This event is expected to be at full capacity. Seating is available on a first-come basis.

Join us for a book talk and signing with Professor Michael McFaul, director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, New York Times bestselling author, and former U.S. ambassador to Russia. 

Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder is a clear-eyed look at how the rise of autocratic China and Russia are compelling some to think that we have entered a new Cold War—and why we must reject that thinking in order to prevail. 

Amid the constant party divisions in Washington, DC, one issue generates stunning consensus—China—with Republicans and Democrats alike battling over which party can take the most hawkish stance toward the ascendant superpower. Indeed, far from trying to avoid a new Cold War with China, many have embraced it, finding comfort in the familiar construct, almost willing it into existence. And yet, even as politicians and intellectuals race to embrace this Cold War 2.0, many of the perils we face today are distinctly different from those of the Cold War with the Soviets. The alliance between the autocracies of China and Russia, the nature of the ideological struggle, China’s economic might, the rise of the far right in the United States and in Europe, and the growing isolationism and polarization in American society—taken together these represent new challenges for the democratic world. Some elements of the Cold War have reappeared today, but many features of the current great power competition have no analogy from the past century.

For decades Michael McFaul, former ambassador to Russia and international affairs analyst for NBC News, has been one of the preeminent thinkers about American foreign policy. Now, in this provocative work, he challenges the encroaching orthodoxy on Russia and China, arguing persuasively that the way forward is not to force our current conflict into a decades-old paradigm but to learn from our Cold War past so that democracy can again emerge victorious. Examining America’s layered, modern history with both Russia and China, he demonstrates that, instead of simplistically framing our competition with China and Russia as a second Cold War, we must understand the unique military, economic, and ideological challenges that come from China and Russia today, and the develop innovative policies that follow from that analysis, not just a return to the Cold War playbook.

At once a clarion call for American foreign policy and a forceful rebuttal of the creeping Washington consensus around China, Autocrats vs. Democrats demonstrates that the key to prevailing in this new era isn’t simply defeating our enemies through might, but using their oppressive regimes against them—to remind the world of the power and potential that our democratic freedoms make possible. 

SCCEI Seminar Series (Fall 2025)

Friday, November 21, 2025 | 12:00 pm -1:20 pm Pacific Time
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall, 616 Jane Stanford Way

Public Displays of Alignment: Firm Speech in Autocratic Regimes

Political speech by firms is increasingly common around the world. The research examines the government as an important, yet understudied, audience for such speech, focusing on how Chinese firms rhetorically align with the state. We construct a new measure of firms’ rhetorical alignment with the ruling regime and implement it in China, where such behavior is widespread. To interpret the function of rhetorical alignment, we develop a model that nests three common explanations —cheap talk, benefit-seeking, and insurance commitment— and derive testable predictions. Using the new measure, we show that aligned firms’ stock returns fall more when regime reputation deteriorates; alignment rises after regulatory investigations that heighten expropriation risk; and alignment correlates negatively with profitability but positively with performance on political objectives. These patterns are difficult to reconcile with cheap talk or benefit-seeking alone and point to insurance-commitment as a central motive for this form of political speech.

Please register for the event to receive email updates and add it to your calendar. Lunch will be provided.

About the Speaker 
 

Jaya Wen is an Assistant Professor in the Business, Government and the International Economy Unit at Harvard Business School. ​Her research focuses on issues in development economics, political economy, and firm behavior. 

She serves as the Director of Research for the China Econ Lab and a faculty co-chair of the China and the Global Economy Initiative. Wen is also an affiliate of the Center for International Development and the Weatherhead Research Cluster on Business and Government. 

Questions? Contact Xinmin Zhao at xinminzhao@stanford.edu
 

SCCEI Seminar Series (Fall 2025)

Friday, October 17, 2025 | 12:00 pm -1:20 pm Pacific Time
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall, 616 Jane Stanford Way

Due to room capacity limitations and high interest in this seminar, registration is now closed. 
 

Hamilton’s Nightmare: Financial Repression, Political Control, and the Rapid Rise of Local Debt in China

Hamilton’s Paradox highlights the moral hazard faced by local governments due to the implicit expectation of central government bailouts. This paper sets forth a framework where soft-budget constraints (SBC) intensify at the local levels when financial repression eliminates policing from external creditors, and local authorities can credibly threaten central authorities within stability. In such cases, central authorities, even if they could discipline local authorities, may repeatedly raise debt limits for local governments. Empirically, we demonstrate the benefits of financial repression to the central government by showing that rising government debt levels do not impact bond spreads, unlike in most developing countries. We then show that when local debts mature, Chinese local governments, backed by central approval, issue additional debt rather than impose austerity, regardless of outstanding debt levels. Second, by matching a comprehensive geospatial dataset of rainfalls and major floods with China’s provincial boundaries, we show that in those moments of heightened fiscal pressure escalating instability risks, the central government permits localities to borrow further for disaster relief and reconstruction.

Please register for the event to receive email updates and add it to your calendar. Lunch will be provided.

About the Speaker 
 

Victor Shih is an expert on the politics of Chinese banking policies, fiscal policies, and exchange rate, as well as the elite politics of China. He is the author of two books published by the Cambridge University Press, "Factions and Finance in China: Elite Conflict and Inflation" and "Coalitions of the Weak: Elite Politics in China from Mao’s Stratagem to the Rise of Xi."  He is also editor of "Economic Shocks and Authoritarian Stability: Duration, Institutions and Financial Conditions," published by the University of Michigan Press. Shih also has published widely in a number of journals, including The American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Politics, The China Quarterly, and Party Politics.

Shih is a professor of political science, director of the 21st Century China Center, and the Ho Miu Lam Chair in China and Pacific Relations. He is currently engaged in a study of the activities of the Chinese elite and of Chinese defense firms around the world. He is also maintaining a large database on biographical information of elites in China.

At GPS, Shih teaches courses including Financing the Chinese Miracle, