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.

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Lynn Eden is acting co-director (2008-09) at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University. Eden received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan, held several pre- and post-doctoral fellowships, and taught in the history department at Carnegie Mellon before coming to Stanford. In the area of international security, Eden has focused on U.S. foreign and military policy, arms control, the social construction of science and technology, and organizational issues regarding nuclear policy and homeland security. She co-edited, with Steven E. Miller, Nuclear Arguments: Understanding the Strategic Nuclear Arms and Arms Control Debates (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989). She was an editor of The Oxford Companion to American Military History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), which takes a social and cultural perspective on war and peace in U.S. history. That volume was chosen as a Main Selection of the History Book Club.

Eden's book Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004; New Delhi: Manas Publications, 2004) explores how and why the U.S. government--from World War II to the present--has greatly underestimated the damage caused by nuclear weapons by failing to predict damage from firestorms. It shows how well-funded and highly professional organizations, by focusing on what they do well and systematically excluding what they don't, may build a poor representation of the world--a self-reinforcing fallacy that can have serious consequences, from the sinking of the Titanic to not predicting the vulnerability of the World Trade Center to burning jet fuel. Whole World on Fire won the American Sociological Association's 2004 Robert K. Merton Award for best book in science, knowledge, and technology.

Eden has also written on life in small-town America. Her first book, Crisis in Watertown (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1972) was her college senior thesis; it was a finalist for a National Book Award in 1973. Her second book, Witness in Philadelphia, with Florence Mars (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977), about the murders of civil rights workers Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman in the summer of 1964, was a Book of the Month Club Alternate Selection.

Fred Turner's research and teaching focus on digital media, journalism and the roles played by media in American cultural history.

Turner is the author of two books, From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network and the Rise of Digital Utopianism (2006) andEchoes of Combat: The Vietnam War in American Memory (1996; Revised 2nd ed. 2001). His essays have tackled topics ranging from the rise of reality crime television to the role of the Burning Man festival in contemporary new media industries.

Turner's research and writing have received a number of awards, including a PSP Award for Excellence, for the best book in Communication and Cultural Studies published in 2006 from the Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division, Association of American Publishers; the Lewis Mumford Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Technics from the Media Ecology Association; the James W. Carey Media Research Award from the Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research; and both a Best Paper Award and a Book Award Special Mention from the Communication and Information Technology Section of the American Sociological Association. During the 2007-2008 academic year, he was a Leonore Annenberg and Wallis Annenberg Fellow in Communication at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.

Before joining the faculty at Stanford, Turner taught Communication at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also worked as a journalist for ten years. His news stories, features and reviews have appeared in venues ranging from the Boston Sunday Globe Magazine to Nature.

Turner earned his Ph.D. in Communication from the University of California, San Diego, in 2002. He has also earned a B.A. in English and American Literature from Brown University and an M.A. in English from Columbia University.

If you would like to be added to the email announcement list, please visit https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/socialscienceseminar

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

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Lynn Eden is a Senior Research Scholar Emeritus. She was a Senior Research Scholar at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation until January 2016, as well as was Associate Director for Research. Eden received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan, held several pre- and post-doctoral fellowships, and taught in the history department at Carnegie Mellon before coming to Stanford.

In the area of international security, Eden has focused on U.S. foreign and military policy, arms control, the social construction of science and technology, and organizational issues regarding nuclear policy and homeland security. She co-edited, with Steven E. Miller, Nuclear Arguments: Understanding the Strategic Nuclear Arms and Arms Control Debates (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989). She was an editor of The Oxford Companion to American Military History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), which takes a social and cultural perspective on war and peace in U.S. history. That volume was chosen as a Main Selection of the History Book Club.

Eden's book Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004; New Delhi: Manas Publications, 2004) explores how and why the U.S. government--from World War II to the present--has greatly underestimated the damage caused by nuclear weapons by failing to predict damage from firestorms. It shows how well-funded and highly professional organizations, by focusing on what they do well and systematically excluding what they don't, may build a poor representation of the world--a self-reinforcing fallacy that can have serious consequences, from the sinking of the Titanic to not predicting the vulnerability of the World Trade Center to burning jet fuel. Whole World on Fire won the American Sociological Association's 2004 Robert K. Merton Award for best book in science, knowledge, and technology.

