War Studies Program
Learn the theory, practice, organization, and control of war and military forces.
Study the theory and practice of war.
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Frederick W. Kagan
Frederick W. Kagan is a Senior Instructor with the Hertog War Studies Program at the Institute for the Study of War. The author of the 2007 report “Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq,” he is one of the intellectual architects of the successful “surge” strategy in Iraq. He is the Director of AEI’s Critical Threats Project.
Kimberly Kagan
Kimberly Kagan is a Senior Instructor with the Hertog War Studies Program and founder and president of the Institute for the Study of War. She is a military historian who has taught at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Yale, Georgetown, and American University.
James M. Dubik
LTG James M. Dubik (U.S. Army, Ret.) is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for the Study of War and a Professor at Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program. General Dubik has extensive operational experience in Iraq, Afghanistan, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Bosnia, Haiti, Panama, and in many NATO countries.
Stan McChrystal
Gen. McChrystal is the former commander of US and International Security Assistance Forces Afghanistan and the nation’s premier military counter-terrorism force, Joint Special Operations Command. He is best known for developing and implementing a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, and for creating a cohesive counter-terrorism organization that revolutionized the interagency operating culture.
David H. Petraeus
General (Ret) David H. Petraeus is Chairman of the KKR Global Institute. Prior to joining KKR, Gen. Petraeus served over 37 years in the U.S. military, culminating his career with six consecutive commands, five of which were in combat, including command of coalition forces during the Surge in Iraq, command of U.S. Central Command, and command of coalition forces in Afghanistan.
John R. Allen
John R. Allen is President of the Brookings Institution and a retired U.S. Marine Corps four-star general. Previously, he was commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, senior advisor to the Secretary of Defense on Middle East security, and special presidential envoy to the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL.
Vincent K. Brooks
Prior to 2019, Vincent K. Brooks served as the four-star general in command of over 650,000 Koreans and Americans under arms. Brooks made history as the first African American to serve as the West Point cadet brigade commander or “First Captain” position, and he was the first cadet to lead the student body when women were in all four classes. General Brooks is mow Director of the Gary Sinise Foundation; a visiting Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; a Distinguished Fellow at the University of Texas, with both the Clements Center for National Security and also the Strauss Center for International Security and Law; an Executive Fellow with the Institute for Defense and Business; and the President of VKB Solutions LLC.
Curtis Scaparrotti
General Scaparrotti assumed duties as Commander of European Command and as Supreme Allied Commander, Europe in late spring of 2016. He ad previously been assigned as the Commander, United Nations Command / Combined Forces Command / United States Forces Korea. He also served as the Director, Joint Staff. His awards and decorations include the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, Distinguished Service Medal, Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Bronze Star, and the Army Meritorious Service Medal. He has earned the Combat Action Badge, Expert Infantryman Badge, Master Parachutist Badge, and Ranger Tab.
H.R. McMaster
LTG McMaster served as a commissioned officer in the United States Army for thirty-four years before retiring as a Lieutenant General in June 2018. From 2014 to 2017 McMaster designed the future army as the director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center and the deputy commanding general of the US Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC). As commanding general of the Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, he oversaw all training and education for the army’s infantry, armor, and cavalry force. Most recently, McMaster published, “Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World.”
Antón Barba-Kay
Antón Barba-Kay is Associate Professor of Philosophy in the School of Philosophy at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He is finishing a book on the political philosophy of the internet, which he began while a Visiting Fellow in the James Madison Program at Princeton University.
Robert C. Bartlett
Robert C. Bartlett is the Behrakis Professor of Hellenic Political Studies at Boston College. His principal area of research is classical political philosophy, with particular attention to the thinkers of ancient Hellas, including Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle. He is the co-translator of a new edition of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.
Peter Berkowitz
Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He studies and writes about, among other things, constitutional government, conservatism and progressivism in America, liberal education, national security and law, and Middle East politics.
Daniel Blumenthal
Daniel Blumenthal is the Director of Asian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on East Asian security issues and Sino-American relations. Mr. Blumenthal has both served in and advised the U.S. government on China issues for over a decade.
David Brooks
David Brooks is Executive Director of Weave: The Social Fabric Project at the Aspen Institute and has been a columnist for The New York Times since September 2003. He is currently a commentator on “The PBS Newshour,” NPR’s “All Things Considered” and NBC’s “Meet the Press.” His most recent book The Second Mountain was released in April 2019.
