In 2008, the world passed an invisible but momentous milestone: for the first time, more than half of the human population lived in cities, with urbanization projected to intensify to more than 5 billion people by 2030. During the past handful of years, billions of dollars have been invested by governments and the private sector, from building whole new smart green cities of Songdo and Masdar to creating new services on mobile devices in New York City and Barcelona. What have we learned to date? What is on the horizon?
On June 26-27, the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE) hosted a circle of experts from six countries to examine “Innovations for Smart Green City: What’s Working, What’s Not and What’s Next”. Professor William J. Perry - Chair, US Secretary of Energy Advisory Board and former US Secretary of Defense delivered the opening keynote on potential game changers on the energy landscape. Subsequent speakers from leading universities, research institutes and firms shared insights gleaned from their direct involvement in smart city projects in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Busan, Chengdu, Chicago, Chongqing, Dalian, Guangzhou, Masdar, New York City, San Francisco, Seoul, Singapore and more.
Leaders from university research labs shared pioneering deployment and analysis of information technologies in sensors, from autonomous car research at Stanford to the work at MIT’s Senseable City Lab on whole city intelligent traffic monitoring in Singapore. The Roundtable closed with a look at emerging technologies, new research partnerships, and the pipeline for relevant clean-tech startups. The 1 1/2 day event ended with a keynote by Rex Northen, executive director of CleanTech Open which has been involved with finding, fostering and funding around 600 start-ups with $660 million in funds over the past six years.
Next steps include concrete actions to support the call for presenters and discussants, representing experience from architecture to IT, to better integrate research and action across disciplines, organizational boundaries and national borders. With generous support from the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and others, SPRIE will continue to collaborate and work in this area.
Roundtable Videos
William J. Perry, Chairman, US Secretary of Energy Advisory Board; Former US Secretary of Defense; Michael and Barbara Berberian Professor (emeritus), and Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University "Energy...The Good News"
Jung-Hoon Lee, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Information, Yonsei University; SPRIE Visiting Scholar, Stanford Graduate School of Business "Toward a Framework for Smart Cities: A Comparison of Seoul, San Francisco and Amsterdam"
Ko-Yang Wang, Chief Technology Officer, Institute for Information Industry (III) "Smart System Services in Smart Green Cities"
James Sweeney, Director, Precourt Energy Efficiency Center, Stanford University "Green" Cities and Energy Efficiency"
Sven Beiker, Executive Director, Center for Automotive Research (CARS), Stanford University "New Research on Autonomous Driving"
Kung Wang, Professor, China University of Technology "Cross-strait Partnering on Smart Energy Management and Innovation in the Post-Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement Era"
The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University is pleased to announce the 2013 class of undergraduate senior honors students.
Honors students will spend four quarters participating in research seminars to refine their proposed thesis topic, while working in consultation with a CDDRL faculty advisor to supervise their project. In September, the group will travel to Washington, D.C. for honors college where they will visit leading government and development organizations to witness policymaking in practice and consult with key decision-makers.
Please join CDDRL in congratulating the 2013 Senior Honors students and welcoming them to the Center.
Below are profiles of the nine honors students highlighting their academic interests, why they applied to CDDRL, and some fun facts.
Keith Calix
Keith Calix
Major: International Relations
Hometown: Astoria, NY
Thesis topic: What is the relationship between the coloured experience and youth involvement in gangsterism in Cape Town, South Africa?
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? Schools are one of the principal generators, justifiers and vehicles of radicalized thoughts, actions and identities. The challenge in a post-apartheid South Africa continues to be whether and how the roles, rules, social character and functioning of schools can reform to challenge the retrograde aspects of such formation and stimulate new forms of acknowledgement, social practice and acceptance. Ultimately, I hope my research will provide insight about how education reform can be used as a tool to promote democracy and improve human rights conditions.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? In many ways my personal and academic experiences have led me from a more general interest in education development to a more specific interest in post-apartheid education reform as a form of retrospective justice, the institutional, social and economic barriers to education reform, and understanding education reform as a means of promoting democracy and respect for human rights. Pursuing this in the work in the CDDRL community alongside talented and experienced faculty and students from a wide array of disciplines, interests, and experiences will ultimately enhance my understanding of development and one day, I can hopefully use these insights and experiences as a practitioner.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: Human rights lawyer/fieldwork in education development.
What are your summer research plans: During the summer I will be working on my thesis in Cape Town, South Africa.
Fun fact about yourself: I’ve recently appeared on Italian television for an interview, bungee jumped from the world’s highest commercial bridge, and rode an ostrich.
Vincent Chen
Vincent Chen
Major: Earth Systems & Economics
Hometown: Taipei, Taiwan
Thesis topic: How democratic and autocratic systems affect the formation and efficacy of their environmental policies.
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? As the importance of climate and energy issues continue to rise in the global political agenda, both developed and developing nations are in dire need to identify individually tailored policy routes for sustainable development. With a wide array of political systems across countries, my research aims to shed light on the difference of environmental policy creation between democratic and autocratic governments and hopefully provide real world applications for policy makers in charting the most appropriate development route. In particular, I hope to provide insights for developing democracies to leapfrog the environmental impacts associated with democratization and avoid mistakes mature democracies have committed in the past.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? My studies in environmental science ultimately manifested the important role social sciences play in solving our environmental challenges. In the center of this challenge lies the tricky balance between development and environmental stewardship. The CDDRL program serves as a great opportunity for me to explore the complex relationship between these concepts.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: Although I am interested in opportunities that span public, private and social sectors, I will definitely be working on issues pertaining to our environment.
What are your summer research plans: I will be spending my summer in Washington, DC with the climate and energy team of the United Nations Foundation, as well as conducting interviews for my research back home in Taiwan.
Fun fact about yourself: Spent five weeks on a uninhabited island the size of four square miles in the middle of the Pacific Ocean during my sophomore summer.
Holly Fetter
Holly Fetter
Major: Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (B.A.), Sociology (M.A.)
Hometown: Dallas, TX
Thesis topic: The influence of U.S. funding on the development of China's civil society
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? Organizations and individuals from the U.S. are eager to support democracy, development, and the rule of law in foreign countries. Through my research on the U.S. presence in China, I hope to understand how we can do this work more ethically and effectively. How can we avoid imposing our values and priorities onto a nation's bourgeoning civil society? How can we promote indigenous modes of fundraising and management training, thus avoiding any potential expressions of neo-imperialism?
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? I wanted a challenge, and I knew that writing an honors thesis in a foreign discipline would be a rewarding intellectual experience. The apparent support from faculty as well as the connections to experts on my topic were also enticing. And I'm looking forward to the big D.C. trip.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: I'd like to practice community lawyering in the U.S.
What are your summer research plans: I'll be in Beijing, China, interviewing folks at NGOs and grant-giving organizations, reading lots of books and articles, and eating good food.
Fun fact about yourself: I like to write and cause a ruckus, so I started a blog for Stanford activists called STATIC. You should check it out!
Imani Franklin
Imani Franklin
Major: International Relations
Hometown: Atlanta, GA
Thesis topic: How Western beauty standards impact the preference for lighter skin in the developing world, with case-studies of India, Nigeria, and Thailand
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? This question matters for global development, in part, because it is an issue of public health. Researchers have long associated high rates of eating disorders and other mental health issues among American women with their continuous exposure to Western media’s narrow image of beauty. Given the unprecedented globalization of this image of beauty throughout much of the developing world, are non-Western women experiencing similar psychological health problems? From findings on skin bleaching cream in Tanzania to the rise of bulimia in Fiji in the late 1990s, a growing body of research attributes harmful body-altering practices to increased exposure to American consumerist media. I want to assess whether this causal link stands under empirical scrutiny, and whether this relationship shifts in different regional contexts of the world.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? I am drawn to CDDRL’s honors program because of the intimate scholarly community of peers and mentors it provides. I believe this program will empower me to think more critically and scientifically about how one social issue impacts another.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: In the future, I hope to work with international policy to improve human rights protections in the Middle East and North Africa.
