Professor Larry Diamond

Larry Diamond, MA, PhD

  • Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
  • William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
  • Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science and Sociology
  • Former Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law

CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C147
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 724-6448 (voice)
(650) 723-1928 (fax)

Biography

Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton 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. His research focuses on democratic trends and conditions around the world and on policies and reforms to defend and advance democracy. His latest edited book (with Orville Schell), China's Influence and American Interests (Hoover Press, 2019), urges a posture of constructive vigilance toward China’s global projection of “sharp power,” which it sees as a rising threat to democratic norms and institutions. He offers a massive open online course (MOOC) on Comparative Democratic Development through the edX platform and is now writing a textbook to accompany it. 

Diamond’s book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency, analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the United States and around the world at this potential “hinge in history,” and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad. A paperback edition with a new preface was released by Penguin in April 2020. His other books include: In Search of Democracy (2016)The Spirit of Democracy (2008), Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (1999),  Promoting Democracy in the 1990s (1995), and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria(1989). He has also edited or coedited more than forty books on democratic development around the world, most recently, Dynamics of Democracy in Taiwan: The Ma Ying-jeou Years.

During 2002–03, Diamond served as a consultant to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and was a contributing author of its report, Foreign Aid in the National Interest. He has also advised and lectured to universities and think tanks around the world, and to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other governmental and nongovernmental agencies dealing with governance and development. During the first three months of 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. His 2005 book, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, was one of the first books to critically analyze America's postwar engagement in Iraq.

Among Diamond’s other edited books are Democracy in Decline?; Democratization and Authoritarianism in the Arab WorldWill China Democratize?; and Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy, all edited with Marc F. Plattner; and Politics and Culture in Contemporary Iran, with Abbas Milani. With Juan J. Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset, he edited the series, Democracy in Developing Countries, which helped to shape a new generation of comparative study of democratic development.

publications

Newsletters
November 2023

Taking Stock of India’s Democracy

Author(s)
cover link Taking Stock of India’s Democracy
Reports
July 2023

Silicon Triangle: The United States, Taiwan, China, and Global Semiconductor Security

Author(s)
cover link Silicon Triangle: The United States, Taiwan, China, and Global Semiconductor Security
Journal Articles
January 2022

Democracy's Arc: From Resurgent to Imperiled

Author(s)
cover link Democracy's Arc: From Resurgent to Imperiled

In The News

Picture of the the Jerusalem Light Rail walking up Jaffa Street. Modern face of Jerusalem, Israel.
News

New Continuing Studies Course on Modern Israel with Larry Diamond and Amichai Magen

Open for enrollment now through Stanford Continuing Studies, "Modern Israel: Insights and Analysis from Stanford Scholars and Guests" will run online for ten weeks on Wednesdays, from April 3 through June 5.
cover link New Continuing Studies Course on Modern Israel with Larry Diamond and Amichai Magen
Larry Diamond
Commentary

Larry Diamond Delivers NED's 20th Annual Seymour Martin Lipset Lecture on Democracy in the World

Diamond's lecture was on “Power, Performance, and Legitimacy: Renewing Global Democratic Momentum.”
cover link Larry Diamond Delivers NED's 20th Annual Seymour Martin Lipset Lecture on Democracy in the World
Amichai Magen, Marshall Burke, Didi Kuo, Larry Diamond, and Michael McFaul onstage for a panel discussion at Stanford's 2023 Reunion and Homecoming
Commentary

At Reunion Homecoming, FSI Scholars Offer Five Policy Recommendations for the Biden Administration

FSI scholars offer their thoughts on what can be done to address political polarization in the United States, tensions between Taiwan and China, climate change, the war in Ukraine, and the Israel-Hamas war.
cover link At Reunion Homecoming, FSI Scholars Offer Five Policy Recommendations for the Biden Administration