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In the rooms where war, peace, and power are decided, words matter most. The Diplomat brings you raw conversations with ambassadors, envoys, and negotiators who shaped the hardest decisions in U.S. foreign policy and Middle East diplomacy. Hosted by Joe Kawly. Recorded from Washington. Produced by Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN).
Joe Kawly brings extensive experience from conflict zones in the Middle East to the power corridors of Washington. As a journalist, he’s seen how words can escalate a crisis or open the door to peace. A Georgetown graduate and former CNN Journalism Fellow, he’s known for connecting the dots others miss, so people don’t just hear what happened, they understand why it matters. As producer and host of The Diplomat, Joe brings clarity to diplomacy and politics, one conversation at a time.
[00:00:02.940] - Joe Kawly
Welcome to the second episode of The Diplomat. And before we talk about democracy, we have to be honest about something. Some of the biggest threats to democracy are not coming always from the outside. They're coming from the inside, slowly, legally, and quietly. Today, I'm speaking with Jonathan Katz. He leads the anti-corruption, democracy, and security project at the Brooklyn Institute in Washington, DC. What does he focus on? How democracies fall apart, one law, one agency, one silence at a time. Right now, we're watching something strange, Moldova's building forward, and some would say that Ukraine just to roll back key reforms. Tunisia has collapsed into near-authoritarian rule. And in the middle of all this, strategic corruption is becoming a foreign policy tool. This is not about theory. It's about power. Jonathan, let's start here. Thank you for being with us. People keep saying that democracy is resilient, but we're watching governments removing WatchDocs institution and also pass laws that let them sideline anticorruption agencies. Is democracy actually holding up or we're just not seeing how fast things are slipping?
[00:01:28.840] - Jonathan Katz
I think in this case, we've seen what we call backsliding, democracy backsliding globally. It's not because of democracy per se. That's the system. It's typically Leadership, where you find countries where there are those that are in power seeking to strengthen their hold on power, that abuse democracy. You see erosions of democracy. You've seen it in places where you have even sparks of democracy.
[00:02:07.360] - Joe Kawly
Let's have some case studies. Let's look at two examples, Moldova and Ukraine. Moldova is holding the line. Reforms are moving forward. Civil society is engaged. There is a clear path toward the EU. But Ukraine, while still at war, just passed a law that weakens its key anti-corruption institutions, and the President signed it the same day. Why would a country under attack, fighting for survival, take steps that make its institutions weaker?
[00:02:47.120] - Jonathan Katz
Well, there's, I think, in two things, Ukraine. One, Moldova is an example of a country that's overcome decades under communist rule, and then even post dependents also face remnants of a system that was not democratic. And through the election of now President Maya Sandu, and then we've had two elections and then parliamentary elections, They've elected a government that is supportive of, you're right, integrating with the EU, meeting democratic standards, addressing corruption challenges. There's still more that they need to do to move in that direction, but they've had the right type of governance. They have made a decision, despite the best efforts of Russia and those internally, to turn Moldova back closer to Russia and away from democratic progress. The people there stood up and they voted in a specific way. It's the same thing in Ukraine, too. When you look at polling, ask Ukrainians what they want, Ukrainian citizens strongly support a democratic future. They want integration into the European Union. They want corruption addressed. And since the Maidan in 2014, when the previous government led by Anna Kovitch left, they have made significant steps forward in the anticorruption space.
[00:04:25.100] - Joe Kawly
Do you think crisis or the war Is being used as a cover to push through power grabs in Ukraine?
[00:04:35.200] - Jonathan Katz
I think in this instance, that law, I think it was certainly a step backwards. One of the reasons why the then the government came back and went back in and said no to that legislation was because of the strong effort of civil society within Ukraine. Ukrainians standing up across the country saying, No, don't do this. There was a response, and that certainly was, I think we can all say, was a mistake by the government to move in that direction. I don't think when you look at the current Ukrainian government, you could certainly say there's a consolidation of power at the presidency because they're in the middle of a war, a pretty significant war with a leading global power. But at the same time, there are checks and balances within the country, and we can see on their path to EU membership that they have taken pretty significant steps forward, some which we have documented at the Brooklyn's institution as steps to address key areas of corruption. There's a lot of people who have worked on Ukraine, Ukraine's democracy for many years, but it doesn't mean that there are not going to be mistakes, and it doesn't mean, I think as you pointed out, which is rightfully so, there are groups, there others that want to consolidate power, take advantage of the system, whether it's economic or political or for other reasons.
[00:06:09.740] - Jonathan Katz
And in all the backsliding democracies that you see globally, maybe those that have been democracies, those we've back or nascent. We'll talk about Tunisia, too. Corruption becomes a major issue or consolidation of power, power struggles. And it doesn't mean from the United States to anywhere globally, these become major issues and major challenges in many countries. I think every country is different, so we're seeing those challenges everywhere.
[00:06:42.420] - Joe Kawly
Let's shift to something that you have written about strategic corruption, not just local bribery, but a tool used by foreign powers to weaken governments or by influence and shift alliances. Are Europe and its allies treating this like the serious threat it is, or are we still stuck in workshops and white papers while the problem keeps growing?
[00:07:10.940] - Jonathan Katz
Governments are, as you pointed out, too, talking about corrupt governments that take resources to enrich themselves at the disadvantage of populations. We can point to countries in the MENA region, Africa, in the United States, elsewhere. Nobody's immune from this. But what we've seen globally is efforts by governments to put in place infrastructure, rule of law, court systems, checks and balances so that you have guardrails that prevent fraud and abuse by governance. What you also have is an effort to address foreign interference and bribery. For the United States, this This has been an issue where we've dealt with foreign bribery for many years, making certain that American companies weren't paying bribes abroad, making certain that money isn't laundered, that comes from, for example, from Russia to a country in any… You name the place in the world and ends up in US banks that we are not… The United States has been home to dirty money, significant amounts of dirty money. And what you saw was an effort by the United States Congress, bipartisan, to say no more. We're going to pass the corporate, it was called the Corporate Transparency Act, is meant to basically pale back the layers of who is owning certain things within the United States, beneficial ownership, transparency, and to make certain that we understand and make sure that that dirty money isn't being filtered through the United States, our banking systems, and impacting our communities.
[00:09:01.480] - Joe Kawly
Where does the dirty money come from, you think? If we were going to think of three top countries or entities that contribute to dirty money in the United States?
[00:09:16.380] - Jonathan Katz
You have transnational criminals, and certainly there's a reason why this current administration, President Trump's administration, is focused on transnational crime and narco criminals, including even in their own intelligence estimate, which they released in March of this year, they highlight that this was one of the most significant challenges to what they said to US national security. One of the recommendations in that national intelligence estimate was to really to strengthen the anti-corruption systems within the United States government, like beneficial ownership, transparency. We know it's quite dangerous to let down your guard when you know that there will be a foreign interference. In this case, that foreign interference is money. But it's the money when it is parked that comes back to fuel the autocratic power. We know in Russia, this means the war in Ukraine or the continued conflict. What you really want, and that's why economic statecraft, the use of sanctions has become much more significant for the United States and partners and allies, Europe and Asia, globally, to try to address challenges, is to try to choke off the resources that fuel conflict.
[00:10:50.880] - Joe Kawly
Basically, we always say, follow the money, and that would lead us to... You've said that it's not enough to create anti-corruption bodies. They have to be embedded. What does that actually mean? What makes them stick?
[00:11:08.860] - Jonathan Katz
You really need an ecosystem, one, of responsible government and leadership to be able to support that. Healthy checks and balances, because when one, and particularly this is the case, could be the case in the United States or elsewhere, you really need to have a balance in the sense of who's providing oversight and closing off the gaps where maybe oversight isn't there. You also need to have a strong civil society that can serve as a key watchdog. There's been a number of times, I'll go back to Ukraine as an example, having a work there, including for a time at USAID, it was often the civil society that were the first to set the alarm when they saw a in commitment to fighting corruption or to democratic reforms. It's really necessary to have a healthy civil society, the ability for those communities to be able to engage not only in the capital of the countries, but outside as well. The same goes for independent media. When you start to have a breakdown, when there is nobody watching the hen house, and when the person guarding the hen house is the fox itself, You have a problem. Then that weakens governance systems.
