AUTOCRACY'S RISE, SHARP POWER, AND THE GROWING THREAT TO DEMOCRACY
This registration provides a seat at the Lebanon Opera House to attend this session in-person.(This event is open seating, meaning you will not have an assigned seat number.)Over a protracted period of time, authoritarian powers have mobilized and taken the initiative, and in the process sought to reshape the global landscape. Led by ambitious regimes in China and Russia, the multiyear authoritarian surge poses enormous challenges to democratic standards, principles, and ideas. If the United States and its democratic allies are to meet this top order challenge and set the global trajectory on a more positive course, they will need a new, more competitive mindset.SPEAKER: CHRISTOPHER WALKER
Vice President for Studies and Analysis, National Endowment for Democracy
Christopher Walker is Vice President for Studies and Analysis at the National Endowment for Democracy, an independent, nonprofit, grant-making foundation supporting freedom around the world. Walker oversees the department that is responsible for NED’s multifaceted analytical efforts, which pursues it goals through several interrelated initiatives: the leading edge work of the International Forum for Democratic Studies, which undertakes a diverse range of analytical initiatives to explore critical themes relating to democratic development; the Journal of Democracy, the world’s leading publication on the theory and practice of democracy; the Reagan-Fascell fellowship program for international democracy activists, journalists, and scholars; and the Center for International Media Assistance, which is dedicated to improving efforts to promote independent media in emerging democracies and developing economies around the world.
Prior to joining the NED, Walker was Vice President for Strategy and Analysis at Freedom House. Walker has testified before legislative committees in the U.S. and abroad, appears frequently in the media, and frequently conducts briefings on critical issues relating to democratic development. He has been at the forefront of the thought leadership on authoritarian influence on democratic systems, including through the exertion of sharp power, a concept he and his colleagues developed. His articles have appeared in numerous publications, including the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and the Journal of Democracy. He is co-editor (with Larry Diamond and Marc Plattner) of Authoritarianism Goes Global: The Challenge to Democracy (2016), and co-editor (with Jessica Ludwig) of Sharp Power: Rising Authoritarian Influence (2017). He is a co-editor with William J. Dobson and Tarek Masoud of the book Defending Democracy in an Age of Sharp Power (2023).