logo
episode-header-image
May 2022
39m 1s

Examining China's Belt and Road Initiati...

Stanford Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
About this episode

In the second installment of our series on policy and infrastructure, Michael Bennon returns to chat with Francis Fukuyama about China's Belt and Road Initiative and projects that have gone south.

Michael Bennon is a Research Scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) for the Global Infrastructure Policy Research Initiative. Michael's research interests include infrastructure policy, project finance, public-private partnerships, and institutional design in the infrastructure sector. Michael also teaches Global Project Finance to graduate students at Stanford. Prior to Stanford, Michael served as a Captain in the US Army and US Army Corps of Engineers for five years, leading Engineer units, managing projects, and planning for infrastructure development in the United States, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Thailand.

Up next
Feb 2024
How Mongolia Became a Democracy, with Elbegdorj Tsakhia
Elbegdorj Tsakhia was president of Mongolia from 2009-2017 and played a key role in the country's transition from Communism to democracy after 1989. In this episode, he talks to Francis Fukuyama about the current challenges to democratic institutions in Mongolia. Former Pres ... Show More
39m 39s
Jan 2024
Year-End Review of Global Democracy with Larry Diamond
Larry Diamond once again joins Francis Fukuyama for a year-end review to discuss the state of global democracy as 2023 draws to a close. Diamond also recounts his Seymour Martin Lipset Lecture, the 20th iteration of the annual lecture series named in honor of the famed political ... Show More
53m 37s
Oct 2023
Homelands: A Conversation with Timothy Garton Ash
Historian and author Timothy Garton Ash joins Francis Fukuyama to talk about his new book, "Homelands:  A Personal History of Europe," covering a period from 1945 to the present. Bookended by World War II and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ash discusses the efforts made by Euro ... Show More
44m 51s
Recommended Episodes
Oct 2019
Larry Diamond, "Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency" (Penguin, 2019)
Larry Diamond joins us this week to talk about the threat China’s model of authoritarian capitalism poses to liberal democracy in the United States and around the world. Economics drives politics, and it’s easy to admire China’s growth while looking past things like increasing su ... Show More
41m 46s
Dec 2022
Mongolian revolution
In 1990, a peaceful revolution brought democracy to Mongolia after almost 70 years of Soviet backed rule. University lecturer Ganbold Davaadorj was one of the lead figures in bringing together the Mongolian people. He went on to be the first deputy prime minister of Mongolia.He s ... Show More
9 m
May 2023
If you don’t have multiracial democracy, you have no democracy at all
The history of American democracy has always been fraught when it comes to race. Yet no matter how elusive it may be, Harvard Kennedy School professors Khalil Gibran Muhammad and Archon Fung say true multiracial democracy not only remains a worthy goal, but achieving it is critic ... Show More
45m 54s
May 2021
Farabi Fakih, "Authoritarian Modernization in Indonesia's Early Independence Period" (Brill, 2020)
There has been a resurgent global interest in the origins and formation of authoritarian regimes as many states around the world drift away from liberal democracy. Indonesia’s experiences with such an authoritarian turn in the 1950s and 1960s offers many lessons from history. In ... Show More
50m 37s
Oct 2001
Democracy
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the origins of democracy. In the Gettysburg Address Abraham Lincoln called it “Government of the people, by the people, for the people”, but the word democracy appears nowhere in the American Constitution; the French Revolution was fought for Liber ... Show More
28m 14s
Mar 2023
Who will run the world in 20 years?
At the end of a friendly meeting in Moscow, President Xi of China told President Putin of Russia that they are driving changes in the world the likes of which have not been seen for a century. Meanwhile this week President Biden kicked off a Summit for Democracy with $690m fundin ... Show More
49m 24s
Nov 2019
How to Reverse the Global Drift Toward Authoritarianism
Autocrats and populists are on the march around the world, including in European countries that were seen until recently as firmly in the democratic camp. The phenomenon, coupled with the deepening of authoritarian tendencies in already-repressive Russia and China, has prompted w ... Show More
31m 11s
Dec 2023
Devrim Adam Yavuz, "Democracy and Capitalism in Turkey: The State, Power, and Big Business" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
While a positive correlation between capitalism and democracy has existed in Western Europe and North America, the example of late-industrializing nations such as Turkey has demonstrated that the two need not always go hand in hand, and sometimes the interests of business coincid ... Show More
1h 1m
Oct 2023
Cent ans de la République turque: «On reproche à Erdogan d’avoir perverti l’héritage d’Atatürk»
La Turquie a cent ans aujourd’hui. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, actuel chef de l’État turc, dirige le pays créé en 1923 par Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, fondateur et premier président de la République. Cent ans après, que reste-t-il de cet héritage alors qu’Erdogan cherche à s’imposer égaleme ... Show More
6m 4s
Feb 2018
Episode 181: Djibouti Democracy Activist Daher Ahmed Farah
Djibouti is the only country in the world that hosts military bases for both the United States and China. The US base, Camp Lemmonier, hosts US special forces and its only a few kilometers from China's only military base outside of Asia. France, the former colonial ruler, also ha ... Show More
42m 33s