Eden has also written on life in small-town America. Her first book, Crisis in Watertown (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1972), was her college senior thesis; it was a finalist for a National Book Award in 1973. Her second book, Witness in Philadelphia, with Florence Mars (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977), about the murders of civil rights workers Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman in the summer of 1964, was a Book of the Month Club Alternate Selection.

CV
Lynn Eden CISAC Acting Co-Director (2008-09) and Senior Research Scholar Speaker
Fred Turner Assistant Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies, Department of Communicaiton, Stanford University Commentator
Seminars
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Patrick Johnston is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at Northwestern University and a CISAC predoctoral fellow. His dissertation examines the military effectiveness of civilian targeting in civil wars. He has published articles on the organization of insurgencies, spoiler dynamics in peace processes, and the political economy of civil war in journals such as Security StudiesCivil WarsCanadian Journal of African Studies, andReview of African Political Economy. Johnston holds a BA in political science from the University of Minnesota, Morris and an MA in political science from Northwestern University.

Max Abrahms is a PhD candidate at UCLA focusing on the interface of terrorism and international relations theory. Abrahms has published in International SecuritySecurity StudiesTerrorism and Political ViolenceStudies in Conflict and Terrorism, and Middle East Policy. Prior to coming to Stanford, Abrahms was a research associate at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; a fellow at Tel Aviv University; a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy; and a commissioned op-ed writer on Palestinian terrorism for the Los Angeles Times. He has appeared as a terrorism analyst on ABC News, Al-Arabiyya, Al-Hurra, Al-Jazeera, BBC, CBS, CNN, CNN Financial, Fox News, National Public Radio, and PBS. Abrahms is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania (summa cum laude) and Oxford University, where he read his MPhil in International Relations.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Patrick Johnston CISAC Predoctoral Fellow; PhD Candidate, Political Science, Northwestern University Speaker
Max Abrahms CISAC Predoctoral Fellow; PhD Candidate, Political Science, UCLA Commentator
Seminars
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Clandestine craft and low-tech methods still serve to evade and attack hi-tech defenses. Technologies change, yet covert organizing principles persist. They can be traced through time and across different perpetrators - particularly terrorist and espionage networks - as different as al Qaeda and the Soviet KGB. The talk will use these two case studies to illustrate the underlying principles of how clandestine networks still apply strategies to limit information, connectivity, and traceable technology use in order to enhance their survival and asymmetric capabilities against superior opponents. Strategies evolve, but some of the core principles remain. Their better understanding sheds new light on organizational survival and national/international security issues. The research draws on the book manuscript in progress using organization and information theories, with discourse and technical analysis methods, to systematically examine documentary evidence found in the Hoover Institution Archives as well as the contemporary primary and other sources.

Katya Drozdova is a Senior Research Scientist at National Security Innovations (NSI) and Visiting Scholar at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Dr. Drozdova's research focuses on the interplay between human and technological networks in organizations, with emphasis on asymmetric threats and US national security implications. Her work examines how organizations use technology to counter and conceal their human network vulnerabilities. This covers problems of countering terrorism, insurgency, espionage and weapons of mass destruction proliferation; advancing cyber- and energy security; and strengthening both security as well as liberty. She has published on issues ranging from organizational survival to intelligence analysis and defense policy. Katya conducts academic as well as applied research providing actionable findings and analytic tools to the US Department of Defense and Intelligence Community via NSI. Earlier, she has served as a Research Scholar at New York University's (NYU) Alexander Hamilton Center, as well as Science Fellow and researcher with NSA-funded Consortium for Research on Information Security and Policy at Stanford University's Center for International Security And Cooperation (CISAC), among others. Katya earned her PhD from NYU's Stern School of Business, Department of Information, Operations, and Management Sciences (MA in International Policy Studies and BA in International Relations and from Stanford University).

