Elan Journo

Senior Fellow and Vice President of Content Products
Ayn Rand Institute

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Specialties

  • Arab Israeli Conflict
  • Ethics In Foreign Policy
  • Islamist Movement
  • Moral Foundations Of Freedom

Elan Journo writes and speaks for ARI; he is a senior editor at New Ideal; and he is an occasional guest instructor at the Objectivist Academic Center. In 2012, he launched ARI’s Junior Fellows Program and led it until 2018.

Mr. Journo specializes in the application of Rand’s ethics of rational egoism to public policy issues, and his research and writing focus on American foreign policy. His first book, Winning the Unwinnable War: America’s Self-Crippled Response to Islamic Totalitarianism, analyzes post-9/11 U.S. foreign policy from the perspective of Rand’s philosophy. He is co-author, with Onkar Ghate, of Failing to Confront Islamic Totalitarianism: What Went Wrong After 9/11. He is a contributor to Defending Free Speech and A New Textbook of Americanism: The Politics of Ayn Rand, and the author of What Justice Demands: America and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Mr. Journo co-edited, with Tom Bowden, Illuminating Ayn Rand: Essays from New Ideal, Journal of the Ayn Rand Institute.

His articles have appeared in a wide range of publications, from Foreign Policy and Skeptic Magazine to The Hill and the Los Angeles Times. He has been interviewed on numerous television and radio programs, and he often speaks at conferences and universities.

Mr. Journo holds a BA in philosophy from King’s College, London, and an MA in diplomacy from SOAS, University of London.

Career Roles

INSTRUCTOR

  • Objectivist Academic Center
    2005 – present

PROGRAM LEAD

  • Junior Fellows Program in Policy Research
    Ayn Rand Institute
    2012 – 2018

SENIOR EDITOR

  • New Ideal, the journal of the Ayn Rand Institute
    2018 – present

Selected Works

EVENTS

Book Launch for What Justice Demands, Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C. July 24, 2018

Leadership Program of the Rockies, Denver, CO May 11, 2018

“Twenty Years After Oslo: Where Next for U.S. Policy?” September 10, 2013

Seton Hall University Panel on the Arab Spring March 29, 2012

Symposium: “9/11 — A Decade Later: Lessons for the Future” September 8, 2011

TALKS AND LECTURES

Making Sense of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

The Jihadist Movement

The Israeli/Palestinian Conflict

The “Virtue of Selfishness”? Ayn Rand’s Ethics of Egoism in Your Own Life 

“An Introduction to Ayn Rand’s Ideas”

“Our Unwinnable Wars?”

“What’s America’s Stake in the Arab-Israeli Conflict?”

Selected talks and interviews on YouTube