How does COVID-19 Impact Democracy?

Mason Richey, Senior Contributing Writer to Asia Society Korea as well as an Associate Professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, hosted an online roundtable with H.E. Michael Reiterer, Ambassador of the European Union to South Korea, Sheena Chestnut Greitens, Assistant Professor at the University of Missouri, and Yascha Mounk, Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins University, discussing about the impact of COVID-19 on the modern day democratic world.

SPEAKERS

Yascha Mounk
Professor Yascha Mounk is an Associate Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University, where he holds appointments in both the School of Advanced International Studies and the Agora Institute. Yascha is also a Senior Advisor at Protect Democracy, a Senior Fellow at the German Marshall Fund, a Senior Fellow at Harvard's Ash Center for Democratic Governance, a Senior Fellow at New York University's Reiss Center on Law and Security, and a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Yascha’s 2018 book The People versus Democracy – Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It explains the causes of the populist rise and investigates how to renew liberal democracy. The book has been translated into eleven languages, and hailed as one of 2018's Best Books of the Year by multiple publications, including the Financial Times. A Contributing Editor at The Atlantic, Yascha regularly writes for newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Foreign Affairs. He is also is also a regular columnist or contributor for major international publications including Die Zeit, La Repubblica, l'Express, Folha de Sao Paolo, Kultura Liberalna, and Letras Libres. Professor Mounk received his BA in History from Trinity College, Cambridge, and his PhD in Government from Harvard University.

H.E. Michael Reiterer
Dr. Michael Reiterer is Ambassador of the European Union to the Republic of Korea, having previously held the position of Principal Advisor at the Asia and Pacific Department, European External Action Service (EEAS), Brussels, in charge of strategic and security matters. He previously served as EU Ambassador to Switzerland and the Principality of Liechtenstein (2007-2011), Minister/Deputy Head of the EU-Delegation to Japan (2002-2006) and ASEM Counselor (1998-2002). Ambassador Reiterer studied law at the University of Innsbruck (Dr. juris) and holds diplomas in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University/Bologna Center and the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva. In 2005, he was appointed adjunct professor (Dozent) for international politics at the University of Innsbruck. Time permitting, he teaches at various universities and specializes in EU foreign policy, EU-Asia relations and interregionalism, areas in which he has published extensively.

Sheena Chestnut Greitens
Professor Sheena Chestnut Greitens’ work focuses on East Asia, American national security, and authoritarian politics and foreign policy. Her first book, Dictators and their Secret Police: Coercive Institutions and State Violence (Cambridge, 2016) received the 2017 Best Book Award from both the International Studies Association and the Comparative Democratization section of the American Political Science Association. Her work on China and North Korea has appeared in academic journals and edited volumes in English, Chinese, and Korean, and in major media outlets.  She has also previously testified to Congress on security issues in the Indo-Pacific. In 2017-18, Greitens served as the First Lady of Missouri, where she helped lead the state's trade mission to China and South Korea, and successfully advocated for major legislative and administrative reforms to Missouri's policies on foster care, adoption, and child abuse prevention. She holds a doctorate from Harvard University, an M.Phil from Oxford University, and a bachelor's from Stanford University. Currently at the University of Missouri, in August 2020 Sheena Chestnut Greitens will become an associate professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, and a faculty affiliate at the Clements and Strauss Centers. She is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, an adjunct fellow with the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, an associate in research at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University, and a member of the Digital Freedom Forum at the Center for a New American Security.

MODERATOR

Mason Richey
Mason Richey is associate professor of international politics at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (Seoul, South Korea), as well as contributing writer to Asia Society Korea. Dr. Richey has also held positions as a POSCO Visiting Research Fellow at the East-West Center (Honolulu, HI) and a DAAD Scholar at the University of Potsdam. His research focuses on U.S. and European foreign and security policy as applied to the Asia-Pacific. Recent scholarly articles have appeared (inter alia) in Pacific Review, Asian Security, Global Governance, and Foreign Policy Analysis. Shorter analyses and opinion pieces have been published in War on the Rocks, Le Monde, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, and Forbes, among other venues.