Hoover Institution Explained

The Hoover Institution
Abbreviation:Hoover
Formerly:Hoover War Collection
Founder:Herbert Hoover
Type:Public policy think tank
Status:501(c)(3) public charity
Purpose:Public policy research in economics, history, and national security.
Professional Title:The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace
Location Country:United States
Leader Title:Director
Leader Name:Condoleezza Rice
Location:434 Galvez Mall
Stanford, California (Stanford University), U.S. 94305
Parent Organization:Stanford University
Subsidiaries:Hoover Institution Press
Hoover Institution Library and Archives
Uncommon Knowledge
Battlegrounds
Defining Ideas
Hoover Digest
Revenue:$104.6 million[1]
Revenue Year:2023
Expenses:$93.2 million
Expenses Year:2023
Endowment:$782 million
Awards:National Humanities Medal

The Hoover Institution (officially The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace) is an American public policy think tank which promotes personal and economic liberty, free enterprise, and limited government.[2] [3] [4] While the institution is formally a unit of Stanford University, it maintains an independent board of overseers and relies on its own income and donations.[5] [6] It is widely described as conservative, although its directors have contested the idea that it is partisan.[7] [8]

The institution began in 1919 as a library founded by Stanford alumnus Herbert Hoover prior to his presidency in order to house his archives gathered during the Great War.[9] The well-known Hoover Tower was built to house the archives, then known as the Hoover War Collection (now the Hoover Institution Library and Archives), and contained material related to World War I, World War II, and other global events. The collection was renamed and transformed into a research institution ("think tank") during the mid-20th century. Its mission, as described by Herbert Hoover in 1959, is "to recall the voice of experience against the making of war, and by the study of these records and their publication, to recall man's endeavors to make and preserve peace, and to sustain for America the safeguards of the American way of life."[10]

It has staffed numerous jobs in Washington for Republican presidents from Richard Nixon to Donald Trump.[11] It has provided work for people who previously had important government jobs. Notable Hoover fellows and alumni include Nobel Prize laureates Henry Kissinger, Milton Friedman, and Gary Becker; economist Thomas Sowell; scholars Niall Ferguson and Richard Epstein; former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich; and former Secretary of Defense James N. Mattis. In 2020, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice became the institution's director. It divides its fellows into separate research teams to work on various subjects, including Economic Policy, History, Education, and Law.[12] It publishes research by its own university press, the Hoover Institution Press.[13]

In 2021, Hoover was ranked as the 10th most influential think tank in the world by Academic Influence.[14] It was ranked 22nd on the "Top Think Tanks in United States" and 1st on the "Top Think Tanks to Look Out For" lists of the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program that same year.[15]

History

Founding

In June 1919, Herbert Hoover, then a wealthy engineer who was one of Stanford University's first graduates, sent a telegram offering Stanford president Ray Lyman Wilbur $50,000 in order to assist the collection of primary materials related to World War I, a project that became known as the Hoover War Collection. Assisted primarily by gifts from private donors, the Hoover War Collection flourished during its early years. In 1922, the collection became known as the Hoover War Library, now known as the Hoover Institution Library and Archives, and includes a variety of rare and unpublished material, including the files of the Okhrana and a plurality of government documents produced during the war.[16] [17] It was housed originally in the Stanford Library, separate from the general stacks. In his memoirs, Hoover wrote:

I did a vast amount of reading, mostly on previous wars, revolutions, and peace-makings of Europe and especially the political and economic aftermaths. At one time I set up some research at London, Paris, and Berlin into previous famines in Europe to see if there had developed any ideas on handling relief and pestilence. ... I was shortly convinced that gigantic famine would follow the present war. The steady degeneration of agriculture was obvious. ... I read in one of Andrew D. White's writings that most of the fugitive literature of comment during the French Revolution was lost to history because no one set any value on it at the time, and that without such material it became very difficult or impossible to reconstruct the real scene. Therein lay the origins of the Library on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University.[18]

20th century

By 1926, the Hoover War Library was the largest library in the world devoted to World War I, including 1.4 million items and too large to house in the Stanford University Library, so the university allocated $600,000 for the construction of the Hoover Tower, which was designed to be its permanent home independent of the Stanford Library system. The 285-foot tall tower was completed in 1941 on date of the university's golden jubilee.[19] [20] The tower has since been a well-recognized part of the Stanford campus.[21]

In 1956, former President Hoover, in conjunction with the Institution and Library, began a major fundraising campaign that transitioned the organization to its current form as a research institution as well as archive.

