New Senior Fellows
Introducing the Science Fellowship
The Hoover Institution has created a new science fellowship, supporting and advancing the research of leading scientists studying the policy implications of frontier technologies.
Understanding the Implications of Frontier Technologies
Stanford Emerging Technology Review
IMAGE: HOOVER INSTITUTION, 2024
As the pace of technological change accelerates, experts from across the Stanford community are working to chart how significant technologies will impact government and policy. October 2023 saw the launch of the Stanford Emerging Technology Review (SETR), a new initiative focused on guiding policymakers through technology developments that are shaping economies, societies, and the future of conflict. The project’s first report addressed how American leadership can spur innovation and mitigate risks in key technology areas, among them space, semiconductors, sustainable energy, cryptography, and artificial intelligence.
SETR was developed in partnership between the Hoover Institution and Stanford’s School of Engineering and draws on insights from many other field-leading experts at Stanford. To launch the initiative, Director Rice engaged in a conversation on November 15 with Silicon Valley entrepreneur Marc Andreessen, who addressed concerns about how societies are grappling with the rapid pace and impacts of technological advances. The event included remarks by Stanford University president Richard Saller, as well as SETR’s contributors on robotics and materials science. Hoover later presented the SETR report to policymakers on Capitol Hill and to intelligence, defense, and national security agencies in January 2024.
Stanford Emerging Technology Review cochairs Jennifer Widom (left) and Director Condoleezza Rice attend a roundtable on December 8, 2023.
Photo: Rod Searcey, 2023
The Policy Challenge of AI Safety Conference
US AI Safety Institute director Elizabeth Kelly speaks on April 15, 2024.
Photo: Patrick Beaudouin, 2024
Former Google CEO and chair Eric Schmidt (left) and LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman (center) speak about the future of AI development on April 15, 2024.
Photo: Patrick Beaudouin, 2024
The Hoover Institution, together with Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, hosted a conference on April 15 featuring some of the world’s leading thinkers on AI, as well as representatives of emerging regulatory bodies. The conference was chaired by Senior Fellow Philip Zelikow, who stressed that research into AI dangers is necessary in order to prepare for its misuse. Elizabeth Kelly, director of the new US AI Safety Institute, joined with leaders from her counterpart organization in the United Kingdom to discuss how government regulators will test and evaluate AI applications that are constantly improving and evolving.
Safeguarding US Research Collaboration at Home and Abroad
Los Alamos National Laboratory director Dr. Thomas Mason speaks in a related event on January 22, 2024, about the history of safeguarding US research.
Photo: Patrick Beaudouin, 2024
The US National Science, Technology and Security Roundtable (Pacific Region) gathered at Hoover on January 23–24 for a discussion among federal officials and researchers about how to balance the need for safeguarding critical research against foreign espionage with the desire for academics all over the world to collaborate freely and openly. In her remarks at the roundtable, Director Condoleezza Rice urged federal agencies to protect the research enterprise from malign influence while also preserving the ability of universities and other institutions to be collaborative with foreign counterparts and share information freely.
Center for Revitalizing American Institutions
RAI Launches with Conference and Initiatives on Public Pensions, Civics Discourse, Elections, and Governance
Director Condoleezza Rice speaks with New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu (center) and Maryland governor Wes Moore at the RAI launch on November 30, 2023.
Photo: Patrick Beaudouin, 2023
The nonpartisan Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI) draws on the Hoover Institution’s scholarship, government experience, and convening power to study the crisis in trust facing American institutions and offer policy recommendations to rebuild trust and increase their effectiveness.
RAI launched with a conference in November 2023 featuring governors Chris Sununu of New Hampshire and Wes Moore of Maryland on leading their respective states in a politically polarized era. The conference explored the efficacy and stability of institutions that form the bedrock of democracy in America: the electoral system, the Supreme Court, Congress, the executive branch, higher education, and the all-volunteer military. Retired US Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy emphasized the importance of civic education in solving current crises of democratic governance. RAI continues to host discussions and has published a series of papers about administrative law.
Justice Anthony Kennedy (right) in conversation with Eugene Volokh at the RAI launch on November 30, 2023.
