and I'm ass yes I'm going to go ahead and Spotlight her right now go [Music] ahe there she is and Spotlight perfect hello everyone joining us we'll just give people a minute to connect and then we'll get started and so everyone joining us uh you're automatically muted as you enter the room we are going to be potentially or we should have a period of time at the end of this meeting for questions so if you have any questions please go ahead and drop them in the chat we will definitely try to get to them okay I'm gonna get started sound good Teresa yep that should be good and I'll go ahead and let more people in as they join great okay so hello everyone um I'm Elise Nelson president CEO here at vital voices and I'm thrilled to be joined in this conversation by Ann applebomb uh we have many fans and joining you uh for this conversation she is a staff writer um for the Atlantic a pullit some prizewinning historian New York Times best-selling author and her most recent book autocracy Inc which we're going to be talking about today is truly a terrifying account of how autocracies work together to undermine democratic values and the Democratic world but also how we can defeat them and we always like to to look for those Solutions um next week vital voices will be hosting leading the rise uh women for rights and democracy which will really be a global action summit we're going to bring together a 100 women leaders from around the world in Warsaw Poland each of these women many of them joining us now are really pushing back against the rise of autocratic regimes currently in the world 72% of the population live under autocratic leaders and that is a 48% increase over the last decade which which is astounding um as Teresa mentioned earlier please put any questions you have in the chat and if we have time we will try to get to those so an first off you know you make the point in your book that um in the 1990s leaders believed that it would be democracy and democratic ideals that would spread never imagining that actually authoritarian ideals uh would spread why do you think this is happening so first of all thank you very much for having me I'm I'm sorry I won't be joining you in Warsaw I happen I'm I'm not there on the on the dates that you're meeting and I'm joining you today from London um uh so I I I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this group uh I mean one of the things that happened in the 1990s with the democracy did spread there it was there there was a wave of democratization not just in Europe but also in Latin America in Africa and elsewhere um there was uh the end of Apartheid in South Africa there was a a change of regime in many places there was an opening up of China and of the of the former Soviet world you know there was a there was a spread of ideas and I think one of the things that happened was that the it was precisely that it was the attractive of of of democracy and the rise of of democratic movements and a lot of dictatorships that created or LED to what we now have which is a backlash we now have a um a network of autocracies in my book I focus mostly on Russia which is a nationalist State you know China which is a communist state uh North Korea um Iran which is a theocracy and a handful of other weaker states to show how they despite their ideological differences work together with and really the only thing they have in common is their dislike of us I mean their dislike of the liberal Democratic world of the ideas of rule of law of uh of transparency of accountability and of course of Rights of Human Rights and they work work against those things both inside their own countries because of course that's the language of their own opposition as well as increasingly around the world and in in what they would see as an information war and in an economic struggle and also in a in a in in a political struggle and a kind of struggle of ideas and of course we in the at least you know me anyway and the those my colleagues in the Democratic World um don't really see this struggle I mean we don't feel that it affects us but increasingly it does and the book is really an argument for recognizing what it is and looking for for ways to fight back talk to us a bit because this is this was the most fascinating thing that I found in the book is is actually really how these authoritarian leaders are actually working in concert can you talk about this this incredible sort of networked web of of opportunity uh that they create for each other so there are many different ways I could many different examples I mean the probably the most obvious example right now is the way in which the Iranians are providing drones the North Koreans are providing ammunition China is exporting components for the Russian defense indust industry all of these countries are really contributing to Russia's war in Ukraine and you know none of these countries have any argument with Ukraine but they are willing to support Russia because they don't want to see one of their fellow autocrats lose I mean that's maybe the most that's the most glaring and obvious obvious example right now but they cooperate in other places too and in the book I describe how China over the last decade has put together really quite a vast media Empire um mainstream media broadcast Media newspapers websites radio in multiple languages um um plus they have content sharing agreements with newspapers and websites all over the world they're very focused on Africa but in and but of course Asia Latin America as well and the way in which they now use that Network for example to put out Russian propaganda i i i traced the the the the origins of one particular false story this was the story that the Russians produced at the beginning of the war in Ukraine about how supposedly there were biological weapons Laboratories in Ukraine and somehow that was a reason for the invasion that the US had was making biological weapons Ukraine is completely not true it was never proven um it was widely denied it was actually disproven at the UN itself nevertheless China you know the Russians started this rumor they repeated it on you know in their information Network which also includes quite a lot of sites that don't look Russian at all they're written in other languages and they look like they're published by by other people but it was also put out by the Chinese Information Network so you could you could see in that instance the way in which they were working together to support a false claim and a a story that was designed to undermine the legitimacy the morality of the democratic world's support for Ukraine you can also point to economic support you can look at for example the way in which a whole group of regimes H United to support the Venezuelan dictatorship uh want very very weak dictator should have fallen years ago uh has has driven what was