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CCD
hosts lecture for visiting Cambridge University graduate students
DACOR-Bacon
House, April 14, 2005
The Council for a Community of Democracies (CCD) welcomed
some 30 mostly graduate students from Cambridge University’s
Center of International Studies for a briefing on CCD’s
activities and objectives and an overview of the Washington
democracy promotion community. CCD President Richard C. Rowson
and Executive Director Robert LaGamma were joined by Dr. Arthur
Kaufman of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and
Pablo Zuniga of the Organization of American States (OAS).
The Cambridge students, who besides coming from Britain included
participants from Asia, Africa, Europe and North America,
were exploring issues of strategic and foreign policy. The
CCD briefing was designed to show how the nongovernmental
community in the U.S. seeks to elevate democracy promotion
to a central position in the shaping of U.S. foreign policy.
They heard
CCD’s Rowson and LaGamma describe the activities and
priorities of Washington-based human rights and democracy
promotion nongovernmental organizations and the involvement
of CCD in promoting such initiatives as the UN Democracy Caucus,
the Democracy Transition Center, democracy education, the
creation of a U.S.-European network and the strengthening
of the Community of Democracies Movement.
Dr. Kaufman
then described the work of NED’s World Movement for
Democracy and plans for its Istanbul Conference scheduled
for 2006. The program concluded with Mr. Zuniga who discussed
the democratic transformation of the America’s in recent
years and how the OAS is committed to its consolidation.
The faculty
organizer of the group noted that while the Cambridge Center
had made a similar trip last year, this was their first encounter
with what he called “the idealistic side of American
foreign policy.” In the course of the discussion period
many of the graduate students registered approval that U.S.
foreign policy thinking was not as unilateral and militarily
oriented as they had previously thought.
The visit
was arranged by CCD Associate James Rogers, himself a Cambridge
student of international studies.
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