to watch the watchdogs?
The Hoover Education Success Initiative (HESI) hosts, Fourth estate or fifth wheel? The role of the media in education reform, on Wednesday, September 29, 2021 at 1PM PT.
FEATURED PANELISTS
Hanna Skandera, Daniels Fund, Panelist: Hanna Skandera currently serves as CEO of the Daniels Fund. She previously served as New Mexico’s Secretary of Education under Governor Susana Martinez for six years. Recently, she was Editor-in-Chief of The Line, an online education magazine.
Senator Manny Diaz, Jr., Panelist: Senator Manny Diaz represents Florida State Senate District 36 in Miami-Dade County. He currently serves as Chair of the Senate Education Committee. He was first elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 2012, and is a former teacher and school administrator.
Mike Cohen, CentrePoint, Panelist: Mike Cohen was President of Achieve from 2003 through 2020. During the Clinton Administration he served as Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education, Special Assistant to President for Education Policy, and Senior Advisor to U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley.
MODERATED BY
Jenn Vranek, Education First, Moderator: Jenn Vranek is a Founding & Managing Partner at Education First. She founded the organization in 2006 and has worked with K-12 and post-secondary educators, policymakers and philanthropists in more than 30 states.
The Hoover Education Success Initiative (HESI) focuses on providing state leaders with sound research-based recommendations to improve education in America.
Wednesday, September 22, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Every student who has ever watched the clock during class knows that seat time does not equal learning. The impact of COVID on student academic progress makes it more important than ever to refocus on how well students master the learning standards. The good work of several educators show us how this can be done.
Join the Hoover Education Success Initiative (HESI) as we host a panel that asks, Can We Stop The Clock? Replacing Seat Time With Mastery on Wednesday, September 22, 2021 at 1PM PT.
FEATURED PANELISTS
Chad Gestson, Superintendent, Phoenix Union High School District, Panelist: Dr. Chad E. Gestson has served as superintendent of the Phoenix Union High School District since fall 2015. Under his leadership, Phoenix Union has launched six new schools, including a Gifted and Talented Academy, a Digital Academy, and the Phoenix Coding Academy. Phoenix Union has seen tremendous increases in graduation rates, scholarship totals, and college matriculation rates since 2015.
Don Shalvey, CEO, San Joaquin A+, Panelist: Don Shalvey is the founding CEO of San Joaquin A+ and former deputy director for K–12 Education at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In 1992, as superintendent of the San Carlos School District, Shalvey sponsored the first charter school in California. Widely recognized as a leader in public education and the charter school sector, he was the founder and CEO of Aspire Public Schools.
Margaret “Macke” Raymond, Program Director for Education, Hoover Institution, Panelist: Margaret “Macke” Raymond is the Program Director for Education at the Hoover Institution, guiding the expansion of education research, policy analysis and engagement at the institution. She is also the founder and director of the Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University, which studies efforts to improve student results in US K-12 education.
MODERATED BY
Stephen Bowen, Council of Chief State School Officers, Moderator: Stephen Bowen serves as the deputy executive director for state leadership at the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). In his role, he directs the activities of the membership services, leadership academy, and data and information services teams. Bowen oversees the development and implementation of programs and services designed to support the leaders and staff of state education agencies.
The Hoover Education Success Initiative (HESI) focuses on providing state leaders with sound research-based recommendations to improve education in America.
Thursday, September 16, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Governor Kristi Noem in conversation with Scott Atlas on Thursday, September 16, 2021 at 2:00 PM ET.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Governor Kristi Noem was elected as the first-ever female governor of South Dakota in 2018 after serving 8 years as South Dakota’s at-large member in the U.S. House of Representatives. During her time in Congress, Governor Noem helped pass the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which put $2,400 back in the pockets of the average South Dakota family. Governor Noem is a proud wife, mother, lifelong rancher, farmer, and small business owner.
Scott Atlas, M.D., is the Robert Wesson Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution. Dr. Atlas researches the role of government and the private sector in access, quality, and pricing of health care. He advises leaders in government and the private sector, and has served as Senior Advisor in Health Policy for several presidential candidates, members of Congress and key Administration officials. Dr. Atlas served as Special Advisor to the President and a was a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force from August through November, 2020. Before joining Hoover full-time, Dr. Atlas served as Professor and Chief of Neuroradiology at the Stanford University Medical Center for 14 years. His latest books include A Plague Upon Our House: My Fight at the Trump White House to Stop COVID from Destroying America published by Post Hill Press and available in November, and Restoring Quality Health Care: A Six‐Point Plan for Comprehensive Reform at Lower Cost.
Wednesday, September 15, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Momentum is growing for significant increases to teachers' salaries. Can we be certain in the post-COVID world that the plan would lead to positive outcomes?
The Hoover Education Success Initiative (HESI) hosts a discussion asking Will Increasing Teacher Pay Harm Students? on Wednesday, September 15, 2021 at 1PM PT.
FEATURED PANELISTS
Holly Boffy, District 7 Representative, Louisiana Board of Elementary & Secondary Education: Holly Boffy is serving her third term as a member of BESE. She is the founder of EdTalents, a human capital development organization, and previously worked for six years at the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). A middle school teacher for over a decade, she was Louisiana’s State Teacher of the Year in 2010.
Kent McGuire, Program Director, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Education: Kent McGuire leads investments for teaching and learning and open education resources strategies at the Hewlett Foundation. Previously he served as President and CEO of the Southern Education Foundation and as the Dean of the College of Education at Temple University. He was Assistant Secretary at the USDOE during the Clinton administration.
Eric Hanushek, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution: Eric Hanushek is Chair of the Hoover Education Success Initiative (HESI) and the Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He pioneered measuring teacher quality on the basis of student achievement and his work on school efficiency is central to debates about school finance adequacy and equity across America today.
MODERATED BY
Christopher N. Ruszkowski, Hoover Education Success Initiative (HESI): Christopher Ruszkowski is a Distinguished Policy Fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he has helped establish HESI. He served as Secretary of Education for the State of New Mexico under Governor Susana Martinez, Associate Secretary of Education for the State of Delaware under Governor Jack Markell and now serves as CEO of Meeting Street Schools.
The Hoover Education Success Initiative (HESI) focuses on providing state leaders with sound research-based recommendations to improve education in America.
Tuesday, September 14, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Projects on China’s Global Sharp Power and Strengthening US-India Relations invites you to The Fractured Himalaya: How the Past Shadows the Present in India-China Relations on Tuesday, September 14, 2021.
In this lecture based on her forthcoming book, Secretary Rao will trace how the origins of the dispute between India and China form part of a living history that shapes their fractious relationship today. Understanding this complex panorama yields lessons for all of us who seek a wider perspective on China and its profile in the Indo-Pacific.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Nirupama Rao was Foreign Secretary in the Government of India (2009-2011) and earlier served as Spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, High Commissioner of India in Sri Lanka and Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China. She was Ambassador of India to the United States from 2011 to 2013. On retirement, Rao was a Fellow at Brown University and also taught there from 2015-16. She was George Ball Adjunct Professor at Columbia University in Fall, 2018. In 2019 she was a Pacific Leadership Fellow at UC San Diego. She is a Global Fellow of The Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington DC, a Member of the Board of Governors of IIM, Bangalore, ICRIER, New Delhi and the Board of the U.S India Business Council. She holds a degree of Doctor of Letters (Honoris Causa) from Pondicherry University and is a recipient of the Vanitha Ratna Award of the Government of Kerala.
Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he leads the projects on China’s Global Sharp Power and on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region. He is also a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. His most recent book is Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency (2019).
David Mulford is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. As US ambassador to India (2004-2009), he played a key role in fostering the growing partnership between New Delhi and Washington. Amb. Mulford has also served as chairman international at Credit Suisse, assistant secretary and undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs (1984-1992), and senior investment advisor to the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (1974-1983). He has a DPhil from Oxford University.
Friday, September 10, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University The Hoover Institution hosts Reflecting on September 11th: 20 Years Later on Friday, September 10, 2021.
Please join a conversation with special guests Condoleezza Rice, General Jim Mattis, John B. Taylor and Karen Hughes as they recount their personal experiences, each from a different vantage point, on where they were during the deadliest terror attack on American soil in history. They will discuss what that day meant for America, how it changed us as a nation, and how we would move forward in the world in its aftermath. They will share their thoughts on the recent withdrawal from Afghanistan and what it means for our national security.
FEATURING PANELISTS Secretary Condoleezza Rice is the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution and the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy. Rice served as the sixty-sixth secretary of state of the United States, the second woman and first African American woman to hold the post. Rice was serving as National Security Advisor to President George W. Bush and was at the White House in her office when the plane hit the first tower.
General Jim Mattis, US Marine Corps (Ret.), is the Davies Family Distinguished Fellow, after having served as the nation’s 26th Secretary of Defense in the administration. In December of 2016, President Donald J. Trump nominated Mattis for Secretary of Defense. He commanded at multiple levels in his forty-three year career as an infantry Marine. On 9/11, Mattis was serving in uniform as Brigadier General in the Marines at Camp Pendleton and heard of the attack on his car radio. Within 50 days, he would be leading an expeditionary brigade in Afghanistan.
Under Secretary John B. Taylor is the George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Economics at the Hoover Institution and the Mary and Robert Raymond Professor of Economics at Stanford University. He chairs Hoover’s Working Group on Economic Policy and is director of Stanford’s Introductory Economics Center. Taylor was serving as Undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs and was on a diplomatic mission to Japan on 9/11. He returned to America via military transport and began his work on the financial war on terror.
Ambassador Karen Hughes served as Counselor to President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2002 and was at the White House on September 11, 2001. She was also Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs where she led the U.S. State Department’s effort to communicate America’s values abroad and is currently the Worldwide Vice Chair at Burson Cohn & Wolfe.
MODERATED BY Peter M. Robinson is the Murdoch Distinguished Policy Fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he hosts Uncommon Knowledge. Robinson spent six years in the White House, serving as chief speechwriter to Vice President George Bush and as special assistant and speechwriter to President Ronald Reagan.
Wednesday, August 18, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Congressman Mark E. Green, M.D. discusses with H.R. McMaster combating Chinese influence in the Western Hemisphere on Wednesday, August 18 at 2:00 PM ET.
For more information go to: https://www.hoover.org/publications/capital-conversations
Hoover Institution research fellow David Henderson answers your most pressing questions about good and bad inequality from his video "The Inequality We Should Worry About." Questions: 1. What is the difference between good and bad inequality? How can some inequality be good?
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Do you have any estimate of how much inequality in the United States is good or bad? And how would you go about figuring that out?
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Is it possible or likely that new advances to technology can occur at similar rates to what we have now without increasing the wealth gap?
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Is there a better way to measure inequality than with income? Would it make identifying good and bad inequality easier?
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Many people believe it is impossible to get extremely wealthy without exploiting workers or bending the rules in your favor. How true do you think that is?
Wednesday, June 30, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Yll Bajraktari and Anshu Roy in conversation with Amy Zegart on Wednesday, June 30, 2021 at 2:00 PM ET.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Amy Zegart is the Morris Arnold and Nona Jean Cox Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, where she directs the Robert and Marion Oster National Security Affairs Fellows program. She is also a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies (FSI) and Chair of Stanford’s Artificial Intelligence and International Security Steering Committee. She has been featured by National Journal as one of the ten most influential experts in intelligence reform. Most recently, she served as commissioner on the 2020 CSIS Technology and Intelligence Task Force and has advised the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. Her forthcoming book is Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence (Princeton 2022).
Yll Bajraktari is the Executive Director of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. Prior to joining NSCAI, he served as Chief of Staff to the National Security Advisor LTG H.R. McMaster, held a variety of leadership roles for former Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work, and served as Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dempsey. Originally joining the Department of Defense in 2010, he served in the Office of the Undersecretary for Policy as a country director for Afghanistan, and later India. He is the recipient of the Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Medal – the highest award given to career DoD civilian employees.
Anshu Roy, PhD, is the Founder and CEO of Rhombus, a NASA Research Park startup. Rhombus is purposefully transforming the nation’s defense and national security enterprises with Guardian, its Artificial Intelligence platform for strategic, operational and tactical decision-making at the speed of relevance. Before starting Rhombus, he teamed up with Nobel Laureate Prof. Alan Heeger to set a world record in solar cell efficiency. He earned his PhD from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) at the intersection of Materials, Complex Systems, High Performance Computing and Turbulence. He also invented Mercury™ – Rhombus' patented platform for solid-state subatomic particle detection.
For more information go to: https://www.hoover.org/publications/capital-conversations
Monday, June 28, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Institution Press presents a discussion of the recent publication Unshackled: Freeing America’s K–12 Education System with authors Clint Bolick and Kate J. Hardiman, joined by Hoover Senior Fellow Chester E. Finn, Jr., on Monday, June 28, 2021 at 1:00 pm PT | 4:00 pm ET.
Unshackled explores how to leverage decentralization, school choice, and technology to further freedom and flexibility in education—issues that are more pressing than ever in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this conversation, Bolick, Hardiman, and Finn discuss proposals to bring K–12 education into the 21st century.
PARTICIPANT BIOS Clint Bolick is a justice on the Arizona Supreme Court and research fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is a lifelong champion of educational opportunity.
Kate J. Hardiman is a legal fellow, law student, and former teacher who has experienced how school choice changes lives. She hopes to follow in the footsteps of her coauthor and mentor by litigating for educational change.
Chester E. Finn, Jr., is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a distinguished senior fellow and president emeritus at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. He previously served as assistant secretary for research and improvement, and counselor to the cabinet secretary at the US Department of Education; and as legislative director for Senator Daniel P. Moynihan.
Monday, June 14, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Philip Zelikow discusses his new book, The Road Less Traveled: The Secret Battle to End the Great War, 1916-1917, which seeks to explain how it is that the First World War did not end midway through, but instead widened to embroil the United States and tip much of Eurasia into general catastrophe. The book has been described in the Times Literary Supplement as “enthralling … a masterpiece … a page-turning narrative based on meticulous archival scholarship yet a pleasure to read, the characters deftly drawn, the locations vividly realized … an instant classic of diplomatic history.”
