Study Group with Negah Angha: Tech Diplomacy: Preservation or Threat to Democracy?

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Since the optimism of the early Internet age, where many thought that new technologies would be liberalizing by their very nature, authoritarians have been hard at work making technology work for autocracy. And today, democracies face pressing questions about the role of technology in democratic life. It’s an untested proposition whether technologies built with democratic values at their core “democracy-affirming technology” can be as powerful, profitable, or even as entertaining as those which threaten to undermine rules-based governance today. What can diplomacy do to preserve the democratizing aspects of technology? What can democracy do in preventing authoritarians from repurposing powerful technology? What should be done in the foreign policy sphere to ensure a rules-based order? The Summit for Democracy 2021 scratched the surface, but how does the future of technology impact foreign policy trends and engagement? 

Guest: (Virtual) Shanthi Kalathil, Former Deputy Assistant to the President and Coordinator for Democracy and Human Rights at the National Security Council in the Biden Administration  

RSVP here by 10:00 AM by February 23rd. You must register through this form and a limited number of seats will be allocated for in-person participation. We will notify you at noon the day of the study group via your Harvard email whether you will be joining in-person or via Zoom.

AUDIENCE: These conversations are open to members of the Harvard community. Please RSVP with a valid Harvard email address.

OFF-THE-RECORD: In keeping with our long tradition at the IOP to ensure honest and candid discussions of politics, all IOP study groups are off-the-record