Bernard L. Schwartz Fellows Program
 

A New Generation of Public-Minded Thinkers

The Bernard L. Schwartz Fellows Program supports talented journalists, academics and other public policy analysts who offer a fresh and often unpredictable perspective on the major challenges facing our society.   Schwartz Fellows are selected on a highly competitive basis, and serve - some full-time, some on an adjunct basis - for one or two years.  New America provides them with a non-partisan intellectual community where they can pursue their individual research projects.   The Schwartz Fellows benefit from their engagement with each other, and with New America's various policy programs, while their presence adds to the intellectual verve of the institution and helps shape its longer-term agenda and focus. 

New America is committed to identifying and supporting some of tomorrow's more promising thought leaders and policy entrepreneurs. The Schwartz Program also appoints a number of senior fellows, more established thinkers who still have a provocatively fresh perspective on issues, and may not otherwise have a natural intellectual home in an increasingly partisan landscape.  Senior fellows also help mentor their younger colleagues in the Schwartz Program.   By investing in the career development of some of the brightest policy thinkers and writers of our day, New America seeks to enrich the quality of public discourse for decades to come.  

Articles

Engaging Cuba on Human Rights

Normalization of U.S. relations with Cuba was widely seen as exactly the kind of high-value, low-hanging fruit that would be ideal for a president elected under the banner of "change." But a scathing new Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, "New Castro, Same Cuba," will make lifting sanctions against the Castro regime -- on travel, remittances, trade -- more difficult for President Obama.

Jorge Castañeda | The Wall Street Journal | November 19, 2009

The Right Role For Sarah Palin

When Sarah Palin resigned on July 4th weekend, it certainly looked as though she had decided to abandon politics, or at the very least given up on running for president in 2012. And despite the saturation coverage of Palin's Going Rogue book tour, it's not obvious that she hasn't. As Republican political strategist Patrick Ruffini has observed, a Palin presidential run would have profited from releasing the book a year from now, maximizing media exposure in the crucial year before Iowa. Granted, John McCain also capitalized on… more

Reihan Salam | National Review Online | November 19, 2009

Colleges Need a Lemon Law

The College Board reports tuition is up 9 percent this year in inflation-adjusted terms, despite declining prices throughout the economy and stagnant median family income. Parents want to know why the rise and why college costs so much in the first place. The answer, in a word, is demand. Until we channel the demand for higher education in a more rational direction, tuition will continue to outpace inflation, grant aid, and family income.

Michael Dannenberg | The Times Union (Albany, N.Y.) | November 16, 2009

Where Stupak Leads

Last week, the debate over the Democratic health reform effort took a brief and unexpected philosophical turn. Bart Stupak, a pro-labor Catholic Democrat representing Michigan's 1st congressional district, managed to pass the Stupak amendment as part of the House health bill. Sensing that an insurrection among anti-abortion Democrats threatened to derail the legislation, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who ardently opposes restrictions on abortion, allowed Stupak to offer the amendment, and it passed by a wide margin thanks to Republican votes.

Reihan Salam | Forbes.com | November 16, 2009

China's Upper Hand

To hear the Obama administration tell it, the problem with American foreign policy towards China is that we haven't been paying enough attention. In the weeks and months leading up to the President's arrival in Beijing, a bevy of administration officials implied that the Bush administration had become so preoccupied with the Middle East that it gave China free reign to expand its influence in Asia. Now, by sending Obama to the continent in his first year -- after sending Hillary Clinton there on her first foreign… more

Peter Beinart | The Daily Beast | November 16, 2009

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Policy Papers

Guantanamo: Who Really 'Returned to the Battlefield'?

As President Obama receives formal recommendations in the coming months on issues surrounding the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, it is crucial that policymakers and the public have an accurate picture of the threat to the United States posed by those detainees already released. Contrary to recent assertions that one in seven, or 14 percent, of the former prisoners had "returned to the battlefield," our analysis of Pentagon reports, news stories, and other public records indicates that the number who were confirmed or suspected to… more

Peter Bergen, Katherine Tiedemann | July 20, 2009

To Save America's Finances, Bring Back Community Banking

In the fall of 2007, Countrywide Financial, then the nation's largest mortgage lender, had a curious new idea -- or, more precisely, an old one. It would no longer import foreign capital through Wall Street to make subprime loans. Instead, it would depend entirely on deposits from savers, who would finance each other's mortgages -- kind of like that humble thrift institution run by George Bailey in the movie It's a Wonderful Life."

