Archive for the ‘Democracy’ Category

Higher ed must play a role in creating antiracist and just democracies (opinion) – Inside Higher Ed

The ongoing racial injustice, pandemic and associated disruption of 2020 -- along with the attack by violent insurrectionists on the U.S. Capitol building -- have taught us many things about our societies, not only in the United States but also around the globe. Among those lessons is that higher education is deeply implicated in the impoverished and fragile state of democracies. Some academic and student leaders are calling for postsecondary institutions to make the creation of antiracist, inclusive, socially just democracies throughout the world priority No.1. Such an undertaking requires disruptive change in higher education values, use of resources and its privileged place in many of our societies. Is higher education ready for such change?

At the 2020 Association for the Study of Higher Education conference, we shared research and practice from universities in South Africa, the United States and the International Association of Universities. We concluded that postsecondary institutions -- notable contributions during the pandemic notwithstanding -- have too often been complicit in systems that create or reproduce savage health and economic inequities, public disregard of science, and individuals who feel alienated and forgotten. Examples include the scarcity of locally situated university clinics and the lack of educational opportunities that perpetuates the exclusion of marginalized groups and working-class students. Indeed, COVID-19 has revealed the extreme poverty, persistent deprivation and pernicious racism that fester in the shadows of some of the nation's foremost institutions of higher learning. This disconnectedness from local community needs has promoted a sense of disenfranchisement by communities of color and increased the distrust society has of academics.

The widespread assumption that universities are progressive, multicultural, antiracist places has insulated many of us who work and live in higher education from reckoning with the lived experiences of marginalized communities all over the world. Indeed colleges and universities are gendered and racialized, and many institutions perpetuate systemic racism, colonialism and sexism through gatekeeping, educational discrimination and not sharing vital resources with local communities.

It is crucial to embrace these multiple realities simultaneously: that higher education is deeply implicated in reproducing systemic discrimination and racism in the United States and around the world and, as we imagine what could be next, higher education is distinctly positioned to help build and develop the infrastructure, resources, values and education systems necessary for diverse, inclusive, antiracist democracies. And there are examples of students, faculty and staff engaged in that work.

In this moment of disruption, postsecondary leaders, students, faculty and staff might humbly consider four steps to advance antiracist, diverse and just democracies locally and globally.

No. 1: Redesign universities to focus on the development of students who help create antiracist democracies around the world. Although postsecondary institutions will always play a vital role in social mobility, the pandemic has made it clear that the most important thing K-12 and higher education can do is to educate ethical, engaged citizens for antiracist, diverse and socially just democracies. That means galvanizing students' growth as organic intellectuals, collaborative problem solvers and agents of social change.

For example, the University of Costa Rica requires 800 hours of community work for each student who matriculates. In 2017, a total of 4,631 students did 1,038,150 hours of community work, in 164 projects in all areas of knowledge. Of significance, the former rector describes the purpose of this effort as to raise awareness and promote social and critical awareness among students and the university community; and to collaborate with communities in identifying their problems in order to develop their own solutions, within horizontal relationships conducive to mutual learning.

To better translate its strategic plan into action, the university has repositioned some of its buildings in the most underserved parts of the country, opening the doors to all people not attending yet interested to engage. Education for democratic citizenship through active engagement and collaborative problem solving with the local community should become a core purpose and pedagogical principle of higher education.

No. 2: Reimagine the knowledge project. The future we are imagining requires researchers from various fields and disciplines to take on the problems of our democracies and focus on issues of human benefit and local/global significance. To make that happen, universities need to incentivize and reward student, faculty and staff efforts to take on those issues in interdisciplinary ways, listening to and in partnership with local communities. That will not only help democracies thrive but also make for better scholarship, as knowledge is powerfully advanced when research is conducted through partnerships between academics and nonacademics. Higher education institutions have been rightly critiqued by various members of society -- including families, students, policy makers and community leaders -- as gatekeepers, distancing the credentialed knowers from the uncredentialed receivers of knowledge.

The ongoing dialectic in South Africa between government, universities, social movements (like the Treatment Action Campaign) and industry produced a swift repurposing of university-based research and innovation platforms created to address the ongoing HIV/AIDS pandemic. This resulted in the participation of scientists in the global effort to identify new variants of the virus as well as to develop COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. In addition, engineering schools in the country have turned their attention to using 3-D printing to manufacture PPE and noninvasive ventilators.

More universities should play a key role in linking expertise from those within the academy and those on the ground, creating a community of experts and diverse voices to solve our worlds most serious problems, such as poverty, unequal schooling and health care, and environmental degradation. We need to foster inclusive, expansive notions of expertise.

For instance, social scientists and educators can conduct participatory action research and develop methodological approaches that center community members voice and place-based knowledge to more effectively solve locally manifested universal problems. Only then will the knowledge imperative be seen as relevant to the well-being of the many as opposed to the private gain of the few.

