"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.

The Democrats are facing a dilemma: If they defend democratic norms by acting to remove President Trump from office, they risk getting dragged into a polarizing style of politics that works to his political advantage. Read here.

Our Francis Fukuyama and UELP alumni, Sergii Leshchenko (Draper Hills Summer Fellow 2017) and Oleksandra Ustinova (Ukrainian emerging leaders 2018-9), are feat inMichelle Goldberg's NYT opinion piece "The Beacon Has Gone Out: What Trump & Giuliani Have Wrought." Read here.

As details about the July 25 phone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky continue to emerge, Oleksandra “Sasha” Ustinova — a member of the Ukrainian parliament who has been fighting corruption in the country for years — said that Ukrainians are reacting to the news differently than Americans are.

For one thing, Ukrainians are paying less attention to what Trump said and more attention to Zelensky’s side of the phone call, Ustinova told Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) Director Michael McFaul on the World Class podcast.



While many Ukrainians acknowledge that the newly-elected Zelensky was in a tough position going into his first conversation with the president of the United States on July 25, many were disappointed to learn that Zelensky promised Trump that the next prosecutor general of Ukraine would be “100 percent my person, my candidate,” especially given the country’s recent controversies surrounding the past two men to serve in that position.

“That is not acceptable,” Ustinova said. “The prosecutor general should be independent. We have already seen many corrupt prosecutor generals.”

Take Viktor Shokin for example, who served as the prosecutor general of Ukraine from 2015 to 2016, explained Ustinova. He is being described by some Americans as an honest man who was forced out of office in part by former Vice President Joe Biden, who supposedly asked the Ukrainian government to fire Shokin because he had been investigating Burisma Holdings, a Ukranian company on which his son, Hunter Biden, sat on the board.

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That story couldn’t be farther from the truth, Ustinov said.

“Shokin was not trying to investigate corruption — he was trying to help a former corrupt state official, Mykola Zlochevsky, escape criminal prosecution,” she explained. “I was actually one of the people who organized demonstrations in front of the general prosecution office because everybody was so sick of Shokin, and so disappointed in him for helping former [corrupt] officials to get back into the country.”

Shokin’s successor, Yuriy Lutsenko, who was Ukraine’s prosecutor general from 2016 through August 2019, also did not have the Ukrainian people’s best interests at heart, she said. Under Lutsenko, four of the five outstanding criminal cases against Zlochevsky were shut down. Zlochevsky – a Ukrainian oligarch who founded Burisma Holdings — was required to pay a $4 million fine and was ultimately allowed back in Ukraine.

“Ukrainians know that Shokin and Lutsenko are the bad guys in our country,” she said.. “So of course it was disappointing to hear [people speaking about them in a positive way], but I hope that getting the facts and the truth out there will help a lot of people – not only in Ukraine, but also in the U.S. — to understand who is good and who is bad.”
 

Liberal democracy is being challenged by populist nationalist leaders and they’re fanning the flames of identity politics. Instead of uniting over a shared sense of humanity, people are identifying in narrower ways based on things like religion, race, ethnicity, and gender. Francis Fukuyama , FSI Senior Fellow and CDDRL Mosbacher Director, believes that in order to support democracy, we must inculcate a greater sense of dignity into society. Fukuyama speaks with Elliot Gerson, executive vice president at the Aspen Institute. Listen here.

Democratic institutions worldwide have reached a unique and precarious turning point, said Larry Diamond on a recent episode of the World Class podcast by the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI).

After the Cold War, the world became dominated by liberal values and a prevailing consensus for freedom, democracy and human rights, Diamond told World Class host and FSI Director Michael McFaul. During this time, the percentage of democratic states rose from making up about a quarter to more than half of all of the independent states in the world — which had never happened before in history. However, explained Diamond, who is senior fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, this trend may come to an end soon.

“It’s under severe challenge from Russia, China, Iran and from many other countries that were until recently democracies or are in danger of no longer being democracies soon,” Diamond said. “We are in a new and urgent situation.”

In 2018, Freedom House — a non-governmental organization that conducts research on democracy and political freedom — reported a decline in global freedom for the 13th consecutive year, reversing the post-Cold War trend between 1991 and 2006.
        
“We could be on the cusp of a democratic depression,” said Diamond. In his view, here are the four main causes of this worldwide shift. 

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Incremental Authoritarianism
The first cause, according to Diamond, is what he calls “incremental authoritarianism,” which usually occurs when elected populist rulers — such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin or Turkey’s Tayyip Erdoğan, for example — begin to spread conservative, anti-immigrant or anti-pluralist values in an attempt to “save” the nation from corruption or threatening international illiberal values.

“Of course, the corrupting influences are human rights, accountability, pluralism, the rule of law and anything that would constrain their power and eliminate all potential rivals,” Diamond explained.

Russian Rage
The second cause has to do with Russia’s status as what Diamond describes as a “fallen superpower.”. Russia has begun to intervene in the politics of European democracies, meddle with the politics of the U.S. electoral democracy, spread confusion and promote division — all actions that stem from “Russian rage.”

