The day after martial law was declared in the Republic of Korea, Tom Garrett, Einaudi Center Lund Practitioner in Residence and Distinguished Global Democracy Lecturer in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy stood in a classroom teaching “Democracy Promotion in U.S. Foreign Policy” to a collection of public policy undergraduate and graduate students. It wasn’t the first time in the fall semester that world events had collided with the classroom lecture topic.

“The things that we’ve been talking about are not theoretical but are very much unfolding in real time,” Garrett said. 

As a lecturer at the Brooks School’s Center for Global Democracy, Garrett’s duty is to engage students with the experiences he developed over nearly three decades working in the field.

“Tom has been such a breath of fresh air for all of us, and, critically for our public policy students, he has really created a thru-line between theory and practice, global events and the classroom, in ways that help them to make new connections and understand the work that goes into supporting and protecting democracy across the globe,” said Rachel Riedl, the Peggy J. Koenig ’78 Director of the Center on Global Democracy.

In addition to his course on democracy promotion, Garrett taught the course “Towards a Policy of Democratic Unity,” which examined the way authoritarian governments have challenged the international democratic world order established following World War II. 

“That class has been wonderful. We’ve recognized together that this 78-year-old international world order is beginning to show signs of aging and crumbling. It doesn’t really know how to speak to issues like climate change or evolving notions of human rights,” Garrett said. “But we’ve also looked at the fact that if democracies don’t improve and reform this system, authoritarian nations will change it into something we may not want to see, where might makes right and there isn’t necessarily a recognition that there are basic human rights.”

An enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation, Garrett began his career at the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs as Director of Congressional and Legislative Affairs and Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs. In that job, he traveled between U.S. tribes in an effort to build trust and better understand their needs. He also built a particular kind of skill.

“I learned how to listen and be quiet and let the hard things be out on the table. Then you could get down to the business of the day and try to move things forward,” he said.

In 1993, following a political transition and unsure where his career would lead, Garrett was invited by an NGO to travel to Ukraine to train first time candidates running for national parliament not long after the country had declared its independence from Russia. 

“None of them had experience with democracy or speaking to a stranger about political issues or asking someone what they wanted to see from public offices. I really enjoyed the work and I was so impressed with the dedication of the people who were trying to be a part of this democratic experiment in their country,” Garrett said.

After his first stint in Ukraine, Garrett went back to work on Alaska Native issues in the U.S. Senate for Sen. Frank Murkowski before returning to Ukraine, where he spent six years doing democracy strengthening programming work, often with women and young people who had historically been left out of the democratic process. 

From 2017 to 2024, Garrett served as the Secretary General of the Community of Democracies, a global intergovernmental coalition of member states coordinating efforts on the rule of law, democracy, and human rights, work for which the Government of Romania conferred on him the National Order of Merit–Grand Officer. 

It was at the end of his time at the Community of Democracies that Riedl invited Garrett to come to Cornell to participate in the Lund lecture series at the Einaudi Center. 

“I was impressed by the way people are able to disagree without being disagreeable at Cornell. I came away from that lecture experience telling people about that two years ago. There was a real sense of free speech, openness, and debate,” Garrett said. 

When Riedl proposed the idea of spending a semester teaching at the Brooks School, he jumped at the opportunity to share his experience. Whether it was the moment members of the national assembly climbed over barriers to vote on suspending martial law in South Korea, or the unfolding developments in the Middle East or Ukraine, each week Garrett tied global events to the course themes, often with the help of former colleagues. Guest speakers included Swedish Ambassador Maria Leissner, Egyptian student activist Essam Boraey, former U.S. Ambassador to the UN Kelley Currie, and Miriam Lexman, a member of European Parliament.

Garrett also worked to create real-world scenarios in the class, assigning pro and con positions in debates and workshopping the types of negotiations he sees as the bedrock of global democracy promotion.

“They’ve had to learn how to understand both sides of an issue in order to negotiate. That’s really critical in diplomacy and in international relations,” Garrett said. “The skills of listening to other viewpoints, seeking out  alternative  viewpoints, and understanding both sides of an issue are some of the important skills I hope the students will take away from both of the classes.”

As Garrett finishes his semester at Cornell and returns to his work fostering global democracy, he has left his Brooks students with new skills and perspective, and, perhaps more importantly, the belief that they can do the same kind of work at a crucial moment in history.

“There is an unprecedented opportunity for young people to engage with international relations today. You don’t have to take the foreign service exam and spend decades slowly climbing the bureaucracy to do this kind of work because NGOs are working in all of these sectors and delivering tremendous impact,” Garret said. “There are all of these new pathways to follow besides working for the government or entering into military service.” 

Giles Morris is assistant dean for communications in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy.