Hoover Institution
The Hoover Institution shares videos intended to encourage discussion, generate ideas, and disseminate information related to peace, the human condition, and the role of government.
Self-Government Depends on Distinct Citizenship and Civic Assimilation
Victor Davis Hanson argues that American self-government rests on citizenship as a distinct political status, reinforced by assimilation into a common civic culture, a broad economically independent middle class, and national allegiance stronger than ethnic or other group loyalties. He contends that blurred lines between citizenship and residence, large-scale immigration without sufficient incorporation, economic dependency, and identity-based politics are weakening the conditions on which consensual government depends.
A Shared Civic Culture Requires Assimilation and Self-Restraint
Victor Davis Hanson argues that America’s civic disorder is a cultural problem rather than a constitutional one: a free society needs citizens who share a primary political allegiance, civic knowledge and a willingness to restrain themselves beyond what the law requires. He contends that assimilation should preserve a common American political core while allowing cultural differences in private and local life, and that citizens, judges and elected officials alike must reduce the partisan conduct that erodes trust in public institutions.
ABC Challenges FCC Inquiry as Retaliation for Editorial Decisions
ABC argues that the FCC’s inquiry into its broadcast licenses is already inflicting the constitutional injury it fears: millions in legal costs and programming changes, including its decision to stop inviting political candidates onto The View. Stuart Benjamin, Eugene Volokh, and Jane Bambauer examine ABC’s claim that the agency is using ostensibly neutral concerns about employment practices and political-programming rules to retaliate against coverage officials dislike. The case tests whether courts must wait for final agency action when the regulatory process itself is alleged to be the punishment.
Taiwan Deterrence Depends on Allied Industry, Logistics, and AI
Hoover Fellow Eyck Freymann argues that the United States has a narrowing five-to-eight-year window to deter Chinese coercion or military action against Taiwan, as China’s local missile, industrial and geographic advantages outpace many U.S. long-term defense programs. In conversation with economist Michael Boskin, he contends that deterrence will depend less on any single weapon than on a resilient system of allied access, logistics, undersea forces, air defenses, secure supply chains and privately developed AI and space capabilities.
Hamas’s Weakening Opens a Narrow Path to Civilian Rule in Gaza
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Palestinian from Gaza, argues that the territory’s future depends on stripping Hamas of its capacity to govern, rearm and intimidate, allowing civilian leaders to replace armed rule. While holding Israel responsible for settlement expansion and policies that weakened Palestinian moderates, he says Palestinians must also confront Hamas’s role in Gaza’s destruction and build a politics around work, security and self-government. Alkhatib proposes a demilitarized Gaza run by nonpartisan technocrats and a 100-day halt to violence as a basis for direct Israeli-Palestinian engagement; host Russ Roberts questions whether Hamas would genuinely disarm.
Liberal Education Must Prepare Citizens for Freedom, Not Political Enlistment
Peter Berkowitz, a Hoover Institution senior fellow, argues in Reclaiming Liberal Education that American universities have too often replaced education for citizenship with progressive political instruction. He calls for a common core, classrooms open to serious disagreement, and institutional reforms led by trustees, donors, parents, and alternative programs—not federal control of academic life. The test, he says, is whether colleges can show that students encounter competing ideas and do their own intellectual work.
California’s Ballot Rules Extend Vote Counts Weeks Beyond Election Day
Hoover Institution fellow Benjamin Ginsberg argues that California’s vote counts take weeks because the state has chosen broad mail-ballot access and post-election correction opportunities alongside extensive verification requirements. Counties must receive ballots for seven days after Election Day, review signatures and possible duplicate voting, and allow up to 22 days to cure certain envelope defects while processing millions of ballots. Ginsberg frames the resulting delay as a trade-off: state officials prioritize participation and accuracy, while critics say faster results are also essential to public confidence.
Thomas Sowell’s Legacy Is Reasoning Under Limits
Roland Fryer, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Charles Murray argue that Thomas Sowell’s influence rests less on a fixed set of conservative conclusions than on a discipline of reasoning: start with existing conditions, account for dispersed knowledge and incentives, and test claims against outcomes. They present that method as a challenge to policies driven by good intentions or idealized assumptions, while their debate over culture, genes and intervention shows that Sowell’s framework does not eliminate substantive disagreement.
Jewish and Palestinian Claims Rest on an Unresolved Shared History
Historian Barry Strauss argues that Israel’s legitimacy cannot be separated from the long, continuous Jewish connection to the land, even as that history also includes Palestinian attachment, displacement and a region shaped by multiple peoples. He describes Israel as an imperfect liberal democracy marked by unequal outcomes for Arab citizens, and contends that criticism of its policies becomes anti-Zionism when it denies any place for a Jewish state in the region’s future. For Strauss, the conflict’s history makes slogans—and expectations of a quick settlement—misleading.
Coexistence Is Necessary but Peace Remains Unlikely
Barry Strauss argues that criticism of Israeli policy, including the Netanyahu government, is distinct from denying Israel’s right to exist—a distinction he says is obscured by antisemitism at political extremes. He maintains that Jewish historical ties to the land do not justify excluding Palestinians, but says lasting coexistence requires Palestinian acceptance of Israel as well as changes shaped by outside powers, particularly Iran and the United States. Strauss sees little reason to expect such a settlement soon.
Sweden Rebuilds Total Defence to Make Deterrence Credible
Sweden is rebuilding total defence around the premise that military deterrence is credible only if the society behind it can keep operating under attack. Civil Defence Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin argues that resilient energy, communications, healthcare, supply chains, businesses and households are necessary to sustain a war effort and counter coercion below the threshold of open conflict. He presents the programme as Sweden’s contribution to NATO: not a claim on allied protection, but a capacity to provide security in the High North.
Quantum Computing’s Path to Utility Runs Through Algorithms and Hardware
Stanford’s Emerging Technology Review argues that quantum computing remains far from practical use because it lacks problem-specific algorithms and still depends on advances in hardware scaling, qubit coherence, and error correction. The review distinguishes quantum sensing, which could deliver utility through greater measurement sensitivity, and says US leadership will require sustained basic research, a trained workforce, secure supply chains, and coordinated public and private investment.
American Strategy Succeeds When Force Serves Bounded Political Aims
Brookings senior fellow Michael O’Hanlon argues in To Dare Mighty Things that American strategy works best when military power, alliances and deterrence serve a bounded political purpose—and fails when force is asked to remake societies or achieve ends leaders have not clearly defined. In a conversation with Hoover’s Michael Boskin, O’Hanlon calls this approach “resolute restraint”: maintain credible power and defend vital interests, but commit to war only when its objectives, means and durable political support align.
California’s Homelessness Spending Faces an Accountability Test
As California’s legislative session nears its deadline, Hoover Institution fellows Bill Whalen and Lee Ohanian argue that homelessness remains Governor Gavin Newsom’s clearest political and policy vulnerability. They contend that the state’s Housing First approach has spent heavily without adequately measuring results or connecting housing to treatment, sobriety, and recovery. The pair also warn that California risks weakening its economic position if opponents of a proposed wealth tax cannot articulate the costs of business departures and if regulators allow the Paramount dispute to push production elsewhere.
Patient Price Visibility and Provider Competition Could Lower Healthcare Costs
Scott W. Atlas argues that American healthcare’s high costs and uneven access stem less from insufficient coverage than from a system that shields patients from prices and limits competition among providers. He favors consumer-directed insurance and health savings accounts, transparent pricing for scheduled care, and fewer restrictions on physician training, licensing, and nonphysician practice. Atlas also contends that Medicaid enrollment does not ensure access, while drug-price controls risk weakening the incentives for pharmaceutical innovation.
Insurance Coverage Does Not Guarantee Timely, Effective Care
Scott W. Atlas argues that U.S. health policy should be judged by whether patients can obtain effective care in time, not by insurance coverage, spending levels, or stated intentions. He contends that single-payer systems achieve lower costs partly by restricting treatment, technology, and specialist access, while the United States delivers stronger outcomes through greater capacity and innovation. Atlas also links the post-COVID decline in institutional trust to what he calls the false claims and overlooked harms behind pandemic restrictions.
Public-Health Trust Depends on Evidence, Dissent, and Accountability
Scott Atlas argues that public health can rebuild trust only by showing greater discipline under uncertainty: testing evidence, admitting limits, and permitting dissent rather than enforcing consensus. He says COVID-era officials and physicians too often substituted conformity and fear for judgment, then failed to revisit the assumptions behind prolonged restrictions. Atlas extends that critique to prevention policy, arguing that government should inform people about health risks but not use aid programs or emergency authority to direct private choices.
Economic Warfare Alone Cannot Break Iran’s Grip on Hormuz
Economic pressure on Iran cannot reopen the Strait of Hormuz or produce a durable settlement unless it is tied to clear objectives, sustained enforcement and credible military backing, John Cochrane, Niall Ferguson and H.R. McMaster argue. Cochrane doubts Washington will bear those costs; Ferguson says earlier military choices have narrowed its options, while McMaster contends that Iran can still be weakened through an integrated strategy extending beyond economic measures alone.
2008 Stimulus Checks Raised Saving More Than Consumption
Economist Valerie Ramey argues that the 2008 U.S. rebate checks—and comparable payments in Singapore—produced visible jumps in disposable income and saving, but little aggregate increase in consumption. That pattern, she says, is inconsistent with household-level estimates suggesting recipients quickly spent 50 to 90 cents of every payment dollar; her re-estimates and aggregate evidence put the 2008 transfer multiplier below 0.2. Ramey distinguishes such temporary transfers from direct government purchases, which create demand without relying on households’ spending decisions.
High Household Spending Responses Do Not Make Stimulus Self-Financing
Valerie Ramey argues that fiscal stimulus should be assessed not only by its short-term lift to demand but by the debt and interest costs that remain after a crisis. While research showing high household spending from temporary transfers strengthened the case for emergency support during the financial crisis and COVID, she says it did not establish that the resulting borrowing would pay for itself. In her estimate, those two episodes account for roughly 27% of the current US debt-to-GDP ratio.
Broad Transfers Work Best as Emergency Insurance, Not Stimulus
Valerie Ramey argues that fiscal stimulus should be judged by the economic gain it produces relative to the debt it adds, not by the amount government spends. She says broad COVID-era payments were defensible as emergency income insurance in spring 2020, when targeted aid was impractical, but later rounds were harder to justify as the economy reopened. For short-run stabilization, she places greater weight on government purchases that can occur quickly and cautions that tax changes and deficit reduction carry their own, often larger, economic effects.
Capitalism Requires Impartial Law, Competition, and Broad Opportunity
Ross Levine argues that market-based capitalism delivers prosperity and freedom only when competition is protected by impartial law and the state is strong enough to enforce rules without becoming a dispenser of political privilege. In conversation with Steven Davis, he makes a moral as well as economic case for a system in which people advance by serving willing customers rather than securing favors, while both men argue that public policy must address market failures and give more people a meaningful chance to participate.
Permitting Delays and Construction Costs Threaten Affordable U.S. Energy
Steven Davis of the Hoover Institution argues that America’s relatively low energy prices—an advantage for households and industry—are at risk as electricity demand rises from data centres, industrial expansion and other uses. He says the United States will need new generation, transmission and distribution capacity, but that building it affordably requires cutting tariffs on construction inputs, easing occupational licensing barriers and reforming permitting and environmental reviews that add years of cost and uncertainty.
Allied Coordination Is the Missing Link in Taiwan Deterrence
Eyck Freymann argues that preventing conflict over Taiwan requires the US and its allies to coordinate political, military, strategic, and economic power rather than rely on American military strength alone. China can pressure Taiwan through blockade, coercion, and economic measures short of invasion, he says, while allied governments remain organized around separate national policies and bureaucratic silos. The deterrent resources exist, Freymann contends; what is missing is the joint planning and trusted relationships needed to use them in a crisis.