Rebecca Burgess

Rebecca Burgess is senior fellow at The Yorktown Institute, former acting editor-in-chief of American Purpose, and former acting director of the Classics in Strategy and Diplomacy project. A SME consultant for the George W. Bush Institute’s Veterans and Military Families program, Burgess is a 2021 National Security Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former research fellow both in Foreign and Defense Policy and Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. She’s an Advisory Board Member of Combined Arms and of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation/Monticello, and a SME for the NEH Educating for American Democracy: A Roadmap for Excellence in History and Civics Education project. Additionally, she serves on the Reader Review Board of the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps Journal.

Rebecca researches the political and social institutions of democratic governance, including civics and national security, civil-military relations and the military life cycle, veterans and politics, and theories of political decay, war, empire and expansion, and carries two-plus decades of combined public policy, administrative, and academic experience. A Ph.D. in politics at the University of Dallas, her work has been solicited for congressional testimonies, and been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Economist, Military Times, Newsweek, The American Interest, The Strategy Bridge, and War on the Rocks, among others.

• Civil-military relations
• Veterans and military community policy
• National security
• Classical political theory
• American political theory

• Institutions of democratic governance
• Civics and national security
• Civil-military relations and the military life cycle
• Veterans and politics
• Theories of political decay, war, empire and expansion

• Advisory Board Member, Combined Arms
• Advisory Board Member, iCivics
• Advisory Board Member, Thomas Jefferson Foundation/Monticello
• Political Science & Civics Task Force, NEH Education for American Democracy
• Foundation for Defense of Democracies, National Security Fellow

• University of Dallas, PhD in Politics, 2024
• University of Dallas, MA in Politics, 2010
• University of Dallas, BA in English Literature, 2006 

• Senior Fellow, Yorktown Institute
• Acting Editor-in-Chief/Senior Editor, American Purpose
• Veterans and Military Families Consultant, George W. Bush Presidential Center
• Acting Director and Associate Scholar, Classics of Strategy & Diplomacy Project
• Research Fellow and Program Manager, American Enterprise Institute 

• "McCulloch v. Maryland at 200: Debating John Marshall’s Jurisprudence, ed. Gary J. Schmitt and Rebecca Burgess, American Enterprise Institute Press, 2020
• "Crafting the ‘Cords of [Constitutional] Affection’: What Ties to Bind Civic Education to a Democratic Citizenry?", American Citizenship and Constitutionalism in Principle and Practice, ed. Steven F. Pittz and Joseph Postell, University of Oklahoma Press, 2022
• "The Other End of Pennsylvania Avenue," Gary J. Schmitt and Rebecca Burgess, Is Congress Broken? The Virtues and Defects of Partisanship and Gridlock, ed. William F. Connelly Jr., John J. Pitney Jr., Gary J. Schmitt, Brookings Institution Press, 2017
• "Civic Education, the Essential Substrata of Military and National Service," Statement for the Record before the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service, July 5, 2019
• "Economic Opportunity, Transition Assistance, and the 21st-Century Veteran: The Case for a Fourth VA Administration," American Enterprise Institute, March 20, 2018