BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Find Local//findlocal.community//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/New_York BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT DTSTART:19700308T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=2SU END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 TZOFFSETTO:-0500 TZNAME:EST DTSTART:19701101T020000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=11;BYDAY=1SU END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT UID:4f90bc85-3a23-4b22-af34-985a0e11160e@findlocal.community DTSTAMP:20261026T233517Z DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20261110T180000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20261110T200000 SUMMARY:Global Democratic Backsliding DESCRIPTION:At Charleston Library Society. Our ongoing World Affairs Coun cil of Charleston partnership continues with Princeton University’s Poli cy Task Force Director\, Laura Thornton\, who specializes in elections\, hybrid threats\, disinformation\, democratic resilience\, and civic eng agement. With more than 30 years’ experience as a practitioner and advoc acy expert\, Laura has supported civil societies across Central and East ern Europe\, the Western Balkans\, Black Sea and Eurasia region\, Belaru s\, and Ukraine to bolster democratic resilience through civic education \, media literacy\, and public awareness campaigns. With former position s at the McCain Institute\, the Democracy Hub at the German Marshall Fun d\, and Stockholm-based International IDEA\, Laura will speak to her res earch in public opinion and the health of democracy around the world. Pu rchase Tickets HERE! This program is in partnership with the World Affai rs Council of Charleston. About Laura Thornton Laura Thornton has spent more than 30 years in the democracy\, governance\, and security space bo th as a practitioner and policy and advocacy expert. She lived more than two decades in Asia and the former Soviet Union. Thornton leads initiat ives to build communities of best practice\, advocate support for frontl ine democracies through policy outreach\, and forge alliances across bor ders. She serves in numerous global networks as a leader and expert in t he democracy community. Thornton served as senior director for global de mocracy programs at the McCain Institute\, where she led election missio ns\, democracy workshops\, and the Institute’s Ukraine programming. Prio r to joining McCain\, Thornton was senior vice president of the Democrac y Hub at the German Marshall Fund. Thornton oversaw the Alliance for Sec uring Democracy\, through which GMF tracks\, analyzes\, and builds strat egies to thwart malign internal and external influence operations that t arget democracies worldwide. She also led GMF’s Transatlantic Trusts\, s upporting civil society organizations and actors in Central and Eastern Europe\, the Western Balkans\, Black Sea and Eurasia region\, Belarus\, and Ukraine that bolster democratic resilience through civic education\, media literacy\, public awareness campaigns\, and media and watchdog ac tivities. Thornton was also the director of global programs at Internati onal IDEA\, a Stockholm-based intergovernmental think and do tank with t he mission to advance democracy. She led multiple teams across Europe fo cused on constitution-building\, parliamentary processes\, elections\, g ender and inclusion\, political parties\, and democracy assessment and a nalysis. She also spearheaded IDEA’s global comparative research\, inclu ding the Global State of Democracy report measuring the health of democr acy around the world. Thornton served more than 20 years overseas at the National Democratic Institute\, working across Asia (Cambodia\, Thailan d\, Malaysia\, Indonesia\, Singapore\, Sri Lanka) and in Georgia (countr y). She has written extensively about political party development\, poli tical finance and corruption\, elections\, and disinformation\, and has led multiple election observation missions across the globe. At NDI\, Th ornton designed numerous public opinion research efforts\, including nat ional polls\, focus groups\, and experimental research designs concentra ted on disinformation\, security\, geopolitics\, democracy and human rig hts\, and political developments. She co-authored the book Political Par ties in Asia: Promoting Reform and Combating Corruption in Eight Countri es (NDI\, 2003). Thornton did her graduate work at Princeton University (MPA) and Oxford University and earned her BA from Northwestern Universi ty. About the World Affairs Council The World Affairs Council of Charles ton (WACC)\, formerly the Charleston Foreign Affairs Forum\, was founded in the early 1980s as a nonprofit\, nonpartisan organization. The Counc il works to deepen our community’s global perspective through speaker pr ograms\, discussion groups\, and educational experiences. The membership represents a cross-section of individuals from the business community\, academia\, government service\, and civic backgrounds. We welcome parti cipants of all ages and from all backgrounds. The WACC is a 501(c)(3) or ganization and is a member of the World Affairs Councils of America\, a network of 90+ independent\, nonpartisan councils across 40 states.\n\nT ickets: https://charlestonlibrarysociety.org/event/global-democratic-bac ksliding/\n\nhttps://findlocal.community/event/4f90bc85-3a23-4b22-af34-9 85a0e11160e LOCATION:Charleston Library Society\, 164 King St\, Charleston\, SC 29401 URL:https://findlocal.community/event/4f90bc85-3a23-4b22-af34-985a0e11160 e STATUS:CONFIRMED SEQUENCE:0 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR