Stanford University

The Tower of Babel: Human Rights and the Paradox of Language

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ABOUT THE TOPIC: Key human rights instruments and leading scholars argue that minority language rights should be treated as human rights, both because language is constitutive of an individual’s cultural identity and because linguistic pluralism increases diversity. These treaties and academics assign the value of linguistic pluralism in diversity. But, this paper demonstrates, major human rights courts and quasi-judicial institutions are not, in fact, prepared to force states to swallow the dramatic costs entailed by a true diversity-protecting regime. Outside narrow exceptions or a path dependent national-political compromise, these enforcement bodies continuously allow the state to actively incentivize assimilation into the dominant culture and language of the majority. The minority can still maintain its distinct language, but only at its own cost. The slippage between the promise of rights and their actual interpretation carries some important political and economic benefits, but the resulting legal outcome does not provide the robust protection of diversity to which lip service is paid.  Importantly, the assimilationist nature of the jurisprudence is not indifferent to human rights. However, instead of advancing maximal linguistic diversity as a preeminent norm, the regime that is applied by judicial bodies supports a different set of human rights, those protecting linguistic minorities from discrimination, and promoting equal access of the group to market and political institutions.  The result is a tension between two human rights values: pluralism and equality.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Moria Paz is a Law and International Security Fellow at CISAC. She was an affiliate at CISAC from February 2012-July 2013. Before joining CISAC, she was a Lecturer at Stanford Law School and the Teaching Fellow of the Stanford Program for International Legal Studies (SPILS). Her current research examines issues of state control and freedom of movement through the entry point of travel documents. Earlier work examined the intersection between minorities, language rights, and international law. Moria received her S.J.D. degree from Harvard Law School. While at Harvard, she was awarded a number of fellowships, including at the Hauser Center for Non-Profit Organizations, The European Law Research Center, and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

CISAC Conference Room

Moria Paz Law and International Security Fellow, CISAC Speaker

David Laitin

Department of Political Science
Stanford University
Encina Hall, W423
Stanford, CA 94305-6044

(650) 725-9556 (650) 723-1808
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James T. Watkins IV and Elise V. Watkins Professor of Political Science
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David Laitin is the James T. Watkins IV and Elise V. Watkins Professor of Political Science and a co-director of the Immigration Policy Lab at Stanford. He has conducted field research in Somalia, Nigeria, Spain, Estonia and France. His principal research interest is on how culture – specifically, language and religion – guides political behavior. He is the author of “Why Muslim Integration Fails in Christian-heritage Societies” and a series of articles on immigrant integration, civil war and terrorism. Laitin received his BA from Swarthmore College and his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.

Affiliated faculty at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Affiliated faculty at The Europe Center
David Laitin James T. Watkins IV and Elise V. Watkins Professor of Political Science, Stanford Commentator
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Information, Development, and Life-course Smoking Pattern in Mainland China and Taiwan over 50 Years

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We use retrospectively reported data on smoking behavior of residents of Mainland China and Taiwan to compare and contrast patterns in smoking behavior over the life-course of individuals in these two regions. Because we construct the life-history of smoking for all survey respondents, our data cover an exceptionally long period of time – up to fifty years in both samples. During this period, both societies experienced substantial social and economic changes. The two regions developed at much different rates and the political systems of the two areas evolved in very different ways. More importantly, governments in the two areas set policies that caused the flow of information about the health risks of smoking to differ across the regions and over time. We exploit these differences, using counts of articles in newspapers from 1951 to present, to explore whether and how the arrival of information affected life-course smoking decisions of residents in the two areas. We also present evidence that suggests how prices/taxes and key historical events might have affected decisions to smoke.

Dean Lillard received his PhD in economics from the University of Chicago in 1991. From 1991 to 2012, he was a faculty member and senior research associate in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management at Cornell University. In August 2012 he joined the Department Human Sciences at Ohio State University as an Associate Professor. He is Director and Project Manager of the Cross-National Equivalent File study that produces cross-national data. He is a member of the American Economics Association, the Population Association of America, the International Association for Research on Income and Wealth, the International Health Economics Association, the American Society for Health Economics, a Research Associate at the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin, Germany, and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He serves on the advisory board of the Danish National Institute for Social Research in Copenhagen, Denmark and the Cross-National Studies: Interdisciplinary Research and Training Program – a collaborative program run by the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN), and together with the Mershon Centre at OSU.

Dean Lillard's current research focuses on health economics, the economics of schooling, and international comparisons of economic behavior. His research in health economics is primarily focused on the economics of the marketing and consumption of cigarettes and alcohol. His research on the economics of schooling includes studies of direct effects of policy on educational outcomes and on the role that education plays in other economic behaviors such as smoking, production of health, and earnings. His cross-national research ranges widely from comparisons of the role that obesity plays in determining labor market outcomes to comparisons of smoking behavior cross-nationally.

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Dean R. Lillard Associate Professor, Department Human Sciences Speaker Ohio State University
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Federica Genovese

616 Serra Street
Encina Hall West
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6044

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Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Political Science
Europe Center Research Associate
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Federica Genovese is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Political Science at Stanford. Her research focuses on global cooperation, political institutions and economic interdependence. Her dissertation examined the national preferences for climate change policies and the success and failures of bargaining at the international climate change negotiations.  Additional research includes the impact of financial crises on European political institutions, and the diffusion dynamics of environmental regulations.

Federica earned her PhD from University of Konstanz (Germany) in November 2013. More information on her work can be found on her webpage: http://www.federica-genovese.com

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Krish Seetah

Main Quad, Building 50
450 Serra Mall
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-2034

(650) 723-3421
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Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Europe Center Affliated Faculty
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Krish Seetah's research covers a range of issues relating to colonialism and colonization within three main contexts, using archaeo-historic datasets as source evidence. The first looks specifically at the late-medieval expansion of the Venetian Republic around the Adriatic, from the perspective of diet and cuisine as markers of identity. The second explores the role played by fauna during the religious crusades that took place in the Baltic and later spread to Spain and North Africa. Finally, his main fieldwork focuses on 'European influence in non-European contexts', specifically Mauritius and the Indian Ocean World.  Prof.  Seetah is the director of Stanford's ‘Mauritian Archaeology and Cultural Heritage’ (MACH) project, which studies European Imperialism and colonial activity.Much of his work uses bioarchaeological materials, with a strong emphasis on human-environmental interactions. He is keen to use the long duree perspective to help contextualize the most recent phase of globalization witnessed in the IOW, and study both the impacts of imperialism on ecology, identity and the development of nationhood following mass diaspora.

His main teaching focuses on osteoarchaeology, and he has a recent volume (with Brad Gravina: published by the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge) focused on the interplay of inanimate objects and human agency. His current writing project centers on the anthropology of consumption, specifically of meat. Seetah gained his Ph.D. in Archaeology from the University of Cambridge, holds two MSc degrees, the first in Ecology and a second in Osteoarchaeology, with a BA in Biology. He has held visiting fellowships at Cambridge University, UK, the Scientific Research Center, Slovenia, and is currently an ERC Research Fellow at Reading University, UK.

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The Performance of Democracies

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Abstract:

The Performance of Democracies is a research project that will start in May 2014. The project is funded by the European Research Council, the budget is 4.2 mil. Euro. The problems this project will address are the following. While more countries than ever are now considered to be democratic, there is only a very weak, or none, correlation between standard measures of human well-being and measures of democracy. A second problem is that a large number of democracies turn out to have severe difficulties managing their public finances in a sustainable way. The third problem is that democracy seems not to be a cure against pervasive corruption. Empirical research shows that these problems have severe consequences for citizens’ perception of the legitimacy of their political system. The project intends to use an institutional approach to answer the question why some democracies perform better than others.

 

Speaker Bio:

Bo Rothstein holds the August Röhss Chair in Political Science at University of Gothenburg in Sweden where he is head of the Quality of Government (QoG) Institute. The QoG Institute consists of about twenty researchers studying the importance of trustworthy, reliable, competent and non-corrupt government institutions.

Rothstein took is PhD at Lund University in 1986 and served as assistant and associate professor at Uppsala University 1986 to 1994. He has been a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation in New York, Cornell University, Harvard University, Collegium Budapest Institute for Advanced Study, the Australian National University and the University of Washington in Seattle. In 2006, he served as Visiting Professor at Harvard University.

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Bo Rothstein August Röhss Chair in Political Science Speaker University of Gothenburg
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The Contested Corners of Asia: Subnational Conflict and International Development Assistance: A Report of The Asia Foundation

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Abstract:

Subnational conflict is the most widespread, enduring, and deadly form of conflict in Asia. Over the past 20 years (1992-2012), there have been 26 subnational conflicts in South and Southeast Asia, affecting half of the countries in this region. Concerned about foreign interference, national governments limit external access to conflict areas by journalists, diplomats, and personnel from international development agencies and non-governmental organizations. As a result, many subnational conflict areas are poorly understood by outsiders and easily overshadowed by larger geopolitical issues, bilateral relations, and national development challenges. The interactions between conflict, politics, and aid in subnational conflict areas are a critical blind spot for aid programs. This study was conducted to help improve how development agencies address subnational conflicts.

 

Speaker Bios:

Ben Oppenheim is a Fellow (non-resident) at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University. His research spans a diverse set of topics, including fragile states, transnational threats (including pandemic disease risks and terrorism), and the strategic coherence and effectiveness of international assistance in fragile and conflict-affected areas.

Oppenheim has consulted for organizations including the World Bank, the United Nations, the Asia Foundation, the Institute for the Future, and the Fritz Institute, on issues including organizational learning, strategy, program design, foresight, and facilitation. In 2009, he served as Advisor to the first global congress on disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration, supported by the World Bank and the UN.

In 2013, Oppenheim was a visiting fellow at the Uppsala University Forum on Democracy, Peace, and Justice. His research has been supported by a Simpson Fellowship, and a fellowship with the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. He was also a research fellow with UC Berkeley's Institute of International Studies, affiliated with the New Era Foreign Policy Project.

 

Nils Gilman is the Executive Director of Social Science Matrix. He holds a B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Berkeley. Gilman’s first scholarly interest was in American and European intellectual history, with a particular focus on the institutional development of the social sciences, the lateral transfer and translation of ideas across disciplinary boundaries, and the impact of social scientific ideas on politics and policy.

Gilman is the author of Mandarins of the Future: Modernization Theory in Cold War America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), the co-editor of Staging Growth: Modernization, Development, and the Global Cold War (University of Massachusetts Press, 2003) and Deviant Globalization: Black Market Economy in the 21st Century (Continuum Press, 2011), as well as the founding Co-editor of Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development. He also blogs and tweets.

Prior to joining Social Science Matrix in September 2013, Gilman was research director at Monitor 360, a San Francisco consultancy that addresses complex, cross-disciplinary global strategic challenges for governments, multinational businesses, and NGOs. He has also worked at a variety of enterprise software companies, including Salesforce.com, BEA Systems, and Plumtree Software. Gilman has taught and lectured at a wide variety of venues, from the Harvard University, Columbia University, and National Defense University, to PopTech, the European Futurists Conference, and the Long Now Foundation.

 

Bruce Jones is a senior fellow and the director of the Project on International Order and Strategy in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. He is also the director of the Center on International Cooperation at New York University.

Jones served as the senior external advisor for the World Bank’s 2011 World Development Report, Conflict, Security and Development, and in March 2010 was appointed by the United Nations secretary-general as a member of the senior advisory group to guide the Review of International Civilian Capacities. He is also consulting professor at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University and professor (by courtesy) at New York University’s department of politics.

Jones holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics, and was Hamburg fellow in conflict prevention at Stanford University.

He is co-author with Carlos Pascual and Stephen Stedman of Power and Responsibility: Building International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats (Brookings Press, 2009); co-editor with Shepard Forman and Richard Gowan of Cooperating for Peace and Security (Cambridge University Press, 2009); and author of Peacemaking in Rwanda: The Dynamics of Failures(Lynne Reinner, 2001).

Jones served as senior advisor in the office of the secretary-general during the U.N. reform effort leading up to the World Summit 2005, and in the same period was acting secretary of the Secretary-General’s Policy Committee. In 2004-2005, he was deputy research director of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change. From 2000-2002 he was special assistant to and acting chief of staff at the office of the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process. 

Richard and Rhoda Goldman Conference Room

Ben Oppenheim Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science Speaker UC Berkeley
Nils Gilman Founding Executive Director, Social Science Matrix Speaker UC Berkeley
Bruce Jones Senior Fellow Speaker Brookings Institution
Seminars

Incentives and Norms on the Ground: EU Accession, NGOs, and Human Rights

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Abstract:
 
How can international organizations influence behavior at the level of the individual?  This paper tests whether incentive-based and norm promoting strategies have effects that trickle down to individuals and affect their behavior at the ground level.  The study uses a hard case, that of discrimination against the Roma (commonly known by the disfavored term  "Gypsies"), and spans three towns, Murska Sobota and Novo mesto in Slovenia and Cakovec in Croatia.  Levels of discrimination were estimated via trust games played with money, which are particularly appropriate because the Roma are widely stereotyped as cheaters and thieves.  The findings suggest that the EU accession process, widely regarded as an exceptionally strong incentive-based mechanism of rights diffusion, does not severely reduce discrimination on the ground.  Instead, they suggest that ground level organizing aimed at improving relations between Roma and non-Roma helps reduce discrimination.
 
 
Speaker Bio: 
 
Ana Bracic is a postdoctoral fellow at CDDRL. She received her PhD from NYU in May 2013, and was a Junior Visiting Fellow at the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School in 2012-13. Her research aims to identify and understand mechanisms that tangibly improve the lives of people whose rights are violated, whether through measures are best applied at the state level or on the ground. Her dissertation consists of three related projects: a micro-level fieldwork study of discrimination against the Roma in Slovenia and Croatia, a macro-level study of cross-country diffusion of human rights practices, and a macro-level comparison of physical integrity rights violations in failed and stable autocracies. Her work has been funded in part by the American Political Science Association.

Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Ana Bracic Postdoctoral Fellow Speaker CDDRL
Seminars

Regionalism and State Weakness

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Abstract:

Scholars of state development have paid insufficient attention to the question of regionalism; too often modeling state-building as the extension of the authority of a 'center' over peripheral territories, and too often linking regionalism to cultural or ethnic heterogeneity. A purely spatial account of the challenges to central control shows that even in the absence of cultural fractionalization, the presence of economically powerful and politically salient regions undermines political development. Three analytically distinct mechanisms - divergent public good preferences, economic self-sufficiency, and institutional design - underlie this relationship. I explore these issues through a region-wide analysis of Latin America, and case studies of the United States, Ecuador, Colombia, and early modern Poland.

Speaker Bio:

Hillel David Soifer earned his PhD in the Government Department at Harvard, and is currently Assistant Professor of Political Science at Temple University. His research has been centered in Latin America, with a focus on political development and state capacity, and has been published in journals including Latin American Research Review and Comparative Political Studies. He is currently completing a book on the long-term divergence in state capacity in Latin America which contrasts the cases of Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru.

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Hillel Soifer Assistant Professor of Political Science Speaker Temple University
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