Sponsored by: Stanford University Libraries, Hoover Institution,

Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law

Even before the 2016 election campaign, political polarization and filter bubbles in social media and revelations of foreign meddling, Francis Fukuyama raised his concerns about the decline and decay of democracy in the U.S. and elsewhere. Today we live in a new environment where Americans and others get up to two-thirds of their news — real and otherwise — on Facebook, where Twitter bots magnify propaganda, and where foreigners posing as Americans even organize demonstrations and counter-demonstrations on social media. Yet even without these technological developments, from Eastern Europe to the U.S., we observe the re-emergence of demons we thought we left behind after World War II: the rise of blood and soil nationalism, the decline in rule of law and the institutions that uphold democratic governance: parliaments, courts, a free and unfettered press. We believed that through NATO, the WTO, and the EU democracy and peace would be firmly grounded. What happens when these international organizations begin to unravel? Where are we headed? What have we learned so we can avoid the disasters of the 1930s? What are the fundamental institutional reforms we need to make? How do we accommodate the new superpower China, with its alternative model of governance, not only domestically, but increasingly in the international sphere? These questions will be discussed in a conversation by Toomas Hendrik Ilves and Francis Fukuyama.

Speakers:

Toomas Hendrik Ilves is the former President of Estonia (2006–2016). He has previously also served as Estonian foreign minister, member of European Parliament, and the ambassador of Estonia in Washington. In 2017 Ilves joined Stanford University as a Bernard and Susan Liautaud Visiting Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford’s hub for researchers tackling some of the world’s most pressing security and international cooperation problems. He is currently Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Hoover Institution.

Francis Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Mosbacher Director of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). He is also a professor by courtesy in the Department of Political Science. Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on issues relating to questions concerning democratization and international political economy. His book, The End of History and the Last Man, was published by Free Press in 1992 and has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. His most recent book is Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy.

This event is co-sponsored with The Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies.

ABSTRACT

How can we make sense of the tragedy in Syria? Wendy Pearlman has conducted open-ended interviews with more than 300 displaced Syrians across the Middle East and Europe from 2012 to 2017. She has brought together these personal stories in the acclaimed new book, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria (HarperCollins 2017). In this talk, Pearlman will share a selection of voices from the book, along with her own commentary and analysis, to explain the origins and evolution of the Syrian conflict, as well as what it has been like for the ordinary people who have lived its unfolding. Her talk will paint a portrait of silence and intimidation under an oppressive authoritarian regime before 2011, expresses the euphoric experience of participating in protest against that regime, conveys the resilience of communities enduring unspeakable violence thereafter, and offers a window into the challenge of becoming and being a refugee. This talk will offer a humanistic interpretation of the current conflict in Syria and how it has transformed those who have experienced it.

SPEAKER BIO

Image

Wendy Pearlman is the Martin and Patricia Koldyke Outstanding Teaching Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University, where she specializes in the comparative politics of the Middle East. She is the author of three books, We Crossed A Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria (HarperCollins 2017), Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and Occupied Voices: Stories of Everyday Life from the Second Intifada (Nation Books, 2003), as well as dozens of essays, academic articles, or book chapters. Pearlman holds a BA from Brown University, an MA from Georgetown, and a PhD from Harvard. She speaks Arabic and has studied or conducted research in Spain, Germany, Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Israel, and the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

[[{"fid":"229638","view_mode":"crop_870xauto","fields":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"Wendy Pearlman poster","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_credit[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto","alt":"","title":""},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"5":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"Wendy Pearlman poster","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_credit[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto","alt":"","title":""}},"link_text":null,"attributes":{"class":"media-element file-crop-870xauto","data-delta":"5"}}]]

Abstract:

Fukuyama (1989) was right: a centuries-old argument about government should be over. Liberal democracy is the best regime known to us. It isn’t close: for life’s important aspects, including health, wealth, liberty, and peace, democracy dominates all known alternatives. Empirically, however, the argument is not over. Indeed, there is widespread concern that many citizens (and, sadly, some academics) are less enthusiastic about democracy than the evidence warrants. I argue that when we search for solutions to complex problems (e.g., the design of governments) we often make a serious error in our mental representation of the choice problem: instead of using the criterion of the best feasible option, we ignore important constraints and look for an alternative that satisfies certain value-standards. When these standards are unrealistic, as they often are, we can become disillusioned with the best possible option. Robert Michels was wrong; Voltaire, and Henny Youngman, were right.

Speaker Bio:

Image

Abstract:

Foreign intervention sometimes enters by domestic invitation. Recently, the Malian government asked international actors to send troops to help stabilize and strengthen its rule of law, specifically as it faltered after the country’s coup. In this case, explanations for the intervention by invitation tend to revolve around the relative strength of the government, which was weak compared to the somewhat sophisticated militants that opposed it. Such an explanation, however, is unlikely shed much light on the situation since there are many weak governments with faltering or failing rule of law that do not request or receive such governance assistance, at least as far as reporting on these cases suggests. As the United States and its allies withdraw from the major conflicts of the past decade, the focus of international intervention in conflict and post-conflict contexts is likely to occur in cooperation with host states. This project examines an important set of arrangements for weak states: it identifies and explains when states invite other states to intervene for governance assistance—agreements between sovereign entities—specifically with regard to the security sector. These illustrations and tests draw on new quantitative and qualitative data.

Speaker Bio:

Image