No. 3: Change ownership of the university. For too long, citizens have viewed their universities like privately held companies that have little relationship to their own lives. Yes, people have local pride when sports teams win, but that is not the same thing as postsecondary education being relevant and tied to the destiny of local citizens. That must change. A case in point: in Thailand, Siam University has decided to revitalize the unsafe university surroundings to provide for better living conditions and well-being for Thai people who have never before set foot in a university.

On the other side of that world, University College Dublin has developed a wide range of initiatives to facilitate and enhance community engagement opportunities and build strong bridges between its campus and the neighboring communities. Universities must commit to serving as vital bridges between societies -- and as multilateral organizations using their vast resources (especially their human and academic resources) and positions of privilege to advance social justice.

No. 4: Get the values right. The values that universities should hold dear are open inquiry, diversity and inclusion, democracy, equity, and justice. Equity and justice require inclusive representation among students and academics -- including more people who are first-generation, from marginalized and working-class communities, and women. That would entail intentional recruitment within high schools situated in historically minoritized and working-class neighborhoods, as well as actively recruiting recently minted Ph.D.s from BIPOC groups to fill the ranks of the professoriate.

It would also involve universities working in serious, sustained, comprehensive partnerships with public schools in their locality to diversify and enrich the educational pipeline. Universities should also reallocate funding to support the hiring and retention of women and people of color within the faculty and administrative ranks of the institution, as well as provide more scholarships to first-generation students.

To realize the values cited above requires a reorganization of resources to infuse democracy across all aspects of higher education. If such values were in place, we would use technologies in ways that do not exacerbate inequalities but strengthen their impact on human well-being and development. For example, the pandemic made clear that institutions have the capacity to provide more online education. For students who may not have the financial resources to attend universities face-to-face, online education can remove financial barriers that may otherwise hinder access.

Strengthening internationalization of higher education and global engagement and collaboration is crucial for these efforts. We need a global movement -- one that leads to a global commons of engaged scholars and their community partners, scholarship and knowledge. To accomplish this, we need to incentivize scholars so they are rewarded for engaging in community-based projects. Many faculty members, particularly early-career ones, are dissuaded to devote any time that takes them away from the dominant discipline-based publication process. Thus, tenure and promotion should place more value on publications and other scholarly products that focus on work with and contributions to communities.

Scholars also need to earn trust from communities. Community members have long complained that faculty come and mine places for data and leave without ever helping support the communities from which they collected those data. Universities and faculty need to help amplify the voice of the community and illuminate their needs to policy makers. These kinds of institutional changes will require lots of sharing and learning from colleagues across the globe, as occurs through both the International Association of Universities and the International Consortium for Higher Education, Civic Responsibility and Democracy.

In the United States, people have criticized elected officials like Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz for inciting violence at the U.S. Capitol because, having attended selective universities like Stanford, Princeton and Yale, they should have known better. Putting aside the elitist and rankist assumption that such institutions would have the monopoly on knowing better, we must recognize that, in fact, higher education has too often failed to effectively educate active citizens dedicated to creating and maintaining antiracist, inclusive and socially just democratic societies.

Just as many colleges and universities are reckoning with their own institutional histories of exclusion, higher education as a field must recognize where it has failed and come up short. Only then can it come honestly to tables with communities, governments and citizens to build inclusive, antiracist democracies together.

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Higher ed must play a role in creating antiracist and just democracies (opinion) - Inside Higher Ed

electionlawblog.org

Trumps Legal Farce is Having Tragic Results, N.Y. Times, Nov. 23, 2020

Trump Needs Three Consecutive Hail Mary Passes, The Atlantic, Nov. 11, 2020

What Happens If Trump Wont Concede?, Slate, Nov. 8, 2020

New Lawsuit to Halt Ballot Cures in Pennsylvania Could Preview Trumps Postelection Strategy, Slate, Nov. 3, 2020

Trump Cant Just Declare Victory, Slate, Nov. 1, 2020

Our Biggest Election Day Concern, CNN Opinion, Nov. 1, 2020 (with Richard H. Pildes)

Kavanaugh has wild ideas about voting. They likely wont matter on Election Day, Washington Post, Oct. 27, 2020

In a 4-4 Split, the Supreme Court Lets Pennsylvania Make Voting EasierFor Now, Slate, Oct. 19, 2020

Were Living in the Shadows of Bush v. Gore 2.0, Slate, Oct. 19, 2020 (with Dahlia Lithwick)

What If Theres No Winner on November 4?, CNN Opinion, Oct. 19, 2020

A Key Fix for an Unthinkable Election Disaster, CNN Opinion, Oct. 5, 2020

This Will Be a Crucial Week for Pandemic Voting Cases at the Supreme Court, Slate, Oct. 5, 2020

Trumps New Supreme Court Is Coming for the Next Dozen Elections, N.Y. Mag, Oct. 5, 2020

