The 11^th Lecture | “Unmasking the CCP: History, Politics, and Society in Post-1949 China” Lecture Series

Title: Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder

Speaker: Amb. Michael McFaul

(Stanford University, Former U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation)

About the Lecture

Michael McFaul, the featured speaker for the 11^th lecture in the “Unmasking the CCP” Lecture Series, is a former U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation and a leading scholar of democracy, authoritarianism, and U.S.-Russia relations at Stanford University. Drawing on themes from his most recent book, Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder, McFaul will examine the intensifying global contest between autocratic and democratic systems, with particular attention to China, Russia, and the United States, as well as the implications of this changing international order for the future of democracy and global politics.

About Amb. Michael McFaul
Amb. Michael McFaul is the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in Political Science at Stanford University, a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995 and served as Director of the Freeman Spogli Institute from 2015 to 2025. He is also an international affairs analyst for MSNOW.

Amb. McFaul served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014). He has authored ten books and edited several others, including From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia, a New York Times bestseller; Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should, How We Can; and Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin.

Born and raised in Montana, Amb. McFaul earned his B.A. in International Relations and Slavic Languages and his M.A. in Soviet and East European Studies from Stanford University in 1986. As a Rhodes Scholar, he completed his D.Phil. in International Relations at the University of Oxford in 1991. His honors include the Order for Merits to Lithuania, Ukraine’s Order of Merit (Third Class), and Stanford’s Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching. In August 2026, Ambassador McFaul also received the 2026 Hubert H. Humphrey Award, presented annually by the American Political Science Association (APSA) in recognition of notable public service by a political scientist.

This event is co-sponsored by: The Dean's Office of the College of Arts & Sciences, The Department of History, Cornell Center for Social Sciences, The Einaudi Center, and The East Asia Program.

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