This essay originally appeared in Korean in the May 2022 issue of Sindonga (New East Asia), Korea’s oldest monthly magazine (established 1931), as the first in a monthly column, "Shin’s Reflections on Korea." Translated by Raymond Ha. A PDF version of this essay is also available to download.

Fourth, the presidential transition was anything but smooth. Trump refused to concede the election and launched a legal challenge against the election results, resulting in an unprecedented, violent takeover of Congress by his most fervent supporters. In South Korea, Lee Jae-Myung, the Democratic Party’s candidate, unequivocally conceded the election before all the votes had been counted. This initially provided some hope and relief that South Korea would not follow the path taken by the United States. However, it was not long before President-elect Yoon’s transition team and the outgoing Moon administration collided over a host of major issues, including relocating the presidential office, providing COVID-19 relief to small business owners, and filling high-level government positions. There is a broad similarity between the United States and South Korea in that both presidential transitions encountered significant obstacles.

Finally, both democratic norms and the spirit of democracy were betrayed under the guise of the rule of law. Trump defied a widely held norm by nominating a Supreme Court justice during an election year, while Moon attempted to fill key government positions during the presidential transition, including seats on the Board of Audit and Inspection’s inspection panel.[3] Responding to public criticism, the Blue House stated that the sitting president has the de jure authority to make appointments to government positions. This is evidently true, but according to democratic norms and past practice, such appointments should wait until the incoming president takes office. At minimum, the incumbent should adequately consult and obtain the agreement of the president-elect before proceeding with “midnight” appointments.

Democratic Decay in South Korea

The chaos and disarray on display during these elections and presidential transitions cannot be dismissed as passing aberrations. They are the result of a democratic decay that has taken place in South Korea and the United States for the past several years, one that should be taken seriously.

The democratic recession in the United States has received serious attention among academics and intellectuals. My colleagues at Stanford University, including Larry Diamond and Francis Fukuyama, have been actively sounding the alarm about worrying trends in the United States. I have also expressed my deep concerns in previous essays about an apparent backsliding of democracy in South Korea. In an April 2020 essay in Sindonga magazine, I warned that South Korea’s democracy was gradually crumbling, in a manner captured by the Korean expression “to become soaked by a light drizzle without noticing.”[4] In an article published in the Journal of Democracy in July of the same year, I characterized the state of South Korea’s democracy as one of “democratic decay.”[5]

Since the late 1980s, Korea has served as an exemplary case of the “third wave” of democratization, but its democracy has been in retreat since the 2010s. The Park Geun-hye administration (2013–17) regressed to an authoritarian mode of governance reminiscent of the Park Chung-Hee era, and she was ousted from power with impeachment. An obsolete model of authoritarianism à la Park Chung-Hee was constantly in tension with Korea’s democratic, pluralized civil society.

These tensions erupted in the Candlelight Protests of 2016 and 2017—a watershed moment in Korea’s political history. These protests demonstrated a recurring feature of Korea’s democratization since the late 1980s: a confrontation between the state and civil society. Instead of political parties competing with each other, civil society is pitted against the “state,” which includes political parties. Through the Candlelight Protests, Korea’s civil society rejected and ousted an authoritarian state once again.

The Moon Jae-In administration built its political legitimacy on these protests by calling itself the “candlelight government,” but it failed to faithfully uphold the demands of the protestors and presided over a period of democratic decay in South Korea. The regressive tendencies on display during this past election and the presidential transition should be understood in their wider historical context. Specifically, it is vital to consider three issues that have precipitated democratic decay in South Korea.[6]

Sign up for APARC newsletters to receive our experts' analysis and commentary.

Democracy without Liberalism

The first is illiberalism. As I note in Ethnic Nationalism in Korea: Genealogy, Politics, and Legacy (2006), Korea was imbued with an extreme version of ethnic nationalism as it experienced colonial rule and national division on its path to modernity. Ethnic nationalism elevates the collective over the individual, unity over diversity. It was thus difficult for liberalism, with its emphasis on individual rights and autonomy, to take root in Korea. The anti-communism of South Korea’s past authoritarian regimes and the chauvinistic anti-Japanese ideology of the Moon Jae-In administration both draw heavily from ethnic nationalism, which remains an incredibly powerful and attractive ideology to this day.

After the late 1980s, South Korea undoubtedly attained the status of a de jure democracy, with the requisite legal foundations. It is highly unlikely that it will regress to the authoritarianism of its past. Nonetheless, it is unclear whether liberal democracy has been firmly established in South Korea. As political scientist Yascha Mounk points out in The People vs. Democracy (2018), having the rule of law does not necessarily imply the existence of a liberal democracy.

A liberal democracy cannot be sustained merely upon the procedural legitimacy of the rule of law. Democratic norms and the spirit of democracy must also be honored. It is important to heed the warning of Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, both professors of political science at Harvard University, in their book How Democracies Die (2019): even without a revolution or a coup, democracy can gradually wither away if elected leaders violate democratic norms or the spirit of democracy.

South Korea and the United States are no exception. When the core democratic norms of mutual tolerance and forbearance are not respected, the procedural formalities of the rule of law alone cannot protect liberal democracy. Democratic decay is all but inevitable if a politics of hate and confrontation overwhelms toleration and compromise, and if the exercise of power becomes unbalanced and veers toward rampant abuse.

South Korea has unfortunately experienced democratic decay at the hands of a generation of politicians who, in their younger days, participated in pro-democracy activism. Ahn Byong-Jin, a noted progressive academic and a professor of political science at Kyunghee University, observes that the central figures of the Moon administration contributed to democratization by taking part in the struggle against authoritarianism, but they had no opportunities to learn or experience liberal values. In other words, they failed to internalize liberal democratic norms and values, such as individual freedoms and rights, mutual respect, and tolerance. They often conflated majoritarianism with democracy.

