Larry Diamond > Quotes

“The decline of American democracy did not begin with Trump, and it will not end with his departure from the White House. Our republic’s sickness has its roots in decades of rising political polarization that has turned our two parties into something akin to warring tribes,”
― Larry Diamond, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency

“the single ruling party remains in control while a wide range of conversations about the country’s problems nonetheless occurs on websites and social-networking services. The government follows this online chatter, and sometimes people are able to use the Internet to call attention to social problems or injustices and even manage to have an impact on government policies. As a result, the average person with Internet or mobile access has a much greater sense of freedom—and may feel that he has the ability to speak and be heard—in ways that were not possible under classic authoritarianism.”
― Larry Diamond, Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy

“China’s actions also have major personal-security implications in the digital age. Consider the recent Chinese corporate acquisition of the gay dating site Grindr, which is headquartered in Los Angeles.30 The purchaser was a little-known Chinese online gaming firm called Kunlun, which is not a state company, and Grindr has assured its users that their data will be safe. But some cybersecurity experts have rung alarm bells about the possibility that Beijing could gain broad access to user data. Grindr often serves to facilitate discreet gay hookups, making it “a tantalizing source of information” for Chinese intelligence agencies, which, as one report noted, are building “massive databases” on individual Americans “to have handy” and perhaps use “as leverage in blackmail scenarios.”
― Larry Diamond, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency

“In an age of widespread communication and accountability, people expect political participation and accountability much more than they did in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. The only way the demand for meaningful political participation and choice can be suppressed is to constrain liberty - Larry Diamond, Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), Chapter 1 (‘Defining and Developing Democracy’). p. 4”
― Larry Diamond, The Global Divergence of Democracies