Tess McEnery

Executive Director

Expertise:

Anticorruption · Authoritarianism · Conflict Prevention · Democratic Backsliding · Disability Rights · Elections · Fragile States · Gender Equality · Human Rights · National Security · Political Transitions · Stabilization · U.S. Foreign Aid · U.S. Foreign Policy

Tess McEnery is POMED’s Executive Director. Ms. McEnery has dedicated her career to standing up for a U.S. foreign policy that advances democracy, protects civic space, and defends universal human rights. She has significant expertise working on conflict prevention, stabilization, fragile states, elections, political transitions, and the strategic use of foreign assistance and foreign policy. Ms. McEnery served two tours as a Director for Democracy and Human Rights at the White House National Security Council. At the State Department, she led a Global Democracy and Human Rights Policy Team and served as a Senior Conflict Prevention Advisor. Ms. McEnery began her career at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where she managed some of USAID’s largest foreign assistance mechanisms and pioneered the agency’s electoral security initiative. Ms. McEnery received her Master of Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University and her Bachelor of Arts in political science from Guilford College.

MENA

Jan 2023

Commentary

Commentary – Does (Should) the U.S. Care about Democracy in the Middle East? A Conversation with Tess McEnery

Tess McEnery, Ezzedine C. Fishere

Nov 2022

Commentary

Commentary – Democracy Over Autocracy: The Missing Middle East

Tess McEnery

“I would argue that the administration needs to be more explicit about backsliding allies, practically recommitting themselves to fundamental freedoms and the respect for human rights as the basis for an evolving global order.”

The Hill

, 06/25/2023

Tess McEnery

“The administration needs to abandon its behind-closed-doors approach to addressing human rights” in Saudi Arabia, said Tess McEnery, who served on Biden’s National Security Council until last year and now heads the nongovernmental Project on Middle East Democracy. “There need to be clear public costs to [Salman’s] repression. . . . For nearly a year [since the Biden visit], we’ve seen what a policy of appeasement looks like.”

Los Angeles Times

, 06/13/2023

Tess McEnery

“[Biden’s fistbump with Saudi Arabia’s MBS last July] was just really this visceral visual welcoming of a full international rehabilitation of, quite frankly, one of the most brutal dictators in the world. . . . I think it’s very evident that the administration needs to abandon its behind closed doors approach to addressing human rights. There need to be clear public costs to MBS’S repression.”

The Hill

, 06/11/2023

Tess McEnery

“Ultimately . . . five, 10, 15 years from now we will see the negative national and international security implications of appeasement of authoritarian allies like Saudi.”

Reuters

, 06/08/2023

Tess McEnery

“The NSC Democracy Directorate reliably asserts that democracy and human rights are not just values, but vital national security interests. It remains difficult to get other national security officials on board with this approach. . . . It would require people willing to break with the status quo to implement democracy and human rights as the center of our foreign policy.”

Vox

, 11/17/2022

Tess McEnery

“Countries that are democratic and respect human rights, at the end of the day, are more stable, more peaceful, more prosperous, and better allies.”

Vox

, 11/17/2022

Tess McEnery

Egypt

December 9, 2022