Stanford University

Ill Winds Against Liberal Democracy

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Speaker Bio:

Larry Diamond
Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. For more than six years, he directed FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, where he now leads its Program on Arab Reform and Democracy and its Global Digital Policy Incubator. He is the founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy and also serves as Senior Consultant at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy. His research focuses on democratic trends and conditions around in the world, and on policies and reforms to defend and advance democracy.  His 2016 book, In Search of Democracy, explores the challenges confronting democracy and democracy promotion, gathering together three decades of his writing and research, particularly on Africa and Asia.  He has just completed a new book on the global crisis of democracy, which will be published in 2019, and is now writing a textbook on democratic development.

Larry Diamond

CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C147
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 724-6448 (650) 723-1928
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Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science and Sociology
diamond_encina_hall.png MA, PhD

Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford, where he lectures and teaches courses on democracy (including an online course on EdX). At the Hoover Institution, he co-leads the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and participates in the Project on the U.S., China, and the World. At FSI, he is among the core faculty of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, which he directed for six and a half years. He leads FSI’s Israel Studies Program and is a member of the Program on Arab Reform and Development. He also co-leads the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He served for 32 years as founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy.

Diamond’s research focuses on global trends affecting freedom and democracy and on U.S. and international policies to defend and advance democracy. His book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency, analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the United States and around the world at this potential “hinge in history,” and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad.  A paperback edition with a new preface was released by Penguin in April 2020. His other books include: In Search of Democracy (2016), The Spirit of Democracy (2008), Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (1999), Promoting Democracy in the 1990s (1995), and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria (1989). He has edited or coedited more than fifty books, including China’s Influence and American Interests (2019, with Orville Schell), Silicon Triangle: The United States, China, Taiwan the Global Semiconductor Security (2023, with James O. Ellis Jr. and Orville Schell), and The Troubling State of India’s Democracy (2024, with Sumit Ganguly and Dinsha Mistree).

During 2002–03, Diamond served as a consultant to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and was a contributing author of its report, Foreign Aid in the National Interest. He has advised and lectured to universities and think tanks around the world, and to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other organizations dealing with governance and development. During the first three months of 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. His 2005 book, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, was one of the first books to critically analyze America's postwar engagement in Iraq.

Among Diamond’s other edited books are Democracy in Decline?; Democratization and Authoritarianism in the Arab World; Will China Democratize?; and Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy, all edited with Marc F. Plattner; and Politics and Culture in Contemporary Iran, with Abbas Milani. With Juan J. Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset, he edited the series, Democracy in Developing Countries, which helped to shape a new generation of comparative study of democratic development.

Download full-resolution headshot; photo credit: Rod Searcey.

Former Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Faculty Chair, Jan Koum Israel Studies Program
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Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.
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Russian Propaganda about Syria

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Co-author Renée DiResta

Abstract:

When protests against Syrian President Bashar Assad began in 2011, Russia made good on its decades-long alliance with Syria, providing Assad with diplomatic and military support. The Kremlin also doubled down on its propaganda efforts, pushing their anti-Western, anti-rebel, and pro-Assad narratives across Twitter, Facebook, Medium, Quora, and Reddit. In this paper we undertake a comprehensive assessment of the reach of these narratives. With “news” articles in broken English on dubious websites, and low engagement rates on propaganda social media accounts, the reach of these narratives may seem limited. In this paper, we leverage datasets from a variety of social media platforms and Russian-attributed media outlets to more fully assess how far these narratives traveled. We use often-ignored measures of reach and engagement: secondary domains where propaganda is re-posted, and incoming links and engagement data from public and private social media accounts. With case studies of particular narratives and individual sock puppet identities, we describe how traditional narrative laundering, biased media properties and created personas are complemented by social media-enabled peer-to-peer persuasion methods.

