The Baker Institute's Presidential Elections Program held its inaugural conference, “Social Media, Changing Demographics and Implications of the 2016 Presidential Election,” in March 2018. This report summarizes the presentations and discussions of the more than two dozen individuals who participated in the conference’s four thematic panels as well as a lunch conversation featuring veteran political consultants David Axelrod and Karl Rove, who served as the conference's honorary directors.

Fellow Joe Barnes blogs on the latest foreign policy shake-up in the Trump administration.

Is President Trump's April 2017 executive order calling for a review of the H-1B visa program bad news for foreign workers?

The Trump administration should push for formal congressional authorization of both the ongoing operations against ISIS and any significant increase in U.S. military action in Syria, writes fellow Joe Barnes.

With the implementation of the Iran nuclear agreement, many Gulf Cooperative Council states now openly wonder whether U.S. support can still be relied upon, given the speed with which the U.S. government has engaged Iran in negotiation and diplomacy since 2013. This incomprehension may lead to further instability in the Middle East as the Gulf States continue to take increasingly unilateral action in Yemen and other regional conflict zones, fellow for the Middle East Kristian Coates Ulrichsen writes.

Edward Djerejian, founding director of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and former U.S. ambassador to Syria and Israel, issued the following statement on the passing of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.