Photo: Patrick Beaudouin, 2023
Sharece Thrower hosts the Conference on Executive-Judicial Relations in the Annenberg Conference Room on June 6, 2024.
Photo: Patrick Beaudouin, 2024
Tennenbaum Program for Fact-Based Policy
It is crucial that voters and elected officials are equipped with credible information to confront major, even contentious, policy questions. To address this deficit of knowledge on a nonpartisan basis, the Hoover Institution initiated the Tennenbaum Program for Fact-Based Policy, directed by Wohlford Family Senior Fellow Michael J. Boskin.
In June, Boskin and Senior Fellow Douglas Rivers, chief scientist of global polling firm YouGov, published findings from a poll of two thousand US voters. They found that a large proportion lack basic knowledge of some of the most important issues confronting America, including its fiscal position and federal spending. The survey also uncovered how many Americans are eager for reliable and factual information. The Tennenbaum Program aims to meet this demand with a far-reaching effort to disseminate factual information on a host of policy issues, inviting scholars to contribute to essays. podcasts, books, video programming, and public events.
Michael Boskin speaks about the policy knowledge of the average American voter and the Tennenbaum Program for Fact-Based Policy during a session of the Summer Board Meeting on July 10, 2024.
Photo: Eric Draper, 2024
Answering Challenges to Advanced Economies
Shifts in Working from Home
Steven Davis speaks about his research on the rise of work-from-home arrangements at the Getting Global Monetary Policy on Track conference on May 3, 2024.
Photo: Patrick Beaudouin, 2024
Senior Fellow Steven Davis became the Hoover Institution’s new director of research in July, succeeding Keith and Jan Hurlbut Senior Fellow Daniel P. Kessler. The previous September, at a conference he hosted at Hoover, Davis advanced his impactful research on the new global shift toward working from home, arguing that this phenomenon will remain permanent. Since that conference, Davis has published numerous papers on work-from-home arrangements and labor market dynamics. His work also got several mentions in a prominent White House report released in March. The 2024 Economic Report of the President cites Davis multiple times, including a 2011 paper that examines the long-term wage impacts of a layoff and several papers that assess the scale, wage impact, and other effects of the global pivot to working from home.
Getting Global Monetary Policy on Track
Economists and central bankers from across the globe gathered May 2‒3 for the Hoover Institution’s annual monetary policy conference, discussing continued challenges in curbing inflation while ensuring stable economic growth, new forms of global payment systems, and financial regulations. More than twenty economists and regulators spoke and presented findings on topics ranging from how work-from-home arrangements have affected productivity and wage growth to novel ways for central banks to address a crisis. Senior Fellow John Taylor told attendees that he believes the Federal Reserve deviated too far from rules-based policy in 2021, holding the key interest rate too low for too long, allowing inflation to rise.
Amit Seru speaks about banking regulation at Hoover’s Getting Global Monetary Policy on Track conference on May 3, 2024.
Photo: Patrick Beaudouin, 2024
Reforming K–12 Education
A Nation at Risk + 40
IMAGE: HOOVER INSTITUTION, 2023
Looking back at the publication of A Nation at Risk, the Reagan administration’s landmark 1983 report on the state of K–12 education, the Hoover Education Success Initiative (HESI) convened a group of education policy experts to write an anthology examining how America’s school system has progressed since then. Each of the book’s fourteen sections tackles a different issue, including education system governance, the transition to digital learning tools, teacher training and recruitment, and school choice. Edited by Distinguished Research Fellow Margaret (Macke) Raymond and Distinguished Policy Fellow Stephen Bowen, executive director of HESI, the anthology includes contributing authors Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow in Education Eric Hanushek, Bruni Family Fellow Michael T. Hartney, visiting fellows Michael J. Petrilli and John Singleton, and Senior Fellow (joint) Eric Bettinger. HESI partnered with the education news website The 74 to publicize the findings of each of the book’s sections.
Global Perspective on Learning Losses
In a deeply researched paper published in January, Senior Fellow Eric Hanushek charts the cost of learning losses experienced by students as a result of COVID-19 pandemic-related school closures. He puts the cumulative cost of these learning losses at $31 trillion, or about one year’s worth of US economic output. Hanushek suggests the best remedial course of action is for school systems to identify and scale the teaching of their best-performing teachers to reach more students. Additionally, he compares dozens of industrialized jurisdictions across the world, using internationally recognized standardized tests for math and reading.
