Leading figures in the field of democracy, including the Journal of Democracy coeditors, William Dobson and Tarek Masoud, discussed Larry Diamond’s impact on the study of democracy.
The event also featured a critical discussion on how democratic coalitions and solidarity can address modern challenges to democracy, such as global authoritarian influence and threats to the integrity of the information space.
The essay gives particular attention to the dynamics of surveillance tools in young or fragile democracies and hybrid regimes, where checks on surveillance powers may be weakened but civil society still has space to investigate and challenge surveillance deployments.
Two case studies by Eduardo Ferreyra and Danilo Krivokapić provide more granular depictions of how civil society can influence this norm-shaping process in Argentina and Serbia.
In our recently published report, author Oliver Bullough argues that transnational kleptocracy combines “19th-century autocracy with 21st-century finance” to empower dictators to use illicit wealth to corrode both foreign and domestic institutions.
However, while much of the conversation around combating transnational kleptocracy has centered on money laundering, contributors to the latest Global Insights series argue that addressing the vulnerabilities enabled by reputation laundering is critical to countering kleptocratic influence and defending democracy.
At the March 30 public event on “Waking Up to Reputation Laundering as a Mechanism for Transnational Kleptocracy,” Oxford University scholar Tena Prelecremarked that “as with money laundering, the reach of tainted money used to launder reputations” affects the very foundation of democracy.
more from the international forum
The International Forum welcomes Adam Fivenson, Senior Program Officer for Safeguarding the Integrity of the Information Space, to the team.
