Kathryn Stoner

Kathryn Stoner

Kathryn Stoner, MA, PhD

  • Satre Family Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
  • Mosbacher Director, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
  • Professor of Political Science (by courtesy), Stanford University
  • Senior Fellow (by courtesy), Hoover Institution

FSI
Stanford University
Encina Hall C140
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 736-1820 (voice)
(650) 724-2996 (fax)

Biography

Kathryn Stoner is the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), and a Senior Fellow at CDDRL and the Center on International Security and Cooperation at FSI. From 2017 to 2021, she served as FSI's Deputy Director. She is Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford and she teaches in the Department of Political Science, and in the Program on International Relations, as well as in the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Program. She is also a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution.

Prior to coming to Stanford in 2004, she was on the faculty at Princeton University for nine years, jointly appointed to the Department of Politics and the Princeton School for International and Public Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School). At Princeton she received the Ralph O. Glendinning Preceptorship awarded to outstanding junior faculty. She also served as a Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at McGill University. She has held fellowships at Harvard University as well as the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC. 

In addition to many articles and book chapters on contemporary Russia, she is the author or co-editor of six books: "Transitions to Democracy: A Comparative Perspective," written and edited with Michael A. McFaul (Johns Hopkins 2013);  "Autocracy and Democracy in the Post-Communist World," co-edited with Valerie Bunce and Michael A. McFaul (Cambridge, 2010);  "Resisting the State: Reform and Retrenchment in Post-Soviet Russia" (Cambridge, 2006); "After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transitions" (Cambridge, 2004), coedited with Michael McFaul; and "Local Heroes: The Political Economy of Russian Regional" Governance (Princeton, 1997); and "Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order" (Oxford University Press, 2021).

She received a BA (1988) and MA (1989) in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and a PhD in Government from Harvard University (1995). In 2016 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Iliad State University, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia.

Download full-resolution headshot; photo credit: Rod Searcey.

publications

Journal Articles
January 2025

Review Article: Why Does Putinism Endure? Dialoguing With the Dictator

Author(s)
Review Article: Why Does Putinism Endure? Dialoguing With the Dictator
Journal Articles
September 2024

Is Russia Losing in Ukraine but Winning in the Global South?

Author(s)
Is Russia Losing in Ukraine but Winning in the Global South?
Journal Articles
August 2024

Russia and the challenges of global leadership

Author(s)
Russia and the challenges of global leadership

In The News

man holds a portrait of nicolas maduro during a march
News

Venezuela After Maduro, Explained

A Democracy Action Lab panel weighed competing scenarios for Venezuela’s political future amid elite continuity, economic crisis, and international intervention.
Venezuela After Maduro, Explained
Kathryn Stoner gestures toward the screen during a lecture in Encina Hall
News

Kathryn Stoner, Expert in Contemporary Russia’s Domestic and Foreign Policies, Named Satre Family Senior Fellow

Stoner, the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and a leading scholar of Russian politics, discusses her career trajectory, areas of current research, and priorities for the years ahead.
Kathryn Stoner, Expert in Contemporary Russia’s Domestic and Foreign Policies, Named Satre Family Senior Fellow
Amichai Magen, Kathryn Stoner, and Larry Diamond
News

Gift from the Koum Family Foundation Endows Israel Studies Program

Building on a successful pilot at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Jan Koum Israel Studies Program will deepen understanding of Israel through new classes, collaborative research, and community engagement.
Gift from the Koum Family Foundation Endows Israel Studies Program