Diamond, Ezekwesili, Gaye to speak at SPPG’s democracy summit
Prof. Larry Diamond from Stanford University, United States of America; Founder, School of Politics, Policy and Governance/Chair, #FixPolitics, Dr Obiageli Ezekwesili; and Co-founder, #FixPolitics, Senegal, Adamu Gaye, are the top speakers at the inaugural #FixPolitics Movement’s virtual conference on Friday, February 2, 2024.
The SPPG listeners and guests will be able to benefit from the speakers’ wealth of experience, world-renowned expertise and in-depth analyses on the theme, ‘Power, Performance and Legitimacy: Renewing Global Democratic Momentum’.
Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University.
He also chairs the Hoover Institution Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and is the principal investigator of the Global Digital Policy Incubator, part of Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center. For more than six years, he directed FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, where he now leads its programme on Arab Reform and Democracy.
Between 2017 and 2018, he co-chaired, with Orville Schell, a working group of researchers from Hoover and Asia Society Center on US-China Relations, culminating in the report, ‘China’s Influence and American Interests: Promoting Constructing Vigilance’, which was published by the Hoover Institution Press in 2019. He is the founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy and serves as senior consultant at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy.
Diamond’s research focuses on democratic trends and conditions around the world as well as on policies and reforms to defend and advance democracy. His latest book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition and American Complacency, analyses the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the US and around the world at this potential “hinge in history,” and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad.
According to the organisers, democracy is still the predominant model of government in today’s world. But for how long will it hold this privilege?
“However, heavy shadows now loom over it as it faces significant challenges to the point of being questioned even in places where, not so long ago, it was believed to be firmly established,” the SPPG stated in a press release.
The press release was signed by the Executive Director of #FixPolitics, Dr Anthony Ubani.
It also read, “Although it was a phenomenon adopted late by many countries, the profound erosion it currently faces demands a revisiting. Further, its image continues to tarnish as public and private liberties, which it once carried in many regions, collapse almost everywhere they once flourished.
“The global crisis of democracy is illustrated by the rise of illiberalism and political autocracy, which present themselves as an adverse alternative to its authority. Further, its image continues to tarnish as public and private liberties, which it once carried in many regions, collapse almost everywhere they once flourished.
It is, therefore, not surprising that it no longer enjoys the unanimous support it commanded some 30 years ago.”
The press release added, “It is in the light of this that #FixPolitics Movement and SPPG will be holding the virtual conference, which will be moderated by Ibrahim Diagne and Precious Amayo, to educate the public on what the future holds for democracy in Africa. Participants are expected to complete an online registration form to be accredited.”
The lecture will hold between 6.30pm and 9.00pm(WAT) via Zoom at: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82552395028?pwd=58hQFb0IzTXplZbXX5045aal5afC1C.1
