"This is my way: I invite unto Allah with sure knowledge, I and whoever follows me."

It was with this these words, quoted from the Qur'an, that King Mohammed VI ended his speech on 17 June, urging Morocco's people to vote for his new constitution project in a referendum to be held on 1 July.

It takes quite a nerve to identify oneself with the prophet Muhammad and compare a political reform to Allah's path. It's also a paradox, coming from a monarch who is supposedly on the point of renouncing his own divine right.

According to Morocco's new draft constitution, the king won't be "sacred" any more. Instead, the people will owe him respect and tawqeer – an Arabic term which means something between reverence and adoration. So how much of a paradigm change is it really?

Although the US says it is "encouraged" by the draft constitution, this is not particularly good news for the monarchy. This mild praise from a rather unknown state department spokesperson during a routine press briefing demonstrates, if anything, the cautious retreat of US diplomacy.

It's a far cry from Hillary Clinton's heartfelt declaration on 30 March, commending Morocco for "achieving democratic change [in a way that is] a model for other countries in the region". At the time it was useful to highlight the difference between a ruthless US-bombed colonel slaughtering his people, and a nice US-backed monarch reacting to street protests by promising "comprehensive constitutional reform". But since then, the situation has changed.

After taking down two dictators, Arab revolutionary fever was tempered by war in Libya and the bloody repression in Syria. Inside Morocco, the 20 February youth-led, pro-democracy movement has petered out. Because it couldn't produce leaders, centralised structures and a focused, unifying claim, it lost momentum and finally proved harmless to the monarchy.

Since the king had already promised a new constitution, he had to deliver it. But with the pressure gone, the final draft is merely a democratic window dressing: each time a clause appears to bring genuine progress, another one seriously tones it down – or revokes it altogether.

To comply with democratic norms, the new constitution was supposed to curtail the king's prerogatives and to empower the elected prime minister, but the only real change is a semantic one. The prime minister will henceforth be called "chief of government" (CoG), though he's still bound hand and foot to the royal palace, not even controlling his own cabinet.

The king will still appoint and dismiss the ministers at will. At best, the CoG can "propose" ministers for nomination or "require" that they be dismissed, but the king is not bound to accept. On the other hand, the king can reshuffle government whenever he wants. He will now have to "consult" the CoG – but again, he's not bound to take his opinion into account.

To cut a long story short, the Moroccan king's absolutism, just like his "sacredness", has not gone. As for separation of powers, the king said it has been "bolstered" – and yet he still presides over the high council of magistrates, thus tightly controlling the courts of justice.

Optimists may see officialisation of the Tamazight (Berber) language as recognition of Morocco's ethnic and cultural diversity, but beyond the statement of intent, legislation is yet to be crafted. Morocco's regime has a history of undelivered promises on that matter. King Mohammed had already committed to implement Tamazight in the schools' curriculum in 2001, though little progress has been made since then.

In Morocco, practice often contradicts theory

In Morocco, practice often contradicts theory. For instance, the palace-promoted new supreme law "forbids" (again, in the absence of specific legislation) conflicts of interest by politicians and the abuse of dominant positions. Yet one can doubt the sincerity of this provision, knowing that the king's private holding company outrageously dominates Morocco's economy, to the extent that its global revenue equals 8% of GDP.

The main reason for viewing this new constitution with suspicion is that it is being validated at a breakneck pace. Political parties were given less than 24 hours to review the draft before the king threw it to referendum.

The 20 February activists immediately organised nationwide protests against what they saw as an "imposed" constitution. Unlike what happened in May, demonstrations were not brutally broken up by police but instead the authorities hired swarms of thugs who thronged the streets, looking for a fight with pro-democracy protesters and bawling that Mohammed VI is their "only king". The mood is turning ugly.

Meanwhile, the referendum campaign is obviously crooked. The state-controlled mosques are mobilised to preach the constitution's virtues – which is evidently unfair. As for public TV, the Election Watch Collective had asked, alongside Mamfakinch website (the online extension of the 20 February movement) for a fair and balanced airtime-sharing between "yes" and "no" arguments. But the government turned a deaf ear. A few days before the king's speech, an administrative decree was issued on the sly, splitting airtime only between officially recognised, mainly palace-subservient political parties and trade unions.

Because of the ongoing mass propaganda, there is no doubt that the outcome of the referendum will be "yes". But the government also needs to persuade large numbers of Moroccans to vote. If the participation rate is below 80%, the monarchy's motto of "unanimous popular support" will become harder to assert.

