Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World
We think we know what an autocratic state looks like: There is an all-powerful leader at the top. He controls the police. The police threaten the people with violence. There are evil collaborators, and maybe some brave dissidents. But in the 21st century, there is so much more to it. Nowadays, autocracies work together, from China to Russia to Iran. Corrupt companies and kleptocrats in one country do business with corrupt companies and kleptocrats in another.
Disapproval and sanctions cannot move the autocrats. Even popular opposition movements, from Venezuela to Hong Kong to Moscow, don’t stand a chance. In this urgent treatise, Anne Applebaum calls for the democracies to fight a new kind of threat.
MODERATOR
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Dr. Carmen Rojas is the president and CEO of Marguerite Casey Foundation. Under her leadership, which started in 2020, MCF has granted more than $273 million in funding to dozens of organizations doing the hard work of shifting power to those people who have long been excluded from having it, and launched the prestigious Freedom Scholar award. Prior to MCF, Dr. Rojas was the cofounder and CEO of the Workers Lab, an innovation lab that partners with workers to develop new ideas that help them succeed and flourish.
PANELIST
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After seventeen years as a columnist at The Washington Post, Anne Applebaum became a staff writer at The Atlantic in January 2020. She is the author of many critically acclaimed and award-winning books, including Autocracy, Inc., Twilight of Democracy, Red Famine, Iron Curtain, Between East and West, and Gulag. The latter won the Pulitzer Prize. She divides her time between Poland, where her husband is foreign minister, and Washington, DC.
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Waleed Shahid is a political strategist and director of the Bloc, a strategy and communications hub. He has led advocacy campaigns on issues ranging from human rights to climate change to affordability and economic justice. Previously, Waleed served as the spokesperson for Justice Democrats and as a senior advisor to the campaigns of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jamaal Bowman, and Summer Lee. He was also a staffer and DNC delegate for Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign. In addition to his campaign work, Waleed writes regularly on Substack, serves on the editorial board of The Nation, and frequently provides political analysis for MSNBC, CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other outlets.
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