Search results

As antagonism between superpowers is escalating, free and fair elections are increasingly threatened, and war plays out on the ground and across cyberspace, the fault lines in democratic institutions are widening. Healthy democracies require trust among members, and that trust is failing. Just how much danger is our political system in? What can we do to repair what’s brok...

Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar — some of the political leaders who have taken the Aspen Ideas Festival stage are now running to be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2020. What's ahead for the news media, pollsters, and the candidates, themselves? Journalists and political experts debate what the 2020 candidates could and should do to win. Check out our collecti...

If the 2016 US election felt volatile and vitriolic, the forecast for a cordial 2020 isn't looking good. The nomination process is dividing Democrats, Republicans are closing ranks around an embattled President Trump, and distrust of news media is at an all-time high. Is there hope for unity across political affiliations? Can we learn to trust journalists again? What are t...

Aspen Ideas Festival’s signature event gathers an audience of 2,000 in the Benedict Music Tent. Big thinkers and doers engage in candid conversations about their work, our world, and the future. The Afternoon of Conversation is an experience for the curious, igniting discussion in a marathon of big ideas.

The most populous country in the world has economic might, military muscle, and a governing philosophy at odds with democracy. While the rest of the world watches China’s sphere of influence grow, can we count on them to be partners in tackling global problems?

In a divided nation, where conversations are siloed and every argument is ad absurdum, we seem to be losing the informed citizenry that our government requires to function. Learn what’s wrong with our current situation, and what you — yes, you, citizen — can do to help repair democracy.

International order, as we’ve known it for more than 70 years, is in flux. With changing alliances, abandoned treaties, disputes over globalism versus nationalism, and the rise of authoritarian rule, liberal democracy is deteriorating. Populist movements in Europe, America, and beyond are fueled, in part, by deep-seated grievances. Throughout much of Africa and the Pacific...

Americans seem more culturally and ideologically divided than at any point in most of our lifetimes, with no prospect of bridging those divides any time soon. The only thing we seem to agree upon is that our politics are broken and our leaders are unable to solve the nation’s most fundamental challenges. What can be done to save American democracy from itself? Can we still...

Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and since then, the war has proven longer and costlier than what the Kremlin might have expected. Ukrainian resistance has been successful in its counteroffensives, pushing back Russian forces from their original goal of taking Kyiv, though much of the country has still been devastated by the fighting. How much long...