Martha Crenshaw is a senior fellow at CISAC and FSI and a professor of political science by courtesy. She was the Colin and Nancy Campbell Professor of Global Issues and Democratic Thought and professor of government at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., from 1974 to 2007. Her current research focuses on innovation in terrorist campaigns, the distinction between "old" and "new" terrorism, why the United States is the target of terrorism, and the effectiveness of counterterrorism policies.

She has written extensively on the issue of political terrorism; her first article, "The Concept of Revolutionary Terrorism," was published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution in 1972. Her recent work includes "Terrorism, Strategies, and Grand Strategies," in Attacking Terrorism (Georgetown University Press), "Terrorism and Global Security," in Leashing the Dogs of War: Conflict Management in a Divided World (United States Institute of Peace Press), and "Explaining Suicide Terrorism: A Review Essay," in the journal Security Studies. She is also the editor of a projected volume, The Consequences of Counterterrorist Policies in Democracies, for the Russell Sage Foundation in New York.

She served on the Executive Board of Women in International Security and chaired the American Political Science Association (APSA) Task Force on Political Violence and Terrorism. She has also served on the Council of the APSA and is a former President and Councilor of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP). In 2004 ISPP awarded her its Nevitt Sanford Award for Distinguished Scientific Contribution and in 2005 the Jeanne Knutson award for service to the society. She serves on the editorial boards of the journals International Security, Orbis, Political Psychology, Security Studies, and Terrorism and Political Violence. She coordinated the working group on political explanations of terrorism for the 2005 Club de Madrid International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security. She is a lead investigator with the National Center for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland, funded by the Department of Homeland Security. She was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2005-2006. She served on the Committee on Law and Justice and the Committee on Determining Basic Research Needs to Interrupt the Improvised Explosive Device Delivery Chain of the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science. She was a senior fellow at the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism in Oklahoma City for 2006-2007.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Katya Drozdova Visiting Scholar, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and Senior Research Scientist, National Security Innovations Speaker
Martha Crenshaw Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) and Senior Fellow at CISAC and FSI Commentator
Seminars
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Charles Perrow is an emeritus professor of sociology at Yale University and a visiting professor at CISAC in the winter and spring terms. Among his award-winning research is Organizing America: Wealth, Power, and the Origins of American Capitalism (Princeton, 2002), and Normal Accidents: Living with High Risk Technologies (Princeton, 1999). His 2008 articles include "Complexity, Catastrophe, and Modularity," Sociological Inquiry 78:2, May 2008 162-73; "Conservative Radicalism," Organization 15:2 2008 271-77; "Disasters Evermore? Reducing our Vulnerabilities to Natural, Industrial, and Terrorist Disasters," Social Research 75:3 Fall, 2008. His recent membership on a National Academy of Science panel on the possibilities of certifying software led to his current work on cyber security. He is also researching organizational forms in economic globalization. He received his BA, MA, and PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, all in sociology.

Stephen H. Schneider is the Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies, Professor of Biological Sciences, Professor by Courtesy of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Co-Director and Senior Fellow at the Center for Environmental Science and Policy in the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. Dr. Schneider received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and Plasma Physics from Columbia University in 1971. In 1975, he founded the interdisciplinary journal, Climatic Change, and continues to serve as its Editor. Dr. Schneider was honored in 1992 with a MacArthur Fellowship for his ability to integrate and interpret the results of global climate research through public lectures, seminars, classroom teaching, environmental assessment committees, media appearances, Congressional testimonies, and research collaboration with colleagues. He has consulted with federal agencies and/or White House staff in the Nixon, Carter, Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Clinton administrations. Dr. Schneider was elected to membership in the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2002 and received both the National Conservation Achievement Award from the National Wildlife Federation and the Edward T. Law Roe Award of the Society of Conservation Biology in 2003. He has been a Coordinating Lead Author in Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Program from 1997 to the present. His recent work has centered on the importance of risk management in climate-policy decision making, given the uncertainties in future projections of global climate change, and he continues to serve as a noted advisor to decision makers and stakeholders in industry, government, and nonprofit sectors regarding possible climate-related events. He is also engaged in improving public understanding of science and environment through extensive media communication and public outreach.

