Lawfare News

The Lawfare Podcast: Charles Dunst on Defeating the Dictators

Jen Patja, Scott R. Anderson, Charles Dunst
Tuesday, March 21, 2023, 12:00 PM

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Brookings

By many accounts, the United States is living through a new era of competition—not just between major powers and strategic rivals, but between ideologies. Around the world, many authoritarian governments seem to be on the rise, even as many liberal democracies are facing a crisis of confidence, including, by some accounts, here in the United States.

In a new book entitled, “Defeating the Dictators,” Charles Dunst, a former journalist and current deputy director of research and analytics at The Asia Group, lays out what he sees as the right strategy for making democracies more effective and defeating the appeal of authoritarian government. Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with him to discuss his new book, the importance he places on Singapore as a case study, and how the domestic remedies he focuses on translate into foreign policy.


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Jen Patja is the editor and producer of The Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security. She currently serves as the Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics, a nonprofit organization that empowers the next generation of leaders in Virginia by promoting constitutional literacy, critical thinking, and civic engagement. She is the former Deputy Director of the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier and has been a freelance editor for over 20 years.
Scott R. Anderson is a fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and a Senior Fellow in the National Security Law Program at Columbia Law School. He previously served as an Attorney-Adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State and as the legal advisor for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq.
Charles Dunst is a former journalist and current Deputy Director of Research and Analytics at The Asia Group.