CDDRL's Fisher Family Honors Program trains students from any academic department at Stanford to prepare them to write a policy-relevant research thesis with global impact on a subject touching on democracy, development, and the rule of law. For our final Spring 2022 seminar, please join us to hear our Honors Program award winners present their research.

Adrian Scheibler, Firestone Medal winner
 

Major: International Relations
Thesis Advisor: Christophe Crombez

Thesis Title: Challenging the State: Western European Regionalism in the Era of Financial Crisis

Abstract: The Global Financial Crisis and its aftershocks have substantially altered the Western European political landscape. But while the literature has extensively focused on the impacts of the economic hardship on traditional party competition, it has often failed to consider the center-periphery dimension. My thesis addresses both the demand for and supply of regionalist ideologies during the crisis. Using an original dataset containing 8 countries, 35 regions, and 128 regionalist parties, it finds that voters did not increase their support for regionalist parties during the crisis and may have even turned their backs on these political actors. In addition, I consider the reactions of regionalist parties in three Spanish autonomous communities - Catalonia, the Basque Country, and Galicia - to the crisis. I find evidence of regionalist mobilization on the issue and even some indications of radicalization of regionalist demands. Taken together, these findings raise interesting implications for the impacts of the financial crisis and the interaction between economic indicators, party competition, and voting patterns.

 

Michal Skreta, CDDRL Outstanding Thesis winner
 

 

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to E008 in Encina Hall may attend in person.

Register: https://bit.ly/3Ncvj7B

AHPP “Aligning incentives” series final webinar: May 12th 6pm PDT, May 13th 9am in Hong Kong and Singapore

How has Myanmar’s health system dealt with the devastation caused by the coup and the pandemic, and what are the current opportunities and challenges for response and recovery? In this panel of two experts, Dr. Thin Zaw will first discuss how Myanmar’s health system and health workforce are endeavoring to respond to the syndemic crisis, a deadly combination of the global pandemic, the military coup, and post-coup civil conflicts. She will also discuss how stakeholders are working together to try to mitigate the crisis, and how a federal health system could be built up to align incentives for effective collaboration among ethnic health organizations. Second, Dr. Tun will provide a grassroots medical humanitarian perspective on what is happening in Myanmar. He will present results of a mixed-methods survey conducted in non-military-controlled areas from October to December 2021, discussing how Myanmar professionals including healthcare workers are spearheading the Civil Disobedience Movement, helping internally displaced people, and trying to address the healthcare needs of populations in conflict areas.

Phyu Phyu Thin Zaw (MBBS, MPP, PhD), who is a Burmese national, is a medical doctor, epidemiologist and health systems researcher currently working as a Lecturer in the School of Public Health in the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, University of Hong Kong. She is also a member of the Steering Committee of the Science in Exile initiative, which brings together at-risk, displaced and refugee scientists along with like-minded organizations who work together to strengthen systems that support, protect and integrate such affected scientists. Phyu Phyu’s research interests are equity, health and education policies, Southeast Asia health systems and policies, sexual and reproductive health, gender equality, poverty eradication, and human rights issues. Dr. Thin Zaw is also a public health and policy consultant giving technical advice to think tanks and non-governmental organizations.

Nay-Lin Tun (MD, MPP) is a medical doctor by training, and recently earned a Master in Public Policy from the National University of Singapore. He works as a program manager for a local organization that focuses on social cohesion and pluralism among diverse communities. In this role, he manages programs that help vulnerable communities in remote, hard-to-reach, and conflict-affected areas of Myanmar to get access to health services and provide financial assistance to injured civilians who need emergency referrals to private hospitals. Dr. Tun experienced a turning point in his career in 2017 when he went to the conflict-riven northern Rakhine areas. Witnessing people’s suffering and discrimination firsthand compelled him to initiate mobile health clinics and speak out in the media about health care challenges. On a voluntary basis, he is coordinating international donations and grants to field medical teams in conflict-affected areas of the country.

Register: bit.ly/3tymltK

Gender and socioeconomic differences affect a country's ability to support its older adult population. Specifically, the longevity risk associated with females' longer life expectancy entails different needs between genders in old age. In the first project, we aimed to quantify gender differences in the aging experience of OECD countries. Our second project compares differences in projections of disability and chronic diseases among future cohorts of older adults, including disparities by educational attainment. The model projected future chronic diseases and disability trends in Singapore and South Korea from 2020 to 2050. This presentation focuses on gender and socioeconomic differences in aging.

Register: bit.ly/3wpm8uB

Most studies on China’s relations with Southeast Asian states focus on China’s power and how such power has been used to achieve influence in the region. The emphasis is on intention and causation: how China willingly uses its power to coerce, coopt, or persuade others to behave in a certain way. Professor Han will acknowledge but go beyond this conventional approach to explore the unintended outcomes and ripple effects that are also associated with China’s presence in Southeast Asia. His talk will feature a typology for use in thinking about China’s regional presence and the various everyday forms that it takes. He will argue that we need to understand such nuance and complexity if we are to make sense of China’s relations with Southeast Asia and what they imply.