Electoral Chaos Might Ensue if Biden or Trump Were Forced Out of the Race, Slate, Oct. 2, 2020

Dont fall for claims of voter fraud, L.A. Times, Sept. 25, 2020

Ive Never Been More Worried About American Democracy Than I Am Right Now, Slate, Sept. 23, 2020

Can Congress Salvage RBGs Legacy?, Slate, Sept. 21, 2020

Barrs Undermining of the Election is Downright Dangerous, CNN Opinion, Sept. 17, 2020

Democrats May Not Trust the Election Results if Trump Wins, Wash. Post, Sept. 10, 2020

Donald Trumps Encouragement to Vote Twice Could Cause Election Day Chaos, Slate, Sept. 3, 2020

Trumps Relentless Attacks on Mail-In Voting Are Part of a Larger Strategy, N.Y. Times, Aug. 19, 2020

California's Ballot Harvesting Law: A Crop of Trouble?, L.A. Lawyer, July/Aug. 2020

Bring on the 28th Amendment, N.Y. Times Sunday Review, June 29, 2020

Texas Voters Face Malicious Prosecutions After COVID-19 Absentee Ballot Ruling, Slate, May 27, 2020

The Right-Wing Legal Network is Now Openly Pushing Conspiracy Theories, Slate, May 27, 2020 (with Dahlia Lithwick)

Trumps bogus attacks on mail-in voting could hurt his supporters, too; The president is undermining democracy. He could also be undermining his own campaign, Wash. Post, May 20, 2020

GOP War on Mail-in Ballots May Backfire, NY Daily News, Apr. 20, 2020

We Cannot Hold an Election Without a Functional Post Office, Slate, Apr. 14, 2020

Trump is Wrong About the Dangers of Absentee Ballots, Wash. Post, Apr. 9, 2020

How Republicans are Using the Pandemic to Suppress the Vote, LA Times, Apr. 4, 2020

What Happens in November if One Side Doesnt Accept the Election Results? How coronavirus could contribute to a 2020 election meltdown, Slate, Mar. 30, 2020

How to Protect the 2020 Election from Coronavirus, Slate, Mar. 13, 2020

Why Trump and the RNC are spending $10 million to fight Democrats voting rights lawsuits, Slate, Mar. 5, 2020

Can't Call the Super Tuesday Vote? Be Patient, LA Times, Mar. 3, 2020

If Democrats Fight Right-Wing 'Fake News' Fire with Fire, We All Lose, Salon, Feb. 24, 2020

How to Prevent the Next Election Meltdown, Wall St. Journal, Feb. 7, 2020 (Saturday Essay)

What the Impeachment Ordeal Can Tell Us About the 2020 Election, CNN Opinion, Feb. 5, 2020

Trump's Jokes About Defying Election Results Could Create Chaos, Slate, Feb. 4, 2020

The Alarming Prospect of the Supreme Court Deciding the 2020 Election, The Atlantic, Feb. 3, 2020

The loser of Novembers election may not concede. Their voters wont, either, Wash. Post, Jan. 24, 2020 (Sunday Outlook)

Read more opeds from 2006-2009, these from 2010-2011, these from 2012-2013, these from 2014, these from 2015 and 2016, these from 2017, these from 2018. and these from 2019.

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electionlawblog.org

Democracy on the Ropes Eugene Weekly – Eugene Weekly

The events of Jan. 6 are fresh in our minds, as is the refusal of the Senate to hold the chief insurrectionist accountable for the armed attack on our Capitol. The anti-democracy faction, as always, is in Big Lie mode, as if middle school code messaging can claim the battlefield.

The People are to swallow the poison elixir to wit, the rejected presidents inflammatory speech was not at all meant to incite the violence that immediately followed, but was mere metaphoric poetry designed to evoke peaceful participation in the mechanics of democratic government. But the People are not drinking the elixir. Those of us with at least half a wit and a dose of our parents old-fashioned common sense, who watched, listened and now recall the context of this historical episode of a defeated candidates attempt to overthrow an election and remain in power, had no problem navigating the thicket of lies to arrive at the sobering truth America came perilously close to totalitarianism.

And we are still far from being out of the woods.

Let me put the evidence in the record for the readers. First, a little background. I was a federal prosecutor for 21 years of my 45 years of government service in the criminal justice system. During that part of my career, half of which was spent in the very busy Southern District of California, I tried hundreds of jury cases, many of which involved complex fraud crimes where the intent of the defendant was a critical element of the offense e.g., intent to deceive as well as cases involving violent crimes, likewise involving proof of specific intent e.g., premeditated intent to kill.

Intent is rarely susceptible to direct proof without a confession from the defendant. Lacking such proof, the evidence must be supplied through indirect, or circumstantial, proof such as similar acts showing a pattern of deceit or violence. Keep these concepts in mind as I endeavor to articulate just some of the actions and statements of Donald Trump which put the activity and speech of Jan. 6 in context.

I begin with his first campaign for president. In August 2016, he gave a speech at a rally of his supporters in which he told them that if Hillary Clinton won she would abolish the Second Amendment and there was nothing you can do folks although the Second Amendment people maybe there is, I dont know The term Second Amendment solutions is a euphemism associated with political assassination, and has been regularly employed by right-wing militias to legitimize the supposed right to engage in armed insurrection against the government. Of course, Trump would later deny any such connotation.

Forwarding to March 2019, when talk of impeachment was in the air, Trump boasted in an interview with Breitbart that if he were to be removed from office (through impeachment), I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump I have the tough people it would be very bad.

On Sept. 30, 2019, Trump tweeted that if the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office it will cause a Civil War fracture in the Nation from which our Country will never heal.

In September 2020, during the first presidential debate, Trump was asked by the moderator whether he condemned the violence of white supremacy extremists, and he not only failed to do so, he exhorted the Proud Boys (a violent and extremist white supremacy gang) to stand by a slogan that the Proud Boys subsequently stitched to their clothing.

On April 17, 2020, Trump tweeted Liberate Michigan in a series of tweets critical of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for her COVID-19 shutdown measures in the state. Then in early October 2020, the FBI and Michigan State Police foiled an imminent plot by 13 members of a paramilitary group, the Michigan Watchmen, to kidnap and murder Whitmer and other state officials. After being fully briefed by federal law enforcement about the plot, Trump tweeted, I do not tolerate ANY extreme violence and added, Governor Whitmer open up your state

Months before the November 2020 election, Trump began broadcasting that he could only lose the election if it was rigged and there was fraud. To put these remarks in context, the readers need to keep in mind that Trumps advisers had long been informing him that the Democratic candidate most likely to beat him was Joe Biden, which had fueled his pressuring the Ukraine president to announce a criminal investigation of Biden (to no avail).

What followed was the foreseen catalyst to the Jan. 6 insurrection Trump lost the election by a large margin and initiated his claim of fraud, filing and losing some 60 lawsuits because his lawyers could not prove fraud despite the numerous opportunities to do so. That spurred his attempt to pressure election officials to change the vote tally to appear as if he had been the winner (e.g. the notorious recorded call to the Georgia secretary of state in which he demanded that 11,000 votes be switched from Biden to him).

Trump engaged in serial attacks on election officials in swing states, who endured death threats from his supporters for validating the election results as accurate after numerous recounts. Finally, Trump was left with one desperate move preventing the ceremonial opening of the Electoral College ballots officially confirming Biden as the 46th president of the U.S. by the vice president before Congress on Jan. 6.

That was the setting for the summoning of his tough people for a rally that very day of the very certification of the votes of the People which would terminate his term and install Biden in the White House. The attendees, not coincidentally, included Proud Boys, militia members, police, military officers and other such supporters he previously bragged would make it very bad.

This is some of the totality of context in which to judge the intent of the main orator at the Jan. 6 rally, moments before the crowd attempted to overthrow our government. The crowd got the message many of them have since affirmed they believed they were following the then-presidents orders. In the aftermath of the sedition, America is hardly out of danger in the threat against our Constitution and Democracy.

Had Trump succeeded in overturning the election results, we would soon be like all totalitarian governments with pretext elections that count only for show and must always favor the dictator to be considered legitimate. Our Senate has now encouraged armed conflict and sedition in election cycles by passing on any meaningful response to the Jan. 6 events, the attack on the very seat of our government, and thus feeding the evolving narrative that such may become the new normal of politics in America.

Look around America the so-called fraud at the heart of the Trump stolen election narrative is at its core the African American vote. The Trump Party has embraced fully the white supremacy/nationalist agenda, which has never acknowledged the legitimacy of the African American vote.

Research our nations history for decades after the Reconstruction Era following the Civil War, white supremacists employed voting suppression tactics and violence to prevent and deny the Constitutional right to vote to African Americans. A recent USA Today article on challenges to Black voting references the concerted efforts of that era to suppress the African American vote. I am afraid MAGA is a call to return to that terribly unjust and discriminatory period of Jim Crow laws.

The John Lewis Voting Rights Act must be enacted. Voting must be facilitated, not impeded. Gerrymandering must be prohibited, not allowed through specious pretexts which disavow its true purpose and motive racial discrimination.

A former federal prosecutor, Judge Thomas Coffin was a U.S. magistrate for the District of Oregon until his retirement in 2017.

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Democracy on the Ropes Eugene Weekly - Eugene Weekly

Biden is Right Not to Abandon Plans for the Summit for Democracy after the Capitol Siege – Geopoliticalmonitor.com

The Capitol Siege was a sobering reminder of democracys fragility, damaging the United States already faltering standing as a global beacon of democracy. Nonetheless, the Biden administration is right to continue its plans to host the Summit for Democracy despite opposition from some policymakers and commentators. The summit can improve the resilience of US democratic institutions by forming a new bloc of democratic actors guided by the Democratic 10 (D10) group, developing multilateral strategies to tackle dark money and other authoritarian-sponsored forms of corruption, and demonstrating the Biden administrations commitment to bolstering democracy abroad.