If you would like to be added to the email announcement list, please visit https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/socialscienceseminar

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Charles Perrow Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology, Yale University; Visiting Professor, CISAC Speaker
Stephen H. Schneider Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies; Professor of Biological Sciences; Co-Director and Senior Fellow at the Center for Environmental Science and Policy in the Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford Commentator
Seminars
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Scott Sagan is a professor of political science and co-director of Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation. He is on sabbatical in 2008-09. Before joining the Stanford faculty, Sagan was a lecturer in the Department of Government at Harvard University and served as a special assistant to the director of the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon. He has also served as a consultant to the office of the Secretary of Defense and at the Sandia National Laboratory and the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Sagan is the author of Moving Targets: Nuclear Strategy and National Security (Princeton University Press, 1989), The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons(Princeton University Press, 1993), and with co-author Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed (W.W. Norton, 2002). He is the co-editor of Peter R. Lavoy, Scott D. Sagan, and James L. Wirtz, Planning the Unthinkable (Cornell University Press, 2000). Sagan was the recipient of Stanford University's 1996 Hoagland Prize for Undergraduate Teaching and the 1998 Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching. As part of CISAC's mission of training the next generation of security specialists he and Stephen Stedman founded Stanford's Interschool Honors Program in International Security Studies in 2000.

His recent articles include "How to Keep the Bomb From Iran," in Foreign Affairs (September-October 2006); "The Madman Nuclear Alert: Secrecy, Signaling, and Safety in October 1969" co-written by Jeremi Suri and published in International Security in spring 2003; and "The Problem of Redundancy Problem: Will More Nuclear Security Forces Produce More Nuclear Security?" published in Risk Analysis in 2004. The first piece warns against "proliferation fatalism" and "deterrence optimism" to argue that the United States should work to prevent Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons by addressing the security concerns that are likely motivators for Iran's nuclear ambitions. The International Security piece looks into the events surrounding a secret nuclear alert ordered by President Nixon to determine how effective the alert was at achieving the president's goal of forcing negotiations for the end of the Vietnam War. It also questions many of the assumptions made about nuclear signaling and discusses the dangers of new nuclear powers using this technique. Sagan's article on redundancy in Risk Analysis won Columbia University's Institute for War and Peace Studies 2003 Best Paper in Political Violence prize. In this article, Sagan looks at how we should think about nuclear security and the emerging terrorist threat, specifically whether more nuclear facility security personnel increases our safety. His article, "Realism, Ethics, and Weapons of Mass Destruction" appears in Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Religious and Secular Perspectives, edited by Sohail Hashmi and Steven Lee. In addition to these works, Sagan is also finishing a collection of essays for a book tentatively entitled Inside Nuclear South Asia.

Gareth Evans has been since January 2000 President and Chief Executive of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (Crisis Group), the independent global non-governmental organisation with nearly 140 full-time staff on five continents which works, through field-based analysis and high-level policy advocacy, to prevent and resolve deadly conflict. Born in 1944, he went to Melbourne High School, and holds first class honours degrees in Law from Melbourne University (BA, LLB (Hons)) and in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford University (MA). Evans was one of Australia's longest serving Foreign Ministers, best known internationally for his roles in developing the UN peace plan for Cambodia, bringing to a conclusion the international Chemical Weapons Convention, founding the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum and ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), and initiating the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.

He was Australian Humanist of the Year in 1990, won the ANZAC Peace Prize in 1994 for his work on Cambodia, was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2001, and was awarded Honorary Doctorates of Laws by Melbourne University in 2002 and Carleton University in 2005. In 2000-2001 he was co-chair, with Mohamed Sahnoun, of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), appointed by the Government of Canada, which published its report, The Responsibility to Protect, in December 2001. He was a member of the of the UN Secretary General's High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, whose report A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility was published in December 2004; the Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction sponsored by Sweden and chaired by Hans Blix which reported in June 2006;  the International Task Force on Global Public Goods, sponsored by Sweden and France and chaired by Ernesto Zedillo, which reported in September 2006, and the Independent Commission on the Role of the IAEA to 2020 and Beyond, which reported in May 2008. In June 2008 he was appointed to co-chair (with former Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi) the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament. He had previously served as a member of the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, co-chaired by Cyrus Vance and David Hamburg (1994-97), and is currently a member of the UN Secretary-General's Advisory Committee on Genocide. 

Michael May is Professor Emeritus (Research) in the Stanford University School of Engineering and a senior fellow with the Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He is the former co-director of Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, having served seven years in that capacity through January 2000. May is a director emeritus of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he worked from 1952 to 1988, with some brief periods away from the Laboratory. While there, he held a variety of research and development positions, serving as director of the Laboratory from 1965 to 1971. May was a technical adviser to the Threshold Test Ban Treaty negotiating team; a member of the U.S. delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks; and at various times has been a member of the Defense Science Board, the General Advisory Committee to the AEC, the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, the RAND Corporation Board of Trustees, and the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. May received the Distinguished Public Service and Distinguished Civilian Service Medals from the Department of Defense, and the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award from the Atomic Energy Commission, as well as other awards. His current research interests are in the area of nuclear and terrorism, energy, security and environment, and the relation of nuclear weapons and foreign policy. 

If you would like to be added to the email announcement list, please visit https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/socialscienceseminar 

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, E202
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

(650) 725-2715 (650) 723-0089
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The Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science
The Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education  
Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
rsd25_073_1160a_1.jpg PhD

Scott D. Sagan is Co-Director and Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science, and the Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He also serves as Co-Chair of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Committee on International Security Studies. Before joining the Stanford faculty, Sagan was a lecturer in the Department of Government at Harvard University and served as special assistant to the director of the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon.

Sagan is the author of Moving Targets: Nuclear Strategy and National Security (Princeton University Press, 1989); The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton University Press, 1993); and, with co-author Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: An Enduring Debate (W.W. Norton, 2012). He is the co-editor of Insider Threats (Cornell University Press, 2017) with Matthew Bunn; and co-editor of The Fragile Balance of Terror (Cornell University Press, 2022) with Vipin Narang. Sagan was also the guest editor of a two-volume special issue of DaedalusEthics, Technology, and War (Fall 2016) and The Changing Rules of War (Winter 2017).

Recent publications include “Creeds and Contestation: How US Nuclear and Legal Doctrine Influence Each Other,” with Janina Dill, in a special issue of Security Studies (December 2025); “Kettles of Hawks: Public Opinion on the Nuclear Taboo and Noncombatant Immunity in the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Israel”, with Janina Dill and Benjamin A. Valentino in Security Studies (February 2022); “The Rule of Law and the Role of Strategy in U.S. Nuclear Doctrine” with Allen S. Weiner in International Security (Spring 2021); “Does the Noncombatant Immunity Norm Have Stopping Power?” with Benjamin A. Valentino in International Security (Fall 2020); and “Just War and Unjust Soldiers: American Public Opinion on the Moral Equality of Combatants” and “On Reciprocity, Revenge, and Replication: A Rejoinder to Walzer, McMahan, and Keohane” with Benjamin A. Valentino in Ethics & International Affairs (Winter 2019).

In 2022, Sagan was awarded Thérèse Delpech Memorial Award from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace at their International Nuclear Policy Conference. In 2017, he received the International Studies Association’s Susan Strange Award which recognizes the scholar whose “singular intellect, assertiveness, and insight most challenge conventional wisdom and intellectual and organizational complacency" in the international studies community. Sagan was also the recipient of the National Academy of Sciences William and Katherine Estes Award in 2015, for his work addressing the risks of nuclear weapons and the causes of nuclear proliferation. The award, which is granted triennially, recognizes “research in any field of cognitive or behavioral science that advances understanding of issues relating to the risk of nuclear war.” In 2013, Sagan received the International Studies Association's International Security Studies Section Distinguished Scholar Award. He has also won four teaching awards: Stanford’s 1998-99 Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching; Stanford's 1996 Hoagland Prize for Undergraduate Teaching; the International Studies Association’s 2008 Innovative Teaching Award; and the Monterey Institute for International Studies’ Nonproliferation Education Award in 2009.     