In 1957, the Hoover Institution and Library was renamed the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, its current name.[22] In 1959, Stanford's Board of Trustees officially established the Hoover Institution as "an independent institution within the frame of Stanford University".

In 1960, W. Glenn Campbell was appointed director and substantial budget increases soon resulted in corresponding increases in acquisitions and related research projects. In particular, the Chinese and Russian collections grew considerably. Despite student unrest during the 1960s, the institution continued to develop closer relations with Stanford University.[23]

In 1975, Ronald Reagan, who was Governor of California at that time, was designated as Hoover's first honorary fellow. He donated his gubernatorial papers to the Hoover library.[24] During that time the Hoover Institution had a general budget of $3.5 million a year. In 1976, one third of Stanford University's book holdings were housed at the Hoover library. At that time, it was the largest private archive collection in the United States.

For his presidential campaign in 1980, Reagan engaged at least thirteen Hoover scholars to assist the campaign in multiple capacities.[25] After Reagan won the election, more than thirty current or former Hoover Institution fellows worked for the Reagan administration in 1981.

In 1989, Campbell retired as director of Hoover and replaced by John Raisian, a change that was considered the end of an era.[26] Raisan served as director until 2015, and was succeeded by Thomas W. Gilligan.[27]

21st century

In 2001, Hoover Senior fellow Condoleezza Rice joined the George W. Bush administration, serving as National Security Advisor from 2001 to 2005 and as Secretary of State from 2005 to 2009. In 2006, President George W. Bush awarded the National Humanities Medal to the Hoover Institution.[28]

In August 2017, the David and Joan Traitel Building was inaugurated. The ground floor is a conference facility with a 400-seat auditorium and the top floor houses the Hoover Institution's headquarters.[29]

At any given time, as of 2017, the Hoover Institution has as many as 200 resident scholars known as fellows. They are an interdisciplinary group studying political science, education, economics, foreign policy, energy, history, law, national security, health and politics. Some have joint appointments as lecturers on the Stanford faculty.[30]

The Trump administration maintained relations with the institution during his presidency, and several Hoover employees became senior advisors or were hired for jobs in his administration, including Secretary of Defense James N. Mattis, who was the Davies Family Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Hoover from 2013 to 2016, where he studied leadership, national security, strategy, innovation, and the effective use of military force.[31]

In March 2019, Mattis returned to his post at Hoover.[32] Distinguished Visiting Fellow Kevin Hassett became the first chairman of Trump's Council of Economic Advisors (CEA). The CEA chief principal economist, Josh Rauh, took leave from his Hoover Institution fellowship. After the third CEA chairman Tyler Goodspeed resigned in 2021, he went to Hoover.[33]

In February 2020, the Hoover board of trustees brought in senior Trump economic officials for off-the-record forecasts. According to The New York Times, "The president’s aides appeared to be giving wealthy party donors an early warning of a potentially impactful contagion at a time when Mr. Trump was publicly insisting that the threat was nonexistent." The board members spread the bad news and the stock market had a selloff.[34]

In 2020, Condoleezza Rice succeeded Thomas W. Gilligan as director.

In November 2020, Scott Atlas, a Hoover fellow, was known for opposing public health measures as a major Trump advisor during the COVID-19 pandemic, and was condemned by a Stanford University faculty vote in November 2020.[35]

In January 2021, during Stanford University faculty senate discussions on closer collaboration between the university and the Institution in 2021, Rice "addressed campus criticism that the Hoover Institution is a partisan think tank that primarily supports conservative administrations and policy positions" by sharing "statistics that show Hoover fellows contribute financially to both political parties on an equal basis", according to the university's newsletter.[36]

Campus

The Institution has libraries which include materials from both World War I and World War II, including the collection of documents of President Herbert Hoover, which he began to collect at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919.[37] Thousands of Persian books, official documents, letters, multimedia pieces and other materials on Iran's history, politics and culture can also be found at the Stanford University library and the Hoover Institution library.[38]

Publications

The Hoover Institution's in-house publisher, Hoover Institution Press, produces publications on public policy topics, including the quarterly periodicals Hoover Digest, Education Next, China Leadership Monitor, and Defining Ideas. The Hoover Institution Press previously published the bimonthly periodical Policy Review, which it acquired from The Heritage Foundation in 2001.[39] Policy Review ceased publication with its February–March 2013 issue.

The Hoover Institution Press also publishes books and essays by Hoover Institution fellows and other Hoover-affiliated scholars.

Funding

The Hoover Institution receives nearly half of its funding from private gifts, primarily from individual contributions, and the other half from its endowment.[40]

Funders of the organization include the Taube Family Foundation, the Koret Foundation, the Howard Charitable Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Walton Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and the William E. Simon Foundation.[41]

Details

Funding sources and expenditures, FY 2022[42]

Members

In May 2018, the Hoover Institution's website listed 198 fellows. Fellowship appointments do not require the approval of Stanford tenure committees.[43]

Below is a list of directors and some of the more prominent fellows, former and current.

Directors

Honorary Fellows

Distinguished Fellows

Senior Fellows

Research Fellows

Distinguished Visiting Fellows

Visiting Fellows

Media Fellows

National Fellows

Senior Research Fellows

See also

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Annual Report 2023 . Hoover Institution . February 14, 2024.
  2. Web site: 100 Years of the Hoover Institution . Hanson . Victor Davis . Victor Davis Hanson . July 30, 2019 . . August 13, 2020.
  3. Encyclopedia: Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace . Encyclopaedica Britannica . April 16, 2015.
  4. News: Hoover Institution: Leaning to the right . McBride . Stewart . May 28, 1975 . Christian Science Monitor . April 16, 2015.
  5. Web site: Board of Overseers. Hoover Institution. June 21, 2022.
  6. Web site: Ali . Ayaan Hirsi . The False Appeal Of Socialism . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20231005212430/https://www.hoover.org/research/false-appeal-socialism . 2023-10-05 . 2023-10-05 . Hoover Institution . en.
  7. Web site: Chesley . Kate . January 29, 2021 . Stanford's relationship to the Hoover Institution highlights Faculty Senate discussion . Stanford Report . en.
  8. Web site: Gilligan . Thomas W. . March 23, 2015 . Business Dean Seizes Rare Opportunity to Lead Hoover Institution, and Other News About People . The Chronicle of Higher Education . en.
  9. Web site: Exhibits A through Z . July 9, 2022 . Stanford Magazine . March 2006 . en.
  10. Web site: Mission/History . June 20, 2022 . Hoover Institution . en.
  11. Val Burris. "The interlock structure of the policy-planning network and the right turn in U.S. state policy" In Politics and Public Policy (March 2015) pp. 3-42.
  12. Web site: Research . June 20, 2022 . Hoover Institution . en.
  13. Web site: Hoover Institution Press . 2023-05-21 . Hoover Institution . en.
  14. Web site: Top Influential Think Tanks . October 9, 2020.
  15. McGann . James . January 28, 2021 . 2020 Global Go To Think Tank Index Report . TTCSP Global Go to Think Tank Index Reports. 18 .
  16. Duignan . Peter . 2001 . The Library of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. Part 1: Origin and Growth . Library History . 17 . 3–20 . 10.1179/lib.2001.17.1.3 . 144635878.
  17. Web site: Hoover Timeline . June 19, 2022 . Hoover Institution . en.
  18. Book: Hoover, Herbert . The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: Years of Adventure, 1874–1920 . Macmillan . 1951 . New York . 184–85.
  19. Web site: Hoover Institution Library and Archives: Historical Background . Hoover Institution.
  20. Web site: Make A Gift . myScience . January 11, 2019 . June 18, 2019.
  21. Web site: 100 Years of Hoover: A History of Stanford's Decades-Long Debate over the Hoover Institution . Bonafont . Roxy . May 11, 2019 . Stanford Political Journal . July 15, 2019.
  22. Web site: Hoover Institution – Hoover Institution Timeline . hoover.org.
  23. Duignan . Peter . 2001 . The Library of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. Part 2: The Campbell Years . Library History . 17 . 2 . 107–118 . 10.1179/lib.2001.17.2.107 . 144451652.
  24. Web site: Hoover Institution; Leaning to the right . McBride . Stewart . March 27, 1980 . The Christian Science Monitor . July 17, 2019.
  25. Web site: Fitzgerald . Patrick . February 1, 2008 . At Stanford, Hoover Debate Still Rages . July 17, 2019 . CBS News.
