The Hoover Institution Center for Revitalizing American Institutions webinar series features speakers who are developing innovative ideas, conducting groundbreaking research, and taking important actions to improve trust and efficacy in American institutions. Speaker expertise and topics span governmental institutions, civic organizations and practice, and the role of public opinion and culture in shaping our democracy. The webinar series builds awareness about how we can individually and collectively revitalize American institutions to ensure our country’s democracy delivers on its promise.

The Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI) held a webinar—co-sponsored by the Stanford Constitutional Law Center—about Judicial Importance, Independence, and Legitimacy in Polarized Times with Michael McConnell, Tom Clark, Genevieve Lakier, and Eugene Volokh on March 4, 2026, from 10:00-11:30 a.m. PT.

Have federal courts been too permissive—or too obstructive—of President Trump’s agenda? The answer often depends on one’s political perspective. Yet across the spectrum, there’s broad agreement that the courts have come under intense pressure and scrutiny in recent years. As the country has grown more politically sorted, the judiciary’s role in our system of self-governance has evolved and, for some, grown more contested.

Join us for a timely and thought-provoking webinar featuring scholars with diverse viewpoints who explore how the federal courts are functioning—and perceived—amid today’s polarized political landscape. Panelists examine questions such as: What is the judiciary’s role in safeguarding democracy? How can courts maintain legitimacy in a divided society? And how should we interpret recent high-profile rulings in the broader context of American constitutionalism?

Wednesday, March 11, 2026

Hoover Institution | Stanford University

Hoover Institution fellow Niall Ferguson and Andrew Preston discuss Preston's latest book Total Defense: The New Deal and the Invention of National Security.

Wednesday, March 11, 2026

Hoover Institution | Stanford University

The Hoover Applied History Working Group held Total Defense: The New Deal and the Invention of National Security on Wednesday, March 11, 2026.

ABOUT THE TALK

National security may seem like a timeless notion. States have always sought to fortify themselves, and the modern state derives its legitimacy from protecting its population. Yet national security in fact has a very particular, very American, history—and a surprising one at that.

The concept of national security originates in the 1930s, as part of a White House campaign in response to the rise of fascism. Before then, national self-defense was defined in terms of protecting sovereign territory from invasion. But President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his circle worried that the US public, comforted by two vast oceans, did not take seriously the long-term risks posed by hypermilitarization abroad. New Dealers developed the doctrine of national security, Andrew Preston argues, to supplant the old idea of self-defense: now even geographically and temporally remote threats were to be understood as harms to be combated, while ideological competitors were perilous to the “American way of life.” Total Defense shows it was no coincidence that a liberal like Roosevelt promoted this vision. National security, no less than social security, was a New Deal promise: the state was obliged to safeguard Americans as much from the guns and warships of Nazi Germany and imperial Japan as from unemployment and poverty in old age. The resulting shift in threat perception—among policymakers and ordinary citizens alike—transformed the United States, spearheading massive government expansion and placing the country on a permanent war footing.