Building a "Democratic Playbook"

Perry World House is pleased to host a special conversation on democratic resilience with Penn Global’s Middle East Distinguished Visiting Professor Dahlia Scheindlin and Perry World House Distinguished Visiting Fellows Zack Beauchamp and Carolina Jiménez Sandoval.

After decades of democratic backsliding in dozens of countries around the world, scholars, journalists, and activists are familiar with the “authoritarian playbook”: from Hungary to Brazil to Israel to Senegal, aspiring authoritarians use similar tactics to try to transform democracies to autocracies.

At the same time, there is far less understanding of what a "democratic playbook" looks like. How do resilient democracies, including societies in war or conflict, push back against authoritarian and populist movements? What institutional, social, and normative practices have been able to slow or even block democratic backsliding? What tactics and strategies on the part of opposition parties, civil society have been effective? How do societies persevere when democratic rights are taken away? Please join us for this important and timely conversation.

Speakers

Zack Beauchamp is a senior correspondent at Vox, where he covers challenges to democracy in the United States and abroad, right-wing populism, and the world of ideas. He has received funding awards from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting to report on democratic decline in Israel and Hungary in the field, and is the author of On The Right, a newsletter on the American conservative movement. He has appeared on a wide range of television and radio networks, including MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, BBC, CBC, ABC (Australia), and Al Jazeera.

Carolina Jiménez Sandoval is the President of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA). She holds over 20 years of experience in research and advocacy for human rights in the Americas and throughout the world. As a leader in the field with extensive experience in the region and Washington, she guides WOLA’s team to achieve strategic impact in social justice and human rights.

Dahlia Scheindlin is a public opinion expert and international political and strategic consultant based in Tel Aviv. Over two decades, she has advised on nine national campaigns in Israel and has worked on campaigns in fifteen other countries and regions. She is recognized for her contributions to discussions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; the peace process; and issues of democracy, human rights, and social justice. She conducts public opinion research related to the Israeli Palestinian conflict, including the Palestinian-Israeli Pulse survey, an ongoing project. She is a regular columnist at Haaretz newspaper (English), focusing on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Israeli politics, and foreign affairs; she is a founding member of +972 Magazine, an independent online magazine jointly run by Palestinian and Israeli journalists, and is a fellow at the Century Foundation. Her most recent book, The Crooked Timber of Democracy: Promise Unfulfilled, published in September 2023, critically analyzes Israel’s path to democracy.