FSI

State-building

Scholarly Publications

New Challenges for Maturing Democracies in Korea and Taiwan

January 2014

New Challenges for Maturing Democracies in Korea and Taiwan takes a creative and comparative view of the new challenges and dynamics confronting these maturing democracies.Numerous works deal with...

Making the Afghan Civil-Military Imbalance Conducive to Democratization

December 2012

In-conflict state building generates unbalanced civil-military relations in the host state due to an inevitable civil-military gap.

Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Russia

November 2012

This is a magisterial new account of the day-to-day practice of Russian criminal justice in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

Other Publications

Luxury or Priority? Ethiopia Wants a Light Rail

February 2019

The Ethiopian government is planning on constructing the country’s first light rail in its capital city Addis Ababa.

Administrative Decentralization in Peru

April 2015

Alejandro Toledo’s election as Peru’s first indigenous president, in 2001, symbolized increased political participation to people who were also “from the provinces” or the rural countryside....

Turning the Tide: The Johannesburg Development Agency and its Role in Revitalizing the Inner City

April 2015

Driving economic growth: As a mid-level government official, how do you make progress in difficult political environments?

News

Kathryn Stoner Named Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law

August 2021

Stoner, a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford, will lead the Center’s efforts to understand how...

Now It Gets Much Harder: Thomas Fingar and Jean Oi Discuss China’s Challenges in The Washington Quarterly

March 2020

In the last forty years, China has reemerged as a tremendous geopolitical, economic, and technological power on the world stage.

The New Yorker: Reforming Ukraine after the revolutions

August 2016

Joshua Yaffa writes in the September issue of The New Yorker magazine about the phenomenon of Ukrainian journalists Sergii Leshchenko and Mustafa Nayyem becoming politicians.

Events

Theories of Development and External State-Building

March 24, 2017

Abstract: Both the academic and policy making worlds have been dominated by three explanations for development, understood broadly as democratization and rising levels of per capita income.

The Anatomy of Authoritarianism in the Arab World

April 13, 2016

AbstractIn this talk Joseph Sassoon discusses his recently released book Anatomy of Authoritarianism in the Arab Republics (Cambridge University Press, 2016).

Baghdad's Deep Dilemma: Sectarianism and Urban Segregation under Occupation

February 3, 2016

AbstractThe sectarian-based segregation that has shaped urbanism in Baghdad is a direct outcome of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Projects

The PRC at 70: Past, Present -- and Future?

IMPORTANT EVENT UPDATE: In keeping with Stanford University's March 3 message to the campus community on COVID-19 and current recommendations of the CDC, the China Program is making modifications...

Language English

An Expanding Toolkit: The Evolution of Governance in China

China has undergone historic economic, social and cultural transformations since its Opening and Reform.

Language English

Experiments in Governance in Developing Countries Project (EGAP)

Policymakers, funding agencies, and implementing organizations are increasingly focused on identifying the most effective strategies for promoting development.

Language English