My passion for democracy work began over fifteen years ago as an undergraduate when I became deeply interested in why and how people engage in civic life. That interest set me on an unlikely—but never uninteresting—path as a practitioner in democratic development with the Carter Center, the State Department, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. For over ten years, I have supported a dynamic portfolio of democracy assistance programs in Africa in response to myriad crises, opportunities, and steady progress in democratization. I have also developed strategies to combat the growing trend of closing democratic space and resurgent authoritarianism, a phenomenon increasingly taking hold in many countries around the world.
Given my background in analyzing and responding to global and regional trends in democratization, I am now focused on a new challenge: the decline of the post–World War II democratic order. According to this year’s Freedom in the World report, democratic freedom globally has declined for the thirteenth consecutive year. China is offering its own brand of pragmatic authoritarianism as a viable alternative to democracy, one yielding political stability and economic growth. Meanwhile, even in wealthy, well-established democracies—including the United States—confidence that a political system grounded in democratic governance still serves people’s best interests is eroding.
In the United States, heightened levels of political and social polarization have exacerbated this decline of public confidence, undermining our trust in elected leaders, democratic institutions, and political processes. Polarization is also undermining our ability to have constructive conversations about real policy questions and to take meaningful action. Trust, it turns out, is an essential ingredient for a healthy democracy, in which citizens can have deep disagreements but also strive to collectively solve problems in the national interest.
In the context of these challenges, I’m very pleased to join the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as a visiting scholar during my time as a 2019–2020 Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. I will leverage my comparative experience in democratic development to examine the nature of social and political polarization in the United States. I also hope to join the search for solutions—to learn from, as well as contribute to, tools and approaches that can rebuild trust in our institutions and in each other.