Philip Zelikow is the White Burkett Miller Professor of History at the University of Virginia and a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. A former career diplomat, he was the executive director of the 9/11 Commission and has worked on international policy in each of the five administrations from Reagan through Obama. His scholarship focuses on critical episodes in American and world history.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM This talk is part of the History Working Group Seminar Series. A central piece of the History Working Group is the seminar series, which is hosted in partnership with the Hoover Library & Archives. The seminar series was launched in the fall of 2019, and thus far has included six talks from Hoover research fellows, visiting scholars, and Stanford faculty. The seminars provide outside experts with an opportunity to present their research and receive feedback on their work. While the lunch seminars have grown in reputation, they have been purposefully kept small in order to ensure that the discussion retains a good seminar atmosphere.
Hoover Institution senior fellow H.R. McMaster answers the most frequently asked questions from his video series “The Fight to Defend the Free World.”
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If the United States is interested in peace, why does our military remain engaged abroad? And why do we continue to build up our military?
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What do you say to those who categorize any American involvement overseas as a form of imperialism or colonialism?
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Can you explain the relationship that Shia Iran and Sunni Hamas have in the Greater Middle East? What is Hamas trying to accomplish and how does Iran fit into that?
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In the video series and in your book you talk about the strategy of convincing North Korea’s Kim family regime that it would be more secure in its position without nuclear weapons than with them. Considering reports that they have tested nuclear weapons, is that still a viable strategy?
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Is it possible that China’s Xi Jinping is overplaying his hand by acting too aggressively with his foreign policy agenda?
Tuesday, June 1, 2021 to Thursday, June 10, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Institution Library & Archives and Hoover Institution Press Present the Fanning the Flames Speaker Series in Celebration of the Publication Fanning the Flames: Propaganda in Modern Japan edited by Kay Ueda.
Japan’s Meiji Restoration brought swift changes through Japanese adoption of Western-style modernization and imperial expansion. Fanning the Flames brings together a range of scholarly essays and collected materials from the Hoover Institution Library & Archives detailing how Japanese propaganda played an active role in fostering national identity and mobilizing grassroots participation in the country’s transformation and wartime activities, from with the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–95) to the end of World War II.
The Fanning the Flames Speaker Series highlights conversations with leading scholars of modern East Asian history, art, and propaganda and is presented in conjunction with the book and upcoming online and physical exhibitions.
UPCOMING EVENTS IN THE SERIES
Anchors of History: The Long Shadow of Japanese Imperial Propaganda
Tuesday June 1, 12:00 pm PDT
Speaker: Barak Kushner, professor of East Asian History, University of Cambridge
Moderator: Michael R. Auslin, the Payson J. Treat Distinguished Research Fellow in Contemporary Asia at the Hoover Institution
“War Fever” as Fueled by the Media and Popular Culture: The Path Taken by Meiji Japan's Policies of “Enrich the Country” and “Strengthen the Armed Forces”
Thursday June 10, 4:00 pm PDT
Speaker: Toshihiko Kishi, professor at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University
Moderator: Kay Ueda, curator of the Japanese Diaspora Collection, Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Additional Lectures in the Series
Featured Speakers:
Yuma Totani, professor of Japan, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Alice Tseng, Professor of Art History, Boston University
Dates and titles to be announced
PARTICIPANT BIOS Barak Kushner is professor of East Asian history and the chair of Japanese Studies in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge. He has edited numerous books and written several monographs, including the award-winning Men to Devils, Devils to Men: Japanese War Crimes and Chinese Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015). In 2020 he hosted several episodes of a major Chinese documentary on Japanese war crimes and is currently writing a book titled The Construction of Injustice in East Asia: Japan versus Its Neighbors.
Michael Auslin is the Payson J. Treat Distinguished Research Fellow in Contemporary Asia at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. A historian by training, he specializes in US policy in Asia and geopolitical issues in the Indo-Pacific region. His publications include Negotiating with Imperialism: The Unequal Treaties and the Culture of Japanese Diplomacy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004) and Asia’s New Geopolitics: Essays on Reshaping the Indo-Pacific (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2020). Auslin was an associate professor of history at Yale University, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo.
Thursday, May 27, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region, and the National Security Task Force the Hoover Institution hosts a conversation on Watch This Space: Beijing’s Push to Close Off Taiwan’s International Space and the U.S. Response on Thursday, May 27, 2021 at 4:30 PM PT.
As the World Health Assembly convenes amidst the ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic, it does so again without Taiwan’s participation. That the WHA would exclude Taiwan—whose democracy has deployed perhaps the world’s most effective response to COVID-19—puts into sharp relief the costs for populations around the globe of China’s broader attempt to close off Taiwan’s international space. On the occasion of the 74th WHA, it’s worth examining the impetus behind China’s campaign to isolate Taiwan, the threat that campaign poses to the stability fostered by the U.S. One China policy, and how the United States can respond to bolster Taiwan’s international space and maintain balance in the cross-Strait situation.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Alex Wong, an expert in East Asia & the Pacific National Security International Relations at Hudson Institute, a think tank and research center dedicated to nonpartisan analysis of US and international economic, security, and political issues. Alex Wong is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute, with a focus U.S. strategy in the Indo-Pacific region and the future of the Korean Peninsula.
Kharis Templeman is a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he manages the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific, and a lecturer at Stanford’s Center for East Asian Studies. His areas of expertise include democratic transitions and consolidations, comparative parties and elections, and the politics of Taiwan. He is the editor (with Larry Diamond and Yun-han Chu) of Taiwan’s Democracy Challenged: The Chen Shui-bian Years (2016) and Dynamics of Democracy in Taiwan: The Ma Ying-jeou Years (2020). His other peer-reviewed research has been published in Comparative Political Studies, Ethnopolitics, The Taiwan Journal of Democracy, International Journal of Taiwan Studies, and The APSA Annals of Comparative Democratization, along with several book chapters.
Click the following link for more information about the Hoover Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/hoover-institution-project-taiwan-indo-pacific-region
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Senator Jack Reed in conversation with Kevin Hassett on Wednesday, May 26, 2021 at 4:00 PM ET.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Kevin Hassett is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and Vice President and Managing Director of the Lindsey Group. He served as the 29th Chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers from 2017 to 2019, and returned to the White House in 2020 as a Senior Advisor to the President to manage the economic policy response to the pandemic. He served as Director of Research for the American Enterprise Institute for almost two decades, and prior to that was Senior Economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, and an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Business of Columbia University.
U.S. Senator Jack Reed is Rhode Island’s senior senator and the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee. He is also a member of the Appropriations Committee, where he serves as Chairman of the Legislative Branch Subcommittee; the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee; and an ex-officio member of the Intelligence Committee. A leader on national defense, housing, unemployment, and consumer protection issues, Senator Reed was part of the bipartisan working group that drafted the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and successfully led efforts to create the $150 billion Coronavirus Relief Fund to help states combat COVID-19. Reed graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1971 and served in the U.S. Army and Army Reserves until 1991, when he retired with the rank of Major. Reed also earned a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and a law degree from Harvard Law School. He served on the faculty at West Point, teaching cadets about economics and international relations as an Associate Professor within the Department of Social Sciences, and also worked in private practice as an attorney for Edwards & Angell, where he specialized in banking and securities law.
For more information go to: https://www.hoover.org/publications/capital-conversations
Monday, May 24, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The USSR had thrived during the nuclear revolution of the 1950s, matching America's ability to produce powerful missiles and destructive warheads. But accuracy eluded the USSR. Precision strike was produced by miniaturizing computing power, so it was limited by the capacity of the computer chips crammed into the nose of each missile. The Soviets faced fundamental challenges in their ability to fabricate tiny circuits. Their guidance systems were therefore always substantially less accurate. In the 1970s, President Jimmy Carter had authorized multiple new highly accurate weapons systems taking advantage of Silicon Valley's most advanced integrated circuits. By the 1980s, when these systems began to be deployed, the USSR had no response. Soviet defense officials feared that a precision conventional strike from the U.S. might even disable the USSR's nuclear forces. Ronald Reagan inherited a Soviet leadership convinced that it had already lost the arms race because it could not produce the computational power needed for precision weaponry.
Chris Miller is assistant professor of international history at The Fletcher School at Tufts University and co-director of the school's Russia and Eurasia Program. He is author of We Shall Be Masters: Russia's Pivots to East Asia from Peter the Great to Putin (2021), Putinomics: Power and Money in Resurgent Russia (2018) and The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy (2016). He has previously served as the associate director of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy at Yale, a lecturer at the New Economic School in Moscow, a visiting researcher at the Carnegie Moscow Center, a research associate at the Brookings Institution, and as a fellow at the German Marshall Fund's Transatlantic Academy.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/history-working-group
This talk is part of the History Working Group Seminar Series. A central piece of the History Working Group is the seminar series, which is hosted in partnership with the Hoover Library & Archives. The seminar series was launched in the fall of 2019, and thus far has included six talks from Hoover research fellows, visiting scholars, and Stanford faculty. The seminars provide outside experts with an opportunity to present their research and receive feedback on their work. While the lunch seminars have grown in reputation, they have been purposefully kept small in order to ensure that the discussion retains a good seminar atmosphere.
Monday, May 24, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Institution and the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society hosts Toward a Democratic China: What Role Can Outsiders Play? on Monday, May 24 from 10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. PDT.
Is there an appetite for democracy in China? Is the regime’s monopoly on political power invincible? Can and should outsiders help Chinese reformers achieve democracy? If so, how? Is regime change possible, anytime soon? Will it lead to democracy or chaos?
Featuring: Roger Garside Former British diplomat, Teng Biao Pozen Visiting Professor, University of Chicago Grove Human Rights Scholar, Hunter College, CUN, Elizabeth Economy Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution and Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations, Orville Schell Arthur Ross Director, Center on U.S.-China Relations Asia Society, and Glenn Tiffert Research Fellow, Hoover Institution
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS: Robert Garside served as a British diplomat in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution and again in 1976-9, when Mao died and Deng launched the Reform Era. His new book China Coup: The Great Leap to Freedom (University of California Press, 2021) challenges readers to rethink China’s political future.
Teng Biao is an academic lawyer, currently Grove Human Rights Scholar at Hunter College, and Pozen Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago. He is the founder and president of China Against the Death Penalty.
Elizabeth Economy is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
HOSTS: Orville Schell is the Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.- China Relations at the Asia Society, New York City. He is a former professor and dean at the University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Glenn Tiffert is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a historian of modern China. He manages the Hoover project on China’s Global Sharp Power.
Thursday, May 20, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Institution along with the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Europe Center host Security in the Age of Liberal Democratic Erosion on Thursday, May 13 and Thursday, May 20.
Cosponsored by the Hoover Institution, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Europe Center, the virtual two-part panel series Security in the Age of Liberal Democratic Erosion will focus on the critical security challenges facing liberal democracies and examine the threats of external adversaries and how democracies can respond.
Liberal democracy rests on the rule of law and common trust in fundamental institutions such as elections, courts, legislatures, and the executive branches of government. Yet both in the United States and elsewhere, trust in these institutions has eroded as charges of fake news, electoral fraud, biased courts, and increased authoritarianism have taken hold.
On May 13, 2021, the discussion will focus on Adversaries: how foreign actors such as Russia, China, and Iran interact with domestic threats to institutions and the functioning of liberal democracy. Panelists will examine dangers of sharp and soft power, misinformation, and attacks on sensitive electoral and physical infrastructure. The featured experts will be Elizabeth Economy, Michael McFaul, Abbas Milani, and Kate Starbird.
On May 20, 2021, the discussion will focus on appropriate Responses, and whether and how liberal democracies should respond to these threats. Panelists will address the tools and policies available to combat such hazards, as well as their limitations. The featured experts will be Rose Gottemoeller, H. R. McMaster, Jacquelyn Schneider, and Amy Zegart.
Both panel discussions will be moderated by Anna Grzymala-Busse and held at 10:00–11:15 am PDT via Zoom and are open to the public.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Rose Gottemoeller is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. She also serves as the Frank E. and Arthur W. Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and its Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC).
H. R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michele Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and was the twenty-sixth assistant to the president for national security affairs. He served as a commissioned officer in the US Army for thirty-four years before retiring as a lieutenant general in June 2018. He is author of Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World (2020).
Jacquelyn Schneider is a Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Her research focuses on the intersection of technology, national security, and political psychology with a special interest in cybersecurity, unmanned technologies, and Northeast Asia. She is a non-resident fellow at the Naval War College's Cyber and Innovation Policy Institute and a senior policy advisor to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission.
Amy Zegart is the Morris Arnold and Nona Jean Cox Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford University. She is also a Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Chair of Stanford’s Artificial Intelligence and International Security Steering Committee, and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. She specializes in U.S. intelligence, emerging technologies and national security, grand strategy, and global political risk management.
ABOUT THE MODERATOR Anna Grzymala-Busse is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. Grzymala-Busse is the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor in the Department of Political Science, the director of the Europe Center, and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford. Her research focuses on religion and politics, authoritarian political parties and their successors, and the historical development of the state.
Tuesday, May 18, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Senator Rob Portman in conversation with Lanhee Chen on Tuesday, May 18, 2021 at 3:00 PM ET.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Senator Rob Portman is a United States Senator from the state of Ohio. During his time in the Senate, he has introduced more than 240 bills, including 200 bipartisan bills, and more than 150 of his legislative priorities have been signed into law. Senator Portman began his government career in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1993, serving the Second District in southern Ohio for 12 years. In 2005, he left Congress to serve as the United States Trade Representative. Following his accomplishments in this role, he was asked to serve another Cabinet post, as Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Lanhee Chen is the David and Diane Steffy Fellow in American Public Policy Studies at the Hoover Institution, and Director of Domestic Policy Studies in the Public Policy Program at Stanford. In 2012, he was policy director of the Romney-Ryan campaign and advised Senator Marco Rubio's 2016 presidential bid. He was a member of the Social Security Advisory Board and served as a senior appointee at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services during the George W. Bush Administration.
For more information go to: https://www.hoover.org/publications/capital-conversations
Thursday, May 13, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Institution hosts Russia: Empire, War, and Revolution on Thursday, May 13, 2021, at 10am PDT.
Join the Hoover Institution Press for a discussion of two recent publications based on the acclaimed Russian collections held at the Hoover Library & Archives, moderated by Russian historian Robert Service.