Co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation
CV
Date Label
Scott D. Sagan Co-Director of CISAC (sabbatical 2008-09) and Professor of Political Science Speaker
Gareth Evans President and Chief Executive, International Crisis Group Commentator
Michael M. May Professor of Management Science and Engineering, Emeritus; FSI Senior Fellow; CISAC Faculty Member Commentator
Seminars
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Abstract
An accurate estimate of the ultimate production of oil, gas, and coal would be helpful for the ongoing policy discussion on alternatives to fossil fuels and climate change. By ultimate production, we mean total production, past and future. It takes a long time to develop energy infrastructure, and this means it matters whether we have burned 20% of our oil, gas, and coal, or 40%. In modeling climate change, the carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels is the most important factor. The time frame for the climate response is much longer than the time frame for burning fossil fuels, and this means that the total amount burned is more important than the burn rate. Oil, gas, and coal ultimates are traditionally estimated by government geological surveys from measurements of oil and gas reservoirs and coal seams, together with an allowance for future discoveries of oil and gas. We will see that where these estimates can be tested, they tend to be too high, and that more accurate estimates can be made by curve fits to the production history.

Bio
Professor Rutledge is the Tomiyasu Professor of Electrical Engineering at Caltech, and a former Chair of the Division of Engineering and Applied Science there.  He is the author of the textbook Electronics of Radio, published by Cambridge University Press, and the popular microwave computer-aided-design software package Puff.  He is a Fellow of the IEEE, a winner of the IEEE Microwave Prize, and a winner of the Teaching Award of the Associated Students at Caltech.  He served as the editor for the Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, and is a founder of the Wavestream Corporation, a manufacturer of high-power transmitters for satellite uplinks.

This talk is part of the PESD Energy Working Group series.

Richard and Rhoda Goldman Conference Room

Dave Rutledge Professor of Electrical Engineering Speaker Caltech
Seminars
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Abstract: China's three human spaceflights (2003, 2005, and 2008) and 2007 anti-satellite test have put the world on notice that a new geography is emerging in 21st Century space competition, which also includes several other leading Asian countries: India, Japan, and South Korea. North Korea is also desperately trying to enter the club of space-faring nations.  Why are Asian states today so interested in space?  What are their evolving capabilities, in both the civilian and military sectors? And how are these countries' activities likely to affect the interests of the United States?  This presentation will cover each of these issues, as well as emerging Obama administration space policies, particularly in regard to China.  (Dr. Moltz recently returned from research trips to South Korea and Japan, where he conducted extensive interviews with space officials and analysts. His talk is based on a book manuscript he is currently writing.)

James Clay Moltz holds a joint appointment as an associate professor in the Department of National Security Affairs and in the Space Systems Academic Group at the Naval Postgraduate School.  >From 1993 to 2007, he worked at the Monterey Institute of International Studies' Center for Nonproliferation Studies, where he served as deputy director from 2003-07.  Dr. Moltz is the author (most recently) of The Politics of Space Security: Strategic Restraint and the Pursuit of National Interests (Stanford University Press, 2008).  He received his Ph.D. and M.A. in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley and holds an M.A. in Russian and East European Studies and a B.A. in International Relations (with Distinction) from Stanford University. Dr. Moltz serves as a consultant to the NASA Ames Research Center, where he chairs the Space Futures Analysis Group.