 

Speaker Bio:

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Shelby Grossman is a research scholar at the Stanford Internet Observatory. She was previously an assistant professor of political science at the University of Memphis. Dr. Grossman's primary research interests are in comparative politics and sub-Saharan Africa. Her research has been published in Comparative Political Studies, PS: Political Science and Politics, World Development, and World Politics. 

Dr. Grossman was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law from 2016-17. She earned her PhD in Government from Harvard University in 2016.

Shelby Grossman

Encina Hall, C433 616 Jane Stanford Way Stanford, CA 94305-6055
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Shelby Grossman was a research scholar at the Cyber Policy Center. Her research focuses on online safety. Shelby's research has been published in Comparative Political Studies, PNAS Nexus, Political Communication, The Journal of Politics, World Development, and World Politics. Her book, "The Politics of Order in Informal Markets," was published by Cambridge University Press. She is co-editor of the Journal of Online Trust and Safety, and teaches classes at Stanford on open source investigation and online trust and safety issues. 

Shelby was an assistant professor of political science at the University of Memphis from 2017-2019, and a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law from 2016-17. She earned her Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University in 2016.

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CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow, 2016-17
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Inaugural Stanford e-Tottori Day

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Upon seeing the printed agenda for the “Inaugural Stanford e-Tottori Day” on August 23, 2019, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Takeshi Homma, whose hometown is in Tottori Prefecture, remarked that he never thought that he would see Tottori high school students at a ceremony at Stanford University. This prompted me to recall the initiative that Homma took several years ago to introduce me to Tottori Prefecture, the least populated in all of Japan. His vision was to bridge his ancestral home with his current home, the United States, through the establishment of an online class on U.S. society and culture for high school students in Tottori. Through Homma’s vision and the support of Tottori Governor Shinji Hirai and the Tottori Prefectural Board of Education, Stanford e-Tottori was established over three years ago. Jonas Edman has been the Instructor of Stanford e-Tottori since its inception.

The inaugural Stanford e-Tottori Day honored Ayaka Ikei of Seishokaichi High School and Yua Kodani of Tottori Nishi High School for achieving at the highest levels in the course. It began with remarks by Takuya Fukushima, Office Director of the English Education Advancement Office, Tottori Prefectural Board of Education. Fukushima commented on the significance of Stanford e-Tottori to the students who have participated, noting their growth not only in terms of their English communication skills but also their understanding of U.S. society and culture. Fukushima, as a graduate of Hiroshima University and also someone who has studied at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Ohio State University, knows well the significance of the U.S.–Japan relationship. During his remarks and much to the delight of the audience, he shared a television news program that featured a class that Edman taught in person in Tottori in July.

Rie Kusakiyo makes opening remarks at Stanford e-Tottori Day. She is Advisor for Educational Affairs at the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco. Rie Kusakiyo makes opening remarks at Stanford e-Tottori Day. She is Advisor for Educational Affairs at the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco.
Fukushima’s comments were followed by remarks by Rie Kusakiyo, Advisor for Educational Affairs at the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco. Her words were not only inspiring to the students but she is also someone to whom Ayaka and Yua can aspire, as both students expressed an interest in studying and living in the United States, as Kusakiyo has done.

The highlight of the program was Edman’s introduction of his student honorees, Ayaka and Yua, and their heartfelt presentations, which included their aspirations for the future. During the question and answer period, their passion for helping others surfaced. Ayaka would like to go into the field of education and Yua into the field of medicine. Edman expressed how proud he is of their accomplishments and presented them with plaques.

Visiting Scholar Kenichirou Oyama, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, noted, “I was very impressed by the presentations of the two young high school students. In addition, as I am from a provincial town myself, I feel strongly that this program offers hope for young students who live in provincial areas.” By “hope,” Oyama was referring to the fact that students in more rural areas generally have fewer educational opportunities than students in metropolitan areas like Tokyo.

