Dr. Lilia Shevtsova to speak at Embassy of Canada
Washington, DC — The Eleventh Annual Seymour Martin Lipset Lecture on Democracy in the World will be held on Wednesday, October 29, 2014, 6:00 p.m., at the Embassy of Canada in Washington, DC, featuring Lilia Shevtsova, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Moscow Center. Dr. Shevtsova will deliver a lecture entitled “Russia’s Political System: The Drama of Decay.”
In her remarks, Dr. Shevtsova will address the nature of the “new civilizational challenge” currently facing liberal democracies and will examine the key characteristics of the Russian system and the reasons for its failed democratic transformation. Dr. Shevtsova also promises to delve into the survival mechanisms of the Russian system, the implications of the regime’s ability to adapt, and the role of the West in this Russian drama.
Lilia Shevtsova chairs the Russian Domestic Politics and Political Institutions Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center. She is also a senior research associate at the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Economics and an associate fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House). She is founding chair of the Davos World Economic Forum Council on Russia’s Future; a member of the Boards of the Institute for Human Sciences (Vienna), the Finnish Centre for Excellence in Russian Studies (Helsinki), the Liberal Mission Foundation, and the New Eurasia Foundation (Moscow); a member of the editorial boards of The American Interest, Pro et Contra, and the Journal of Democracy.
The Seymour Martin Lipset Lecture on Democracy in the World was inaugurated in 2004 by the International Forum for Democratic Studies at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the Munk School for Global Affairs at the University of Toronto as an important new forum for discourse on democracy and its progress worldwide. The lecture is delivered each year in Toronto, Canada and Washington, DC. The lecture is published each year in NED’s Journal of Democracy.
The lecture is named for one of the great democratic scholars and public intellectuals of the twentieth century. Seymour Martin Lipset’s scholarship on such themes as the conditions for democracy, political parties, voting behavior, extremist movements, ideologies, and public opinion constitutes one of the most prolific, insightful, and widely read bodies of work on democracy ever produced by a single author.
Lipset was also one of the most important comparative analysts of the two great democracies of North America, and a strong advocate for US-Canadian cooperation. The joint US-Canadian sponsorship of the Lipset Lecture provides an opportunity for influential audiences in both countries to hear and discuss a major intellectual statement on democracy each year. It serves as a catalyst for further cooperation between Canada and the United States in the promotion of democracy and democratic ideas around the world.
This event is open to the media and journalists interested in covering should contact Jane Riley Jacobsen by email jane@ned.org to register.