This is why the local authorities are preparing to transport armies of citizens to polling stations, even though it's illegal. For its part, the 20 February movement is calling for a boycott and preparing to video all suspicious "troop movements" during referendum day. A website has been created specially for that purpose with a new battle cry: Mamsawtinch, ou mamfakinch! – "We won't vote, and we won't give up!"

In reaction to the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Khan for allegations of rape in May, Kavita Ramdas and Christine Ahn argue in a piece for Foreign Policy in Focus that gender bias is embedded in the global policies and practices at the IMF, which unfairly target women. Kavita Ramdas is the former president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women and a visiting scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.

In reaction to the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Khan for allegations of rape in May, Kavita Ramdas and Christine Ahn argue in a piece for Foreign Policy in Focus that gender bias is embedded in the global policies and practices at the IMF, which unfairly target women. Kavita Ramdas is the president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women and a visiting scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.

As Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the world’s most powerful financial institution, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), spends a few nights in Rikers Island prison awaiting a hearing, the world is learning a lot about his history of treating women as expendable sex objects. Strauss-Kahn has been charged with rape and forced imprisonment of a 32-year-old Guinean hotel worker at a $3,000-a-night luxury hotel in New York.

While the media dissects the attempted rape of a young African woman and begins to dig out more information about Strauss-Kahn’s past indiscretions, we couldn’t help but see this situation through the feminist lens of the “personal is political.” 

For many in the developing world, the IMF and its draconian policies of structural adjustment have systematically “raped” the earth and the poor and violated the human rights of women. It appears that the personal disregard and disrespect for women demonstrated by the man at the highest levels of leadership within the IMF is quite consistent with the gender bias inherent in the IMF’s institutional policies and practice.

Systematic Violation of Women’s Human Rights

The IMF and the World Bank were established in the aftermath of World War II to promote international trade and monetary cooperation by giving governments loans in times of severe budget crises. Although 184 countries make up the IMF’s membership, only five countries—France, Germany, Japan, Britain, and the United States—control 50 percent of the votes, which are allocated according to each country’s contribution.

The IMF has earned its villainous reputation in the Global South because in exchange for loans, governments must accept a range of austerity measures known as structural adjustment programs (SAPs). A typical IMF package encourages export promotion over local production for local consumption. It also pushes for lower tariffs and cuts in government programs such as welfare and education. Instead of reducing poverty, the trillion dollars of loans issued by the IMF have deepened poverty, especially for women who make up 70 percent of the world’s poor.

IMF-mandated government cutbacks in social welfare spending have often been achieved by cutting public sector jobs, which disproportionately impact women. Women hold most of the lower-skilled public sector jobs, and they are often the first to be cut. Also, as social programs like caregiving are slashed, women are expected to take on additional domestic responsibilities that further limit their access to education or other jobs.

In exchange for borrowing $5.8 billion from the IMF and World Bank, Tanzania agreed to impose fees for health services, which led to fewer women seeking hospital deliveries or post-natal care and naturally, higher rates of maternal death.  In Zambia, the imposition of SAPs led to a significant drop in girls’ enrollment in schools and a spike in “survival or subsistence sex” as a way for young women to continue their educations.

But IMF’s austerity measures don’t just apply to poor African countries. In 1997, South Korea received $57 billion in loans in exchange for IMF conditionalities that forced the government to introduce “labor market flexibility,” which outlined steps for the government to compress wages, fire “surplus workers,” and cut government spending on programs and infrastructure. When the financial crisis hit, seven Korean women were laid off for every one Korean man. In a sick twist, the Korean government launched a "get your husband energized" campaign encouraging women to support depressed male partners while they cooked, cleaned, and cared for everyone.

Nearly 15 years later, the scenario is grim for South Korean workers, especially women. Of all OECD countries, Koreans work the longest hours: 90% of men and 77% of women work over 40 hours a week.  According to economist Martin Hart-Landsberg, in 2000, 40 percent of Korean workers were irregular workers; by 2008, 60 percent worked in the informal economy. The Korean Women Working Academy reports that today 70 percent of Korean women workers are temporary laborers.

Selling Mother Earth

IMF policies have also raped the earth by dictating that governments privatize the natural resources most people depend on for their survival: water, land, forests, and fisheries. SAPs have also forced developing countries to stop growing staple foods for domestic consumption and instead focus on growing cash crops, like cut flowers and coffee for export to volatile global markets. These policies have destroyed the livelihoods of small-scale subsistence farmers, the majority of whom are women.

“IMF adjustment programs forced poor countries to abandon policies that protected their farmers and their agricultural production and markets,” says Henk Hobbelink of GRAIN, an international organization that promotes sustainable agriculture and biodiversity. "As a result, many countries became dependent on food imports, as local farmers could not compete with the subsidized products from the North. This is one of the main factors in the current food crisis, for which the IMF is directly to blame."

In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), IMF loans have paved the way for the privatization of the country’s mines by transnational corporations and local elites, which has forcibly displaced thousands of Congolese people in a context where women and girls experience obscenely high levels of sexual slavery and rape in the eastern provinces. According to Gender Action, the World Bank and IMF have made loans to the DRC to restructure the mining sector, which translates into laying off tens of thousands of workers, including women and girls who depend on the mining operations for their livelihoods. Furthermore, as the land becomes mined and privatized, women and girls responsible for gathering water and firewood must walk even further, making them more susceptible to violent crimes.

We Are Over It

Women’s rights activists around the globe are consistently dumbfounded by how such violations of women’s bodies are routinely dismissed as minor transgressions. Strauss-Kahn, one of the world’s most powerful politicians whose decisions affected millions across the globe, was known for being a “womanizer” who often forced himself on younger, junior women in subordinate positions where they were vulnerable to his far greater power, influence, and clout. Yet none of his colleagues or fellow Socialist Party members took these reports seriously, colluding in a consensus shared even by his wife that the violation of women’s bodily integrity is not in any sense a genuine violation of human rights.

Why else would the world tolerate the unearthly news that 48 Congolese women are raped every hour with deadening inaction? Eve Ensler speaks for us all when she writes, “I am over a world that could allow, has allowed, continues to allow 400,000 women, 2,300 women, or one woman to be raped anywhere, anytime of any day in the Congo. The women of Congo are over it too.”

We live in a world where millions of women don’t speak their truth, don’t tell their dark stories, don’t reveal their horror lived every day just because they were born women.  They don’t do it for the same reasons that the women in the Congo articulate – they are tired of not being heard. They are tired of men like Strauss-Kahn, powerful and in suits, believing that they can rape a black woman in a hotel room, just because they feel like it. They are tired of the police not believing them or arresting them for being sex workers. They are tired of hospitals not having rape kits. They are tired of reporting rape and being charged for adultery in Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia.

Fighting Back

For each one of them, and for those of us who have spent many years investing in the tenacity of women’s movements across the globe, the courage and gumption of the young Guinean immigrant shines like the torch held by Lady Liberty herself. This young woman makes you believe we can change this reality. She refused to be intimidated.  She stood up for herself. She fought to free herself—twice—from the violent grip of the man attacking her. She didn’t care who he was—she knew she was violated and she reported it straight to the hotel staff, who went straight to the New York police, who went straight to JFK to pluck Strauss-Kahn from his first-class Air France seat.

In a world where it often feels as though wealth and power can buy anything, the courage of a young woman and the people who stood by her took our breath away. These stubborn, ethical acts of working class people in New York City reminded us that women have the right to say “no.”  It reminded us that “no” does not mean “yes” as the Yale fraternities would have us believe, and, most importantly that no one, regardless of their position or their gender, should be above the law.  A wise woman judge further drove home the point about how critically important it is to value women’s bodies when she denied Strauss-Kahn bail citing his long history of abusing women.

Strauss-Kahn sits in his Rikers Island cell. It would be a great thing if his trial succeeds in ending the world’s tolerance for those who discriminate and abuse women. We cannot tolerate it one second longer.  We cannot tolerate it at the personal level, we must refuse to condone it at the professional level, and we must challenge it every time it we see it in the policies of global institutions like the International Monetary Fund.

The Korean Studies Program (KSP) at Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) announces that Katharina Zellweger, currently the North Korea country director for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), will be the program’s 2011–2012 Pantech Fellow.

Zellweger joins KSP this November after five years of living in Pyongyang, where she works side-by-side with a large North Korean staff on aid and development projects. Through her SDC and earlier work, she has witnessed modest economic and social changes not visible to most North Korea observers. Her research at Shorenstein APARC will draw on her over fifteen years of humanitarian work in North Korea and explore how aid intervention can stimulate positive sustainable change there.

While heading SDC’s Pyongyang office, Zellweger has focused on sustainable agricultural production and income generation projects. She is well versed in observing and reporting on political, social, and economic trends and developments. As the Swiss government’s top official living in North Korea, Zellweger also represents her country at official meetings with North Korean leaders when the Swiss ambassador, who resides in Beijing, is unavailable.