Edman shares a similar sentiment. “The fact that Tottori is quite isolated is what makes the teaching of Stanford e-Tottori so rewarding for me. Making Stanford scholarship accessible to them really captures the heart of SPICE’s mission.” Earlier this year, Edman facilitated a joint online class between his students in Tottori and Japanese language students at Nueva School in Hillsborough, California, whose teacher is Yoko Sase. It was remarkable for Edman to observe how much the students shared and learned from each other. During their trip to the San Francisco Bay Area, Ayaka, Yua, and Fukushima had the chance to visit Nueva and met several of the students with whom they had previously met only virtually. Through Stanford e-Tottori, more students, entrepreneurs, and scholars in the United States are also learning about Tottori.

The fourth Stanford e-Tottori course will commence this fall with the highest enrollment to date.

To stay informed of SPICE-related news, join our email list and follow SPICE on Facebook or Twitter.

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High school student honorees Yua Kodani and Ayaka Ikei with Jonas Edman and Takuya Fukushima at the inaugural Stanford e-Tottori Day.
Jonas Edman and Takuya Fukushima with Stanford e-Tottori student honorees Yua Kodani and Ayaka Ikei at the inaugural Stanford e-Tottori Day.
Sabrina Ishimatsu
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Comparing Immigration Policies in the US, Canada, and Australia

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Speaker Bio:

Francis Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), the Director of the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy, and the Mosbacher Director of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL).  He is also a professor by courtesy in the Department of Political Science. He was previously at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University, where he was the Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy and director of SAIS' International Development program.

Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on issues relating to questions concerning democratization and international political economy. His book, The End of History and the Last Man, was published by Free Press in 1992 and has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. His most recent book is Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy.

Francis Fukuyama received his B.A. from Cornell University in classics, and his Ph.D. from Harvard in Political Science. He was a member of the Political Science Department of the RAND Corporation, and a twice a member of the Policy Planning Staff of the US Department of State. From 1996-2000 he was Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University. He served as a member of the President's Council on Bioethics from 2001-2004.

Francis Fukuyama

Encina Hall, C148
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305

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Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Director of the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy
Research Affiliate at The Europe Center
Professor by Courtesy, Department of Political Science
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Francis Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a faculty member of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). He is also Director of Stanford's Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy, and a professor (by courtesy) of Political Science.

Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on issues in development and international politics. His 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. His book In the Realm of the Last Man: A Memoir will be published in fall 2026.

Francis Fukuyama received his B.A. from Cornell University in classics, and his Ph.D. from Harvard in Political Science. He was a member of the Political Science Department of the RAND Corporation, and of the Policy Planning Staff of the US Department of State. From 1996-2000 he was Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University, and from 2001-2010 he was Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. He served as a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics from 2001-2004. He is editor-in-chief of American Purpose, an online journal.

Dr. Fukuyama holds honorary doctorates from Connecticut College, Doane College, Doshisha University (Japan), Kansai University (Japan), Aarhus University (Denmark), the Pardee Rand Graduate School, and Adam Mickiewicz University (Poland). He is a non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Rand Corporation, the Board of Trustees of Freedom House, and the Board of the Volcker Alliance. He is a fellow of the National Academy for Public Administration, a member of the American Political Science Association, and of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is married to Laura Holmgren and has three children.

(October 2025)

Global Populisms

A new project examining the global surge in populist movements and what it means for established democratic rules and institutions.
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The Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), the Director of the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy, and the Mosbacher Director of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development
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What Does Dignity Have to Do with Liberal Democracy? Listen Now

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Liberal democracy is being challenged by populist nationalist leaders and they’re fanning the flames of identity politics. Instead of uniting over a shared sense of humanity, people are identifying in narrower ways based on things like religion, race, ethnicity, and gender. Francis Fukuyama , FSI Senior Fellow and CDDRL Mosbacher Director, believes that in order to support democracy, we must inculcate a greater sense of dignity into society. Fukuyama speaks with Elliot Gerson, executive vice president at the Aspen Institute. Listen here.