the wealthiest country in South America to become the poorest um and nevertheless it's been the subject of Russian military sales Chinese investment Cubans have provided secret police uh Aid and the Iranians even though they have nothing in common with Venezuela historically or culturally have also help the Venezuelans evade sanctions around the oil industry so you know so you can see how they will team together to support one another um when they perceive weakness so autocracy is always coupled with the roll back of women's rights um how and why do you think aor authoritarian leaders use misogyny as a tool to really augment their power this is one of the um interesting important features of not all but of many of the modern autocracies is that they as an argument for why they are legitimate and this is this is of course led by Putin and there but there he has many imitators as a as an argument for their legitimacy they say we are restoring traditional Society um against the degenerate Western um you know liberal Democratic World which and by degenerate they mean sexually degenerate and we restoring some kind of traditional order and hierarchy and this is one you know this is this this is a this is a you know part of a broader backlash against women's rights and it does have an echo in particularly in societies that are very turbulent where there's an enormous amount of change you know the appeal of something familiar and traditional does work and of course it works in the United States as well uh and you can hear the echo of that propaganda in America and Europe equally the same you know so in in fact I would actually say that the order of events was more went the other way around I mean there began to be a backlash against um it's not even feminism you know it's against the women's rights I mean the rights of women to be treated equally under the law and um against laws against you know spousal abuse um and there began to be a backlash against that in the Western World in the Democratic world and it was picked up on by some autocracies as a kind of leapt on as a way of legitimating what they do um but you right I mean it's one of the features of this era I mean we're we're talking mostly about actually I think all entirely I mean unless I'm missing somebody in my head about regimes run by men they're run Often by a single man or by a group of men or sometimes with some token women um and they are you know and they and they describe themselves as perpetuating some kind of order and offering people some kind of safety in that sense um I mean it seems to me the counter to that you know is andbe we can talk about this some more later is you know is that the liberal Democratic world and the world where we do have equality also needs to demonstrate why we are more stable while we offer also offer security and safety and rights for women um and make that a part of our appeal we know that authoritarian leaders you know sort of cribed from the same Playbook what do you think an alternative Playbook could look like particularly centering the rights and equality of women so you are going to Poland um as I gather where you know exactly that kind of Playbook has just won an election I mean of course Poland wasn't a full dictatorship in before before last October but it was run by an autocratic populist ruling party that was making steps in that direction was seeking to capture the state take over the Judiciary um and did all and used that language of traditionalism as a as as as it as its argument for for for why it should be elected um and there was a the the the counter Playbook was firstly to do with contesting everywhere um the the the the the the the party that's led by Donald Tusk who's now the Prime Minister um you know and and Tusk himself campaigned all over the country including in places where they're unpopular so in rural areas in the southeast of Poland which is um historically votes for the right or for the far right um and they they they contest everything um they seek to be the party of everybody um and they're also you know they they an argument of their their foremost argument was about empowering people to prepare them for the future you know we can't afford to be a society where some people are left behind and where some people are discriminated against you know that that you know that facing facing the many challenges that we have whether economic or technological you know or demographic requires the participation of everybody um and I think that was a that was a part of his appeal that was a part of the the the the Coalition that also this is this is this is quite important in a lot of European countries the Coalition that ran ran as a coalition so there was a center left center right and sort of center Liberal component uh so there was a party political parties that might have um disagreed with one another in the past were unified enough to contest the idea of Auto as I said autocratic populism and that was also very important to show that the majority of the country although they have different views about taxation rates or about you know um you know about other other other economic issues or other issues that might divide us were unified on on equality unified on rights um and unified on the need to preserve democracy and preserve liberal democracy what other sort of examples have you seen that are that are working in terms of I know you talk at the end of your book about sort of solutions ideas that that autocracy around the world is something that can be defeated but requires the same kind of sort of networked approach that it has used to rise so what is that approach look like how can women play a role in that and why is it so important that we sort of connect across across the world um in order to do so the book is an argument that what we're fighting you know it's not a cold war in the sense that there's one bunch of countries on one side and one Bunch on the other and there's some kind of geographic divide you know there's a Berlin Wall between them I what we're fighting is autocratic behaviors in and some of them are inside Democratic societies as well and so beginning to think like that you know we're thinking about you know how do we stop enabling kleptocracy um how do we how do we begin to think about regulating social media by which I don't mean censorship I mean giving people insight into algorithms giving them some control over what they see controlling their own data um you know beginning to look at how we re-empower people and how to and and and how to make that argument across borders and really some of these things can only be done across borders I mean there's no point in one country um um outlawing shell companies or or or or or blocking blocking access to Offshore tax Havens really it has to be done by groups of countries um and almost all of these issues