Shanthi Kalathil

Shanthi Kalathil is Director of the International Forum for Democratic Studies. Her work has focused primarily on issues pertaining to democratization, development, and the impact of information and communication technology, with a particular emphasis on Asia. Previously in her career, she served as a senior Democracy Fellow at the U.S. Agency for International Development, an associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a non-resident associate with the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University, and as a consultant for the World Bank, the Aspen Institute and other international affairs organizations. Kalathil has appeared on media including NPR, BBC, VOA, RFA, C-SPAN and others, and has authored or edited numerous policy and scholarly publications, including Diplomacy, Development and Security in the Information Age (Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, 2013), Developing Independent Media as an Institution of Accountable Governance (The World Bank, 2008), and (with Taylor C. Boas) Open Networks, Closed Regimes: The Impact of the Internet on Authoritarian Rule (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2003). A former Hong Kong-based staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal Asia, Kalathil serves on the Advisory Board of the Center for International Media Assistance, and lectures on international relations in the information age at Georgetown University. She holds degrees from U.C. Berkeley and the London School of Economics and Political Science.