Foreign Affairs committee  I would just say—Derek will probably have more thoughts—values are different in different societies, but our principle is that citizens should be free to decide whether women can drive or participate in a country like Saudi Arabia or Iran. I was testifying on Capitol Hill with D

Foreign Affairs committee  Just to be clear, this is not just about broadcasting but about the whole suite of tools. During the Cold War, we created a suite of tools to project our message of the open society into this totalitarian space controlled by the Soviet empire. We let many of those tools wither

Foreign Affairs committee  Perhaps I could just do 10 seconds on this and then I'll defer to Derek. I went to Bosnia on one of my first IRI trips. It turned out that everybody was there in the Balkans doing all sorts of things. You had the Turks, the Saudis, the Iranians, the Chinese and the Russians. Eve

Foreign Affairs committee  Derek, go ahead.

Foreign Affairs committee  It's a hard question. I'll begin where you did, with North American co-operation with Europe and Asia. We talk about the west these days, but of course the west is actually global. It certainly includes Japan as part of the G7 and core rich democracies, but I would argue that ove

Foreign Affairs committee  I would add that in many developing countries, people go into government to get rich. You don't do that in Canada. This is still the pathway to material prosperity, because of corruption, kleptocracy, etc. Tackling those at the source, making it clear that taxpayer stewardship is

Foreign Affairs committee  Of course, I agree with all of that. Can I just add one thing? As all of you think about your institutional structures here, one thing that has helped us is that the IRI, NDI and the National Endowment for Democracy, are one and two degrees removed from the government, from the e

Foreign Affairs committee  The cost is horrific. My wife is British, and she's working on Brexit. I would argue that there's a direct line from the rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria and the refugee crisis that flowed from that to the pressure on the European Union that has produced some extremist politics in

Foreign Affairs committee  Peacekeeping is a means to an end. Peacekeeping cannot be a permanent thing that we do. Fundamentally, the reason there is a need for peacekeeping operations is some kind of political failure in a society like the Balkans, ethnic conflict in parts of Africa, all forms of struggle

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, if peacekeeping can buy time, as it can, for a political settlement, or a cooling of political conflict, military conflict, absolutely, yes.

Foreign Affairs committee  I would argue very briefly that in America we have been working on our democracy for 200 years and we obviously have a lot more work to do, but you are seeing why we have checks and balances, mid-term elections, a separation of power between the executive and legislative, strong

Foreign Affairs committee  Derek, do you want to take that one?

Foreign Affairs committee  Thanks, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. It's wonderful to be here with you. You see why Derek Mitchell is such a terrific colleague for us at IRI. Our teams at NDI and IRI work very closely together, so despite any judgments you may make about American politics, it's