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- [00:01]
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- [01:30]
New Books Network Announcer
Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [01:43]
Rachel Beatty Riedl
Welcome to Democratic Dialogues, a podcast from Cornell University's Brooks School of Public Policy center on Global Democracy. This show is about bringing cutting edge research on democracy to the people who need it most policymakers, practitioners, journalists, students and citizens who care about the future of democratic government. Each episode will dig into conversations with experts and scholars on policies, practice and research and analyze what they mean for the challenges democracies currently face and the potential and opportunities for democracy to deepen, evolve and contribute to citizens thriving. So let's dive in.
- [02:21]
Welcome to Democratic Dialogues, our YouTube podcast from the Cornell Brooks center on Global Democracy. I'm here today with our very honored and distinguished guest Alvaro Salis Castro, who is the President and CEO of the Reynolds foundation, and he's an expert in behavioral economics, diplomacy and public private partnerships with a focus on investment and philanthropy. He holds a PhD in Administration, International affairs and Public Policy from Syracuse University and an MPA from Cornell University. Thanks so much for being with us here today.
- [02:53]
Dr. Alvaro Salis Castro
Thank you so much for the invitation, Rachel. We're so excited to be here.
- [02:56]
Rachel Beatty Riedl
Truly our pleasure. So I want to kick off our conversation with this podcast in setting the SCENE when we were together in a. In a prior conversation, we received some figures that said that over the last 10 years, 70% of the global population lived under democracy, Whereas today only 40% of the global population lives under democracy. This is obviously a dramatic change. How would you describe the current state of democracy and freedom from a global perspective? What do you see as the trends given your vast and deep partnerships with democracy defenders across the globe?
- [03:37]
Dr. Alvaro Salis Castro
Thank you so much for the question. And again, such a privilege and an honor to be here and my alma mater. One of the things that we're trying to address from the Reynolds foundation is this authoritarian playbook. Authoritarians are learning from one another. They're sharing tactics to stifle dissent. They're very sophisticated in surveillance tech, and they're also very sophisticated in repressive apparatuses. So what has happened in global democracy lately is that authoritarians are not stronger than us in the other side of the freedom fight, but they're better coordinated. And they're not only coordinators, as I said, the repressive tactics, the military tactics, the surveillance, but also their educational resources, they train each other, they support each other, they meet regularly three times per year in Iran, in Russia, in Nicaragua. And this six shift has happened in the last 10 years as you already described it. So if I have to say it in one sentence, I think that the freedom and democracy movement is losing the battle and terrain as fast as we haven't seen in a long, long period of time. And that's the bad news. The good news is that there's a handful of organizations and activists and think tanks and philanthropists that are trying to recreate a new transnational narrative, including of course, the center of global democracy. And one of the things that we have seen in this fight for freedom and democracy is that the factual based research conducted by reputable, trustworthy academics is at the forefront of this fight for three reasons. The first reason is because only 1% of the global philanthropic pie goes to freedom and democracy initiatives. And from that 1%, 0.7% goes to authoritarian regimes. Virtually mathematically, 0 goes to authoritarian regimes. Therefore, if we don't understand the philanthropic landscape of giving, of supply and demand in the field of movement, we're doomed to fail. And we're doomed to fail because we need to measure the ecosystem to do that. The second thing is that the regional coalitions of the autocrats, tyrants, as I said, work really closely and they're truly supporting each other. So right now it's almost imperative that universities like Cornell and the Central Democracy lead this new narrative of collaboration and innovation in democracy support. What we have seen is that the democratic resilience movement is in its peril and there's a lot of efforts, but they're scattered, so it's necessary that we gather them in one global narrative. The third point that I would like to make is also that philanthropists are extremely scattered. So some of them are supporting very noble causes like infrastructure or clean water or access to Internet. But the systematic cancer of this is the rise of authoritarianism and populism. So we need to revert or create a narrative, whether the philanthropist in this cape can understand that if you care about clean water, if you care about gender equality, if you care about the infrastructure, it always ties to the rise of authoritarianism. Those are pretty much the three things that we're seeing lately.
- [07:06]
Rachel Beatty Riedl
Yeah. Yep. I couldn't agree more. And when you're talking about this transnational landscape, we recognize that there have been these kind of seismic shifts in the kind of role of democracy defenders, transnational international democracy supporters, and the role of philanthropy as a part of the ecosystem and strategy. So given your strategic role as president and CEO of the Reynolds foundation, what do you think about this global ecosystem of increasing autocratization and, you know, this kind of collaboration across autocrats? What does it mean for the work of those of us who are dedicated to defending autocracy, to defending democracy on an international scale? What do you see as the nature of these shifts in the international organizations supporting democracy? And what do you see as the future of our work? How can we best collaborate?
- [08:05]
Dr. Alvaro Salis Castro
Let's unpack that in two streams. One, I think completely based on my opinion, and the second one is more on the vision and mission and strategy of the Reynolds Foundation. So the first one, based on my opinion, as a newcomer into the democracy and freedom global movement, from the supply side, I have always been in the demand side as an activist myself or as a researcher. But from the supply or resources side, what we have seen is that currently, right now, there's three main forces on the ground that we haven't tackled or understood quite completely. The first one is that dictators are really sophisticated and dismantling the democratic resilience movements inside their countries and also internationally, their diasporas. And they do it through division, character destruction, of course, use of military force, political imprisonment, torture, and the list goes on. Fear is their weapon. So as philanthropists, sometimes we. We have these more questions and answers.
- [09:16]
Rachel Beatty Riedl
How.
- [09:17]
Dr. Alvaro Salis Castro
How can you deal with this fear? How can you deal with that repressive apparatus? And what we have found is a substantial amount of activists that are willing and willing to risk their lives for keeping the lights on in their democratic movements. And it's from my perspective, as I say, from my opinion, it's not only one of the main sources of fuel for us to keep collaborating, to keep working, to keep trying to do this that we know is completely an uphill battle because we see him and her and all these people, I'm not going to name them today, but they are truly close to our hearts that are leading the fights, not only as an abstract of fighting for freedom and democracy, but truly jeopardizing their integrity and their human dignity and their families. So what we have seen is that battling fear is tricky aspect of this component of this battle. The second point is the flourishing of education. So we truly believe that capacity building in what does freedom means? What does democracy mean? What does a complete holistic citizen in the 21st century means? What does participating in a global democratic coalition means? Creating that Civic Education 3.0 is so necessary these days because there's not a lot of efforts right now in the global south, in Africa and Latin America to strategize together in the collective capacity building of citizenship or citizenship. And what does that mean and comprehend it from not only a structural point, but also from a scientifical and tactical point is something that we're trying to recreate and understand. Therefore, we're currently right now funding pilots such as the Freedom Academies, which we're partnering up with the Global center of Democracy, one of the proudest projects that we have, and is creating binge worthy storytelling a la Netflix of the lives and struggles of activists, real life, real time in countries such as Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ukraine, Ecuador, Venezuela, Cuba. And telling the stories not only from the perspective of the activists, but also from the family and the movement per se, because movements also suffer during these processes. And lastly to your question, I want to approach it from a scientific standpoint, which is we need more research on the future of democracy and we need more research on what does a democracy mean in the 21st century. Because there is now a lot of debate between those El Salvador counts as a democracy. For instance, just last week President Bukele did a constitutional reform to be in power at perpetuum and to be re elected at perpetuum. Does that consist as a constitutional republican democracy? And the answer is I don't know. I don't know because he was elected in a democracy. He was elected by the citizenship, he has 80% of approval. And what he did was Completely legal. But sometimes we have seen the history on what happens when someone came into power