Nonpartisan policy research and analysis, briefing policymakers to disseminate independent analysis and policy ideas, support for unofficial and semi-official diplomacy, training and mentoring fellows, incubating initiatives that become independent organizations, public events, development and distribution of digital content
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) is a nonpartisan international affairsthink tank headquartered in Washington, D.C., with operations in Europe, South and East Asia, and the Middle East as well as the United States.[1] Founded in 1910 by Andrew Carnegie, the organization describes itself as being dedicated to advancing cooperation between countries, reducing global conflict, and promoting active international engagement between the United States and countries around the world. It engages leaders from multiple sectors and across the political spectrum.[3]
In the University of Pennsylvania's "2019 Global Go To Think Tanks Report", Carnegie was ranked the number 1 top think tank in the world.[4] In the 2015 Global Go To Think Tanks Report, Carnegie was ranked the third most influential think tank in the world, after the Brookings Institution and Chatham House.[5] It was ranked as the top Independent Think Tank in 2018.[6]
The chairperson of Carnegie's board of trustees is businesswoman Catherine James Paglia,[7] and the organization's president is former California Supreme Court justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, who replaced CIA Director William J. Burns in 2021.[8]
Andrew Carnegie, like other leading internationalists of his day, believed that war could be eliminated by stronger international laws and organizations. "I am drawn more to this cause than to any," he wrote in 1907. Carnegie's single largest commitment in this field was his creation of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.[9]
On his seventy-fifth birthday, November 25, 1910, Andrew Carnegie announced the establishment of the Endowment with a gift of $10 million worth of first mortgage bonds, paying a 5% rate of interest.[10] The interest income generated from these bonds was to be used to fund a new think tank dedicated to advancing the cause of world peace. In his deed of gift, presented in Washington on December 14, 1910, Carnegie charged trustees to use the fund to "hasten the abolition of international war, the foulest blot upon our civilization", and he gave his trustees "the widest discretion as to the measures and policy they shall from time to time adopt" in carrying out the purpose of the fund.[11]
Peter Parker House at 700 Jackson Pl., NW, Washington, D.C., housed CEIP 1910–1947, when it relocated to New York City.
At the outset of America's involvement in World War I in 1917, the Carnegie Endowment trustees unanimously declared, "the most effective means of promoting durable international peace is to prosecute the war against the Imperial Government of Germany to final victory for democracy."[12] In December 1918, Carnegie Endowment Secretary James Brown Scott and four other Endowment personnel, including James T. Shotwell, sailed with President Woodrow Wilson on the USS George Washington to join the peace talks in France.
Carnegie is often remembered for having built Carnegie libraries. They were funded by other Carnegie trusts. However, the Endowment built libraries in Belgium, France,[13] and Serbia in three cities which had been badly damaged in the war. In addition, in 1918, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) began to support library special collections on international issues through its International Mind Alcove program, which aimed to foster a more global perspective among the public in the United States and other countries.[14] The Endowment concluded its support for this program in 1958.[14]
In 1925, Nicholas Murray Butler succeeded Elihu Root as president of the Endowment.[15] In December of the same year, the endowment's Board approved a proposal by President Butler to offer aid in modernizing the Vatican Library.[16][17] From 1926 to 1939 the Carnegie Endowment expended some $200,000 on the endeavor.[18] For his work, including his involvement with the Kellogg–Briand Pact, Butler was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.[19]
In November 1944, the Carnegie Endowment published Raphael Lemkin's Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation—Analysis of Government—Proposals for Redress. The work was the first to bring the word genocide into the global lexicon.[20] In April 1945, James T. Shotwell, director of the Carnegie Endowment's Division of Economics and History, served as chairman of the semiofficial consultants to the U.S. delegation at the San Francisco conference to draw up the United Nations Charter.[21] As chairman, Shotwell pushed for an amendment to establish a permanent United Nations Commission on Human Rights, which exists to this day.
In December 1945, Butler stepped down after twenty years as president and chairman of the board of trustees. Butler was the last living member of the original board selected by Andrew Carnegie in 1910.[22]John Foster Dulles was elected to succeed Butler as chairman of the board of trustees, where he served until fellow board member Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected president of the U.S. in 1952 and appointed Dulles Secretary of State.[22]
In 1946, Alger Hiss succeeded Butler as president of the Endowment but resigned in 1949 after being denounced as a spy for the Soviet Union by Whittaker Chambers. Hiss was replaced in the interim by James T. Shotwell.
In 1947, the Carnegie Endowment's headquarters were moved closer to the United Nations in New York City, while the Washington office at Peter Parker House (700 Jackson Pl., NW) became a subsidiary branch.[12]
In 1950, the Endowment board of trustees appointed Joseph E. Johnson, a historian and former State Department official, to take the helm.
The Cold War years: 1960–1990
In 1963, the Carnegie Endowment reconstituted its International Law Program in order to address several emerging international issues: the increase in significance and impact of international organizations; the technological revolution that facilitated the production of new military weaponry; the spread of Communism; the surge in newly independent states; and the challenges of new forms of economic activity, including global corporations and intergovernmental associations. The program resulted in the New York-based Study Group on the United Nations and the International Organization Study Group at the European Centre in Geneva.[12]
In 1970, Thomas L. Hughes became the sixth president of the Carnegie Endowment. Hughes moved the Endowment's headquarters from New York to Washington, D.C., and closed the Endowment's European Centre in Geneva.