Eric Hanushek speaks about his research into the cumulative impact of COVID shutdowns on student learning losses during a session of the Winter Board Meeting on February 26, 2024.
Photo: Eric Draper, 2024
Confronting and Competing with China
Studies on Taiwan’s Defense, Domestic Politics, and Economic Resilience
Matt Pottinger speaks about his book The Boiling Moat at the Hoover Institution on May 30, 2024.
PHOTO: DANIEL BECK, 2024
IMAGE: HOOVER INSTITUTION, 2024
Hoover’s research projects on China’s Global Sharp Power (CGSP) and Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region released a significant amount of research and held impactful events throughout the year. The Boiling Moat: Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan, edited by Distinguished Visiting Fellow Matt Pottinger, was published in July, offering strategic steps that Taiwan, the United States, and partner nations should take to deter an invasion or blockade of Taiwan by China.
IMAGE: HOOVER INSTITUTION, 2024
Also in July, the CGSP published On Day One: An Economic Contingency Plan for a Taiwan Crisis by Hoover Fellow Eyck Freymann and Cambridge historian Hugo Bromley, who argue that in the event Beijing uses aggression against Taiwan, the United States should be prepared to harness incentives, market forces, and key allies for an “avalanche decoupling” of trade from China.
Former Taiwanese cabinet minister Wu Tsung-tsong speaks at Hoover’s Taiwan After the 2024 Elections Annual Conference on May 23, 2024.
Photo: Patrick Beaudouin, 2024
Research on Challenges Posed by the CCP and Its Vulnerabilities
Erin Baggott Carter, Research Fellow Kharis Templeman, and Glenn Tiffert speak about their research on Chinese domestic sentiment, Taiwan, and China’s global influence at the Hoover Spring Retreat in Scottsdale, Arizona, on April 26, 2024.
Photo: Eric Draper, 2024
In September 2023, the China’s Global Sharp Power (CGSP) project published The CCP Absorbs China’s Private Sector, by Matthew Johnson, which argues that China’s recent crackdowns on major private firms are part of a wider strategy to “harness private capital to restore the Party’s political authority across China’s economic landscape.” In another project, Hoover fellows Brett Carter and Erin Baggott Carter developed a unique approach for conducting polling within China, allowing respondents—fearful of state repression—to express politically sensitive opinions about the Chinese Communist Party without stating them directly.
In July 2024, the US National Science Foundation announced a five-year, $67 million investment establishing Safeguarding the Entire Community in the US Research System (SECURE). Distinguished Research Fellow Glenn Tiffert, CGSP cochair, will lead a Hoover team in applying leading-edge qualitative and data science methodologies to provide expertise on sensitive research, threat types, and the evolving environment for international collaboration.
On October 1, 2024, the CGSP became the Program on US, China, and the World, cochaired by Tiffert and Hargrove Senior Fellow Elizabeth Economy.
Studies on US Defense and Diplomacy
Defense Budgeting for a Safer World
IMAGE: HOOVER INSTITUTION, 2024
With the support of the Tennenbaum Program for Fact-Based Policy, Senior Fellow Michael Boskin, along with Visiting Fellow John Rader and their colleague Kiran Sridhar, led the publication of Defense Budgeting for a Safer World: The Experts Speak. The volume originates from a 2023 conference at the Hoover Institution and reflects the presentations, discussions, and debates among military and civilian leaders. Drawing on their experience in the Pentagon, the armed services, Congress, and academia, these experts lay out the key priorities in reforming, realigning, and rightsizing the defense budget amid current challenges.
Strengthening US-India Relations
Left to right: Visiting Fellow Anja Manuel, Ambassador Eric Garcetti, Director Condoleezza Rice, M. K. Narayanan, Shivshankar Menon, and Ambassador David Mulford speak about the path to the 2008 US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement at the Hoover Institution on May 6, 2024.
