Stanford University

International Development

FSI researchers consider international development from a variety of angles. They analyze ideas such as how public action and good governance are cornerstones of economic prosperity in Mexico and how investments in high school education will improve China’s economy.

They are looking at novel technological interventions to improve rural livelihoods, like the development implications of solar power-generated crop growing in Northern Benin.

FSI academics also assess which political processes yield better access to public services, particularly in developing countries. With a focus on health care, researchers have studied the political incentives to embrace UNICEF’s child survival efforts and how a well-run anti-alcohol policy in Russia affected mortality rates.

FSI’s work on international development also includes training the next generation of leaders through pre- and post-doctoral fellowships as well as the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program.

A History of the Emergence and Phenomenal Success of Memory as a Discursive-Frame

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The subject of the lecture is the emergence of memory-life. I consider the early 1980s to effectively bring the twentieth century to a close. In this time of the collapse of Communism it became obvious that the Utopian experiments, based on continuous, deep state intervention on the macro-sphere, could no longer be sustained. Memory as a discursive frame became available and readily usable for anybody, for millions of people, who lost their future because they lost their past, both in the East and West, and especially in East and Central Europe. By making use of the readily available Memory frame, they managed to find a past under a new description. Memory has emerged as a tool with which to reimagine and represent both individual and collective identity. Instead of analyzing notions of individual or collective memory, I will focus my talk on the emergence of Memory as a discursive and existential frame. I will closely examine the emergence of a specific interactive type, The Survivor, The Living Memorial, who considers it as his or her obligation to bear witness to his or her refashioned, newly found past.

Synopsis

Professor Rev begins by explaining that the 20th century had led to the emergence of the science of memory. Prof. Rev shows how there is an unfortunate and unnecessary line between history and memory when in fact they should complement each other. Aiming to survey the public discourse from the mid-1980s , Prof. Rev begins his story at a time where the after effect of the Vietnam War was deeply pitted in the American psyche, there was serious alarm at the high incidents of child abuse, and fundamental critiques were being made of the typical bourgeois family. He discusses the crucial notion of trauma through the example of the work of Catherine MacKinnon in trying to associate mass rape during the Balkans conflict of the 1990s as genocide due to its attacks on sex and ethnicity. Prof. Rev also explains the intense discussions of the trauma in the section on mass rape of the U.N. archives on humanitarian violence in former Yugoslavia. To Prof. Rev, this along with other historical factors, such as the outbreak of hysteria in France in the 1970s, led to a new kind of memory born from the previously unrecognizable state called trauma and the previously unknown kind of forgetting called repression.

Prof. Rev explores how memories of atrocities are closely connected with traumatic silence, as well as the theory of how trauma can be passed onto others by listening, making trauma an intergenerational experience. The significance of such transmission has led to a belief that the history of events such as the Holocaust is better experienced than understood. Prof. Rev also examines how such historical events really came to light once communism had fallen, and there was a ready made discursive frame for the past to be made sense of. The significance of memory, in particular in Eastern Europe, was that memory was a tool of unmediated access to the past or a source of authenticity after decades of censored, centrally written history. Consequently, issues such as the Holocaust departed from being shameful taboos to a respected identity for the Jewish people. Prof. Rev explains how through memory such an identity could really be formed.

Prof. Rev also analyzes how the fall of the Soviet Union led the liberation of memories through key works such as Alice Miller’s ‘Breaking Down the Wall of Silence.’ Miller links difficult childhoods to the acts of great tyrants such as Hitler and Stalin. Prof. Rev reveals how a tough childhood stunts the growth disabling one reach the full human capacity of being able to feel inclinations such as compassion. He links this with the work of Jeffrey Mason, archivist for Freud’s archives, who emphasized that sexual, physical, and emotional violence is a tragic part of the lives of many children. Mason’s book played a serious role in the recovered memory movement. Prof. Rev brings this all together by expressing that, to him, the Holocaust is a symptom as well as a cause of repressed memories of child abuse.

In a lengthy question-and-answer session, Prof. Rev and the audience raise of a number of points. For example, Prof. Rev further explores the concept of inherited or transgenerational memory. In addition, he reiterates his concern about the clash between historians and memory scientists. Another notable point Prof. Rev addressed among a variety of others was the history of the status accorded to victims and the fraudulent behavior that may be caused by this phenomenon.

