A panel discussion launching the new Journal of Democracy book, "Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy," featured presentations by book contributors Francis Fukuyama, Peter Lewis, Mitchell Orenstein, and Marc F. Plattner.
Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy addresses the complicated philosophical and moral issues surrounding the distribution of economic goods in free societies as well as the empirical relationships between democratization and trends in poverty and inequality. This volume also discusses the variety of welfare-state policies that have been adopted in different regions of the world. During this panel discussion, the speakers gave special attention to the relationship between poverty, inequality, and democracy in Latin America, Africa, and postcommunist Europe.
About the Speakers
Francis Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law. He is the author of The End of History and the Last Man and, most recently, The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution.
Peter Lewis is director of the African Studies Program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. His most recent book is Growing Apart: Oil, Politics, and Economic Change in Indonesia and Nigeria (2007).
Mitchell A. Orenstein is the S. Richard Hirsch Associate Professor of European Studies at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. His book, Privatizing Pensions: The Transnational Campaign for Social Security Reform, won the 2009 Charles H. Levine Prize of the International Political Science Association.
Marc F. Plattner is coeditor of the Journal of Democracy, director of the International Forum for Democratic Studies, and vice-president for research and studies at the National Endowment for Democracy.