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

Feldstein 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 is currently writing a book about geopolitical rivalry in the digital age, under contract with St. Martin’s Press.

He has published research on digital technology’s impact on war, the role of artificial intelligence is reshaping repression, the geopolitics of technology, China’s advancing digital authoritarianism, and new patterns of internet shutdowns. He has released a global index tracking the spread of global AI surveillance and published a global inventory measuring the prevalence of commercial spyware and digital forensics. 

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.