Russia in War and Revolution: The Memoirs of Fyodor Sergeyevich Olferieff features the previously unpublished memoirs of a Russian military officer who participated in key transformative historical events, including World War I and the Russian Revolution. Gary Hamburg, volume editor and author of the book’s introduction and companion essay; and the subject’s granddaughter Tanya Alexandra Cameron, who translated his memoirs, will participate in the discussion. Next, author Anatol Shmelev will discuss his book the Wake of Empire: Anti-Bolshevik Russia in International Affairs, 1917–1920, which examines Russia’s place in international affairs in the years after the fall of the Russian Empire, when the anti-Bolshevik “Whites” fought to maintain a “Great, United Russia.”
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Robert Service, a noted Russian historian and political commentator, is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford.
Gary Hamburg is Otho M. Behr Professor of History at Claremont McKenna College and author or editor of more than seventy works, including Russia's Path toward Enlightenment: Faith, Politics, and Reason, 1500–1801.
Tanya Alexandra Cameron is the granddaughter of Fyodor Sergeyevich Olferieff. She learned Russian and Russian history and traveled extensively to the Soviet Union in order to translate his memoirs.
Anatol Shmelev is a research fellow and Robert Conquest Curator for Russia and Eurasia at the Hoover Institution. His area of specialization is the Russian Civil War, 1917–22.
Thursday, May 13, 2021 to Thursday, May 20, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Institution along with the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Europe Center host Security in the Age of Liberal Democratic Erosion on Thursday, May 13 and Thursday, May 20.
Cosponsored by the Hoover Institution, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Europe Center, the virtual two-part panel series Security in the Age of Liberal Democratic Erosion will focus on the critical security challenges facing liberal democracies and examine the threats of external adversaries and how democracies can respond.
Liberal democracy rests on the rule of law and common trust in fundamental institutions such as elections, courts, legislatures, and the executive branches of government. Yet both in the United States and elsewhere, trust in these institutions has eroded as charges of fake news, electoral fraud, biased courts, and increased authoritarianism have taken hold.
On May 13, 2021, the discussion will focus on Adversaries: how foreign actors such as Russia, China, and Iran interact with domestic threats to institutions and the functioning of liberal democracy. Panelists will examine dangers of sharp and soft power, misinformation, and attacks on sensitive electoral and physical infrastructure. The featured experts will be Elizabeth Economy, Michael McFaul, Abbas Milani, and Kate Starbird.
On May 20, 2021, the discussion will focus on appropriate Responses, and whether and how liberal democracies should respond to these threats. Panelists will address the tools and policies available to combat such hazards, as well as their limitations. The featured experts will be Rose Gottemoeller, H. R. McMaster, Jacquelyn Schneider, and Amy Zegart.
Both panel discussions will be moderated by Anna Grzymala-Busse and held at 10:00–11:15 am PDT via Zoom and are open to the public.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Elizabeth Economy is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2020, she was awarded the Richard C. Holbrooke Fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin. An expert on Chinese domestic and foreign policy, Economy is the author of several books, most recently The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State (2018).
Michael A. McFaul is the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution as well as a professor of political science, director and senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He also currently works as a news analyst for NBC. His areas of expertise include international relations, Russian politics, comparative democratization, and American foreign policy. From January 2012 to February 2014, he served as the US ambassador to the Russian Federation. Before becoming ambassador, he served for three years as a special assistant to the president and senior director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council.
Abbas Milani is a research fellow and codirector of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution. In addition, Milani is the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University. His expertise is US/Iran relations and Iranian cultural, political, and security issues.
Kate Starbird is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Cyber Policy Center and Associate Professor at the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) at the University of Washington (UW). Starbird’s research is situated within human-computer interaction (HCI) and the emerging field of crisis informatics—the study of the how information-communication technologies (ICTs) are used during crisis events. She is a co-founder and executive council member of the UW Center for an Informed Public.
ABOUT THE MODERATOR Anna Grzymala-Busse is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. Grzymala-Busse is the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor in the Department of Political Science, the director of the Europe Center, and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford. Her research focuses on religion and politics, authoritarian political parties and their successors, and the historical development of the state.
Tuesday, May 11, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Institution hosts More Than Sharp Power: How the CCP Penetrates Taiwan and Hong Kong on Tuesday, May 11 from 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. PDT.
Called “canaries in the coal mine,” Hong Kong and Taiwan have been at the forefront of the CCP's sharp power play. But Beijing’s influence operations within and toward both territories also go beyond sharp power as the term is commonly understood. This panel will discuss Beijing’s influence mechanisms and the pushbacks that the authors discovered in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other countries and discuss the most recent news about the CCP’s crackdown on Hong Kong and its impact and response from Hongkongers.
Featuring: Andrew J. Nathan Professor of Political Science Columbia University, Wu Jieh-min Research Fellow Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, Ma Ngok, Associate Professor Chinese University of Hong Kong. Followed by conversation with: Glenn Tiffert, Research Fellow Hoover Institution.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Andrew J. Nathan is Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science at Columbia University. His teaching and research interests include Chinese politics and foreign policy, the comparative study of political participation and political culture, and human rights. Nathan’s books include Chinese Democracy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985); The Tiananmen Papers, co-edited with Perry Link (New York: PublicAffairs, 2001); China’s Search for Security, co-authored with Andrew Scobell (Columbia University Press, 2012); and Will China Democratize?, co-edited with Larry Diamond and Marc Plattner (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013). Nathan has served at Columbia as director of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, 1991-1995, chair of the Executive Committee of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, 2002-2003, and chair of the Department of Political Science, 2003-2006. He is currently chair of the Morningside Institutional Review Board (IRB). Off campus, he is the regular Asia and Pacific book reviewer for Foreign Affairs, a member of the steering committee of the Asian Barometer Survey, and a board member of Human Rights in China. He is a former member of the boards of the National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House, and Human Rights Watch.
Wu Jieh-min is a research fellow at the Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, and served as a director at the Center for Contemporary China, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan. He is on the advisory committee of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council and a former board member of the Straits Exchange Foundation. His research interests include political economy, political sociology, social movement, democratization, and civil society. His articles have been published in Chinese-language, English, and Japanese journals and edited volumes. His books include Rent-Seeking Developmental State in China: Taishang, Guangdong Model and Global Capitalism (NTU Press, 2019; English and Japanese editions in progress), China’s influence in the Centre-periphery Tug of War in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Indo-Pacific (co-edited with Brian C.H. Fong and Andrew J. Nathan eds., Routledge, 2021), Anaconda in the Chandelier: Mechanisms of Influence and Resistance in the “China Factor” (co-edited with Tsai Hung-jeng and Cheng Tsu-bang, Rive Gauche, 2017; Japanese edition forthcoming by Hakusuisha), Third View of China (Rive Gauche, 2012), The Era of Significant Changes: Taiwan 1990-2010 (co-edited with Fan Yun and Thomas Hung-chi Kuo, Rive Gauche, 2010/2014), and The Double Helix of Power and Capital: A Taiwanese Perspective of China/Cross-Strait Studies (editor, Rive Gauche, 2013). He co-produced a documentary film Taiwanese Compatriots (Taibao) (Alleys Studio, 1993).
Ma Ngok is an Associate Professor at the Department of Government and Public Administration, Chinese University of Hong Kong. He writes extensively on elections, party politics, democratization, and social movements of Hong Kong. He is the author of Political Development in Hong Kong: State, Political Society and CIvil Society, and more than 20 journal articles on Hong Kong politics.
Monday, May 10, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Everyone comes from somewhere. From the doctor’s office to the passport office, from whom we've descended affects the biological, legal, and cultural identities of just about everybody in the world today. How did ancestry come to play such a critical role in defining status, and what are the implications of this history for the politics of lineage in the genomic age?
Maya Jasanoff is the X.D. and Nancy Yang Professor of Arts and Sciences and Coolidge Professor of History at Harvard University. She is the author of the prize-winning books Edge of Empire, Liberty’s Exiles, and most recently The Dawn Watch: Joseph Conrad in a Global World, winner of the 2018 Cundill Prize in History. Jasanoff is a frequent contributor to publications including The New Yorker and The Guardian, and is chair of judges for the 2021 Booker Prize.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/history-working-group
This talk is part of the History Working Group Seminar Series. A central piece of the History Working Group is the seminar series, which is hosted in partnership with the Hoover Library & Archives. The seminar series was launched in the fall of 2019, and thus far has included six talks from Hoover research fellows, visiting scholars, and Stanford faculty. The seminars provide outside experts with an opportunity to present their research and receive feedback on their work. While the lunch seminars have grown in reputation, they have been purposefully kept small in order to ensure that the discussion retains a good seminar atmosphere.
Thursday, May 6, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region, and the National Security Task Force the Hoover Institution hosts a conversation on, What’s Next for U.S.-Taiwan Economic Relations?, on Thursday, May 6, 2021 at 4:00 PM PT.
Innovation has been a source of comparative advantage for Taiwan—and an important basis for American firms, investors, and government to support Taiwan’s development while expanding mutually beneficial linkages. Yet Taiwan’s innovation advantage is eroding in the face of technological change and strategic risk. What should the next phase of U.S.-Taiwan economic cooperation look like? And how can the new U.S. administration work with Taiwan not just to build on legacy advantages, like in semiconductors, but also to invest in the emerging fields that are rapidly reshaping the future of work, industry, service delivery, and defense? Featuring Dr. Evan Feigenbaum Vice President for Studies Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Followed by conversation with Kharis Ali Templeman Hoover Research Fellow.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Evan A. Feigenbaum is vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He was also the 2019-20 James R. Schlesinger Distinguished Professor at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, where he is now a practitioner senior fellow. Initially an academic, with a PhD in Chinese politics from Stanford University, his career has spanned government service, think tanks, the private sector, and three regions of Asia. During the George W. Bush Administration, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Central Asia, and Member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff responsible for East Asia and the Pacific.
Kharis Templeman is Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he manages the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific, and a lecturer at Stanford’s Center for East Asian Studies. His areas of expertise include democratic transitions and consolidations, comparative parties and elections, and the politics of Taiwan. He is the editor (with Larry Diamond and Yun-han Chu) of Taiwan’s Democracy Challenged: The Chen Shui-bian Years (2016) and Dynamics of Democracy in Taiwan: The Ma Ying-jeou Years (2020). His other peer-reviewed research has been published in Comparative Political Studies, Ethnopolitics, The Taiwan Journal of Democracy, International Journal of Taiwan Studies, and The APSA Annals of Comparative Democratization, along with several book chapters.
Click the following link for more information about the Hoover Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region
https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/hoover-institution-project-taiwan-indo-pacific-region
Friday, April 30, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Forestry was important to state-building efforts in the early modern world. Timber and fuel were strategic goods needed for shipbuilding, civil engineering, urban construction, iron smelting, and coin minting. States with forest endowments, including France, Venice, many German states, Japan, and Korea, developed rules and institutions to better control domestic supplies. States without substantial domestic woodlands, including England, Holland, and Genoa, turned to imports. Because it had neither a large forestry bureaucracy nor chartered merchant companies, China was often assumed to lack an effective forestry system entirely.
In fact, states in China had long relied on a third strategy: a domestic forest market dominated by small-scale, private producers. As early as 1150, and with growing prevalence after 1500, landowners began to invest in planting timber. They registered their property with the government, creating a de facto private property regime. And they used private litigation–formally illegal–as they developed simple land deeds and tenancy contracts into timber securities. In the short term, this forestry market looked arguably more modern than its contemporaries; in the long-run, it may have short-circuited the development of land oversight, environmental science, and long-distance trade.
Please click here to read the the foreword to Fir and Empire.
Ian M. Miller is Assistant Professor of History at St. John’s University in New York. He is the author of Fir and Empire: The Transformation of Forests in Early Modern China(University of Washington Press, 2020). His current research is on the role of lineage organizations in regulating village environments, provisionally titled “Ancestral Shade: Kinship and Ecology in South China.”
ABOUT THE PROGRAM This talk is part of the History Working Group Seminar Series. A central piece of the History Working Group is the seminar series, which is hosted in partnership with the Hoover Library & Archives. The seminar series was launched in the fall of 2019, and thus far has included six talks from Hoover research fellows, visiting scholars, and Stanford faculty. The seminars provide outside experts with an opportunity to present their research and receive feedback on their work. While the lunch seminars have grown in reputation, they have been purposefully kept small in order to ensure that the discussion retains a good seminar atmosphere.
Wednesday, April 28, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Senator Rick Scott in conversation with Niall Ferguson on Wednesday, April 28, 2021 at 12:00 PM ET.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Niall Ferguson MA, D.Phil., is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a senior fellow of the Center for European Studies, Harvard, where he served for twelve years as the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History. He is also a visiting professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing, and the Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation Distinguished Scholar at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. His next book Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe, will be released on May 4, 2021.
Rick Scott was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2018 and is currently serving his first term representing the state of Florida. Prior to his election to the U.S. Senate, Rick Scott served two terms as the 45th Governor of Florida, working every day to turn around Florida’s economy and secure the state’s future as the best place for families and businesses to succeed.
For more information go to: https://www.hoover.org/publications/capital-conversations
Thursday, April 15, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Institution hosts The United States, China, and Taiwan—A Strategy to Prevent War on Thursday, April 15 from 9:00 a.m. - 10:15 a.m. PT.
On behalf of its projects on China’s Global Sharp Power and on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region, and its National Security Task Force, the Hoover Institution invites you to The United States, China, and Taiwan—A Strategy to Prevent War.
Robert Blackwill and Philip Zelikow introduce their recent report on the growing danger of war between China and the United States over Taiwan and propose a new US strategy to prevent it. Following their presentation, Hoover Institution fellows General James Mattis (ret.) and Admiral James Ellis (ret.) will offer remarks. The program will conclude with audience questions.
Featuring Robert D. Blackwill, Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy, Council on Foreign Relations, and Philip D. Zelikow, Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and White Burkett Miller Professor of History and J. Wilson Newman Professor of Governance, Miller Center, University of Virginia.