If you would like to be added to the email announcement list, please visit https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/stsseminar 

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Clay Moltz Associate Professor, Naval Postgraduate School Speaker
Seminars
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In 2008, the iconic doomsday clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was set at five minutes to midnight-two minutes closer to Armageddon than in 1962, when John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev went eyeball to eyeball over missiles in Cuba! We still live in an echo chamber of fear, after eight years in which the Bush administration and its harshest critics reinforced each other's worst fears about the Bomb. And yet, there have been no mushroom clouds or acts of nuclear terrorism since the Soviet Union dissolved, let alone since 9/11.

Our worst fears still could be realized at any time, but Michael Krepon argues that the United States has never possessed more tools and capacity to reduce nuclear dangers than it does today - from containment and deterrence to diplomacy, military strength, and arms control. The bloated nuclear arsenals of the Cold War years have been greatly reduced, nuclear weapon testing has almost ended, and all but eight countries have pledged not to acquire the Bomb. Major powers have less use for the Bomb than at any time in the past. Thus, despite wars, crises, and Murphy's Law, the dark shadows cast by nuclear weapons can continue to recede.

Krepon believes that positive trends can continue, even in the face of the twin threats of nuclear terrorism and proliferation that have been exacerbated by the Bush administration's pursuit of a war of choice in Iraq based on false assumptions. Krepon advocates a "back to basics" approach to reducing nuclear dangers, reversing the Bush administration's denigration of diplomacy, deterrence, containment, and arms control. As he sees it, "The United States has stumbled before, but America has also made it through hard times and rebounded. With wisdom, persistence, and luck, another dark passage can be successfully navigated."

Michael Krepon is Co-founder of the Henry L. Stimson Center and the author or editor of thirteen books and over 350 articles. Prior to co-founding the Stimson Center, Krepon worked at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency during the Carter administration, and in the US House of Representatives, assisting Congressman Norm Dicks. He received an MA from the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University and a BA from Franklin & Marshall College. He also studied Arabic at the American University in Cairo, Egypt.

Krepon divides his time between Stimson's South Asia and Space Security projects. The South Asia project concentrates on escalation control, nuclear risk reduction, confidence building, and peace making between India and Pakistan. This project entails field work, publications, and Washington-based programming, including a visiting fellowship program. The Space Security project seeks to promote a Code of Conduct for responsible space-faring nations and works toward stronger international norms for the peaceful uses of outer space.

Krepon also teaches in the Politics Department at the University of Virginia.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Michael Krepon Co-founder, Henry L. Stimson Center Speaker
Seminars
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Abstract: For the last five years CISAC affiliate David Montague has been studying the viability and implications of sustainable energy options. He first presented his work in an initial paper entitled "Sustainable Energy Independence - A National and International Security Imperative" at CISAC in 2006. It proposed an holistic approach to energy independence on a time table much shorter than the Bush administration's halfhearted approach. This seminar presents his most recent work that "peels the onion" several layers deeper from a national security perspective and quantitatively examines pro and con arguments raised about the various advocated concepts.

Dave Montague an independent consultant and CISAC affiliate, retired as President of the Missile Systems Division at Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space in 1996. A member of the National Academy of Engineering, Mr. Montague has 50 years of background in design, development and management of strategic and tactical military systems, In addition to his development expertise in both tactical and strategic strike, surveillance, and defensive systems, his experience includes the requirements, development, and national security policy issues of strategic forces and research into strategic energy issues and the viability of electric vehicles.

An Engineering graduate of Cornell University Dave is a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Until recently he served on the National Research Council's Naval Studies Board. Consulting for Los Alamos and Livermore National Labs and NASA, for three years he was a member of the Los Alamos National Lab Director's Senior Advisory Group. He previously served on numerous other government advisory groups and studies, including eight years on the Navy Strategic Systems Steering Task Group, various Naval Studies Board committees, and task forces for both the U.S. Army and the Defense Science Board.

Dave has written and been a major contributor to numerous reports including the recent National Academies Report on Conventional Prompt Global Strike. He was a major contributor to the American Physical Society Report on the Science and Technology of Boost Phase Defense in Review of Modern Physics  July 2004,  and is the Author of "Restoring Trust", copyright 2001, a book on Organizational and Project Management currently available on the Web.

