African Studies Center and GDP Center Co-host Engaging Book Talk on Global Leadership
On Monday, October 30, the African Studies Center and the Global Development Policy Center co-hosted an event with Daniel Runde, Senior Vice President at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on his new book, “The American Imperative: Reclaiming Global Leadership through Soft Power.”
In the book, Runde argued for renewed American engagement in developing countries not only as a means to promote US prosperity and security, but also because foreign assistance and other forms of soft power are largely where global competition is going to be contested. As competing countries fill critical vacuums from trade to infrastructure, Runde argues that the US and its allies must offer a positive agenda that meets the needs and aspirations of partner countries, or risk losing out.
Runde formerly served in leadership positions in USAID and the World Bank. In those positions, he was a driving force behind the US Prosper Africa policy, which promotes trade and investment between the US and African countries. Runde was also an architect of the BUILD Act, which facilitates the participation of private sector capital and skills in the economic development of countries with low- or lower-middle-income economies.
During the talk, Runde made the case for American internationalism and the judicious use of various non-militaristic tools of soft power to reassert US leadership. He urged active US engagement in the world using development, investment and public diplomacy and in particular, called for the US to reauthorize the African Growth and Opportunity Act as a first step to ensure the competitiveness of American models in Africa.
Participating students and faculty asked Runde how to persuade an increasingly isolationist Republican party to support US development programs and explored questions about the nature of soft power in the modern world, as well as the relative attractiveness of competing models in an era when many countries, including in Africa, say they want to opt out of taking sides in great power rivalries.