Followed by remarks from Admiral James O. Ellis Jr. (ret), Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution, and General James Mattis (ret), Davies Family Distinguished Fellow, Hoover Institution. Moderated by Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI)
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Robert D. Blackwill is the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for US Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and the Diller–von Furstenberg Family Foundation Distinguished Scholar at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. His current work focuses on US foreign policy writ large as well as on China, Russia, the Middle East, South Asia, and geoeconomics. As deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor for strategic planning under President George W. Bush, Blackwill was responsible for governmentwide policy planning to help develop and coordinate the mid- and long-term direction of US foreign policy. He also served as presidential envoy to Iraq. Blackwill went to the National Security Council after serving as the US ambassador to India from 2001 to 2003. He is the recipient of the 2007 Bridge-Builder Award for his role in transforming US-India relations. In 2016 he became the first US ambassador to India since John Kenneth Galbraith to receive the Padma Bhushan Award from the government of India for distinguished service of a high order.
Philip Zelikow is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and the White Burkett Miller Professor of History and J. Wilson Newman Professor of Governance at the Miller Center, both University of Virginia, where he has also served as dean of the graduate school and director of the Miller Center. His scholarly work has focused on critical episodes in American and world history. He was a trial and appellate lawyer and then a career diplomat before taking academic positions at Harvard, then Virginia. Before and during his academic career, he has served at all levels of American government. His federal service during five administrations has included positions in the White House, State Department, and the Pentagon. His last full-time government position was as counselor of the Department of State, a deputy to Secretary Condoleezza Rice. Mr. Zelikow is one of the few individuals ever to serve on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board under presidents of both major parties, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. He has also been a member of the Defense Policy Board for Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and a member of the board of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2020, he was elected a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy.
James O. Ellis Jr. is an Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, focusing on energy and national security policies. In 2004, Admiral Ellis completed his 39-year US Navy career as commander of US Strategic Command. His service included carrier-based tours with three fighter squadrons and command of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. He has two graduate engineering degrees, is a graduate of the Navy Nuclear Power Training Program, and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. From 2005 to 2012, he led the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, during the Fukushima response.
General James Mattis, US Marine Corps (ret.), is the Hoover Institution's Davies Family Distinguished Fellow, after having served as the nation’s 26th Secretary of Defense. He served for over 40 years in the US Marine Corps as an infantry officer, plus duty in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, as NATO supreme allied commander, and as commander of US Central Command, directing 250,000 US and allied troops in combat across the Middle East and South Asia.
Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He chairs the Hoover Institution's projects on China’s Global Sharp Power and on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region. He has authored or edited more than fifty books on democracy, including his recent Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency. During 2017–18, he cochaired, with Orville Schell, a Hoover Institution–Asia Society working group, which produced the report China’s Influence and American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance.
Thursday, April 15, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Senior Chancellor Eric Hall and Education Commissioner Michael Johnson in conversation with Caroline Hoxby on Thursday, April 15, 2021 at 2:00 PM ET.
For more information go to: https://www.hoover.org/publications/capital-conversations
Monday, March 15, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Globalization dominates our world today--yet its strategic implications are rarely considered. What happens when a globalized economic system receives a shock not from an economic or epidemiological event, but from a war, when actors are deliberately attempting to exacerbate the derangement? This talk explores efforts by the British government to ensure food security, especially the critically important supply of grain, first in the pre-1914 globalized economy and then after the outbreak of World War I. The history of these efforts may help us to think through the scale and scope of possible international conflict in the 21st century.
Nick Lambert was educated at the University of Oxford in economics and in history. He subsequently held fellowships at Yale, Oxford, and Australian National University. Between 2016 and 2018, he was the “Class of 1957 Chair in Naval History and Heritage” at the United States Naval Academy. His major publications include Sir John Fisher’s Naval Revolution (1999) and Planning Armageddon (2012). His most recent book, The War Lords and the Gallipoli Disaster (2021), was published last month by Oxford University Press.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM This talk is part of the History Working Group Seminar Series. A central piece of the History Working Group is the seminar series, which is hosted in partnership with the Hoover Library & Archives. The seminar series was launched in the fall of 2019, and thus far has included six talks from Hoover research fellows, visiting scholars, and Stanford faculty. The seminars provide outside experts with an opportunity to present their research and receive feedback on their work. While the lunch seminars have grown in reputation, they have been purposefully kept small in order to ensure that the discussion retains a good seminar atmosphere.
The Hoover Institution hosts China's Battle for Global Public Opinion on Tuesday, April 13 from 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. PT.
The Chinese Communist Party's efforts to shape global narratives go beyond just “telling China’s story.” They also include coercive and covert tactics that may undermine democratic norms, violate local laws, and weaken independent media. Ms. Cook will unpack the challenges that Xi Jinping’s self-described campaign to win the public opinion “battlefield” poses to media freedom worldwide, address how governments, tech firms, and civil society organizations are responding, and offer recommendations for effectively enhancing those initiatives.
Featuring Ms. Sarah Cook, Research Director for China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan Freedom House. Followed by conversation with Dr. Glenn Tiffert, Research Fellow, Hoover Institution.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Sarah Cook is Research Director for China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan at Freedom House, an NGO focused on political rights and civil liberties. She directs the China Media Bulletin, a monthly digest in English and Chinese providing news and analysis on media freedom developments related to China. Ms. Cook is the author of several Asian country reports for Freedom House’s annual publications, as well as four special reports about China, including: Beijing's Global Megaphone (2020), and The Battle for China’s Spirit (2017). She has twice served as an NGO delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Commission meeting in Geneva. In 2021, she published a report on China’s Global Media Footprint with the National Endowment for Democracy.
Dr. Glenn Tiffert is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he manages its project on China’s Global Sharp Power. A historian of modern China, Dr. Tiffert works closely with government and civil society partners in the United States and elsewhere around the world to document and build resilience against authoritarian interference with democratic institutions, particularly in the knowledge sector.
Thursday, April 1, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University Recounting the actors and events of U.S. foreign policy, Robert B. Zoellick identifies five traditions that have emerged from America's encounters with the world: the importance of North America; the special roles trading, transnational, and technological relations play in defining ties with others; changing attitudes toward alliances and ways of ordering connections among states; the need for public support, especially through Congress; and the belief that American policy should serve a larger purpose. These traditions frame a closing review of post-Cold War presidencies, which Zoellick foresees serving as guideposts for the future.
Robert B. Zoellick is Senior Counselor at Brunswick Geopolitical, an advisory service of Brunswick Group, and a Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center. In addition, Zoellick serves on the boards of Temasek and Twitter, chairs the International Advisory Council of Standard Chartered Bank, and is on the Advisory Board of Swiss Re. Zoellick was the President of the World Bank Group from 2007-12, U.S. Trade Representative from 2001 to 2005, and Deputy Secretary of State from 2005 to 2006. From 1985 to 1993, Zoellick served as Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury and Under Secretary of State, as well as White House Deputy Chief of Staff.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM This talk is part of the History Working Group Seminar Series. A central piece of the History Working Group is the seminar series, which is hosted in partnership with the Hoover Library & Archives. The seminar series was launched in the fall of 2019, and thus far has included six talks from Hoover research fellows, visiting scholars, and Stanford faculty. The seminars provide outside experts with an opportunity to present their research and receive feedback on their work. While the lunch seminars have grown in reputation, they have been purposefully kept small in order to ensure that the discussion retains a good seminar atmosphere.
Wednesday, March 31, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Senator Mike Lee in conversation with Michael McConnell on Wednesday, March 31, 2021 at 3:00 PM ET.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Senator Mike Lee was elected in 2010 as Utah's 16th Senator. He has spent his career defending the basic liberties of all Americans and advocating for our founding constitutional principles.
Senator Lee acquired a deep respect for the Constitution early in life while watching his father, Rex Lee, serve as the Solicitor General under President Ronald Reagan. He attended most of his father's arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court, giving him a unique understanding of government up close.
Lee graduated from Brigham Young University Law School in 1997 and went on to serve as law clerk to Judge Dee Benson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, and then with future Supreme Court Justice Judge Samuel A. Alito, Jr. on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Michael McConnell is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law and the director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School.
During his many years of government service, McConnell served as a circuit judge on the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and as an assistant to Solicitor General Rex Lee at the Department of Justice.
Over his career he has argued fifteen cases in the U.S Supreme Court. His teaching focuses on constitutional law, constitutional history, the First Amendment, and interpretive theory. His most recent book is The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power under the Constitution published in November 2020; his next book will be released in 2021 the Establishment of Religion: Neutrality, Accommodation, and Separation.
For more information go to: https://www.hoover.org/publications/capital-conversations
Friday, March 26, 2021
The Hoover Institution hosts A Decade Of US Cyber Strategy: A Hoover Chat Series With Cyber Experts And Defense Leaders on January 29, February 12, February 26, March 12, March 19, and March 26, 2020.
The March 26 session focuses on how deterrence and escalation factor into US cyber strategy and have shaped the evolution of US cyber strategy with a concluding look to the future and cyber strategy under the Biden Administration.
This series of discussions will look at the evolution of US cyber strategy over the last decade. Join scholars and defense cyber leaders as they discuss chapters from the recently published book, Ten Years In: Implementing Strategic Approaches to Cyberspace, all with an eye towards the future of US cyber strategy.
The series features authors from the volume, including both academics and Department of Defense cyber leaders, as well as Hoover experts that discuss the history of cyber strategy, cyber warfare, cyberspace talent, and public-private innovation in cyberspace and will be moderated by Dr. Jackie Schneider, Hoover Fellow, Hoover Institution.
For more information visit https://www.hoover.org/events/ten-years-us-cyber-strategy-chat-series
Wednesday, March 24, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University Bill Hagerty and Peter Berkowitz discuss U.S. Foreign Policy Strategy in the Indo-Pacific on Wednesday, March 24 at 3:30 PM Eastern. ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Senator Bill Hagerty was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2020, serving his first term representing Tennessee. Prior to his election to the U.S. Senate, Bill served as the U.S. Ambassador to Japan. A life-long businessman he started his career with Boston Consulting Group, and later became a private equity investor. In 2011- 2014 he served as a member of the Governor’s Cabinet and commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development. Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior. From 2019-2021, he served as Director of State Department Policy Planning Staff in the office of the Secretary. His research and writing have focused on, constitutional government, conservatism and progressivism in the United States, liberal education, national security and law, and Middle East politics. For more information go to: https://www.hoover.org/publications/capital-conversations
Hoover Institution distinguished research fellow Macke Raymond answers the most frequently asked questions from her video "An Endless Summer: How COVID Has Reversed Academic Achievement." 1. (0:38) How do you measure learning loss?
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(2:44) Do you have a best guess as to how much learning loss will have occurred by next fall for the average student? What will the distribution of learning loss look like?
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(4:36) What would new approaches to classroom-based instruction look like? Who is preventing new approaches from being adopted?
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(7:02) Estimates of learning loss come from standardized tests, but many people are skeptical of their ability to accurately measure learning gains. Are there other kinds of assessments that are helpful?
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(10:33) How long do you think it will take to get education and academic achievement back on track once schools safely re-open?
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(12:14) The news is full of stories of districts that are facing challenges getting schools up and running. What are the options for families in those situations? Watch the original video here.
Friday, March 19, 2021
The Hoover Institution hosts A Decade Of US Cyber Strategy: A Hoover Chat Series With Cyber Experts And Defense Leaders on January 29, February 12, February 26, March 12, and March 19, 2020.
The March 19 session focuses on the role of public-private partnerships and innovation in defense cyber strategy.
This series of discussions will look at the evolution of US cyber strategy over the last decade. Join scholars and defense cyber leaders as they discuss chapters from the recently published book, Ten Years In: Implementing Strategic Approaches to Cyberspace, all with an eye towards the future of US cyber strategy.
The series features authors from the volume, including both academics and Department of Defense cyber leaders, as well as Hoover experts that discuss the history of cyber strategy, cyber warfare, cyberspace talent, and public-private innovation in cyberspace and will be moderated by Dr. Jackie Schneider, Hoover Fellow, Hoover Institution.
For more information visit https://www.hoover.org/events/ten-years-us-cyber-strategy-chat-series
Thursday, March 18, 2021
The Hoover Institution hosts Defending Media Freedom in Taiwan on Thursday, March 18, 2021 from 4:30 p.m. - 5:45 p.m. PDT.
In December 2020, Taiwan’s National Communications Commission voted to deny a broadcast license to CTiTV, a pro-China news channel that had been highly critical of the Taiwanese government and ruling party, the DPP. This decision marks the first time a TV channel has been forced off the air for violation of the terms of its license since Taiwan became a democracy. CTiTV is part of the Want Want China Times group, a media conglomerate owned and run by the pro-unification snack foods magnate Tsai Eng-meng, and it has been accused of coordinating its reporting with the Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing. However, until being forced off the air, it was also a popular source of news among supporters of the opposition KMT and an important voice in Taiwan’s diverse and critical TV landscape.
In this moderated discussion, three panelists from Taiwan consider the complex issues this decision raises and debate when -- and if -- it is ever appropriate for government to regulate media content and limit access to the broadcast spectrum in a liberal democracy.
Click the following link for more information about the Hoover Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region
https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/hoover-institution-project-taiwan-indo-pacific-region
The Hoover Institution’s Working Group on the Middle East and the Islamic World held a discussion on Tuesday, March 16, 2021 from 8:30-9:30am PST with Ambassador Itamar Rabinovich, Professor Emeritus at Tel Aviv University and Dr Carmit Valensi, Research Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS).
The crisis in Syria has festered for ten years now. The addition of Russian and Iranian support in 2016 has kept the Asad regime in power but has never been enough to win the country. As the impasse lingers, instability locally and internationally is exacerbated, and another humanitarian catastrophe may be around the corner. Both the Obama and Trump administrations, reluctant to be drawn into yet another military conflict in the Middle East, were hard put to formulate an effective policy in Syria. The Biden administration must now confront the challenge of coming up with an effective strategy.
Followed by conversation with Russell Berman, Senior Fellow, Co-Chair of Working Group on the Middle East and Islamic World and H.R. McMaster, the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Russell A. Berman is the Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University, professor of German studies and comparative literature, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and cochair of its Working Group on the Middle East and the Islamic World. He served as senior advisor in policy planning at the Department of State and has written widely on topics concerning Germany, transatlantic relations, and Islamism. His books include Freedom or Terror: Europe Faces Jihad and Anti-Americanism in Europe: A Cultural Problem.
H. R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is also the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and lecturer at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. He was the 26th assistant to the president for National Security Affairs. Upon graduation from the United States Military Academy in 1984, McMaster served as a commissioned officer in the United States Army for thirty-four years before retiring as a Lieutenant General in June 2018.