Choi Jang-Jip, professor emeritus at Korea University and a renowned scholar of Korean democracy, harshly criticized the generation of former pro-democracy activists for adopting a confrontational and divisive approach to politics even after assuming power. These politicians did not view the opposition as a partner in governing the country, instead treating it as an enemy that must be defeated at all costs. The progressive elements of South Korea’s civil society, which played a critical role in democratization, lost sight of their duty to act as a watchdog over government power and became a pipeline to political office. Former civil society activists filled key positions in the Blue House and the Cabinet. The policies they implemented—real estate regulations, income-led growth, and the phasing out of nuclear power—resulted in abysmal failures. Even so, they were intoxicated by an outmoded sense of moral superiority and thought of themselves as the “candlelight government,” while regarding the PPP and other opponents as an “old evil.” Far from upgrading South Korea’s democracy, they degraded it. Korean politics has descended into a sordid, partisan battle between good and evil. The extreme mudslinging on display during the recent presidential election revealed the consequences of this style of politics all too clearly.

The populist turn in Korea’s politics is another important factor contributing to democratic decay. The populism that is erupting across the world in the 21st century differs from previous forms of populism, which simply sought to appeal to public sentiment. Jan-Werner Müller, a political theorist at Princeton University, characterizes 21st-century populism as consisting of anti-elitism and anti-pluralism. Anti-elitism attacks the elite, and anti-pluralism rejects coexistence with different political actors. The former fosters hatred toward party politics, and the latter leads to the demonization of opposing political forces. On top of this, advances in information technology and the development of social media platforms have enabled a culture of direct communication between populist leaders and their supporters, which is another defining characteristic of 21st-century populism. In this sense, Trumpism in the United States is the archetype of populism in the 21st century.

The Legacy of “Eradicating Deep-rooted Evils”

The Moon administration’s populist character was most clearly revealed in its campaign to “eradicate deep-rooted evils.” These “deep-rooted evils” refer to the ancien régime. Any obsolete order must, of course, be discarded. Those who engage in corruption or commit crimes must be punished. However, the boundary between the old order and the new order is ambiguous in South Korea’s politics and civil society.

The campaign to uproot the ancien régime should have been guided by what Jürgen Habermas labeled “self-limitation.” In other words, tasks that were essential to dismantling the old order should have been completed as promptly as possible, so that efforts could then be directed toward pursuing a new form of societal unity and integration. Unfortunately, the Moon administration’s all-encompassing campaign to eradicate the ancien régime lasted far too long, constraining Korea’s pluralistic liberal democracy in the process.

This year’s presidential election took place within this political and social milieu. As noted by sociologist Kim Ho-Ki of Yonsei University, a progressive academic, this election was the first presidential election since democratization in 1987 that was framed as a battle between old and new elites, no longer a struggle between pro-democratic and authoritarian political forces. Instead of the traditional archetype of a democratic leader who values compromise and cooperation, there was a clear preference for unrelenting “strongmen” from the outside who were not accustomed to the political logic of Yeouido and would forcefully battle anti-elite forces.[7]

This type of leader values decisiveness and forceful action over deliberation and the ability to foster compromise. It is not a coincidence that Lee and Yoon were chosen as the respective candidates of the ruling and leading opposition parties. They persistently attacked each other as the “old” elite or the “new” elite, rejecting toleration and coexistence.

Political Fandoms on the Left, Gender Politics on the Right

Following the global financial crisis of 2008, the issue of inequality—particularly in the form of deepening economic polarization—was widely discussed around the world. Both the IMF and the OECD stressed the importance of reducing economic polarization. However, the issue of political polarization also merits close attention. Countries across the world are suffering from this malaise, which is inextricably tied to economic polarization. South Korea is part of this global trend. The dearth of liberal values and the emergence of populism, as noted above, amplified political polarization. In 2019, there were rallies by the Moon-ppa, ardent supporters of President Moon, near the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office in Seocho-dong. At the same time, there were anti-Moon rallies by the so-called Taegukgi brigade at Gwanghwamun Plaza in the heart of Seoul, named after the national flag they wave at their rallies. The extreme confrontation exemplified by these competing rallies showed that political polarization was taking root as South Korea’s new normal.

As mutual distrust between individuals and groups deepened, a partisan, Manichean logic of good and evil took hold. The symptoms of democratic decay became noticeable in many corners of Korean society. Pluralistic norms, such as agreeing to disagree and seeking commonalities while acknowledging differences, vanished. There was only “us” and “them.” The anti-pluralism and anti-elitism inherent in illiberalism and populism transform politics into a ruthless battle for power between opposing camps, each defined by common beliefs and sentiments. Because South Korea has a powerful presidency fused with a winner-takes-all electoral system, presidential elections are inevitably framed as a contest between those seeking to retain power and those seeking to reclaim it at all costs.

This partisan war manifests as a culture war, as conceptualized by James Hunter, or identity politics, as described by Francis Fukuyama. Hunter argued that American society was split into two irreconcilable camps based on “hot-button” issues such as abortion, separation of church and state, homosexuality, and gun rights. A culture war may arise for many reasons, and its particular form can differ between countries. The form and intensity of a culture war are determined by the nature of socioeconomic policies aimed at addressing inequality, the extent of societal and cultural toleration for minorities, and whether political institutions foster majoritarian or consensus-based politics.