“I think Putin has become unleashed,” he said. “He’s much more aggressive and ambitious now that he has found a cost-effective way of inflicting damage on democracy through disinformation and the penetration of the electoral space of democracies that we thought was sacred and secure.”

Chinese Ambition
Since coming to power in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party has tried to cultivate ties with “sympathetic actors” abroad — whether it be by sending Chinese citizens to U.S. graduate programs or to think tanks — but this effort has been ramped up and extended under Xi Jinping to a degree that hasn’t been seen before, according to Diamond.

“Chinese influence is extending into universities, corporations, Chinese-language media overseas, and certainly into aggressive — and I’d say illegal — technology practices that are boldly trying to create a new world of Chinese influence and even domination by the People’s Republic of China,” he explained.

American Complacency
Finally, Americans have become complacent about the security of their democracy, and many think that it doesn’t require their attention or participation in order to be upheld, said Diamond. In addition, some Americans have also become comfortable about the slow deterioration of their democracy through the polarization of U.S. politics. 

“People are becoming so intense in their feelings about parties and politicians that they won’t even talk to people from the other side at the Thanksgiving dinner table,” Diamond said. “Some of the statements of our own president are not consistent with democratic values…in which everyone is recognized as having the right to speak and in which violence can never be encouraged.”

Read more about Diamond’s thoughts on the state of global democracy in his new book, “Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency.”

Every summer, the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program brings together international leaders who are pioneering new approaches to advance social and political change in some of the most challenging global contexts. The fellows spend three weeks living and taking classes on the Stanford campus, visiting Silicon Valley tech companies and building a network.

Representing business, government and the nonprofit sector, fellows are working on the frontlines of democratic change to combat the global rise of authoritarianism and populism. The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies spoke to five of the fellows about the impact of the Draper Hills program on their work and activism. These are their stories.

Shaili Chopra, India

Shaili Chopra, founder of SheThePeopleTv. Photo: Alice Wenner

Wiem Zarrouk, Tunisia

Wiem Zarrouk, senior advisor to the Minister of Development, Investment and International Cooperation in Tunisia. Photo: Alice Wenner

“I’ve been working for the Tunisian government for three years as an advisor to the Minister of Development, Investment and International Cooperation. I am leading the government reforms to improve Tunisia's ranking in the World Bank Competitiveness Report - Doing Business.

“In Tunisia, we’ve set up most of our democratic institutions, and now we want to improve the business environment to attract more investment in local businesses. Eight years ago, the people went into the streets demanding more jobs. The challenge in Tunisia right now is economic, that’s why economic reforms are important to our government.

“I think the impact of the Draper Hills program will be immediate. I’ve learned a lot here about the link between development and democracies, so it really covers the scope of my work. And it's been great to learn about the theoretical side — the professors are really speaking about things that impact our daily work.” 

Ujwal Thapa, Nepal

Ujwal Thapa, president of the BibekSheel Nepali youth movement. Photo: Alice Wenner

“Bibeksheel Nepali is basically a political startup. It’s a youth-led movement, and we’re focused on changing the norms and mindsets of the culture in Nepal. We work a lot with citizens to instill the values of transparency, empathy and humility because we think democracy needs to be more emotional instead of just logical. I think liberal democracy needs to be understood more in the context of humanity. So it’s an experiment that we're doing in Nepal.

“When we started with the experiment, we decided not to focus only on the state, but thought about a few more components: one is our citizens, another is the society and the third is the government. Nepal recently came out of a violent civil war, and we just built a new constitution that is much more tolerant. Transparency is another value that we want to instill, because of the long isolationist and autocratic dictatorship that has existed in the past.

“Draper Hills is bringing all of these practitioners together who are experimental and innovative. And the world needs better collaboration from people who really believe in the ideals of the 21st century, which are liberal, democratic and more humanistic. That’s one of the strongest aspects of the Draper Hills program.”

N.S. Nappinai, India

N.S. Nappinai, senior practitioner in the Supreme Court of India and Bombay High Court. Photo: Alice Wenner

“Some of the social media platforms had very good reporting mechanisms, whereas it was more hidden on other platforms. So we ensured that this issue was brought to the forefront so that people know that these are things that can be reported and some action can be taken. The whole idea was that as long as you identify such content at the earliest possible time, then you help the victim that much more.

“For me, balancing victims' rights with free speech is very important. This was a big dilemma that I faced, in terms of ‘How much of what I am doing is likely to stifle free speech?’ A lot of discussions at Draper Hills have helped formulate and structure my thoughts, and it's very nice to get the perspective from people from 26 other countries.”

Hinda Bouddane, Morocco

Hinda Bouddane, the first vice president of the elected provincial council of the city of Fez. Photo: Alice Wenner

“Education for girls is really important in fighting discrimination against women. Education empowers women to become financially independent, say no to violence, and to get engaged in the public sphere. Through that, women can be a part of the democratic process not only by voting, but also by taking part from within and running for office.

At Draper Hills, we're deepening our knowledge about topics like the rule of law, democracy and human rights, and hearing many different perspectives. And importantly, we are building a great network to connect many intelligent people from around the world, and we will work together to foster democratic values.”

Larry Diamond looks at the global and domestic threats to the principles of liberal democracy for The Brian Lehrer Show. Listen here.