Itamar Rabinovich is Professor Emeritus at Tel Aviv University, Vice Chair of the Institute of National Security Studies in Tel Aviv and Distinguished non-resident Foreign Policy Fellow at Brookings Institution. He was Israel’s ambassador in Washington, chief negotiator with Syria and President of Tel Aviv University. He is the author among other books of Yitzhak Rabin: Soldier, Leader, Statesman, The View from Damascus: State, Political Community and Foreign Relations in Twentieth-Century Syria and Israel Facing a New Middle East: In Search of a National Security Strategy.
Dr. Carmit Valensi, a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), the director of Syria research program and editor of "Strategic Assessment" specializes in contemporary Middle East, strategic studies, military concepts, and terrorism. She completed her Ph.D. in the Department of Political Science at Tel Aviv University. Her research focuses on "hybrid actors" such as Hamas, Hizbollah, and FARC. She holds a B.A. in Middle East history and political science, and an M.A. in diplomacy studies from Tel Aviv University. In 2010-2011 she was a research fellow within the Fox Fellowship program in regional and international studies at Yale University.
Cyberspace and Talent Friday, March 12, 2021
The Hoover Institution hosts A Decade Of US Cyber Strategy: A Hoover Chat Series With Cyber Experts And Defense Leaders on January 29, February 12, February 26, March 12, and March 19, 2020.
The March 12 session focuses on how cyber strategy can be used to recruit, retain, and best employ cybersecurity talent for the Department of Defense.
PANELISTS Dr. Jacquelyn Schneider | Hoover Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Raj Shah | Shield Capital; Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Dr. Chaitra Hardison | RAND Behavioral Scientist
Tim Booher | HSBC Bank’s Global Chief Technology Officer for Cybersecurity For more information visit
https://www.hoover.org/events/ten-years-us-cyber-strategy-chat-series
Reflections on U.S.-China Relations
Wednesday, March 10, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Institution hosts Reflections on U.S.-China Relations on Wednesday, March 10 from 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. PST.
A discussion about the great-power competition between the United States and China, the rising risks for Western businesses in China, and the strategic pitfalls the West must avoid.
After his remarks, Matt Pottinger will join Hoover Institution Fellows Elizabeth Economy and H.R. McMaster in conversation.
Matt Pottinger is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. Matt served at the White House for four years in senior roles on the National Security Council staff, including as deputy national security advisor from 2019 to 2021. In that role, Matt coordinated the full spectrum of national security policy. Before that he served as senior director for Asia, where he led the administration’s work on the Indo-Pacific region, and in particular its shift on China policy.
Elizabeth Economy is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2020, she was awarded the Richard C. Holbrooke Fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin. An expert on Chinese domestic and foreign policy, Economy is the author of several books, most recently The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State (2018).
H. R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michele Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and was the twenty-sixth assistant to the president for national security affairs. He served as a commissioned officer in the US Army for thirty-four years before retiring as a lieutenant general in June 2018. He is author of Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World (2020).
International Women's Day @ The Hoover Institution | A Focus On Women In National Security
Monday, March 8, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
To celebrate International Women’s Day, the Director of the Hoover Institution and the 66th Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, hosted a conversation with four of our leading female national security and foreign policy scholars: Elizabeth Economy, Rose Gottemoeller, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Amy Zegart on March 8 from 2:15 - 3:30PM PT.
Each of these esteemed Hoover Fellows is releasing a book this year addressing the vital issues of our day. Through the lens of their own experiences, Secretary Rice and these scholars will discuss women's leadership, diversity, talent, and accomplishments in national security, as well as the challenges and rewards of working in this environment.
We honor the contributions of women at every level and in every facet of national security. Our Hoover Fellows’ commitment to continued research increasingly shapes the narratives, priorities, rules, and assessments of policy making.
ABOUT THE BOOKS
The World According to China, by Elizabeth Economy The World According to China explores China's ambitions to transform the international system by reclaiming contested territories, reshaping the geostrategic landscape, and reforming the system of global governance to reflect Chinese norms and values. It argues that China's well-defined and highly-coordinated foreign policy playbook has contributed to significant progress in realizing the country's strategic objectives, while at the same time creating the conditions that are likely to undermine its future success.
Negotiating the New START Treaty, by Rose Gottemoeller An invaluable insider’s account of the New START treaty negotiations between the US and Russian delegations in Geneva in 2009 and 2010. It examines the crucially important discussions about the treaty between President Barack Obama and President Dmitry Medvedev, and it describes the tough negotiations needed to gain the support of the Senate for the treaty. And importantly, at a time when the US Congress stands deeply divided, it tells the story of how, in a previous time of partisan division, Republicans and Democrats came together to ratify a treaty to safeguard the future of all Americans. >> Book Details
Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women's Rights, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali Deeply researched and featuring fresh and often shocking revelations, Prey uncovers a sexual assault and harassment crisis in Europe that is turning the clock on women’s rights much further back than the #MeToo movement is advancing it. No one in a position of power wants to admit that the eruption of sexual violence and harassment in Europe’s cities is linked to the arrival of several million migrants—most of them young men—from Muslim-majority countries. Pretending the problem doesn’t exist is the surest way to empower not only the far right but also the Islamists, whose solution entails even greater restrictions on female freedom. >> Book Details
Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence, by Amy Zegart America’s spy agencies face a moment of reckoning. Although espionage has always been part of great power conflict, emerging technologies like AI, commercial satellites, and social media are empowering new enemies and opportunities, generating crushing volumes of data and tools to understand it, putting information at everyone’s fingertips, and creating powerful new decision-makers outside of governments. Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence is designed to be a fun read with a serious purpose: examining the history of the CIA and America’s 16 other intelligence agencies and assessing the challenges they confront in the digital age.
MODERATED BY Condoleezza Rice is the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution and the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy. In addition, she is a founding partner of Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, an international strategic consulting firm. Rice served as the sixty-sixth secretary of state of the United States (2005-2009) and as President George W. Bush’s national security adviser (2001 to 2005).
Supporting the Faith, Building the Empire: Imperial Japan’s Islamic Policies in World War II
Friday, March 5, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Leading up to and through World War II, the Japanese Empire curried favor with Muslims in China and in East Asia. Drawing on examples from Prof. Hammond’s recent book, China’s Muslims and Japan’s Empire: Centering Islam in World War II, the talk discusses Japanese policies and the ways in which the Japanese Government saw itself as the protector of Islam, while simultaneously advancing its imperial vision. For their part, Muslims from the colonial world found Japan’s anti-Western and anti-Soviet rhetoric appealing to a certain extent. By placing Muslims at the center of Japan’s imperial ambitions, it becomes clear that those ambitions extended beyond the boundaries of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and into predominantly Islamic spaces like Central Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa.
Kelly Hammond is Assistant Professor of East Asian history at the University of Arkansas, an associate editor for the Journal of Asian Studies, and serves on the Public Intellectual Program for the National Committee on US-China Relations. Her recent work has been supported by the ACLS/Luce Foundation, the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, the American Philosophical Foundation, and the Kluge Center at the Library of Congress.
ABOUT THE PROGRAM This talk is part of the History Working Group Seminar Series. A central piece of the History Working Group is the seminar series, which is hosted in partnership with the Hoover Library & Archives. The seminar series was launched in the fall of 2019, and thus far has included six talks from Hoover research fellows, visiting scholars, and Stanford faculty. The seminars provide outside experts with an opportunity to present their research and receive feedback on their work. While the lunch seminars have grown in reputation, they have been purposefully kept small in order to ensure that the discussion retains a good seminar atmosphere.
Cyberspace and Warfare
Friday, February 26, 2021
The Hoover Institution hosts A Decade Of US Cyber Strategy: A Hoover Chat Series With Cyber Experts And Defense Leaders on January 29, February 12, February 26, March 12, and March 19, 2020.
The February 26 session focuses on how cyber operations affect warfare and how cyber strategy helps (or hurts) the integration of cyber operations in warfighting campaigns, leads to new tactics or operations, and ultimately impacts military effectiveness.
PANELISTS
Dr. Josh Rovner | Associate Professor, School of International Service, American University
VADM (ret.) T. J. White | Former Commander of US Fleet Cyber Command/ US 10th Fleet
Aaron Hughes | Former DASD
Lt Gen Timothy Haugh | Commander, Sixteenth Air Force, Commander, Air Forces Cyber, and Commander, Joint Force Headquarters-Cyber, Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas
For more information visit https://www.hoover.org/events/ten-years-us-cyber-strategy-chat-series
Age of Monetarism
Friday, February 19, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
In a draft chapter from her forthcoming biography of Milton Friedman, Jennifer Burns examines Friedman’s influence on Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, comparing their engagement with monetarism in the 1980s.
Jennifer Burns is the leading independent expert on Ayn Rand and the American conservative movement. She is author of the acclaimed biography Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right. Currently, she is writing an intellectual biography of Milton Friedman. At the Hoover Institution, she directs the annual summer Workshop on Political Economy.
ABOUT THE HOOVER HISTORY WORKING GROUP
https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/history-working-group
This interview is part of the History Working Group Seminar Series. A central piece of the History Working Group is the seminar series, which is hosted in partnership with the Hoover Library & Archives. The seminar series was launched in the fall of 2019, and thus far has included six talks from Hoover research fellows, visiting scholars, and Stanford faculty. The seminars provide outside experts with an opportunity to present their research and receive feedback on their work. While the lunch seminars have grown in reputation, they have been purposefully kept small in order to ensure that the discussion retains a good seminar atmosphere.
Thursday, February 18, 2021
The Hoover Institution hosted US-Taiwan Relations and Taiwan’s International Status on Thursday, February 18, 2021 from 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. PST.
During the Trump administration, bipartisan support for Taiwan grew in the US, partly in response to Beijing’s increasing pressure on Taiwan following the election of Tsai Ing-wen. The US reduced restrictions on high-level official contacts with Taiwan, many of which had been put in place more than 40 years ago when the US ended formal relations with the Republic of China on Taiwan and normalized relations with the People’s Republic of China. Washington moved to increase bilateral defense cooperation, support for Taiwan’s international participation, and more. The Biden administration has indicated that it will not reverse many of these developments and has pledged greater engagement with fellow democracies in the Indo-Pacific, including Taiwan. Are these developments a sign of a significant deepening of the unofficial partnership between Washington and Taipei? What do they portend for Taiwan’s international status and security? In this talk, Jacques deLisle will address these issues in the context of Taiwan’s complicated status in US and international law, and Taiwan’s ongoing quest for international space and stature.
Featured Speaker Jacques deLisle is the Stephen A. Cozen Professor of Law & Professor of Political Science, and Director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China at the University of Pennsylvania. Jacques deLisle’s research and teaching focus on contemporary Chinese law and politics, including: legal reform and its relationship to economic reform and political change in China, the international status of Taiwan and cross-Strait relations, China’s engagement with the international order, legal and political issues in Hong Kong under Chinese rule, and U.S.-China relations. His writings on these subjects appear in a variety of fora, including international relations journals, edited volumes of multidisciplinary scholarship, and Asian studies journals, as well as law reviews. DeLisle is also professor of political science, director of the Center for East Asian Studies at Penn, deputy director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China and director of the Asia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He has served frequently as an expert witness on issues of P.R.C. law and government policies and is a consultant, lecturer and advisor to legal reform, development and education programs, primarily in China.
Hoover Institution research fellow Lanhee Chen answers the most popular questions from his video, "What History Tells Us About the Public Option." 1. What is the public option and who would be eligible to buy into it? 2. Would the public option make private health insurance illegal? 3. Who would decide how much doctors and hospitals were paid for treating patients on the public option? And how would healthcare providers respond? 4. What are the chances that the public option would remain deficit-neutral? 5. What effect would the public option have on the cost of health insurance, and what alternatives exist to accomplish the twin goals of expanding access and affordability of health insurance? Click to watch the video "What History Tells Us About the Public Option."
Historical Progression of Cyber Strategy
Friday, February 12, 2021
The Hoover Institution hosted A Decade Of US Cyber Strategy: A Hoover Chat Series With Cyber Experts And Defense Leaders on January 29, February 12, February 26, March 12, and March 19, 2020.
The February 12 session focuses on the Historical Progression of Cyber Strategy and looks at how US defense cyber strategy has evolved over the last ten years and what paradigms might guide future strategy.
This series of discussions will look at the evolution of US cyber strategy over the last decade. Join scholars and defense cyber leaders as they discuss chapters from the recently published book, Ten Years In: Implementing Strategic Approaches to Cyberspace, all with an eye towards the future of US cyber strategy.
The series features authors from the volume, including both academics and Department of Defense cyber leaders, as well as Hoover experts that discuss the history of cyber strategy, cyber warfare, cyberspace talent, and public-private innovation in cyberspace and will be moderated by Dr. Jackie Schneider, Hoover Fellow, Hoover Institution.
Panelists Admiral James O. Ellis Jr. | Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution
Dr. Michael Warner | Command Historian, United States Cyber Command
Dr. Emily Goldman | Strategist, United States Cyber Command
For more information visit https://www.hoover.org/events/ten-years-us-cyber-strategy-chat-series
Political Thinkers In The Xi Jinping Era
Wednesday, February 10, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
China’s establishment intellectuals are not widely known beyond its borders. These professors, journalists, writers, and artists try to shape public debate and state policy and more or less play by the Chinese Communist Party’s rules while not acting as spokespeople for it. Ownby will describe the evolution of their “thought world,” which has adapted to Xi Jinping’s tighter strictures, and introduce a number of its key thinkers and themes.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER David Ownby is professor of History at the Université de Montréal in Canada. He has worked on a variety of topics in Chinese history, including the history of secret societies, popular religion in modern and contemporary China, and currently contemporary Chinese establishment intellectuals. He directs the Reading the China Dream project, a website devoted to the world of establishment intellectual thought in contemporary China.
ABOUT THE DISCUSSANT Glenn Tiffert is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he manages its project on China’s Global Sharp Power. A historian of modern China, his research focuses on the PRC’s political and legal systems. He also works closely with government and civil society partners in the United States and elsewhere around the world to document and build resilience against authoritarian interference with democratic institutions. He currently serves on the executive committee of the Academic Security and Counter-Exploitation Program, an association of US universities established to help heighten security awareness in academia.