Phillip Longman, Ellen Seidman | November 20, 2008 |

How Not to Lose Afghanistan (and Pakistan)

In late May, some 40 Pakistani journalists received a summons to an unusual press conference held by Baitullah Mehsud, the rarely photographed leader of the Pakistani Taliban, who is accused of orchestrating the 2007 assassination of Benazir Bhutto, sending suicide bombers to Spain earlier this year, and dispatching an army of fighters into Afghanistan to attack U.S. and NATO forces in recent months. Surrounded by a posse of heavily armed Taliban guards, Mehsud boasted that he had hundreds of trained suicide bombers ready for martyrdom.

It was… more

Peter Bergen | October 10, 2008

The Energy Security for American Families Initiative

Lisa Margonelli | September 23, 2008 |

Redressing America's Public Infrastructure Deficit

Chairman, Oberstar, Representative Mica, and Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to testify today on the question of "financing infrastructure investments."

Over the past several decades, we have accumulated a sizeable public infrastructure deficit. As a result, a variety of infrastructure bottlenecks-traffic congested roads, clogged ports, and an antiquated air traffic system, to mention just a few-have begun to undercut our economy's efficiency and undermine our quality of life.

Bernard L. Schwartz | June 19, 2008

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Events

Inheriting the World

For nearly half a century, the Cold War dominated U.S. foreign policy. Encompassing some of America's greatest successes and failures, its legacy has shaped U.S. debates over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and relations with Russia, China and Iran. What are the right and wrong lessons to take from America's long "twilight struggle"? And how has the reality of the Cold War been distorted in public memory in the years since?
12/02/2009 - 12:15pm
12/02/2009 - 1:45pm

Shadow Elite

Please join New America in a conversation between Janine Wedel and Michael Lind about her new book Shadow Elite. Governments and administrations come and go, but not so a new breed of power brokers, who always seem to pop up just where the action is. Wearing different hats, they press their agendas in venue after venue. According to award-winning public policy scholar and anthropologist Janine Wedel, these are the "shadow elite," the prime movers in a vexing new system of power and influence.
12/01/2009 - 12:15pm
12/01/2009 - 1:45pm

Understanding REDD

On October 30, panelists Tia Nelson, Nigel Purvis, and Steve Schwartzman discussed the new market mechanism, REDD -- Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation -- that aims to allow residents of tropical forest properties to earn more money from standing forests than from their removal. Tropical deforestation accounts for 20 percent of all carbon emissions into the atmosphere, more than the combined emissions of every car, truck, ship, plane and train on the planet. The panelists

10/30/2009 - 12:15pm
10/30/2009 - 1:45pm

"Go West, Young Policy Wonk"

Only five years ago, programs like "ER," "The West Wing," and "The Wire" were exploring the major policy issues of our times:  access to health care; the war in Iraq; and the battle over drug abuse in the inner city.   Television in the past has played a vibrant role in dramatizing the complexities of policy debate, but are shows today continuing that legacy?  Do dramatic programs capture and reflect social policy issues and dilemmas?  In light of the demise of… more
10/02/2009 - 12:15pm
10/02/2009 - 1:45pm

"¿Que pasa, América Latina?”

On October 1, former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda outlined the challenges and opportunities currently faced by Latin America. In conversation with Andres Martinez, the Director of New America's Bernard L. Schwartz Fellows Program, Mr. Castañeda discussed the continent's fraught attempts to develop a working framework for collective action, even as its major players start to focus their attention on increasing their clout on the global stage.

10/01/2009 - 9:15am
10/01/2009 - 10:45am

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About Bernard L. Schwartz

Bernard L. Schwartz's generous support underwrites New America's fellowship program, as well as various issue-specific initiatives at the foundation.

One of the nation's leading philanthropists in the realms of medical research, higher education, foreign affairs, and public policy, Mr. Schwartz is the former Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Loral Space & Communications, Ltd., one of the world’s largest satellite manufacturing and satellite services companies. In recent years, he has established endowed programs at the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University, at the Graduate Faculty at the New School University, and at the Council on Foreign Relations.

For more information on Mr. Schwartz, please click here.

 
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