A culture war gains explosive power when it is channeled into identity politics. Identity refers to the thoughts, emotions, and ideologies that provide an individual with a sense of self. Traditional forms of institutionalized politics are being replaced by identity politics, which expresses resentment and resistance toward a status quo that disregards or rejects elements of one’s identity, be it religion, race, nation, or gender. This trend has been especially pronounced in the 21st century.

The appearance of political fandoms, in which supporters only pay attention to information that reinforces their existing attitudes, cannot be adequately understood in isolation from the emergence of identity politics. In today’s post-truth era, subjective beliefs matter more than objective facts. The subjective beliefs that underlie political and cultural identities influence the thoughts and actions of individual citizens at least as much as economic and material interests.

As South Korea’s culture war grows ever more intense, identity politics is also becoming increasingly prominent. In this vein, the appearance of political fandoms among progressives and the deployment of gender politics among conservatives is far from surprising. On the left, an online community called Nosamo (“People Who Love Roh Moo-Hyun”) in the early 2000s gave way to the Moon-ppa. This year’s election has given rise to the so-called gae-ddal (“daughters for reform”), referring to women in their 20s and 30s who have thrown their support behind the Democratic Party. There is a parallel genealogy on the right. An association called the Parksamo (“People Who Love Park Geun-Hye”) was followed by the Taegukgi brigade. Most recently, yidaenam (“men in their 20s”) coalesced as a political force during this year’s election. As political “tribes” on both ends of the political spectrum continue to surface in new forms, the space for tolerance, coexistence, and compromise grows narrower. The tantalizing 0.73 percent margin of victory in the presidential election is a stark reflection of South Korea’s polarized society. It was as if the country were split into two different nations, one seeking to safeguard KDP rule and the other intent on stopping it. The deepening of political polarization does not bode well for South Korea’s democracy.

When it came to power five years ago, the Moon administration declared that “opportunities will be equal, the process will be fair, and the result will be just,” vowing to “create a country that no one has ever experienced before.” They were wrong about the first part, but tragically correct about the latter. South Korea has never experienced anything like this before. Its democracy, which was becoming gradually soaked by a light drizzle, has been drenched in a heavy downpour over the course of this year’s presidential election. A devastating typhoon may lie ahead.

Yoon Must Break the Mold of a Strongman

Biden entered office with the Democratic Party in control of the House and the Senate, but Yoon faces strong political headwinds from the outset. The KDP commands an overwhelming majority of 171 among 300 seats in the National Assembly.[8] Yoon will also have to contend with the “street politics” of progressive civil society organizations and labor unions. Biden has decades of political experience, but Yoon’s political ability remains unproven. At the very least, foreign perceptions of Yoon as a political leader do not seem to be especially favorable. He is seen as a hard-headed prosecutor who opposes feminism and holds anti-China attitudes. This is a far cry from the mold of a traditional liberal democratic leader, typified by politicians such as Biden. The image of a strongman may have helped Yoon become the conservative party’s candidate, but it would be unwise to stay on this path as a leader who must govern a democratic society. Yoon must cultivate a different image if he is to play an active role on the international stage, and there must be corresponding policy measures to support this effort.

Yoon does not yet have a firm base of political support, and he is still a largely unknown figure outside of South Korea. He has undergone a whirlwind transformation into a politician after entering politics last summer, but he still seems better suited to play the role of a prosecutor general.

Yoon gained popularity as a man of integrity, a prosecutor unrelenting in his efforts to root out corruption and unyielding to political pressures. It was this reputation that propelled him to the presidency. In a pluralized, democratic society, however, there are bound to be repercussions if the highest elected leader decides to simply cut the Gordian knot every time. For example, consider the issue of relocating the presidential office. Yoon and his transition team could arguably have made greater efforts to garner public support and obtain adequate assistance from the current administration, even if they were displeased with the uncooperative attitude of President Moon’s Blue House. Governing the country in the face of powerful resistance from a super-majority opposition party and a dense network of progressive civil society organizations will require deft political leadership. It will be necessary to carefully consider the full range of public opinion, lead political negotiations, mediate and compromise between different views, and exercise restraint in wielding power. Prosecutors are appointed as public servants, but presidents are elected by the people. They each have different roles and responsibilities.

To avoid repeating the errors of its predecessor, the Yoon administration must go beyond emphasizing a principled approach and abiding by the law. The rule of law is necessary for democracy, but it is not sufficient. While building a firm foundation on the rule of law, there must also be a conscientious effort to reflect on and staunchly defend democratic norms, such as tolerance for the other side and forbearance in the exercise of power. Yoon and his administration must resist the temptation to label the opposition as evil and launch yet another campaign to eradicate deep-rooted evils. They must show patience in persuading the opposition party and the people, aiming to pursue commonalities while acknowledging differences. There are already concerns in some quarters that the Yoon administration will create “a republic of prosecutors,” just as the Moon administration formed “a republic of former pro-democracy activists.” If these fears are realized, South Korea’s democracy will regress even further. Yoon’s administration must learn from the failures of the Moon presidency.

It is also critical for Yoon to shed the perception of being anti-feminist as soon as possible. During the campaign, Yoon’s campaign devised a gender-based electoral strategy aimed at earning the votes of young men, promising to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family in one of its high-profile campaign pledges. This strategy backfired. Yoon lost support among female voters, and it only reinforced his image as an anti-feminist. Although Yoon and his advisors may insist that this image was created entirely by the KDP and the left-wing press, foreign observers would disagree. In its first article following the presidential election, Agence France-Presse labeled President-elect Yoon as “anti-feminist political novice.” Many other foreign news agencies took a similar view in their coverage. Feminism and gender identity are highly sensitive issues on the global stage. If his image as an anti-feminist becomes further solidified, this will impose significant constraints on Yoon’s ability to act as a global leader.