Hoover Institution senior fellow Terry Anderson answers frequently asked questions from his "Renewing Indigenous Economies" videos on PolicyEd. Questions: 1. In what ways were early indigenous economies like modern free market economies? 2. Are modern ideas of property rights in line with Native beliefs about land ownership? 3. What is standing in the way of Native Americans starting businesses and improving their lives? 4. Why is it important to Native peoples that they stay on their reservation lands? 5. What policies could be enacted to restore tribal sovereignty? 6. Are there examples of tribes that have recovered their sovereignty? What keeps other tribes from doing the same thing?
Click below to watch the three videos. Original Indigenous Economies: http://hvr.co/RIE1 Colonialism: Then and Now: http://hvr.co/RIE2 A New Path Forward: http://hvr.co/RIE3
Have more questions for Terry? Email your questions to the PolicyEd team or follow us on Twitter.
Ten Years In: A Kick-Off to the Cyber Strategy Series Friday, January 29, 2021
The Hoover Institution is hosted A Decade Of US Cyber Strategy: A Hoover Chat Series With Cyber Experts And Defense Leaders on January 29, February 12, February 26, March 12, and March 19, 2020.
The January 29 session focuses on the importance of US cyber strategy, how strategy is implemented, and how we will know whether it is successful.
This series of discussions will look at the evolution of US cyber strategy over the last decade. Join scholars and defense cyber leaders as they discuss chapters from the recently published book, Ten Years In: Implementing Strategic Approaches to Cyberspace, all with an eye towards the future of US cyber strategy.
The series features authors from the volume, including both academics and Department of Defense cyber leaders, as well as Hoover experts that discuss the history of cyber strategy, cyber warfare, cyberspace talent, and public-private innovation in cyberspace and will be moderated by Dr. Jackie Schneider, Hoover Fellow, Hoover Institution.
For more information visit https://www.hoover.org/events/ten-years-us-cyber-strategy-chat-series
India-Taiwan Ties In An Era Of Chinese Expansionism
Thursday, January 21, 2021
The Hoover Institution hosts India-Taiwan Ties in an Era of Chinese Expansionism on Thursday, January 21, 2021 from 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. PST.
As tensions between India and China have mounted over the past few years, India’s relations with Taiwan have become increasingly warm. In the face of expanding Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific, New Delhi and Taipei have pursued initiatives to strengthen economic exchanges, improve supply chain resilience, jointly advance science and technology, and cooperate on traditional and non-traditional security issues. In this talk, Jagannath P. Panda will speak about recent developments in India-Taiwan ties, the prospects for continued bilateral cooperation, and the implications for geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific.
Featured Speaker
Dr. Jagannath P. Panda is a Research Fellow at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA), New Delhi. He is in charge of East Asia Centre at the MP-IDSA, and looks after the track-II and track 1.5 dialogue with the think-tanks in China, Taiwan, Japan and Korea. Dr. Panda is the Series Editor for Routledge Studies on Think Asia.
Dr. Panda is the author of India-China Relations: Politics of Resources, Identity and Authority in a Multipolar World Order (Routledge: 2017); and China’s Path to Power: Party, Military and the Politics of State Transition (Pentagon Press: 2010). He is the editor of the volume, India-Taiwan Relations in Asia and Beyond: The Future (Pentagon, 2016). Dr. Panda has also edited a number of books to his credit. Most recently, he has published an edited volume Scaling India-Japan Cooperation in Indo-Pacific and Beyond 2025: Connectivity, Corridors and Contours (KW Publishing Ltd. 2019), and The Korean Peninsula and Indo-Pacific Power Politics: Status Security at Stake (Routledge, 2020). He is the co-editor of the just released volume, Chinese Politics and Foreign Policy under Xi Jinping: The Future Political Trajectory (Routledge, 2020).
Dr. Panda has published in leading journals like Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs, Journal of Contemporary China, Rising Powers Quarterly, Journal of Asian Public Policy, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Asian Perspective, Georgetown Journal of Asian Affairs, Strategic Analyses, China Report, Indian Foreign Affairs Journal, Portuguese Journal of International Affairs, The Journal of Indian and Asian Studies, On Korea: Academic Paper Series, East Asia Forum Quarterly, Megatrend Review, Journal of Indian Ocean Studies, Asian Ethnicity, among others. He has also published in various newspapers and online portals such as Nikkei Asian Review, Asia Times, The Korea Times, The Korean Herald, The Japan Times, The Independent, Australian Financial Times, The Sunday Guardian, The Hindu, The Asian Age, The Tribune, The Pioneer, The Financial Express, Deccan Herald, The Economic Times, Global Times etc. His writings have also appeared in leading strategic and international forums such as The National Interest, RUSI Commentary, 38 North, Diplomat, Asia-Pacific Issues, Asia-Pacific Bulletin, East-West Wire, The Strategist, NBAR Commentary, China Brief, The Print, Japan Forward, World in One News, Asan Forum, The Globe Post, Asia Global Online, Air World Service: All India Radio, China-India Brief, Russia & India Business Report, South Asia voices, PacNet Commentary, East Asia Forum, Defense Security, JPI Peace Net, ISDP Focus Asia, ISDP Commentary, IDSA Comment, Mainstream, World Focus, and many other online portals.
H.R. McMaster in conversation with Ambassador Christoph Heusgen, Permanent Representative of Germany to the United Nations, on Wednesday, January 20th at 11:00am PT.
In this seventh episode of Battlegrounds, H.R. McMaster and Christopher Heusgen discuss the U.S.-Germany alliance, the European Union, and responses to humanitarian crises.
Xi Jinping’s Himalayan Overreach Friday, January 15, 2021 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Institution hosts Xi Jinping’s Himalayan Overreach on Friday, January 15th from 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. PDT.
Chinese expansionism under Xi Jinping is injecting greater instability and tension into the Indo-Pacific region. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the relationship between China and India, which make up more than a third of humanity and over a fifth of the global economy. That relationship has come under severe strain following China’s stealth encroachments in the northernmost borderlands of Ladakh in 2020. The aggression promises to sharpen the rivalry between the two Asian giants and engender important changes in Indian defense, trade and foreign policies.
After his remarks, Professor Chellaney will join Hoover Institution Fellows Larry Diamond and David Mulford in conversation.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Brahma Chellaney is a professor of strategic studies at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi and a Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow of the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin. He has held appointments at Harvard University, the Brookings Institution, Australian National University and the Nobel Institute, Oslo. He is author of nine books, including Water: Asia’s New Battleground (Georgetown University Press), which won the Bernard Schwartz Award.
Larry Diamond is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). He chairs Hoover’s project on China’s Global Sharp Power. His most recent book is Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency (2019).
David Mulford is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. As US ambassador to India (2004-2009), he played a key role in fostering the growing partnership between New Delhi and Washington. Amb. Mulford has also served as chairman international at Credit Suisse, assistant secretary and undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs (1984-1992), and senior investment advisor to the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (1974-1983). He has a DPhil from Oxford University.
H.R. McMaster in conversation with Staffan de Mistura, Former Special UN Envoy to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria on Wednesday, January 6th.
In this sixth episode of Battlegrounds, H.R. McMaster and Staffan de Mistura discuss the role of international organizations in promoting peace and improving security as well as limitations and disappointments associated with collective action.
Hoover Institution senior fellow Lee Ohanian answers questions from his video "Laboring in Vain: How Regulation Affects Unemployment." How are job markets different in American and Europe? Are European labor markets fairer than American ones? Listen to find out.
Dollars, Digital Currency, and 120 Years of Chinese Central Banking
Thursday, December 10, 2020 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Over 120 years of Chinese central banking history suggests that China’s central banks and adjacent financial institutions have served primarily as instruments of the state’s development agenda—though that agenda was defined and redefined by the Qing, Nationalist, and Communist regimes. In light of this history, China’s digital currency is bound to be yet another solution to the long-standing Chinese elite agenda of “development politics” and resisting foreign domination. Yes, DCEP will be used to sanction dissidents and allow the CCP to evade US sanctions. But, like predecessor institutions, DCEP’s larger mission will be to raise the technological sophistication of the domestic economy and to guarantee the state’s ability to mobilize these resources. Combined with AI, big data, ubiquitous connectivity, and the almost complete digitization of economic activity, DCEP will allow the Chinese state to see and manage its society and economy to a previously unfathomable degree.
Manny Rincon-Cruz is a researcher at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, where he helped launch and currently serves as the executive director of the History Working Group. His research focuses on various aspects of monetary history, Chinese history, and network science. He has written about the social networks of power in the history of the American presidency, the role of collegial networks in the promotion or demotion of Chinese political elites, and is currently working on modeling the spread of the Nazi party in its first three years. Since January 2020, he has been working to better understand the spread and containment of COVID-19, whether in Taiwan or the US. He nonetheless remains keenly interested in how digital technology is transforming both our public sphere and our monetary systems, here and abroad.
ABOUT THE HOOVER HISTORY WORKING GROUP
https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/history-working-group
This interview is part of the History Working Group Seminar Series. A central piece of the History Working Group is the seminar series, which is hosted in partnership with the Hoover Library & Archives. The seminar series was launched in the fall of 2019, and thus far has included six talks from Hoover research fellows, visiting scholars, and Stanford faculty. The seminars provide outside experts with an opportunity to present their research and receive feedback on their work. While the lunch seminars have grown in reputation, they have been purposefully kept small in order to ensure that the discussion retains a good seminar atmosphere.
Great Decisions: America in the World: Session 3: Tsars, Trade, and T-Cells
Thursday, December 10, 2020
The Hoover Institution hosts Great Decisions: America in the World on November 16, November 18, and December 10, 2020. The topic on December 10 for Session 3 is Tsars, Trade, and T-Cells.
The session features Michael McFaul, Lucy Shapiro and John B. Taylor. Michael Auslin moderates the discussion.
The Hoover Institution hosts Dynamics of Democracy in Taiwan: The Ma Ying-jeou Era on Tuesday, December 8, 2020 from 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. PDT.
During the Ma Ying-jeou presidency in Taiwan (2008-2016), confrontations over relations with the People’s Republic of China stressed the country’s institutions, leading to a political crisis. Nevertheless, as documented in Dynamics of Democracy in Taiwan, a new book edited by Kharis Templeman, Yun-han Chu, and Larry Diamond, its democracy proved to be resilient. In this discussion, several of the book’s contributors will reflect on the politics of this era, and what subsequent developments tell us about the enduring strengths and weaknesses of Taiwan’s democracy.
This lecture is part of the Hoover Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region.
Featured Speakers
Szu-yin Ho Graduate Institute of Strategic and International Affairs, Tamkang University
Austin Horng-en Wang Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Isaac Shih-hao Huang Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Political Science, National Chengchi University
Moderated by
Kharis Templeman Program Manager of the Hoover Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific
Introduction by
Larry Diamond Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution Director of the Hoover Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific
Structural Adjustment as Development
Tuesday, December 8, 2020 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Structural Adjustment Programs are commonly understood to refer to the conditional lending programs promoted by the World Bank and the IMF during the 1980s and 1990s, that aimed to downsize the state sector and encourage "Washington Consensus" economic governance standards across the Global South. This lecture argues that structural adjustment was in fact a much more ambitious project that began immediately in the wake of the colonial era, and that encompassed anti-Third World politics, the strategic use of debt crises to impose liberalizations, the application of shock therapies applied to ex-communist countries of Eastern Europe, and even the austerity programs applied in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis. The history of structural adjustment is thus a cipher for the march and triumph of neoliberalism. However, as the neoliberal era now draws to a close, we can see that the unintended albeit ironic consequence has been China's decision to pursue a radical trade surplus strategy that has deindustrialize the West.
ABOUT THE HOOVER HISTORY WORKING GROUP
https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/history-working-group
This interview is part of the History Working Group Seminar Series. A central piece of the History Working Group is the seminar series, which is hosted in partnership with the Hoover Library & Archives. The seminar series was launched in the fall of 2019, and thus far has included six talks from Hoover research fellows, visiting scholars, and Stanford faculty. The seminars provide outside experts with an opportunity to present their research and receive feedback on their work. While the lunch seminars have grown in reputation, they have been purposefully kept small in order to ensure that the discussion retains a good seminar atmosphere.
Impacts Of Government-Sponsored Programs
Thursday, December 3, 2020 Hoover Institution
The Hoover Institution presents an online virtual speaker series based on the scholarly research and commentary written by Hoover fellows participating in the Human Prosperity Project on Socialism and Free-Market Capitalism. This project objectively investigates the historical record to assess the consequences for human welfare, individual liberty, and interactions between nations of various economic systems ranging from pure socialism to free-market capitalism. Each session will include thoughtful and informed analysis from our top scholars.
FEATURING John F. Cogan is the Leonard and Shirley Ely Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a faculty member in the Public Policy Program at Stanford University.
Joshua D. Rauh is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Ormond Family Professor of Finance at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.
For more information on this initiative, click here - https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/human-prosperity-project-socialism-and-free-market-capitalism
To view the upcoming events, click here - https://www.hoover.org/research/human-prosperity-project-socialism-and-free-market-capitalism-speaker-series
Broken Promises: Historical Lessons on How Not to Govern the Uyghur Homeland
Thursday, December 3, 2020 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Xinjiang is a Muslim-majority region in northwest China, and its autochthonous Uyghur people are very different from China’s Han majority in terms of culture, language, and religion. Since 2016, China’s leadership has shifted its governing strategy in Xinjiang from economic development to cultural assimilation, citing the threat allegedly posed by Islam. A new system of reeducation camps, disappearances, and political imprisonment has now been widely reported in global media. This new policy is reminiscent of the last campaign of cultural assimilation undertaken in the region. From 1877 to 1907, Neo-Confucian activists from Hunan province attempted to turn 'Muslims into Confucians' and transform this alien border region into a familiar province of China proper. The result, however, was neither stability nor assimilation, but greater resentment, violence, and alienation. This talk explores the ramifications of that historical 'civilizing project' in terms of its effects on economy, sexual relations, and the creation of a deeper and more hostile ethnic consciousness. It reflects on the remarkable parallels with the program undertaken today in terms of its underlying logics and its social effects, and on the persistent idea of the 'broken promises' in the Uyghur relationship with China-based states.