whether it's the reform of the internet reform of social media whether it's reform of the financial system that has enabled kleptocracy as I as I argu in the book um whether it's the fight back against um you know arise in misogyny I mean it almost can only be done you can't do it within one country I mean you need these connections across borders and you know it's also true that we can learn from one another I mean I everything that I know about kleptocracy and and how it works and um and how it functions inside the us or or the UK as well as uh as well as in Russia really comes from the Russian opposition who understood this first really before everybody else did and began talking about it exposing it and so on you know almost everything I know about about information War also comes from activists in places like Iran um you know or uh or China I mean there's a you know th those are often the people who have the best insight into where these ideas are coming from and how they can best be fought and and so yes speaking to people across across borders who share values and thinking about what are the you know let me say let me even say to you know in an era when a lot of international institutions don't function anymore where the UN obviously now dysfunctional um many other International inss dysfunctional it seems to me the new way to think about International organ or cooperation is exactly through you know bespoke organizations designed to combat particular things I mean you know it's it be almost a coalition of the willing to fight International rise of misogyny or a coalition to fight kleptocracy I mean that's almost how you have to think about it now wow fascinating you also talk about how and we think about this a lot of by The Voice in fact we just brought together a group of women leaders in uh Venice to have a discussion around what does that alternative Playbook look like and you know you make the point and you know we've been talking about this idea that like you can't use their same tactics you know you have to use a different approach can you talk a little bit about that approach you you you also mentioned I think it was in vness you talk about a meeting that happened among a number of uh leaders for democracy from around the world coming together and and talking about you know sort of another option right that well this is I mean there's two different things I mean that that was that's the world Liberty Congress which is a group of um dissidents and democracy activists who who now almost as I just described collaborate on particular projects on they're you know they have a focus on um both educating one another about repressive tactics so that they are ready and prepared when when they meet them they have a joint project to do with political prisoners and supporting them through the legal community and so on um you know the you know I think the main you know if you're it's there is there is there's some nuances there's differences between what you do inside a truly repressive Society like Russia or Venezuela and what you do inside an open Society like the United States I mean I don't want to be too glib about about about those those different fights um but I think the the the most important thing is to get in the in the Democratic world is to get people to focus on real issues as opposed to emotive culture War issues that aren't necessarily real and you can actually see this beginning to happen in the US election campaign um instead of having instead of having a fight about I didn't know I mean I'm making this up you know but a fight about policy on transgender which makes people very angry but is you know is a is a is a small piece of a larger story you know get people to talk about something that touches them every day like economics or or healthc care um offer people Concrete Solutions instead of slogans and emotion um and find ways to reach people you know wherever it is that they are I mean there's a you know um what whatever media people are reading whatever whatever filter bubble they're in you know find some way to get to them there I mean I think that's another part the story an if you have time I'd love to take one question from the chat before we let you go I know you've got a full full day and evening um I want to uh ask a question that Laura Alonso poses and just for background Laura is from Argentina she is a former member of parliament she was also her country's I think first anti-corruption Zar um in that country so she says can you list a couple of usual slogans that are manufactured by Putin or Chinese propaganda against democracy that constitute the authoritarian narrative that many in the west repeat without let me see without knowing yes so there so in the book I describe the I the broadest authoritarian narrative is is the one I've I've kind of alluded to already that autocracy is safe and stable and whatever faults it might have and democracy is chaotic divided violent degenerate you know sexually degenerate actually they is what they often mean um and and they then build other stories around that you know if you if you if you stick with us you'll be safe if you if you if you protest if you go to the other side you'll you know you'll you'll you'll create disruption and Chaos um and finding ways to fight that to show no um we're the majority we're the people who believe in stability we believe that rights make people safe um and not the loss of rights uh I think I think if you can if you can focus on that that's a way to combat that idea I mean that's just there's more of that in the book but it's a that that's the be you know first understanding what it is that they're saying and also why it appeals to people you know we underestimate the degree to which we live in an era of just unbelievably rapid massive change you know there's economic change social change demographic change um political change the change in the nature of information you know the way in which we perceive the world and understand the world is now totally different from from what it was just a few years ago and because of that massive change you know it is true that I don't know the childhood somebody remembers as a child growing up in rural Poland in the 1960s the world that they lived in is gone I mean it it is gone and the and people have this sense of loss and they have this sense of disruption and people who want um want to keep societies open need an answer for those people that isn't an autocratic answer um and that's I mean I think that's just the project for all of us thank you so much an for joining us again her new book which is a fascinating read autocracy Inc um is out and available and we will explore these discussions further uh When We Gather next week in Poland thank you so much for kicking off the discussions for us thank you thank you bye bye bye all thank you so