[00:12:34.880] - Jonathan Katz
More often than that, it's usually citizens of the country that are the ones that are impacted the most by this situation.
[00:12:44.760] - Joe Kawly
You mentioned Tunisia. Let's discuss it. Tunisia as a cautionary tale. Tunisia is the case that keeps coming up lately in expert circles. After the revolution or the Arab Spring, it It was the hope. Now, it's almost fully authoritarian. The courts are sidelines. Watchdog agencies have been gutted, and it all happened without much noise. How did that happen, do you think? What are we supposed to take as a lesson from it when we work with vulnerable democracies today?
[00:13:23.140] - Jonathan Katz
I think what was seen by many as so promising to backslide as reminder of how difficult it is to transition from a non-democracy to a democracy and to maintain that, particularly not only because of the diverse groups within Tunisia's political system and power of factions within, some that may have come together at some point to give the country that opening and shot at democracy, to the disintegration over several years, politically, of not having a cohesive enough group to really give that type of political leadership that's going to be needed. Of the example would be Moldova. It's not exactly the same, but the changes that we've seen over the last five years in Moldova have been largely due to having a very stable both President and Parliament of the same political party that I've shared I think a very common vision and direction where that country wants to go and have been able to move forward on reforms that have needed to happen and have accelerated their pathway to the European Union. Tunisia didn't have a pathway to the EU, which offers, I think, the other lesson, which is when the economic situation in a country doesn't move in the right direction, as the political is moving at the same time, it becomes very difficult one to convince even the public that democracy in this change is the right change.
[00:15:10.980] - Jonathan Katz
You see a lot of the similarities globally where you have these failures. More often than not, then you have a reconciliation of power under an authoritarian, and you're back into this system again. Maybe it's almost like a brief glimpse of of blue sky, and then you come back, you're coming back down. I suspect, I'm sure for a lot of people, it's quite disappointing missed opportunities. But I think if you're in systems that have not have failed to produce for so long, sometimes you wait for the next attempt to try to go back at this and see if you can do it again. Of course, I think that happens quite often.
[00:15:56.180] - Joe Kawly
You mentioned Lebanon. In Lebanon, the state or the government is trying to function, but there's almost no functioning state for many reasons. But the civil society is still active. Is that where democracy lives now in the people more than in the institutions?
[00:16:19.180] - Jonathan Katz
Yeah. Democracy is in the DNA of people globally. Go back to modern democracy globally and the advance Netze's over the past 250 years. You are right, civil society in Lebanon is quite resilient in response to the port attack, dysfunctional government, corruption, standing up to provide support, health care, food when needed, faces the challenges because of the divisions within the country politically. Certainly, that's the case. But they do stand out as incredibly resilient and oftentimes playing a role when government is failing. You see this in many places Globally, where you see this type of resilience on the ground. Unfortunately, what you also see is a crackdown. This is both on media and civil society and making it more difficult for them to do the things that they want to do. But it can't ultimately be a substitute for the type of political leadership that's needed to have a larger scale effort to transition a country away from a non-functioning, it could be a non-functioning government or a non-functioning democracy to something that's different, where you can measurably look at the improvements in people's lives and measurably we look at, and that's income, freedoms, like schools.
[00:18:06.270] - Joe Kawly
To summarize what we have discussed so far, we've got Moldova holding on Ukraine, rolling back, also Georgia drifting, Tunisia collapsing, and Lebanon stuck in survival mode. If you were briefing policymakers today, what is the one thing they need to change right now to make sure that support for democracy actually works? Yeah.