with no checks and balances and repressive military apparatus. What happened? We already saw it in Chile, we saw it in Russia, and we saw it in Cuba. And I'm not saying that the Sabah would end that way, but scientifically, we know what happens with the democratic transition of countries. The second scientific point that we really need to tackle as philanthropists is to find the best in class researchers in the forefronts of freedom and democracy. And by that I mean what are the new indexes? How are they adapted to reality? For instance, how are financial freedom technologies used for decentralization in these countries? Financial technologies that are extremely new, such as Bitcoin, Nostr, Damus, all of these technologies that the activists are using. There's not a lot of research on the applicability and the scalability of these tools because they're fairly recently new. And with AI, they're just escalating and iterating and changing at such a fast pace that it's very difficult for researchers to keep that. So we need more laboratory, experimental experience of the use of technology for activists to keep the fight against repressive regimes. And what I have seen lately is the work, the fantastic work of some freedom tech activists that are putting together these live laboratories that they're so cool. They put together the activists, the philanthropist, the coders, and the builders itself. And for three or four days they spend these hackathon ways where, where the big question is how? How can we fight this particular dictatorship on X, Y and Z. And then after four days, they have a beta test pilot and they bring it to their countries, test it, and have immediate feedback from the activists on the ground for the freedom tech philanthropists to keep it growing and to escalate. So for researchers, it's a really fascinating time, even though it's dark, but it's a fascinating time to escalate the role of freedom technologies in the defense of freedom and democracy.
- [14:48]
Rachel Beatty Riedl
You know, I think that is so well said and it really maps onto a kind of research structure that I've been thinking about. And one is so research on democracy. We've kind of got three pillars. One is democratic defense, democratic resistance. What are the sources of democratic resilience? How do we think about learning across a transnational network about what happens? That's one of the areas that we're working on here in the center on Global Democracy, with a data set on resistance strategies across the globe, working with, with democracy defenders that are in the Reynolds Network. And, you know, really taking from a whole swath of examples and episodes, how does resistance work? When is it working, in response to what, in what sequence, and what interaction, what supports do they need? Then the second pillar, as you were just saying, is democratic offense. What are the new tools and how do we use research to understand how it's working for democratic, bolstering for democratic growth, for democratic futures? And part of that, I think, is a set of tools like you're talking about this freedom tech activist. So exciting. We have to be in the vanguard of thinking about what can be assets, what can be resources. Right? Part of it is also about conversations and dialogue. What are global democratic futures? What are our reimaginings of how democracy can work for people, can meet their needs, you know, create opportunities for participation and to get the governance that we deserve out of democracy? And I think that's really exciting when we think about a process that is participatory and collective about democratic futures. And then a third part, I think, is just what, like you were talking about the philanthropy and the ecosystem, it's a bit of the meta. So you have the defense, the offense, and then here's the meta structure. How do we think about all of the different players and how they can come together? As we said, there have been huge shifts, and for better and for worse, we have to do a research analysis of what's gone. What void are we operating in? What are the costs of what's gone? What are the opportunities of what can be built moving forward? What is our asset mapping of what we have? And how do those things go together with strategic investments by research, by activists, by philanthropists? And how do these fit together? And I think that kind of research really fits into our understanding, our analysis, so that it translates research to practice. And so I think that really kind of encompasses exactly what you were saying. And I'm wondering, given this, what kinds of collectives do you see emerging? How do you think kind of collaboration across these spaces has potential to reshape this third aspect, how international democratic solidarity and democracy, defense and offense can be practiced?
- [17:47]
Dr. Alvaro Salis Castro
That's a phenomenal question. I got goosebumps just to hear you unpacking it. So the collective right now is. Even though democracy is eroding and it's one of the lowest points in recent history, the innovative answers from the collective are giving me a lot of hope. So one of those is initiative created by activists called the World Liberty Congress. So that collective is a global network of pro democracy and freedom activists from authoritarian regimes and we have seen how they are creating regional collisions. So for instance, they have African, Asians, Latin Americans, Global south. So they have created a governance itself where they elected their own officials to represent the particular regions and bring it to a global congress. That, that congress not only does international lobbying at the different organizations around the world, but also they are bringing the voices of activists that are in the front lines, not in the diaspora or exile, to global philanthropists. Sometimes for philanthropists it's really difficult to get into what is going on in Cameroon, in Angola, in Afghanistan, Ukraine. But these collectives, as you were mentioning, that are organizing themselves in providing local ownership are giving me a lot of hope, especially with the renewal coalitions. The second thing that I have seen, which is something that both of us are part of, is, is the Bliss Summit, which I'm not trying to plug it in or to pitch it in your program, but it's an attempt, it's an experiment, it's a life experiment to bring philanthropist, an activist, an artist and award winning journalists and dissidents and their families to reimagine the future of philanthropy in freedom and democracy. Not from the top, bottom, but actually in a consulting, participatory way. So creating the right atmosphere with trust, I think is really important. Sometimes we will take for granted how hard is to build trust, especially in interdisciplinary movements, in multidisciplinary organizations, in between universities, the private sector, the citizens. So that that building of trust is strategy itself. If I can put in one word or at least a sentence or a few words will be that building the community is also part of the strategy.
- [20:14]
Rachel Beatty Riedl
Yes.
- [20:15]
Dr. Alvaro Salis Castro
And because we don't know what is going to happen with that community, we don't know what they're going to create or co create. You will know the next technology that is coming from there. But if you have the right elements of people that trust each other at the right country, which is in this case Costa Rica, where they're free to talk, free to create, free to explore, no one is going to put them in prison. There's a lot of creativity juices happening there. And that's something of the collective that is happening that it really had me extremely inspired. And look, last but not least, I think that the role of the Austrian Forum has been phenomenal in keeping for the last 20 years this cluster of activists and philanthropists and creatives together to defend democracy, to reimagine democracy, to redesign democracy. As I said, not top to bottom, but actually understanding the struggles from the activists in their front lines. Kudos to them because Keeping an ecosystem that diverse of rebels is not easy and they have created the right structures for that. So on the collective. Those are the three things that are keeping me really excited. I don't know what you think about this. I actually wanted to ask you.
- [21:29]
Rachel Beatty Riedl
Yes.
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Dr. Alvaro Salis Castro
What is keeping you excited these days from the center of global democracy.
- [21:35]
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- [21:36]
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- [21:51]
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- [21:54]
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- [21:55]
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- [21:57]
Dr. Alvaro Salis Castro
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- [22:02]
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- [22:19]
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- [22:51]
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- [22:52]
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- [23:14]
Dr. Alvaro Salis Castro
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- [23:18]
Rachel Beatty Riedl
I completely agree. And it's through the Reynolds foundation, in fact, that you know, coming in contact with Bliss and the World Liberty Congress and also Freedom Forum and the nature of the collectives that we're building across democracy centers, for example, a collective of researchers. A collective that we're building from research to practice for folks who are working in the democracy, rights and governance space so that we can best connect and put research into action. That we're asking the right questions, that we're using our time to do the right analysis, that we're getting feedback from the democracy activists who can Say, yes, this is exactly how that happened. You're. You're thinking about it correctly, or, you know, what you're missing is this key strategy that we employed that was meant to be not visible, and that's a part of the tactic. So that kind of interaction is so critical and gives me hope, it gives me inspiration. And I think another component that you talked about, trust, is based on integrity. And the integrity of these collectives helps keep them together. And it's an antidote to the fear.
- [24:28]
Dr. Alvaro Salis Castro
Yes.
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Rachel Beatty Riedl
Right. Because when we have the integrity and we can trust each other, it helps us bring the courage in the face of fear. So I feel as though that's another part of the tactic. And it's so amazing to be inspired by our friends, by our colleagues around the world. Keeps us going.
- [24:47]
Dr. Alvaro Salis Castro
That's phenomenal. And Noah, the Reynolds foundation team Reynolds always says we're driven by purpose, but also driven by love.
- [24:56]
Rachel Beatty Riedl
Yes.
