Press Releases

Washington, DC – On Tuesday, February 26, 2019 at 10:00am, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence will convene an open hearing on the rise of authoritarianism around the world, autocratic regimes and their practices, the decline in democratic governance and faith in liberal democracy, and the threat these trends pose to the United States.

“The world has witnessed the steady ascendance of authoritarian leaders and illiberal governments in recent years, and the existential challenges these regimes and their underlying ideologies pose to liberal democracies demand our full attention,” said Chairman Adam Schiff. “From Putin’s Russia to Xi’s China, from Duterte’s Philippines to Erdogan’s Turkey, and even among other NATO allies, there is a global rise of autocracy and growing appeal of the authoritarian model, which ought to concern every American. It is our Committee’s duty to understand the security dimension of this troubling trend and ensure the Intelligence Community is adequately postured to assess how 21st-Century authoritarianism will affect our national security, and that of the world community, for years to come.”

Among other issues, the Committee will seek testimony about:

• How modern authoritarian regimes consolidate and hold onto power;
• Those regimes’ interest in attacking liberal democracy through political influence activities and other forms of intervention;
• The role of advanced or Internet-based technologies in the authoritarian toolkit;
• The role of the U.S. Intelligence Community and partner democratic intelligence services in collecting information about and analyzing authoritarianism and authoritarian regimes’ efforts  to assert regional or global influence; 
• The future of U.S. military alliances and security partnerships with backsliding or “illiberal” democratic countries; and
• America’s responsibility to recognize and counter the authoritarian threat as the world’s torchbearer for representative democracy and liberal ideals.

The Majority has invited the following witnesses to attend:

• Former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright
• Former Secretary General of NATO Anders Fogh Rasmussen
• Teng Biao, Co-founder, the Open Constitution Initiative
• Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Senior Fellow and Director, Transatlantic Security Program, Center for a New American Security

Details:

What:              Autocracy’s Advance and Democracy’s Decline: National Security Implications of the Rise of Authoritarianism Around the World (Open Hearing)

When:              Tuesday, February 26, 2019; 10:00 am

Where:             210 Cannon House Office Building

All media wishing to attend this hearing must be credentialed through the House Radio & TV Gallery at (202) 225-5214. All TV camera crews should RSVP to the House Radio & TV Gallery. Media seating will be first come, first serve. All cameras must be in place by 9:00 am for security sweep.

 

Majority-Invited Witness Biographies

Madeleine K. Albright

Madeleine K. Albright is Chair of Albright Stonebridge Group, a global strategy firm, and Chair of Albright Capital Management LLC, an investment advisory firm focused on emerging markets. She was the 64th Secretary of State of the United States. Dr. Albright received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, from President Obama on May 29, 2012.

In 1997, Dr. Albright was named the first female Secretary of State and became, at that time, the highest ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government. As Secretary of State, Dr. Albright reinforced America’s alliances, advocated for democracy and human rights, and promoted American trade, business, labor, and environmental standards abroad. From 1993 to 1997, Dr. Albright served as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations and was a member of the President’s Cabinet. From 1989 to 1992, she served as President of the Center for National Policy. Previously, she was a member of President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Council and White House staff and served as Chief Legislative Assistant to U.S. Senator Edmund S. Muskie.

Dr. Albright is a Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. She chairs the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and serves as president of the Truman Scholarship Foundation. She serves on the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Policy Board, a group tasked with providing the Secretary of Defense with independent, informed advice and opinion concerning matters of defense policy. Dr. Albright also serves on the Board of the Aspen Institute. In 2009, Dr. Albright was asked by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen to Chair a Group of Experts focused on developing NATO’s New Strategic Concept.

Dr. Albright’s latest book is Fascism: A Warning, a #1 New York Times bestseller published in April 2018. She is the author of five other New York Times bestsellers: her autobiography, Madam Secretary: A Memoir (2003); The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs (2006); Memo to the President: How We Can Restore America's Reputation and Leadership (2008); Read My Pins: Stories from a Diplomat’s Jewel Box (2009); and Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948 (2012).

