Rachel Kleinfeld

Dr. Rachel Kleinfeld is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where she focuses on troubled democracies, including the United States, facing violence, polarization, and other problems. She serves on the National Task Force on Election Crises and the boards of the National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House, and States United for Democracy.

Rachel’s work on security sector and police reform in violent democracies includes service on the UN Security Sector Reform Advisory Group and as a fellow with the Halifax International Security Forum, a meeting of the military and security leadership of democratic countries. From 2011-2014 she served on the Foreign Affairs Policy Board, which directly advises the Secretary of State each quarter.

Previously, Rachel was founding CEO of the Truman National Security Project, for which she was named one of the 40 under 40 top political leaders in the United States by Time Magazine.

Rachel is the author of three books, including A Savage Order: How the World’s Deadliest Countries Can Forge a Path to Security (Knopf, 2018). Her previous book, Advancing the Rule of Law Abroad: Next Generation Reform (Carnegie, 2012), was chosen by Foreign Affairs magazine as one of the best foreign policy books of 2012. She appears frequently in the media, from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, to the BBC. Her TED talk on transforming violent democracies been translated into 17 languages and seen over a million times. 

Rachel holds a B.A. from Yale University and an M. Phil and D. Phil from Oxford, which she attended as a Rhodes Scholar.