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Authoritarian populists are gaining power from Ankara to Athens, from Warsaw to Washington. Meanwhile, popular support for democratic values is sliding in many countries around the world. Is our political system in existential danger? And what can we do to save it?
Across the globe, free and fair elections have given rise to autocratic regimes. Have we underestimated the fragility of democracy and overestimated its value? (Book signing with Shadi Hamid to follow.)
In the last decade, the people of democratic societies across the globe have elected autocratic leaders. These populist strongmen have undermined democratic institutions with a disregard for the rule of law, expertise, and the truth. Is their election the symptom of already advanced societal illnesses, or is it the disease itself? In countries where the damage to democracy...
As Israel marks its 75th birthday, the existential challenges it faces don’t only come from geopolitical vulnerabilities. How will the Jewish state confront internal divisions and divergent opinions about threats to its democratic institutions?
The Democratic majority in Congress hangs by a thread, and with it the Biden administration’s ability to accomplish much of its agenda. What the past two years have shown us is a party with aging leadership, held hostage by two senators, and divided by different visions of its core mission and values. With the 2022 midterms just around the corner and questions already bein...
Around the world, people who are angry at stagnant wages and growing inequality have rebelled against established governments and turned to political extremes. Liberal democracy, history's greatest engine of growth, now struggles to overcome unprecedented economic headwinds — from aging populations to scarce resources to unsustainable debt burdens. Democracies risk falling...
Robert Mueller made clear the bottom line of his investigation: Russia attacked our democracy — and, as he said, every American should focus on that. Instead, recent news reports reveal that the Department of Homeland Security wasn't even allowed to bring up the threat of election attacks with President Trump. As candidates hit the 2020 campaign trail, what should the Unit...
From 9/11 to the Iraq War, from the American bond with Israel to its alliances with friendly Arab autocrats, the U.S. relationship with the Middle East is complex, to say the least, a melding of oft- competing dynamics between democracy, economy, and power. What will America’s Middle East entwinements look like in the years to come? Is democracy in the region possible? Wha...
Over the last two years, the nation seems to have been broken. Against the background of a politicized pandemic, there was a verbal and legal assault on democracy predicated on the lie of a rigged election, followed by a literal assault on the US Capitol building. Then, in spite of something so obvious to unite against, the opposition party struggled to find a solid ticket...
The war in Ukraine has once again highlighted the importance of international alliances, and that is certainly evident on the African continent, where the world’s superpowers are actively engaged in a competition for support and resources. How will this contest play out, what are the stakes, and who stands to gain -- and lose?
Angela Stent served as an adviser on Russia under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and maintains close ties with key policymakers in both Russia and the United States. Here, she argues that the same contentious issues — terrorism, missile defense, Iran, nuclear proliferation, Afghanistan, the former Soviet space, the greater Middle East — have been in every president's inb...
Among the most potent new challenges to liberal democracies around the world is the powerful reemergence of authoritarianism as a geopolitical phenomenon. Coupled with disruptive new technologies and connectivity, authoritarian ideas embodied by strongmen in China and Russia are gaining steam across the globe. Human rights and civil liberties have declined globally for a 1...
Trump in America, Brexit in the U.K., anti-EU parties in Italy, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, and Hungary, and nativist or authoritarian leaders in Turkey, Russia, India, and China -- Why has nationalism suddenly returned with a vengeance? Why has globalization become a dirty word? Can a new international order be created that doesn't dismiss what is c...
China’s economy is slowing and the world has no choice but to pay attention. And in Beijing, Xi Jinping’s administration pursues policies increasingly divergent from democratic ideals. These developments are philosophically challenging, especially as they concern the world’s largest population and second-largest economy. And yet they also pose threats to multilateral coope...
Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism, and other hatreds are thriving today, and nowhere are they more rampant, vitriolic, and dangerously unchecked than in cyberspace. Learn how an innovative, high-tech initiative of the Anti-Defamation League and Omidyar Networks will take the fight against hate to the online arenas where it’s thriving, combining state-of-the-art technolog...
An interview between Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel.
The Afternoon of Conversation is the Aspen Ideas Festival's pinnacle programming moment. Over 2,000 people gather in the Benedict Music Tent, an open-air venue with acoustics that mimic an amphitheater, to hear from global leaders, community change-makers, journalists, politicians, and more.
In a time of uncertainty, rapid change, and disruption, who is best positioned to move society forward? Many are losing faith not only in government, but in the institutions of journalism, nonprofits, and higher education. What role should these organs of civil society play in today’s fractured world, and how can people of good will come together to best make a difference?...
In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, foreign policy strategists continue to debate what motivates Russian President Vladimir Putin and what could be his endgame. Not far behind are concerns about Chinese President Xi Jinping and whether developments in Europe will reverberate in the Far East. What do Putin and Xi have in common? What brings them together, and conve...
Former US Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, who led the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2015 to 2019, and Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass analyze the United States’ role in the world — how our relationships, responsibilities, entanglements, and motivations, have shifted in recent years and what’s at stake in the months ahead.