After the Arab Spring, Tunisia emerged as the one success story to transition to democracy, winning a Nobel Peace Prize in 2015 for its focus on inclusion and power-sharing. How, then, did its democracy collapse in 2021?

Drawing on unique interviews with senior Tunisian officials, alongside three nationally representative surveys of the population, The Rise and Fall of Tunisian Democracy points to an overemphasis on compromise, consensus, and power-sharing. Although power-sharing institutions can be useful at the start of a transition, the book finds that extending them beyond that point can lead democracy to unravel by frustrating voters and spurring the rise of populists and extremists. The book takes an in-depth look at Tunisia's transition and then explores how far the theory travels through a quantitative analysis of all democratic transitions between 1942–2020. Overall, the book reveals the dark side of power-sharing, broadening our understanding of the causes of populism, polarization, and democratic breakdown.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Sharan Grewal (PhD, Princeton 2018) is an Associate Professor of Government at American University and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. His research examines revolutions and democratic transitions, particularly in the Arab world. His first book, Soldiers of Democracy? Military Legacies and the Arab Spring (Oxford University Press, 2023), explores why militaries support or thwart democratic transitions. It received APSA’s Best Book in MENA Politics Award and the Robert Jervis Best International Security Book Award. His second book, The Rise and Fall of Tunisian Democracy: Populism, Polarization, and the Perils of Power-Sharing, is forthcoming with Cambridge University Press in October 2026. His work has also been published in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, and British Journal of Political Science, among other journals. His research has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Henry Luce Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the Defense Security Cooperation University.

How has Russia sustained its confrontation with the West since 2022, and at what cost? In her new book, Hanna Notte argues the Kremlin is waging a war not only on Ukraine but over the global order itself.

Notte traces how Russia adapted after the invasion. It worked around sanctions, built new partnerships, cultivated support across the Global South and tried to deepen divisions within Western democracies. Her account combines policy analysis with field reporting from more than a dozen countries and interviews with officials, facilitators and ordinary people drawn into Russia's agenda.

The book also examines the domestic consequences. Notte finds that Putin's focus on confronting the West has distorted Russia's economy and moved the country from a tacit dictatorship toward a full one. She suggests Putin may outlast the West, but has gambled Russia's future in the process.

Satre Family Senior Fellow and Mosbacher Director of CDDRL, Kathryn Stoner will moderate the discussion, which will cover Russian statecraft, the durability of autocratic regimes under pressure and what Russia's strategy means for the U.S., Europe and the Global South. Audience Q&A will follow.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Hanna Notte is the Director of the Eurasia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. She is also a senior associate (non-resident) with the Center for Strategic and International Studies and with the Kennan Institute. Notte's expertise is in Russia's foreign and security policy. She holds a doctorate and Master's degree in international relations from Oxford University and a BA in social and political sciences from Cambridge University. During her doctoral studies, she was a visiting researcher with the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Carnegie Moscow Center. Based in Berlin, she regularly writes for outlets such as the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, and ZEIT, among others.

Join the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law for a conversation with Maria Kuznetsova and Dan Storyev, Russian journalists in exile and co-authors of How to Survive Authoritarianism: A Russian's Phrasebook for Everyday Life in America (Liveright, 2026). The book argues that Americans confronting a rising tide of authoritarianism don't need to invent a vocabulary for it: Russians already built one over generations of contending with illiberal rule. Kuznetsova and Storyev compile roughly 100 Russian words and phrases, from "power vertical," used to describe hypercentralized governance, to "mnogohodovochka," a term that mocks misguided state initiatives, tracing how this vernacular of double-speak helped ordinary citizens "make sense of how illiberalism takes shape." The discussion will bring that framework to the American context, examining the mechanics of authoritarian consolidation and the strategies available for resisting it, and drawing comparisons between the Russian experience and current U.S. politics. Satre Family Senior Fellow & Mosbacher Director Kathryn Stoner will be moderating the discussion.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Maria Kuznetsova is a human rights expert from Russia who tackles political prosecution and anti-war repressions. She has expertise in developing international advocacy campaigns and engaging in strategic communication with journalists and public figures on human rights issues, especially in the context of Russian war against Ukraine. Kuznetsova received a master of public policy from Harvard Kennedy School and is based in San Francisco.

Dan Storyev grew up between Russia and the US. An Oxford graduate, he has been working as a journalist and researcher for years, specialising on writing about the former Soviet space for English-language outlets. His writing appeared in the Financial Times, New York Times and Foreign Policy amongst others. Dan covers human rights and conflicts and has reported from hotspots all over the world, including Ukraine and Myanmar. Dan writes the English newsletter at OVD-Info, a leading Russian human rights watchdog, which Dan also represented at conferences, radio, TV and more. Dan had worked as a lecturer and tutor for a decade — his diverse experience includes guest lectures at Oxford, Ghent and KCL.

