Democracy in the Time of Autocrats

To register for the 2025 Symposium, please email sfwaforum@outlook.com with names of registrants, days attending and whether paying by check to SFWAF and mailed to: The Santa Fe World Affairs Forum PO Box 31965, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87594. Or to by Paypal or credit card through our website at    https://sfwaf.org/payment 

April 10-11, 2025

Gary A Grappo, US Ambassador (rtd) and currently Distinguished Fellow at the Center for Middle East Studies at the Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver; CEO of Equilibrium Consulting.

Siegfried Hecker, former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory and current professor of practice at Texas A&M University and at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, Monterey, CA;

Dr. Manuel Montoya, PhD, Associate Professor, University of New Mexico, Department of Economics.  A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, he has delivered over 100 lectures on emerging markets and global conflict worldwide and is a recent recipient of UNM’s Presidential Teaching Fellowship, the university’s highest honor.  He has also developed Vessels and Voids, a podcast, which he discusses the link between popular culture and development of global society.

Dr. Jody K Olsen, former Director and Deputy Director of the US Peace Corps and Peace Corps staff member and volunteer who currently co-chairs Women of Peace Corps Committee, chairs the Peace Corps Commemorative Foundation Park Advisory Committee and a member of the Maryland Governor’s Commission for Service and Volunteerism.  Dr Olsen has also authored A Million Miles:  My Peace Corps Journey which was published earlier this year.

Eric Rubin, US Ambassador (rtd) to Bulgaria and former president of the American Foreign Service Association;

We live in stormy times. The heyday following Communism’s end in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe is a faded memory. History has not ended as once prophesized – it has instead moved on to the rise of populist leaders and their autocratic control domestically and internationally. The democratic model which promised so much is under challenge throughout the globe.

Can democracy survive the onslaught of autocrats? Can civil society institutions prove to be democracy’s underlying strength? But will they hold, or will they too falter?

There is deepening concern that autocrats, often initially elected democratically, have used the levers of raw power to dominate mainstream and social media, subvert education, and control elections first to hobble and then effectively destroy democracy turning back the clock by sweeping away progress on desperately needed reforms – from action on climate change to gender and income inequality.

Moreover, do autocracies now seize the opportunity to attack their neighbors? Threaten nuclear holocaust unless they get their way, and destabilize the

international order that kept the peace throughout much of the world since the end of WWII?

How significant is the ripple effect of the seemingly sudden demise of the 40 year old Assad dynasty not just for Syria itself but also for the greater Middle East, Russia, Ukraine, Europe, Africa, Latin America, Asia and beyond? How can a seemingly small pebble tossed into a sea turn into a tsunami of global proportions within a single week?

This symposium will analyze what such political changes, including those in this country, portend for democracy and the future of our world.