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The Global Showdown Between Autocrats vs. Democrats Oct 28, 2025

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Michael McFaul the director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He served as the U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2016, and has spent much of his academic career researching political change, great power competition, and American policy toward Russia. His new book is Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America and the New Global Disorder, which is available for purchase from major booksellers.

If you like what you hear, you can get additional content from scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies by following us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube, and by subscribing to our newsletters and updates.

How Democracy Is Doing Around the World Jul 15, 2025

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Larry Diamond is the the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University.

Diamond’s research focuses on global trends affecting freedom and democracy and on U.S. and international policies to defend and advance democracy. His book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency, analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the United States and around the world at this potential “hinge in history,” and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad.

His "Diamond on Democracy" series is available on the Persuasion website.

Sanctions and Security in a Changing Global Order Jul 07, 2025

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Ruth Gibson is a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University’s Department of Health Policy and an affiliate at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). Her research focuses on volatile regions affected by war and sanctions. She also works with the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights on the use of unilateral sanctions.

Lessons from the Latest India-Pakistan Clash Jun 16, 2025

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Arzan Tarapore is a research scholar at the Center in International Security and Cooperation at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. His work focuses on Indian military strategy and regional security issues in the Indo-Pacific. Prior to his scholarly career, he served for 13 years in the Australian Defence Department in various analytic, management, and liaison positions, including operational deployments and a diplomatic posting to the Australian Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Is There a Future for U.S.-Europe Security Partnerships? Apr 28, 2025

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Jim Goldgeier is a research affiliate at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He is also a professor at the School of International Service at American University. He writes extensively on European security, NATO, Russia, and Ukraine.

The Great Retreat of Political Parties Mar 14, 2025

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Didi Kuo is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University. She is a scholar of comparative politics with a focus on democratization, corruption and clientelism, political parties and institutions, and political reform.

Her latest book, The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don’t, is available from Oxford University Press and most major book sellers.

Three Years of War in Ukraine Feb 24, 2025

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Steven Pifer is an affiliate with the Center for International Security and Cooperation, and at The Europe Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, where his research focuses on nuclear arms control, Ukraine, Russia and European security.. In addition to working in the Foreign Service for more than 25 years, Pifer served as a U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine from 1998 to 2000. He is a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Understanding China's 'Upstart' Strategy Feb 19, 2025

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Oriana Skylar Mastro is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, where her research focuses on Chinese military and security policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, war termination, and coercive diplomacy. She is also a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She also serves in the United States Air Force Reserve, where she currently works at the Pentagon as Deputy Director of Reserve Global China Strategy.

Her latest book, Upstart: How China Became a Great Power, is available from Oxford University Press, and many major book retailers.

Vladimir Kara-Murza on the Future of Russian Democracy Dec 13, 2024

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Vladimir Kara-Murza is a Russian politician, author, historian, and former political prisoner. A close colleague of the slain opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, he has served as deputy leader of the People’s Freedom Party and was a candidate for the Russian Parliament. Leading diplomatic efforts on behalf of the opposition, Kara-Murza played a key role in the adoption of Magnitsky sanctions against top Russian officials by the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, Canada, and Australia. For this work he was twice poisoned and left in a coma; a joint media investigation by Bellingcat, The Insider, and Der Spiegel has identified FSB officers behind the attacks.

In April 2022 Kara-Murza was arrested in Moscow for his public denunciation of the invasion of Ukraine and of the war crimes committed by Russian forces. Following a closed-door trial at the Moscow City Court, he was sentenced to 25 years for “high treason” and kept in solitary confinement at a maximum-security prison in Siberia. He was released in August 2024 as part of the largest East-West prisoner exchange since the Cold War negotiated by the U.S. and German governments.

Kara-Murza is a contributing writer at the Washington Post, winning the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for his columns written from prison, and has previously worked for Echo of Moscow, BBC, RTVi, Kommersant, World Affairs, and other media organizations. He has directed three documentary films and is the author or contributor to several books on Russian history and politics.

Kara-Murza currently serves as vice-president at the Free Russia Foundation, as senior advisor at Human Rights First, and as senior fellow at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights. He was the founding chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom and has led successful international efforts to commemorate Nemtsov, including with street designations in Washington D.C. and London. Kara-Murza is a recipient of several awards, including the Council of Europe’s Václav Havel Human Rights Prize, and is an honorary fellow at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He holds an M.A. (Cantab.) in History from Cambridge. He is married, with three children.

Whatever Victory Takes: Ambassador Audra Plepytė on Support for Ukraine Nov 08, 2024

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Audra Plepytė was appointed as Lithuania’s Ambassador to the United States of America and to the United Mexican States in 2021. Before this she was a Lithuanian Permanent Representative to the United Nations where she facilitated several negotiations, led the Group of Friends, and was elected to executive bodies of UN instruments and institutions, including being elected as the President of the Executive Board of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in 2021. As a career diplomat for over 30 years, she has held numerous positions within the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, dealing with bilateral and multilateral issues, heading the European Union Department (2014–2017), the Personnel Department, and International Missions and Conflict Prevention Division.

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