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The Costs of Claim-Making in Mexico

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Abstract:

High bureaucratic transaction costs can make it impossible for individuals to claim welfare benefits. Instead, these costs make individuals dependent on intermediaries who facilitate access to welfare. Especially in contexts of weak and corrupt policy implementation, politically motivated intermediaries demand political loyalty in return for their assistance, a practice known as clientelism. Although intermediaries may be efficient and even compensate for deficiencies in state capacity, they can also have long-run consequences for individuals' political autonomy and capacity to hold governments accountable. As a result, instead of promoting autonomous political participation, the pursuit of social welfare benefits through intermediaries can intensify ties of dependency. Worryingly, this research suggests that studying distributive outcomes without understanding mediating institutions may produce misleading conclusions. However, an important implication of this theory is that vicious markets of mediation can be weakened by reducing the costs that citizens face in obtaining welfare benefits directly from the state.

 

Speaker Bio:

tesalia
Tesalia is a Post Postdoctoral Scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University. Starting fall 2020, she will be joining the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Merced as Assistant Professor. She completed her PhD in Political Science at MIT. Tesalia is also a research affiliate at the MIT Governance Lab.

Her research is in comparative political behavior, with a particular focus on how citizens make demands on the state. Her book-project, titled “Intermediaries of the State: Bureaucratic Transaction Costs of Claiming Welfare in Mexico” explores how bureaucratic transaction costs prevent individuals from directly claiming welfare benefits. Instead, these costs make citizens dependent on clientelist brokers and intermediaries, who demand political favors in return for access.

 

Tesalia Rizzo

Encina Hall, E112 616 Jane Stanford Way Stanford, CA 94305-6055  
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CDDRL Postdoctoral Scholar, 2019-20
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Tesalia Rizzo holds a Ph.D. in Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her research focuses on the demand and supply side of political mediation. Specifically, on how political (formal, informal or clientelist) intermediaries shape citizens’ attitudes and political engagement. She also works with non-governmental practitioners in Mexico to develop and test policies that disincentivize citizen reliance on clientelist and corrupt avenues of engaging with government and strengthen citizen demand for accountability. Her work with Mexican practitioners was awarded the 2017 Innovation in Transparency Award given by the Mexican National Institute for Access to Information (INAI). She is also a Research Fellow at MIT GOV/LAB and the Political Methodology Lab, at MIT. She is a graduate of the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) in Mexico City. Prior to arriving at Stanford, she was a pre-doctoral fellow at the Center for US-Mexican Studies at University of California, San Diego and will join the Political Science Faculty at the University of California, Merced in 2020.

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Post Postdoctoral Scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University
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The global spread of political polarization

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Abstract:

Political polarization is tearing at the seams of democracies around the world—from Brazil, India, and Kenya, to Poland, Turkey, and the United States. Drawing on his new co-edited volume (with Andrew O’Donohue), Democracies Divided: The Global Challenge of Political Polarization, Carnegie Endowment scholar Thomas Carothers will analyze the global spread of political polarization, drawing on examples from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and North America. Questions to be addressed include: Why has polarization come to a boil in so many places in recent years? What are its consequences? Once democracies have become deeply divided, what can they do to restore at least some consensus? Is polarization in the United States similar to or different from polarization elsewhere?

 

Speaker Bio:

Thomas Carothers
Thomas Carothers is senior vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace where he oversees all of the Endowment’s research programs and directs the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program. Widely recognized as a leading authority on democratization and international support for democracy, he has worked on democracy and governance assistance projects around the world for many public and private organizations. He is the author or editor of numerous critically-acclaimed books and reports as well as many articles in prominent journals and newspapers. He has been a visiting faculty member at Oxford University, the Central European University, and Johns Hopkins SAIS. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, the London School of Economics, and Harvard College.

Thomas Carothers Senior vice president for studies, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
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Marietje Schaake

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Marietje Schaake is a non-resident Fellow at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center and at the Institute for Human-Centered AI. She is a columnist for the Financial Times and serves on a number of not-for-profit Boards as well as the UN's High Level Advisory Body on AI. Between 2009-2019 she served as a Member of European Parliament where she worked on trade-, foreign- and tech policy. She is the author of The Tech Coup.


 

Non-Resident Fellow, Cyber Policy Center
Fellow, Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence
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Kelly Born to Join Cyber Policy Center as Executive Director

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The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) is pleased to announce that Kelly Born has been named the first executive director of the Cyber Policy Center. With a focus on cybersecurity, disinformation, digital democracy and election security, the Cyber Policy Center’s research, teaching and policy engagement aim to bring new insights and solutions to national governments, international institutions and industry.

As executive director, Born will collaborate with the center’s program leaders to pioneer academic programs focused on cyber issues, including new lines of research, a case-based, policy-oriented curriculum, pre- and postdoctoral training and practitioner fellowships, policy workshops and executive education. Born will also serve as the key spokesperson within the university and externally to the media, policy influencers, industry, foundations and civil society organizations. 

Prior to joining Stanford, Born helped to launch and lead The Madison Initiative at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic undertakings in America working to reduce polarization and improve U.S. democracy. There, Born designed and implemented strategies focused on money in politics, electoral reform, civic engagement and digital disinformation. In this capacity, Born worked with academics, government leaders, social media companies, foundations, and nonprofits around the world to help improve online information ecosystems. 

Before joining the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Born worked as a strategy consultant with the Monitor Group, supporting strategic planning efforts at Fortune 100 companies, governments, and nonprofits in the U.S., Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe. 

Born earned a master’s degree in international policy from Stanford University. The graduate program is offered through the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

“We are thrilled that Kelly is returning to Stanford to play a leadership role at the Cyber Policy Center,” said Nathaniel Persily, the center’s faculty co-director, and the James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School. “Her deep knowledge of our core research areas and strong relationships with leaders in academia, government and technology circles position the center well to achieve its strategic aims.”

The Cyber Policy Center was established in June 2019 and includes four programs: the Program on Democracy and the Internet; the Program on Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance; the Internet Observatory; and the Global Digital Policy Incubator. Together, they focus on addressing the threats cyber technologies pose to security and governance worldwide. 

The center’s launch event, “Securing Our Cyber Future: Innovative Approaches to Digital Threats,” featured the center’s first white paper, Securing American Elections: Prescriptions for Enhancing the Integrity and Independence of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Elections and Beyond,” which was co-authored by scholars affiliated with the Cyber Policy Center. The report details 45 recommendations for protecting the 2020 U.S. presidential election from domestic and foreign interference.

“I am honored and excited to have the opportunity to work with the distinguished faculty and staff at the new Cyber Policy Center, as well as the broader Stanford community of faculty and students,” said Born. “Questions of how best to maximize the benefits and minimize the harms presented by our increasingly networked, online world are amongst the most important and challenging questions global societies are grappling with today. Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center is ideally suited to pursue the research, teaching and policy engagement necessary to help answer these questions.”

About the Cyber Policy Center

The digital age has exposed countries to new security threats and sovereignty challenges that policymakers have only begun to address. In addition, social media and network technologies increasingly strain the balance between protecting the First Amendment and preventing foreign actors from influencing elections. To date, technological advancement in this domain has outpaced government policies, doctrines, or regulations. The Cyber Policy Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University aims to address this need through research, policy advocacy and teaching. Program areas address topics including cybersecurity, election security, misinformation, digital democracy and human rights, artificial intelligence, and emerging technologies. Through research, policy engagement and teaching, the Cyber Policy Center brings cutting-edge insights and solutions to national governments, international institutions, and industry.

 
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Advice for President Zelenskyy as he Prepares to Meet President Trump

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This article originally appeared in the Ukrainian journal Novoye Vremya.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy may meet President Donald Trump this weekend in Warsaw and is expected to travel to the United States later in the fall.  This gives Mr. Zelenskyy the opportunity to reinforce Kyiv’s relationship with the United States.  It also offers the opportunity to try to establish a connection to Mr. Trump, something that has proven elusive for most foreign leaders.  Here are a few suggestions for Mr. Zelenskyy on dealing with the American president.

Mr. Zelenskyy should bear in mind that Mr. Trump lacks a strong grasp of the U.S. interest in and what is at stake with regard to Ukraine and the conflict that Russia wages against it.  His administration has pursued sensible policies in supporting Kyiv, strengthening NATO and sustaining sanctions on Moscow.  By all appearances, however, Mr. Trump does not instinctively agree with the necessity of his administration’s own policies.  Witness his recent suggestion about inviting Vladimir Putin to join with other G7 leaders when he hosts the G7 summit next year.

Mr. Trump is not detail-oriented.  He reportedly reads little, leading White House staff to resort to graphs and pictures to capture his attention.  The smart way to approach Mr. Trump is to avoid detail, sticking instead with a few clear and easily understood themes.

Flattering the American president would not hurt.  North Korean leader Kim Jong-un appears to have mastered that.  North Korea has reduced none of its nuclear or ballistic missile capabilities—in fact, they have increased—but Mr. Trump swoons over Mr. Kim’s letters and professes not to be bothered by Pyongyang’s shorter range ballistic missile tests.

That said, keep expectations for flattery modest.  No European leader invested more heavily in flattering Mr. Trump than former British Prime Minister Theresa May.  She gave him a state visit in June with all the bells and whistles.  Yet Mr. Trump could not resist sending a series of tweets denigrating her handling of the Brexit conundrum and all but welcoming her replacement.

This underscores the point that, in many foreign policy relationships, Mr. Trump is transactional.  He will be asking what can America get, or what can he get.

Mr. Zelenskyy thus should consider whether there is a topic on which he could offer Mr. Trump a win-win.  Progress toward resolving the Russia-Ukraine conflict in Donbas could provide such an issue.  Real movement toward peace would be a major win for Kyiv, but it could offer Mr. Trump a win as well.  He has repeatedly made clear his desire for improved U.S.-Russia relations, and a genuine settlement in Donbas could lift the biggest obstacle to his goal.

The question is how to shape a proposal to accomplish this.  Bringing Mr. Trump into the current Normandy negotiating format in a way that made it appear as if Mr. Trump sparked a breakthrough would appeal to the Nobel Prize-hungry American president.

However, the key to peace in Donbas lies in Moscow.  The Kremlin seems interested in sustaining a simmering conflict as a means to pressure the government in Kyiv.  Still, aligning interests with Mr. Trump on pressing for peace would be a plus for Mr. Zelenskyy.

While in the United States, the Ukrainian president should not neglect the Congressional leadership.  Both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill support Ukraine and display considerable skepticism toward Russia.  Congress could serve as a check on Mr. Trump should he choose to pursue his less well-thought-out ideas on Russia.

Mr. Zelenskyy’s American interlocutors in Congress want Ukraine to succeed, with success measured by its progress in becoming a normal democratic, market-oriented and prosperous European state.  In the past, developments in Ukraine have disappointed both Ukrainians and the country’s friends in the West.  To the extent that Mr. Zelenskyy can make a persuasive case that this time it is different—that he and the new parliament will take the tough steps to achieve success—he will return home having forged a stronger basis for the U.S.-Ukrainian relationship.  He can bolster his case by coming to Washington with one or two signature reforms under his belt, such as an end to the moratorium on sales of private agricultural land.

One last piece of advice.  Mr. Zelenskyy and his team should be wary of former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani’s efforts to drag Ukraine into U.S. domestic politics.  That would risk making Ukraine a partisan political issue in America, which could undermine the bipartisan support that Ukraine has enjoyed since regaining independence in 1991.

* * * * *

Steven Pifer is a William Perry fellow at Stanford University and a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

 

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