About Eric Chenoweth

Eric Chenoweth was co-founder of IDEE and its original director from 1985 to 1987. He has been its co-director since 1994 overseeing publications and special programs. He is also a consultant for the Albert Shanker Institute and has worked on a variety of its projects, including as principal author of Democracy Web, an extracurricular resource that includes 12 chapters on basic principles of democracy and 36 country studies. He has written on human rights, democracy and Eastern Europe in a wide variety of English-language and foreign publications.

Democracy’s Champion: In Remembrance of Albert Shanker

by Eric Chenoweth

The following article was posted as part of a series published to commemorate Albert Shanker, a unique American union leader, on the 20th anniversary of his death. The full series, published by the Albert Shanker Institute (the foundation established in his name by the American Federation of Teachers), can be found here. Albert Shanker and the AFT were original and steadfast supporters of and contributors to the Committee in Support of Solidarity and the Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe and took an active part in their work. His contributions to the struggle for freedom in Eastern Europe and in the world are described more fully in a monograph by the same author titled Democracy’s Champion: Albert Shanker and the International Impact of the American Federation of Teachers. […]

By |March 13th, 2017|Uncategorized|

Does the Constitution Demand Such an Outcome?

December 16, 2017

by Eric Chenoweth                                                                                                                                       PDF Version

Long before all the votes were counted, American citizens were told to accept the election of Donald Trump as the next US president. We are still being told this despite mounting evidence that he may be beholden to a hostile foreign power for his election. […]

By |December 17th, 2016|Eric Chenoweth, Uncategorized|

Let Hamilton Speak: Recapturing American Democracy

December 17, 2016

by Eric Chenoweth                                                                                                                                      PDF Version

Americans are being told that the Electoral College overrides the national vote in US presidential elections because the nation’s founders established a federal system for states to determine the selection of the country’s only national office. […]

By |December 17th, 2016|Eric Chenoweth, Uncategorized|

Turning Away From The Election’s Alarming Story: Russian Intervention

by Eric Chenoweth

The following appeared in the Washington Post, November 26, 2016.

In assessing Donald Trump’s presidential victory, Americans continue to look away from this election’s most alarming story: the successful effort by a hostile foreign power to manipulate public opinion prior to the vote. […]

By |November 26th, 2016|Eastern Europe, Eric Chenoweth, Russia|

Can US Democracy Defend Itself?

The following article appeared in The Washington Post, November 2, 2016.

By Eric Chenoweth

Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy has posed many challenges to U.S. media. In at least one frightening respect, it has failed: News outlets are actively abetting an authoritarian and imperialist foreign power’s attempt to manipulate a U.S. presidential election to aid its favored candidate, Trump, and sanctioning an assault on the individual and civil liberties of all American citizens. […]

By |November 2nd, 2016|Eastern Europe, Eric Chenoweth, Russia|

The Present Danger

Revised October 7, 2016                                                                                                                      PDF Version         

by Eric Chenoweth

Editorial boards of newspapers have become the most responsible civic voices in this year’s US presidential election. […]

By |October 4th, 2016|Eric Chenoweth|

Answering Authoritarian Politics:

An Open Letter to an American Citizen
About the 2016 Presidential Election
September 16, 2016

by Eric Chenoweth                                                                                          PDF Version          […]

By |September 16th, 2016|Communism, Eastern Europe, Eric Chenoweth, Poland|

How Democracies Perish

Revised July 28, 2016                                                                                                                                  PDF Version

by Eric Chenoweth

“Democracy may, after all, turn out to be an historical accident, a brief parenthesis that is closing before our eyes.” — Jean François Revel, How Democracies Perish, 1983

There have been many who prognosticated democracy’s doom. […]

By |July 20th, 2016|Eric Chenoweth|

The Authoritarian Temptation

June 24, 2016                                                                                                                                              PDF Version

by Eric Chenoweth

In 1976, the French political theorist Jean François Revel warned of the “totalitarian temptation” in the West at a time when many intellectuals were attacking political democracy, often in favor of Soviet communism. Forty years later, the danger posed by Soviet communism is gone, but political democracy is again under severe threat, this time from an authoritarian temptation that has reached the United States. […]

By |June 24th, 2016|Eric Chenoweth|

Miljenko Dereta: Idealist and Fighter for Democratic Serbia

Opening Remarks: Eric Chenoweth, Co-Director, Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe
Public Memorial Meeting on the Anniversary of Miljenko Dereta’s Death
Organized by Civic Initiatives / November 23, 2015

[…]

By |December 2nd, 2015|Centers for Pluralism, Eric Chenoweth, Unfinished Revolutions|
Copyright © 2015   |   All Rights Reserved    |   Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe   |  1030 15th Street, NW, No. 147 B1, Washington, D.C. 20005   |   Tel: (202) 361-9346   |   Email: idee@idee.org