What are your summer research plans: I am currently studying Arabic in Jordan and will conduct primary research for my honors thesis in Amman.
Fun fact about yourself: In my free time, I enjoy learning the dance moves from High School Musical movies and attempting to make peach cobbler from scratch.
Mariah Halperin
Mariah Halperin
Major: History
Hometown: San Francisco, CA
Thesis topic: The development of democracy in Turkey under the Justice and Development Party (AKP)
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? Turkey has taken a unique path to democracy, beginning with Ataturk, yet many scholars worldwide have presented Turkey as a model for the rest of the Islamic world. The AKP, the party in power for the last decade, has in many ways changed the path Turkey had been on previously. With these changes and the recent uprisings in the Middle East, my thesis will hopefully speak to the viability of other countries following Turkey's example.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? The CDDRL undergraduate honors program is an amazing opportunity to deepen my studies of a topic that interests me so much. Working with a small group of dedicated, like-minded students will be a great way get feedback to develop and strengthen my thesis. Additionally, the outstanding faculty (and staff!) of the CDDRL are so supportive and eager to help students pursue their interests in any way they can.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: Either diplomacy or journalism in Turkey and the Middle East.
What are your summer research plans: I will be in Turkey for over two months this summer, conducting interviews with a wide range of people who can lend their perspective on my topic.
Fun fact about yourself: I am an extreme San Francisco Giants baseball fan.
Thomas Alan Hendee
Thomas Alan Hendee
Major: Human Biology
Hometown: Sao Paulo, Brazil / Grand Rapids, Michigan
Thesis topic: I will be looking at the social determinants of health in Brazilian informal settlements and how they affect child health.
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? By 2050, seventy-percent of the world will be living in cities, and the World Bank estimates that 32.7% of urban dwellers in developing regions will be living in slums. These informal urban settlements pose a significant problem for economic development, governance, and public health.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? This program will allow me to spend my last year engrossed in a topic of interest, and put my Brazilian heritage and Portuguese language skills to academic use by adding to the dialogue of a field that I hope to enter. I look forward to being surrounded by a group of peers from whom I can learn, and at the same time have the chance to be mentored by some of Stanford’s most renowned faculty.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: I am still debating if medical school is a part of my future; however, I am confident that I will be involved with some kind of internationally focused health work.
What are your summer research plans: I will be doing a tremendous amount of reading in order to get a better understanding of what has already been said; furthermore, I plan to perform as many Skype interviews as possible with involved individuals in Brazil.
Fun fact about yourself: In the summer of 2011, I spent one-week on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) participating in an ecotourism consulting job.
Lina Hidalgo
Lina Hidalgo
Major: Political Science
Hometown: Bogotá, Colombia
Thesis topic: What allowed citizen resistance to turn against the state in Egypt in 2011, but not in China.
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? I hope that my project will offer some hints as to why citizens faced with economic and social grievances fail to challenge - through their protests - the state structure that perpetrates those grievances. This can provide a lens through which to study other developing societies that fail to rise against oppression.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? I have been able to see development challenges firsthand growing up and am honored to have the opportunity to learn from experts in the Center about the ideas and approaches taken to tackle these issues.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: I hope to learn more about development challenges globally by working in the Middle East or Asia, and eventually help implement better development policy worldwide through an international organizations, government work, or activism.
What are your summer research plans: I will be in China interviewing factory workers about their perceptions of inequality and speak with scholars about the broader issues I plan to address in my thesis. I will then travel to Egypt to interview political party leaders about how they saw long-standing grievances translated into the political sphere.
Fun fact about yourself: I've broken my two front teeth.
Kabir Sawhney
Kabir Sawhney
Major: Management Science and Engineering
Hometown: Morristown, NJ
Thesis topic: The effect of regime type on a country’s propensity to default on its sovereign debt obligations.
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? The link between a country’s regime type and its sovereign debt is crucial to further understanding the differences in the choices democracies and autocracies make in regards to their sovereign debt. Debt itself is important, because sovereign debt crises can have many negative consequences, including setting economic development back many years in some countries.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? I took Professor Diamond and Professor Stoner-Weiss’ class in my sophomore year, and I really loved the course content and wanted to engage more with these topics. For my honors thesis, I really wanted to have an interdisciplinary experience, combining my interests in democracy and development with my academic focus in finance and financial markets, and the CDDRL program was a great place to do that.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: I’d like to work in financial markets; my long-term career goal is to one day run my own hedge fund with a mix of investment strategies.
What are your summer research plans: Since my thesis doesn’t require any field work, I’ll be working on refining my quantitative analysis and gathering relevant data from databases and other sources, to be able to carry out my analysis in earnest starting in fall quarter.
Fun fact about yourself: Cooking is one of my favorite hobbies! I like making all sorts of different kinds of foods, but my favorites have to be Thai, Indian and Chinese.
Anna Schickele
Anna Schickele
Major: Public Policy and Economics
Hometown: Davis, CA
Thesis topic: Determinants of farmer participation in agricultural development projects in rural Peru.
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? If non-governmental organizations are to implement successful development projects, they must figure out how to effectively engage would-be participants.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? I'm attracted to the academic community. Though writing a thesis is a solitary activity, I hope the other students and I will support each other and form friendships as we go through the process together.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: I'd like to find a way to perfect my Spanish, improve my French, and maybe learn Arabic.
What are your summer research plans: I'll be in Peru at the end of August. If all goes well, I plan to make a second trip in December.
Fun fact about yourself: I've eaten alpaca, camel, guinea pig, and snails.
This book originated in a conference on "Liberation Technology in Authoritarian Regimes" held at Stanford University in Oct. 2010.
The revolutions sweeping the Middle East provide dramatic evidence of the role that technology plays in mobilizing citizen protest and upending seemingly invulnerable authoritarian regimes. A grainy cell phone video of a Tunisian street vendor’s self-immolation helped spark the massive protests that toppled longtime ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and Egypt’s "Facebook revolution" forced the ruling regime out of power and into exile.
While such "liberation technology" has been instrumental in freeing Egypt and Tunisia, other cases—such as China and Iran—demonstrate that it can be deployed just as effectively by authoritarian regimes seeking to control the Internet, stifle protest, and target dissenters. This two-sided dynamic has set off an intense technological race between "netizens" demanding freedom and authoritarians determined to retain their grip on power.
Liberation Technology brings together cutting-edge scholarship from scholars and practitioners at the forefront of this burgeoning field of study. An introductory section defines the debate with a foundational piece on liberation technology and is then followed by essays discussing the popular dichotomy of "liberation" versus "control" with regard to the Internet and the sociopolitical dimensions of such controls. Additional chapters delve into the cases of individual countries: China, Egypt, Iran, and Tunisia.
This book also includes in-depth analysis of specific technologies such as Ushahidi—a platform developed to document human-rights abuses in the wake of Kenya’s 2007 elections—and alkasir—a tool that has been used widely throughout the Middle East to circumvent cyber-censorship.
Liberation Technology will prove an essential resource for all students seeking to understand the intersection of information and communications technology and the global struggle for democracy.