About the speaker

Istvan Rev is Professor of History and Political Science at the Central European University, Budapest, where he is also the Academic Director of the Open Society Archive. He has been a visiting faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley on several occasions. Since the early 1980s, Rev has published widely on the political cultural, and architectural history of Hungary and other Eastern bloc countries. He is the author of "Retroactive Justice" (Stanford University Press, 2005). He edited the special issue of Representations on "Monumental Histories"(1991).

Sponsored by Contemporary History and the Future of Memory, a project of the DLCL Research Unit co-sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europe.

Building 460, Room 429

Istvan Rev Professor of History and Political Science Speaker Central European University
Seminars
Contemporary History and the Future of Memory

Kyung Joon Oh

Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall E301
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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2008-09 Visiting Scholar

Kyung Joon Oh served as Senior Executive Vice President of Pantech Group and the president of Pantech Capital.  He holds a BA in Business Administration and an MBA from Yonsei University in Korea.

Loan sanctions: a new tool for diplomacy?

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Seema Jayachandran is an assistant professor in the Department of Economics at Stanford University. She is also a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), and a Research Affiliate of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), and Stanford Center for International Development (SCID).

Her research focuses on microeconomic issues in developing countries, including health, education, labor markets, and political economy. Her work has been published in the American Economic Review ("Odious Debt," on sovereign debt incurred by dictators), Journal of Political Economy ("Selling Labor Low," on labor market risk in India), and the Quarterly Journal of Economics ("Life Expectancy and Human Capital Investments," on increased education caused by declines in maternal mortality in Sri Lanka), and other journals.

Her current projects are based in India, Nepal, and Zimbabwe. She also works on social issues in the United States. Previously she was a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research at the University of California, Berkeley. She also worked as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company in San Francisco. She earned a PhD and master's degree from Harvard University, a master's degree from the University of Oxford where she was a Marshall Scholar, and a bachelor's degree from MIT.

Seminar summary:

Seema Jayachandran's presentation focused on the problem of what to do about "odious debt" -- that is, debt lent to rogue regimes that ultimately must be borne and paid by successive (legitimate) governments. She asks to what extent the status quo can change so that lenders will not want to lend to illegitimate governments. Her solution lies in increasing the costs of lending to rogue regimes through a policy of loan sanctions. Adopting an ex ante posture, Jayachandran argues that interests rates for loans would move toward infinity if banks knew that future legitimate governments would repudiate the debts of past regimes, particularly if new governments would have the blessing of the international community to do so. The loan-sanctions solution addresses a challenge faced by the debt relief movement, which focuses on debt "overhang," which weakens a poor country's economy. Instead, loan sanctions focus on the notion that some debt is, simply, illegitimate. And while trade sanctions pose problems (Jayachandran mentions that trade sanctions are often easy to evade and hurt people more than government), loan sanctions prevent a sanctioned government from borrowing. Loan sanctions are also self- enforcing (e.g., a lender would not lend if that lender knew it was unlikely to be repaid). The author raised questions for debate about who or what international body would implement loan sanctions or policy, the problem of banks making short-term loans to dictators who pay, and defining bad behaviors narrowly (or broadly) enough so as to target rogue or illegitimate regimes.

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Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Seema Jayachandran Assistant Professor of Economics Speaker Stanford Univesity
Seminars

North Korea in The Cold War International System

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North Korea has often been considered an aberration in the post-Cold War international system, a relic of a Stalinist past. In fact, a close examination of North Korean foreign relations during the Cold War period reveals that Pyongyang's behavior never fit neatly into the paradigm of a bipolar international order, and that the Cold War itself had a distinctive dynamic in the Korean context. This dynamic helps to explain the continued existence of a divided Korea to this day, long after the bipolar international system has ended. Based largely on formerly secret materials from North Korea's Cold War allies in Eastern Europe, this paper suggests that Pyongyang's "aberrent" behavior long pre-dates the 1990s. It argues that North Korea has exhibited more continuity than change in the way it has dealt with the outside world over the last several decades, focusing on three areas of foreign policy: economic extraction, political non-alignment, and the development of an independent nuclear weapons capability.

Charles K. Armstrong is The Korea Foundation Associate Professor of Korean Studies in the Social Sciences in the Department of History and the Director of the Center for Korean Research at Columbia University. In the fall semester of 2008 he was a Visiting Professor in the Graduate School of International Studies at Seoul National University.

A specialist in the modern history of Korea and East Asia, Professor Armstrong is the author or editor of several books, including The Koreas (Routledge, 2007), The North Korean Revolution, 1945-1950 (Cornell, 2003), Korea at the Center: Dynamics of Regionalism in Northeast Asia (M.E. Sharpe, 2006), and Korean Society: Civil Society, Democracy, and the State (Routledge, second edition 2006), as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters.  His current book projects include a study of North Korean foreign relations in the Cold War era and a history of modern East Asia.

Professor Armstrong holds a B.A. in Chinese Studies from Yale University, an M.A. in International Relations from the London School of Economics, and a Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago. He has been a member of the Columbia faculty since 1996.

Philippines Conference Room

Charles K. Armstrong Associate Professor, Director of the Center for Korean Research Speaker Columbia University
Seminars
Korea Program
Korean Studies Colloquium Series

Reducing Uncertainty: Intelligence and National Security (Private Dinner)

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Dr. Thomas Fingar is Payne Distinguished Lecturer in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. From May 2005 through December 2008, he served as the first Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis and, concurrently, as Chairman of the National Intelligence Council.

Dr. Fingar served previously as Assistant Secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary (2001-2003), Deputy Assistant Secretary for Analysis (1994-2000), Director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific (1989-1994), and Chief of the China Division (1986-1989). Between 1975 and 1986 he held a number of positions at Stanford University, including Senior Research Associate in the Center for International Security and Arms Control. Dr. Fingar is a graduate of Cornell University (A.B. in Government and History, 1968), and Stanford University (M.A., 1969 and Ph.D., 1977 both in Political Science).

The Payne Lectureship is named for Frank E. Payne and Arthur W. Payne, brothers who gained an appreciation for global problems through their international business operations.

The Payne Distinguished Lecturer is chosen for his or her international reputation as a leader, with an emphasis on visionary thinking; a broad, practical grasp of a given field; and the capacity to clearly articulate an important perspective on the global community and its challenges.

Bechtel Conference Center

Thomas Fingar

Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C-327
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 723-9149 (650) 723-6530
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Affiliated Scholar at The Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC)
tom_fingar_vert.jpg PhD

Thomas Fingar is an affiliate at the The Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He was the inaugural Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow from 2010 through 2015 and the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford in 2009.

From 2005 through 2008, he served as the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and, concurrently, as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. Fingar served previously as assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (2000-01 and 2004-05), principal deputy assistant secretary (2001-03), deputy assistant secretary for analysis (1994-2000), director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific (1989-94), and chief of the China Division (1986-89). Between 1975 and 1986 he held a number of positions at Stanford University, including senior research associate in the Center for International Security and Arms Control.

Fingar is a graduate of Cornell University (A.B. in Government and History, 1968), and Stanford University (M.A., 1969 and Ph.D., 1977 both in political science). His most recent books are From Mandate to Blueprint: Lessons from Intelligence Reform (Stanford University Press, 2021), Reducing Uncertainty: Intelligence Analysis and National Security (Stanford University Press, 2011), The New Great Game: China and South and Central Asia in the Era of Reform, editor (Stanford University Press, 2016), Uneasy Partnerships: China and Japan, the Koreas, and Russia in the Era of Reform (Stanford, 2017), and Fateful Decisions: Choices that will Shape China’s Future, co-edited with Jean Oi (Stanford, 2020). His most recent article is, "The Role of Intelligence in Countering Illicit Nuclear-Related Procurement,” in Matthew Bunn, Martin B. Malin, William C. Potter, and Leonard S Spector, eds., Preventing Black Market Trade in Nuclear Technology (Cambridge, 2018)."

China and the World

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Cambodia: Past, Present, and Future

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Two images tend to dominate conceptions of the modern Cambodian experience.  Angkor represents heaven, referring to the magnificent temples that capture Cambodia's past glory and future aspirations.  Angkar represents hell, referring to the merciless Khmer Rouge organization that littered the countryside with corpses in the late 1970s.  In many respects, contemporary Cambodian life can be seen as a difficult journey from Angkar toward Angkor.

