News and Notes
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Inauguration of Seymour Martin Lipset Lecture Series
On December 6, the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C. hosted the first annual Seymour Martin Lipset Lecture on Democracy in the World. The inaugural lecture was given by former Brazilian president and eminent sociologist Fernando Henrique Cardoso and will appear in the April 2005 issue of the Journal of Democracy. The series, cosponsored by the National Endowment for Democracy and the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto, will be held in future years in both Canada and the United States, in recognition of Lipset's longstanding interest in comparing these two democracies.
On this occasion, the NED awarded Lipset its Democracy Service Medal for his outstanding contribution to the study of democracy. Tributes were paid to Lipset by NED president Carl Gershman, Journal of Democracy editors Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner, Canadian ambassador Michael F. Kergin, professors Francis Fukuyama (Johns Hopkins-SAIS) and Neil Nevitte (University of Toronto), and CNN commentator Bill Schneider.
New Democracy Index
The Bertelsmann TransformationIndex (BTI), a new global ranking that evaluates development and transformation processes in 116 countries worldwide, recently published its 2003 ratings. The quantitative data collected are organized in two parallel indices: the Status Index, which assesses the status of a country's democracy and market economy; and the Management Index, which analyzes the quality of a country's political management. In addition to these indices, the BTI also produces individual reports on each of the countries surveyed. The BTI is a project of Germany's Bertelsmann Foundation and the Center for Applied Policy Research at Munich University. More information and the [End Page 186] complete ratings for 2003 are available at www.bertelsmann-transformation-index.de.
Europe: A Beautiful Idea?
On November 18-20, the U.S. Library of Congress hosted a conference, cosponsored by the Netherlands-based Nexus Institute, entitled "Civilization and Power: Freedom and Democracy." Panel discussions were held on the following topics:
1) "The Idea of Europe and the American Promise" (Robert Kagan, Carnegie Endowment; Alexander Smolar, Stefan Batory Foundation, Warsaw; Francis Fukuyama, Johns Hopkins-SAIS; and Pat Cox, former president of the European Parliament).
2) "Is Democracy Weakening in the West?" (Thomas Pangle, University of Texas; Richard Wolin, City University of New York; Jean Bethke Elshtain, University of Chicago; and Canadian author John Ralston Saul).
3) "Human Rights and Democracy: Defending Common Values" (Dutch minister of justice Piet Hein Donner; Kanan Makiya, Brandeis University; Shashi Tharoor, UN under-secretary-general; Bassam Tibi, University of Goettingen; and Mark Juergensmeyer, University of California at Santa Barbara).
The conference was part of the series "Europe: A Beautiful Idea?" organized by the Nexus Institute with the support of the Dutch government during its presidency of the Council of the European Union. The series was aimed at stimulating dialogue between the world of ideas and the world of decision makers. Other meetings took place in The Hague on September 7 (speakers included Dutch prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende, former French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, and Latvian president Vaira Vike-Freiberga); in Warsaw on October 1-3; and in Berlin on October 22-24.The series culminated with an "intellectual summit" in Rotterdam on December 4. For more information, visit www.nexus-institute.nl.
Carnegie Opens Office in China
In September, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace announced two major additions to its China program: a project office in Beijing to serve as a base for joint U.S.-China research activities, and a Chinese-language web site (at www.carnegieendowment.org/china) with translations of Carnegie research reports and articles from Foreign Policy magazine. The office will be located at the China Reform Forum, a Beijing-based nongovernmental research institute. For more information, see www.carnegieendowment.org.
Stanford Conference
On October 4-5, the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University's Institute for International Studies organized a workshop entitled "Promoting Democracy and the Rule of Law: EU and U.S. Strategies and Instruments." Panel discussions focused on policy prospects for [End Page 187] enhanced EU-U.S. cooperation, as well as regional approaches in the Middle East and Russia...