Daniel Burns
Daniel Burns is Associate Professor of Politics at the University of Dallas. He has held fellowships at the Catholic University of America and the University of Texas at Austin, and he is currently on academic leave for government service.
Paul Cantor
Paul Cantor is the Clifton Waller Barrett Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Virginia. He has written on a wide range of subjects, including Shakespeare, Romanticism, Austrian economics, and contemporary popular culture.
James W. Ceaser
James W. Ceaser is Harry F. Byrd Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia, where he has taught since 1976, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He has written several books on American politics and political thought, including Presidential Selection and Liberal Democracy and Political Science.
Matthew Continetti
Matthew Continetti is resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Prior to joining AEI, he was Editor in Chief of the Washington Free Beacon. His articles and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.
Sen. Tom Cotton
Tom Cotton is a United States Senator from Arkansas. His committees include the Banking Committee, where he chairs the Economic Policy Subcommittee, the Intelligence Committee, and the Armed Services Committee, where he chairs the Air Land Power Subcommittee. He served nearly five years on active duty in the U.S. Army as an Infantry Officer.
Christopher DeMuth
Christopher DeMuth is a Distinguished Fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. He was President of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research from 1986–2008 and D.C. Searle Senior Fellow at AEI from 2008–2011.
Daniel DiSalvo
Daniel DiSalvo is a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute’s Center for State and Local Leadership and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at The City College of New York-CUNY. His scholarship focuses on American political parties, elections, labor unions, state government, and public policy.
Michael Doran
Michael Doran, an expert in U.S. policy toward the Middle East, radical Islam, and the Arab-Israeli conflict, is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute. He has also held a number of senior U.S. government posts related to Middle East policy and strategic communication.
Bryan Garsten
Bryan Garsten is Professor of Political Science at Yale University. He writes on questions about political rhetoric and deliberation, the meaning of representative government, the relationship of politics and religion, and the place of emotions in political life.
Jakub J. Grygiel
Jakub Grygiel is an Associate Professor at the Catholic University of America. From 2017–18, he was a member of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State. His most recent book is Return of the Barbarians: Confronting Non-State Actors from Ancient Rome to the Present.
Allen C. Guelzo
Dr. Allen C. Guelzo is the Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era, and Director of Civil War Era Studies at Gettysburg College. He is the author of Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President, which won the Lincoln Prize for 2000.
Ryan P. Hanley
Ryan Patrick Hanley is Professor of Political Science at Boston College. His research in the history of political philosophy focuses on the Enlightenment. He is the author of Our Great Purpose: Adam Smith on Living a Better Life and Love’s Enlightenment: Rethinking Charity in Modernity.
Leon R. Kass
Leon R. Kass, M.D., is the Addie Clark Harding Professor Emeritus in the Committee on Social Thought and the College at the University of Chicago and Emeritus Scholar at AEI. He was the chairman of the President’s Council on Bioethics from 2001 to 2005.
Martin Kramer
Martin Kramer teaches Middle Eastern history at Shalem College where he was the founding president and is The Washington Institute’s Koret Distinguished Fellow. He is the author of The War on Error (2016).
William Kristol
William Kristol is editor-at-large of The Bulwark and founder of The Weekly Standard. Mr. Kristol has served as chief of staff to the Vice President Dan Quayle and to the Secretary of Education. He hosts Conversations with Bill Kristol, which features in-depth conversations with leading figures in American public life.
Yuval Levin
Yuval Levin is a Resident Scholar and Director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and the Editor of National Affairs magazine. Mr. Levin served on the White House domestic policy staff under President George W. Bush.
Lewis Libby
Lewis Libby is Senior Vice President of Hudson Institute. Before joining Hudson, Libby held several high level positions in the federal government related to his current work on national security and homeland security affairs.
Hugh Liebert
Harvey Mansfield
Harvey C. Mansfield is the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Government at Harvard University. He was Chairman of the Government Department from 1973–1977, has held Guggenheim and NEH Fellowships, and has been a Fellow at the National Humanities Center.
Walter Russell Mead
Walter Russell Mead is the Ravenel B. Curry III Distinguished Fellow in Strategy and Statesmanship at Hudson Institute, the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College, and the Global View Columnist at The Wall Street Journal. From 1997 to 2010, Mr. Mead was a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, serving as the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy from 2003 until his departure. He is a member of Aspen Institute Italy.
