Society

FSI researchers work to understand continuity and change in societies as they confront their problems and opportunities. This includes the implications of migration and human trafficking. What happens to a society when young girls exit the sex trade? How do groups moving between locations impact societies, economies, self-identity and citizenship? What are the ethnic challenges faced by an increasingly diverse European Union? From a policy perspective, scholars also work to investigate the consequences of security-related measures for society and its values.

The Europe Center reflects much of FSI’s agenda of investigating societies, serving as a forum for experts to research the cultures, religions and people of Europe. The Center sponsors several seminars and lectures, as well as visiting scholars.

Societal research also addresses issues of demography and aging, such as the social and economic challenges of providing health care for an aging population. How do older adults make decisions, and what societal tools need to be in place to ensure the resulting decisions are well-informed? FSI regularly brings in international scholars to look at these issues. They discuss how adults care for their older parents in rural China as well as the economic aspects of aging populations in China and India.

Department of Iberian and Latin American Cultures
Stanford University

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Graduate Student, Department of Iberian and Latin American Cultures
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Cristina Bonnet is a graduate student at Stanford University. She is currently undertaking a research project about emerging non-European immigrant literature in Austria. By focusing on texts produced in the last decade by a group of writers from Latin America, Africa, Turkey and East Asia, Cristina seeks to explore the rising configurations of identities and political agendas of immigrants in the contested context of the recent public debates on immigration in Austrian politics. 

Cristina Bonnet was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She received her BA in Communications from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras and her MA from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

Cristina recevied the Forum on Contemporary Europe's Advanced Graduate Student Travel Fellowship in Spring of 2009.

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As the date of the America withdrawal from Iraq approaches, there are a number of key imperatives that must be addressed and important goals to be achieved to help assure that recent hard-won gains will not be reversed once the American withdrawal takes place, argues Larry Diamond, Director of FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), and a Senior Fellow at both FSI and the Hoover Institution, in a recent op ed in the Arabic magazine, The Majalla.

Although Iraqis are eager to be rid of U.S. troops after more than six years of occupation and Americans want to bring their troops home, both share the anxiety that too rapid a withdrawal, without first laying adequate foundations, could unravel hard-won political and security gains.  To prevent a descent into “horrific violence or tyranny” in Iraq after the United States withdraws, Diamond sets out four key imperatives:

  1. A more authentic and inclusive constitutional bargain must be struck among the major political, regional, and sectarian groups in Iraq;
  2. The Iraqi government must make good on its pledge to integrate the Sahwa mililtia, which played a major role in stabilizing large parts of Iraq and battling al Qaeda, into the country’s civilian forces and civilian jobs;
  3. Adequate provision must be made to assure a peaceful, fair, and open electoral process this coming December when the mandate of the Iraqi parliament will be renewed; and
  4. Vigilant, sustained, and effective action is needed to control the corruption that is currently diverting needed monies away from the vital tasks of rebuilding infrastructure, reviving schools and health care, and strengthening the economy and improving the quality of life.

Diamond, a world renowned authority on democracy and the factors facilitating democratic transitions and consolidations, served with the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq in 2004 and wrote a book about the experience titled, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq.  His most recent, critically acclaimed book, is The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World (Times Books, 2008).

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Sarah Catanzaro is a senior undergraduate student at Stanford University majoring in international relations and minoring in Art History. Her interest in international security studies was provoked by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the Twin Towers. Living on Long Island in a community that was impacted by this tragedy, she experienced firsthand the acute anxiety and sense of vulnerability induced by terrorism and sought to understand this phenomenon through academic research. As a result, she, like Ms. Esberg worked as a research assistant for Jacob Shapiro, a former postgraduate fellow at CISAC, examining the inefficiencies and vulnerabilities of terrorist groups. Since her junior year, she has served as a research assistant for Professor Martha Crenshaw. Moreover, Sarah interned at the Center on Law and Security at New York University School of Law, where she created a database of released Guantanamo Bay detainees that now serves as a crucial research tool for the executive director of the Center, Karen Greenberg. She is also active in the Stanford community as the President of the Public Health Initiative and former Events Director of Stanford Women in Business. She looks forward to expand her knowledge and professional experiences in the field of international security in the near future.

