Fighting threats to democracy through responsible citizenship: Stanford International Relations ’17 diploma address
Following is the prepared text by Stanford Professor Stephen J. Stedman at the 2017 Stanford International Relations Program Diploma Ceremony. Dr. Stedman is the Deputy Director at the Center on Democracy Development and the Rule of Law at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science. In 2005, he served as Assistant Secretary-General and Special Advisor to the Secretary- General of the United Nations. Stedman received his B.A. from Stanford in 1979, as well as his M.A. in 1985, and his Ph.D. in 1988.
This year actually marks my 30th year as a professor, and my 20th year back at Stanford. And this speech led me to recall the very first lecture I ever gave. I was a graduate student, who along with a group of faculty decided to put together an undergraduate team-taught course on Peace Studies. We taught the course one day a week from 4:15 to 6:05 in the afternoon, and the very first time the course was offered we had 200 students. Early on in the course we were going to devote one class to American foreign policy and we made the questionable decision to have four mini-lectures that day, by three distinguished faculty and myself. We each had 25 minutes to speak, which would allow some time at the end of class for q and a. I drew the short straw and was to go 4th that day.
For a first time lecture, it was pretty intimidating, speaking after 3 Stanford faculty in front of a couple hundred people. I held it together but began to grow nervous because the first professor talked for 50 minutes, the second professor then spoke for 35 minutes, and then the third professor spoke exactly for 25 minutes, which means he finished exactly at 6:05 when the class was supposed to end. I thought we would tell the students that we would wait until the next class for my lecture, but instead the faculty all agreed that I should go ahead and give my talk.
So I got up at the podium and looked out at the most passive aggressive hostile crowd of Stanford students that I have ever seen — but what was remarkable was that though everyone had put away their notebooks and pens and were holding their book bags, no one had actually left. But all of them had the same look on their face, which I read as “GET THIS OVER WITH NOW!” Somehow I spoke as quickly as I could, omitted a couple sections of the lecture, and ended in about 12 minutes, at which point everyone sprinted from the room to get to their dorms for dinner.
For some this would have been a rather traumatic start to a career but for me, this was when I knew I had found my calling, because from that day forward I could always say, the first time I lectured I had 200 people on the edge of their seats.
International relations graduates of the class of 2017, family and friends. To the graduates I want to congratulate you on your choice of major at Stanford and your achievement in getting your degree. In a world where division, polarization and danger are increasing, you have a skill set and store of knowledge that can help build international cooperation to solve problems that cross borders.
I could talk all day about how wonderful the international relations major is at Stanford, but you all know that. So instead I want to talk to you today about two things that have been on my mind: democracy and citizenship. As Mike mentioned, for the last eight years, my wife Corinne and I have been Resident Fellows in Crothers, Stanford’s academic theme house on global citizenship. The idea of global citizenship has come under some criticism over the past year. Some critics disparage those of us who believe that in an interdependent world we should care about how policies and practices within borders affects people outside our border. Some go so far as to assert that a belief in global citizenship diminishes national citizenship. Or as the title of one critical article proclaims, ‘global citizens, national slackers.’
Now if it were the case that actually caring about people outside one’s borders meant not paying attention and being a good local and national citizen, then we would have a problem. For me though the critique is a useful reminder that if you want foreign and domestic policies that lead to peace and prosperity for others, then you better engage at home to convince your own citizens that those policies are in their interest too. The best global citizens already know this and do this.
One of the first speakers we had in Crothers was Steve Schneider, a great climate scientist who died less than a year after speaking in our dorm at the way too early age of 65. Around a long dinner table with about 20 students, Steve talked about climate change, and about his long devotion to educating policy makers in Washington and citizens throughout the US about its dangers and what we should do about it. One of the students asked him towards the end of the dinner, ‘what keeps you up at night?” And what he said has stuck with me to this day, because no one in that room saw it coming: Steve answered, “these days what keeps me up at night is whether our democracy can handle complexity.”
I think about Steve’s answer almost every day, because I too am worried about democracy, especially ours in the United States. Our civic culture is frayed; polarization among politicians in Washington are at their highest since the Civil War. There is a gulf between what average citizens want and what our politicians deliver. Democratic politics in this country have always been contentious, now they seem downright dysfunctional.