Contributors: Walid Al-Saqaf, Daniel Calingaert, Ronald Deibert, Larry Diamond, Elham Gheytanchi, Philip N. Howard, Muzammil M. Hussain, Rebecca MacKinnon, Patrick Meier, Evgeny Morozov, Xiao Qiang, Rafal Rohozinski, Mehdi Yahyanejad
The Asia Health Policy Program (AHPP) of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center announces the availability of two 2012–13 pre-doctoral research assistantships in health economics research on evidence-based health policy in East Asia. The assistantships support masters or pre-doctoral students with excellent econometrics skills who are interested in microeconomic analysis of recent health policy reforms in Japan or China. Student research assistants (RAs) will receive salary and tuition allowance for up to 10 units (depending on the time commitment) in the Autumn, Winter, and Spring quarters of the 2012–13 academic year.
Two positions are open until filled. One RA would support research by Jay Bhattacharya and Karen Eggleston on hospital payment reforms in Japan; ability to read and write Japanese would be ideal. A second RA position will support research by Karen Eggleston and Kate Bundorf on maternal and child health in China; knowledge of Chinese would be ideal. Both positions require excellent microeconomics and data analysis skills. We seek a student who is able to start on an hourly basis in July or August 2012 and continue with RA-ship support beginning Autumn quarter.
Applicants should send the following materials to the research assistantship coordinator, Lisa Lee:
CV
Description of research interests, previous RA experience, and relevant skills (one page).
Copy of transcripts.
One letter of recommendation, sent directly to AHPP.
Deadline for receipt of all materials is July 20, 2012. Please address all materials to:
Lisa Lee Administrative Associate for AHPP and SEAF
Shorenstein APARC Stanford University Encina Hall, Room E301 Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Eleven talented Stanford seniors have completed the Undergraduate Senior Honors Program at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) to graduate with honors in democracy, development, and the rule of law. Completing their theses on issues of global importance ranging from the impact of technology on government openness to the effectiveness of democratic governance projects, CDDRL honors students have contributed original research and analysis to policy-relevant topics. They will graduate from Stanford University on June 17.
Over the course of the year-long program, students worked in consultation with CDDRL affiliated faculty members and attended honors research workshops to develop their thesis project. Many traveled abroad to collect data, conduct interviews, and to spend time in the country they were researching. Collectively, their topics documented some of the most pressing issues impacting democracy today in China, Sudan, Greece, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Latin America, and beyond.
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In recognition of their exemplary and original senior theses, Mitul Bhat and John Ryan Mosbacher received the CDDRL Department Best Thesis Award for their research exploring welfare programs in Latin America and the developing oil industry in Uganda, respectively. Otis Reid received the David M. Kennedy Honors Thesis Prize and the Firestone Medal for Excellence, the top prizes for undergraduate social science research, for his thesis on the impact of concentrated ownership on the value of publically traded firms on the Ghana Stock Exchange.
After graduation, several honors students will leave Stanford to pursue careers at McKinsey & Company consulting group, serve as war crime monitors in Cambodia, work at a brand and marketing consultancy in San Francisco, conduct data analysis at a Palo Alto-based technology firm, work at a Boston-based international development finance startup using targeted investment for poverty alleviation, and conduct research in the political science field. The rest will be pursuing advanced and co-terminal degrees at Columbia Journalism School, the University of Chicago, and Stanford University.
A list of the 2012 graduating class of CDDRL Undergraduate Honors students, their theses advisors, and a link to their theses can be found here:
Ross Feehan has written a very interdisciplinary thesis, spanning the fields of aquaculture production, climate, risk analysis, and ethics. As an Earth Systems major with a strong concentration in religious studies, Ross worked hard to bridge his interests in a piece of work that is relevant to smallholder producers and policymakers in China and in other producing countries. Ross’ thesis is well-written, well-documented, and firmly grounded in several core disciplines of Earth Systems.
Ross analyzed the role of index insurance for extreme weather impacts on aquaculture production in great detail. He used the science to develop a statistical method for evaluating risk and insurance market behavior. He also devoted much effort to designing an ethical approach that incorporated values that he could understand and assess in the context of insurance schemes. His attempt to integrate two major fields of interest from his undergraduate and co-term training at Stanford is laudable. Feehan was advised by FSE director Rosamond L. Naylor.