Finally, Yoon must abandon his previous appeals to chauvinistic anti-China sentiment. It was not prudent to appeal to anti-China sentiment following the hanbok controversy at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics[9] or to take the hardline stance of vowing to deploy more THAAD anti-missile batteries if elected. Such remarks are reminiscent of Roh Moo-Hyun’s appeals to anti-U.S. sentiment ahead of the 2002 presidential election. As a result, the Roh administration faced difficulties in managing the relationship with the United States early on in its term. The Yoon administration must resist the temptation to exploit anti-China sentiment for political gain in the same way that the Moon administration used the anti-Japan rhetoric of “traitors in our midst.” The relationship between Seoul and Tokyo reached a nadir during the Moon presidency. Yoon must learn from these mistakes. Even though public opinion is important and Beijing may engage in wrongful actions, his administration must maintain a calm, far-sighted approach in support of South Korea’s national interests. Yoon’s emphasis on pragmatism must also extend to foreign policy and national security issues.

Keeping a Close Eye on South Korea

In 2020, President-elect Biden was faced with the task of healing a fragmented society and bridging political divides. The same is true of President-elect Yoon in South Korea today, but serious conflicts with the Moon administration during the presidential transition have already dashed hopes for a honeymoon period. Previous South Korean presidents typically entered office with around a 70 percent approval rating, but Yoon is failing to reach 50 percent even before he begins his term.

This brings to mind the challenging situation that Biden is currently mired in. He succeeded in preventing Trump’s re-election, but he has struggled in the face of formidable political obstacles and policy challenges. Biden’s approval ratings hover at 40 percent, which is the lowest of any president two years into the term except Trump. Unless the situation improves, the Democratic Party is likely to suffer a defeat in the November midterm elections. There are growing concerns that Biden’s failures could enable Trump to return to the White House for a second term. Meanwhile, the election of Yoon Suk-Yeol has resulted in a transfer of power, but it does not necessarily represent a victory for South Korea’s conservatives. The failure of the Yoon administration could lead to a progressive resurgence. In many ways, Yoon is faced with a task of historic proportions.

This year’s presidential election in South Korea was closely watched by the foreign press. In addition to U.S. news media, I conducted interviews about the election with prominent centrist and progressive media outlets in Europe, including Der Spiegel in Germany, the New Statesman and The Guardian in the UK, and a Swedish public broadcasting channel, all of which published special reports about South Korea’s election. These outlets, which have a powerful influence on shaping public discourse in the West, were keen on understanding how the victory of a prosecutor general–turned-opposition candidate would affect the future of South Korea’s democracy. As the West grapples with its own crisis of democracy, there is heightened interest in whether South Korea—once an exemplar of democracy in East Asia—will be able to repair its democracy.

South Korea’s democracy was being gradually soaked by a light drizzle, which turned into a heavy downpour over the course of the election and the presidential transition. Foreign media outlets and intellectuals will keep a close eye to see whether Yoon Suk-Yeol will be able to save South Korea’s democracy from the impending thunderstorm and undo the damage that has already been inflicted.

This essay is the first in a series of forthcoming monthly commentaries in Sindonga magazine that will be translated into English, so as to reach a wider audience. It is my sincere hope that these essays will contribute to a constructive discussion and debate among intellectuals, both at home and abroad, about the issues that lie ahead for South Korea’s democracy.

Obama told a packed audience of more than 600 people in CEMEX auditorium – as well as more than 250,000 viewers tuning in online – that everyone is part of the solution to make democracy stronger in the digital age and that all of us – from technology companies and their employees to students and ordinary citizens – must work together to adapt old institutions and values to a new era of information. “If we do nothing, I’m convinced the trends that we’re seeing will get worse,” he said.

Introducing the former president was Michael McFaul, director at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and U.S. ambassador to Russia under Obama, and Stanford alum and Obama Foundation fellow, Tiana Epps-Johnson, BA ’08.

Epps-Johnson, who is the founder and executive director of the Center for Tech and Civic Life, recalled her time answering calls to an election protection hotline during the 2006 midterm election. She said the experience taught her an important lesson, which was that “the overall health of our democracy, whether we have a voting process that is fair and trustworthy, is more important than any one election outcome.”

Stanford freshman Evan Jackson said afterward that Obama’s speech resonated with him. “I use social media a lot, every day, and I’m always seeing all the fake news that can be spread easily. And I do understand that when you have controversy attached to what you’re saying, it can reach larger crowds,” Jackson said. “So if we do find a way to better contain the controversy and the fake news, it can definitely help our democracy stay powerful for our nation.”

The Promise and Perils Technology Poses to Democracy

In his keynote, Obama reflected on how technology has transformed the way people create and consume media. Digital and social media companies have upended traditional media – from local newspapers to broadcast television, as well as the role these outlets played in society at large.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the American public tuned in to one of three major networks, and while media from those earlier eras had their own set of problems – such as excluding women and people of color – they did provide people with a shared culture, Obama said.

Moreover, these media institutions, with established journalistic best practices for accuracy and accountability, also provided people with similar information: “When it came to the news, at least, citizens across the political spectrum tended to operate using a shared set of facts – what they saw or what they heard from Walter Cronkite or David Brinkley.”

Fast forward to today, where everyone has access to individualized news feeds that are fed by algorithms that reward the loudest and angriest voices (and which technology companies profit from). “You have the sheer proliferation of content, and the splintering of information and audiences,” Obama observed. “That’s made democracy more complicated.”

Facts are competing with opinions, conspiracy theories, and fiction. “For more and more of us, search and social media platforms aren’t just our window into the internet. They serve as our primary source of news and information,” Obama said. “No one tells us that the window is blurred, subject to unseen distortions, and subtle manipulations.”

The splintering of news sources has also made all of us more prone to what psychologists call “confirmation bias,” Obama said. “Inside our personal information bubbles, our assumptions, our blind spots, our prejudices aren’t challenged, they are reinforced and naturally, we’re more likely to react negatively to those consuming different facts and opinions – all of which deepens existing racial and religious and cultural divides.”

But the problem is not just that our brains can’t keep up with the growing amount of information online, Obama argued. “They’re also the result of very specific choices made by the companies that have come to dominate the internet generally, and social media platforms in particular.”

The former president also made clear that he did not think technology was to blame for many of our social ills. Racism, sexism, and misogyny, all predate the internet, but technology has helped amplify them.

“Solving the disinformation problem won’t cure all that ails our democracies or tears at the fabric of our world, but it can help tamp down divisions and let us rebuild the trust and solidarity needed to make our democracy stronger,” Obama said.

He gave examples of how social media has fueled violence and extremism around the world. For example, leaders from countries such as Russia to China, Hungary, the Philippines, and Brazil have harnessed social media platforms to manipulate their populations. “Autocrats like Putin have used these platforms as a strategic weapon against democratic countries that they consider a threat,” Obama said.

He also called out emerging technologies such as AI for their potential to sow further discord online. “I’ve already seen demonstrations of deep fake technology that show what looks like me on a screen, saying stuff I did not say. It’s a strange experience people,” Obama said. “Without some standards, implications of this technology – for our elections, for our legal system, for our democracy, for rules of evidence, for our entire social order – are frightening and profound.”

‘Regulation Has to Be Part of the Answer’

Obama discussed potential solutions for addressing some of the problems he viewed as contributing to a backsliding of democracy in the second half of his talk.

In an apt metaphor for a speech delivered in Silicon Valley, Obama compared the U.S. Constitution to software for running society. It had “a really innovative design,” Obama said, but also significant bugs. “Slavery. You can discriminate against entire classes of people. Women couldn’t vote. Even white men without property couldn’t vote, couldn’t participate, weren’t part of ‘We the People.’”

The amendments to the Constitution were akin to software patches, the former president said, that allowed us to “continue to perfect our union.”

Similarly, governments and technology companies should be willing to introduce changes aimed at improving civil discourse online and reducing the amount of disinformation on the internet, Obama said.

“The internet is a tool. Social media is a tool. At the end of the day, tools don’t control us. We control them. And we can remake them. It’s up to each of us to decide what we value and then use the tools we’ve been given to advance those values,” he said.

The former president put forth various solutions for combating online disinformation, including regulation, which many tech companies fiercely oppose.

“Here in the United States, we have a long history of regulating new technologies in the name of public safety, from cars and airplanes to prescription drugs to appliances,” Obama said. “And while companies initially always complain that the rules are going to stifle innovation and destroy the industry, the truth is that a good regulatory environment usually ends up spurring innovation, because it raises the bar on safety and quality. And it turns out that innovation can meet that higher bar.”

In particular, Obama urged policymakers to rethink Section 230, enacted as part of the United States Communications Decency Act in 1996, which ​​stipulates that generally, online platforms cannot be held liable for content that other people post on their website.

But technology has changed dramatically over the past two decades since Section 230 was enacted, Obama said. “These platforms are not like the old phone company.”

He added: “In some cases, industry standards may replace or substitute for regulation, but regulation has to be part of the answer.”

Obama also urged technology companies to be more transparent in how they operate and “at minimum” should share with researchers and regulators how some of their products and services are designed so there is some accountability.

The responsibility also lies with ordinary citizens, the former president said. “We have to take it upon ourselves to become better consumers of news – looking at sources, thinking before we share, and teaching our kids to become critical thinkers who know how to evaluate sources and separate opinion from fact.”

Obama warned that if the U.S. does not act on these issues, it risks being eclipsed in this arena by other countries. “As the world’s leading democracy, we have to set a better example. We should be able to lead on these discussions internationally, not [be] in the rear. Right now, Europe is forging ahead with some of the most sweeping legislation in years to regulate the abuses that are seen in big tech companies,” Obama said. “Their approach may not be exactly right for the United States, but it points to the need for us to coordinate with other democracies. We need to find our voice in this global conversation.”

 

While China now innovates in many of these technologies, it also continues to acquire Western intellectual property through a coordinated assault that represents what former NSA Director General Keith Alexander calls “the greatest transfer of wealth in human history.” And every technological innovation that China can possibly militarize it does, through a strategy of “civil-military fusion.” With this accumulated power, Beijing plans to force Asia’s most vibrant liberal democracy, Taiwan, to “reunify with the motherland.” It also seeks to establish unilateral Chinese control over the resources and sea lanes of the South China Sea, and then gradually to push the United States out of Asia.

Russia’s aggression must be understood in this broader context of authoritarian coordination and ambition, challenging the values and norms of the liberal international order, compromising the societal (and where possible, governmental) institutions of rival political systems, and portraying Western democracies — and therefore, really, democracy itself — as weak, decadent, ineffectual, and irresolute. In this telling, the democracies of Europe, Asia, and North America — especially the United States — are too commercially driven, too culturally fractured, too riven by internal and alliance divisions, too weak and effeminate, to put up much of a fight.

At the same time, China, Russia, and other autocracies have been denouncing the geopolitical arrogance of the world’s democracies and confidently declaring an end to the era in which democracies could “intervene in the internal affairs of other countries” by raising uncomfortable questions about human rights. 