This panel will discuss challenges that Cambodians face as they seek to move from a dark modern past to a brighter future.  It will address a number of critical questions.  The panel will begin by putting Cambodia's transition in modern historical context.  How have the country's politics and society evolved since the demise of the Pol Pot regime thirty years ago?  How did the Khmer Rouge tribunal take shape, and why has that forum been the subject of such intense political contestation?  The panel will then shift to an analysis of the present day.  How are Cambodians coming to terms with the country's tragic history on personal and societal levels?  What are their views on the adequacy and effectiveness of the Khmer Rouge tribunal in advancing justice, human rights, and other ends? Lastly, the panel will focus on problems beyond the Khmer Rouge legacy.  What are the principal contemporary barriers to democracy and development under the Hun Sen government?  What are the keys to overcoming those obstacles?

About the Panelists
Joel Brinkley assumed his post at Stanford in 2006 after a 23-year career with The New York Times, where he was a reporter, editor and foreign correspondent.  He has won a Pulitzer Prize and many other reporting and writing awards.  He writes a nationally syndicated weekly op-ed column on foreign policy and has reported from over 50 foreign countries.  He has a long-standing interest in Cambodia, which is the subject of his latest book.

Seth Mydans (2009 Shorenstein Journalism Award recipient) Since taking up his post as the New York Times Southeast Asian correspondent in 1996 he has covered the fall of Suharto and rise of democracy in Indonesia; the death of Pol Pot, the demise of the Khmer Rouge and the trauma and slow rebirth of Cambodia; repeated attempts at People Power in the Philippines; the idiosyncracies of Singapore and Malaysia; the long-running political crisis in Thailand and the seemingly endless troubles of Myanmar.

John Ciorciari is a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution and was a 2007-08 Shorenstein Fellow at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.  He is also Senior Legal Advisor to the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an independent institute dedicated to promoting memory and justice with respect to the abuses of the Khmer Rouge regime.

Philippines Conference Room

Joel Brinkley Lorry I. Lokey visiting professor in the Department of Communication Speaker Stanford University
Seth Mydans Southeast Asia correspondent Speaker New York Times & International Herald Tribune

John Ciorciari

Hoover Institution
Stanford, CA 94305

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Affiliate - Southeast Asia Forum
CiociariHeadshot.jpg JD, PhD

John D. Ciorciari was a Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow at Shorenstein APARC for 2007-2008.  Dr. Ciorciari will remain at Stanford for the academic year 2008-09 as a National Fellow of the Hoover Institution. His current research centers on the alignment policies of small states and middle powers in the Asia-Pacific region. He focuses particularly on the phenomenon of "hedging," whereby secondary states pursue a balance of security and autonomy vis-a-vis the great powers.

Dr. Ciorciari also has interests in international human rights law and international finance. Before coming to Stanford, he served as Deputy Director of the Office of South and Southeast Asia at the U.S. Treasury Department. He has published articles on the reform of the Bretton Woods institutions and is currently undertaking a project on financial cooperation in East Asia.

In addition, he serves as a Senior Legal Advisor to the Documentation Center of Cambodia, which assists the Khmer Rouge tribunal and conducts research into the history of Democratic Kampuchea. He has published a range of scholarly works on international criminal law and the Khmer Rouge accountability process.

Dr. Ciorciari received an AB and JD from Harvard, where he was editor-in-chief of the Harvard International Law Journal. He received his MPhil and DPhil from Oxford, where he was a Fulbright Scholar and Wai Seng Senior Research Scholar.

John Ciorciari National Fellow, Hoover Institute Speaker Stanford University
Conferences
Shorenstein Journalism Award

American Muslim: Bridging Faith and Freedom

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This event is part of the seminar series "A Clash of Civilizations? The Muslim American Identity" and is co-sponsored by the Muslim Student Awareness Network (MSAN), the Islamic Society of Stanford University (ISSU), and the Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies (FSI).

TBA

Muqtedar Khan Political Science and International Relations Speaker University of Delaware
Seminars

Terrorism and Extremism: The Need for a Holistic Approach

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As the former President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf held "the world's most dangerous job," according to TIME Magazine. He has twice come within inches of assassination. His forces have caught more than 670 members of al Qaeda in the mountains and cities, yet many others remain at large and active, including Osama bin Laden. Long locked in a deadly embrace with its nuclear neighbor India, Pakistan has come close to full-scale war on two occasions since exploding a nuclear bomb in 1998. No stranger to controversy, President Musharraf has faced challenges with high stakes for the world at large. He offers an unparalleled view into the center of a region where the eyes of the world remain focused. President Musharraf's insights into Pakistan and its role in today's global challenges — from the economy to trade to energy — are not to be missed.

President Musharraf will be sharing his opinions and experiences in a keynote address entitled "Terrorism and Extremism: The Need for a Holistic Approach." This address will be followed by a unique conversation format with Stanford professor Scott Sagan, in addition to an audience question and answer session. During the question and answer session, students are encouraged to engage the speaker in an open and honest dialogue. The event aims to promote free speech and discussion on the Stanford campus.

This event is cosponsored by Stanford in Government (SIG), ASSU Speakers Bureau, the Public Policy Program, Stanford in Washington, the Center for International Security and Cooperation, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the International Relations Program, the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, the Bechtel International Center, the Stanford Journal of International Relations, and the Muslim Student Awareness Network.

Memorial Auditorium
551 Serra Mall

Pervez Musharraf Former President of Pakistan Speaker

Scott D. Sagan

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, E202
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

(650) 725-2715 (650) 723-0089
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The Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science
The Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education  
Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
rsd25_073_1160a_1.jpg PhD

Scott D. Sagan is the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science, the Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, and a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, where he previously served as the social science co-director. He is the Inaugural Harry Frank Guggenheim Fellow for Nuclear Ethics and Security at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs (2026-2027). Sagan also serves as co-chair of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Committee on International Security Studies. Before joining the Stanford faculty, he was a lecturer in the Department of Government at Harvard University and served as special assistant to the director of the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon.

Sagan is the author of Moving Targets: Nuclear Strategy and National Security (Princeton University Press, 1989); The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton University Press, 1993); and, with co-author Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: An Enduring Debate (W.W. Norton, 2012). He is the co-editor of Insider Threats (Cornell University Press, 2017) with Matthew Bunn; and co-editor of The Fragile Balance of Terror (Cornell University Press, 2022) with Vipin Narang. Sagan was also the guest editor of a two-volume special issue of Daedalus: Ethics, Technology, and War (Fall 2016) and The Changing Rules of War (Winter 2017).

Recent publications include “Creeds and Contestation: How US Nuclear and Legal Doctrine Influence Each Other,” with Janina Dill, in a special issue of Security Studies (December 2025); “Kettles of Hawks: Public Opinion on the Nuclear Taboo and Noncombatant Immunity in the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Israel”, with Janina Dill and Benjamin A. Valentino in Security Studies (February 2022); “The Rule of Law and the Role of Strategy in U.S. Nuclear Doctrine” with Allen S. Weiner in International Security (Spring 2021); “Does the Noncombatant Immunity Norm Have Stopping Power?” with Benjamin A. Valentino in International Security (Fall 2020); and “Just War and Unjust Soldiers: American Public Opinion on the Moral Equality of Combatants” and “On Reciprocity, Revenge, and Replication: A Rejoinder to Walzer, McMahan, and Keohane” with Benjamin A. Valentino in Ethics & International Affairs (Winter 2019).

In 2022, Sagan was awarded Thérèse Delpech Memorial Award from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace at their International Nuclear Policy Conference. In 2017, he received the International Studies Association’s Susan Strange Award which recognizes the scholar whose “singular intellect, assertiveness, and insight most challenge conventional wisdom and intellectual and organizational complacency" in the international studies community. Sagan was also the recipient of the National Academy of Sciences William and Katherine Estes Award in 2015, for his work addressing the risks of nuclear weapons and the causes of nuclear proliferation. The award, which is granted triennially, recognizes “research in any field of cognitive or behavioral science that advances understanding of issues relating to the risk of nuclear war.” In 2013, Sagan received the International Studies Association's International Security Studies Section Distinguished Scholar Award. He has also won four teaching awards: Stanford’s 1998-99 Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching; Stanford's 1996 Hoagland Prize for Undergraduate Teaching; the International Studies Association’s 2008 Innovative Teaching Award; and the Monterey Institute for International Studies’ Nonproliferation Education Award in 2009.     

Former co-director, Center for International Security and Cooperation
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Strengthening Security and Stability in South Asia

Larry Diamond: How to save democracy

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Bush gave democracy promotion a bad name, Larry Diamond writes in Newsweek. The new administration needs to get it right.