Thesis abstract
China’s aquaculture industry, which is the largest in the world, is predominantly uninsured. Aquaculture insurance in China remains to be nascent despite previous and ongoing efforts to insure farmers against diseases, natural hazards, and other threats. This study assesses the opportunity for insurance development in China and suggests an aquaculture insurance solution for Hainan Province using quantitative and qualitative analyses. An index insurance program in Hainan Province could utilize typhoon and rainfall measures as proxies for the damages that aquaculture farmers experience. This program could insure farmers across Hainan, though calculations of risk reveal that some of Hainan’s administrative regions are more perilous than others. Risk in Hainan will increase as climate change intensifies. Now, and in the future, aquaculture insurance should assume a greater role in Hainan’s management of natural hazard risk only if insurance and its provisioning abide by both practical and ethical criteria that, inter alia, uphold the value of all creation.
In Western scholarship, governance is equated with democracy, and its institutional attributes of transparency and accountability. The apparent effectiveness of the Chinese state is thus an enigma. Are the Chinese able to control corruption better than in other developing countries? How responsive is the state to the demands and concerns of citizens? In what ways do the quality of state institutions vary across governmental levels, policy areas, and regions?
The purpose of the workshops is to bring together a group of Chinese and Western academics and experts who have done empirical research on how Chinese government works to address these and other questions on governance in China.
Encina Hall, C148
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305
0
f.fukuyama@stanford.edu
Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Director of the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy
Research Affiliate at The Europe Center
Professor by Courtesy, Department of Political Science
yff-2021-14290_6500x4500_square.jpg
Francis Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a faculty member of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). He is also Director of Stanford's Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy, and a professor (by courtesy) of Political Science.
Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on issues in development and international politics. His 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. His book In the Realm of the Last Man: A Memoir will be published in fall 2026.
Francis Fukuyama received his B.A. from Cornell University in classics, and his Ph.D. from Harvard in Political Science. He was a member of the Political Science Department of the RAND Corporation, and of the Policy Planning Staff of the US Department of State. From 1996-2000 he was Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University, and from 2001-2010 he was Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. He served as a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics from 2001-2004. He is editor-in-chief of American Purpose, an online journal.
Dr. Fukuyama holds honorary doctorates from Connecticut College, Doane College, Doshisha University (Japan), Kansai University (Japan), Aarhus University (Denmark), the Pardee Rand Graduate School, and Adam Mickiewicz University (Poland). He is a non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Rand Corporation, the Board of Trustees of Freedom House, and the Board of the Volcker Alliance. He is a fellow of the National Academy for Public Administration, a member of the American Political Science Association, and of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is married to Laura Holmgren and has three children.
(October 2025)
Global Populisms
A new project examining the global surge in populist movements and what it means for established democratic rules and institutions.
In Western scholarship, governance is equated with democracy, and its institutional attributes of transparency and accountability. The apparent effectiveness of the Chinese state is thus an enigma. Are the Chinese able to control corruption better than in other developing countries? How responsive is the state to the demands and concerns of citizens? In what ways do the quality of state institutions vary across governmental levels, policy areas, and regions?
The purpose of these workshops is to bring together a group of Chinese and Western academics and experts who have done empirical research on how Chinese government works to address these and other questions on governance in China.
Encina Hall, C148
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305
0
f.fukuyama@stanford.edu
Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Director of the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy
Research Affiliate at The Europe Center
Professor by Courtesy, Department of Political Science
yff-2021-14290_6500x4500_square.jpg
Francis Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a faculty member of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). He is also Director of Stanford's Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy, and a professor (by courtesy) of Political Science.
Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on issues in development and international politics. His 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. His book In the Realm of the Last Man: A Memoir will be published in fall 2026.