The summit must bring together an international bloc of democracies and civil society groups as a bulwark against the global decline of democracy and pluralism. This decline has been partially caused by authoritarian regimes increasing interference in democracies, as well as transnational repression worldwide. A bloc of democracies would correspondingly strengthen US national security and anti-corruption measures, as well as reaffirm the United States return to a consistent multilateral foreign policy based on democratic values.

Furthermore, the summit would be a good platform to encourage the formation of the D10 to replace the Group of Seven (G7) as a steering group for this bloc. The D10 would consist of the current G7 members along with South Korea, India, and Australia. Unlike the G20, which is a larger and more inclusive group without a shared set of values, the D10 can replace the outmoded G7 as a large multilateral group that affirms democratic principles. Given how the G7 is increasingly criticized for being too small, Biden should publicly support the D10 to further prove his administrations commitment to promoting democracy globally.

While skeptics have argued the D10 is solely designed to exclude China and Russia from global governance, it is not necessarily supposed to be an anti-China and anti-Russia coalition. Promoters of the D10 have noted it could work with China and Russia on climate change, nuclear non-proliferation, and international development. In addition, the D10 group can address a variety of other issues, including the coordination of international sanctions and data governance standards.

After the Trump administrations consistent rejection of multilateralism in the economic and security spheres, Biden has set his administration apart by stressing his support for multilateralism. This is both to reassert US integrity to its allies and complement domestic democratic reform, as well as to foster international anti-corruption measures that would reduce authoritarian-sponsored corruption in the United States itself. Now that the United States has experienced its own close call with authoritarian turmoil, the need for reform is even clearer, as it can no longer claim to be above democratic backsliding.

Importantly, authoritarian-sponsored corruption is increasingly agreed to be a serious security threat in democratic states. For example, authoritarian states like Russia have dark money networks supporting election interference throughout the United States and its allies. Coordinating anti-corruption strategies between the United States and its allies would create a more comprehensive sanctions regime, and further strengthen their own democratic institutions defenses too.

The United States can likewise support its democratic allies as it works to reform its own institutions after the Capitol Siege. Notably, the United States has just established a beneficial ownership registry to reduce anonymous (and potentially foreign) corporate ownership of domestic assets. As the United States lags behind other states in establishing this registry, the Biden administration should cooperate with allies in sharing registry information on potentially suspicious actors to address this oversight. The summit is a good place to foster agreement on how to share this information.

Although authoritarian states have publicly relished how the United States has lost its privileged standing, the Biden administration understands the threat of rising authoritarianism in other democracies even better now after experiencing it firsthand. Consequently, any reforms the Biden administration promotes at the Summit for Democracy are significantly more credible as it is working to prevent the same turmoil from happening again at the domestic level.

Nonetheless, issues remain on the summits bar of admission. A significant number of US state allies are not liberal democracies and may view a lack of invitation to the summit as a diplomatic snub. Conversely, if there are too few members, the summit will have too small of an impact. Biden has also been urged to extend invitations to opposition parties, some of which may be under threat from repressive regimes. Such invitations would likely complicate diplomacy with such governments in the future. Even the proposed D10 group may face issues with Indias inclusion as its protections for civil liberties have precipitously declined since 2014. Therefore, the success of the Summit for Democracy will hinge on what democratic reforms Biden can formulate before it is held and what the summits admission criteria will be.

In any case, the Capitol Siege should not dissuade Biden from hosting the Summit for Democracy. In fact, the Biden administration would stand to benefit considering how the United States relatability has improved following the Capitol Siege. Thus, the Summit for Democracy would be a strong opportunity to make use of this change.

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect those of Geopoliticalmonitor.com

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Biden is Right Not to Abandon Plans for the Summit for Democracy after the Capitol Siege - Geopoliticalmonitor.com

MIT’s Robert A. Muh Award in the Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences Awarded to David Miliband, President and CEO of the IRC – International Rescue…

It is a pleasure to be back at MIT (albeit virtually). I had a wonderful year at the university as a graduate student in 1988/9; came back as UK Foreign Secretary in 2010 to give the Compton Lecture, arguing for a national and regional political settlement to end the war in Afghanistan; and then in 2011, after the electorate relieved me of my governmental responsibilities, came back to the Political Science Department for a week of teaching. It is a source of pride to come back this year to receive the Muh Award

The bookends for this talk are the changed geopolitical environment since I was a graduate student. I completed my Masters thesis in the summer of 1989, and vividly remember watching on TV the scenes in Tiananmen Square as I house-sat in leafy Belmont. Few of us had the sense that the post-war order was about to be turned upside-down by the fall of the Berlin Wall less than six months later. The idea of the End of History was only just going into academic articles. Certainly there was no sense that we were about to enter weeks in which decades happen.