- [24:57]
Dr. Alvaro Salis Castro
And I think that it sometimes is a word that is overused or sometimes they use it in a cheesy way. But right now, I truly believe in teams vision, that what we need more is togetherness and love, particularly in these times as an offensive. Right. Because the autocrats are. What they're expecting is for people to break havoc, to create violent demonstrations. But this is the right moment for nonviolent peace movements, for creating the diaspora of the collective rooted by love, rooted by purpose. And most importantly, what we have seen, and this is thanks to Carolyn Reynolds and the Reynolds kids, is that the closest you are to the philanthropists, to the grantees, not only provide, as you said, a feedback loop on the information that is going on right away, but it builds that trust, that failure is an option. We're currently in philanthropy, log models and theories of change, and all the scientific approach are driven by outcomes and process. But sometimes the process is equally more important than the outcome.
- [26:01]
Rachel Beatty Riedl
Yes.
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Dr. Alvaro Salis Castro
And what we're trying to do is to flip that narrative that, well, there's an uphill battle here, we might fail. But what about in that process, you put together a coalition of 22 parties that they didn't talk to each other, and now they're at least in the same room.
- [26:18]
Rachel Beatty Riedl
Exactly.
- [26:19]
Dr. Alvaro Salis Castro
They didn't topple the dictator, but at least you're building coalition. Absolutely. So those are the things that came from the kitchen culture that we're trying to implement at the Reynolds foundation. That comes from Carolyn and the Reynolds kids. They're all Cornelians, by the way. And one of the things that she's trying to create is this nurturing culture with our philanthropists. So we were last year, for instance, in Kenya to visit one of the group of boys that we're working on that they were previously homeless in the streets. And right now, through an education process, they're not only rebuilding their self esteem, but they're also finding ways to participate as an active, regular citizens in their communities and their families. And most of the philanthropists, they write the check, they send it, but in this case, they went there, they sit with their families, they break bread, they listen, they ask questions. So it's really refreshing for me as a manager and as a scientific scholar on this field, to see a group of people that are trying to build a movement of how philanthropy should be done, rooted by love and rooted by purpose, not only by results. And I think that it can sound idealistic, but this is the right time for. For having those moonshot mentalities.
- [27:37]
Rachel Beatty Riedl
Absolutely. Because as you say, it allows for heterogeneous coalitions and it allows for collaboration over competition. Because if we want to be in competition with everyone who's doing interesting work that's parallel but slightly different and adjacent, we won't have that kind of knowledge accelerator that we have when we have collaboration. We're sharing our data, we're sharing our feedback. We can move so much faster with that kind of collaborative purpose that's allowing to find where there's failure, move on, learn from each other, and have that real foundation of love and trust. So that's so powerful.
- [28:14]
Dr. Alvaro Salis Castro
Yes. And on the collaboration component, one of the things that I wanted to share with you and hopefully to the philanthropists that are going to watch this program, it's one specific hypothesis that we have. What about if we do everything open source, our failures, our mistakes, our governance issues, everything is open source for other philanthropists to check on what we have done to mitigate their learning curves and their risks. And that's one of the ideas of Tim from the beginning. He wants to create the number one philanthropic open source databases for freedom and democracy, A repository, let's say, of philanthropic grants and failures and risk management, open to every family, office or future philanthropists that want to learn from this field. Hopefully in partnership with you.
- [29:03]
Rachel Beatty Riedl
Yes, yes.
- [29:04]
Dr. Alvaro Salis Castro
And that's something that we're currently developing right now. And Tim is really serious about it. He's investing in due diligence in creating all these open source technologies for the philanthropists to see. What are we doing? Usually philanthropy is driven by ego or by tax incentives, or by recognition or by influence. But when you have philanthropies that are driven by love and purpose. I want to do absolutely everything open source. I think that that's a shift completely in the paradigm of how to allocate capital. The second thing is that we're trying to build a Freedom Accelerator and I wanted to share it with you because Tim and I and the board have been thinking about this for two years without understanding the concept. So the Freedom Accelerator is a vehicle that we're creating where we're going to apply investment banking to philanthropy in freedom and democracy. So we're going to divide our own projects. We have already 77 projects. By next year we're going to have 150 in over 60 regions, 60 countries in the world. And what about if we unpack and distill those projects in tiers based on risk? So we have, for instance, Tier one organizations that are established with great leadership, with amazing processes such as the center of Global Democracy or Human Rights foundation or the Democracy Lab or et cetera, et cetera. So you bring philanthropies that are new. Where should I invest? Who is moving the needle in impact? Well, this is Tier one. It's almost risk free. There's always risk, but almost risk free. Then Tier two, we have the upcoming collective diaspora that we just discussed, the World Liberty Congress, the coalitions of activists, the emerging think tanks in parts of the world that are difficult to find data, such as Swaziland, Angola, Ukraine, Afghanistan. So those are the Tier two. Let's say we invest in the leader rather than the organization at the beginning, and then the tier 3 is the high risk, high return. Those are the moonshots and the black horses. Let's say it can be independent journalism on anti corruption political candidates that still have the chance in a hybrid democracy to bring a dictator down. For instance in Colombia or in Ecuador, where there's some aspects of electoral processes that are transparent, those are tricky and they're risky. But if you build the trust and the right mechanisms and the right processes, at least you can present to other family officers and philanthropists this portfolio and then they can allocate part of their portfolio, let's say a little bit Tier one, a little bit in Tier two, and a little bit in Tier three. So that investment banking approach, no one has done it yet, to the extent of our knowledge, in a sophisticated way, as we want to do it. And for that, the academics and the think tanks and the scholars are crucial because we need to have an intersection between the deployment of capital, the measurement of that and the theory of change. And also in constant Collaboration with the activists, where to deploy that capital.
- [32:05]
Rachel Beatty Riedl
And there too, you're really accelerating on the idea of collaboration across philanthropists, which is exciting. We're really building out a network of collaboration across researchers, a collaboration across philanthropists, the collaboration across activists, democratic defenders. And that's a kind of pillar, a triangle where we can really connect when we're building these collaborations that then are intersectional. And I want to add a fourth to that because I know that you and I also are committed and see as essential and actually inseparable for. Inseparable from democracy, the role of education.
- [32:41]
Dr. Alvaro Salis Castro
Oh, yes.
- [32:42]
Rachel Beatty Riedl
So when we're thinking about education and democracy, I think we both kind of share this view that they're intimately linked, that education itself allows freedom and democracy participation agency for citizens to, at the individual level, at the societal level, to demand and claim democratic practices and rights. And so too, democracy fosters the space in which you can have an education that allows for those things. Without that kind of democrat democratic arena, education is slanted in some ways, missing those parts that create the individual and social freedoms. So how are you thinking about education programs? What kinds of projects do you think have the potential for this kind of real transformation, both for individuals and for democratic society?
