Norman Eisen

Norman Eisen is a senior fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings and current chair of the Anti-Corruption, Democracy, and Security project. His Brookings scholarship includes six books and over 300 other published works about rule of law and democracy. Additionally, he provides commentary for television networks such as CNN, where he served as a legal analyst from 2017 to 2025. Eisen is lead author of the "Democracy Playbook 2025" and "The Anatomy of Illiberal States," which analyze tactics for combating autocracy. Previously, he served as special counsel and special assistant to President Obama for ethics and government reform and was US ambassador to the Czech Republic from 2011 to 2014. Eisen was credited by director Wes Anderson as an inspiration for the character of the crusading lawyer Deputy Kovacs in the 2014 film The Grand Budapest Hotel.