[00:18:37.200] - Jonathan Katz
Well, Joe, I'm going to have one quibble with you because I would say Ukraine is a success story, a very significant success story. And I think if it's allowed to, if it's not in a conflict with Russia and the Ukrainian people are able to do what they want to do going forward, they'll eventually be a member the EU. Smart group, brave, incredibly brave to stand up in the way that they've stood up. I mentioned to you, I think one of the strongest, most committed civil societies that I have seen We'll be an example, I think, for anyone globally, but not without flaws and not without challenges. We point that out even in the pieces we've written, Here are the things they need to do, the steps they need to take. But you asked me about, is there something one singular thing? One thing that really has been apparent, well, elections don't necessarily always mean that it leads to democracy or that it leads to right governance. When you look at that, ensuring that you have safe, free, and fair elections, even not just competitive elections in the sense of we will just let We'll let some opposition run, but they can't win.
[00:20:03.040] - Jonathan Katz
That's not democracy. That's not an elective system that allows. But enabling the public to be able to vote is particularly important. It becomes pretty complicated because even we've seen elections, including in the MENA region, where maybe it brought to power some people that people might have had concerns about, including within their countries or connected to external partners. But for me, from my perspective, is when we wrote about our democracy playbook, we published it in January this year, we talked about the seven pillars of democracy that you need to protect. The number one pillar was protecting our elections. Of course, we were thinking a lot about here in the United States, how important it is, but we know it applies globally. Then if you do not give people a free, fair, and transparent vote, then their voice isn't going to be heard. It doesn't guarantee a democracy. Joe, if you gave me another two, three hours, we could walk through all the different places.
[00:21:06.760] - Joe Kawly
We can talk for three hours. We're not going to bore the audience that we're going to give them the most important thing from our conversation.
[00:21:14.060] - Jonathan Katz
Yeah, We pinpoint that election as something that will be particularly focused on in the United States, but globally in 2026, how important it is. Not only because of how that vote happens, but because of election security, potential election interference, like we saw, frankly, Moldova, direct and blatant interference by Russia. We worry about how that impacts countries globally when You have foreign adversaries like China, Russia, North Korea, Iran also interfering. Then because of AI and because of increased levels of disinformation in the impact of social media on how the public is thinking and how media is consumed today, we know that the landscape has shifted. And part of the real challenges for democracies is how to navigate this changed media landscape that you're a contributor to. And how are we responding to make sure that people, as I mentioned, so important to have accurate for people to be able to trust who their leaders are? Right now, trust in democracies is low all across the world. Trust in institutions is low. We're navigating a new world.
[00:22:45.380] - Joe Kawly
Whose fault is that? Just to mention the trust that is so low when it comes to citizens. I've had a conversation with Dr. Francis Fukuyama about this. And how is that the low trust from citizens in their institutions and government has led to the rise of populist movements. I want to know what are the few reasons, do you think, that are leading today to this erosion of trust from citizens toward their governments and institutions.
[00:23:23.940] - Jonathan Katz
I'm going to go right back to, and it shouldn't be discounted, is the impact of media consumption, direct efforts to divide populations, how media is consumed when we're in this media bubble filled with algorithms that basically set the mode of what people are consuming, a lack of non-interest and really understanding issues and exploring beyond what you're seeing on your social media feed. It's absolutely having an impact on how people view government and governments. Democracies do deliver more than authoritarian countries. There are plenty of studies that show the economic impact of these countries, what people can do within them. Are they healthier in terms of environment? Are they healthier in terms of schools for wet children or jobs? There's a reason why a country like Moldova, that was the poorest country in Europe, For many years, wants to join the EU economically. It makes a lot of sense when you see how those countries that join the EU after the collapse of the Soviet Union have done. Those countries have environmentally are ahead. They have democracies. They might not all work perfectly in many ways, but they are in a much better place, both in terms of economic and security than they were during the days that they were pulled into the Warsaw Pact or Russia's orbit.
