SNF Agora Conversations

Election 2020 and its Meaning for Our Democracy: Panel One - How Did We Get Here? Introduction by SNF Agora Institute Inaugural Director Hahrie Han. Our first panel will be a discussion of the current state of the election, results, and insights from Johns Hopkins experts about why people voted the way they did, and what underlying party, racial, economic, or other dynamics contributed to the outcome. Panelists: Steve Teles, Professor of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University Vesla Weaver, Bloomberg Distinguished Associate Professor of Political Science and Sociology, Johns Hopkins University Stephen L. Morgan (moderator), Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University

Election 2020 and its Meaning for Our Democracy: Panel Two - Where Do We Go from Here? Our second panel will be a discussion about what the election means going forward, and what are the next steps our community and country can take to heal divides and forge a future path together. Panelists: Eric Edelman, Roger Hertog Distinguished Practitioner-in-Residence at the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies Nathan Connolly, Herbert Baxter Adams Associate Professor of History, Johns Hopkins University Hahrie Han (moderator), Inaugural Director, SNF Agora Institute & Professor of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University

Race, Polarization, and Life After the Election Part of our "SNF Agora Conversations: Election 2020" series Friday, October 30, 12–12:45 pm Polarization, particularly along racial lines, is one of the key factors of our current election cycle. It’s also a political tactic, and one of the vulnerabilities that has left us open to foreign interference. The country is witnessing a profound racial reckoning, and the November election may put leaders in office who want to unite us around issues of racial justice, but there will be no quick fixes. How do we talk about race, identity, and polarization in a way that doesn’t imagine that one election—or one elected leader—can heal all wounds? How do we hold the conversations that bridge divides and put us on a durable pathway forward, together? Guests: • Alan I. Abramowitz is the Alben W. Barkley Professor of Political Science at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. He has authored or coauthored six books, including most recently, The Great Alignment: Race, Party Transformation and the Rise of Donald Trump (2018). • Theodore “Ted” R. Johnson is a senior fellow and director of the Fellows Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. In this role, he explores the intersection of race, politics, and public policy outcomes as they relate to the systems of democracy and justice. • Ashley Quarcoo is a senior fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program. Her research focus is on threats to democracy, social and political polarization, and comparative approaches toward building social cohesion and democratic renewal.

Young people are fueling so much of the political energy of this moment—from protests for racial justice to mobilizations for climate action—but their passion often does not show up at the polls. While they make up over a fifth of the electorate, they make up only 11-13 percent of the vote. This panel will focus on the role of young people in the upcoming 2020 election. Featuring a researcher, practitioner, and young person, we will explore youth attitudes towards the election and democracy writ-large, and the role they will play in determining the outcome of this election, and our future politics. Guests: Brent J. Cohen is executive director of Generation Progress, a national advocacy and education organization that works with and for young people to promote progressive solutions to key political and social challenges. Prior to joining GP, Cohen served as vice president and interim CEO of JustLeadershipUSA, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to cutting the U.S. correctional population in half by empowering the people most impacted by incarceration to drive policy change. During the Obama administration, he was an appointee and senior policy advisor at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), where he led DOJ’s efforts under the My Brother’s Keeper initiative to advance criminal and juvenile justice reform with a focus on reducing incarceration among kids and young adults. Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg is the director of CIRCLE, where she oversees a wide-ranging portfolio of research and impact projects with its diverse partners and for audience groups. Kawashima-Ginsberg has a background in community psychology and social-emotional learning, which she applies to various projects at CIRCLE. She has a PhD in clinical psychology (child and family subspecialty) from Loyola University Chicago but identifies as a community psychologist. Before coming to CIRCLE, she worked with young people and families at a public high school, and at an emergency room and community health center as a therapist in training. Quill Robinson is vice president of government affairs at the American Conservation Coalition, a nonprofit organization dedicated to mobilizing young people around environmental action through common-sense, market-based, and limited-government ideals. As an undergraduate at the University of Washington in Seattle, Quill interned in the U.S. Senate and conducted research for a local free-market think tank. After graduating in 2018, he studied and worked in Germany for a year as a fellow with the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange for Young Professionals. At ACC, he connects students with their representatives in Washington and works toward turning ACC’s vision into real policy solutions. Scott Warren, moderator, an SNF Agora Visiting Fellow. He is chief executive officer of Generation Citizen, an organization he co-founded at Brown University with fellow student Anna Ninan during their senior year, working with students in the local Providence community. From that starting point in 2008, Warren has grown Generation Citizen to become one of the preeminent civics education organizations in the country, promoting Action Civics across diverse geographies through best-in-class programming and concrete policy change.

