Stanford University

Wales to Warsaw: NATO and the Current State of Transatlantic Security

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At the NATO Summit in Wales in September 2014, NATO leaders were clear about the security challenges on the Alliance’s borders. In the East, Russia’s actions threaten our vision of a Europe that is whole, free and at peace.  On the Alliance’s southeastern border, ISIL’s campaign of terror poses a threat to the stability of the Middle East and beyond.  To the south, across the Mediterranean, Libya is becoming increasingly unstable. As the Alliance continues to confront theses current and emerging threats, one thing is clear as we prepare for the 2016 Summit in Warsaw: NATO will adapt, just as it has throughout its 65-year history.

Douglas Lute, Ambassador of the United States to NATO

 

In August 2013, Douglas E. Lute was sworn-in as the Ambassador of the United States to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).  From 2007 to 2013, Lute served at the White House under Presidents Bush and Obama, first as the Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan, and more recently as the Deputy Assistant to the President focusing on Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.  In 2010, AMB Lute retired from the U.S. Army as a Lieutenant General after 35 years on active duty.  Prior to the White House, he served as the Director of Operations on the Joint Staff, overseeing U.S. military operations worldwide. He served multiple tours in NATO commands including duty in Germany during the Cold War and commanding U.S. forces in Kosovo.  He holds degrees from the United States Military Academy and Harvard University.

A light lunch will be provided.  Please plan to arrive by 11:30am to allow time to check in at the registration desk, pick up your lunch and be seated by 12:00 noon.

Co-sponsored by The Europe Center, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Center for International Security and Cooperation and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.

 

Douglas Lute United States Ambassador to NATO Speaker
Lectures
European Security Initiative
European Security Initiative Lecture Series

Let’s Make the Deal with Iran

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We can't let partisan infighting destroy what could be a historic nuclear pact. America is the safest when its leaders work together to effectively meet national security and foreign policy challenges. Yet partisan infighting threatens to upend our nation’s best chance to stem the very real Iranian nuclear threat. Read William Perry's critique here.

 

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How to better harness big data for international education research

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International Education Initiative (IEI) Instructional Workshop 

IEI is a new cross-campus initiative to increase dialogue and collaboration around international education at Stanford. 

About the Topic: There is a wide variety of readily available secondary data sources that can be harnessed to provide rich descriptions and often meaningful causal explanations of interesting educational phenomenon in developing countries. Some of the larger data sources such as TIMSS, PIRLS or PISA are widely known, but in addition to these, many other under-utilized national and cross-national datasets are also available.

In this brief workshop I hope to a) introduce alternative secondary data resources that are useful and relevant for educational research b) discuss some of the advantages and disadvantages of working with such large-scale data.

About the Speaker: Amita Chudgar is an Associate Professor of Educational Administration and Education Policy. As an economist of education, her long-term interest focus is on ensuring that children and adults in resource-constrained environments have equal access to high-quality learning opportunities irrespective of their backgrounds. 

 

Lunch will be served.

Sponsored by: Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford Graduate School of Education, Rural Education Action Program, Center for Education Policy Analysis 

Encina Hall East Wing, 5th Floor, Falcon Lounge

Amita Chudgar Visiting Scholar, Graduate School of Education
Workshops

Diamond: Facing up to the democratic recession

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In the 25th anniversary edition of The Journal of Democracy, CDDRL Director Larry Diamond reflects on the current democratic recession and why this trend is so troubling.

Diamond, who serves as the founding co-editor of The Journal of Democracy, argues that the world is in a mild but protracted democratic recession, which raises alarm due to the rate of democratic failures and where they are occurring. In surveying global empirical trends, Diamond cites 25 breakdowns of democracy since 2000 that were not the cause of military coups but rather the slow erosion of democratic rights and procedures.

Another worrisome trend for Diamond is the declining freedom in a number of countries and regions since 2005. This is most notable in Africa where corruption and the abuse of power are leading to the decline of the rule of law and political rights across the region. It is also affecting countries of global strategic importance with large populations and economic influence– from Taiwan to Mexico – and leading to the resurgence of authoritarianism in Russia and China. Diamond also looks to the U.S. where the dysfunction and breakdown of American democracy sets a bad precedent for the rest of the world. 

Diamond concludes on an optimistic note, stressing that strong public support for democracy may reverse many of these troubling trends and help sustain longer-term democratic progress.

img 9597 From left to right: Thomas Carothers, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, Hertie School of Governance (Berlin); Marc Plattner, National Endowment for Democracy; Larry Diamond, Stanford University; Steven Levitsky, Harvard University; and Lucan Way, University of Toronto.

 

 

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Larry Diamond speaks to a large audience in Washington, D.C., for the 25th anniversary of the Journal of Democracy. Other speakers at the event included: Thomas Carothers (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), Alina Mungiu-Pippidi (Hertie School of Governance-Berlin), Marc Plattner (National Endowment for Democracy), Steven Levitsky (Harvard University), and Lucan Way (University of Toronto).
Scott Henrichsen
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The Tropical Oil Crop Revolution: Food, Feed, Fuel, and Forests

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Over the last two decades global production of soybean and palm oil seeds have increased enormously. Because these tropically rainfed crops are used for food, cooking, animal feed, and biofuels, they have entered the agriculture, food, and energy chains of most nations despite their actual growth being increasingly concentrated in Southeast Asia and South America. The planting of these crops is controversial because they are sown on formerly forested lands, rely on large farmers and agribusiness rather than smallholders for their development, and supply export markets. The contrasts with the famed Green Revolution in rice and wheat of the 1960s through the 1980s are stark, as those irrigated crops were primarily grown by smallholders, depended upon public subsidies for cultivation, and served largely domestic sectors.  

