Michael McFaul Says Powerful Autocracies as a Lasting Threat

We don’t need to export ideas about freedom and democracy because those ideas are already really popular around the world.

Michael McFaul

Why do some powerful countries become adversaries while others remain enduring allies? Michael McFaul joins Justin Kempf on Democracy Paradox to discuss his book, Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder. Drawing on his experience as a democracy scholar and former US ambassador to Russia, McFaul explores how political systems and individual leaders shape the exercise of power. Their conversation examines China’s and Russia’s different ambitions, the threat Ukraine’s democratic development poses to Vladimir Putin, and how democratic erosion at home affects America’s influence abroad.

Michael McFaul is the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in Political Science, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, all at Stanford University. He is the author of From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia and Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder.

The Democracy Paradox is made in partnership with the Kellogg Institute of the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame.

Read the full transcript here.

Key Highlights

• Introduction - 0:20
• The Cocktail of Power and Dictatorship - 3:33
• Shades of Gray - 14:50
• Rupture - 28:06
• Democracy at Home - 39:03

Links

Learn more about Michael McFaul.

Learn more about his book Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder (Harper Collins).

Learn more about the Kellogg Institute

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