On the eve of the Beijing Winter Olympics on February 4, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping issued a joint statement denouncing Western alliances and declaring that there were no limits to the strategic partnership between their two countries. Many analysts believe Putin told Xi then that he was about to invade Ukraine and that Xi probably said, okay, just wait till the Olympics are over and make it quick. 

Four days after Xi’s closing Olympics fireworks display, Putin launched his own fireworks by invading Ukraine. It has been anything but successful or quick. Xi cannot possibly be pleased by the bloody mess that Putin has made of this, which helps to explain why China twice abstained in crucial UN votes condemning the Russian invasion, rather than join the short list of countries that stood squarely with Russia in voting no: Belarus, Eritrea, Syria, and North Korea. Xi must think that Putin’s shockingly inept and wantonly cruel invasion is giving authoritarianism a bad name.

It is also costing China a lot of money in global trade at a time when China’s economic growth rate has slowed dramatically. And it’s undermining the narrative China was trying to push that the autocracies know what they are doing and represent the wave of the future. Moreover, this is coming at a moment when one of China’s two most important cities, Shanghai, is gripped by panic and a substantial lockdown over the Covid-19 virus, which Xi’s regime has no other means to control except lockdown, because it has refused to admit that the vaccines it developed are largely ineffective against the current strains of Covid, and instead import the vaccines that work.

All of this explains why this moment could represent a possible hinge in history as significant as the 1989-91 period that ended the Cold War. 2021 marked the fifteenth consecutive year of a deepening democratic recession. In both the older democracies of the West and the newer ones of the global South and East, the reputation of democracy has taken a beating. A narrative has been gathering that democracies are corrupt and worn out, lacking in energy, purpose, capacity, and self-confidence. And this has been fed by real-world developments, including the reckless and incompetent US invasion of Iraq, the 2008 financial crisis, steadily rising levels of economic inequality, widespread job losses, economic insecurity and status anxiety due to globalization and technological change, and the challenges of managing cultural diversity amid expanding immigration. These factors have fed or at least facilitated the rise of populist challengers to liberal democracy and the decay of democratic norms and institutions across many democracies — rich, poor, and middle-income. 

The Germans have a word for these trends in the global narrative:  “zeitgeist” — the spirit of the times, or the dominant mood and beliefs of a historical era. In the roughly 75 years since WWII, we have seen five historical periods, each with their own dominant mood. From the mid-1940s to the early 60s, the mood had a strong pro-democracy flavor that went with decolonization. It gave way in the mid-1960s to post-colonial military and executive coups, the polarization and waste of the Vietnam War, and a swing back to realism, with its readiness to embrace dictatorships that took “our side” in the Cold War. Then, third, came a swing back to democracy in southern Europe, Latin America, and East Asia, and a new wave of democracy, from the mid-1970s to around 1990. That period of expanding democracy was then supercharged by a decisively pro-democratic zeitgeist from 1990 to 2005, the so-called unipolar moment in which one liberal democracy, the U.S., predominated. That period ended in the Iraq debacle, and for the last 15 years, we have been in the tightening grip of a democratic recession and a nascent authoritarian zeitgeist. 

Could Russia’s criminal, blundering invasion of Ukraine launch a new wave of democratic progress and a liberal and anti-authoritarian zeitgeist? It could, but it will require the following things.

First, Russia must fail in its bid to conquer and extinguish Ukraine. The United States and NATO must do everything possible, and much more than we are doing now, to arm and assist Ukraine militarily, and to punish Russia financially and economically.

Second, we must wage a more effective and comprehensive battle of information and ideas to expose Russia’s mendacity and criminality and to document its war crimes, not only before the court of public opinion, but in ways that reach individual Russians directly and creatively. We need an intense campaign of technological innovation to circumvent authoritarian censorship and empower Russian, Chinese, and other sources that are trying to report the truth about what is happening and to promote critical thinking and the values of the open society. In general, we need to promote democratic narratives and values much more imaginatively and resourcefully. The message of the Russian debacle in Ukraine is an old one and should not be difficult to tell: autocracies are corrupt and prone to massive policy failures precisely because they suppress scrutiny, independent information, and policy debate. Democracies may not be the swiftest decision makers, but they are over time the most reliable and resilient performers.

Third, we must ensure that we perform more effectively as democracies, and with greater coordination among democracies, to meet the challenges of developing and harnessing new technologies, creating new jobs, and reducing social and economic inequalities.

Fourth, to win the technological race, for example in semiconductors, artificial intelligence, biomedicine, and many other fields of science, engineering, and production, we must open our doors more widely to the best talent from all over, including China. We URGENTLY need immigration reform to facilitate this. As our late colleague George Shultz said:  Admit the best talent from all over the world to our graduate programs in science and engineering, and then staple green cards to their diplomas.

Finally, we have to reform and defend our democracy in the United States so that it can function effectively to address our major domestic and international challenges, and so that American democracy can once again be seen as a model worth emulating. We cannot do this without reforming the current electoral system of "first-past-the-post" voting and low-turnout party primaries, which has become a kind of death spiral of political polarization, distrust, and defection from democratic norms.

I believe we entered a new historical era on Feb 24. What the Ukrainian people have suffered already in these seven weeks has been horrific, and it will get worse. But the courage and tenacity of their struggle should renew our commitment not only to them but also to ourselves—that freedom is worth fighting for, and that democracy, with all its faults, remains the best form of government.

FSI scholars are now engaged with their network of Ukrainian alums, checking in on their safety and plans, while also advocating on behalf of a democratic Ukraine in major media outlets. McFaul has given Congressional testimony, written op-eds, been involved in back-channel discussions with senior administration officials, and even appeared on the Stephen Colbert show to discuss the issue. He is the co-editor of "Revolution in Orange," a 2006 book that examines Ukraine’s democratic breakthroughs.

Francis Fukuyama, the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow and former director of FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), has recently published articles on the strategic situation in Ukraine while sharing everyone’s deep concerns for Ukrainians under assault.

“We’ve been trying to help them in any way we can,” he said.

To deepen FSI’s expertise on Ukraine, the institute has established a Director’s Fund for Ukraine Initiatives, which will provide discretionary support for research, teaching, and policy outreach on Ukraine.

From Activism to Political Leadership

Well before the Russian invasion, FSI was already helping Ukraine cultivate its democracy.

“Our theory of change,” Fukuyama said, “is that we understand we can’t do things like provide policy advice very well to a country that’s so far away from us. But what we can do is try to help train a new generation of leaders who will inherit power, and in the near future, hopefully lead the country to a better outcome as we keep in touch with and support them.”

Toward this, the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program provides a 10-month academic training fellowship in support of three mid-career practitioners working actively as policy-makers, legal professionals, entrepreneurs and leaders of civil society organizations in Ukraine.
 

Alums of this and other programs include Artem Romaniukov, a civil society activist now in Ukraine who trained in the Emerging Leaders Program during 2019-20; the former Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk, a visiting scholar in 2021; and Nataliya Gumenyuk, a Draper Hills alum from 2018 and Ukrainian journalist who’s now writing about the war, including social media posts in real-time – “I’m reporting on the ground in Kyiv on what I see with my own eyes,” she wrote.

Oleksandra “Sasha” Ustinova, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and alum of the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program (2018-19), is lobbying members of Congress. “We are still negotiating for help. And I tell them that every day of negotiations is thousands of lives,” Ustinova told the Washington Post. She was in Washington, D.C., when Russia invaded Ukraine, and has been unable to return.

Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, a Ukrainian rock musician who also holds a degree in theoretical physics, was a visiting scholar in 2017-18. After his time at Stanford he created a new political party, Holos, in his country. More recently, after the Russians bombed a children’s and maternity ward in Mariupol, he posted a video on Twitter on his observations while assisting on the scene there. In another video, Vakarchuk is seen singing to Ukrainians who are sheltering in the subways. He has traveled to major cities during the conflict — including badly targeted ones such as Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, and Zaporizhzhya — raising morale among troops and civilians.

Changes may be afoot for the Emerging Leaders Program. Fukuyama said it may not be viable for next year, because Ukrainian men are currently not allowed to leave the country. “One thing we’ve been thinking of is possibly converting that program into a more research-oriented program on Ukraine,” he said.

Fukuyama said that for the Leadership Academy for Development, rather than bringing people to campus, FSI sends faculty to countries like Ukraine to deliver one-week intensive training sessions to classes of 25. He says the academy has been held in Ukraine a half dozen or so times, including in its capital of Kyiv, with an estimated 150-200 participants.

Making the transition from civil society into actual politics is one of the key messages in the 17-year-old Draper Hills Summer Fellows program, Fukuyama noted. An alumna, Svitlana Zalishchuk (’11), won a seat in Ukraine’s parliament, along with alumni Serhiy Leshchenko (’13) and Mustafa Nayyem (’14). Before joining government, Zalishchuk led a Ukrainian NGO focused on freedom of speech. After serving in parliament, all three of these alums are now working directly to defeat Putin’s invading army: Leshchenko is an aide to Zelenskyy’s chief of staff; Nayyem is the Deputy Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine, and Zalishchuk works for Ukraine’s state-owned gas company, Naftogaz.

In a recent BBC interview, Zalishchuk said, “I think the Ukrainian president made it very clear — he will not surrender, the Ukrainian army is backing him, the Ukrainian people are backing him, and the international community also demonstrated an incredible unity to stand up to Putin.”

Long before the Russian invasion, FSI’s special relationship with Ukraine attracted prominent coverage. In 2016, The New Yorker article, “Reforming Ukraine After the Revolutions,” described how the Draper Hills Summer Fellows program helped Ukrainian journalists Leshchenko and Nayyem rise to political leadership around the time of Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution in 2014.
 

Fukuyama explained how the program works: “We teach them about the structures of democracy as if they were Stanford undergraduates – this is what different political systems look like, here is how you can effect political change.”

Another on-campus program designed to offer research and teaching opportunities to former senior government officials is the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Visiting Fellow program, which brought the former prime minister of Ukraine, Oleksiy Honcharuk, to FSI in 2021. Honcharuk said then, “Stanford is the best place to rethink Ukraine’s past and plan the future, and that’s why I am especially happy to be here and add my expertise and experience to this important process.”

Alum Perspective from the Frontlines

Artem Romaniukov ('20), is now in Ukraine fighting the Russians with a rifle in hand and his family nearby.

“I was with my wife and six-year-old daughter in Kyiv when Putin’s invasion of Ukraine began. I grabbed my family and brought them to a place I thought they would be safer. Then I immediately volunteered to join the Ukrainian Defense Force. I have already seen active fire, which has resulted in a dreadful number of casualties, both for Ukrainians and Russians,” he wrote in an article for FSI. He is currently in Western Ukraine awaiting a new deployment.

An entrepreneur with his own start-up company, Mriya, Romaniukov worries about the consequences the war is having on Ukraine's economy. 'For my own company, and with many Ukrainian businesses, we have managed to move our operations to safe places and are ready to export services. But international companies are concerned about the security situation and whether it is viable to place orders with Ukrainian firms. But it is crucial to keep the Ukrainian economy working right now.”

