Conference: Globalizing Autocracy, US Foreign Policy, and Democracy Assistance

Wednesday, December 10, 2008
2:00 to 5:00 PM
National Press Club, 529 14th Street NW, Washington, DC

Democracy is in decline. More troubling, authoritarian regimes are coordinating to suppress political freedom at home and abroad. What are the implications of these strategies for U.S. foreign policy and democracy assistance programs?

Conference Agenda:

2:00-3:20: Causes and Consequences of Authoritarian Globalization

• Dan Brumberg, Georgetown University and US Institute of Peace
• Larry Diamond, National Endowment for Democracy and Hoover Institution
• Tom Melia, Freedom House
• Ambassador Gérard Stoudmann, International Foundation for Electoral Systems

3:20-3:30 Refreshments

3:30-5:00: Challenges for Democracy Assistance Programs

• Thomas Carothers, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Michelle Dunne, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Gerald Hyman, Center for Strategic and International Studies
• Carina Perelli, International Foundation for Electoral Systems

Please RSVP. Space is limited.

STV for Wash., DC

My op-ed with Rob Richie in today’s Washington Times:

Electoral rules may be boring, but Tuesday’s D.C. Council election saw them fail. While Congress designed the District’s system to let voters in the minority elect a winner, it misfired on Nov. 4. Now that the council is effectively single-party, it’s time to implement a system that guarantees the intended outcome…

“Don’t make me read more than I need to.”

Grad students will appreciate this pithy comic. So will undergraduate keeners, newbie research assistants and un(der)paid interns in variously prestigious workplaces.

H/T to SB’s GT status. Apologies for my unremarkable return to TDP. Better entries to come as summer winds down.

Brookings’ new website

A friend informs me that the Brookings Institution’s new website went live this morning. I like it. Web 2.0 meets NYT Home. Note the streamlined navigation bar with one-word menu items. More and more, less is more.

Larry Diamond – October 25

Larry Diamond will lecture at Georgetown University on October 25 in advance of his newest book The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World.

The time: 6 to 8 p.m. The place: Bunn Intercultural Center auditorium. Parking: a university garage and street parking off campus. The event is open to interested members of the public.

Daniel Brumberg and Marc Plattner will chair the discussion. John Bailey, Harley Balzer and Marc Howard will be discussants.

Diamond is a Hoover Institution (Stanford) Senior Fellow, founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy and author/editor of 30+ books. In 2004, he was a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. His last book was Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq.

The event’s sponsors are Georgetown’s Democracy and Governance MA program, the National Endowment for Democracy and the students’ Forum.