The new U.S. President will face more than one kind of global recession. In addition to the economic downturn, the world is suffering a democratic contraction. In Russia, awash with oil money, Vladimir Putin and his KGB cronies have sharply restricted freedom. In Latin America, authoritarian (and anti-American) populism is on the rise. In Nigeria, the Philippines and once again in Pakistan, democracy is foundering amid massive corruption, weak government and a loss of public faith. In Thailand, the government is paralyzed by mass protests. In Africa, more than a dozen fragile democracies must face the economic storm unprepared. And in the Middle East—the Bush administration's great democratic showcase—the push for freedom lies in ruins.

In the past decade, the breathtaking democratic wave that swept the world during the final quarter of the 20th century reversed course. Making democracy work proved harder than bringing down authoritarian rule. And receptive peoples everywhere were alienated by the arrogance and unilateralism of President George W. Bush's approach, which associated "democracy promotion" with the use of force and squandered America's soft power. Advancing democracy abroad remains vital to the U.S. national interest. But the next president will have to craft a more modest, realistic and sustainable strategy.

It's easy today to forget how far freedom has advanced in the past 30 years. When the wave of liberation began in 1974 in Portugal, barely a quarter of the world's states met the minimal test of democracy: a place where the people are able, through universal suffrage, to choose and replace their leaders in regular, free and fair elections. Over the course of the next two decades, dictatorships gave way to freely elected governments first in Southern Europe, then in Latin America, then in East Asia. Finally, an explosion of freedom in the early '90s liberated Eastern Europe and spread democracy from Moscow to Pretoria. Old assumptions—that democracy required Western values, high levels of education and a large middle class—crumbled. Half of sub-Saharan Africa's 48 states became democracies, and of the world's poorest countries, about two in every five are democracies today.

This great shift coincided with an unprecedented moment of U.S. military, economic and cultural dominance. Not only was America the world's last remaining superpower, but U.S. values—individual freedom, popular sovereignty, limited government and the rule of law—were embraced by progressive leaders around the world. Opinion surveys showed democracy to be the ideal of most people as well.

In recent years, however, this mighty tide has receded. This democratic recession has coincided with Bush's presidency, and can be traced in no small measure to his administration's imperial overreach. But it actually started in 1999, with the military coup in Pakistan, an upheaval welcomed by a public weary of endemic corruption, economic mismanagement and ethnic and political violence. Pakistan's woes exposed more than the growing frailty of a nuclear-weapon state. They were also the harbinger of a more widespread malaise. Many emerging democracies were experiencing similar crises. In Latin America and the post-communist world, and in parts of Asia and Africa, trust in political parties and parliaments was sinking dramatically, as scandals mounted and elected governments defaulted on their vows to control corruption and improve the welfare of ordinary people.

Thanks to bad governance and popular disaffection, democracy has lost ground. Since the start of the democratic wave, 24 states have reverted to authoritarian rule. Two thirds of these reversals have occurred in the past nine years—and included some big and important states such as Russia, Venezuela, Bangladesh, Thailand and (if one takes seriously the definition of democracy) Nigeria and the Philippines as well. Pakistan and Thailand have recently returned to rule by elected civilians, and Bangladesh is about to do so, but ongoing crises keep public confidence low. Democracy is also threatened in Bolivia and Ecuador, which confront rising levels of political polarization. And other strategically important democracies once thought to be doing well—Turkey, South Africa and Ukraine—face serious strains.

This isn't to say there haven't been a few heartening successes in recent years. Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, has become a robust democracy nearly a decade after its turbulent transition from authoritarian rule. Brazil, under the left-leaning Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has also strengthened its democratic institutions while maintaining fiscal discipline and a market orientation and reducing poverty. In Africa, Ghana has maintained a quite liberal democracy while generating significant economic growth, and several smaller African countries have moved in this direction.

But the combination of tough economic times, diminished U.S. power and the renewed energy of major authoritarian states will pose a stiff challenge to some 60 insecure democracies in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the former Soviet bloc. If they don't strengthen their political institutions, reduce corruption and figure out how to govern more effectively, many of these democracies could fail in the coming years.

Part of the tragedy is that Washington has made things worse, not better. The Bush administration was right that spreading democracy would advance the U.S. national interest—that truly democratic states would be more responsible, peaceful and law-abiding and so become better contributors to international security. But the administration's unilateral and self-righteous approach led it to overestimate U.S. power and rush the dynamics of change, while exposing itself to charges of hypocrisy with its use of torture and the abuse of due process in the war on terror. Instead of advancing freedom and democracy in the Middle East, 2005 and 2006 witnessed a series of embarrassing shocks: Hamas winning in the Palestinian territories and Islamist parties winning in Iraq; Hizbullah surging in Lebanon and the Muslim Brotherhood surging in Egypt. After a brief moment of optimism, the United States backed away and Middle Eastern democrats grew embittered.