This became the era of the Third Wave of Democracy, so called because the number of countries democratizing tripled from 25 to 75 in the span of a decade.[1] From Eastern Europe to Southern Africa to Latin America to the Far East, the tools of authoritarian rule did not seem to work anymore.

A new future was quite suddenly in view (perhaps too suddenly for clear thought). Not the end of arguments about the good society. Not the end of protest about equality or governance or foreign policy. Not the end of wars based on ethnicity or religion after all the 1990s were the decade of the Rwandan genocide. But the emergence of an arguable case that political history had a settled destination, reached at different speeds, in systems based on accountable government, human rights, and political democracy. In this telling, the Cold War had two sides. One was democratic, the other autocratic. The democratic side won. And history would bring more victories for democratic governance.

That is one bookend. The other is the present day. The contrast is stark. Not the Third Wave of Democracy but what the scholars at the Varieties of Democracy project at the University of Gothenburg call the Third Wave of Autocratization. Across the world, democratic systems based on fair elections and the rule of law are in retreat. Here is what they are talking about:

Professor Larry Diamond of Stanford University says all types of regimes are becoming less liberal.[7] The data from the Gothenberg database put numbers on this. In the past decade 10 countries have moved from liberal democracies to electoral democracies where rights have been circumscribed.[8] Poland is an example of a democracy where the ruling party has consolidated and often abused its power. 13 countries moving from democratic ranking to electoral autocracies. This includes India, which was previously the worlds largest democracy. And 5 autocratic regimes moving into the most harsh category, closed autocracy. Whats happening in China fits this category.

Two academics, James Robinson and MITs Daron Acemoglu, have explained in their brilliant book The Narrow Corridor,[9] why this should not be a surprise. There is nothing natural about liberal democracy. If anything it is an unnatural creation, and certainly one that takes perpetual nurture if it is to endure.

Today I want to apply a particular lens to this story and link it to developments in foreign affairs. That lens is the idea of impunity. Its traditionally been a legal term, but I want to use it as a tool of political and policy analysis. As you know, impunity means the absence of consequence for an action, and in the case of an illegal action, the absence of punishment for that action. In more colloquial terminology, impunity is the exercise of power without responsibility, what the British PM Stanley Baldwin called the refuge of the harlot throughout the ages.

I am going to make three claims today.

First, that there is a growing age of impunity that is the international or foreign relations counterpart of democratic recession at home. Systems and cultures of impunity are leading to more acts of impunity.

Second, that international impunity is on the rise in international conflicts around the world because of a shift in power against the aspirations of the rules-based order established after 1945. I want to highlight two elements. Autocratic regimes are stronger. They insist that what happens within a country is only the responsibility of that state. And they have found unexpected bedfellows in this assertion of national sovereignty, and against the assertion of universal rights, in democratic states that are in retreat, turning inward, reasserting national sovereignty (as well as domestic focus) themselves and reeling from foreign policy failures.

The third claim is that to fight against international impunity we do not need new ideas about the laws of war or the rights of individuals. The ideas in the UN Charter and associated documents are good ones. What we need is a defining idea for how to defend them, a focus on some key issues, and the mobilization of the assets of government, private sector and civil society to do so. Since power has shifted against the defense of universal rights, a reversal of the trend depends on more than quoting laws to men with swords. It requires countervailing power to change their calculus.

The Rise in Impunity

When a coach of children is bombed in Yemen, when health facilities are bombed in Syria, when civilians are denied humanitarian aid in Ethiopia or Nigeria, we are seeing impunity because there is no consequence or punishment. At best there is pleading to stop.

The data is striking. There are more civilian victims of war. An average of 34,000 civilians are killed in conflict each year, more than double the average five years ago and nearly seven times the average in 2008.[10]

More civilians are fleeing conflict. A record 79.5 million refugees and displaced people around the world.[11] But its not just total numbers, its the way conflict is displacing more people. In conflicts since 1945, an average of 5 people were displaced for every one person killed. In the Syrian war, that ratio has been 25 to 1.[12]

There are more aid workers killed. 121 aid workers are killed each year on average, including several of my IRC colleagues, compared with an average of 53 aid workers killed each year in 2004.[13]

There are more attacks on health facilities. Since the UN passed a resolution condemning attacks on hospitals in May 2016, there have been 2,387 attacks on health worldwide[14] from the Ebola epicenter of the DRC to warzones in Syria, Afghanistan, and Yemen. Far from abating during the global pandemic, these attacks have only worsened, with more health care workers and patients killed in 2020 than in 2019.

More children are living close to high intensity conflict. Today 160 million children are living in areas of high-intensity conflict according to Save the Children.[15] Thats more than the number of children who live in the United States and Europe combined.

