Saying “Farewell” to NED Vice-President Christopher Walker

This is a bittersweet moment for the International Forum for Democratic Studies, as we say farewell to Christopher Walker, who departed his role with us at the end of last month. Chris has been with NED for 13 years, first as the Executive Director of the Forum and then as NED’s Vice-President for Studies and Analysis. In that time, he has been responsible for shaping discourse and programming on democratic resilience not just at NED, but across the wider foreign policy community. He has supervised and helped build-out the Forum, the Reagan-Fascell Fellows Program, and the Journal of Democracy.

As we reflect on his time with us, here are some major ways Chris has helped to shape our understanding of critical global threats to democracy and freedom, as well as steps we can take to defend the values of open societies.

At a NED town hall last month, Chris offered his parting thoughts in an exit interview with NED president Damon Wilson. He reminded the staff that this work remains critical and that democracy assistance is a crucial tool in bringing about a more secure and prosperous future, for the U.S. and the wider world.

Chris also underscored the value the Forum provides in bringing scholars and practitioners together to flesh out a fuller picture, based on their own experiences, of the nature and scale of authoritarian influence. “It was NED grantees, future grantees, and other experts that we pulled in around the globalization of authoritarianism to better understand its outgrowths,” he pointed out.

Damon lauded Chris’s impact on international discourse around sharp power, noting that he “… was keeping NED ahead with the concept, laying out for others how authoritarians are going global and exporting their tools, tactics, and technologies. Chris and the Forum shifted the international lexicon and advanced thinking on these issues through articles, a book, and numerous conferences. As a result, the concept of sharp power is routinely talked about in the public policy community.”

Looking to the future, Chris reminded the staff that securing new and future technologies for democratic actors was crucial. “NED stands by the underdogs,” he said. “And this is part of our creed: how to make these emerging technological tools work in asymmetrical ways and better for the underdogs.”

At a town hall on his last week at NED, Chris stressed that, now more than ever, fortifying democratic resilience in the face of authoritarian influence remains of paramount importance.

Upon arriving at the Forum, Chris soon published a piece in Foreign Affairs with Alexander Cooley of Columbia University’s Harriman Institute in 2013. The essay highlighted attempts by authoritarian states like Russia and Belarus to distort the international community’s view of their sham elections by securing approving assessments from “zombie election monitors.” Now, these autocrat-friendly election observation missions are a tool used regularly by authoritarian regimes to score propaganda points and create the impression of support for their rule.

Chris, along with the Forum’s Jessica Ludwig, formulated and developed the concept of sharp power nearly ten years ago. Back in the mid-2010s, the influence that autocracies like China and Russia exerted on corporations, universities, media institutions, and governments in other countries was seen through the lens of more benign concepts of “soft power.”

Sharp Power, a concept pioneered by Chris Walker and Jessica Ludwig, was featured on the cover of a 2017 issue of The Economist.

Chris and Jessica’s analysis revealed that sharp power is far more pernicious. Principally practiced by regimes in Beijing and Moscow, sharp power manipulates free and open information ecosystems to the benefit of authoritarian ideologies and interests. Chris’s insights on these dynamics, especially his congressional testimony on how autocrats exploit the openness of democratic systems, continue to be widely cited in the media.

In the decade since 2017, these prescient warnings have shaped a growing community of democracy advocates, scholars, and policymakers who focus on sharp power and the wider threats of authoritarian influence in free societies. Here at NED, Chris’s forward-thinking leadership drove the Forum to evolve and home in on the major vectors through which autocracies are attempting to undermine freedom and rewrite the political rules of the 21st century, like information space manipulation, abuse of new technologies, and transnational kleptocracy.

Chris also left his mark on the Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program, NED’s biannual cohort of outstanding scholars, advocates, journalists, and political figures who spend five months in residence at the Endowment conducting research, outreach, and analysis on democracy and human rights issues. Many of the more than 500 Fellows to date have credited him with shaping their research, helping them make valuable professional and academic connections, and providing encouragement and solidarity in their work.

Chris worked with and helped influence the careers of over 500 Reagan-Fascell Fellows during his tenure.

Though he will be sorely missed here at the Forum, his mission continues—Chris will be hard at work in a new role at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). Please join us in thanking Christopher Walker for his extraordinary service to the cause of global freedom and wishing him all the best at CEPA.

Although Chris will be leaving NED, the Forum’s work will continue. Stay tuned for more on that in the coming weeks.