Walter Reich
Walter Reich is the Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Professor of International Affairs, Ethics and Human Behavior, and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at The George Washington University, and a former Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Richard M. Reinsch II
Richard M. Reinsch II is the founding editor of Liberty Fund’s online journal Law and Liberty and the host of LibertyLawTalk. He writes frequently for such publications as National Affairs, Modern Age, National Review Online, The Weekly Standard, and The University Bookman, among other publications.
Diana Schaub
Diana J. Schaub is Professor of Political Science at Loyola University Maryland and a member of the Hoover Institution’s task force on The Virtues of a Free Society. From 2004 to 2009 she was a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics.
Vance Serchuk
Vance Serchuk is Executive Director of the KKR Global Institute and an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. Prior to joining KKR, Mr. Serchuk served for six years as the senior national security advisor to Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-Connecticut).
Darren Staloff
Darren Staloff is Professor of History at the City College of New York and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Professor Staloff has published numerous papers and reviews on the subject of early American history.
Jenna Silber Storey
Jenna Silber Storey is Assistant Professor in Politics and International Affairs at Furman University. Her research and writing is focused on the relation of politics and theology in the work of Carl Schmitt and Pierre Manent.
Benjamin Storey
Benjamin Storey is Associate Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Furman University. His interests focus on the history of political philosophy. He is currently completing a book entitled The Restless Age: Four French Thinkers on the Quest for Self-Understanding in an Unsettled Modernity.
Vickie Sullivan
Vickie Sullivan is the Cornelia M. Jackson Professor of Political Science and teaches and studies political thought and philosophy. She also maintains teaching and research interests in politics and literature. She has published extensively on Montesquieu and Machiavelli and is the co-editor of Shakespeare’s Political Pageant.
Greg Weiner
Greg Weiner is associate professor of Political Science, founding director of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Center for Scholarship and Statesmanship, and provost at Assumption College. He is the author of American Burke: The Uncommon Liberalism of Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
Adam J. White
Adam J. White is a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and an Assistant Professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, where he also directs the Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.
Paul Wolfowitz
Paul Wolfowitz is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He spent more than three decades in public service and higher education. Most recently, he served as president of the World Bank and deputy secretary of defense.
Jacob Howland
Jacob Howland is McFarlin Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Tulsa. He has written about Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, Kierkegaard, the Talmud, the Holocaust, ideological tyranny, and other subjects. His most recent book is Glaucon’s Fate: History, Myth, and Character in Plato’s Republic.
Flagg Taylor
Flagg Taylor is an Associate Professor of Government at Skidmore college. His research interests include the history of political philosophy, as well as American government. Dr. Taylor is the author of The Great Lie: Classic and Recent Appraisals of Ideology and Totalitarianism and The Contested Removal Power, 1789-2010. Dr. Taylor holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Political Science from Fordham University.
Thomas Merrill
Thomas Merrill is an associate professor in the School of Public Affairs at American University. He is the author of Hume and the Politics of Enlightenment. He is also the co-editor of three edited volumes, including The Political Thought of the Civil War.
Paul Wolfowitz
Paul Wolfowitz is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He spent more than three decades in public service and higher education. Most recently, he served as president of the World Bank and deputy secretary of defense.
Current Position
Foreign Policy Analyst
“Part of being effective on the Hill and on presidential campaigns is understanding past leaders and what they’ve done well. The Hertog program I did was focused on leaders and examining, with a critical eye what they’ve done well, what they did in regard to communications, building allies, working with other countries—principles that are timeless.”
Foreign Policy Analyst
U.S. Department of State; Office of Representative Mike Pompeo; Facebook; Scott Walker for President
Stanford University, Peking University, London School of Economics
Reagan Hedlund has served in multiple foreign policy positions both in the U.S. and abroad, including stints with the House of Representatives, the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and various political campaigns. She participated in Hertog’s “Great Figures of the 20th Century” Weekend Seminars in Winter 2016, with sessions on Winston Churchill, David Ben-Gurion, Ronald Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher.