Eric Schluessel is an assistant professor at the George Washington University in Washington, DC. His research concerns the social history of Xinjiang and China in the nineteenth through mid-twentieth centuries. Prof. Schluessel previously taught at the University of Montana, was recently a Mellon Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and spent the 2019-2020 academic year on a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. His publications include Land of Strangers (Columbia, 2020), An Introduction to Chaghatay (2018), and several articles on Uyghur and Chinese affairs past and present. He received his PhD in History and East Asian Languages from Harvard University.
ABOUT THE HOOVER HISTORY WORKING GROUP
https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/history-working-group
This interview is part of the History Working Group Seminar Series. A central piece of the History Working Group is the seminar series, which is hosted in partnership with the Hoover Library & Archives. The seminar series was launched in the fall of 2019, and thus far has included six talks from Hoover research fellows, visiting scholars, and Stanford faculty. The seminars provide outside experts with an opportunity to present their research and receive feedback on their work. While the lunch seminars have grown in reputation, they have been purposefully kept small in order to ensure that the discussion retains a good seminar atmosphere.
Hoover Institution senior fellow Lee Ohanian answers frequently asked questions from his video "Sweden's Experiment with Socialism." Is Sweden socialist? Is "democratic socialism" different from "socialism?" Listen to find out.
One Belt One Road: Chinese Power Meets the World
Tuesday, November 24, 2020 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Most discussion of China’s One Belt One Road initiative (OBOR) focuses on overseas infrastructure projects. But the initiative is also a campaign of ideas to buttress Xi Jinping’s personality cult and entrench his domestic control. Discussing a chapter from his new book, Eyck Freymann of the University of Oxford shows how Chinese-language propaganda use historical analogies to explain and justify the OBOR scheme. Their subtext is that Xi Jinping is the spiritual heir to Han Wudi, one of the most glorious emperors in Chinese history. OBOR’s true objective is to restore a model of world order from centuries past, when foreign emissaries would travel to Beijing and prostrate themselves at the feet of the Chinese emperor, offering gifts in exchange for political protection.
Eyck Freymann is the author of One Belt One Road: Chinese Power Meets the World (Harvard University Press 2020) and a doctoral candidate in Area Studies at the University of Oxford. He previously worked as a research assistant at Harvard University and at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Global Center in Beijing. He holds an MPhil from the University of Cambridge, where he was a Henry Scholar, and an AM and AB cum laude from Harvard.
ABOUT THE HOOVER HISTORY WORKING GROUP https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/history-working-group
This interview is part of the History Working Group Seminar Series. A central piece of the History Working Group is the seminar series, which is hosted in partnership with the Hoover Library & Archives. The seminar series was launched in the fall of 2019, and thus far has included six talks from Hoover research fellows, visiting scholars, and Stanford faculty. The seminars provide outside experts with an opportunity to present their research and receive feedback on their work. While the lunch seminars have grown in reputation, they have been purposefully kept small in order to ensure that the discussion retains a good seminar atmosphere.
Lessons Learned: European Values Vs Islamism
Thursday, November 19, 2020 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Assita Kanko, MEP and Ayaan Hirsi Ali discussed Lessons Learned: European Values vs. Islamism on Thursday, November 19, 2020.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University and founder of the AHA Foundation. She served as a Member of the Dutch Parliament from 2003 to 2006. While in Parliament, she focused on furthering the integration of non-Western immigrants into Dutch society, and on defending the rights of Muslim women.
Assita Kanko is an elected member of the European Parliament, a published author, columnist and human rights activist. In 2019 she was elected to represent the New Flemish Alliance as a Belgian MEP. She is a member of the Parliament’s delegation for EU-US relations, and its committees on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs; Foreign Affairs; Human Rights; Security and Defence. As a politician her work has led to the adoption of the Parliament’s first ever resolution entirely focused on ending the practice of FGM; something she herself survived as a child at age 5 in Burkina Faso.
For more information go to: https://www.hoover.org/publications/capital-conversations
Great Decisions: America in the World: Session 2: Strategic Stability
Wednesday, November 18, 2020
The Hoover Institution is hosting Great Decisions: America in the World on November 16, November 18, and December 11, 2020. The topic on November 18 for Session 2 is Strategic Stability.
This session features Larry Diamond, Niall Ferguson, and Victor Davis Hanson. Michael Auslin moderates the discussion.
The End Of "One Country, Two Systems" And The Future Of Freedom In Hong Kong
Wednesday, November 18, 2020 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Project on China’s Global Sharp Power hosted an event on The End of "One Country, Two Systems" and The Future of Freedom in Hong Kong with Victoria Tin-bor Hu, University of Notre Dame, and Nathan Law, Democracy Activist, on Wednesday, November 18, 2020 at 4:00 PM PT.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Victoria Tin-bor Hui is Associate Professor of Political Science and a Fellow of the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Her essay, "Crackdown: Hong Kong Faces Tiananmen 2.0," was published in the October 2020 Journal of Democracy. Her writings have also appeared in numerous academic journals and in Foreign Affairs.
Nathan Law is a democracy activist who was one of the student leaders of the 2014 Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong. In 2016 he became the youngest person ever elected to Hong Kong's Legislative Council, but his election was nullified under pressure from Beijing the following year. He recently obtained an M.A. degree in East Asian Studies from Yale University.
Great Decisions: America in the World: Session 1: Critical Countries
Monday, November 16, 2020
The Hoover Institution is hosting Great Decisions: America in the World on November 16, November 18, and December 11, 2020. The topic for Session 1 on November 16 is Critical Countries.
The session will feature Russell Berman, Elizabeth Economy, and H.R. McMaster. Michael Auslin will moderate the discussion.
How Racist Rhetoric Increases Chinese Overseas Students' Support for Authoritarian Rule
Friday, November 13, 2020
Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Project on China’s Global Sharp Power held an event on How Racist Rhetoric Increases Chinese Overseas Students' Support for Authoritarian Rule with Jennifer Pan, Assistant Professor of Communication and Yiqing Xu, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Stanford University on Friday, November 13, 2020 at 10:00 AM PT.
The cross-border flow of people for educational exchange in Western democracies is seen as a way to transfer democratic values to non-democratic regions of the world. What happens when students studying in the West encounter racism? Based on an experiment among hundreds of Chinese first-year undergraduates in the United States, we show that seeing racist, anti-Chinese rhetoric interferes with the transfer of democratic values. Chinese students who study in the United States are more predisposed to favor liberal democracy than their peers in China. However, anti-Chinese racism significantly reduces their belief that political reform is desirable for China and increases their support for authoritarian rule. These effects are most pronounced among students who are more likely to reject Chinese nationalism. Encountering non-racist criticisms of the Chinese government does not increase support for authoritarianism. Our results are not explained by relative evaluations of the handling of Covid-19 by the US and Chinese governments.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Jennifer Pan is an Assistant Professor of Communication at Stanford University. Her research resides at the intersection of political communication and authoritarian politics, showing how authoritarian governments try to control society, how the public responds, and when and why each is successful. Her book, Welfare for Autocrats: How Social Assistance in China Cares for its Rulers (Oxford, 2020), shows how China’s pursuit of political order transformed the country’s main social assistance program for repressive purposes.
Yiqing Xu is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. His primary research covers political methodology, Chinese politics, and their intersection. He received a PhD in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2016), an MA in Economics from the China Center for Economic Research at Peking University (2010) and a BA in Economics (2007) from Fudan University. He has won several professional awards, including the best article award from the American Journal of Political Science in 2016 and the Miller Prize for the best work appearing in Political Analysis in 2017.
Democracy and Authoritarianism
Thursday, November 12, 2020 Hoover Institution
The Hoover Institution presents an online virtual speaker series based on the scholarly research and commentary written by Hoover fellows participating in the Human Prosperity Project on Socialism and Free-Market Capitalism. This project objectively investigates the historical record to assess the consequences for human welfare, individual liberty, and interactions between nations of various economic systems ranging from pure socialism to free-market capitalism. Each session will include thoughtful and informed analysis from our top scholars.
FEATURING Elizabeth Economy is a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and the Senior Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University.
For more information on this initiative, click here - https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/human-prosperity-project-socialism-and-free-market-capitalism
To view the upcoming events, click here - https://www.hoover.org/research/human-prosperity-project-socialism-and-free-market-capitalism-speaker-series.
News from Germany: The Competition to Control World Communications
Thursday, November 12, 2020 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
To control information is to control the world. Information warfare may seem like a new feature of our contemporary digital world. But it was just as crucial a century ago, when Germany tried to control world communications—and nearly succeeded. From the turn of the twentieth century, German political and business elites worried that their British and French rivals dominated global news networks. Many Germans even blamed foreign media for Germany’s defeat in World War I. In response, Imperial leaders, and their Weimar and Nazi successors, nurtured wireless technology to make news from Germany a major source of information across the globe.
Click the following link to read two articles from Professor Tworek
https://www.hoover.org/events/news-germany-competition-control-world-communications
Heidi Tworek is an associate professor at the University of British Columbia, where she works on media, international organizations, and transatlantic relations. Prof. Tworek is a senior fellow at Centre for International Governance Innovation, as well as a non-resident fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. She is the author of the award-winning News from Germany: The Competition to Control World Communications, 1900-1945, published in 2019 and has co-edited two volumes, Exorbitant Expectations: International Organizations and the Media in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, and The Routledge Companion to the Makers of Global Business. She received her BA from Cambridge University and her PhD in History from Harvard.
ABOUT THE HOOVER HISTORY WORKING GROUP https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/history-working-group
This interview is part of the History Working Group Seminar Series. A central piece of the History Working Group is the seminar series, which is hosted in partnership with the Hoover Library & Archives. The seminar series was launched in the fall of 2019, and thus far has included six talks from Hoover research fellows, visiting scholars, and Stanford faculty. The seminars provide outside experts with an opportunity to present their research and receive feedback on their work. While the lunch seminars have grown in reputation, they have been purposefully kept small in order to ensure that the discussion retains a good seminar atmosphere.
Covert, Coercive, and Corrupt: Countering Chinese Communist Party Malign Influence in Free Societies
Friday, October 30, 2020 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Institution and the Center on U.S.-China Relations, Asia Society held a Zoom webinar Covert, Coercive, and Corrupt: Countering Chinese Communist Party Malign Influence in Free Societies: A Conversation with Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs David Stilwell on Friday, October 30, 2020 from 12:00 pm - 1:15 pm PDT | 3:00 pm - 4:15 pm EDT.
Following introductory remarks from Hoover Institution Director Condoleezza Rice, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs David Stilwell will give a policy address on the PRC's malign influence activities and how the US government is countering them. He will focus in particular on how the US government is using legal, diplomatic, and consular tools to identify PRC propaganda outlets, and on how it is seeking to help ensure the fair and reciprocal treatment of foreign journalists in China. After the speech, Hoover Senior Fellow Larry Diamond will lead Assistant Secretary Stilwell in conversation with the Asia Society’s Orville Schell and Oriana Skylar Mastro, a Center fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University.
FEATURING
David R. Stilwell is the Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. He served in the Air Force for 35 years, retiring in 2015 in the rank of Brigadier General as the Asia advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. From 2017-2019, Mr. Stilwell served as the Director of the China Strategic Focus Group at U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii. He was awarded the Department of Defense Superior Service Award in 2015.
Condoleezza Rice is the Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution and the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy. In addition, she is a founding partner of Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, an international strategic consulting firm. Rice served as the sixty-sixth secretary of state of the United States (2005-2009) and as President George W. Bush’s national security adviser (2001-2005).
Larry Diamond is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). He chairs Hoover’s project on China’s Global Sharp Power. His most recent book is Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency (2019).
Orville Schell is the Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at Asia Society and former dean and professor at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Schell is the author of ten books about China, including most recently Wealth and Power: China’s Long March to the Twenty-first Century (2013).
Oriana Skylar Mastro is a Center fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, where her research focuses on Chinese military and security policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, war termination, and coercive diplomacy. Dr. Mastro is also a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and serves in the United States Air Force Reserve, for which she works as a strategic planner at INDOPACOM.
What Winston Churchill’s Relations with Russia Can Teach Us for Today
Thursday, October 29, 2020 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
“If only I could dine with Stalin once a week,” Winston Churchill said with unusual naïveté during the Second World War, “then there would be no trouble at all.” When it came to dealing with Russia, Churchill went through five distinct phases of engagement, of which the most dangerous was thinking that Stalin was a normal statesman for whom personal relations mattered, rather than a hardened Russian ideologue and nationalist for whom only Realpolitik mattered. Churchill’s biographer Andrew Roberts will explore how Churchill’s experience can help the West in its dealings with Vladimir Putin.
Andrew Roberts is the Roger and Martha Mertz Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Lehrman Institute Distinguished Fellow at the New-York Historical Society, and Visiting Professor at the War Studies Department at King’s College. He has written over a dozen books including Salisbury: Victorian Titan, Napoleon the Great, and Churchill: Walking with Destiny, which was a New York Times Bestseller and won the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Prize. He is a trustee of the Margaret Thatcher Archive Trust and the National Army Museum, and received his PhD from Cambridge University.
ABOUT THE HOOVER HISTORY WORKING GROUP
https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/history-working-group
This interview is part of the History Working Group Seminar Series. A central piece of the History Working Group is the seminar series, which is hosted in partnership with the Hoover Library & Archives. The seminar series was launched in the fall of 2019, and thus far has included six talks from Hoover research fellows, visiting scholars, and Stanford faculty. The seminars provide outside experts with an opportunity to present their research and receive feedback on their work. While the lunch seminars have grown in reputation, they have been purposefully kept small in order to ensure that the discussion retains a good seminar atmosphere.
China’s Rise And Prospects For Security And Stability In The Indo-Pacific Region | 2020 Conference on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region | Panel 6
Thursday, October 29, 2020 Hoover Institution
Panel 6: Thursday, October 29, 4-5:30pm PDT and focuses on China’s Rise And Prospects For Security And Stability In The Indo-Pacific Region.
CHAIR: H.R. McMaster (Hoover Institution)
DISCUSSANT: Larry Diamond (Hoover Institution)
Michael Auslin, Hoover Institution
Elizabeth Economy, Hoover Institution
James Ellis, Hoover Institution
Thomas Fingar, Stanford University
Orville Schell, Asia Society
MEET THE PANELISTS
Dr. Michael Auslin is Payson J. Treat Distinguished Research Fellow in Contemporary Asia at the Hoover Institution. A historian of U.S. policy in Asia, he is the author of Asia’s New Geopolitics: Essays on Reshaping the Indo-Pacific.
Dr. Larry Diamond is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He chairs Hoover’s projects on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and China’s Global Sharp Power. A renowned expert on democracy, he is the author of Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency.
Dr. Elizabeth Economy is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Senior Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is an expert on Chinese domestic and foreign policy and author of The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State.
ADM James Ellis (Ret.) is an Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He led United States Strategic Command and commanded the USS Independence carrier battle group during the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1996. He is also the former president and CEO of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO).
Dr. Thomas Fingar is a Shorenstein APARC Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. Formerly, he was first deputy director of national intelligence and chairman of the U.S. National Intelligence Council. Most recently, he co-edited Fateful Decisions: Choices that Will Shape China’s Future.
LTG H.R. McMaster (Ret.) is Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He was the 26th U.S. national security advisor. McMaster is the author of Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World.
Orville Schell is Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society. A long-time China observer, Schell is former dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley.
Accelerate Change Or Lose: A Discussion With US Air Force Chief Of Staff, Gen. Charles Q. Brown
Wednesday, October 28, 2020 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
US Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. Charles Q. Brown and Michael Auslin discussed Accelerate Change or Lose on Capital Conversations on October 28, 2020.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr. is Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force. As Chief, he serves as the senior uniformed Air Force officer responsible for the organization, training, and equipping of 685,000 active-duty, Guard, Reserve, and civilian forces serving in the U.S. and overseas. As members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the general and other service chiefs’ function as military advisers to the Secretary of Defense, National Security Council and the President.
Michael Auslin is the Payson J. Treat Distinguished Research Fellow in Contemporary Asia at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. A historian by training, he specializes in U.S. policy in Asia and geopolitical issues in Indo-Pacific region. A best selling author, his latest book is Asia's New Geopolitics: Essarys in Reshaping the Indo-Pacific.
H.R. McMaster in conversation with Tarō Kōno, Minister of Regulatory Reform and Administrative Reform on Wednesday, October 28, 2020 at 9:00 AM PT.
In our fourth episode of Battlegrounds, H.R. McMaster and Minister Kono discuss the evolution of the Japan-U.S. alliance and growing international cooperation to preserve peace in the Indo-Pacific region and counter threats to freedom and prosperity from the South China Seas to the Senkakus as well as in space and cyberspace.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Tarō Kōno is Minister of Regulatory Reform and Administrative Reform. photo KONO Taro, 57, is an eight-term Member of the House of Representatives. He has been Minister for Administrative Reform and Regulatory Reform in the Suga Government since September 16, 2020. Among positions he has held are Minister of Defense; Foreign Minister; Chairman of the National Public Safety Commission, or Minister in charge of the National Police Organization; Minister for Civil Service Reform; Minister in Charge of Consumer Affairs and Food Safety; and Minister in Charge of Disaster Management in the Abe Government, Parliamentary Secretary for Public Management and Senior Vice-Minister of Justice in the Koizumi Government, and Chairman of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives. Taro is a graduate of the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University.
H. R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is also the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and lecturer at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. He was the 26th assistant to the president for National Security Affairs. Upon graduation from the United States Military Academy in 1984, McMaster served as a commissioned officer in the United States Army for thirty-four years before retiring as a Lieutenant General in June 2018.
ABOUT THE SERIES
Battlegrounds provides a needed forum with leaders from key countries to share their assessment of problem sets and opportunities that have implications for U.S. foreign policy and national security strategy. Each episode features H.R. McMaster in a one-on-one conversation with a senior foreign government leader to allow Americans and partners abroad to understand how the past produced the present and how we might work together to secure a peaceful and prosperous future. “Listening and learning from those who have deep knowledge of our most crucial challenges is the first step in crafting the policies we need to secure peace and prosperity for future generations.”
For more information, visit: https://www.hoover.org/battlegrounds_perspectives
Pick up a copy of "Battlegrounds: The Fight To Defend The Free World," by H.R. McMaster here - https://www.hoover.org/research/battlegrounds-fight-defend-free-world
Democracy, Good Governance And Pluralism | 2020 Conference | Panel 5
Monday, October 26, 2020 Hoover Institution
CHAIR: Lanhee Chen (Hoover Institution)
DISCUSSANT: Larry Diamond (Hoover Institution)
• The Indo-Pacific Transparency Initiative meets the Belt and Road
Lavina Lee, Macquarie University
• Tackling Local Clientelism and Corruption: Taiwan’s experience
Chin-shou Wang, National Cheng Kung University
• Countering Sharp Power: Lessons from Taiwan
Kharis Templeman, Hoover Institution
MEET THE PANELISTS
Dr. Lanhee Chen is David and Diane Steffy Fellow in American Public Policy Studies at the Hoover Institution. A veteran of four US presidential campaigns, he is also the Director of Domestic Policy Studies and Lecturer in the Public Policy Program at Stanford University.
Dr. Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He chairs Hoover’s projects on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and China’s Global Sharp Power. A renowned expert on democracy, he is the author of Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency.
Dr. Lavina Lee is a senior lecturer in the Department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations at Macquarie University. She is the author of US Hegemony and International Legitimacy: Norms Power and Followership in the Wars on Iraq.
Dr. Kharis Templeman is a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution. Formerly, he led the Taiwan Democracy and Security Project (TDSP) in the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) at Stanford. He is co-editor of Dynamics of Democracy in Taiwan: The Ma Ying-jeou Years.
Dr. Chin-shou Wang is professor of political science at National Cheng Kung University. His research focuses on judicial politics.
Thursday, October 22, 2020 Hoover Institution
PRC Influence And Interference | 2020 Conference on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region | Panel 4
CHAIR: Glenn Tiffert (Hoover Institution)
DISCUSSANT: John Pomfret (Washington Post contributor)
• Media Influence Operations in Australia
Maree Ma, Vision Times Media (AUS)
• Online Disinformation and Propaganda
Puma Shen, National Taipei University
• How Asians View the Competition for Influence Between China and the U.S.
Yun-han Chu, National Taiwan University & Academia Sinica
MEET THE PANELISTS
Dr. Yun-han Chu is distinguished research fellow of the Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica and professor of political science at National Taiwan University. He serves concurrently as president of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange. His research focuses on the politics of Greater China, East Asian political economy and democratization.
Maree Ma is general manager of Vision Times Media, a leading independent Chinese language media company in Australia.
John Pomfret is global affairs contributor and former Beijing bureau chief for the Washington Post. He is the author of The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present.
Dr. Puma Shen is assistant professor at National Taipei University’s Graduate School of Criminology and director of DoubleThink Labs, which studies the intersection between democratic governance and the internet.
Dr. Glenn Tiffert is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. A historian of modern China, he manages the Hoover projects on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region, and on China’s Global Sharp Power.
Economic Interdependence: Dangers And Opportunities Ahead | 2020 Conference | Panel 3
Monday, October 19, 2020 Hoover Institution
Panel 3 took place on Monday, October 19, 4-5:30pm PDT and focused on Economic Interdependence: Dangers And Opportunities Ahead.
CHAIR: David Lampton (Johns Hopkins-SAIS)
DISCUSSANT: Thomas Fingar (Stanford University)
• Economic coercion as a tool of PRC foreign policy
Christina Lai, Academia Sinica
• Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy: A framework for economic security
Ian Tsung-yen Chen, National Sun Yat-sen University
• Competing paradigms of development assistance in the Indo-Pacific
Jonathan Pryke, Lowy Institute
MEET THE PANELISTS
Dr. Ian Tsung-yen Chen is associate professor at the Institute of Political Science at National Sun Yat-sen University. His current book project is entitled The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank: Power, Interests and Reputation.
Dr. Thomas Fingar is a Shorenstein APARC Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. Formerly, he was first deputy director of national intelligence and chairman of the U.S. National Intelligence Council. Most recently, he co-edited Fateful Decisions: Choices that Will Shape China’s Future.
Dr. Christina Lai is a junior research fellow in the Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica, Taiwan. She was also a lecturer in global security studies at Johns Hopkins University. Her research focuses on U.S.-China relations, Chinese foreign policy, East Asian politics, and qualitative research methods.
Dr. David M. Lampton is professor emeritus of China studies and former director of SAIS-China and China Studies at Johns Hopkins SAIS. He is a senior fellow of the Foreign Policy Institute and former president of the National Committee on United States-China Relations.
Jonathan Pryke is director of the Lowy Institute’s Pacific Islands Program. Mr. Pryke joined the Lowy Institute from the Development Policy Centre at the Australian National University where he was editor of the Development Policy Blog.
Yesterday's China: Intellectual Property, Government Secrecy, and the British Origins of the Pax Americana
Thursday, October 15, 2020 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
Today, the United States inveighs against China’s theft of foreign intellectual property. A century ago, however, when the United States was a rising power and Great Britain the global hegemon, it behaved in many of the ways that China does now. This talk explores a case in which the US government pirated cutting-edge British naval technology and then invoked national security to block the inventors from accessing the evidence they needed to prove patent infringement. The case illustrates the tension between liberal norms of property rights and illiberal norms of government secrecy, as well as the transition from the Pax Britannica to the Pax Americana.
Katherine C. Epstein is an associate professor of history at Rutgers University and the author of Torpedo: Inventing the Military-Industrial Complex in the United States and Great Britain. She studies the political economy of defense contracting and the Anglo-American hegemonic transition, and will be sharing with the seminar a chapter from her new book manuscript on the topic. She has been awarded a Frederick Burkhardt fellowship by the ACLS and has been a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. She received her BA in History summa cum laude from Yale University, MPhil in International Relations from the University of Cambridge, and PhD in History from Ohio State University.
ABOUT THE HOOVER HISTORY WORKING GROUP https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/history-working-group
This interview is part of the History Working Group Seminar Series. A central piece of the History Working Group is the seminar series, which is hosted in partnership with the Hoover Library & Archives. The seminar series was launched in the fall of 2019, and thus far has included six talks from Hoover research fellows, visiting scholars, and Stanford faculty. The seminars provide outside experts with an opportunity to present their research and receive feedback on their work. While the lunch seminars have grown in reputation, they have been purposefully kept small in order to ensure that the discussion retains a good seminar atmosphere.
Perspectives from Germany, China, and Hong Kong
Thursday, October 15, 2020 Hoover Institution
The Hoover Institution presents an online virtual speaker series based on the scholarly research and commentary written by Hoover fellows participating in the Human Prosperity Project on Socialism and Free-Market Capitalism. This project objectively investigates the historical record to assess the consequences for human welfare, individual liberty, and interactions between nations of various economic systems ranging from pure socialism to free-market capitalism. Each session will include thoughtful and informed analysis from our top scholars.
FEATURING Michael Auslin, Ph.D., is the Payson J. Treat Distinguished Research Fellow in Contemporary Asia at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. A historian by training, he specializes in U.S. policy in Asia and geopolitical issues in the Indo-Pacific region.
Russell Berman, the Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University, is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a co-chair of the Working Group on Islamism and the International Order.
For more information on this initiative, click here - https://www.hoover.org/research-teams/human-prosperity-project-socialism-and-free-market-capitalism
To view the upcoming events, click here - https://www.hoover.org/research/human-prosperity-project-socialism-and-free-market-capitalism-speaker-series
Sharp Power, Natural Resources And Sustainable Development | 2020 Conference | Panel 2
Thursday, October 15, 2020 Hoover Institution
Panel 2 took place on Thursday, October 15, 4-5:30pm PDT and focuses on Sharp Power, Natural Resources And Sustainable Development.
CHAIR: Minxin Pei (Claremont-McKenna College) DISCUSSANT: Elizabeth Economy (Hoover Institution)
• The intensifying competition over fisheries Kuan-hsiung Wang, National Taiwan Normal University
• Oil and gas development in the South China Sea Emily Meierding, Naval Postgraduate School
• Oceania and the geopolitics of resource extraction Transform Aqorau, Solomon Islands National University
Preparing For The Next Pandemic: Mobilizing And Integrating Responses Across The Government And The Private Sector
Wednesday, October 14, 2020 Hoover Institution, Stanford University
The Hoover Institution is hosting "Preparing for the Next Pandemic: Mobilizing and Integrating Responses Across the Government and the Private Sector" on Wednesday, October 14, 2020 from 9:00 AM PST/12:00 PM EST.
Lieut. Gen. H.R. McMaster has convened a research team at the Hoover Institution and Stanford University in collaboration with the U.S. Civilian Corps to capture lessons from the domestic COVID-19 response with an eye toward recommending how to improve the coordination and integration of government and private sector efforts in response to pandemics. The findings and recommendations are also meant to inform responses to other domestic crises that are large in scale and affect wide areas of the United States.
Click here for a pdf of the research discussed in the video below.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER H. R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is also the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and lecturer at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business. He was the 26th assistant to the president for National Security Affairs. Upon graduation from the United States Military Academy in 1984, McMaster served as a commissioned officer in the United States Army for thirty-four years before retiring as a Lieutenant General in June 2018.
Security and Defense Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific | 2020 Conference on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region - Panel 1
October 12, 2020
Panel 1 on Monday, October 12 from 4:00pm-5:30pm PDT, focuses on Security and Defense Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific.
CHAIR: James Ellis (Hoover Institution)
DISCUSSANTS: Joseph Felter (Hoover Institution), Che-chuan Lee (INDSR)
The changing balance of military power in the Indo-Pacific Region Phillip Saunders, National Defense University
Indo-Pacific strategies: The perspectives of key U.S. allies and partners Tetsuo Kotani, Japan Institute of International Affairs
MEET THE PANELISTS ADM James Ellis (Ret.) is an Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He led United States Strategic Command and commanded the USS Independence carrier battle group during the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1996. He is also the former president and CEO of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO).
Dr. Joseph Felter is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is former US deputy assistant secretary of defense for South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania, and co-directs the Empirical Studies of Conflict Project at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.
Tetsuo Kotani is a senior fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA) and a professor at Meikai University. He was a visiting scholar, Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). His research focuses on the US-Japan alliance and maritime security.
Dr. Che-chuan Lee is the chief of the national security and decision-making division at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in Taiwan. Formerly, he served on Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, National Security Council, and in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Dr. Phillip Saunders is director of the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs, and a distinguished research fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies at National Defense University. He is co-author of The Paradox of Power: Sino-American Strategic Restraint in an Era of Vulnerability.