The Future of Global Politics

The new administration is spinning the globe upside down. Global politics is in shock and disarray, resulting in turmoil, uncertainty, and profound concern for the future. Our panel may not have a crystal ball, but their considerable expertise will help untangle the competing interests over trade policies, alliances, geopolitical interests, governing models, regional conflicts, and more.

To RSVP for the Zoom Webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ttm4MzdWS7mpFaniLjQEQA

To watch the event on Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/NFRPP/live_videos/

This event is from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm EST on June 26, 2025

Speakers:

F. Gregory Gause III is a Visiting Scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C. and Professor Emeritus of International Affairs at the Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University, from which he retired in January 2025. From fall 2014 through summer 2022 he served as Head of the School’s Department of International Affairs. He is the author of three books and numerous articles on the politics of the Middle East, with a particular focus on the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf. He was previously on the faculties of the University of Vermont (1995-2014) and Columbia University (1987-1995) and was Fellow for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York (1993-1994). During the 2009-10 academic year he was Kuwait Foundation Visiting Professor of International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. In spring 2009 he was a Fulbright Scholar at the American University in Kuwait. In spring 2010 he was a research fellow at the King Faisal Center for Islamic Studies and Research in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. His most recent book isThe International Relations of the Persian Gulf (Cambridge University Press, 2010). His articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Middle East Journal, Security Studies, Washington Quarterly, National Interest, and in other journals and edited volumes.

Minxin Pei is the Tom and Margot Pritzker ‘72 Professor of Government and George R. Roberts Fellow at Claremont McKenna College. He is also a non-resident senior fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. He was a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace from 1999 to 2009, and was an assistant professor of politics at Princeton University from 1992 to 1998.  He is the author of From Reform to Revolution: The Demise of Communism in China and the Soviet Union (1994); China’s Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental Autocracy (2006); China’s Crony Capitalism: The Dynamics of Regime Decay (2016); The Sentinel State: Surveillance and Survival of the Dictatorship in China (2024) and The Broken China Dream: How Reform Revived Totalitarianism (2025)

Kathryn Stoner is the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), and a Senior Fellow at CDDRL and the Center on International Security and Cooperation at FSI. From 2017 to 2021, she served as FSI’s Deputy Director. She is Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford and she teaches in the Department of Political Science, and in the Program on International Relations, as well as in the Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy Program. She is also a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution. In addition to many articles and book chapters on contemporary Russia, she is the author or co-editor of six books: “Transitions to Democracy: A Comparative Perspective,” written and edited with Michael A. McFaul (Johns Hopkins 2013); “Autocracy and Democracy in the Post-Communist World,” co-edited with Valerie Bunce and Michael A. McFaul (Cambridge, 2010); “Resisting the State: Reform and Retrenchment in Post-Soviet Russia” (Cambridge, 2006); “After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transitions” (Cambridge, 2004), coedited with Michael McFaul; and “Local Heroes: The Political Economy of Russian Regional” Governance (Princeton, 1997); and “Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order” (Oxford University Press, 2021).

Shibley Telhami is the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development, the Director of the University of Maryland’s Critical Issues Poll, and a Distinguished Scholar-Teacher. He is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Before coming to the University of Maryland, he taught at several universities, including the University of California at Berkeley, where he received his doctorate in political science. He has authored and edited numerous books, including one forthcoming book: Peace Derailed: Obama, Trump, Biden, and the Decline of Diplomacy on Israel/Palestine, 2011-2024 (co-authored). His most recent book is a co-edited with contributions volume, The One State Reality: What is Israel/Palestine? which was published in March 2023 with Cornell University Press. He has advised every U.S. administration from George H.W. Bush to Barack Obama. Telhami was selected by the Carnegie Corporation of New York along with the New York Times as one of the “Great Immigrants” for 2013 and the Washingtonian Magazine listed him as one of the “Most Influential People on Foreign Affairs” in both 2022 and 2023. He is also the recipient of many awards including the University of Maryland’s Distinguished Service Award and the University of Maryland’s Honors College Outstanding Faculty Award.

Gideon Rose, moderator, is an Axel Springer Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. He is also an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and an adjunct professor of political science at Columbia University. He served as the editor of Foreign Affairs from 2010-2021 and managing editor from 2000-2010. He was associate director for Near East and South Asian affairs on the staff of the national security council and is the author of How Wars End. His most recent articles are “Get Ready for the Next Nuclear Age” (Foreign Affairs, March 8)  and “Ending War is Hard to Do” ( Foreign Affairs, January 21).

Event Co-sponsors: