Larry Diamond

American political scientist and sociologist

Larry Jay Diamond (born October 2, 1951) is an American political sociologist and leading contemporary scholar in the field of democracy studies. Diamond is a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University's main center for research on international issues. At the Institute Diamond served as the director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law from 2009 2016. He was succeeded in that role by Francis Fukuyama and then Kathryn Stoner. Diamond has served as an advisor to numerous governmental and international organizations at various points in his life, including the United States Department of State, United Nations, World Bank, and U. S. Agency for International Development. He is a founding co editor of the National Endowment for Democracy's Journal of Democracy, stepping down from that role in fall 2022. As of August 2023, he co chairs Hoover's China Global Sharp Power Project (with Glenn Tiffert) and Taiwan in the Indo Pacific Region Project (with James O. Ellis).

Diamond obtained a B. A. in Political Organization and Behavior in 1974, an M. A. from the Food Research Institute in 1978, and a Ph. D. in Sociology in 1980, all from Stanford.

Diamond was Assistant Professor of Sociology at Vanderbilt University (1980–1985). He was founding co director of the National Endowment for Democracy's International Forum for Democratic Studies (1994–2009). Diamond was named Stanford's "Teacher of the Year" in May 2007. At the June 2007 commencement ceremonies he was awarded the Dinkelspiel Award for Distinctive Contributions to Undergraduate Education. Among the many reasons for Diamond to receive this award it was cited that he fostered dialogue between Jewish and Muslim students. He was the dissertation adviser for Regina Ip, former Secretary for Security of Hong Kong during her years at Stanford. In 2022, Diamond joined Yermak McFaul Expert Group on Russian Sanctions as an expert to work on elaborating and imposing international sanctions against Russia which invaded Ukraine.

In early 2004, Diamond was a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.

Despite the surge of democracy throughout the world up until the 1990s, Diamond believes democracy must improve where it already exists before it can spread to other countries. He believes solving a country's governance, rather than its economy, is the answer. Every democratic country needs to be held responsible for good governance, not just when it suits them. Without significant improvements in governance, economic growth will not be sustainable. As Diamond stated in his book, The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World, "for democratic structures to endure – and be worthy of endurance – they must listen to their citizens' voices, engage their participation, tolerate their protests, protect their freedoms, and respond to their needs." Diamond has written and edited many pieces on the growth of democracy and its current recession on an international level. In his paper "The Democratic Rollback: The Resurgence of the Predatory State," Diamond states that one of the main reasons for this recession in democracy is a surge of young democratic countries which employ rigged elections, intense intimidation of any opposing political party, and unstoppable expansion in executive power. What makes it worse is that many of these countries are still being accepted as democracies by western states. He cites Vladimir Putin in Russia and Hugo Chávez in Venezuela as examples. Due to the growth of these corrupted semi democracies, which Diamond calls electoral authoritarianism, there has been a worldwide fall in the confidence in democracy, especially in developing countries. Unlike many other political scientists, Diamond doesn't hold economic development, or lack thereof, as the number one factor in the decline of democracy. Diamond states that the efficiency of the government is the first problem. If the government cannot provide a safe and equal economic and political playing field then any work in promoting economic development will be useless. He cites the Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki as an example. Kibaki helped Kenya reach some of its highest levels of economic growth but failed to address massive corruption, which led to claims of fraud in his 2007 presidential election, which in turn exploded into violence. Diamond believes if governance is not improved in democratic states, people will turn to authoritarian alternatives. This selectivity is defined in the Millennium Challenge Account (part of Bush's foreign policy). Under this policy, it says a country will receive aid dependent on "whether they rule justly, whether they invest in basic health care and education, and whether they promote economic freedom." The important thing to remember is promoting democracy will take time and effort.