NEWS

January 12, 2016 Night Owl Sessions: In Search of Democracy

Night Owl Sessions: In Search of Democracy

The Night Owl Sessions – In Search of Democracy of will take place on January 18-19, 2016 at the Rooms Hotel Tbilisi.

The Night Owl Sessions will to bring together Georgian government officials, academia from leading US Universities, high level business, CSO and government officials from the world, Georgian CSO leaders, Georgian academia, students and journalists to discuss global challenges to democratic regimes, ways how to overcome these challenges. The objective of the sessions is to establish the culture for the most insightful and intellectual discourse on good governance and democracy issues.
The Night Owls are organized within the scopes of the 2016 Tbilisi Leadership Forum by Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Economic Policy Research Center (EPRC).
 Night Owl Session – In search of Democracy
January 18
The first Night Owl Session on January 18th will start with the welcoming speeches of the President of Georgia Giorgi Margvelashvili, Prime Minister of Georgia Giorgi Kvirikashvili and US Ambassador to Georgia Ian C. Kelly. After the opening remarks, President Margvelashvili will award Professor Fukuyama with the Medal of Honor for his special Contributions to Democracy Development in Georgia.
The focus of the first Night Owl Session – that will start after the aforementioned opening remarks and official ceremony – will be “In Search of Democracy” where Stanford University Professor Francis Fukuyama will have a conversation with Hon. David J. Kramer of the McCain Institute for International Leadership. The session shall provoke debates on the issues as good governance, quality of democracy, how to make Governments more effective in line with the demands of citizens, how does democracy relate to the quality of the State etc.
Night Owl Session: Defending Values: The Role of Strategic Partnerships in Democratic Transition
January 19
The second Night Owl Session, on January 19, will be moderated by David J. Kramer and discussion participants will be debating about the “The Role of Strategic Partnerships in Democratic Transitions”. The discussion will focus on the role for the strategic partnerships and the value of these partnerships for western democracies and for the developing countries. The session panelists will be Prof. Francis Fukuyama, Dr. Kathryn Stoner, Senior Fellow at FSI and CDDRL and Faculty Director, Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies at Stanford University, Prof. Alan Trager, Senior Research Professor from John Hopkins University, H.E Alexandra Mary Hall Hall, the UK Ambassador to Georgia and Mr. Nicholas Berliner, Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy
The Night Owl Sessions are supported by the Open Society Georgia Foundation (OSGF), the UK Embassy in Tbilisi, the East-West Management Institute (EWMI) under its Advancing CSO Capacities and Engaging Society for Sustainability Project and Ilia State University.