Across the world, injustice perpetuates racial and ethnic inequalities, including policing practices, census and identity card categorizations, access to healthcare, education, employment, mobility, and political representation. Racial and ethnic inequalities are fundamentally about differential access to power, resources, protections, and rights. These injustices share common elements, but different histories and contexts shape them.

In this session of our webinar series, four experts on race and ethnicity will analyze global inequalities as they are experienced in local and regional forms, and analyze the implications of the contemporary moment for transformative change.

Moderator:

Rachel Beatty Riedl, Director of the Einaudi Center and Professor, Government Department, Cornell University.
Riedl teaches comparative and African politics, with an emphasis on political parties, democracy, and authoritarianism.

Panelists:

Prerna Singh, Political Science, Brown University.
Singh's research focuses on the intersection of ethnic conflict and competition, and the improvement of human well-being, particularly in the promotion of social welfare in South Asia.

Pap Ndiaye, History, Sciences Po (Paris).
Ndiaye's research focuses on transnational philosophies of race that draw both from American and French political thought, especially as they apply to the African diaspora populations of both countries.

Alisha Holland, Government, Harvard University.
Holland researches the comparative political economy of development with a focus on urban politics, social policy, and Latin America.

Leo Arriola, Political Science, University of California Berkeley.
Arriola studies comparative politics with a focus on democratization and governance in Africa.

Protests against police violence and racial inequality have spread across the United States in recent weeks, attracting large crowds not only in major cities, but also in smaller cities and towns. The demonstrations place racial justice and civil rights at the center of political debate heading into the November 2020 elections. In this session of our webinar series, three experts on U.S. politics will analyze the protests and their implications for U.S. democracy.

Moderator:

Kenneth Roberts, Government, Cornell University. He teaches comparative and Latin American politics, with an emphasis on political parties, populism, and labor and social movements.

Panelists:

Megan Ming Francis, Political Science, University of Washington. She specializes in the study of American politics, including criminal punishment, black political activism, philanthropy, and the post-Civil War South.

Daniel Gillion, Platt Presidential Distinguished Professor, University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on racial and ethnic politics, political behavior, political institutions, public policy, and the American presidency.

Lara Putnam, History, University of Pittsburgh. She researches U.S. social movements and political participation in local, national, and transnational dimensions.

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Democracy 20/20

A webinar series sponsored by the American Democracy Collaborative, Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, and the Institute of Politics and Global Affairs

Recent global and national events—including the COVID-19 pandemic and mass antiracist protests in the wake of the highly publicized police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery—have deepened what was already a looming crisis for American democracy.

The American Democracy Collaborative is a group of scholars of American political development and comparative politics who have come together to examine the state of democracy in the United States today. We aim to integrate insights from previous crises in American political history with understanding of the conditions that have threatened democracies around the world, to foster discussion and writing around these topics, and to provide analysis and commentary that is useful for fellow scholars, teachers, journalists, and citizens.

The Democracy 20/20 webinar series brings together historical and comparative experts to promote deeper understanding of the challenges these unsettling times pose for American democracy. The series goes beyond the day-to-day rush of events to convene conversations that help us understand the broader context of our times and advance the search for constructive answers to our society’s most urgent questions.

Beginning in June 2020, the series will continue through the 2020 election. It will consider topics such as:

Can the United States Have Free and Fair Elections This Fall?
Already Authoritarian? Policing and the Use of Force
Evaluating the Health of Checks and Balances
Polarization, Political Parties, and the Health of Democracy
Whither the “Deep State”? Administration, Expertise, and Democracy

The stakes for American democracy have never been higher—so please join us for these critical conversations.

Students: Join Einaudi Center regional experts for this #SummerPassport webinar--for all undergraduate and graduate students interested in global thinking and action.

The outbreak of a novel coronavirus may be the most significant world event of our century. It's a pandemic--a Greek word that means "all people." Around the world, all of us are experiencing this shared breakdown of public health, economics, and international cooperation.

Experts representing Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America will discuss the big questions facing our major world regions during this global crisis. What are reforms, new ways of thinking, and new challenges that will emerge out of the pandemic?

Moderator:

Rachel Beatty Riedl, Director, Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies

Panelists:

Esra Akcan, 2019-2020 Frieda Miller Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University; Associate Professor, Michael A. McCarthy Professor of Architectural Theory, Department of Architecture, Cornell University; Member, Cornell Institute for Comparative Modernities.
Marcelo Borges, Professor of History; Boyd Lee Spahr Chair in the History of the Americas at Dickinson College, and Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies, Nantes.
Expedit Ologou, Founder, Civic Academy for Africa’s Future, and Director of Politics and Governance Programs at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Benin.
Jenny Goldstein, Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Development at Cornell University, an Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future Faculty Fellow, and a core faculty member of Cornell's Southeast Asian Studies Program at Cornell University.

Co-sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Studies, Nantes.

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Across the world, our lives have been upended by the COVID-19 pandemic. All fields of study are impacted, as our medical, agricultural, economic, political, and cultural systems are challenged. The crisis reinforces the need to think differently and boldly about the world today and the world ahead.

The Einaudi Center invites all Cornell faculty to come together for a conversation about ways forward. Join us to share reflections and identify pathways for collaborative projects and new research agendas.

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Each participant will be asked to share brief reflections on three interrelated questions:
1. How has the coronavirus affected your field and/or your research?
2. What are the most urgent questions that you see arising out of this moment?
3. What are the next-generation questions you imagine or the rethinking you see potentially occurring in the next phase, as we move beyond the pandemic?

Particularly when we cannot travel to planned conferences, seminars, research sites, our intellectual community can sustain us and catalyze new individual and collaborative projects with international partners virtually.

We encourage all participants to think about what parts of these questions they would like to take forward and what infrastructure or collaborators would be useful to put together a team with synergistic capacities. Contributions may be worked up into a series of short essays for the Einaudi website, a collective review for publication, and/or grant applications and seed projects.

Moderator: Rachel Beatty Riedl, Director, Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies

Please send any questions or suggestions in advance of the conversation to rbeattyriedl@cornell.edu.