- [33:38]
Dr. Alvaro Salis Castro
I'm glad that you asked this, because this is really close to the Reynolds foundation and personally, my heart. So Tim and I were both Cornelian, same as all the Reynolds. And thanks to this institution, I am where I am. Like, that's, that's, that's a given. When I applied to Cornell, I was, I am the oldest brother of a single mother that is a school bus driver from the jungle of Costa Rica. So my chances to attend to an Ivy League school were probably close to zero. I didn't have the access, the capacity, the resources or the debt collaterals to attain an education like this. So what I did was in my head at that moment was reuniting my rock and roll band when I was in high school. And I said, I want to do 100 gigs, 100 concerts, and we're going to raise $100,000. And with that I will pay my tuition. And we did 100 concerts, but we only raised like 600,000, like $6,000. We were really, really far away from the goal. But the people that attended those concerts were the next gen philanthropists from other family offices that opened the doors for me. And I had the opportunity to crowdfund over $120,000 to attend to Cornell thanks to random complete strangers. And when I was here, I dedicated my studies into Creating the Democracy Lab, which is a think tank of how to educate the next generation of civic leaders to participate, which now Tim and Caroline serve at the board and is our sister organization for laboratory experimental research in democracy. And the reason why I bring this is because we're so excited about something that I mentioned, which is the creation of the Freedom Academies. So the Freedom Academies for us is the next wave of civic education. So it's digitally based, it's open source, it's available to everyone and hopefully in partnership with you and Cornell, we can even improve it. But it has us really excited because we're bringing the educational and capacity building component with the fight for democracy in one place. The second thing is that we're supporting what we call the Reynolds Fellows. So upcoming leaders that didn't have the resources, like myself in countries like Afghanistan, Ukraine, some parts of Africa, to study here at Cornell and from that skills and knowledge can return to their countries, hopefully to lead coalitions, think tanks, not for profits, in the fight for freedom and democracy and providing full support to to those students. Now we're not only supporting their education, but we want them to collaborate in our ecosystem as well. So introduce them with other philanthropies, with other fellows that we have in different universities. So we're creating our own global avengers space for them to communicate and to share ideas. And I think that we're very excited from that part and I know that is close to your heart as well, the education and democracy. And lastly with the Freedom accelerator, this is just an idea and as we are open source, if someone wants to take it and make it better, please. But we're trying to create some sort of a MacArthur Fellowship or a genius fellowship, because I don't have another benchmark for that and I'm being free here in your program. There's amazing talent in the philanthropic world, amazing talent in the activist world, an amazing talent in the field of research, of democracy and freedom. If we put those three balls together with 10 or 20 geniuses from different parts of the world that they have been in the front lines or they have been conducive research on these fields, and we support them for two or three years, where they can allocate completely their time, energy, resources and spirit into elevate their big questions in this world, I think that every one of those three balls, philanthropy, academia and the activists per se, will benefit. And it's kind of putting together a dream team between the scholars and the activists and the practitioners and the academics, practitioners and academics and the philanthropists to See where this can take us. And I want to think about this with you and with your network of how we can deploy them, how we can pick them up, how this next generation of leaders to education and through research can support the next movement of freedom and democracy around the world.
- [38:00]
Rachel Beatty Riedl
Absolutely. And it just fits in so well with this collaborative transnational model that we were discussing. Right. And the ways in which that connectedness you can be based, for example, at a university and be part of this broader network, not siloed, but connected. And I just think that's so incredibly important and a really exciting idea. Now, I want to end with a question that we've kind of been touching upon, but when we think about the future, what gives you hope for the future of democracy?
- [38:33]
Dr. Alvaro Salis Castro
Well, I'm going to be very honest. Lately, I'm always overly honest, but I usually keep these things to myself. And I'm trying not to do it because my wife always says that sharing, especially when you see beautiful things happening, is important. And during the production of the Freedom Academies, when we were creating these stories of these freedom fighters from different countries that they were in prison or torture, some of them, their best friends were killed, they expropriated them from. From their houses, some of them are stateless right now. They don't even have a passport. When I saw behind the scenes that we were creating this education civic platform, and I saw the healing process of the families being part of the creation of these Freedom Academies, it really gave me hope that the next generation of this activist is extremely sophisticated and they have a lot of nuance despite their young years, because not only they have seen them in their parents, of course, in their countries, but right now they're being part of a collaborative, interdisciplinary process where they're considered part of the process. Some of These people have 12 years, 14 years old, 15 years old. So there's a next generation of freedom activists. I don't want to call them fighters because they still have the freedom of choice to choose if they want to fight or become an ambassador or become, whatever I call it, the freedom ambassadors for now, or freedom activists, that they truly care about these issues. And I can't wait for sharing this with you. And everyone will see this program, the behind the scenes of this project. So that really gives me hope. The second thing that gives me hope is philanthropists like Tim Reynolds, that he's not doing this for name recognition. He's not doing this for having his name in a building. He's doing this because he truly cares. And these things keeps him Awake. And I have seen it with my own eyes, how he's willing in his wheelchair to travel to Ukraine to help our partners there. How he has been with me in the trenches in the jungles of Costa Rica. Now we're going together to Argentina. Nothing stopped him. And he says that he wants to dedicate his life and his wealth to support moving the line on freedom and democracy. And that really gives me hope, because if we can convince more philanthropists that all the roads, they don't lead to Rome, they lead to dictators, the way of tackling a lot of the issues that we care, like education and climate change and infrastructure, gender equality, is by tackling the rise of authoritarianism. And Tim is laser focused on that roadshow of bringing more philanthropists into the table. And last but not least is researchers and scholars like you, what you guys are doing at the center of global democracy. It's truly inspirational. It's factual based, it's evidence based, is do it with a lot of care, a lot of love, a lot of attention to detail, with no pretentiousness, in a very elegant way, convening the right people, opening doors to everyone that wants to collaborate. And that's the kind of attitude that institutions and scholars who have. What is coming up next? I think that there's a. There's a space for scholarly, driven, factual based activism and.