The 2020 election is happening amidst unprecedented disagreement about election security, as the coronavirus pandemic challenges traditional in-person voting. On the one hand, the incumbent president claims that postal voting will lead to widespread electoral fraud. On the other, Democrats argue that the U.S. postal system is being deliberately degraded to make it less likely that mailed ballots will be counted in time. Both political scientists who work on voting, and information security specialists, who think systematically about the failure modes, attack surfaces, and threat models of large information systems, can help us understand—and mitigate—the likely failures of large-scale voting systems operating under unexpected circumstances in a context of increased fear over manipulation. Guests: Karen Brinson Bell is the Executive Director of the North Caroline Board of Elections. Bell is a multifaceted leader and certified project manager with more than 13 years of experience implementing and administering voter registration processes and voting systems for federal, state, county, and municipal elections. Bruce Schneier is an internationally renowned security technologist, called a “security guru” by The Economist. He is the author of over one dozen books–including his latest, Click Here to Kill Everybody. Schneier is a fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and a Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Henry Farrell, moderator, is the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute Professor of International Affairs at SAIS, 2019 winner of the Friedrich Schiedel Prize for Politics and Technology, and Editor in Chief of the Monkey Cage blog at the Washington Post.

Populist leaders—including in India, Hungary, Turkey, and Venezuela—tend to win reelection, and are often unleashed in their second term, emboldened by reelection and unconstrained as career civil servants, independent judges, and critics in the media depart. President Trump deploys some of their techniques, including using his platform to divide the country into those who “belong” and those who don’t, and claiming that he alone can fix the country’s problems. But unlike those other leaders, Trump may be on the path to losing his upcoming reelection bid. Why is it that many populists manage to win a second term? And why might Trump’s fate to be different? Guests: • Steven Levitsky is professor of government at Harvard University and co-author (with Daniel Ziblatt) of How Democracies Die. His research focuses on Latin America and the developing world. Levitsky has written for Vox and The New York Times, among other publications. • Sarah Longwell is the president and CEO of Longwell Partners, a full-service communications firm in Washington, D.C. She is also a co-founder of the organization Defending Democracy Together; publisher of The Bulwark; and chief strategist for Republic Affairs, a nonprofit dedicated to strengthening our country’s core values and institutions. • Yascha Mounk, moderator, is an SNF Agora Senior Fellow. He is a political scientist known for his work on the rise of populism and the crisis of liberal democracy. He is a contributing editor at The Atlantic and author of several books, including The People vs Democracy: Why Our Freedom is In Danger and How to Save It.

As we head into the final weeks of the 2020 election season, it feels like our democracy is facing an existential crisis. In their new book, Four Threats: The Recurring Crises of American Democracy, authors Suzanne Mettler and Robert C. Lieberman map out five times in U.S. history that our democracy was in serious crisis, and they identify four characteristics of democratic disruption: political polarization, racism and nativism, economic inequality, and excessive executive power. We’ve survived these threats in the past—but never all at once. What lessons can past crises teach us about navigating a path forward? Guests: Robert Lieberman, Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University Suzanne Mettler, John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions in the Government Department at Cornell University Peter Levine, moderator, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship and Public Affairs in Tufts University’s Jonathan Tisch College of Civic Life, and SNF Agora Visiting Fellow