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Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

David Montague CISAC Affiliate Speaker
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Mark Thompson
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Some theorists of modernization have influentially claimed that successful “late industrialization” led by developmental states creates economies too complex, social structures too differentiated, and (middle-class-dominated) civil societies too politically conscious to sustain nondemocratic rule. Nowhere is this argument—that economic growth drives democratic transitions—more evident than in Northeast and Southeast Asia (hereafter Pacific Asia).

South Korea and Taiwan, having democratized only after substantial industrialization, seem to fit this narrative well. But “late democratizers” have been the exception rather than the rule. Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand democratized before high per capita incomes were achieved. Malaysia, and especially Singapore are more wealthy than they are democratic. The communist “converts” to developmentalism, China and Vietnam, are aiming for authoritarian versions of modernity. Table 1* shows that there is no clear pattern in Pacific Asia. Indeed, according to the nongovernmental organization Freedom House (and using the World Bank categories of low, lower middle, upper middle, or high income), poor and rich countries alike in Pacific Asia are rated “free,” “partly free,” or “not free.”

What key factors have influenced the different timing of democratization in Pacific Asia? Democratization has occurred early in the developmental process when authoritarian states have failed to create sustainable economic growth, which in turn has led to mounting debt. Many reasons explain this phenomenon, but a primary cause is the so-called failure to “deepen”—that is, certain countries’ inability to become major manufacturers of high-tech and heavy industrial goods. For example, when economic crises rocked the Philippines in the mid-1980s and Indonesia in the late 1990s, both nations lacked the economic maturity and breadth to rebound, prompting abrupt financial collapse. These nations’ political systems were too ossified to channel popular unrest, and mass mobilization resulted. Ideologically, the Marcos and Suharto regimes faced accusations of cronyism, as favored business leaders stepped in to rescue failing conglomerates, sidelining once-influential technocrats in the process. In the end, these countries’ limited economic development actually broke down their authoritarian systems.

 “Late industrializers,” by contrast, do succeed in industrial “deepening.” But they are often less successful in terms of “widening”—the perception that the benefits of development are being fairly shared in society. Statistics show that South Korea and Taiwan are relatively equal societies. Nevertheless, neither of these technocratically oriented authoritarian regimes was able to blunt criticisms that growth was unjustly distributed. South Korean workers and native Taiwanese felt particularly disadvantaged. In Malaysia, too, tensions are now mounting about distribution along ethnic lines. Electoral authoritarianism helped to defuse earlier crises in South Korea and Taiwan, but beginning in the mid-1980s, opposition forces in both nations launched successful challenges through the ballot box to bring about democratization. In Malaysia, the opposition scored major gains in the 2008 elections. Ideologically, all three authoritarian regimes were weakened by activist campaigns for social justice, which mobilized middle class professionals.

One can only speculate about whether Singapore will one day democratize. Its economy has continually deepened, most recently through a major drive to grow a biotech industry. At the same time, it has widened through a series of welfare-related measures focused on housing and pensions. The Singaporean government has also perfected a system of electoral authoritarianism, allowing some competition and participation without threatening the ruling party’s hold on power. Ideologically, the government has long determined the political agenda through its collectivist campaigns (including the once high-profile “Asian values” discourse). However, when Singapore’s founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, eventually passes away, the nation’s technocratic elite may be tempted to democratize. Democratization would give the government greater legitimacy to reform welfare provision, which many believe is currently limiting Singapore’s competitiveness. The main arguments are summarized in table two.*

It is evident that China and Vietnam are trying to imitate the Singaporean model. Though each faces many obstacles, both countries have already made great strides in industrial deepening and widening through an elaborate postcommunist welfare system. Ideologically, these countries will rely not just on growth—which will inevitably slow during the current economic crisis—but also on appeals to a collectivist identity that is simultaneously both nationalist and neo-Confucianist in character. Whether China and Vietnam eventually democratize or remain authoritarian despite modernization is one of the most important political questions in the world today.

* Please contact the Manager of Corporate Relations for a full PDF copy of this dispatch, including tables.

 

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