  26. Web site: April 2002 . The Man Behind the Institution . July 18, 2019 . Stanford Magazine.
  27. Web site: January 28, 2020 . Condoleezza Rice to lead Stanford's Hoover Institution . February 2, 2020 . Stanford News.
  28. Web site: President Bush Awards the 2006 National Humanities Medals . June 20, 2022 . The National Endowment for the Humanities . en.
  29. News: Hoover opens new David and Joan Traitel Building. Martinovich. Milenko. October 19, 2017. Stanford News. June 20, 2022.
  30. News: Through research and education, Hoover scholars tackle some of the most urgent issues of our time. Martinovich. Milenko. October 20, 2017. Stanford News. June 20, 2022.
  31. See "James N. Mattis" U.S. Department of Defense (2023).
  32. See "Former Secretary Of Defense, General Jim Mattis, US Marine Corps (Ret.), Returns To The Hoover Institution At Stanford University" online press release March 19, 2019.
  33. See "Hoover Institution Board of Overseers Holds Meetings in Washington, DC, Featuring Senior Trump Administration Officials" News from the Hoover Institution February 24, 2020 online
  34. News: Kelly. Kate. Mazzetti. Mark. 2020-10-14. As Virus Spread Early On, Reports of Trump Administration Briefings Fueled Sell-Off. en-US. The New York Times. 2020-10-15. 0362-4331.
  35. Web site: November 20, 2020 . Stanford faculty votes to condemn Scott Atlas, White House coronavirus adviser and Hoover Institution fellow . June 20, 2022 . The Mercury News . en-US.
  36. Web site: University . Stanford . January 29, 2021 . Stanford's relationship to the Hoover Institution highlights Faculty Senate discussion . June 19, 2022 . Stanford Report . en.
  37. Web site: Stanford's secrets: Decades of surprises stashed in Hoover Tower . Niekerken . Bill van . April 4, 2017 . San Francisco Chronicle . June 18, 2019.
  38. Web site: Spotlight On Iran . May 11, 2017 . Radio Farda . June 18, 2019.
  39. Web site: Policy Review Web Archive . Hoover Institution.
  40. Web site: Hoover Institution 2010 Report . June 25, 2011 . Hoover Institution . 39.
  41. News: Adeniji . Ade . April 21, 2015 . How the Hoover Institution Vacuums Up Big Conservative Bucks . Inside Philanthropy .
  42. Web site: Financial Review 2022. Feb 5, 2023 . Hoover Institution.
  43. Book: Wooster, Martin Morse . How Great Philanthropists Failed and You Can Succeed at Protecting Your Legacy . Capital Research Center . 2017 . 978-1892934048 . USA . 201.
  44. News: Yacht club to host celebration of Virginia Rothwell . Stanford Report . September 1, 2004 . March 25, 2008.
  45. News: Glenn Campbell, former Hoover director, dead at 77 . Lisa . Trei . Stanford Report . November 28, 2001 . March 25, 2008.
  46. Web site: Margaret Thatcher . Hoover Institution . 2010 . January 4, 2017.
  47. Web site: Distinguished Fellow . . 2010 . January 4, 2017.
  48. Web site: Senior Fellows . . 2011 . January 4, 2017.
  49. Web site: David Brady . Hoover Institution.
  50. Web site: My Move to the Hoover Institution . . 2023 . September 21, 2023.
  51. Web site: Research Fellows . Hoover Institution.
  52. Web site: Former U.S. Central Command Chief General John Abizaid Appointed Hoover Distinguished Visiting Fellow . Hoover Institution . March 6, 2012 . November 11, 2013 . https://web.archive.org/web/20131111071129/http://www.hoover.org/news/press-releases/29287 . dead .
  53. Web site: Distinguished Visiting Fellows . . 2014 . January 4, 2017.
  54. Web site: William and Barbara Edwards Media Fellows . . 2010 . November 9, 2010.
  55. Web site: William and Barbara Edwards Media Fellows by year . hoover.org.
  56. Web site: William and Barbara Edwards Media Fellows by year . Hoover Institutio.
  57. Web site: VITA Mark Bils . University of Rochester . May 31, 2018.
  58. Web site: Stephen Kotkin . Hoover Institution . September 29, 2016.
  59. Web site: John H. Bunzel . Hoover Institution . November 25, 2019.
  60. Web site: Robert Hessen . Hoover Institution . September 29, 2016.
  61. Web site: James Bond Stockdale . Hoover Institution . June 8, 2020.
  62. Web site: Edward Teller . Hoover Institution . March 7, 2018.
  63. Web site: Charles Wolf Jr. . Hoover Institution . September 29, 2016.