Shanthi Kalathil is director of the International Forum for Democratic Studies at the National Endowment for Democracy. Previously a senior democracy fellow at USAID and a regular consultant for the World Bank, the Aspen Institute, and others, she has authored or edited numerous policy and scholarly publications, including Open Networks, Closed Regimes: The Impact of the Internet on Authoritarian Rule (with Taylor C. Boas); Diplomacy, Development and Security in the Information Age; and Building Independent Media for Accountable Governance. Previously a Hong Kong-based staff reporter for the Asian Wall Street Journal, Kalathil has taught courses on international relations in the information age at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey and Georgetown University. She holds degrees from the University of California at Berkeley and the London School of Economics and Political Science.