Photo: Patrick Beaudouin, 2024
IMAGE: HOOVER INSTITUTION, 2024
This year, former US ambassador to India and Hoover Distinguished Visiting Fellow David C. Mulford published Forging Trust with India, a digital exclusive publication recounting his efforts as US ambassador to India to reach terms for the 2008 US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement. His account covers the four years it took to reach a deal with India. Hoover’s Huntington Program on Strengthening US-India Relations gathered leaders on both sides of that historic agreement for a special presentation. Director Condoleezza Rice joined US ambassador to India Eric Garcetti, US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, former Indian national security advisor M. K. Narayanan, former Indian foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon, and Ambassador Mulford. Participants recalled tense discussions that ultimately led to a growing friendship between the leaders of the two countries.
New Lab Applies Consequential History to Contemporary Challenges
Established last year under the leadership of Kleinheinz Senior Fellow Stephen Kotkin, the Hoover History Lab leverages the Institution’s depth of historians and associated scholars to apply their insights into consequential studies of history to contemporary global challenges across a wide range of fields, from military matters to diplomacy, politics, and economics. The lab functions as a hub for research, teaching, and convening—in person, online, in the classroom, and in print. In addition to applying history to inform public policy, its mission is to develop next-generation scholars, as well as inform and strengthen the discipline and teaching of history at Stanford and beyond. The lab is subdivided into three groups, with principal investigators being Kotkin (Global Futures Project); Milbank Family Senior Fellow Niall Ferguson (History Working Group); and Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow Victor Davis Hanson (Military History in Contemporary Conflict Working Group).
Global Futures Project
The Global Futures Project, which looks at key drivers of historical continuity or change, hosted its second Global Futures Conference in January, bringing together scholars, scientists, private-sector investors, and analysts from the National Intelligence Council to discuss issues such as China’s rise and its impact on US national security, US governance breakdown, and how past analyses of comprehensive national power have aged somewhat poorly. Special sessions presented the latest developments in artificial intelligence and biotechnology, with experts highlighting how these developments will shape the national security space moving forward.
Left to right: Maria Langan-Riekhof, director of the Strategic Futures Group of the National Intelligence Council; Senior Fellow Stephen Kotkin; and Director Condoleezza Rice at the Global Futures Conference of Hoover’s History Lab on January 13, 2024.
Photo: Rod Searcey, 2024
History Working Group
Senior Fellow Niall Ferguson (center) speaks at the Hoover History Working Group’s spring symposium on the topic of cold wars on May 14, 2024.
Photo: Patrick Beaudouin, 2024
The History Working Group, which aims to conduct and disseminate historical research on issues of national and international concern, convened for a fall symposium about monetary and financial innovation patterns. Scholars presented papers on topics including corporate balance sheets in early 1900s Russia and Germany, how credit was formed in colonial Maryland, how cryptocurrency brings with it threats against the Fourth Amendment, and how debts were settled in late imperial China. In May, the group met again for a spring symposium about cold wars. Historians and academics from history-related fields gathered to discuss nine papers that focus on the US-Soviet Cold War, contrasting it with the current China-US antagonism and other historical rivalries that resembled cold wars.
Military History Working Group
At a conference in March, Hoover fellows and scholars affiliated with the Role of Military History in Contemporary Conflict Working Group explored the use of proxy wars and what they mean for modern great-power competition. They examined proxy wars dating back to ancient Greece, how these types of wars exploded into larger major global conflicts, the US experience with proxy wars, and the status of conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza and with Iran’s proxies across the Middle East.
Military History Working Group participants publish essays throughout the year in Strategika, an online journal edited by research fellows David Berkey and Bruce Thornton that analyzes defense issues through the lens of past conflicts. This year, its issues have dealt with Russia’s method of warfighting, urban warfare, civilian deaths and collateral damage, proxy wars, the legal framework surrounding the use of drones in armed conflict, and the future of US weapons development.
Senior Fellow Victor Davis Hanson, chair of Hoover’s Military History in Contemporary Conflict Working Group, gives keynote remarks on his new book, The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation at the Hoover Institution’s Spring Retreat in Scottsdale, Arizona, on April 25, 2024.
Photo: Eric Draper, 2024