When I was a doctoral student here in the 1980s, right about the time of my auspicious first lecture, one of the towering figures in American political science, Charles Lindblom, asked an important question: given the fact that democracy can be so chaotic, messy, and unpredictable, why does it produce better governance than authoritarianism? According to Lindblom, democracies are better than authoritarian regimes at solving societal problems and resolving conflicts for three reasons: access to more and better information, greater interaction among peoples, and greater policy debate.
Information, interaction and debate all make it possible for citizens to change their minds. And that’s how democracies solve societal problems — when enough people agree on a solution to a problem, then governments can make difficult decisions to solve it.
My worry is that over the last 30 years, because of changes in technology, because of the internet and cable television, because of changes in our economy and politics, our democracy is frittering away its natural advantages. We need to ponder three questions:
1. Have we reached the point where we are so saturated by instant information, that we are overwhelmed and only look for the information that will corroborate our pre-existing beliefs?
2. Are we so geographically, economically and politically sorted that we don’t interact with people who are not like us?
3. Has policy debate in this country lost purpose, and what masquerades as debate is nothing more than shouting in an echo chamber?
IF the answer to these questions is yes, then these are threats to our democracy. To fight these threats we need to revamp our beliefs about citizenship and the duties it entails — let’s take them one at a time.
Democracies allow their citizens greater access to information. All things being equal more information is better than less information for societies to solve problems. This is still true and it helps explain why the enemies of democracy invest so much in fake news, propaganda and pseudo-information.
What it means for citizenship today is that you must become a discerning consumer of news and information; you can’t believe anything you read and you can’t pass on news, because, however implausible, it supports your point of view. One of the great strengths of the education that you received here is that you know how to value evidence. What I’m telling you today is that the future of our democracy depends in part on your ability to apply your judgment to the information you receive every day.
Second, our tendency to sort ourselves among people who think like us and live like us and hold the same values that we do. Why is that bad? It’s bad because there are children growing up in America who because of where they live, will meet very few Democrats or very few Republicans in their lifetime. Our geographic, economic and political sorting actually amplifies the polarization in this country and makes it much worse than it is. It leads us to exaggerate our differences and underestimate how much we have in common. And trust me what we share as Americans is still greater than what differentiates us as republicans or democrats.
In Portland Oregon several weeks ago a violent and aggressive man was harassing and threatening two Muslim women on a MUNI train, when three men intervened to stop it. The harasser stabbed all three men, killing two of them.
One, Ricky Best was a middle aged republican who had served in the armed forces for 23 years, the other, Talesin Namkai-Meche was a recent graduate of Reed college, a self-described hippie, passionate about issues of social justice. Based on that simple description and not knowing anything of what happened, we might think these two men had nothing in common. We might even say that they differed so much based on politics and life experience, they might be political adversaries. Tragedy taught us that what they had in common — their bravery, their disgust with bullying, their belief that they couldn’t just standby when someone stronger was attacking someone weaker — dwarfed their differences. As a British friend wrote about them at the time, “There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be fixed by what is great about America.”
To be a good citizen today means knowing that what we have in common is greater than our differences; it means reaching out beyond your self-sorted comfort group; it means meeting others who hold different views than you do; it means getting closer to people who come from a different economic, political and geographical place than you do.
The third advantage of democracy is debate. In any debate you have to make your case, you try to persuade others of your point of view. But debate as a benefit to democracy only works if you are willing to change your mind if you learn new information or hear a new argument that undermines your original position. Too often when confronted with views we don’t like, we try to shut them down, or tune them out. But if it matters, you should engage. True debate is one of the great strengths of democracy and we need to maintain it.
In conclusion, I hope that you will commit yourself to the new urgent responsibilities of citizenship. Citizenship for today means being a discerning consumer and purveyor of information; getting to know other citizens who are not like you, and understanding that despite differences, you have much in common, and finally being willing to argue the case for your beliefs, while being open to changing your mind.
Nothing less than the health of our democracy depends on it.
Thank you all for listening and one more time, heartfelt congratulations to the IR graduates of 2017.
