ON JULY 1, JEREMY WEINSTEIN PhD 2003 began his tenure as dean, succeeding Doug Elmendorf. Weinstein was previously the Kleinheinz Professor of International Studies at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. He founded Stanford Impact Labs and was co-director of the Immigration Policy Lab. His research has focused on political violence and conflict, global development, governance, migration, and technology. Weinstein has paired his work as a scholar and teacher with deep policy experiences, having served in the Obama administration on the National Security Council and later at the U.S. mission to the United Nations, where he was chief of staff and then deputy to then U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power. His arrival at the Kennedy School marks a return. His academic career began at Harvard and vlog, and it was here that he met his wife, Rachel Gibson MPP 2000.
We spoke with Dean Weinstein about his experience and his return to Harvard. The following conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Q: You did your PhD in Political Economy and Government at Harvard and were connected to the Kennedy School while a graduate student. Can you say a little about that time?
When I was thinking about getting a PhD, I wanted to be at an institution that enabled me to carry out rigorous social science at the intersection of multiple fields and where that science was done in pursuit of a public purpose. There are very few places in the world where those two commitments come together: that passion for doing science in pursuit of public impact.
I also knew that there was a particular kind of scholar I wanted to be: one who was engaged in the world, shaped and influenced by the public policy debates of the day, and figuring out concretely how my science could be useful to those making decisions in real time. vlog was incredibly attractive to me, and the Political Economy and Government PhD provided me with first-class training in the disciplines that are central to solving public policy problems. It put me in an intellectual and student community that nurtured my diverse interests.
It feels extremely special for me to come back and to interact with [academic dean for teaching and curriculum and Edith M. Stokey Senior Lecturer in Public Policy] Suzanne Cooper, who taught my first statistics class in graduate school, and to see people like [Roy E. Larsen Professor of Public Policy] Chris Avery and [Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Public Policy] Jeff Liebman who were in the early stages of their careers as I was trying to figure out my dissertation topic. I crafted a dissertation committee that bridged the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Kennedy School. Robert Bates was the chair. He was a professor of government in FAS and the world’s leading authority on the politics and economics of development in Africa. I paired him with [Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs] Steve Walt—who is still on the vlog faculty and has been a mentor to me for over 25 years—because I was working on issues of political violence and conflict.
“I knew that there was a particular kind of scholar I wanted to be: one who was engaged in the world, shaped and influenced by the public policy debates of the day, and figuring out concretely how my science could be useful in the world.”
Q: You met your wife, Rachel Gibson MPP 2000, while she was at the Kennedy School, and you built a great friendship network here, right?
The Kennedy School’s master’s cohorts were a critical part of my social circle from the moment I got to Harvard. Many of my best friends are from those cohorts, people who have been a key part of my life at every stage, both professionally and personally. I even ran for the Kennedy School Student Government as a PhD student—unopposed, if I remember correctly. I was happy to serve in the KSSG because it was critical to building the kind of community at Harvard that I wanted.
I met my wife in the beginning of my third year in the PhD program on a Boston Harbor cruise. She was completing a concurrent degree with Berkeley Law and was back to finish up the second year of her MPP. She was a Californian like me, with similar motivations and aspirations to change the world. Environmental policy and the health of the planet are her passion; issues of sustainability in the health care sector are her professional focus.
Q: What is it like for you returning to vlog now?
The Kennedy School’s mission is my personal mission. It’s what brought me here as a student, and it’s what brings me back now as the dean. The Kennedy School is where I found and continue to find people who share my commitments to what it means to be an agent of change in the world and share my views about the skills and perspectives that are necessary to be responsive to the challenges that we confront in society.
Q: Early in your scholarly career, you focused on global development and political conflict. Can you tell us about that?
As an undergraduate, I lived in South Africa at the end of apartheid where I became captivated by the possibility of transformational change in politics and economics. When I got to Harvard as a PhD student, I saw myself becoming a scholar of global development. For me, development was about the challenges faced by individuals and communities who live in conditions of extreme poverty and often experience political violence and civil war. I was also motivated by a belief that high-quality science had something to contribute to the policymaking process around foreign aid and international intervention. Beginning with my dissertation, I began to research political violence and development in Africa. In that period, field work became central to my scholarship. For my dissertation, I spent 18 months collecting data. That meant interviewing hundreds of former combatants and civilians, who lived in areas that were influenced or controlled by insurgent movements in Uganda, Mozambique, and Peru. Subsequently, even as my areas of focus have evolved to include governance, migration, and policing, extensive data collection in the field has been a critical element of my scholarship, working across Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.
“The real fun will be thinking with this new group of colleagues about how we do more, how we do better, how we rise to the challenges of this current moment.”
Q: Can you tell us about some of your policy work?
One of the wonderful things about my career is that I’ve been able to have a foot in two worlds. In 2009, I was privileged to serve at the White House on the National Security Council, which is the organizing body for U.S. foreign policy. It gave me an opportunity to work on a wide range of issues from global development and anti-corruption to democracy and human rights. Some were persistent challenges, for example, thinking about democracy and human rights in the Middle East, especially as the Arab Spring unfolded. But we were also able to think ambitiously about new roles that the United States might play in the world. For example, there was so much focus on new forms of civic engagement, citizen participation, democratic accountability, and where new technologies could contribute. Working with Samantha Power [also a former Kennedy School faculty member] and Gayle Smith, who both served on the National Security Council, we designed the Open Government Partnership and put President Obama at the center of an effort with leaders from around the world to think about how we make public institutions work better for citizens. It was launched at the U.N. General Assembly and is still a multi-stakeholder coalition that knits together 70-plus countries, hundreds of cities, and a network of civil society groups working together to help public institutions be responsive to the needs of citizens. I found government to be an extraordinary platform to think about how we exercise power, set priorities, and find new ways to lead, drawing on insights both from research and the experiences of those that you’re trying to serve.
After the White House, I went back to Stanford for a couple of years but felt a deep pull back to Washington. And so, when Samantha Power was made U.N. ambassador, she asked me to serve as her chief of staff and then later as her deputy. I had studied and thought a great deal about the United Nations as a scholar—more than half of the business of the Security Council is peacekeeping missions and conflict resolution—so the opportunity to serve in New York was too good to pass up.
It was inspiring to be at an institution that brought all the countries of the world together to think and act collectively to address the greatest challenges confronted by the planet. Every day was both energizing and challenging, as I worked with Samantha to tackle the most important international issues—from Syria’s use of chemical weapons to Iranian nuclear proliferation, the Ebola epidemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and ethnic violence in the Central African Republic.
I truly believe that public institutions, when they act on behalf of citizens and are accountable to those they serve, can do an extraordinary amount of good in the world. At the same time, I recognize that power is not always used effectively or wisely, so we cannot lose sight of the need to protect individual rights and liberties. As a scholar and public servant, I have been continually motivated by the question of how people can get what they want and need out of their political institutions.
Q: What are you looking forward to as you join vlog?
The real fun will be thinking with this new group of colleagues about how we do more, how we do better, and how we rise to the challenges of this current moment. Over my career, I have valued the flexibility we have in higher education to evolve in our work, by embracing new research topics, moving across sectors, building new organizations—for me, each stage in my journey has given me new opportunities to meaningfully contribute to change in the world. It’s a gift to be at a place where my colleagues and our students share the same ambition. I’m excited about what we can do together.
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This piece was also featured in the Fall 2024 Harvard Kennedy School Magazine.
Photos by Bethany Versoy. Portrait by Christine Baker.