Tom Pepinsky

Tom Pepinsky is the Walter F. LaFeber Professor of Government and Public Policy at Cornell University and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. A specialist in Southeast Asian comparative politics, democratic backsliding, and political economy, he is best known for his viral 2017 essay 'Everyday Authoritarianism is Boring and Tolerable,' which warned Americans that authoritarian erosion looks mundane from the inside. Fluent in Indonesian, he has written five books spanning Indonesian and Malaysian politics, COVID-19 partisanship, and global democratic challenges. His Substack newsletter, launched in 2025, continues his two-decade tradition of public-facing analysis at the intersection of academic rigor and accessible political commentary.