Come to the LRC to practice your language skills and meet new people. Conversation Hours provide an opportunity to use the target language in an informal, low-pressure atmosphere. Have fun practicing a language you are learning! Gain confidence through experience! Just using your new language skills helps you learn more than you might think. Conversation Hours are are open to any learner, including the public. Campus visitors and members of the public must adhere to Cornell's public health requirements for events.

This conference brings together scholars undertaking new research on questions of democratic resistance and sources of resilience in response to global evidence of democratic backsliding.

We will work together to analyze domestic and international factors, including institutions, civil society, political parties, voters, media, and foreign policy. In an era marked by threats to democracy from within nominally democratic institutions, by elected officials, and with varying degrees of support from the voting public, we seek to understand the interactive nature of democratic threats and resistance strategies.

As democracy can be conceived of as a continued contestation over rights, responsibilities, and rules, we aim to use this critical historical moment of contestation to expand our comparative conceptions of democratic practice, strategies of endurance and deepening or weakening of democratic regimes, and the social, economic, technological, and institutional factors that contribute to varied outcomes worldwide.

Hosted by the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, the conference is part of Einaudi's work on democratic threats and resilience.

Register to attend the conference

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March 22 Panels

Panel 1: Concepts and Measurement: Democracy 2.0
This panel will push beyond the measurement debates to address conceptual and ontological questions about how to measure democracy, and definitional questions at the heart of democracy’s weaknesses and promise in contemporary practice. Does the practice of a minimal definition of democracy contribute to public disenchantment, and is such practice durable?

Panel 2: Resilience Factors, Resistance Strategies, and Opposition Tactics
This panel will examine the social and economic bases of democratic resiliency, as well as various strategies, actors, and institutions that can fortify and even enhance democratic practice.

Panel 3: Stabilizing Forces? Historical Patterns and Contemporary Challenges
This panel will dissect the factors that have historically stabilized advanced industrial democracies—including party systems, modes of political representation, and patterns of capitalist development-- and their potential applicability to contemporary patterns of democratic backsliding and resistance.

March 23 Panel

Panel 4: International Actors and Regional Organizations
This panel will explore the ways in which authoritarian or democratic leaders and regimes exert influence on the regime types of other countries and the influence of regional organizations on participating countries’ regime trajectories.

Learn about Cornell's new Global Grand Challenge: The Future and how you can propose a research or curricular project.

Global Cornell is opening what will be The Future’s only call for proposals. Interdisciplinary teams of faculty and researchers from all Cornell colleges, schools, and departments are encouraged to identify a research issue of global importance and plan a path to a successful alternative future.

Teams may apply for research project support up to $150,000 per year for two years. Stand-alone curricular projects are eligible for up to $20,000 per year for two years.

Deadline for letters of intent to apply (1 page): February 26, 2024Deadline for full proposals (5–7 pages): May 6, 2024Register here to join the virtual info session. The session will include an opportunity to ask questions and network with others interested in finding collaborators.

The information session slides and Q&A will be posted online after the event.

The Einaudi Center’s Foreign Language Introduction Program (FLIP) is heading into local communities to teach children about world cultures and languages. FLIP aims to connect our diverse Cornell community to K-12 students at local schools, libraries and community centers in Upstate New York. Cornell volunteer teachers will have the opportunity to share short introductory lessons on the foreign languages and cultures they are passionate about. Volunteer teachers should have at least an intermediate knowledge of their chosen language.

Register to attend either the Feb. 1 orientation in person or the Feb. 5 orientation over Zoom.

The Institute for African Development (IAD) offers 6-8 week summer internships that let you undertake challenging practical fieldwork in Ghana, Zambia, or Liberia. If you're a sophomore or junior, join this info session to find out how you can apply. Applications for Global Internships are due February 1.

Register for the information session.

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The Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies hosts info sessions for graduate and for undergraduate students. To learn more about funding opportunities, international travel, research, and internships, view the full calendar for spring semester sessions.