Institute of World Politics
last updated: July 30, 2014
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Contact
Institute of World Politics
1521 16th Street NW
Washington, DC 20036-1464
Phone: 202-462-2101
Email: info@iwp.edu
Website: http://www.iwp.edu/
Founded
1990
Mission Statement (2014)
“The Institute of World Politics is a graduate school of national security and international affairs, dedicated to developing leaders with a sound understanding of international realities and the ethical conduct of statecraft, based on knowledge and appreciation of the founding principles of the American political economy and the Western moral tradition.”
Board of Trustees (2014)
- Owen T. Smith, Chairman
- Lawrence Cosgriff
- Carlos Fonts
- John Lenczowski, President
- John Lovewell
- Tidal W. McCoy
- Colin McIntosh
- Jack Nicholson
- Edward Reilly
- Joseph A. Reyes
- David N. Rogers
- Francis X. Ryan
- Peter Schaumber
- Barry R. Sullivan
- William H. Webster
- Aldona Z. Wos
Board of Advisers (2014)
- Neil Alpert
- Adam Bak
- John K. Castle
- Steve A. Fausel
- Stephen J. Klimczuk
- John F. Lehman
- Michael Maibach
- J. William Middendorf, II
- Larry Pressler
- Chris Ruddy
- Curtin Winsor, Jr.
The Institute of World Politics (IWP) is a Washington, D.C.-based graduate school of national security and international affairs.
Founded in 1990, the IWP describes itself as a professional school whose mission is to develop "leaders with a sound understanding of international realities and the ethical conduct of statecraft … based on knowledge and appreciation of the principles of the American political economy and the Western moral tradition."[1]
IWP’s website says that the school’s curriculum is “based upon an interdisciplinary foundational course of study that includes relevant elements of comparative political culture, Western moral precepts, practical political economics, and political and diplomatic history.”[2]
The school previously embraced a more distinctly conservative outlook. "The Institute's curriculum is based on recognition of the necessity for education in natural law—deriving from the Western, Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian moral tradition,” reads an older statement on the IWP website. “The Institute recognizes that there is such a thing as truth and that truth is not relative. It thus recognizes the existence of historical facts that are true regardless of the perspective of observers of those facts."[3]
IWP's founding president is John Lenczowski. A staffer in the National Security Council under President Ronald Reagan, Lenczowski has worked for a number of neoconservative groups, including the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Ethics and Public Policy Center.[4]
IWP frames its curriculum as a response to what it describes as national security culture that focuses “excessively on arms, money, and the diplomacy concerning them, while neglecting many other instruments of statecraft that are decisive in the successful pursuit of a secure peace.” Emphasizing “non-material elements of power,”[5] its website declares that “when governments resort to force, it is often a sign of the failure to use the many non-military instruments of power effectively.”[6]
Nonetheless, a number of prominent foreign policy militarists have been associated with the school over the years. Its faculty includes the Heritage Foundation’s Jay Carafano, the neoconservative writer Joshua Muravchik, and Henry Sokolski.[7] Former Navy Secretary John Lehman sits on the group’s board of advisers.[8] Blackwater founder Erik Prince is a former trustee, and Center for Security Policy vice president J. Michael Waller is a former faculty member.
The institute also features a number of prominent hawks on its list of guest lecturers, including Ilan Berman, Paula Dobriansky, Douglas Feith, Michael Hayden, Jon Kyl, Michael Novak, Michael O’Hanlon, James Schlesinger, and James Woolsey.[9]
According to its website, the institute’s library holdings include “thousands of rare and out-of-print national security books and documents from the American Security Council Foundation.” The American Security Council Foundation served as an important bastion for right-wing anti-communism during the Cold War and continues to promote the works of hardline foreign policy figures like John Bolton.[10]
The institute has received significant donations from right-wing foundations, including the Bradley ,Castle Rock, Earhart, Olin, and Smith Richardson foundations.[11]