Peter Berkowitz

Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow
Biography: 

Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. At Hoover, he chairs the Jean Perkins Task Force on National Security and Law and cochaired the Boyd and Jill Smith Task Force on Virtues of a Free Society.

He studies and writes about, among other things, constitutional government, conservatism and progressivism in the United States, liberal education, national security and law, and Middle East politics. He is the author of Constitutional Conservatism: Liberty, Self-Government, and Political Moderation (Hoover Institution Press, 2013), Israel and the Struggle over the International Laws of War (Hoover Institution Press, 2012), Virtue and the Making of Modern Liberalism (Princeton University Press, 1999) and Nietzsche: The Ethics of an Immoralist (Harvard University Press, 1995).

He is the editor of The Future of American Intelligence (2005), Terrorism, the Laws of War, and the Constitution: Debating the Enemy Combatant Cases (2005), the companion volumes Varieties of Conservatism in America (2004) and Varieties of Progressivism in America (2004), and and Never a Matter of Indifference: Sustaining Virtue in a Free Republic (2003), all from the Hoover Institution Press. In 2004, with coeditor Tod Lindberg, he launched Hoover Studies in Politics, Economics, and Society, a series of concise works on leading issues and controversies.

He has written hundreds of essays, articles, and reviews on many subjects for a variety of publications, including the American Political Science Review, the Atlantic, the Boston Globe, the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Claremont Review of Books, Commentary, Haaretz, the Jerusalem Post, the London Review of Books, National Review, the New Republic, the New York Post, the New York Sun, PJ Media, Policy Review, the Public Interest, Real Clear Politics, the Times Literary Supplement, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Weekly Standard, the Wilson Quarterly, and the Yale Law Journal.

He holds a JD and a PhD in political science from Yale University; an MA in philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; and a BA in English literature from Swarthmore College.

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Recent Commentary

Barack Obama
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Obama's Tattered Middle East Policy

by Peter Berkowitzvia Real Clear Politics
Tuesday, October 13, 2015

By any reasonable measure, the Obama administration’s Middle East foreign policy is in disarray.

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Women And The Workplace-Parenthood Squeeze

by Peter Berkowitzvia Real Clear Politics
Tuesday, September 29, 2015

In her new book, “Unfinished Business: Women, Men, Work, Family,” Anne-Marie Slaughter, the president and CEO of the Washington-based think tank New America, argues that while we have made great progress, we must still knock down plenty of “obstacles and barriers to true equality.”

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What Unites Conservatives

by Peter Berkowitzvia Real Clear Politics
Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Donald Trump’s flamboyant incursion into the Republican primary has not prevented the return of the quadrennial spectacle featuring conservatives arguing among themselves, often vociferously, about the principles that define their movement.

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Iran Deal Throws Sparks On Mideast Tinderbox

by Peter Berkowitzvia Real Clear Politics
Thursday, September 10, 2015

On Aug. 5, President Obama warned Jewish leaders invited to the White House that if his Iran deal were scuttled and the United States were compelled to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, “You’ll see Hezbollah rockets falling on Tel Aviv.” Although it is hard to take the president’s threat to use force at face value, his grim analysis is probably correct.

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Colleges' Big Fail: Protecting Feelings, But Not Speech

by Peter Berkowitzvia Real Clear Politics
Tuesday, September 1, 2015

The annual ritual of freshman orientation, which begins in mid-summer and extends through mid-September, is in full swing. Colleges are welcoming students and showing them around, acquainting them with classmates and college facilities, and making them aware of the full range of campus activities, clubs, and programs. 

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The Long Rise Of The Secular Faith

by Peter Berkowitzvia Mosaic Magazine
Monday, August 24, 2015

The threat to religious liberty has its roots in a progressivist faith that has been steadily gaining momentum in America for at least a century and a half.

Blank Section (Placeholder)Analysis and Commentary

The Conservative Heart

by Peter Berkowitzvia Defining Ideas
Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Republicans would do well to embrace the moral case for free enterprise.

Analysis and Commentary

Scooter Libby Case Underlines Need For Legal Reform

by Peter Berkowitzvia Real Clear Politics
Tuesday, July 28, 2015

In April, former New York Times journalist Judith Miller revealed in “The Story” that by manipulating her memory through tendentious questioning and withholding exculpatory evidence, Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald induced her to give false testimony that in 2007 helped convict I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby of obstruction of justice, false statements, and perjury.

Analysis and Commentary

The Right Way Forward For Conservatism

by Peter Berkowitzvia The Wall Street Journal
Friday, July 24, 2015

Despite the rise of Donald Trump and big Supreme Court rulings on gay marriage and Obamacare, Republicans can get out of their funk if they unite around what’s best in the conservative tradition

Analysis and Commentary

Walzer's Paradox

by Peter Berkowitzvia First Things
Friday, July 17, 2015

Michael Walzer’s name is associated with the summons to undertake social criticism that is engaged: that is, rooted in actual circumstances; cognizant of real people’s wants, needs, and desires; and respectful of the diversity of beliefs, practices, and forms of association by which groups of men and women organize their moral, political, and spiritual lives.

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