Markos Kounalakis believes that the future is being shaped in California, the state where his wife Eleni Kounalakis serves as lieutenant governor. As California\u2019s first-ever \u201cSecond Gentleman\u201d and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, he wants the Golden State to operate as a geopolitical force.<\/p>\n
Born to Greek refugees who fled the country after the Nazi occupation, Kounalakis grew up in a working-class household in San Francisco. His father Antonio fought in the anti-Nazi resistance, delivering key intelligence throughout Crete. To make ends meet in the United States, Antonio worked as a bus mechanic and driver before eventually owning his own construction truck while his mother Vasiliki supported the family by working night shifts at Bank of America.<\/p>\n
Attending college was transformative for Kounalakis. \u201cIn my extended family, the highest education that had existed before I went to college was my mom having a high school diploma. It wasn\u2019t anticipated or even expected that I would go to college,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1978 with a degree in political science, attending university through the Educational Opportunity Program, which provides<\/a> support and guidance for first-generation, low-income and underrepresented students.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody around me seemed to know everything, always had smart questions and had read more than I have. I felt as if I did not belong,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Kounalakis has a love for learning and inquiry, evident in his continuous pursuit of higher education. He earned a master\u2019s degree in journalism from Columbia University in 1988 and a Ph.D. in international relations from Central European University in Vienna in 2016. Over the years, he has held fellowships at several institutions, including El Colegio de M\u00e9xico and the Hoover Institution.<\/p>\n Journalism remained central to his career. Kounalakis served as a foreign affairs correspondent in Austria, Italy and the Soviet Union. He covered major sociopolitical events of the late 20th century, including the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia and the fall of the Berlin Wall. He was also present at the meeting where the Warsaw Pact was dissolved.<\/p>\n \u201cMarkos is a humanist at heart. He was all about covering these events with empathy and ensuring that he provided a fresh perspective on the political shifts taking place,\u201d said Peter Laufer, a fellow journalist he worked alongside during the events of 1989 in Europe.<\/p>\n Through his career in journalism, he cultivated a deep understanding of foreign affairs and a strong grasp of international sociopolitical interests, policies and experiences. \u201cAll too often, we mirror our own culture and base our analysis on that limited window without recognizing, appreciating or respecting other national interests,\u201d Kounalakis said. \u201cI try not to engage strictly with English-language media because that is what makes a difference if you are interested in geopolitical trends and foreign policies, not just America\u2019s policies.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMarkos believes strongly in promoting democratic values and institutions, integrity in government and the media and sharing his knowledge with the public in general and students in particular. His involvement with Hoover\u2019s Center for Revitalizing American Institutions and his 2018 Hoover publication \u201cSpin Wars & Spy Games: Global Media and Intelligence Gathering\u201d exemplify these values and the range of his scholarship,\u201d said David Berkey, a research fellow in classics and military history at the Hoover Institution.\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite living in several countries and immersing himself in diverse cultures, Kounalakis remains rooted in California. He is grateful for the opportunities the state has afforded him and his family. <\/p>\n \u201cIt was by accident, good fortune, good people who helped me along the way and being lucky enough to be born in the United States and in California at a time of enormous growth and opportunity. I was able to take advantage of the resources available to me with help from others who saw my potential,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Today, he supports<\/a> his wife as she fulfills<\/a> her responsibilities as the second-highest-ranking executive in California. She is the first woman and American of Greek descent to be elected lieutenant governor.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cMy parents having come here as refugees likely meant I was brought up as an outsider, even within my own culture. I don\u2019t think it is safe to say I am an outsider anymore. I am now perhaps considered one of the ultimate insiders,\u201d Kounalakis said. He hopes California continues to provide opportunities for hard-working immigrants and their children to prosper.<\/p>\n \u201cMarkos and I are each other\u2019s primary thought partners, and I think that\u2019s what makes our relationship so, so wonderful,\u201d Eleni Kounalakis said. \u201cWe have been able to balance that with a respectful thought partnership as well, and that deepens our relationship, of course, because we can participate in each other\u2019s work without overstepping. I think it\u2019s a delicate balance.\u201d Eleni Kounalakis said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Last year, Governor Gavin Newsom announced<\/a> that California had overtaken Japan to become the world\u2019s fourth-largest economy, according<\/a> to the International Monetary Fund. Kounalakis studies how California operates on the global stage, which inspired his concept of \u201cSuperpower California,\u201d the course he teaches at Stanford.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe whole idea is: how does a state the size and scale of California operate in the global commons? What tools exist for subnational players \u2014 like California, Texas, Catalonia or Flanders and Wallonia \u2014 that have significant power but cannot exercise it in the traditional sense of a nation-state?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n