Steve Feldstein

Steve Feldstein is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program. His research focuses on technology, national security, the global context for democracy, and U.S. foreign policy.

Feldstein’s new book, Bytes and Bullets: Global Rivalry, Private Tech, and the New Shape of Modern Warfare, will be published in 2026 by St. Martin’s Press. He is the author of The Rise of Digital Repression: How Technology is Reshaping Power, Politics, and Resistance (Oxford, 2021), which was the recipient of the 2023 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. 

He has published research on digital technology’s impact on war, how AI is reshaping repression, the global demand for drones, China’s digital authoritarianism, and new patterns of internet shutdowns. He has released an index tracking the spread of AI surveillance worldwide and published a global inventory measuring the prevalence of commercial spyware.

Previously, he was the holder of the Frank and Bethine Church Chair of Public Affairs and an associate professor at Boise State University. He has served in multiple foreign policy positions in the U.S. government. He was a deputy assistant secretary in the democracy, human rights, and labor bureau in the U.S. Department of State under President Obama. Prior to that role, he served as the director of policy at the U.S. Agency for International Development, and also worked as counsel on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations under Chairmen Joseph Biden and John Kerry.

He has authored numerous essays, articles, book chapters, policy reports, and commentary in major media outlets and policy journals. He is a graduate of Princeton University and Berkeley Law. He was born and raised in Bloomington, Indiana.