Francis Fukuyama received his B.A. from Cornell University in classics, and his Ph.D. from Harvard in Political Science. He was a member of the Political Science Department of the RAND Corporation, and of the Policy Planning Staff of the US Department of State. From 1996-2000 he was Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University, and from 2001-2010 he was Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. He served as a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics from 2001-2004. He is editor-in-chief of American Purpose, an online journal.
Dr. Fukuyama holds honorary doctorates from Connecticut College, Doane College, Doshisha University (Japan), Kansai University (Japan), Aarhus University (Denmark), the Pardee Rand Graduate School, and Adam Mickiewicz University (Poland). He is a non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Rand Corporation, the Board of Trustees of Freedom House, and the Board of the Volcker Alliance. He is a fellow of the National Academy for Public Administration, a member of the American Political Science Association, and of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is married to Laura Holmgren and has three children.
(October 2025)
Global Populisms
A new project examining the global surge in populist movements and what it means for established democratic rules and institutions.
BEIJING -- On the walls of the stunning new multimillion-dollar Stanford Center here are hand-painted Chinese landscapes and scenes from the Palo Alto campus -- signs of a new cross-Pacific partnership that offers great promise as well as some perils for the university.
The facility -- which provides Stanford with its first center for research and teaching for its faculty and students in China but will not offer degrees -- blends traditional Chinese courtyard architecture with state-of-the-art classroom technology. Stanford, one of many Western universities scrambling to set up an outpost in the country with the world's second-largest economy, begins its experiment in just a few weeks, when the initial wave of Stanford faculty begin arriving to use it for the first time as a base for research and lectures.
Located on the grounds of a former imperial palace at Peking University, the $7 million donor-funded center will give Stanford faculty and students direct exposure to China. But there are risks, university officials admit, because Stanford is setting up a permanent presence in a country that routinely restricts free speech and political activities, censorship that is anathema to the missions of elite U.S. Colleges.
But as China's global influence increases, institutions like Stanford want a foothold in the nation to enhance the educational experiences of its students, increase research opportunities for faculty, attract more wealthy and smart Chinese to their campuses and, in some cases, tap funds available from the cash-rich government.
"Everyone realizes China will be a major player -- economically, politically, in all the realms," said Jean Oi, director of the Stanford Center at Peking University, as she strolled through the just-completed, 36,000-square-foot, three-level complex.
Increasingly, she added, Stanford graduates, from engineers to humanities majors, will need to interact with Chinese businesses and colleagues based in China. "So they need to have hands-on understanding of what China is -- the kind of training you can't get from reading a book," Oi said.
Chinese educators and students, in turn, get more opportunities for close collaboration with Stanford researchers and scholars.
Stanford is far from the only Western university to succumb to the lure
In July, UC Berkeley's prestigious College of Engineering is scheduled to open a research and teaching facility in Shanghai's sprawling Zhangjiang High-Tech Park, which is providing a 50,000-square-foot building for the university at no cost. The tech park is also raising at least $10 million a year for five years to finance research between the engineering school and Chinese institutions.
Columbia University has a center in Beijing, while Johns Hopkins University has one in Nanjing. Duke University is planning to open a campus in the eastern city of Kunshan next year and will offer two degree programs.
"We are seeing increased interest in sending students to China, recruiting students from China, faculty cooperations and joint offices (in China)," said Peggy Blumenthal, an executive with the Institute of International Education.
Such arrangements, though, raise concerns among faculty, who worry about academic independence in the communist country, she said.
That conundrum was underscored during the March opening ceremony for the Stanford Center. Among the many dignitaries attending was Stanford President John Hennessy, a Google board member, whose refusal to censor search results in China led to a clash with the Chinese government. Also on hand was Stanford alumnus and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, one of the center's donors, who in 2007 publicly apologized to the families of two Chinese journalists imprisoned after his Sunnyvale company gave their email records to Chinese authorities.
At Stanford, the university's Beijing center raised "some concerns about freedom of expression," said Coit Blacker, director of Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, which oversees Stanford's China outpost.