- [42:01]
Rachel Beatty Riedl
Absolutely.
- [42:02]
Dr. Alvaro Salis Castro
And thank you for doing what you guys are doing.
- [42:04]
Rachel Beatty Riedl
I couldn't agree more with you, Alvaro. And you know, to me, when I see, you know, we have the honor and the privilege every day to engage with the next generation. And it's through the students who come through our door, who are incredible and give us hope. It's through the students that we meet through programs like Freedom Academies, it's through the democracy defenders that we've met through the Reynolds Network, and it's through the philanthropic commitments and leaders in this space. And so when I think about this collective, this network, it does give me hope for the future of democracy and the way in which, exactly, as you said, democracy itself is a provision of the foundation in which we can pursue other goods, in which we can seek health and thriving and well being in all different manners, you know, but the Democratic foundation is necessary so that we can pursue those things. And so it's just an honor to be here with you, to be a partner and to have this road together. So thank you so much for your commitment and your passion and your integrity and all that you're doing every day.
- [43:10]
Dr. Alvaro Salis Castro
Thank you so much for the opportunity. One last point. Good news. We at the Reynolds foundation are not only supporting the global center of democracy, but we are trying to bring other philanthropists to match what are we doing with the center of global democracy. So there's anyone there listening to this and needs our due diligence and our notes to become a partner of this center. Please talk to us because they will be a fantastic addition into your portfolio.
- [43:41]
Rachel Beatty Riedl
Absolutely. And I think that's so critical when we think about this network building. We are in an ecosystem where we're rebuilding connectedness in new ways. We're doing an assessment of what has changed, what kinds of costs those changes have meant, what opportunities those changes bring. And we're thinking about how to restructure it in a decentering and moving in new directions. And it's an opportunity and it requires the kind of research, the commitment, philanthropy commitment, activist commitment. And so it's really an exciting time to be launching that kind of network on the Reynolds side. So thank you for sharing that news and we're broadcasting it from here.
- [44:22]
Dr. Alvaro Salis Castro
Thank you very much for the opportunity.
- [44:24]
Rachel Beatty Riedl
Wonderful to have you. Thank you so much.
- [44:26]
Dr. Alvaro Salis Castro
Thank you.
- [44:27]
Rachel Beatty Riedl
And that's all for today's episode of Democratic Dialogues from Cornell University Brooks center on Global Democracy. We hope you enjoyed the conversation and continue to join us in thinking about the challenges and possibilities for democracy today. You can find our episodes on our YouTube channel, the New Books Network website, social media or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Thanks to Our guest today, Dr. Alvaro Salas and thanks to you, our audience for listening. I'm Rachel Beatty Riedl and we'll be back soon with another dialogue on democracy. Until then, stay engaged, stay informed and stay committed to democratic dialogue.
- [45:20]
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