Elizabeth Clark

ELIZABETH SPIRO CLARK

Elizabeth Spiro Clark is a retired career Foreign Service Officer. She is a non-resident associate at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy (ISD) at Georgetown University. During 1998-2000 she was a Visiting Fellow with the International Forum for Democratic Studies at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) where she worked on problems of global democratization. In February, 2004, she developed for NED workshops on international democracy standards and accountable legislatures at the World Movement for Democracy meeting in Durban, South Africa. She was a member of the National Democratic Institute delegation to observe the 2003 parliamentary elections in Yemen. She is the Vice President for Political Affairs at the Woman's National Democratic Club.

Her publications include "War Plan B and Situation B" (TomPaine.com, 4/19/07), "A Chance to Avoid War With Iran" (TomPaine.com, 3/2/07), "Somaliland: Democracy Under Threat" (Foreign Service Journal, November 2006) “Millennium Challenge Account: A Spur to Democracy?” (Foreign Service Journal, April, 2005), “A Casualty of the Hamas Victory: election standards” (Public Diplomacy Press Review, 2/8/06), “We yearn for freedom from fear” (Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/29/05), “What Iraqi forces?” (TomPaine.com, 12/8/05), “Tomlinson’s Cleansing Campaign” (TomPaine.com, 7/12/05) “First Draft” (TomPaine.com, December 2003), “Venezuelan coup d’etat: More than one lesson in democracy” (Washington Times, 7/2/02), “International Standards and Democratization: Certain Trends” (Praeger, 2002), “Why Elections Matter” (The Washington Quarterly, summer 2000), “A Tune-up not an Overhaul” (Journal of Democracy, October 1999). Ms. Clark has taught courses on democracy promotion in the School of Foreign Service.

Until her retirement Elizabeth Spiro Clark was a 20-year career Foreign Service Officer. She served in South Africa in the mid eighties as an analyst of internal political developments, for which she received several awards from the State Department and other foreign affairs agencies. She developed and directed a small grants program to assist anti-apartheid movements through a congressionally mandated human rights fund. She was counselor for political affairs in the US Embassy in Oslo, Norway, in the early 90s. Washington assignments included directing the State Department’s first office of democracy promotion, where she oversaw a $10 million Human Rights and Democracy Fund, served as a congressional liaison officer and as special assistant for Europe and Africa to the Undersecretary for Political Affairs.

Ms. Clark has lectured in workshops on global democratization organized by the US Institute for Peace and at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, and participated in numerous panel presentations, including at John Hopkins Center for Advanced International Studies and at the second Assembly of the World Movement for Democracy in Sao Paulo in 2000. She is a past member of the Editorial Board of the Foreign Service Journal. She has a degree in Government from Harvard University.