The overall aim of the book is to provide a broad synthesis of the major supply and demand drivers of the rapid expansion of oil crops in the tropics; its economic, social, and environmental impacts; and the future outlook to 2050. After introducing the dramatic surge in oil crops, chapters provide a comparative perspective from different producing regions for two of the world's most important crops, oil palm and soybeans in the tropics. The following chapters examine the drivers of demand of vegetable oils for food, animal feed, and biodiesel and introduce the reader to price formation in vegetable oil markets and the role of trade in linking consumers across the world to distant producers in a handful of exporting countries. The remaining chapters review evidence on the economic, social, and environmental impacts of the oil crop revolution in the tropics. While both economic benefits and social and environmental costs have been huge, the outlook is for reduced trade-offs and more sustainable outcomes as the oil crop revolution slows and the global, national, and local communities converge on ways to better managed land use changes and land rights. 

THE TROPICAL OIL CROP REVOLUTION
Food, Feed, Fuel, and Forests
by Derek Byerlee, Walter P. Falcon, and Rosamond L. Naylor
will be published by Oxford University Press on November 10, 2016
$74.00 | 304 Pages | 9780190222987
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Arab Reform and Democracy Speaker Series

The Program on Arab Reform and Democracy (ARD) speaker series seeks to promote critical discussions around questions of political change, social and economic rights, power and resistance in the countries of the Arab world. Scholars from across disciplines are invited to present new, innovative research that sheds light on the nuances of ongoing, salient developments and trends in the Arab world, while situating them in a rich historical context.

Digital Humanitarians

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Abstract

The overflow of information generated during disasters can be as paralyzing to humanitarian response as the lack of information. Making sense of this flash flood of information, "Big Data", is proving an impossible challenge for traditional humanitarian organizations; so they’re turning to Digital Humanitarians: tech-savvy volunteers who craft and leverage ingenious crowdsourcing solutions with trail-blazing insights from artificial intelligence. Digital Humanitarians take online collective action to the next level—particularly when spearheading relief efforts in countries ruled by dictatorships. This talk charts the rise of Digital Humanitarians and concludes with their collective action in repressive contexts.

 

Speaker Bio

Patrick Meier is the author of the book " Digital Humnitarians: How Big Data is Changing the Face of Humanitarian Response." He directs QCRI's Social Innovation Program where he & his team use human and machine computing to develop "Next Generation Humanitarian Technologies" in partnership with international humanitarian organizations. Patrick was previously with Ushahidi and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. He has a PhD from The Fletcher School, Pre-Doc from Stanford and an MA from Columbia. His influential blog iRevolutions has received over 1.5 million hits. Patrick tweets at @patrickmeier.

**** NOTE LOCATION****

School of Education

Room 128

Patrick Meier Director of Social Innovation at QCRI

The Middle East, North Africa and the World, 1907-2008

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Abstract

Convened by Professor Joel Beinin and Professor Robert Crews, this one-day conference will explore the global history of the Middle East and North Africa. The conference is chronologically delimited by two New York-centered financial panics that had substantial consequences for the Middle East and North Africa. While the region has long been engaged in global circuits of commerce, culture, and migration, this choice of chronological frame highlights the renewed salience of political economy in several academic disciplines.

 

Conference Program

8:45 -9:00 Welcoming Remarks

9:00 -10:30 Political Economy

Chair: Robert Crews (Stanford University)

Toby Jones (Rutgers University) “Energy and War in the Persian Gulf” (Abstract)

Brandon Wolfe-Honnicutt (California State University, Stanislaus) “Oil, Guns, and Dollars: U.S. Arms Transfers and the Breakdown of Bretton Woods” (Abstract)

10:45-12:15 Ideas and Institutions

Chair: Aishwary Kumar (Stanford University)

Yoav Di-Capua (University of Texas at Austin) “An Iconic Betrayal: Jean Paul Sartre and the Arab World” (Abstract)

Omnia El Shakry (University of California, Davis) “The Arabic Freud: Psychoanalysis and the Psyche in postwar Egypt” (Abstract)

1:30-3:30 Global Palestine

Chair: Hesham Sallam (Stanford University)

Laleh Khalili (University of London, SOAS) “Palestine and Circuits of Coercion” (Abstract)

Ilana Feldman (George Washington University) “Humanitarianism and Revolution: Samed, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, and the work of liberation” (Abstract)

3:15-4:45 Circulation of Popular Culture

Chair: Alexander Key (Stanford University)

Hisham Aidi (Columbia University)  “Frantz Fanon and Judeo-Arab Music” (Abstract)

Paul A. Silverstein (Reed College) “A Global Maghreb: Crossroads, Borderlands, and Frontiers in the Rethinking of Area Studies” (Abstract)

5:00 pm Concluding Remarks

Chair: Joel Beinin (Stanford University)

For more information, please contact The Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies abbasiprogram@stanford.edu

*Organized by the The Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies and co-sponsored by the History Department, CDDRL's Program on Arab Reform and Democracy, The Mediterranean Studies Forum, Stanford Global Studies, and the Stanford Humanities Center*

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