"The Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age found the rise of social media has caused irrevocable harm to global electoral integrity and democratic institutions—and the effects may get even worse," Paris Martineau writes in Wired. CDDRL's Deputy Director Stephen J. Stedman served as the Secretary-General of the Commission. Read here.

The January 3 assassination by the United States of Qassem Soleimani — the commander of Iran’s Quds Force — transformed Iran, Abbas Milani told Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Director Michael McFaul on the World Class podcast.

Posters of Soleimani’s face were plastered everywhere, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameni announced three official days of mourning, and hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to grieve Soleimani’s death, Milani explained.

“There is no one in the Iranian domestic structure that was as close to Khameni as Soleimani,” said Milani, who is the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies and founding co-director of the Iran Democracy Project. “The regime had begun a very sophisticated propaganda campaign: they talked about Soleimani as a poet, and as a mystic. When he was taken out, it was a very direct hit to the power structure.”

Milani explained that before Soleimani’s death, tensions were already high in Iran. The country had been experiencing its deadliest political unrest in 40 years after the regime raised gasoline prices by as much as 200 percent in November. Within hours, Iranians took to the streets to protest and call for the removal of President Hassan Rouhani. The regime responded by shutting down the internet for nearly the entire country and by opening fire on unarmed protesters — as of January, more than 1,000 people had been killed, Milani said.

Iran’s Revenge 
Although the regime began to talk about immediate revenge on the U.S. following Soleimani’s assassination, its decision to fire missiles at two Iraq military bases that housed U.S. troops demonstrates that the country was hesitant to escalate things further, according to Milani.

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The missiles did not kill either U.S. or Iraqi troops, and Milani told McFaul that he suspects that Iran had not been looking to produce casualties in the hit. 

“I have no evidence for it, but I would be profoundly surprised if Iraq didn’t tell the U.S. that the missiles were coming,” Milani said. “Then the U.S. moved all of their personnel before Iran had two hits and multiple missiles — but no loss of life. They had done their duty of revenge, and they had done it in a way that would allow President Trump to de-escalate.”  

[Ready to dive deeper? Learn more about long-term Iranian economic, demographic, and environmental trends from the Iran 2040 Project.”]

A Missed Opportunity
Milani told McFaul that he thinks Iran missed an opportunity to create a moment of national unity in the midst of its severe economic and political troubles.

“Every indication is showing that Iran’s economic challenges are going to increase, and once this euphoria has ended, I would be very surprised if we don’t see more demonstrations,” Milani said. “If the regime had any prudence, they could have used this to their benefit. Instead, they’re doubling down on oppression, and these economic difficulties are not going to go away.” 

Related: Watch five FSI experts — including Milani — discuss “The Strike on Soleimani: Implications for Iran, the Middle East & the World” on YouTube.

"Ideologically, today’s autocrats are a more motley and pragmatic crew. They generally claim to be market friendly, but mainly they are crony capitalists, who, like Putin in Russia, Orban in Hungary, and Erdogan in Turkey, are first concerned with enriching themselves, their families, and their parties and support networks. Increasingly, they raise a common flag of cultural conservatism, denouncing the moral license and weakness of the “the liberal West” while advancing a virulent antiliberal agenda based on nationalism and religion," writes Larry Diamond. Read here. 

Of all of the countries in the world attempting a transition to democracy, Francis Fukuyama thinks that Ukraine is the most promising.

“The election of [Volodymyr] Zelensky and the new parliament is just a miracle,” Fukuyama told Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) Director Michael McFaul on the World Class podcast. “Can you imagine, a country getting rid of two-thirds of its parliament and starting over with new people, many of whom are under 35 years old?” 



Ukraine is at a crossroads of sorts, said Fukuyama, who is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at FSI, and the director of both the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and the Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy program. On one hand, the country could use this opportunity to transition into a successful reformist government, or its efforts could fail and the government could collapse. 

It doesn’t help that Ukraine’s relationships with foreign allies are not as strong as they once were, he told McFaul.

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“The United States had been their strongest ally, but now there’s a president in the White House who doesn’t particularly like them,” he explained. “I think Germany and France are also both weakening in their support for Ukraine’s independence, so [Ukraine is] in a really tough spot.”

Before Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004, Fukuyama said he actually thought the country would be among the least likely to liberalize in the way that it has. One important factor in Ukraine’s success has been the exercise of broad individual and political freedoms —  for example, Ukraine’s press has stayed active throughout the years and the country boasts many investigative journalists, he said.

“In a way, it’s a very free and open society with lots of creativity,” Fukuyama noted. “You can criticize the government. I actually think [Vladimir] Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has stimulated Ukrainian nationalism — I think it made citizens realize that they actually do have something to lose.”

[Ready to dive deeper? Read “Small Battle in a Big War: The Post-Maidan Transformation of the National Bank of Ukraine”]

Fukuyama has been interested in Ukraine for a while now — he’s visited the country six times over the past five years. During his most recent trip in November 2019, he taught a crash-course in policymaking to 50 of Ukraine’s members of parliament. With an average age of 41, it’s the country’s youngest parliament ever elected, and many of the newest members have no previous political experience.

He described his time with the young Ukraianian members as inspiring, adding that they want to see a genuine democracy, and to eliminate corruption in their country.

“It does seem to me that we who live in democracies owe it to the people of Ukraine to support them,” Fukuyama said. “Because if they fail, it’s going to have repercussions way beyond Ukraine.” 

Related: Listen to Fukuyama explain “identity politics,” where it comes from and how it will shape the future of our society, on a previous episode of World Class.