Enze Han is APARC's 2021-2022 Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Fellow on Contemporary Southeast Asia for the spring quarter of 2022. Dr. Han is also an associate professor at the University of Hong Kong's Department of Politics and Public Administration. His research interests include ethnic politics in China, Southeast Asia’s relations with China, and the politics of state formation in the borderland area shared by China, Myanmar, and Thailand. His many publications include “Non-State Chinese Actors and Their Impact on Relations between China and Mainland Southeast Asia,” ISEAS Trends in Southeast Asia (2021); Asymmetrical Neighbours: Borderland State Building between China and Southeast Asia (2019); and Contestation and Adaptation: The Politics of National Identity in China (2013). Positions and affiliations prior to his professorship at UHK include the University of London (SOAS), Princeton University, the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton), and the East Asia Institute (Seoul).  His 2010 doctorate in Political Science is from George Washington University.

Myanmar’s junta is more than a year old.  The vast majority of the country’s people oppose the junta and favor democracy.  But the devil is in the details.  Many in the opposition want some form of multi-ethnic federal democracy.  But levels of disagreement and distrust among different communities, including some of the Ethnic Armed Groups, are impeding a unified vision to push the military out of power and establish civilian rule.  This webinar will examine the choices and challenges faced by the opponents of the regime as they try to unite these communities against it on behalf of a better future for Myanmar.

Nyantha Maw Lin is an independent analyst with more than a decade of interdisciplinary experience in government affairs, public policy, and political risk assessment related to Myanmar. Prior to the February 2021 coup, he supported community and stakeholder engagement efforts in Myanmar’s Rakhine State and served on a voluntary panel of industry and civil society representatives who advised the government on initiatives to fight corruption. He also helped to lead several innovative non-profit entities based in Yangon engaged in philanthropy, business, and social-impact activity. In addition to convening multi-sectoral dialogues with government, the private sector, and civil society in Myanmar, Nyantha has also participated in semi-official conversations elsewhere in Southeast Asia. A former Eisenhower Fellow (2018), he earned his BA in Political Science/International Relations from Carleton College (2008).  

Scot Marciel has had a long career as an American diplomat serving in multiple countries, most recently as US Ambassador to Myanmar (2016-2020).  Earlier postings included as Ambassador to Indonesia (2010-2013) and concurrently as Ambassador for ASEAN affairs and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Southeast Asia (2007-2010).  He has also served in the Philippines and Vietnam.  His assignments at the State Department in Washington DC have included as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs and as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State of Southeast Asia.  Based on these experiences, he has been writing a book entitled “Imperfect Partners: The United States and Southeast Asia.”  He earned his MA at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (1983) and his BA in International Relations at the University of California at Davis (1981).

Congress has just passed legislation requiring owners and operators of critical infrastructure to notify the federal government following a cyber breach. The requirement, made more urgent by fears that Russia’s war with Ukraine will spill over into attacks on America's energy, financial, and other critical infrastructure, is the latest entry to the growing catalog of cybersecurity-related laws, including new state measures and proposed Securities and Exchange Commission disclosure requirements.  

Policymakers at the state and federal level continue to search for the right balance of collaboration and enforcement. This one-hour session will explore recent developments in cybersecurity law, offering both pragmatic advice on compliance and litigation strategy as well as big picture insights on the direction of U.S. cybersecurity policy. 

Travis LeBlanc is the vice chair of the cyber/data/privacy practice at Cooley and a Senate-confirmed member of the U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. He has guided leading tech corporations through enforcement proceedings and class action lawsuits.

 

Alicia Lowery Rosenbaum is Vice President and Associate General Counsel for Cybersecurity Technology and Trust at Salesforce, where she provides strategic counsel on risk management and governance to the company's security engineering and operations teams.

Jim Dempsey is a Senior Policy Advisor for the Program on Geopolitics, Technology and Governance at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center. He is the author of Cybersecurity Law Fundamentals, a handbook for practitioners published in 2021 by the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP). 

Moderating the session will be Andrew J. Grotto, Director of the Program on Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance and former Senior Director for Cyber Policy at the White House in both the Obama and Trump Administrations.

Once upon a time, there was a seductive story about twin revolutions, a political one in France and an industrial one in Britain, that supposedly ushered in our modern world. This narrative never sat well with empirical realities, yet it lives on in textbooks. What might be a more persuasive framework for a global history of the modern era? What are the implications for research and the teaching of history?

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Stephen Kotkin is the John P. Birkelund Professor of History and International Affairs in what used to be called the Woodrow Wilson School and in the History Department of Princeton University, as well as a Senior Fellow (adjunct) at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He directs the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies and co-directs its program in History and the Practice of Diplomacy, which he founded. He also founded Princeton’s Global History Initiative. His scholarship encompasses geopolitics and authoritarian regimes in history and in the present.

Kotkin has published two volumes of a three-volume history of the world as seen from Stalin’s desk: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928 (Penguin, November 2014) and Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 (Penguin, October 2017). The final installment, Totalitarian Superpower, 1941-1990s, is underway. He writes reviews and essays for Foreign Affairs, the Times Literary Supplement, and The Wall Street Journal, and served as the business book reviewer for The New York Times Sunday Business Section. He is an occasional consultant for governments and some private companies. PhD UC Berkeley (1988).