Values. I would like to welcome you to the first session of this series titled 100 years of democracy and Foreign Policy let me introduce the participants of the discussion addressing the changing world of democracy and american Foreign Policy over the past century. Neil ferguson, a senior fellow at the center for European Studies at harvard where he served for 14 years as a professor of history. Steven krasner, hes a chair and International Relations in stanfords Political Science department. From 2005 to 2007 he served under secretary of state Condoleezza Rice as a director of policy plan where he worked on foreign assistance reform and other projects. And lastly Condoleezza Rice. Shes the senior fellow on Public Policy at the hoover institution, a professor of Global Business in the graduate school of business, and a professor of Political Science at stanford. She served as the 66th secretary of state of the United States. She also served as president george w. Bushs assistant to National Security affairs. Please join me as this esteemed group comes to the stage. [ applause ] thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon and thank you for joining us. Were going to have a little discussion here about the subject of this panel, democracy and american forbe policy, a hot topic these days, i would say. And then after weve talked for a while, were going to invite you to ask questions. I want to remind everybody that i am a professor. I will call on somebody if nobody asks a question, so please, there are microphones. Get your questions ready. Im delighted to be joined by Neil Ferguson and steve crasner for this important discussion, one of the greater dilemmas of Foreign Policy. If we go back 100 years, we would have seen a world in which the Russian Revolution had taken place, but the country was still in civil war. Many of the people who were in that civil war would escape russia, and some of them would end up here at the hoover institution. One of the things that is not said about the hoover archives is it has a tremendous collection about the Russian Revolution, and the man who after the abdication had taken russia for just a moment toward democracy overthrown, would spend the last years of his life at the hoover institution. We could also note that at that time, 1919 we would have seen the end of world war i and the american president Woodrow Wilson who believed that we had or would like the world safe for democracy would suggest that, in fact, democracy and Foreign Policy had to be linked for a country with americas values. Do you see, today, when were seeing the rise of what i call the four horsemen of the apocalypse, populism, nativism, isolation anymore and protectionism. Do you see any similarities to where we are now with that period 100 years ago . Neil, why dont you start . Well, im delighted to be here with you, to mark this anniversary. It was great to be reminded in that video that we arent an institution that studies war, revolution, and peace, and we had our originals in the collection of documents. Its good we should begin with a history question. You know, looking back on Woodrow Wilson, historians are tempted to portray him as a failure because ultimately his vision of an International Order based on collective security under the league of nations failed. Not only failed to prevent world war ii. It failed earlier than that when the United States senate refused to ratify that. But when you look at the way we run the world or try to run the world today, its striking how many of wilsons ideas are central to our concept of International Order. Free trade was something that he regarded as an important part of a post war order. Selfdetermination, nations right to choose to be independent. That was another key element in his famous 14 points. And then the idea of collective security, although it failed in the league of nations was reborn in version 2. 0 in the united nations. And i think when you look at the concepts that Woodrow Wilson set out during the world war i in his 14 points, its remarkable how ultimately so many of those who come to be the basis of our international system. Steve . Let me say that i think you know, Woodrow Wilson have a complicated figure. Neil told us something about the more optimistic ways of looking at wilson, but he tried to make the world safe for democracy. He failed. As part he never worked out clearly how he would deal with minority rights. Its a very elaborated part of the versailles treaty. He was, himself, a racist. In some ways, i mean, the questions should we look at wilson as someone as a vision of the future or as a symbol of how difficult it is to achieve a consolidated democracy . Thats really a central question for us. And i think, you know, achieving consolidated democracy is difficult. Madison said that if men were ruled by angels, we wouldnt need institutions but men are ruled by other men, so we need institutions. And reaching the sweet spot, something the United States and a few others have accomplished in which the government is effective and constrained is something which hasnt really been achieved by very many. I think a central question for us is really understanding can countries really reach that sweet spot . What are the preconditions if any for reaching it . What can we do as outside actors to facilitate that . Lets go to the question of consolidated democracy and how consolidated is it really across the world . I think we all know that theres a kind of debate out there among academics but its seeped into the public and consciousness which is that democracy as a concept and democracy in practice may, indeed, be in trouble. That not only was wilson an example of how difficult it would be to bring democracy around the world, but he was perhaps an example of how