In Democracy in Exile, Daniel Bessner explores the life of Hans Speier, one of the most significant figures in the history of U.S. defense policy.

Bessner traces Speier's intellectual development from Weimar Germany to the Cold War United States, revealing how his European roots shaped the expert-driven approach to foreign policymaking that American elites institutionalized during and after World War II. A key figure in a transatlantic network of émigré policymakers and analysts, Speier helped establish novel institutions such as the RAND Corporation that transformed how US foreign policy was made.

Democracy in Exile highlights how social scientists like Speier left academia to create a "military-intellectual complex" that insulated American decision making from public opinion and that continues to shape US defense policy today.