The new American administration will have to fashion a fresh approach—and fast. That will mean setting clear priorities and bringing objectives into alignment with means. The United States does not have the power, resources or moral standing to quickly transform the world's entrenched dictatorships. Besides, isolating and confronting them never seems to work: in Cuba, for example, this policy has been a total failure. This does not mean that the United States should not support democratic change in places like Cuba, Burma, Iran and Syria. But it needs a more subtle and sophisticated approach.

The best strategy would be to open up such places to the freer flow of people, goods, ideas and information. The next administration should therefore start by immediately lifting the self-defeating embargo on Cuba. It should offer to establish full diplomatic ties with Havana and free flows of trade and investment in exchange for a Cuban commitment to improve human rights. Washington should also work with Tehran to hammer out a comprehensive deal that would lift economic sanctions, renounce the use of force to effect regime change and incorporate Iran into the WTO, in exchange for a verifiable halt to nuclear-weapons development, more responsible behavior on Iraq and terrorism, and improved human-rights protection and monitoring. Critics will charge that talking to such odious governments only legitimizes them. In fact, engaging closed societies is the best way to foster democratic change.

At the same time, the United States should continue to support diaspora groups that seek peaceful democratic change back home, and should expand international radio broadcasting, through the Voice of America and more specialized efforts, that transmits independent news and information as well as democratic values and ideas.

In the near term, however, Washington must focus on shoring up existing democracies. Fragile states need assistance to help them adjust to the shocks of the current economic crisis. But they also need deep reforms to strengthen their democratic institutions and improve governance. This will require coordinated help from America and its Western allies to do three things.

First, they must ramp up technical assistance and training programs to help the machinery of government—parliaments, local authorities, courts, executive agencies and regulatory institutions—work more transparently and deliver what people want: the rule of law, less corruption, fair elections and a government that responds to their economic and social needs. This also means strengthening democratic oversight.

Second, we know from experience that these kinds of assistance don't work unless the political leaders on the receiving end are willing to let them. So we need to generate strong incentives for rulers to opt for a different logic of governance, one that defines success as delivering development and reducing poverty rather than skimming public resources and buying support or rigging elections. This will mean setting clear conditions that will have to be met before economic and political aid is doled out to governments.

The third priority is to expand assistance to independent organizations, mass media and think tanks in these fragile states that will increase public demand for better governance and monitor what governments do. This means aiding democratic professional associations, trade unions, chambers of commerce, student groups and organizations devoted to human rights, women's rights, transparency, civic education, election monitoring and countless other democratic activities. Ordinary people must be educated to know their rights and responsibilities as citizens—and be ready to defend them.

While Western countries have provided this kind of aid for more than two decades, economic assistance handed out at the same time has often undermined democracy efforts by subsidizing corrupt, abusive governments. Aid donors should thus strike a new bargain with recipients, telling them: if you get serious about containing corruption, building a rule of law and improving people's lives, we will get serious about helping you. Those that show a real commitment should get significant new rewards of aid and freer trade. Those unwilling to reform should get little, though the West should continue to fight disease and directly help people in dire need wherever they are.

Finally, the new president should keep in mind the power of example. Washington can't promote democracy abroad if it erodes it at home. The contradictions between the rhetoric of Bush's "freedom agenda" and the realities of Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, torture, warrantless surveillance and boundless executive privilege have led even many of the United States' natural allies to dismiss U.S. efforts as hypocritical. Thus the new president must immediately shut down Guantánamo and unequivocally renounce the use of torture; few gestures would restore American credibility more quickly. The United States should also reduce the power of lobbyists, enhance executive and legislative transparency and reform campaign-finance rules—both for its own good and for the message it would send.

Make no mistake: thanks to the global economic crisis and antidemocratic trends, things may get worse before they get better. But supporting democracy abroad advances U.S. national interests and engages universal human aspirations. A more consistent, realistic and multilateral approach will help to secure at-risk democracies and plant the seeds of freedom in oppressed countries. Patience, persistence and savvy diplomacy will serve the next president far better than moralistic rhetoric that divides the world into good and evil. We've seen where that got us.

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