Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
The case studies below are integral teaching tools for the Leadership Academy for Development workshops conducted around the world.
Karen Dawisha is the author of Putin’s Kleptocracy. Who Owns Russia? and the Walter E. Havighurst Professor of Political Science and Director of the Havighurst Center at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Co-sponsored by the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, The Europe Center, and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.
Encina Hall 3rd Floor
616 Serra Street
In the 25th anniversary edition of The Journal of Democracy, CDDRL Director Larry Diamond reflects on the current democratic recession and why this trend is so troubling.
Diamond, who serves as the founding co-editor of The Journal of Democracy, argues that the world is in a mild but protracted democratic recession, which raises alarm due to the rate of democratic failures and where they are occurring. In surveying global empirical trends, Diamond cites 25 breakdowns of democracy since 2000 that were not the cause of military coups but rather the slow erosion of democratic rights and procedures.
Another worrisome trend for Diamond is the declining freedom in a number of countries and regions since 2005. This is most notable in Africa where corruption and the abuse of power are leading to the decline of the rule of law and political rights across the region. It is also affecting countries of global strategic importance with large populations and economic influence– from Taiwan to Mexico – and leading to the resurgence of authoritarianism in Russia and China. Diamond also looks to the U.S. where the dysfunction and breakdown of American democracy sets a bad precedent for the rest of the world.
Diamond concludes on an optimistic note, stressing that strong public support for democracy may reverse many of these troubling trends and help sustain longer-term democratic progress.
From left to right: Thomas Carothers, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, Hertie School of Governance (Berlin); Marc Plattner, National Endowment for Democracy; Larry Diamond, Stanford University; Steven Levitsky, Harvard University; and Lucan Way, University of Toronto.
The overflow of information generated during disasters can be as paralyzing to humanitarian response as the lack of information. Making sense of this flash flood of information, "Big Data", is proving an impossible challenge for traditional humanitarian organizations; so they’re turning to Digital Humanitarians: tech-savvy volunteers who craft and leverage ingenious crowdsourcing solutions with trail-blazing insights from artificial intelligence. Digital Humanitarians take online collective action to the next level—particularly when spearheading relief efforts in countries ruled by dictatorships. This talk charts the rise of Digital Humanitarians and concludes with their collective action in repressive contexts.
Patrick Meier is the author of the book " Digital Humnitarians: How Big Data is Changing the Face of Humanitarian Response." He directs QCRI's Social Innovation Program where he & his team use human and machine computing to develop "Next Generation Humanitarian Technologies" in partnership with international humanitarian organizations. Patrick was previously with Ushahidi and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. He has a PhD from The Fletcher School, Pre-Doc from Stanford and an MA from Columbia. His influential blog iRevolutions has received over 1.5 million hits. Patrick tweets at @patrickmeier.
**** NOTE LOCATION****
School of Education
Room 128
The final class will pose nine questions, each question digging into
each of the nine topics covered over the quarter. Pizza at 6pm!
Bechtel Conference Center, EncinaHall
