Director, Global Design, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning National Democratic Institute, United States
This panel will delve into the story of democratic backsliding as told by academics compared to the story told by practitioners. Spoiler alert: the overarching storyline about global democratic trends is the same across academic and practitioner datasets. Both sides of the academic-practitioner divide generally concur that we are witnessing a global democratic decline. Specifically, a set of countries has experienced concerning democratic erosion, whereas others have experienced democratization stagnation, and a promising few have made significant advancements in key elements of democracy. However, the underpinning factors, sequence of changes, and some country case studies diverge in their accounts. Questions this panel will address include: How does the way in which we tell this story differ? How is it the same? How can both accounts, taken together, contribute toward a joint narrative that offsets some of the biases inherent in academic and practitioner circles? In what ways and through which mechanisms can we take a step closer to bridging the academic-practitioner divide?
