Democracy and Its Opposites

Damon Wilson is President and CEO of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a nonprofit grantmaking foundation supporting freedom around the world. Prior to joining NED, Mr. Wilson helped transform the Atlantic Council into a leading global think tank as its executive vice president. He previously served as special assistant to the president and senior director for European affairs at the National Security Council. Mr. Wilson also served at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad as the executive secretary and chief of staff, where he helped manage one of the largest U.S. embassies during a time of conflict.

Michael I. Kotlikoff, Professor of Molecular Physiology, became the 16th Provost of Cornell on August 1, 2015. As the university’s Chief Academic Officer, Chief Budgeting Officer, and First Deputy Officer to the President, Dr. Kotlikoff works to enhance the university’s excellence in teaching, scholarship, and outreach. His signature initiative, Radical Collaboration, recruits faculty and supports infrastructure in seven key multidisciplinary areas: nanoscale science and microsystems engineering; genome biology; data science; sustainability; digital agriculture; infection biology; and the critical inquiry into values, imagination, and culture (CIVIC). Dr. Kotlikoff was previously the Austin O. Hooey Dean of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell, where he enhanced programs in education, animal healthcare, and research, and launched an $87 million capital project to upgrade infrastructure and teaching facilities, thus enabling an increase in the pre-clinical class size. His research laboratory, continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health for over 30 years, is internationally recognized in the area of cardiovascular biology and heart repair.

Rachel Beatty Riedl is the Director of Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies as well as the Einaudi Center’s John S. Knight Professor of International Studies and a professor in the Department of Government and Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. Professor Riedl’s research interests include institutional development in new democracies, local governance and decentralization, and authoritarian regime legacies in Africa. Her most recent book, “From Pews to Politics: Religious Sermons and Political Participation in Africa,” coauthored with Gwyneth McClendon, was published in September 2019. “Authoritarian Origins of Democratic Party Systems in Africa” (2014), her previous book, won the African Politics Best Book award. Professor Riedl also cohosts the Ufahamu Africa podcast about life and politics on the African continent. Most recently,  Professor Riedl was a fellow at the Nantes Institute for Advanced Study and a Fulbright scholar. Previously, she was director of the Program of African Studies and an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Northwestern University.

Thomas E. Garrett is Secretary General of the Community of Democracies, a global intergovernmental coalition of the Governing Council member states that support adherence to the Warsaw Declaration’s common democratic values and standards. Mr. Garrett previously worked for the International Republican Institute for 12 years overseas in Ukraine, Mongolia, and Indonesia, returning to Washington, D.C., in 2005 as director of Middle East programs and then as vice president for global programs.