Prior to joining the SDC, Zellweger worked for nearly thirty years at the Caritas Internationalis office in Hong Kong, the center of its international activities. She organized and led aid and development projects related to North Korea for ten years there. Her work included collaborating with the media to generate national and international awareness about North Korean humanitarian issues.

Zellweger holds an MA in international administration from the School of International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont, and a Swiss diploma in trade, commerce, and business administration. She also apprenticed with Switzerland’s national agricultural management program.

In 2006, the Vatican named Zellweger as a Dame of St. Gregory the Great, and in 2005 South Korea’s Tji Hak-soon Justice and Peace Foundation honored her with its annual award. She is an active member of the International Women’s Forum and of the Kadoorie Charitable Trust.

“No one in the world has more experience than Director Zellweger in dealing with North Korean humanitarian and development issues,” says KSP director Gi-Wook Shin. “We are delighted that she will join us to reflect on and teach about her experiences and insights gained over a lifetime of work in that troubled country.”

Established in 2004, the Pantech Fellowship for Mid-Career Professionals, generously funded by Pantech Co., Ltd., and Curitel Communications, Inc. (known as the Pantech Group), is intended to cultivate a diverse international community of scholars and professionals committed to and capable of grappling with challenges posed by developments in Korea.

In September, Joon-woo Park, a former senior diplomat from Korea, will join the Korean Studies Program (KSP) at Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) as the program’s 2011–2012 Koret Fellow.

Park brings over thirty years of foreign policy experience to Stanford, including a deep understanding of the U.S.-Korea relationship, bilateral relations, and major Northeast Asian regional issues. In view of Korea’s increasingly important presence as a global economic and political leader, Park will explore foreign policy strategies for furthering this presence. In addition, he will consider possibilities for increased U.S.-Korea collaboration in their China relations and prospects for East Asian regional integration based on the European Union (EU) model. He will also teach a Center for East Asian Studies course during the winter quarter, entitled Korea's Foreign Policy in Transition.

Park first served overseas in the mid 1980s at the Korean embassy in Washington, DC, during which time he studied at the prestigious Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at the Johns Hopkins University. He played a critical role in strengthening Korea’s foreign relations over the years, serving in numerous key posts, including that of ambassador to the EU and Singapore, director-general of the Asian and Pacific Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT), and presidential advisor on foreign affairs. Park worked closely for over twenty years with Ban Ki-moon, the former South Korean diplomat who is now the secretary-general of the United Nations.

In 2010, while serving as ambassador to the EU, Park signed the EU-South Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in Brussels. That same year he also completed the Framework Agreement, strengthening EU-South Korea collaboration on significant global issues, such as human rights, the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, and climate change. Park’s experience with such major bilateral agreements comes as the proposed Korea-U.S. FTA is nearing ratification.

Park worked for seven years at the Korean embassies in Tokyo and Beijing, gaining significant in-the-field expertise with Northeast Asian regional issues. During his tenure as director-general of MOFAT’s Asian and Pacific Affairs Bureau, he handled sensitive, longstanding issues relating to regional history, such as the depiction of historical events in Japanese textbooks and the treatment of the history of the Goguryeo kingdom in China’s Northeast Project. Such issues of history and memory are among Shorenstein APARC’s current key areas of research.

In addition to his studies at SAIS, Park holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in law, both from Seoul National University. He also served as a Visiting Fellow at Keio University in 1990.

“With South Korea playing an ever larger role not only in East Asia but also globally, we could not be more pleased to have Ambassador Park join us,” says KSP director Gi-Wook Shin. “He is one of his country’s most experienced and capable diplomats, and his presence at Shorenstein APARC will allow us to put a sharper forcus on Korea’s role in world affairs.”

The Koret Fellowship was established in 2008 through the generosity of the Koret Foundation to promote intellectual diversity and breadth in KSP, bringing leading professionals in Asia and the United States to Stanford to study U.S.-Korea relations. The fellows conduct their own research on the bilateral relationship, with an emphasis on contemporary relations, with the broad aim of fostering greater understanding and closer ties between the two countries.

CDDRL consulting professor Hicham Ben Abdallah wrote a new piece for the French daily Libération on the state of the democratic movement in Morocco as it enters a defining period this summer.

As the Arab Spring meets the Moroccan summer, the movement for democratic reform in our country finds itself in a rare moment when constitutional issues are in the forefront, demanding immediate attention, while the political and social forces that shape the fundamental context, and will determine ultimate outcomes, remain in motion and cannot be forgotten. With the February 20th movement evolving into a series of rolling demonstrations, and the regime drawing other political forces into a process of constitutional reform guided by a royally-appointed consultative commission (CCRC), the major players continue to circle each other, testing their strengths and weaknesses. The movement wants to see how far it can go with militant non-violence, reinforced by the regional momentum of reform; the regime wants to see how well it can contain the pressure with a mixture of co-optation and repression, and is also drawing on an emerging regional pushback against reform demands.

For the moment, the regime has established an agenda: By the end of June, a consultative commission will report to the King, who will then prepare a revised constitution to be presented to the voters in a referendum. The King’s speech regarding this commission was initially greeted as a very positive response to popular pressure, but observers are now wary that this process is quickly being diverted into familiar channels of cosmetic change. 

The regime has put itself in a conundrum: Either you have a real campaign with open, democratic debate around this commission and the proposed reforms – in which case there will be serious dissent and the results will be unpredictable; or, you have a carefully managed and restricted theater of discussion with a familiar cast of characters and a predictable happy ending. 

What seems to be developing is more like the latter – an opaque process, in which traditional party and union leaders (most of whom withheld or hedged their support of the movement), presided over by a royal advisor, will formulate reform proposals that will be further edited by the king before being submitted to a popular vote. From such a process, it will not be difficult to come up with some “good enough” constitutional revisions that are likely to win approval in a quick referendum, as well as international praise. This would gain the regime some instant credibility for democratic reform, and might give it an excuse to brand any further extra-electoral mobilization as “undemocratic.” Since this process would also produce low participation, a weak turnout, and increased disappointment, those extra-electoral demonstrations would be a virtual certainty.

It is not hard to understand why movement activists have declined to participate in such a tightly-managed “consultative” process, though their participation could have transformed it into a useful forum. The constitutional issues in play are extremely relevant in the Moroccan context, as the demonstrators themselves have made clear, with, for example, their frequent references to the articles pertaining to the commanderie des croyants. Clearly, the heart of the matter, and the real test of constitutional reform, will be whether and how the powers and prerogatives of the monarchy are, for the first time, precisely and carefully delimited. This includes, not only the powers of the monarch relative to the different branches of government, but also a wide range of traditionally extra-legal, patrimonial prerogatives, such as the power to issue royal decrees, which should now be delimited within a constitutional framework.

Authoritarianism is not an office but a system, embedded in a widely-dispersed network of institutions and practices. Hicham Ben Abdallah

But, although no real reform will advance without resolving this question of monarchical privilege, the kind of political change that people are now seeking goes beyond the fate of any single institution. Authoritarianism is not an office but a system, embedded in a widely-dispersed network of institutions and practices. Nowhere else is this clearer, for example, than when we consider the issues surrounding elections. Until now, we have tolerated “transparent” elections that are, in fact, structurally rigged, through gerrymandering, the complexity of the electoral code, and the tacit agreement of parties, to prevent an inconvenient majority. At the least, we need to strengthen the electoral code, and give the electoral commissions total independence from the Ministry of the Interior. If we also think about the independence and integrity of municipal and regional governments, the judiciary, the police, schools and universities, and even economic entities, we see the breadth of the changes that are implied in a thorough process of democratization. The persistence and complexity of the political effort necessary to advance that process and make it self-sustaining is clear. Democracy is a process, not a result, and it would be naive to think that a statute, or a referendum, or a demonstration could make it happen.

Indeed, beyond any set of legal or institutional changes, there is the more fundamental question of political culture. It requires, not just elections, but engagement -- the ongoing participation of millions of citizens in all the difficult decisions required to remake their society and their lives. But the legacy of decades of authoritarianism includes passivity, resignation, fear, and cynicism -- as well as, in Morocco, illiteracy. It includes a political framework in which parties become part of a spoils system, inured to their dependence on the monarchy, and reluctant to embrace a reform that would cut those ties. These implicit but powerful elements of authoritarianism provide the most stubborn obstacles to a thoroughgoing, self-sustaining process of democratization. The world is full of countries with perfect constitutions, passive, fearful citizens, and compliant political parties.

The educated, energetic, internet-savvy youth who inspired the February 20th movement, like their comrades across the region, have largely overcome this legacy for themselves, but have barely begun to bring with them the large swaths of Moroccans who are traditionalist, religious, culturally conservative, and -- not without reason -- afraid of making their lives any worse. To attract and mobilize these people, to help them become active citizens rather than passive subjects, requires setting another agenda, proposing a new social project—something visionary enough to inspire them, and programmatic enough to give them hope that their lives can be, not just different, but better. Do that, and the law will follow.

It has been understandably difficult to articulate such a project in a movement that has been a mixture of different social and political tendencies. But to advance, the movement must become more than a front de réfus. It has to adapt to a political space in Morocco that is more open than in many other Arab countries, and a target for its demands that is more difficult to define. The movement has tapped into the enormous desire for change among the populace, but has not yet been able to craft coalitions that will mobilize a broad constituency or develop a politically effective program and strategy.

For its part, the regime has not yet articulated a new vision of its own, adequate to the challenges we face. It is likely to find that the aura of history and tradition is no longer sufficient to sustain its own front de réfus, bricolé from the sticks and carrots of the security apparatus and the usual suspects among the political parties, against the forces of change. 

The relations between movement and regime are still dominated by suspicion and fear, and this creates a very dangerous situation. We have to realize that, whatever the results of the consultative commission and referendum, they will almost certainly be overtaken by ongoing political events. Constitutional reform might turn a page, but it will begin another chapter. Either it will be substantive, and therefore become the condition and support of a continuing process of democratization that affects all the institutions of society, or it will be restricted and superficial, and quickly become an excuse for increased repression and a provocation to renewed militancy.

Particularly troubling in this regard is the regime’s seeming turn, already, to a strategy of harsher repression. It’s as if the regime believes not only that a single constitutional reform constitutes the process of democratization, but also that the mere promise of one puts an end to it. Beating people out of streets and squares, mass arrests, and drive-by attacks by police on motorcycles will do more to undermine the support of the government, and the monarchy, than would a sympathetic understanding of the need for a change that is comprehensive and social, not narrow and legal.

Whether the result of a momentary ascendancy of our own forces sécuritaires, or of the fear of lobbies with vested interests, or of the influence of some of our Arab brethren, who seem to think the Arab Spring can be choked off in mid-bloom by a strong enough dose of the herbicide of repression, such a harsh turn is dangerous and self-defeating. Throughout the region, the appeal of monarchy as a unifying and stabilizing force has been real, but it is also fragile, and requires its own careful and constant tending, or it may quickly wither. In February, the demonstrators in Bahrain were not calling for the ouster of the King or the end of the monarchy. Does anybody think they will be as reticent the next time they take to the streets? Does anybody think there will not be a next time? No “club of Kings” will protect a monarchy from the rage of people who have been beaten by the King’s clubs.

Bleeding wounds leave a harsher and longer-lasting impression than cast ballots. It would be wise for all political actors in Morocco to build on their own strengths rather than on their own or others’ weaknesses, to meet their political opponents with respect rather than fear, as compatriots and citizens rather than as enemies, and to prepare, as best they can, for a complex project of reform that will reach beyond the central squares of major cities, and will not be over in a month, or two months, or on anyone’s timetable. The Arab Spring is entering a long, but let’s hope not too hot, Moroccan summer.

The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) is pleased to announce that undergraduate senior honors student Yihana von Ritter was awarded The Firestone Medal for Excellence in Undergraduate Research for her outstanding thesis examining HIV/AIDS policy in Papua New Guinea. Von Ritter was presented with the award at a ceremony held on June 11 during commencement weekend at Stanford University.

Von Ritter, a political science major, spent the summer of 2010 on the Papua New Guinea island of Karkar, where she performed extensive field research. She interviewed over 40 government officials, medical personnel, religious and civic leaders, youth, and HIV positive individuals. Her thesis entitled "Between Hope and Despair: An Assessment of HIV/AIDS Policy in Papua New Guinea," underscored the fact that while only 1% of Papua New Guinea's adult population is AIDS-infected, a public health crisis is looming if preventative policies are not swiftly adopted.

According to her thesis co-advisor Professor Emeritus David Abernethy, Von Ritter's thesis received the Firestone Medal­--awarded to the top ten percent of honors theses in social science, science, and engineering--for its remarkable combination of social science analysis and informed policy advocacy.

"Von Ritter provides policy-relevant recommendations in her thesis to enhance interagency communication and encourage active government leadership (in Papua New Guinea)," said Abernethy. Von Ritter also worked closely with Francis Fukuyama, FSI senior fellow and CDDRL faculty member, who provided guidance and support during the thesis writing process.