Jane Esberg is a CISAC Undergraduate Honors Student graduating this June with a B.A. in International Relations. She currently works as a research assistant for acting co-director of CISAC, Professor Lynn Eden, investigating US nuclear war planning. Previously, she has researched for Professor Kenneth A. Schultz, CISAC Homeland Security Fellow Jacob Shapiro, and PhD Candidate Luke Condra. In Summer 2008 Jane received a Stanford in Government Fellowship to work with the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London, in the Transnational Threats and Political Risks division. She studied abroad at Oxford University, where she completed a tutorial on "the Politics of Terrorism," and in Santiago, Chile, where she was awarded a Stanford Quarterly Research Grant to conduct independent research for use in her thesis. After graduation, she will be traveling as a Haas Center Fellow to the Tambopata region of the Peruvian Amazon to conduct a research and service project on the impact of national policy, urbanization, and immigration on agricultural sustainability.

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Sarah Catanzaro CISAC Honors Student and winner of the William J. Perry Prize Speaker
Jane Esberg CISAC Honors Student and winner of the Firestone Medal Speaker
Michael M. May CISAC Co-Director Moderator
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Shadi Hamid
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The fortunes of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood may be shifting after three difficult years that saw the group's worst electoral result in history, reports of diminished influence, and sustained government repression. After hitting an unprecedented low, the relationship between the Jordanian regime and the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest opposition grouping, has improved recently. This is the opposite of what many observers, including this author, expected. Hammam Sa'id, known as a hardliner, was elected General Guide of the organization in May 2008, leading many to predict heightened confrontation between regime and opposition. Analysts Matthew Levitt and David Schenker wrote, for instance, that the leadership change suggested the Brotherhood "can no longer be considered ‘loyal' to the kingdom." During Sa'id's tenure, however, events have moved in an unexpected direction. Since being elected, he has toned down his abrasive rhetoric, emphasized domestic priorities, and made an effort to reach understandings with the government of Prime Minister Nader al-Dahabi on key issues of contention.

The question of the Palestinian Resistance Movement (Hamas) is one area where Islamists and the regime have moved closer to each other. After nine years of severed ties, Jordan has opened a dialogue with Hamas, recognizing the group's growing influence and its strong position in Gaza. With its close ties to Hamas leaders, the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood and its political arm, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), played a critical role in facilitating the resumption of contacts.  

Moreover, Jordan's King Abdullah-known as one of the region's most pro-Western rulers-has attempted to strengthen ties to other U.S. adversaries, including Iran and Russia. He has met with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev three times in the last eight months, and their discussions have increasingly revolved around military assistance and cooperation, including joint production of multi-caliber grenade launchers. Such moves have given Islamists hope that Jordan is beginning to shake off Washington's tight embrace.  

For their part, Islamists are drawing a degree of optimism from their improved relations with the regime. Even IAF Secretary-General Zaki Bani Irsheid, one of the government's fiercest detractors, said in a private conversation in August that Jordan may be entering a "new political phase." Coinciding with the improved ties between Islamists and the regime, relations between internal Brotherhood/IAF factions have also improved after nine months of crippling internal divisions that had threatened to tear the movement apart. In early August, so-called hawks and doves reached an agreement that left both sides content, at least temporarily. The agreement reflects what had been a difficult and sustained round of internal negotiations over a variety of contentious issues, including Bani Irsheid's pending trial by an internal IAF court for allegedly sabotaging his own party's prospects in the 2007 parliamentary elections. This agreement might have postponed further infighting, however, rather than ended it; there are still factions within the Brotherhood that hold substantially different visions on how to proceed in what remains a challenging economic and political environment.  

It is unclear what the Jordanian regime's efforts at strategic repositioning-taking into account a perceived decline in U.S. influence in the region-bode for further political opening and reform. Over the last three years, the Jordanian government interpreted U.S. silence on reform as a green light to clamp down aggressively on Islamists. However, if it continues to see a need to reach out to Hamas, the regime will    need to expand political space for the Islamist opposition and maintain a mutually beneficial working relationship with it.  

Of course, there have been bouts of optimism before, and they have been misplaced. Each time the regime has reached out to the Brotherhood, as it did in advance of the November 2007 elections, it has quickly reversed course and resumed anti-Islamist policies. Islamists are unlikely to be fooled again. Despite the optimism expressed by Bani Irsheid and others, most Islamists see this as yet another round of tactical maneuvering. The Jordanian regime is not necessarily acting in good faith; it is acting in its own self-interest. So too is the Islamist opposition.

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David Holloway is the Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, a professor of political science, and an FSI senior fellow. He was co-director of CISAC from 1991 to 1997, and director of FSI from 1998 to 2003. His research focuses on the international history of nuclear weapons, on science and technology in the Soviet Union, and on the relationship between international history and international relations theory. His book Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956 (Yale University Press, 1994) was chosen by the New York Times Book Review as one of the 11 best books of 1994, and it won the Vucinich and Shulman prizes of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. It has been translated into six languages, most recently into Czech in 2008. Holloway also wrote The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (1983) and co-authored The Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative: Technical, Political and Arms Control Assessment (1984). He has contributed to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Foreign Affairs, and other scholarly journals.

