The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq became missions to rebuild the governments and to promote democracy. It led many to associate the terms of "Democracy support / democracy assistance" with regime change. Dr. Tom Carothers suggests that this bad rap came from security interventions becoming political missions. A better way to understand democracy support is by looking at how organizations respond to political crises such as what is unfolding in Myanmar. In this episode of GDP Tom Carothers explains how democracy support works, where it has worked, and how it could work better. In cooperation with the Parliamentary Centre in Ottawa, we're happy to present this conversation about democracy assistance in international development.

Thomas Carothers is interim president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an independent global think tank based in Washington DC, where he oversees all of the Endowment’s research programs and directs the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program.

He is the founder and director of the Democracy and Rule of Law Program, which analyzes the state of democracy in the world and the efforts by the United States and other countries to promote democracy.

Dr. Carothers is a leading authority on democracy promotion and democratization worldwide as well as an expert on U.S. foreign policy generally. He has worked on democracy-assistance projects for many public and private organizations and carried out extensive field research on democracy-building efforts around the world. In addition, he has broad experience in matters dealing with development aid, human rights, rule of law, and civil society development.

He is the author or editor of eight critically acclaimed books on democracy promotion as well as many articles in prominent journals and newspapers.

His most recent book is Democracies Divided: The Global Challenge of Political Polarization (co-edited with Andrew O’Donohue).

He previously worked as a lawyer at the U.S. Department of State and the law firm of Arnold & Porter. He has been a visiting faculty member at Oxford University, the Central European University, and Johns Hopkins SAIS. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, the London School of Economics, and Harvard College.

"To learn more from Dr. Carothers and other expert speakers, you can attend the Parliamentary Centre's Global Democracy Dialogue's first event on May 12, 1-2:30pm EST. Check out @ParlCent on Twitter for details on how to attend"

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