This article was published by Diplomatic Watch

by Victor Gotevbe

The condition of democratic institutions and the civic responsibility required to sustain them formed the focus of a presentation delivered by Celina Stewart, Chief Executive Officer of the League of Women Voters of the United States, during a Women’s History Month program organized by the Associates of the American Foreign Service Worldwide (AAFSW) on March 2, 2026. Drawing on the experience of one of the country’s longest-standing civic organizations, Stewart examined the role citizens and institutions play in protecting democratic governance.

Stewart leads one of the United States’ longest standing civic organizations. Established in 1920 shortly before the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, the League of Women Voters has spent more than a century advancing voter education, election transparency, and public participation in the democratic process.

“Democracy is not self-sustaining,” Stewart told the audience. “It requires daily stewardship. It requires institutions with integrity. And it requires people who are willing to defend it when it is under strain.”

She placed current challenges to democratic governance within a broader historical perspective. The League itself emerged at a moment that carried both progress and contradiction in American history. While women secured the right to vote in 1920, many women still faced legal and social barriers that limited their access to the ballot.

“Women won the vote, but not all women,” Stewart said, referring to the obstacles that Black, Indigenous, and immigrant women confronted for decades afterward.

Today the League operates through a nationwide network of state and local chapters. The organization hosts candidate forums, provides voter education through its widely used VOTE411 platform, and engages in legal and policy work on matters affecting election access.

Celina Stewart explained that the League maintains a nonpartisan identity while remaining firm in its commitment to democratic values.

“We are nonpartisan, but not neutral,” she said. “We do not remain on the sidelines when democratic principles are at risk.”

She also cautioned that democratic decline rarely arrives through a single dramatic event. In many cases, she said, it unfolds gradually.

“Democratic backsliding rarely announces itself loudly,” Stewart observed. “It creeps. It normalizes. It tests boundaries.”

Actions that weaken trust in elections, intimidate public servants, or limit civic participation, she explained, place democratic systems under strain.

“Democracy rarely collapses overnight,” she said. “It erodes when these developments become normalized.”

For Stewart, safeguarding democratic institutions requires sustained public engagement.

“Education is essential. Advocacy is necessary. But neither is sufficient without action,” she expressed.

Her closing message returned to the central theme of the program and the long record of women’s contributions to democratic life.

“Women’s history is not nostalgia,” Stewart said. “It is instruction.”

She encouraged participants to continue strengthening civic networks, guiding younger leaders, and protecting the institutions that sustain democratic societies.

“Democracy does not rise on its own,” she concluded. “It rises when people rise.”

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