I do foreign policy, and I want to continue to stay involved in politics. Part of being effective on the Hill and on presidential campaigns is understanding past leaders and what they’ve done well. The Hertog program I did was focused on leaders and examining, with a critical eye but also positive themes, domestic and foreign leaders. What they’ve done well, what they did in regard to communications, building allies, working with other countries—principles that are timeless.
It was also a great way to meet other like-minded and serious people in DC and get to know some of the instructors. I feel like I’ll be friends with people from Hertog for a very long time.
It’s a chance to learn in a way that is rare for professionals, but also rare in a university setting. Due to the caliber of the instructors and the intense, high level of discussion, it feels like you’re back in college. But the things you’re talking about are elevated because you’ve had additional professional experience, and you’re speaking with both theleading expert on these issues and with people who have had some sort of experience with that same topic. It’s not as though the students just did their reading for class and showed up; they’re personally invested. So it’s kind of like college on steroids.
There is a lack of ability and time to dig into issues, particularly those that are most important for our country. The principles that we discussed in each of the “Great Figures” seminars are still applicable today. There were many times when the discussion turned from talking about how a certain leader dealt with a particular issue—whether it was nativism or trade or a deficit—to how we’re dealing with those concerns today.
Hertog is also a way to distinguish yourself. I’m on the nerd spectrum; I loved college, and I loved grad school. There are book events and things of that nature here in DC, but there’s a lack of opportunities to really dig into these important issues in an academic setting.
Hopefully, we’ll have a Republican president then, and I’d like to be a foreign policy advisor for whoever that is!
Press Secretary, American Action Forum
The Washington Free Beacon, National Affairs
Davidson College
Andrew Evans started his journalism career with an internship at The Weekly Standard, following his time with the Political Studies Program. He then went on to work as Assistant Editor of National Affairs. Andrew is now Press Secretary for American Action Forum.
My political science professor at Davidson College, Peter Ahrensdorf, encouraged me to apply. The Program looked like a fantastic opportunity to study both the ideas animating politics and the way politics actually work. I find that it’s really easy to get lost in the ideas, so studying the practical unfolding of politics was a good balance to the theoretical. The Program looked like a great opportunity to see political theory and practice meet and inform one another in a really fruitful way.
I studied political philosophy at Davidson, and I wanted to come to DC to really understand the practice of politics. The Advanced Institute [“Transformation of the American Government” with Christopher DeMuth] certainly helped me see some of that. At that time I was a reporter at the Washington Free Beacon, covering government oversight, bureaucracy, and the institutions of government. Getting to study those things with him was immeasurably useful.
For example, he helped me understand what leveraging means for banks. Leveraging is a central concept of finance, and he spent awhile helping us figure out exactly what the ramifications of leveraging are. That knowledge was crucial to my understanding of the 2008 financial crisis and the consequent legislation that we’ve had.
Political Studies helped me get a foundation in DC and meet people like Bill Kristol. The Hertog Foundation got me grounded in the practicality of politics while at the same time keeping me in touch with the animating fundamental ideas of our traditions. I’m interested in contributing to the health and function of our society in a way that goes beyond just reporting ideas—National Affairs does much more than just report ideas, and Hertog has provided me with the tools be able to excel at doing more.
I was really impressed with the quality of my peers. The rigor and sophistication with which they were able to approach texts, and the lenses through which they viewed current events were challenging and extremely valuable to my own intellectual growth. In terms of instructors, getting to read Machiavelli’s The Prince in conjunction with his Discourses on Livy with Professor Nathan Tarcov was eye-opening. He fleshed out the argument for republicanism in Machiavelli, which I hadn’t seen when reading The Prince previously. Approaching Machiavelli using that lens was illuminating.
What I’ve most observed is that Hertog Programs are a rigorous study of the ideas that bring life to politics. They’re not technocratic, but they’re not too abstract either. That’s the essence of political philosophy. Hertog classes are an attempt to draw out the wisdom from great texts and not necessarily force them to directly apply to any one modern issue, but instead let them shape a broad picture of how society and politics should function. That’s the real advantage of Hertog programs.
Specifically, the Advanced Institutes are focused in such a way that they can provide very useful background and contextual information for contemporary issues. In a broader sense, the Programs provide a much larger framework for understanding the limits and constraints of politics as well as the ideas underpinning modern government. Journalism at its best is able to reflect on the traditions and ideas that have brought us to where we are today, and then place the current issues in that context.
I would like to stay involved in politics in some capacity. I don’t know if it’ll be here in DC or in journalism necessarily, but politics is immensely important. I think I’m well prepared to do a number of things; Hertog has certainly contributed to that.
Product Manager, Ridgeline
FiscalNote, National Journal, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs
Georgetown University
Amanda Wynter has written for The Atlantic, and worked as an Atlantic Media Research Fellow at National Journal. She came to Political Studies from Georgetown University, where she majored in Government, with a minor in Political Philosophy.
A friend of mine at Georgetown from political theory circles was an alum of Political Studies, and he suggested that the Program was something I would really benefit from and enjoy. At the time, I had recently transferred schools within Georgetown from security studies to political philosophy, and Hertog looked like a chance to delve deeper into the examination of big political ideas. That aspect of the Program was definitely attractive to me, and it proved to be really valuable.
Eventually I want to go to graduate school, and ultimately I see myself teaching at the university level. Political Studies was my first glimpse of what a life in academia would look like. Spending time around graduate students and other university students interested in entering the academy was certainly informative and influential.
Right now, I’m working for a research team that looks at government affairs from a business perspective. Since I was a government major in school, working in government affairs now lines up well. But it was my time at Hertog that really put me on the first path towards looking at politics writ large.
During Political Studies, I spent one of the weeks in the bioethics course. I found that really wrestling with questions of ethics and morality and the way that plays into policy was extremely valuable. I had never been exposed to such drastically different perspectives.
We had people there with views across the entire political spectrum, which I think is one of Hertog’s biggest accomplishments. Getting people who think completely different things into the same room and opening a dialogue is hard, but it was a hallmark of Political Studies. I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people with whom to flesh out those ideas.
First and foremost, Hertog gives people the opportunity to think about politics for an extended period of time with other people who are also interested in doing the same thing. Though you have a similar experience in universities, the mindset Hertog puts you in is specifically defined by developing a reverence for old texts while also looking at contemporary issues.
The juxtaposition of those two activities is critical, and I don’t think students can get that in everyday college classes where you’re either focused on reading Plato in Ancient Greek or reading The Washington Post. Being able to do both at the same time, and furthermore, being expected to do both at the same time, is very important.
Hertog is great for people interested in journalism. The crux of journalism is writing about ideas, and Hertog gets you thinking about big ideas. Political Studies also gives you exposure to important organizations and the different parts of DC, which is definitely beneficial.
Hopefully by that time I’ll have finished a Ph.D. and won’t be struggling through lonely nights with Rousseau and ramen. The actual teaching part I would be willing to wait for—first, I want to either travel and explore cultures and political issues through different lenses, or work in a specific sector like education or technology.
Hands-on experience will give me better sense of how to look at certain topics, and thus enable me to teach others how to look at them. Whatever happens, I want to be reading good things, and talking to good people about them.
Officer, U.S. Marine Corps
Virginia House of Delegates, DNC Hope Institute
Yale University
Stefan “Reed” Dibich recently graduated from Marine Corps Officer Candidates School and commissioned in May 2017. He first joined Hertog in Summer 2015 for Vance Serchuk’s “Lessons of the Iraq War” seminar and the 2016 War Studies Program. Reed later returned for the Fall 2020 Advanced Programs.
There had never been another time in my life where I got to be in a room with such serious students talking about such serious matters and have some of the most influential practitioners in the history that we were studying come talk to us about their decisions, their weaknesses, and their mistakes, but also their triumphs.
I didn’t know coming into the War Studies Program that General John Allen, a retired Marine General, was going to be one of the instructors. My educational experience was enhanced just about every time he opened his mouth. He told us stories about the policies he worked on and told us what it was like to actually be in combat.
I think it’s crucial that in Hertog programs you’re discussing these topics with people who have direct experience with said topics. There’s no better way to discuss the Iraq War than to have General [Stanley] McChrystal, General [David] Petraeus, General Allen, and the rest come in and speak to you about it. We even heard from Ambassador Robert Ford and Ambassador Ryan Crocker.
I think anyone who is interested in serving our country could benefit from participating in a Hertog program. It doesn’t matter if you’re red, blue, or purple; whatever your political persuasion, you will definitely benefit from Hertog.
Hertog programs do what universities can’t do. Universities are very good at introducing students to different disciplines, getting them to know their history, and training them in all of the methodological approaches that are important for whatever department or discipline they’re a part of. But what they miss is the big ideas, and translating those big ideas into big actions on the ground today.
Hertog inculcates a sense that what we’re doing is so important because it’s happening right now. What you’re studying in Hertog programs has implications for your life today, tomorrow, and for the rest of your career. And that’s what makes Hertog so special. It encourages the students to have big ideas and to translate that into big actions.
Particularly with the War Studies Program, there was a real call to service. And I think it stuck in all 19 of us that were there. Drs. Fred and Kim Kagan, Lt. General [James] Dubik, and General Allen talked about what service means, and drove home the fact that because we’re studying these big ideas, we now have an obligation and a civic duty to do something about it. And I think a lot of my fellow War Studies alumni are feeling that call.
I’m not sure yet how long I’ll serve in the Marines. I’m just going to accept my commission and try to be best Marine Officer I can be. When the time comes to either continue my commission or resign it, I’ll make my decision then.
But for now, I just hope that wherever I am in the world I’m happy with what I’m doing, I sincerely feel that I’m making an impact, and that the work I do every day is meaningful. Those are my criteria. I can see that happening in the Marines, and I hope that continues.
Deputy Director of Communications, Goldwater Institute
American Enterprise Institute, Burson-Marsteller
Drew University
Jennifer Tiedemann spent six years at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC, working with scholars Norm Ornstein and Karlyn Bowman. While at AEI, she studied with Bill Kristol as part of his Advanced Institute on American exceptionalism. Jennifer has recently started a career in public affairs and communications with the Goldwater Institute.
I heard about the Foundation through AEI while I was working in their Political Corner doing political and public opinion research. In spring 2013, Bill Kristol was teaching a class on American exceptionalism, which is something that’s very interesting to me. The topic was also relevant to my work, and became even more so throughout my time at AEI.
American exceptionalism is something we think about a lot when focusing on public opinion research. One of the major topics we grapple with is the American dream. Part of getting a better sense of what the American dream is about is knowing what makes America special. It’s important to understand what’s currently in Americans’ heads and what’s included in public opinion, but then you’ve also got to recognize the history that informs those views. Having a background in historical writings and research in order to frame current American ideals is essential, and the course certainly helped add to my understanding of that background.
One of our readings in “Is America Exceptional?” looked at American ideals in film. I remember reading about the concept of the Westerner and how it’s a very quintessentially American ideal. When studying America, we’re all used to reading Tocqueville and writers from that era, but to read something that was a modern take on what exactly makes an American idea is an approach I’d never taken before in an academic setting. Those readings certainly stayed in my memory.
Hertog’s aim is to equip students and young professionals with the historical and educational tools they need to approach politics, political philosophy, and political analysis. Hertog works with the knowledge that a political mind needs to be grounded in history—it’s not useful to look at things in a vacuum. It’s easy to forget about that in Washington, because so much of our work focuses on the day-to-day. Hertog asks participants to step back and really examine the principles that inform what we’re all trying to accomplish, which is vital.
Absolutely. Hertog Programs can be beneficial for both. Public relations and public policy are different fields, but there are a lot of similarities between the two worlds. One of the largest similarities has to do with appreciating what makes people tick—why they think what they think, and why they do what they do. Having a better understanding of something like American exceptionalism is important to that process, because it definitely informs how we communicate with people. A background in those historical ideals is key to knowing what sorts of arguments are going to be most coherent, most cogent, and most influential in your work. All Hertog Programs seem to be designed to give participants a way to better communicate with different types of people.
What I’m primarily interested in is writing. I write a lot for the Independent Women’s Forum, which gives me an opportunity to reflect not just on politics but also on cultural topics. In 10 years, I definitely still want to be writing. I’ll certainly be thinking about these same ideas and trying to bring those thoughts to the people who read my work. My experience with Hertog was very helpful in informing the way I think, and it gave me a clearer picture of how others think as well.
Do you know a student or colleague who would benefit from one of our programs? Applicants may apply directly to our programs, but nominations are helpful for reaching and selecting great participants. Nominate a potential applicant by submitting their name, email address, and a brief description of their abilities and interest in the study of politics and policy. Program staff will follow up with an email to the nominee mentioning your nomination and offering information on how to apply.
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