Purun Cheong and Kamil Dada were both recipients of the CDDRL Undergraduate Honors Program "Best Thesis Award" for their outstanding research and policy-relevant scholarship. Cheong, an international relations major, critically evaluated the failed United Nations state-building efforts in East Timor in his thesis, "When the Blind lead: The United Nations in East Timor-Lessons in State Building."

After spending a summer conducting research in Pakistan, Dada, a political science major, wrote "Understanding International Democracy Assistance: A Case Study of Pakistan," a sobering account of democracy assistance to Pakistan. Cheong and Dada were both advised by CDDRL director Larry Diamond.

CDDRL congratulates the 2011 graduating class of CDDRL Undergraduate Honors

Students:

Purun Cheong

International Relations

"When the Blind Lead: The United Nations in East Timor- Lessons in State Building"

Kamil Dada

Political Science

"Understanding International Democracy Assistance: A Case study of Pakistan"

Sarah Guerrero

International Relations

"Automation Nation: Electronic Elections, Electoral Governance and Democratic Consolidation in the Philippines"

Ayesha Lalji

International Relations

"Unleashing the Cheetah Generation: How Mobile Banking Enables Access to Capital for the Poor in Developing Countries"

Lauren Swartz

International Relations

"Agribusiness as a Means of Economic Development: Case Studies of Chile and Mexico"

Ann Thompson

History

"The Other Side of the Coin: The US Military and Afghan Women in Contemporary Counterinsurgurgency Operations"

Yihana von Ritter

Political Science

"Between Hope and Despair: An Assessment of HIV/AIDS Policy in Papua New Guinea"

Ari Weiss

International Relations

"Israel: Managing Diversity with Democracy"

 Check out more photos of this event on our Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/StanfordCDDRL

Congratulations to the 10 members of the Class of 2011 CISAC Honors Program in International Security Studies. The students were honored at a June 10 ceremony for their successful participation in the interdisciplinary program and for their contributions to the field of international security research.

The Stanford seniors join 114 others who have graduated from the program since its inception in 2000. This year's program was co-directed by Coit D. Blacker and Martha Crenshaw, with assistance from teaching assistant Michael Sulmeyer.

In alphabetical order, the students, their majors, and their thesis titles are:

Devin Banerjee

Management Science and Engineering

India's Red Stain: Explaining the Indian Government's Ineffective Response to the Maoist-Naxalite Insurgency Since 1967.

Peter Davis

International Relations

The Non-Aligned Movement: A Struggle for Global Relevance

Anand Habib

Biology

The Demise and Rise of Governance in Health Systems: A Path Forward

RJ Halperin

Political Science

The U.S. and the Origins of the Pakistani Nuclear Weapons Program: National Interests, Proliferation Pessimism, and Executive-Legislative Politics

Akhil Iyer

International Relations, Minor in Arabic

The Establishment of the U.S. Africa Command: Form, Function, and the Process of Agency Formation

Astasia Myers

Political Science and International Relations, Minor in Economics

IAEA Enforcement of Nuclear Nonproliferation Violators: Are Some Animals More Equal than Others?

Jimmy Ruck

History

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon? Evolving Civil Military-Relations in China

Varun Sivaram

Engineering Physics and International Relations

Sunny Side Up: Characterizing the U.S. Military's Approach to Solar Energy Policy

* Recipient of the William J. Perry Award

Jaclyn Tandler

International Relations

Let Them Eat Yellow Cake: Understanding the History of France's Sensitive Nuclear Export Policy

*Recipient of the Firestone Medal

Shine Zaw-Aung

International Relations, Minor in Energy Engineering

The Third Horseman: On Famines and Governments

NEWS RELEASE

April 27, 2011

Contact:

Marie-Pierre Ulloa

Executive Officer for International Programs, Stanford Humanities Center,

(650) 724 8106, mpulloa@stanford.edu

International Scholars in Residence at the Humanities Center 2011-2012

Distinguished scholars from Australia, Hong Kong - Ghana, Spain, the United Kingdom and France chosen as joint Stanford Humanities Center/FSI international visitors.

The Stanford Humanities Center and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) are pleased to announce that four international scholars have been chosen to come to Stanford in 2011-12 as part of a jointly sponsored international program entering its third year. Nominated by Stanford departments and research centers, the international scholars will be on campus for four-week residencies. They will have offices at the Humanities Center and will be affiliated with their nominating unit, the Humanities Center, and FSI.

A major purpose of the residencies is to bring high-profile international scholars into the intellectual life of the university, targeting scholars whose research and writing engage with the missions of both the Humanities Center and FSI.

The following six scholars have chosen to be in residence during the 2011-2012 academic year:

• Adams Bodomo (October-November 2011) is the Chair of the Department of Linguistics in the School of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong and the Director of the University’s African Studies Program. A linguist hailing from Ghana, his primary expertise resides in the structure of West-African languages (Akan, Dagaare). He has recently undertaken research on the African diaspora in Asia, as well as conducted fieldwork on Zhuang, a minority language in China. He was nominated by the Department of Linguistics.

• Mario Carretero (January 2012) is a Professor of Psychology at Autonoma University of Madrid, and one of the most prominent leaders studying how young people develop historical consciousness and how they understand history. His work has been at the forefront of the “history wars” since the 1990s over what and who should determine the curriculum on the Spanish-speaking world. Carretero’s research, unlike scholars who explore such issues by dissecting textbooks, is unique in its commitment to fieldwork - conducting interviews with adolescents and observing them in real life situations to understand the dynamics of cultural transmission and resistance. He was nominated by the School of Education.

• Catherine Gousseff (February 2012) is a world-renowned leading figure in East-Central European history, politics and society of the twentieth Century, as well as of the former Soviet Union. A researcher at the French CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) she is currently affiliated with the Marc Bloch Center in Berlin. While at Stanford, she will share insights into her new research project on collective memories of displacements, diaspora politics in wartime and post-war eras, notably the Polish-Ukrainian population exchange (1944-1950). She was nominated by the Europe Center.

• James Laidlaw (April 2012) is an anthropologist at Cambridge University. Professor Laidlaw is deeply engaged in fieldwork in Asia, researching the Buddhist ethics of self-cultivation, looking at how the traditional means by which Buddhists practice self-cultivation –asceticism, meditation- are undergoing a massive restructuring. Practices once reserved for male monks are now being adopted by women and laity. James Laidlaw has edited seven books, the two latest ones on the cognitive approaches to religion, exploring them from an ethnographic perspective. He is also an expert on Jainism, a tradition of monastic renunciation like Buddhism that is also the religion of choice of a larger lay population. He was nominated by the Department of Anthropology.

•    Monica Quijada (October-November 2011) is a public intellectual and historian of Spain and Latin America at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC) in Madrid. Her engagement with the UN in Argentina (working with refugees) and her directorship of the investigation carried out in the late 1990s regarding Nazi activities during the Second World War and in post-war Argentina shows her commitment to the public space. She has written extensively on dictatorship, populism, and war and their effect on the public sphere in Argentina and Spain as well as on the relationship between nineteenth-century Latin American states and their indigenous populations. She was nominated by the History Department and the Center for Latin American Studies.

•    Patrick Wolfe (May-June 2012) is a historian at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. He is a premier historian of settler colonialism, currently working on a comparative transnational history of settler-colonial discourses of race in Australia, Brazil, the United States, and Israel/Palestine. While at Stanford, he will give lectures based on his core work on Australia and also on his forthcoming book Settler Colonialism and the American West, 1865-1904 (Princeton University Press). He was nominated by the Bill Lane Center for the American West.

While at Stanford, the scholars will offer informal seminars and public lectures and will also be available for consultations with interested faculty and students. For additional information, please contact Marie-Pierre Ulloa, mpulloa@stanford.edu.

Relevant URLs:

Stanford Humanities Center

http://shc.stanford.edu/

Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

http://fsi.stanford.edu/

“Anticipating the future is difficult in any situation, but assessing the prospects for nuclear power in the next fifty years presents especially complex challenges," write Katherine D. Marvel and Michael M. May in a new paper published by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

"The public perception of nuclear power has changed and continues to change. Once viewed as a miracle of modern technology, nuclear power came to be perceived by many as a potential catastrophe; now it is viewed as a potential, albeit potentially still dangerous, source of green power. Conventional wisdom in the 1960s held that nuclear power could dominate the electricity sectors of developed countries, while less than twenty years later, many predicted the complete demise of the U.S. nuclear industry following the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. Yet neither attitude fully forecast the situation today: a nuclear industry that is not dominant, but is far from dead. Indeed, the history of long-range planning for nuclear power serves as a caution for anyone wishing to make predictions about the state of the industry over the next half-century.

Nonetheless, it is critical to assess its role in the future energy mix: decisions taken now will impact the energy sector for many years. This assessment requires both a review of past planning strategies and a new approach that considers alternate scenarios hat may differ radically from business as usual. While a number of studies have explored the future of nuclear power under various circumstances, the purpose of this paper is to consider gamechanging events for nuclear energy.”