[00:25:04.200] - Jonathan Katz
I just want to say that making sure we have this disinformation component that really is impacting it. It is also true, inequality, which we touched on economically, People feeling disillusioned, feeling like no matter who is in government, they're not reaching me or taking care of the things that I care about. Of course, there's a lot of politicians, political leaders globally. I think it's the other side of populism, which is to address inequality, because a lot of the populist leaders who are out there, it's a lot of what I would say is a lot of lip service to addressing the challenges without really addressing them. Tobocracy takes 20 times as much work as autocracy does because it's so hard to do it. It's so hard to advance policy, maintain it, fund it. And these systems are more difficult. It's true, it's more difficult. So I think part of it goes to Nolly, the disinformation, inequality, and the other part is incompetence and governance. And I I think you would know that if you were in Egypt and you were trying to get your driver's license in Cairo, right? You might be like, Where are you going?
[00:26:23.010] - Jonathan Katz
I understand. I know there's the big city building, but it's difficult sometimes to do that. When that fails, and I'm saying this because I think there's an expectation that democracy can deliver, and it does.
[00:26:38.810] - Joe Kawly
Those are warning signs. On top of these warnings, you have also warned that fighting corruptions can be used by governments as an excuse to concentrate more power. How do we tell the difference now?
[00:26:57.520] - Jonathan Katz
It is certainly used There's this law fair or the legal system used to buy leaders even within democracies to advance their own interests is a real challenge. In countries where you have checks and balances, where you have a judiciary and a legislative branch, United States has its own unique form. Of course, it's meant to ensure that when one power It tries to take more power than it can or should based on constitutions or the law, that these other parts of the system will hold them accountable. In certain systems, that's not happening right now. The things that you want to do is, of course, you want to expose what's taking place, but you want to hold leaders accountable, and it's more difficult in this disinformation information space that we just spoke about. But there is differences between the two, but you need strong civil society and independent media. You need watchguards to be able to explain this. You need an interested and educated civic community and nation to want to understand what's happening, what's right from wrong, because both sides can claim the other is are corrupt. If the message is so mudded that you don't believe anybody, then you're going to see people that don't come to vote.
[00:28:30.450] - Joe Kawly
Last question, Jonathan. If there's one thing we're not paying enough attention to, one trend that could seriously shape where democracy goes next, what is it?
[00:28:43.460] - Jonathan Katz
It's certainly the media landscape, the information landscape. We are all watching it because we can't help but not take a look at our feed. But because Because of the art of disinformation, it's not new. Disinformation and negative campaigning, as we used to call it, as somebody who used to run political campaigns, has been around forever. But the speed in which somebody can, through AI, deep fakes, through disinformation, an open space with very little control, is something that's quite poisonous to democracy. It's poisonous to the truth. If we can't discern what's real from what's not, I'll give you an example. In Ireland's election, there was a deep fake. It was one of the candidates running for president. The deep fake was her saying, I'm not running. I'm making an announcement. I've quit the race. Then they had commentators taking you and another colleague in a studio saying, Hey, this is By the way, this is AI as well. It was only one example, but in the US, we've seen this. We've been tracking the same type of deepfakes in AI around the globe. The rush and the speed of technology globally and democracy, because we know that technology can be on one end, it can be a positive, but it also can be used in a negative way.
[00:30:28.220] - Jonathan Katz
Of course, in the hands of that do not support democracy, don't care about it, not interested in the truth, you're doing things that impact the public good. That also means when you see the people who you want, the experts that you really want to be there to address the deep challenges like climate change. How many people in the MENA region are impacted by climate change, migration? There's a reason why people have been leaving in droves over the years because of all these issues, the inability of governance or conflict. I just want to say this is a spark and a space for us to be thinking hard about what we want to see in terms of how to address this deep challenge which threatens democracy globally. And of course, in the hands of populace authoritarians, it's a weapon.
[00:31:23.860] - Joe Kawly
And definitely talking about how AI and deep fake will and is changing elections and the race of elections. I think this should be a whole conversation, a whole different episode with you, probably. Jonathon Katz, thanks for joining me and for giving us a real look at what's actually happening behind the headlines. Thank you. Thank you.
[00:31:49.640] - Jonathan Katz
Good to speak to you.