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Larry Diamond will be speaking at this World Affairs and Los Altos Public Library event.

For the past decade and a half, the world has been mired in a democratic recession, with more and more democracies decaying and breaking down.  The problem has been made much worse by the growing polarization and dysfunction of American democracy.  Many people say that the U.S. must fix its own problems first before it can promote democracy abroad.  But people struggling to win or defend their freedom can't afford to wait until the U.S. heals itself politically. 

Republicans and Democrats agree on the need to counter China's malign, corrupting, and coercive influence activities around the world (and they mainly agree on the need to counter Russia's malign behavior, too).  There is also broad agreement on the value of supporting democratic media, parties, and civil society around the world. 

What is needed is a bold and integrated strategy to turn back the authoritarian tide, and that strategy must be built around a core strategic insight: The combined military and geopolitical power and resolve of the U.S. and its democratic allies have been and will remain critical to the fate of freedom in the world.  This talk lays out a grand strategy for advancing global democracy.

Doors open at 6:30

 
Larry Diamond

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford. He leads the Hoover Institution’s programs on China’s Global Sharp Power and on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region.  At FSI, he leads the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy, based at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, which he directed for more than six years.  He also co-leads with (Eileen Donahoe) the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He is the founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy and also serves as senior consultant at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy.