Larry Diamond

Professor
Department of Political Science and Sociology
Stanford University

"The Globalization of Democracy"

Tuesday, November 27, 2007
12:30 pm - C103 Hesburgh Center

"Can Iraq be Stabilized?"

View video of the lecture here.

6:00 pm - C100 Hesburgh Center Auditorium

Cosponsored by the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies

Abstracts

"The Globalization of Democracy"

Since 1974, the number of democracies in the world has tripled, and the majority of states are now at least electoral democracies. But in recent years, a number of important states have slipped away from democracy, including Pakistan, Russia, Venezuela, Nigeria, and Thailand, and most of the new democracies of the "third wave" have failed to consolidate.  In addition, authoritarian states like China, Russia, Egypt, Iran, and Belarus have developed new techniques and resolve to block international democracy promotion, and Bush Administration efforts to promote democracy in the Middle East have backfired.  In this talk, Diamond will assess the state of democratic progress in the world, and the prospects for the entire world to become democratic, while laying out some strategic principles for defending and advancing global democratic progress.

"Can Iraq be Stabilized?"

In the past few months, a "surge" in US troop levels and a new strategy of political outreach to Sunni and other tribal and provincial leaders have reduced levels of violence in Iraq and raised hopes for some measure of ultimate success.  But the underlying political stalemate in Iraq remains.  There is no consensus on the constitution, the federal structure of the country, or the control and distribution of the country's oil resources and revenues.  Diamond will discuss the political implications and prospects of the current situation, and why achieving a national political bargain is vital to stabilizing Iraq and preventing a descent into a much larger and bloodier civil war.

Biography

Larry Diamond is senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy.  At Stanford University, he is professor by courtesy of political science and sociology, and he coordinates the democracy program of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), within the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI).  He is also codirector (in Washington, D.C.) of the National Endowment for Democracy’s International Forum for Democratic Studies, which sponsors scholarly research and publications and coordinates an international network of democracy research institutes.

In 2004, Diamond served as a senior advisor on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad.  Currently he serves as a member of USAID’s Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid.  He has advised and lectured to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other governmental and non-governmental agencies dealing with governance and development.