"I had to talk to the faculty senate about this on more than one occasion, as well as the board of trustees," Blacker said. "I said, 'This is Stanford's space and I believe the leadership at Peking University understands this and they know it won't succeed if there is an attempt to censor the work that goes on within the (center's) four walls.' "
Stanford made sure academic freedom was written into the agreement, he said, adding, "As they say, the proof is in the pudding. But I think they understand what the stakes are. They want to demonstrate that China is a modernizing, developing, evolving county."
Blumenthal said that to her knowledge, there has never been an attempt to censor work being done at programs involving U.S. universities in China. However, she said, certain research, such as that looking into corruption by Chinese officials, or political demonstrations, could trigger a negative government response.
Peking University is the most academically open and free educational institution in China, said Scott Rozelle, co-director of Stanford's Rural Education Action Project. He has repeatedly been critical of China's government in his 30 years of research in that country but has never had his academic freedom threatened, Rozelle said.
"Sometimes people get sensitive and bent out of shape," the economist said. "But never has anyone said, 'You can't write this.' "
The center will be used by 10 Stanford programs and departments, including the Graduate School of Business, the school's overseas study program, the Law School and the School of Medicine's Asian Liver Center. While Peking University students may, in some cases, attend lectures or classes at the center, Stanford will not award them credits.
Dr. Samuel So, a Stanford liver cancer surgeon, will use the center to research ways to eliminate hepatitis B and liver cancer, a neglected pandemic and leading cause of preventable death in Asia, he said.
Stanford and Peking University have collaborated on a wide range of research projects and academic exchanges for three decades. About 70 Stanford undergraduate students study at Peking University every year. One thousand students from all over China study at Stanford.
The center is the first facility built and owned by a U.S. university for its use on a major Chinese college campus, according to Stanford.
The facility, named the Lee Jung Sen Building, is a spectacular mix of Eastern and Western architecture that, while honoring China's rich cultural heritage, transports a bit of The Farm to China's capital city.
The four ground-level courtyard structures were constructed in the traditional interlocking-woodwork method that eliminates the need for nails or glue. Offices have exposed ceilings and large, lantern-style lights. The courtyard has a traditional Chinese "spirit screen" to keep away evil spirits. Below ground are two floors of modern classrooms, conference rooms and meeting spaces, including a cafe and student lounge sporting photos of a past Big Game between Stanford and Cal -- all bathed in natural light from skylights. There are indoor gardens and a water wall.
Already Stanford has had a modest impact on the campus.
Peking University initially resisted Stanford's plans to build an underground facility. But now the university, known locally as Beida, is using similar underground designs on new buildings, including one for Fan Zeng, one of China's foremost artists.
"We kind of raised the bar on what kind of facilities are possible on the Beida campus," Oi said.
Leaders from university research labs shared pioneering deployment and analysis of information technologies in sensors, from autonomous car research at Stanford to the work at MIT’s Senseable City Lab on whole city intelligent traffic monitoring in Singapore. The Roundtable closed with a look at emerging technologies, new research partnerships, and the pipeline for relevant clean-tech startups. The 1 1/2 day event ended with a keynote by Rex Northen, executive director of CleanTech Open which has been involved with finding, fostering and funding around 600 start-ups with $660 million in funds over the past six years.
Keith Calix
Vincent Chen
Holly Fetter
Imani Franklin
Mariah Halperin
Thomas Alan Hendee
Lina Hidalgo
Kabir Sawhney
Anna Schickele
Ross analyzed the role of index insurance for extreme weather impacts on aquaculture production in great detail. He used the science to develop a statistical method for evaluating risk and insurance market behavior. He also devoted much effort to designing an ethical approach that incorporated values that he could understand and assess in the context of insurance schemes. His attempt to integrate two major fields of interest from his undergraduate and co-term training at Stanford is laudable. Feehan was advised by FSE director 