Gerald Warburg

Gerald Warburg

Professor of Practice of Public Policy


Education & Training
M.A. (political science), Stanford University
B.A. (political science and education), Hampshire College

Gerry Warburg is a professor of practice of public policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Warburg is the author of the newly published Saving Point Reyes: How an Epic Conservation Victory Became a Tipping Point for Environmental Policy Action (University Press of Kansas). 

PRAISE for Saving Point Reyes
"Thoughtful, deeply researched"
--San Francisco Chronicle
Book Review: How Point Reyes was snatched from developers

A Widow's Campaign Saved Point Reyes, and Sparked a Conservation Surge  In his latest book, Professor Gerald Warburg explores the complex personalities and politics involved in preserving a newly designated in 1962 national seashore in California. Read More from UVA Today.

"Gerald Warburg’s Saving Point Reyes is an astonishing environmental history of how California’s great national seashore was saved. The spate of legislation that grew out of the preservation victory is remarkable. And Warburg provides a vivid cultural history of Point Reyes to boot. While this book is full of heroes, it's the local save-the-seashore activists who shine brightest. The amount of research Warburg undertook is impressive. This is one of the finest books ever written about a treasured national park unit. Highly recommend!”~Douglas Brinkley, author of Silent Spring Revolution: John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and the Great Environmental Awakening 

“You don’t have to be from California or have visited the beautiful Point Reyes Seashore to appreciate the breadth and mastery of Gerry Warburg’s history of the struggle to preserve this environmental jewel. It is a compelling story of politics, conflicting interests, and remarkable people who fought major odds, in a struggle that took many twists. This is a story about California, but also about the modern history of the environmental movement, and a lesson in how public policy is made.”~Norman Ornstein, emeritus scholar, The American Enterprise Institute and coauthor of It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism

Prior to Batten, Warburg worked with Congress for several decades, serving as a legislative assistant to members of leadership in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

Warburg’s professional background encompasses a broad array of public service. As an assistant to Senate Majority Whip Alan Cranston, Warburg was the lead staffer for the Senate Arms Control Group and coordinated the senator’s work for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Asia and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee and the Banking Committee’s Subcommittee on International Finance. As an aide to Representative Jonathan Bingham, Warburg was the principal House staff author and lead negotiator with the White House, State Department, National Security Council and other entities during consideration of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act. Warburg also served as a senior partner at Cassidy and Associates, a leading governmental affairs firm, where he aided a diverse group of clients, including Fortune 500 corporations, California non-profits as well as universities and hospitals.

At Batten, Warburg teaches courses on legislative strategy in the U.S. Congress, foreign policy and NGO advocacy strategies. He was the lead faculty member in the Batten School’s first massive open online course “Public Policy Challenges of the 21st Century,” which drew more than 300,000 students on Coursera.

Warburg’s research interests include the study of best practices for non-governmental organizations, especially environmental groups, and the evolution of U.S. nuclear non-proliferation policies. His teaching includes stints at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School of Communication, the Brookings Institution and his alma maters of Stanford University and Hampshire College. He is the author of several books, including Conflict and Consensus: the Struggle Between the President and Congress to Shape American Foreign Policy and Dispatches from the Eastern Front: A Political Education from the Nixon Years to the Age of Obama.