There is more ethnic cleansing. The civil society group Genocide Watch lists 13 ongoing Genocide Emergencies where ethnic cleansing massacres are ongoing.[16] These involve powerful countries not just small rogue states.

And there is a remarkable direct link between poverty and conflict: nearly fifty per cent of the worlds extreme poor live in conflict and fragile states,[17] and that percentage is growing every year.

So there is the first claim: that there is a clear trend of growing international lawlessness and norm-lessness. Interestingly enough, the latest National Intelligence Council report, Global Trends 2040,[18] highlights the rule of law as one of the threatened norms of the global order.

This trend has been enabled by what the Munich Security Conference calls Westlessness the retreat of the West part of the second claim to which I now want to turn.

Shifts in the Balance of Power

The second claim is that this trend towards impunity in international affairs is a symptom of a shift in the balance of power. Those ready to abuse international rules have less reason to fear that they will be held accountable. There never was a Golden Age, but after the traumas of genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s and the massacre in Srebrenica in former Yugoslavia, there was a determined attempt to live up to the promises of the post-Second World War settlement, culminating in the so-called Responsibility to Protect principle in 2005. This was a unanimously agreed resolution of the UN General Assembly which promised that if nation-states abused the rights of their own citizens, then the international community had a responsibility to uphold them. That seems like another world today, because in many ways it is.

The causes of this shift are multiple but the essential dynamic is simple. There is less chance today that war crimes will be punished. And of course the confidence of combatants that war crimes will be unpunished is reinforced every time a war crime is unpunished. So there is a vicious circle in play.

The reasons for this shift are deep rooted. Three seem especially important:

So there has been a power shift. Secretary Blinken said recently: Look at the countries that run roughshod over the rights of their own people. Theyre almost always the same countries that flout internationally accepted rules beyond their borders.[20] The whole point of the UN Charter and the associated founding documents was to mitigate against this tendency, by creating rights for people against the over-mighty power of the state, and institutions with the mandate to defend those rights. Countries could choose their own political system, democracy or dictatorship, monarchy or republic, but they would sign on to international rules.

Just as Robinson and Acemoglu argue that at the national level, there is a constant, day-in, day-out struggle between the state and society to walk the narrow corridor between the fear and repression wrought by despotic states on the one hand and the violence and lawlessness that emerge in their absence, so international relations needs the rights of individuals to be upheld against the rights of states, or the result is despotism and impunity. This takes a balance of power, and that is what is missing in the worlds war zones.

The Need for Countervailing Power

The third claim is that the battle ahead, for those of us who fear a world of impunity, is to build the force of accountability to counter the abuse of power. I think this is a better way of encapsulating the challenge or the mission than building the power of democracy. Sure, I want to see democracy strengthened, notably in countries that are democratic but whose democracy is under assault. But democracy is the strongest form of political accountability and cannot be built on sand.

70 years ago, JK Galbraith published his book American Capitalism: The Concept of Countervailing Power. It offered a powerful critique of the development of the American economy after the Second World War, notably in the way concentrations of economic power at the corporate level were a threat to the interests and well-being of ordinary Americans. His answer was not anti-trust, though he did not oppose it, but the development of market and non-market institutions that could countervail the power of the big corporates. Where there were big producers, he favored big retailers. Where there were corporate consortia, he favored countervailing power from government. Where there were unorganized workers, he favored labor (trade) unions. As he put it: Liberalism will be identified with the buttressing of weak bargaining positions in the economy; conservatism will be identified with positions of original power.

I think Galbraiths concept needs to be brought back to life today. I can see applications in the national economy, where market concentration is again on the rise, fueled by political and legal attacks on the role of government in the economy.

However, to my thesis today, the idea of countervailing power has relevance in curbing the abuse of state power not just private power. And it needs to apply in the international domain not just the national one.

I am glad that the Biden Administration supports a meeting of liberal democracies to discuss how to defend the rule of law and democratic practice. But the big decision is not to have a meeting. It is to decide the agenda.

I would like to see it discuss defense of democratic institutions against cyber-attack; a common front to tackle laundering of money from autocratic states; common positions on the regulation of anti-social media; common positions on global trade issues, linked to human rights standards.

But I also want to see them take common action in international fora to impose costs on those who abuse international law. If impunity is the absence of consequence for actions, then accountability must be about creating consequences, and thereby worrying military commanders and political leaders about their actions.

In fact, I would go further, and say that if the rights to life of civilians in war zones cannot be defended, when they have been codified in international law, then we have less chance of defending other rights that are important, whether that be the rights of protestors against their government or the rights of women against abuse by men or the rights of minorities to freedom of religion or thought or sexuality.

So the idea that should animate the drive against impunity is that of countervailing power. The issues should include those of life and death, to curb the abuse of power that my colleagues and I at the International Rescue Committee see every day, as we work to help people whose lives are shattered by conflict and disaster survive, recover and gain control of their lives.

