Senior Fellow and Vice President of Content Products
Ayn Rand Institute
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.
Objectivist Academic Center
2005 – present
Junior Fellows Program in Policy Research
Ayn Rand Institute
2012 – 2018
New Ideal, the journal of the Ayn Rand Institute
2018 – present
Illuminating Ayn Rand: Essays from New Ideal, Journal of the Ayn Rand Institute November 2022
Failing to Confront Islamic Totalitarianism: What Went Wrong After 9/11 September 2021
What Justice Demands: America and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict June 2018
Winning the Unwinnable War: America’s Self-Crippled Response to Islamic Totalitarianism September 2009
“When Tribal Journalists Try to ‘Cancel’ Ayn Rand,” June 10, 2020
“Why Ayn Rand Was Right to Testify Against Hollywood Communism,” July 24, 2019
“The Virulent Pull of Tribalism,” May 13, 2019
Jihadists: Understanding the Nature of the Enemy, New Ideal
“The Misunderstood Mullahs”: Book Review of Iran’s Deadly Ambition in The Claremont Review of Books, March 31, 2016
Book Review: “Dancing with the Devil: The Perils of Engaging Rogue Regimes” in Middle East Quarterly, June 2, 2014
“Islamist Winter”: Book review of Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy in the Journal of International Security Affairs, Fall/Winter 2013
“Paul Ryan, Ayn Rand and U.S. Foreign Policy,” October 2012
“Galt Goes Global,” August 28, 2012
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
Making Sense of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
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?”
“The Immoral Campaign to ‘Abolish Billionaires,’” January 8, 2020
“The Berlin Wall and the Evil of Socialism,” November 11, 2019
“Bernie Sanders, like Trump, Is Hostile to a Free Press,” September 23, 2019
“The Betrayal of Charlie Hebdo,” January 14, 2019
“Does Success in Life Require Compromise?” October 16, 2019
“Why So Many People Struggle to Gain Self-Esteem,” September 18, 2019
America’s Stake in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, March 25, 2018