Justin Gest
Professor of Policy and Government, George Mason University
Justin Gest is a Professor of Policy and Government at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government and a columnist for Newsweek.
An award-winning author and commentator, his work reveals the population dynamics that will drive politics, business, and social relations for years to come. His 2016 book, The New Minority, presaged the power of white working class voters to disrupt US elections. His 2018 book, Crossroads, foresaw the “uberization” of global migration, and his 2022 book, Majority Minority, anticipated today's challenges in diverse democracies. With novel ideas and thought-provoking insights, Gest inspires audiences to think hard about how to discern and prepare for new social, demographic, and political trends.
In addition to his work with Newsweek, he provides commentary and reporting to several broadcast networks, including ABC, BBC, CBC, CNN, and NPR, as well as to prominent news publications such as The Atlantic, The Guardian, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, POLITICO, Reuters, The Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. He is the author of six books, primarily focused on the politics of immigration, identity, and demographic change — all published by Oxford University Press or Cambridge University Press. His research articles have appeared in a wide variety of academic journals, and he co-edits the "Oxford Studies in Migration and Citizenship" book series for Oxford University Press.From 2010 to 2014, Professor Gest was a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer in the Departments of Government and Sociology at Harvard University. In recognition of his teaching excellence, he received Harvard University’s Joseph R. Levenson Memorial Teaching Prize in 2014 and George Mason University’s Teaching Excellence Award in 2020 — each university’s highest honor for faculty teaching. In 2013, he was also awarded the Star Family Prize for Student Advising, Harvard’s highest award for student advising. Between 2007 and 2010, he co-founded and directed the migration studies program at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
Topics
The Key Dynamics of Late-Stage Globalization
We are in a moment of great geopolitical uncertainty and change, as all international relations are being questioned and tested. But in scope, 30 years later, the world is still sorting through the globalized interconnectedness of everything — desperately trying to control what facets of daily life succumb to the liberal flow of foreign ideas, money, products, and significantly, foreign people. How can we understand enough about this period to make decisions about the future? At play are some of the greatest themes of the past generation: "winner take all" capitalism, nostalgia, and fundamental questions about the role of government in the face of forces beyond local control.
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What is America Now?
Since Alexis de Tocqueville, observers have sought to understand America — the world's most actively moving target. With its people's restless appetite for freedom and extraordinary diversity of international origins and values, America sends mixed signals that surprise long standing partners and even its own citizens. The result is a paradoxical sense of mystery and familiarity that the country has leveraged to its geopolitical advantage as a benevolent empire. As the country enters its most nationalistic period in a century, what does this mean for the image of America in the world? And what are the implications for the businesses, nonprofits, and institutions that have long benefited from America's special status as a "tabula rasa" — an object onto which others project their own desires?
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How Experts Fight Back
A consistent feature of the market for information is that the broad-minded share their ideas narrowly, while the narrow-minded share their ideas broadly. The world's scholars have long struggled to square validating scientific inquiry with the imperative to communicate their findings to the public at large. But whereas they could once rely on journalists to translate their ideas, today even journalists are drowned out by the outrage, “alternative facts,” and clickbait of a public sphere dominated by social media platforms lacking guardrails. But a principal reason for the indistinguishable nature of expertise is that experts have done little to fight back. The well publicized "death of expertise" has been self-inflicted wounds. To contend and restore their status in the market for information, experts must not only join this fray; they must innovate new ways to tilt the market to favor evidence, transparency, and accountability anew.
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The 3 Demographic Trends That Will Shape The World
Charles Darwin admonished that "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." But without clear eyes about the change transpiring, we cannot anticipate, let alone adjust and make the best of it. Three great population trends are transforming our markets and politics today: Thanks to declining fertility rates and the spread of advanced medicine, all societies are aging and some are even shrinking. Owing to revolutions in transportation and communication technology and despite greater state capacity to control borders, more people are moving away from their countries of origin. And as a product of the first two trends, societies are more diverse than they have ever been before. And the mechanics of these trends suggest that they are unlikely to abate anytime soon.
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The Story of How Societies Respond to Great Demographic Change
Deepak Chopra warned that, "All great changes are preceded by chaos." Much of today's social debates and division relate to the central challenge posed by demographic change in the run-up to what has been portrayed as a "Majority Minority" milestone. On the one hand, such change can be terribly disorienting and destabilizing. On the other hand, it also provides a critical opportunity to rethink and reconsolidate a society, a market, an organization. By reviewing the stories of the few societies that have already navigated this milestone — places like Singapore, Trinidad, and Hawai'i — we can better prepare and adapt to the one we will soon face.
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How to Promote Pluralism in a Diversifying Democracy
As Barbara Kingsolver once remarked, "The changes we dread most may contain our salvation." Pluralism asks that individuals recognize and validate differences within a community in a way that facilitates not only the civil coexistence of diverse peoples, cultures, and worldviews, but also their cooperation. Pluralism is essential for the United States and Canada to fulfill their promise as multi-racial, multi-religious, multi-factional democracies. Recently, however, pluralism has been strained by changing demographics and the sorting of demographic and ideological groups into increasingly distinct and identity-aligned political parties. Social scientists and strategists have designed several new interventions to address these challenges, but the evidence suggests that the most headway can be made by galvanizing public bodies and private actors to facilitate more intergroup contact to facilitate future cooperation and productivity.
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