The Carnegie Endowment acquired full ownership of Foreign Policy magazine in the spring of 1978. The Endowment published Foreign Policy for 30 years, moving it from a quarterly academic journal to a bi-monthly glossy covering the nexus of globalization and international policy. The magazine was sold to The Washington Post in 2008.
Citing the growing danger of a nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan, Thomas L. Hughes formed an eighteen-member Task Force on Non-Proliferation and South Asian Security to propose methods for reducing the growing nuclear tensions on the subcontinent.[12]
In 1989, two former Carnegie associates, Barry Blechman and Michael Krepon, founded the Henry L. Stimson Center.
After the Cold War: 1990–2000
In 1991, Morton Abramowitz was named the seventh president of the Endowment. Abramowitz, previously a State Department official, focused the Endowment's attention on Russia in the post-Soviet era.[12] In this spirit, the Carnegie Endowment opened the Carnegie Moscow Center in 1994 as a home of Russian scholar-commentators.[23]
Jessica Mathews joined the Carnegie Endowment as its eighth president in May 1997. Under her leadership, Carnegie's goal was to become the first multinational/global think tank.[24]
In 2000, Mathews announced the creation of the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) headed by Demetrios Papademetriou which became the first stand-alone think tank concerned with international migration.[12]
The Global Think Tank: 2000–present
As first laid out with the Global Vision in 2007, the Carnegie Endowment aspired to be the first global think tank.[25] Mathews said that her aim was to make Carnegie the place that brings what the world thinks into thinking about U.S. policy and to communicate that thinking to a global audience.[22]
During Mathews' tenure as president, the Carnegie Endowment launched the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut (2006), Carnegie Europe in Brussels (2007), and the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center at the Tsinghua University in Beijing (2010). Additionally, in partnership with the al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Carnegie established the Al-Farabi Carnegie Program on Central Asia in Kazakhstan in late 2011.
In April 2016, the sixth international Center, Carnegie India, opened in New Delhi.[26]
Carnegie Endowment Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
The Carnegie Endowment office in Washington, D.C., is home to ten programs: Africa; American Statecraft; Asia; Democracy, Conflict, and Governance; Europe; Global Order and Institutions; Middle East; Nuclear Policy; Russia and Eurasia; South Asia; Sustainability, Climate, and Geopolitics; and Technology and International Affairs.[37]
Carnegie Moscow Center
In 1993, the Endowment launched the Carnegie Moscow Center, with the belief that "in today's world a think tank whose mission is to contribute to global security, stability, and prosperity requires a permanent presence and a multinational outlook at the core of its operations."[38]
The center's stated goals were to embody and promote the concepts of disinterested social science research and the dissemination of its results in post-Soviet Russia and Eurasia; to provide a free and open forum for the discussion and debate of critical national, regional and global issues; and to further cooperation and strengthen relations between Russia and the United States by explaining the interests, objectives and policies of each.[23] From 2006 until December 2008, the center was led by former Deputy Secretary General of NATO, Rose Gottemoeller. The center was headed by Dmitri Trenin until its closing in April 2022.
Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center
The Carnegie Middle East Center was established in Beirut, Lebanon, in November 2006. The center aims to better inform the process of political change in the Arab Middle East and deepen understanding of the complex economic and security issues that affect it. As of 2016[update], the current director of the center is Maha Yahya.[39] In October 2020, it was renamed the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center in honor of scholar Malcolm H. Kerr.[40]
Carnegie Europe
Founded in 2007 by Fabrice Pothier, Carnegie Europe is the European centre of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. From its newly expanded presence in Brussels, Carnegie Europe combines the work of its research platform with the fresh perspectives of Carnegie's centres in Washington, Moscow, Beijing, and Beirut, bringing a unique global vision to the European policy community. Through publications, articles, seminars, and private consultations, Carnegie Europe aims to foster new thinking on the daunting international challenges shaping Europe's role in the world.[41]
Carnegie Europe is currently directed by Rosa Balfour.[42]
The current director of the center is Paul Haenle.
Carnegie India
In April 2016, Carnegie India opened in New Delhi, India. The center's focuses include the political economy of reform in India, foreign and security policy, and the role of innovation and technology in India's internal transformation and international relations.[26]
The current director of the center is Rudra Chaudhuri.
Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center
In April 2023, the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center opened in Berlin, Germany. The center focuses on major policy challenges across the wider region in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. [44] It is home to the digital publication Carnegie Politika.
The current director of the center is Alexander Gabuev.
^James Langland (ed.), "Carnegie Endowment for International Peace," The Chicago Daily News Almanac and Year-Book for 1926. Chicago: Chicago Daily News Company, 1925; pg. 591.
^Osmańczyk, Edmund Jan (2003). Encyclopedia of the United Nations and international agreements. New York: Routledge. OCLC50164558.
^ abWitt, Steven W. (November 2014). "International Mind Alcoves: The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Libraries, and the Struggle for Global Public Opinion". Library & Information History. 30 (4): 273–290. doi:10.1179/1758348914Z.00000000068. S2CID218691870 – via JSTOR.
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