The National Security and Foreign Policy Concentration prepares MPP students to assume positions in the national security community, including consulting firms with federal contracts.
Career
Graduates have secured jobs in key executive departments, such as defense, state, and homeland security, as well as in intelligence agencies and consulting firms. The economic outlook for employment in the national security community (including homeland security) is outstanding and unique.
Details
This concentration will equip you to understand the national security policymaking process and provides an opportunity to study in depth the national security challenges of the 21st century. The gives provides a solid and diverse background on fundamental issues to prepare future public policymakers and practitioners to address the problems facing the United States.
Goal
The goal is to provide a broad exposure to the theoretical and practical aspects of national security policy, in combination with more specialized subjects into which students may dive deeply through a variety of electives, such as terrorism, cyber, and American grand strategy.
Student Benefits
Sanford has close connections to Duke schools of Law, Business, Political Science, Computer Science and more.
Our faculty members have an outstanding combination of academic and practical credentials in the world of foreign policy and national security, including professors of the practice with years of relevant experience in the Pentagon.
Each semester is packed with campus visits and talks by current and former senior national security officials.
Sanford faculty have strong military connections, and we are in close proximity both to Washington DC and North Carolina military installations.
Knowledge and skills you can acquire
- Understanding of national security community members and their roles and tensions
- Analysis of the history and contemporary application of enduring principles and values, such as civil-military relations and the separation of powers
- Economic and political impacts of sanctions, defense budgets, and personnel issues, such as women in combat and transgender personnel
- Protection of the homeland, immigration, and civil liberties issues, such as the balance between liberty and security in the surveillance and information age
- Required core courses in ethics, politics, economics, and statistics, as well as team and individual projects with real-world clients
- Practical skills in writing, presentations, and teamwork
Policy Concentration Advisor
Bruce W. Jentleson
William Preston Few Distinguished Professor of Public Policy
Bruce W. Jentleson is William Preston Few Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Political Science at Duke University. Other positions include Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (also a 2022 Distinguished Fellow in residence) and Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. He was the longtime Co-Director and now Senior Advisor for the Bridging the Gap project promoting greater policy engagement among academics.
Career awards include the 2018 American Political Science Association (APSA) International Security Section Joseph J. Kruzel Award for Distinguished Public Service; the 2020 Duke University Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award; and the 1985 APSA Harold D. Lasswell Award for his doctoral dissertation. He holds a Ph.D. from Cornell University.
His most recent books are Economic Sanctions: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2022) and The Peacemakers: Leadership Lessons from 20th Century Statesmanship (W.W. Norton, 2018). Recent articles include “Beyond the Rhetoric: A Globally Credible U.S. Role for a ‘Rules-Based Order’,” The Washington Quarterly (Fall 2023); “American Consensus on Ukraine Has Fractured” ForeignPolicy.com, March 29, 2023; “Who’s Winning the Sanctions War?” ForeignPolicy.com, August 18, 2022; “Refocusing U.S. Grand Strategy on Pandemic and Environmental Mass Destruction,” The Washington Quarterly (Fall 2020); and “Be Wary of China Threat Inflation,” ForeignPolicy.com (7/29/21). Op-eds and blogs have been published in The Washington Post, War on the Rocks, The National Interest, The Monkey Cage, Duck of Minerva, The Hill, The Conversation, Pass Blue, Raleigh News and Observer, and elsewhere.
He has served in a number of US foreign policy positions including Senior Advisor to the State Department Policy Planning Director (2009-11), a senior foreign policy advisor to the 2000 Gore presidential campaign, in the Clinton administration State Department (1993-94), and as a foreign policy aide to Senators Gore (1987-88) and Dave Durenberger (1978-79).
Other research appointments include the 2020 Desmond Ball Visiting Chair at Australia National University, College of Asia and the Pacific; 2015-16 Henry A. Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the John W. Kluge Center, Library of Congress; Oxford University Visiting Senior Research Fellow (2007); Fulbright Senior Research Scholar, Madrid, Spain (2007); and Brookings Institution Guest Scholar (1988-90).
In 2009 he was Program Co-Chair for the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association. He currently serves on the Editorial Boards of Political Science Quarterly, Washington Quarterly, Global R2P, and CIAO (Columbia International Affairs Online). He is co-editor of the Oxford University Press Bridging the Gap book series.
He has lectured internationally including in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, England, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, the Netherlands, Qatar, Spain, South Korea, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates. He is often quoted in the press and has appeared on such shows as the PBS News Hour, BBC, Al Jazeera, al Hurra, China Radio International, and NPR, as well as regional media in the North Carolina Research Triangle.
Policy Concentration Advisor
David H. Schanzer
Professor of the Practice in the Sanford School of Public Policy
David Schanzer is a professor of the practice at the Duke Sanford School of Public Policy University and director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security. He teaches courses, conducts research and engages in public dialogue on counterterrorism strategy, counterterrorism law and homeland security.
Schanzer is the lead author of a trilogy National Institute of Justice studies on terrorism prevention: “Engaging Communities to Prevent Violent Extremism: A Review of the Obama Administration’s CVE Initiative,” (2019), “The Challenge and Promise of Using Community Policing Strategies to Prevent Violent Extremism” (2015) and “Anti-Terror Lessons of Muslim Americans” (2010).
Prior to his academic appointments, Schanzer was the Democratic staff director for the House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security from 2003 to 2005. He previously served as the legislative director for Sen. Jean Carnahan (2001-2002), counsel to Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (1996-1998), and counsel to Sen. William S. Cohen (1994-1996).
His positions in the executive branch include special counsel, Office of General Counsel, Department of Defense (1998-2001) and trial attorney, United States Department of Justice (1992-94). Schanzer was a clerk for U.S. District Judge Norma L. Shapiro and in the Office of the Solicitor General of the United States.
Schanzer is a graduate of Harvard College where he received an A.B. cum laude in government in 1985 and of Harvard Law School, where he served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review from 1987-1989.
Schanzer has appeared on international, national and local radio and television discussing terrorism and homeland security and is the author of more than 70 op-ed articles on these subjects that have appeared in newspapers around the country and on-line. He created two free “massive open on-line courses” – Understanding 9/11 and Responding to 9/11 – on the Coursera platform that have been used by approximately 25,000 people around the globe. Currently, he writes about challenges facing modern democracies on his Substack newsletter -- Perilous Times.
In 2023, he was awarded the Richard Stubbing Memorial Teaching and Mentorship Award for outstanding contributions to the graduate programs at the Duke Sanford School of Public Policy.
Student Story
“During my time at Sanford, I have experienced an unprecedented journey of personal and professional growth. As a Carlucci Fellow, an opportunity for students focusing on national security and foreign policy, I have had invaluable opportunities to engage with renowned practitioners and experts in the field. This experience has instilled a deep sense of responsibility for addressing the complex security challenges of tomorrow. During my summer internship with the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, I conducted research on force design and capabilities. I applied the skills and knowledge that I have learned in the classroom to current policy issues, which further reinforced my commitment to public service and policy advancement.” - Quinn Dilley MPP’25 Before coming to Sanford, Quinn had numerous roles with the U.S. Army.