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 MEDC’s Executive Director. Ms. McEnery previously served as Executive Director for the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED), leading its merger with the Freedom Initiative to create MEDC. Ms. McEnery has dedicated her career to standing up for U.S. foreign policy that advances democracy, protects civic space, and defends universal human rights. In her 15 years with the U.S. government, Ms. McEnery was twice Director for Democracy and Human Rights at the White House National Security Council and served in senior positions at the Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). 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.

Bahrain + more
Egypt + more
Israel & Palestine + more
Jordan + more
MENA + more
Morocco + more
Saudi Arabia + more
Tunisia + more
Turkey + more
United Arab Emirates

Feb 2024

Commentary

Advancing Democracy Overseas – Not Isolationism – Protects American Interests, writes Tess McEnery and Patrick Quirk in the National Interest

Tess McEnery

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

“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

MBS is clearly engaging in these modernization efforts in order to not look like a brutal dictator. But he’s not going to make any reforms to the structure of Saudi society or the status of the human rights of women or marginalized groups or anyone else in Saudi Arabia if it threatens his power.

NPR

, 06/10/2023

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