Join experts Dr. Nancy Okail and Dr. Erin Snider for a conversation on the politics of democracy and development assistance, foreign aid, and U.S. foreign policy.

Nancy Okail is President and CEO of the Center for International Policy (CIP) based in Washington DC. Dr. Okail is a leading scholar, policy analyst, and advocate with 25 years of experience working on issues of human rights, democracy, and security in the Middle East and North Africa region. She previously served as a visiting scholar at the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University, and as Executive Director of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP), which under her leadership became an internationally renowned policy research organization. 

Erin Snider is a senior advisor and researcher for USG projects on democratic erosion and openings.  She has served as a professor at Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service and a Carnegie Fellow with New America. Her research focuses on questions of power in the provision of aid and understanding the role of international actors in promoting reform in authoritarian states. Recent publications include Marketing Democracy: The Political Economy of Democracy Assistance in the Middle East (Cambridge University Press 2022), which asks why democracy aid efforts have failed in the Middle East despite billions allocated for its promotion and explains how democracy aid may work to reinforce, rather than challenge authoritarian regimes. It also explains why particular ideas about democracy prevail over others in democracy aid programs, to the detriment of civil society in recipient countries.