Women Working Across the Atlantic Part of Virtual Conference Series Remember, Reflect, Recommit: Celebrating Women's Suffrage Despite some high-profile exceptions, including three female secretaries of state, women have historically been underrepresented in U.S. foreign policy and national security. In this discussion, women who have served in high-level roles will share their experiences working to ensure U.S. safety and to foster democracy around the world; the specific role they have played in protecting and promoting women’s rights internationally; and why it’s so important to include women in our country’s efforts abroad. PANELISTS • Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE REPUBLIC OF MALTA Over her 30 year career, Abercrombie-Winstanley has also served as adviser to the Commander of U.S. Cyber Forces, secretary of state’s special assistant for the Middle East and Africa, and in the Defense Department and National Security Council. • Michelle J. Howard RETIRED ADMIRAL OF THE U.S. NAVY Howard served in the Navy for 35 years and was the first African American woman to command a ship, the first woman to become a four-star Admiral, and the first African American woman to reach the rank of three-star and four-stars in the Armed Forces. • Mary Sarotte MARIE-JOSÉE AND HENRY R. KRAVIS DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF HISTORICAL STUDIES, HENRY A. KISSINGER CENTER FOR GLOBAL AFFAIRS, SAIS An expert in the history of international relations, Sarotte is author or editor of five books, including The Collapse: The Accidental Opening of the Berlin Wall and 1989: The Struggle to Create Post-Cold War Europe. • Tamara Cofman Wittes SENIOR FELLOW IN THE CENTER FOR MIDDLE EAST POLICY, BROOKINGS Wittes was deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs from 2009 to 2012, coordinating U.S. policy on democracy and human rights in the Middle East during the Arab uprising. She is co-host of the weekly podcast Rational Security.

Women Working Across the Aisle Part of Virtual Conference Series Remember, Reflect, Recommit: Celebrating Women's Suffrage One necessity of a functioning democracy is the ability for people—citizens, elected officials, and other leaders alike—to talk and work across divides. Women leaders, in turns out, have a history of intentionally reaching out and creating bonds with their female colleagues. This panel will explore the unique perspective women bring to leadership positions, including in how they craft policy, how they create environments where other women can succeed, and how women working together may help to heal our current political divides. PANELISTS • Brooke Lierman MARYLAND STATE DELEGATE Lierman, who has represented Maryland’s 46th Legislative District since 2014, works for a variety of issues that get at the root causes of poverty and inequity in Baltimore, including education, transit, and environmental, and social justice. • Barbara Mikulski FORMER U.S. SENATOR Mikulski served in the U.S. Senate from 1987 to 2017, working to protect the most vulnerable members of society and to advance scientific research and democracy around the world. She is a Homewood Professor of Public Policy at John Hopkins. • Constance Morella FORMER U.S CONGRESSWOMAN AND AMBASSADOR TO THE ORGANIZATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT Representing Maryland’s 8th Congressional district from 1987 to 2007, Morella developed a national reputation as a leading advocate for women, children, and families as well as a promoter of economic growth through science and technology.

Women Leading the Fight for Civil Rights Part of Virtual Conference Series Remember, Reflect, Recommit: Celebrating Women's Suffrage Women regularly outpace men in voter registration and election turnout, giving them an edge at the polls and a loud voice in electoral politics. But even before they had the right to vote, women—including women of color—played a vital role in shaping our democracy. And they continue to do so today, using other forms of civic engagement to effect large-scale social change-from suffragists and civil rights activists fighting for equal rights, to women journalists exposing abuse and corruption. This conversation will explore the many ways that women past and present have used their voices-through writing, agitating, and organizing-to profoundly influence our democracy. PANELISTS • Hahrie Han INAUGURAL DIRECTOR, SNF AGORA INSTITUTE & PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, KSAS Han specializes in the study of organizing, movements, civic engagement, and democracy. Her newest book, Prisms of the People: Power and Organizing in 21st Century America, will be published in fall 2020. • Martha S. Jones SOCIETY OF BLACK ALUMNI PRESIDENTIAL PROFESSOR AND PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND SNF AGORA INSTITUTE Jones is a legal and cultural historian whose work examines how black Americans have shaped the story of American democracy. Her most recent book, Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All, was published in September.

A month before election day, political journalists are struggling to cover a campaign with more than the usual share of falsehood, exaggeration and vitriol. Russian intelligence agencies are meddling once again, with China and Iran following close behind. Social media giants are slow to catch the disinformation or timid about intervening. How can voters sort fact from fiction and make an informed choice? Guests: Astead W. Herndon is a national political reporter for The New York Times. He was previously a Washington-based political reporter and a City Hall reporter for The Boston Globe. Peter Pomerantsev is an SNF Agora Senior Fellow and co-director of the Arena initiative, a research project dedicated to overcoming the challenges of digital-era disinformation and polarization. His latest book, This is Not Propaganda, was released in August 2019 and was a Times Book of the Year. Scott Shane, moderator, is an SNF Agora Visiting Fellow. He was a reporter in The New York Times Washington bureau for 15 years, where he was part of a team that won two Pulitzer Prizes, one for their coverage of Russian hacking, and another for their reporting on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.