And the coalition that needs to be mustered should engage government, private sector and civil society. None alone will be enough. A world where accountability, not impunity, is on the rise, needs pressure comes from government, civil society and the private sector together.

Governments in the West need to get their own house in order. They need to combine their weight in political fora to apply political pressure for adherence to the laws of war. At the United Nations they need to be calling for genuinely independent and comprehensive investigations of war crimes wherever they happen. They need to be supporting efforts to use their own legal systems as in the recent German cases of Syrians accused of war crimes to hold people accountable. They need to be using military-to-military contacts, military training, and military coalitions of which they are part to stand against the drift to impunity in conflict. And they need to be engaging the private sector.

We have seen in the recent Georgia and Texas voting rights cases the power of major corporates like Coca-Cola and Dell to take a stand. This should be the demand of those who engage with governments who flout the rule of international law. If you are a weapons manufacturer, or a financier of weapons manufacturers, who thinks it is wrong for your weapons to be used to target civilians, then you have a duty to speak up and act up.

Money is often used to grease the wheels of impunity through corruption and patronage, but it can be a force for accountability if channeled properly. This includes targeted economic sanctions against individuals committing atrocities, such as freezing their bank accounts. This also means divestment and suspension of aid by public and private actors. For example insurance companies should decline to provide coverage for companies and countries engaged in activities that violate international humanitarian law. The drift to impunity will not be stopped without those with economic power taking a stand.

There is special responsibility on tech and media companies, because control of the information space is critical to sustaining systems of impunity. In conflict zones around the world, effective news blackouts are the norm not the exception. Breaking the blackout takes political pressure, but also requires technological innovation, to make it safe for civilians to record what is happening, and then get the information out.

And then there is civil society. The New York Times and independent actors like Bellingcat and the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights have done more to expose abuse of international law in Syria than any UN commission. This should be the inspiration to expose and hold accountable those perpetrating the worst atrocities.

The next decade promises to be a race or a fight between accountability and impunity, within our own countries and internationally. That applies in politics, in economics, even in respect of the environment, where ecological plunder can be considered a form of impunity, albeit a longstanding one. Impunity offers quick solutions, but feels brittle. Accountability courts the accusation of being slow. But the methodical tortoise sometimes beats the hyperactive hare.

The End of History was the Kool-Aid of the end of the Cold War. It was misdiagnosed. But the impulse that protested, unsuccessfully, at Tiananmen Square, and successfully in East Berlin, was strong and clear. It was the impulse for power to be held accountable. The coming age of impunity is only inevitable if we let it be so.

[1] V-Dem. (2021). Autocratization Turns Viral - Democracy Report 2021.

[2] The Economist. (2 February 2021). Economist Intelligence Unit - Democracy Index 2020.

[3] Foa, Roberto Stefan and Mounk, Yascha. (1 March 2019). When Democracy Is No Longer the Only Path to Prosperity. The Wall Street Journal.

[4] V-Dem. (2021). Autocratization Turns Viral - Democracy Report 2021.

[5] Ibid.

[6] The Economist. (2 February 2021). Economist Intelligence Unit - Democracy Index 2020.

[7] Diamond, Larry. (March/April 2008). The Democratic Rollback. Foreign Affairs.

[8] V-Dem. (2021). Autocratization Turns Viral - Democracy Report 2021.

[9] Acemoglu, Daron and Robinson, James A. The Narrow Corridor. New York, Penguin Press, 2019.

[10] Calculation of five-year annual rolling average based on data from Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. Number of Reported Civilian Fatalities from Direct Targeting by Country-Year.

[11] United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. (18 June 2020). Global Trends: Force Displacement in 2019.

[12] Feldstein, Steven (17 July 2018). Rethinking the Impact of War: Elevating Protections for the Displaced. Social Science Research Network.

[13] Calculation of five-year annual rolling average based on data from Aid Worker Security Database.

[14] World Health Organization. Surveillance System for Attacks on Health Care.

[15] Save the Children. (2020). Killed and Maimed: A Generation of Violations.

[16] Genocide Watch. Current Alerts.

[17] The World Bank. (2020). Fragility and Conflict: On the Front Lines of the Fight Against Poverty.

[18] National Intelligence Council. (March 2021). Global Trends 2040: A More Contested World.

[19] Peace Research Institute of Oslo.(March 2019.) Trends in Armed Conflict, 1946-2018.

[20] U.S. Department of State. (30 March 2021). Secretary Antony J. Blinken On Release of the 2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.

About the IRC

The International Rescue Committee responds to the worlds worst humanitarian crises, helping to restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing, and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster. Founded in 1933 at the call of Albert Einstein, the IRC is at work in over 40 countries and over 20 U.S. citieshelping people to survive, reclaim control of their future, and strengthen their communities.Learn more at http://www.rescue.org and follow the IRC on Twitter & Facebook.

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MIT's Robert A. Muh Award in the Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences Awarded to David Miliband, President and CEO of the IRC - International Rescue...