hard it is to keep it once you have it. Lets talk a little bit about the state of democracy before we talk about the state of democracy and american Foreign Policy. In general j and then im going to take you each through parts of the world and have you talk specifically about how democracy is doing in certain parts of the world. Lets talk generally about the state of democracy. One of our colleagues Larry Diamond talks about democracy in recession. People talk about a democracy deficit. How do you see the state of democracy today . Neil . Im less worried than those people who like larry talk about a democratic recession. It depends really where you start your time series. If you start your time series sometime after 1989, you can find some modest retreat in recent years. If you start your time series in the mid 1970s, there has been without question a massive shift in favor of democracy and to the disadvantage of the authoritarian regimes. I went back and looked at some of the numbers ahead of our conversation looking at the economists Intelligence Units democracy index. Roughly half of the World Population live in democracies according to that. That series. 16 live in what they call hybrids. Half democratic, half authoritarian or ill liberal democracies and maybe a third are in authoritarian regimes. But when you look at the economics which is another thing we try to do at hoover, its really striking that the democracies account for 74 of global gross domestic product. The liberits nearly all china. When you look at it that way, it seems pretty clear that democracy is a winning option and the story here i think is not so much your four horsemen. Im less poworried about populi than some. The worry is china. Its communism. Its a one party state. Its a hold out. If that were to be taken out of the story, then democracy would have i think have won. And i can imagine that happening. Lets face it. Nobody really expected or at least few people expected the complete collapse of soviet communi communism . I think we shouldnt be too pessimistic. Much of what you talk about when you talk about four horsemen of the populism, i dont see that as fundamentally undemocratic. I think those are necessary checks you might call it the backlash against globalization which many ordinary americans and europeans felt was long overdue. I dont think populism is hs hostile to democracy in the way fascism and communism were if you go back 100 years. What was coming to europe at that point or had arrived in russia and some Central European countries was scarier than pow y populism. People faced a choice of communism and extreme fascism. And today they barely represent a threat except in so far as communism is still in power in the largest country in the world. So steve, why do people talk about a democratic deficit or recession when one looks at the compelling numbers that neil has given us, 74 of the gdp belonging to democratic states. Only 22 to authoritarians. Thats mostly china. So why shouldnt we be celebrating the well, okay, i think rather than mourning it as some have. I think we should be worried. Were not on kind of a path where theres no natural way in which countries end up being democratic. Its true that the wealthy countries in the world are countries that have governments which are effective and constrained. Given that, i mean, one would think the democracy would rule the world. Thats not been the case. Were also confronted with dynamic changes. Look at the technological revolution were sitting in the middle of. The First Industrial revolution, i mean, it countries went from being 90 to 5 akwarn. You were dealing with this, and you had two world wars in the middle of that plus a western revolution. If any of you have seen the movie dunkirk, imagine if the sea had been rough when the british were trying to evacuate their troops from the continent of europe. They might not have been successful. If they were unsuccessful, they might have sued germany for a separate piece. If they did, maybe world war ii would have ended up the same way, but maybe not. So there is i think if youre thinking about reaching consolidated democracy, theres an element that inevidently an element of luck to it, and no guarantee that it signals the future for the human race. Let me break it down just a little bit and go through several of the arguments that people would make to say that the bleaker look at democracy is actually more appropriate. So probably number one would be people have lost faith in their Democratic Institutions. This is true across even consolidated democracies. We know the polls about how americans feel about their congress. How americans feel about the media. How they feel about even the Supreme Court at this point, really, the only institution that seems to have widespread support in the United States would be the military. So how are we to think about the lack of faith in institutions as a example for trouble for democracy Going Forward . Neil, you make the very good point that populism isnt necessarily democratic, but it is a force that says go around your institutions. Go around your elites directly to the people. That is the sort of definition of populism. So this breakdown of faith in institutions which madison would have said was absolutely essential to self governing, is that one reason to be concerned about democracy . No. I think its a wakeup call to the institutions. You mentioned just then the media. And its certainly true, the public respect for the media, for a free press is at a low ebb in the United States, but can you blame people for feeling that way . Can you blame people were having a very low view of professional politicians of legislators in congress . It seems to me that its entirely understandable that the public feels that way. And the fact that it is a high level of respect for the military is also significant, because that wasnt true in the 1970s at the time of vietnam. What we can see in the military is it learned some important lessons from vietnam, and has done enormously good job of cleaning up its act and winning back public respect. That is what the media have to do, because they have lost it. And i think theyve lost it badly. And i dont need to go into the examples that spring to mind here from the Covington Catholic fiasco to the coverage of the mueller inquiry until it turned out not to be the media had let people to expect. I dont think its surprising that there is low trust in some of our institutions. But i think its a healthy phenomenon if the people voters express their frustration as they most certainly did in 2016 on both sides of the atlantic, what political establishments had it coming. They made a succession of mistakes of which the financial was the last straw. Were seeing not a threat to democracy nor to the institutions but a wakeup call to the institutions. Ill make one more point. At the time that President Trump was elected, some academics got into a great lather and predicted american tyranny, the fall of the constitution, the end of democracy. That seems absurd, it did at the time. Now i think it should to everybody. The institutions have held up perfectly well for this president. I see no sign that the rule of law has been subverted by the trump administration. I see every sign that the constitution has held up and that separation of powers still functions. I think we shouldnt worry the institutions are being criticized. As long as theyre not being subverted. I dont think they are being. Steve, respond to a second of those ideas. Authoritarians are doing better, and, therefore, the authoritarian model is really the new way that countries are thinking about their potential for success. And of course, as neil mentioned, china would be exhibit one. I think it will probably fail, but ive made this for 15 years ive been saying china would fail. I have a friend in the department of defense. He always says to me, youve been telling me the same thing. They havent failed. Now, i mean, what are the possibilities for china . It could become wealthy and remain autocratic. We have no country like that except singapore which is pretty small. It could small out at middle income. It could collapse. It could even collapse into civil war. Now, i think its unlikely that china will become wealthy and remain autocratic. It would require would require having, as our colleague said, youre always confronted with the bad emperor problem. It may be okay when xi jinping is president but not so great with someone else is head of the government. The problem is if youre thinking about challenges to democracy, they are really challenges. If you look at the senate in the United States, i know ten years ago it was prareally amazing ifu look at the american constitution that had been in place for more than two centuries, if you compare that with the constitutional history of any other major country, there have been major, dramatic changes. But you look at the u. S. Constitution now, the senate is becoming less and less democratic, the ratio of the most populus state to the least populus state in 1787 it was i think 131. Now its more than 601. Its not clear how you can have constitutional change. It is also clear, as i said, that were in the midst of a technological revolution. What happens in 50 years when people are working two hours a week . Its impossible to predict, but thats a possibility. How will people understand themselves . So that i think, yes, we do have real challenges and people are really unhappy about how the government has functioned. We cant be complacent about the challenges being responded to or what we would think of as the right way. One point about authoritarians and then i have another challenge for democracy. This is one thing i think of authoritarian envy, and one is sing a poor and the other with china which is really big. And authoritarians make really bad decisions, too, so the china decided on something called the one child policy. And it was very efficiently carried out. Thats one thing authoritarians can do. Democracies are messy and they all all over themselves, but efficiency. Now 34 chinese men dont have mates. So authoritarians often carry out bad decisions inefficiently. But i want to move on to another challenge that people discuss. Our colleague, George Schultz, will very often say that the big challenge today is governing over diversity. We are the United States, in particular a multiethnic and multireligious society where identity has taken some hits as to what actually constitutes american identity. How much of a challenge is it to govern over diverse populations that know each other very, very well these days, because of the smaller circles in which we by the way, because of the way that they get their news and their information can get into ecogroups. And im going to date myself. When i was a kid my family watched the huntly brinkley report every night. Some people watched walter kron kite, but we had pretty much the same version of the moon shot. But now i can go to my cable news channel, my bloggers, my websites, and never encounter anybody who thinks differently. So diversity is becoming instead of we are all diverse but together, i go to my tribe. How much of a challenge is that to democracy . And its not just the United States, of course. We see it across the world. I think theyre two different problems. One of which is an old one and one of which is new. The percentage of the population of the United States that is foreignborn is now back to 14 , where it was in the late 19th century. It went down substantially in the mid 20th centur