Ukrainian Student Perspectives

In a time of great uncertainty and anxiety, Ukrainian and other students on campus have found solace and solidarity at teach-ins and events hosted by FSI scholars, sharing what they’re doing to help family and friends back home and to raise awareness on campus.

Writing in the Stanford Magazine, Anastasiia Malenko, a junior studying economics and political science, described an online chat she was participating in with friends back home when the first Russian bombs began hitting Ukrainian cities. On the day after the invasion, Malenko organized a protest with a Stanford Ukrainian student group, urging immediate sanctions on Russia as well as military and humanitarian aid to the country. She also helped create a website, standwithukraine.how, and joined in the writing of a Stanford Ukrainian Community Joint Statement on Russia’s War Against Ukraine.

She later wrote in an email, “My family and friends are now demonstrating continued resilience in their fight for freedom against the Russian invaders. From coordinating humanitarian aid to managing local volunteer networks, they are writing the history of an independent democratic Ukraine.”

Malenko, who will join the CDDRL honors program as a senior, considers herself fortunate be in touch with friends and family back home. “As the rest of the world, I am hearing their stories of resilience, perseverance, pain, and calls for help … One of the bright moments is telling them about the support I’ve been witnessing on the Stanford campus and beyond — it makes them feel seen.”

She said FSI’s programs fully demonstrate the institute’s commitment to Ukraine. “Through my undergraduate career, these programs have been invaluable as they provided room for Ukrainian perspective in a field of Eastern European studies, usually dominated by the focus on Russian colonial history.”

Stanford’s Unwavering Support

FSI’s support of Ukrainian democracy reflects what Stanford stands for as a university dedicated to research, teaching and engagement – its slogan is “the winds of freedom blow.” When President Marc Tessier-Lavigne addressed the Faculty Senate on Feb. 24 shortly after the Russian invasion, he said, “There are scholars within our community who bring experience and deep insight to this range of issues, and who will help policymakers as they navigate this situation.”

He added, “It is important to remember that an international conflict of this scale will have effects and consequences for many members of our community, in many different ways. This is a difficult moment, and my thoughts are with all who are affected.”

A few days earlier, as Russian forces massed and an attack loomed, Tessier-Lavigne had joined McFaul to meet with Ukrainian students and scholars who had assembled for a dinner gathering at the latter’s home. The Stanford president was also instrumental in lighting up the iconic Hoover Tower on March 11 in the blue and yellow colors of the Ukrainian flag as a show of solidarity with the country and its people.

Policy, Research and Discovery

Steve Pifer, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and William J. Perry Research Fellow at FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), said the Ukrainians have resisted the Russian invasion with courage, tenacity and determination, surprising many, particularly in the Kremlin, which significantly underestimated the resistance that the Russian military would encounter.

“For many Ukrainians, this is an existential fight.  If they lose, they lose their democracy, however imperfect it might be.  And they also lose the vision that many, particularly the young, hold for Ukraine: to become a normal European state, such as the Czech Republic or Slovenia” he said.

Pifer has worked with CDDRL on conferences and panels on Ukraine and has many relationships with fellows from the Emerging Leaders Program. “That is a great project that gives young, rising Ukrainians the chance to study and think at Stanford about how best they can develop a modern Ukrainian state. And they have gone back to do some remarkable things.”

He says CDDRL maintains an active network of Ukrainian alumni of its programs:  “It has been interesting to keep up with some of them, both via Zooms and in person when I have visited Kyiv.”

FSI scholars like Pifer have long studied Ukraine, Russia and post-Soviet bloc nations in the context of emerging democracies. In 2002, McFaul wrote about the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the prospects for democracy in Eastern European countries like Ukraine.
 

In his article “The Fourth Wave of Democracy and Dictatorship: Noncooperative Transitions in the Postcommunist World,” McFaul noted that “the balance of power and ideologies at the time of transition had path dependent consequences for subsequent regime emergence,” whether democratic, partially democratic or autocratic.

In another essay, “Indifferent to Democracy” prescient of FSI’s future Ukrainian efforts, he argued for boosting democratic aspirations in those countries by “empowering human rights activists through high-level meetings with U.S. officials” and launching “assistance programs designed to strengthen the independent media, trade unions, political parties, civil society and the rule of law.”

In February of this year, as Russia built up its forces near Ukraine, McFaul wrote about Russian president Putin’s greatest fear: “To Putin, the Orange Revolution undermined a core objective of his grand strategy: to establish a privileged and exclusive sphere of influence across the territory that once comprised the Soviet Union.”

Rose Gottemoeller, the former Deputy Secretary General of NATO and Steven C. Házy Lecturer at CISAC, has written that, “In some ways, the simplest solution for NATO and the United States would be for Ukraine to decide that it didn’t want to join NATO, take it out of the constitution, and reinsert a provision about nonalignment.” However, she notes that the U.S. should make it clear that Ukraine won’t be ready for this for decades, and that a “moratorium is the best way of doing this at this point.”

On Russia’s misinformation efforts, Kathryn Stoner, the Mosbacher Director at CDDRL and an expert on Russian politics, told the Los Angeles Times that Russian outlets like RT harbor Russian propaganda.

“It is definitely the mouthpiece of the Russian government,” said Stoner, author of the 2021 book, "Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order."

Fukuyama makes an optimistic case for what the post-invasion world might look like: “A Russian defeat will make possible a ‘new birth of freedom,’ and get us out of our funk about the declining state of global democracy. The spirit of 1989 will live on, thanks to a bunch of brave Ukrainians.”