Alina Polyakova, the President and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), will moderate the panel discussion featuring author Edward Lucas of CEPA, Christopher Walker from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), award-winning journalist Anne Applebaum, and Teija Tiilikainen from the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats. The Munich Security Conference is considered to be among the most influential independent forums for international decision-makers from around the world to debate current and future security challenges.

The need to understand the compromising effects of sharp power—which impairs free expression, neutralizes independent institutions, and distorts the political environment—has never been more apparent, as globalization deepens integration between democracies and autocracies. Building upon the ground-breaking past analysis by the International Forum for Democratic Studies, the new Sharp Power and Democratic Resilience series will examine the ways in which leading authoritarian regimes seek to manipulate the political landscape and censor independent expression within democratic settings, and to highlight potential civil society responses. (Read the past research on sharp power here.)