Since joining the Stanford faculty in 1986 -- first as a professor of political science and later (in 1996) as a professor of history as well -- Holloway has served as chair and co-chair of the International Relations Program (1989-1991), and as associate dean in the School of Humanities and Sciences (1997-1998). Before coming to Stanford, he taught at the University of Lancaster (1967-1970) and the University of Edinburgh (1970-1986). Born in Dublin, Ireland, he received his undergraduate degree in modern languages and literature, and his PhD in social and political sciences, both from Cambridge University.

Theodore Postol is Professor of Science, Technology and National Security Policy in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT. He did his undergraduate work in physics and his graduate work in nuclear engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After receiving his Ph.D., Dr. Postol joined the staff of Argonne National Laboratory, where he studied the microscopic dynamics and structure of liquids and disordered solids using neutron, x-ray and light scattering, along with computer molecular dynamics techniques. Subsequently he went to the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment to study methods of basing the MX Missile, and later worked as a scientific adviser to the Chief of Naval Operations. After leaving the Pentagon, Dr. Postol helped to build a program at Stanford University to train mid-career scientists to study developments in weapons technology of relevance to defense and arms control policy. In 1990 Dr. Postol was awarded the Leo Szilard Prize from the American Physical Society. In 1995 he received the Hilliard Roderick Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and in 2001 he received the Norbert Wiener Award from Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility for uncovering numerous and important false claims about missile defenses.

Philip Taubman is a consulting professor at CISAC, where is working on a book project about nuclear threats and the joint effort of Sid Drell, Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn, Bill Perry and George Shultz to reduce nuclear dangers. Before joining CISAC this fall, Mr. Taubman worked at the New York Times as a reporter and editor for nearly 30 years, specializing in national security issues, including intelligence and defense policies and operations. At the Times, Taubman served as a Washington correspondent, Moscow bureau chief, deputy editorial page editor, Washington bureau chief and associate editor. Taubman also serves as Stanford associate vice president for university affairs, working on special projects for Stanford's president, John Hennessy.

Taubman was a history major at Stanford, Class of 1970, and served as editor-in-chief of the Stanford Daily in 1969. Before joining the New York Times, he worked as a correspondent for Time magazine and was sports editor of Esquire. He was a member of the Stanford Board of Trustees, 1978-1982. He is author of Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage. (Simon & Schuster, 2003.) Taubman is married to Felicity Barringer, the national environmental correspondent of the New York Times and a fellow Stanford graduate, Class of 1971.

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Stanford University
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Stanford, CA 94305-6165

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Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies
Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History
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David Holloway is the Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, a professor of political science, and an FSI senior fellow. He was co-director of CISAC from 1991 to 1997, and director of FSI from 1998 to 2003. His research focuses on the international history of nuclear weapons, on science and technology in the Soviet Union, and on the relationship between international history and international relations theory. His book Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956 (Yale University Press, 1994) was chosen by the New York Times Book Review as one of the 11 best books of 1994, and it won the Vucinich and Shulman prizes of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. It has been translated into seven languages, most recently into Chinese. The Chinese translation is due to be published later in 2018. Holloway also wrote The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (1983) and co-authored The Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative: Technical, Political and Arms Control Assessment (1984). He has contributed to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Foreign Affairs, and other scholarly journals.

Since joining the Stanford faculty in 1986 -- first as a professor of political science and later (in 1996) as a professor of history as well -- Holloway has served as chair and co-chair of the International Relations Program (1989-1991), and as associate dean in the School of Humanities and Sciences (1997-1998). Before coming to Stanford, he taught at the University of Lancaster (1967-1970) and the University of Edinburgh (1970-1986). Born in Dublin, Ireland, he received his undergraduate degree in modern languages and literature, and his PhD in social and political sciences, both from Cambridge University.

Faculty member at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Affiliated faculty at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
Affiliated faculty at The Europe Center
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David Holloway Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History Speaker Stanford University
Theodore Postol Professor of Science, Technology, and International Security Speaker MIT
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Philip Taubman is affiliated with the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. Before joining CISAC in 2008, Mr. Taubman worked at the New York Times as a reporter and editor for nearly 30 years, specializing in national security issues, including United States diplomacy, and intelligence and defense policy and operations. He served as Moscow bureau chief and Washington bureau chief, among other posts. He is author of Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage (2003), The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban the Bomb (2012),  In the Nation's Service: The Life and Times of George P. Shultz (2023), as well as co-author (with his brother, William Taubman) of McNamara at War: A New History (2025).

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