When did Russia lose its chance of freedom? 1990: As a new openness sweeps Russia, a talented young physicist, Boris Nemtsov, begins his career in politics. Charismatic, confident, liberal and vehemently opposed to corruption, he swiftly rises to prominence. For the first time, another future seems possible. 2015: Putin holds the country in the grip of tyranny once more. Nemtsov, now his fiercest and most unrelenting opponent, is assassinated on a Moscow bridge. This is the story of how a nation's dreams of democracy died. Drawing on buried archives and off-the-record interviews, exiled journalist Mikhail Fishman gives a gripping insider account of the tragedy of modern Russia, told through many lives of Boris Nemtsov — activist, playboy, leader-in-waiting, dissident and, finally, victim. From the economic reforms under Boris Yeltsin to Vladimir Putin's oligarchy, through two wars in Chechnya and the invasion of Ukraine, this is the story of a man fired by the belief that Russia could, still, have another future.

How does the local presence of an authoritarian power shape citizens' commitment to democracy? Existing theories suggest engagement with authoritarian states should weaken democratic commitment through norm diffusion, accommodation, or authoritarian learning. This paper challenges that expectation by examining Chinese development finance in Latin America. Using geocoded data, it estimates the subnational effect of exposure to Chinese aid on democratic attitudes. Exposure increases support for democracy rather than undermining it. The effect is strongest in authoritarian and weakly democratic settings and absent in consolidated democracies. Exposure does not improve perceptions of China or the United States, casting doubt on soft power or foreign-comparison explanations. Instead, the paper argues that visible Chinese projects make incumbents' authoritarian character more salient, triggering an accountability response. These findings recast authoritarian external influence as a contingent catalyst for democratic reinforcement.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Marcela Ibáñez is a Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow at CDDRL and a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Zurich. Her work lies at the intersection of political economy and development studies. Her current research examines how development finance from authoritarian donors shapes political attitudes in recipient countries. Her broader interests include authoritarian politics, inequality and opportunity in low- and middle-income economies, democracy after conflict, and strategic communication. Methodologically, she draws on causal inference and econometrics, using experimental and quasi-experimental designs, geospatial and survey data, and quantitative text analysis. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Mannheim.

Under what conditions do pro-democracy global actors support domestic opposition actors resisting democratic backsliding, and when does such support shape public opinion? This book project develops a theory of international rhetorical pressure that examines both the supply and demand of foreign engagement in backsliding contexts. On the supply side, it argues that international actors' public attention to democratic developments abroad is shaped by both domestic political developments and geopolitical ties. On the demand side, it suggests that foreign statements can shape public opinion toward pro-democracy movements. Drawing on an original dataset of US Secretary of State speeches, survey experiments, and elite interviews, the project shows that geopolitical interests often shape when international actors publicly address democracy abroad, but that when they do, foreign messages can meaningfully shape public opinion. The project highlights the increasingly international nature of backsliding and both the opportunities and challenges international engagement creates for domestic opposition actors.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Benjamin Yoel is the Jan Koum Israel Studies Program Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). Benjamin studies democratic backsliding, nonviolent resistance, authoritarian politics, and the role of international factors in the context of regime change. He is particularly interested in understanding when and how international actors can help or hurt domestic opposition movements defend democracy. His book project examines the supply and demand-side of international rhetorical pressure in the context of democratic backsliding and opposition to it. Benjamin's other work examines mass public support for democratic backsliding, public willingness to support retaliatory measures by democratic governments against former backsliding leaders, and the broader challenges facing pro-democracy actors in an increasingly illiberal international system. His research has been published in Nature, the International Journal of Public Opinion Research, and American Politics Research. He received his PhD in Political Science from Michigan State University and BA and MA degrees from Reichman University.

As Russia’s war against Ukraine grinds on and debate intensifies over how to end it, what could push the conflict into a more dangerous phase of escalation? This talk examines how the Putin regime’s domestic political imperatives shape when Moscow absorbs setbacks and when it escalates. It argues that Russian behavior reflects a “pressure-cooker” dynamic: external geopolitical constraints favor restraint, while battlefield failures, war weariness, and pressure from hardliners can gradually raise the domestic costs of inaction. The result is prolonged restraint punctuated by abrupt escalation across conventional, gray-zone, and nuclear domains. Counterintuitively, the greatest danger may arise before a domestic crisis fully materializes — when wartime exhaustion or the political and economic strains of a ceasefire loom, but the Putin regime still retains the capacity to act coherently. This argument has direct implications for Western efforts to manage escalation and negotiate an end to the war without inadvertently increasing Moscow’s incentives for risk-taking.

Aleksandar Matovski is an Associate Professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School. His research focuses on the impact of domestic politics on the durability and strategic behavior of authoritarian regimes, with a regional emphasis on Europe and the former Soviet Union. Matovski holds a PhD and MA in Government from Cornell University, an MA in War Studies from King’s College London, and a BA in Law from Saints Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje. Prior to his academic career, he was National Security Advisor in the Government of North Macedonia and Political and Military Advisor in the North Macedonian Ministry of Defense.