Dr. Albright received a B.A. with Honors from Wellesley College, and Master’s and Doctorate degrees from Columbia University’s Department of Public Law and Government, as well as a Certificate from its Russian Institute. She is based in Washington, D.C.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen

Anders Fogh Rasmussen has been at the centre of European and global politics for three decades as Secretary General of NATO, Prime Minister of Denmark, Danish Minister of Economic Affairs, Danish Minister for Taxation and a leading Danish parliamentarian.

During the Danish Presidency of the European Union in 2002, he played a key role in concluding accession negotiations with 10 candidates for EU- membership. In 2009 Anders Fogh Rasmussen was appointed NATO’s 12th Secretary General between 1 August 2009 and 30 September 2014.

His tenure in NATO marked a fundamental transformation of the Alliance. He oversaw the Alliance’s operational peak with six operations on three continents including Afghanistan, Kosovo and Libya, as well as counter-piracy along the Somali coast, a training mission in Iraq and a counter-terrorism operation in the Mediterranean. He developed a new Strategic Concept, which sets the Alliance’s core future priorities and he launched “Smart Defence” to help nations make more efficient use of their resources through more multinational cooperation. In response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, he initiated a “Readiness Action Plan” to strengthen the collective defence to an unprecedented level since the end of the Cold War.

On 1 October 2014, Anders Fogh Rasmussen established Rasmussen Global. The firm advises clients on a wide range of issues such as international security, transatlantic relations, the European Union, and emerging markets. Rasmussen Global draws on an extensive network of leading policy experts, former officials, business executives and consulting firms across the globe. On 1 June 2016, Mr. Rasmussen was appointed advisor to the President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen has advocated stronger ties between the world’s democracies, including a truly “Integrated Transatlantic Community”, a Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement between the EU and North America, and a global community of democracies. In 2017, Mr. Rasmussen founded the Alliance of Democracies Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of democracy and free markets across the globe. In this role, he hosts the annual Copenhagen Democracy Summit, and chairs the Transatlantic Commission on Election Integrity, which, among others, inlcude Joe Biden, Michael Chertoff, and Felipe Calderon.

Mr. Rasmussen holds a Master’s degree in Economics from Aarhus University, and speaks English and French besides his native Danish.

Teng Biao

Dr. Teng Biao is a human rights lawyer, formerly a lecturer at the China University of Politics and Law, a visiting scholar at Harvard, Yale Law School, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, currently a visiting scholar at USALI, New York University. He co-founded two human rights NGOs in Beijing – the Open Constitution Initiative, and the China Against the Death Penalty, in 2003 and 2010 respectively. He is one of the earliest promoters of the Rights Defense Movement in China, and the manifesto Charter 08, for which Dr. Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Teng defended for freedom of expression, religious freedom, victims of wrongful convictions, Tibetans and Uyghurs. He obtained Human Rights Prize of French Republic (2007), NED Democracy Award (2008), and Prize for Outstanding Democracy Activist (Chinese Democracy Education Foundation, 2011).  He is working on two books, one on China’s human rights movement, and another on China’s threat to global human rights and freedom.

Andrea Kendall-Taylor

Andrea Kendall-Taylor is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). She works on national security challenges facing the United States and Europe, focusing on Russia, populism and threats to democracy, and the state of the Transatlantic alliance.

Prior to joining CNAS, Andrea served for eight years as a senior intelligence officer. From 2015 to 2018, she was Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). In this role Andrea led the U.S. intelligence community’s strategic analysis on Russia, represented the IC in interagency policy meetings, provided analysis to the National Security Council, and briefed the DNI and other senior staff for White House and international meetings. Prior to joining the NIC, Andrea was a senior analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) where she worked on Russia and Eurasia, the political dynamics of autocracies, and democratic decline.

Andrea is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Her work has been published in numerous political science and policy journals, including the Journal of Peace Research, Democratization, Journal of Democracy, Foreign Affairs, the Washington Post, the Washington Quarterly, and Foreign Policy.

Andrea received her B.A. in politics from Princeton University and her Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles. She was a Fulbright scholar in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, where she conducted dissertation research on oil and autocracy.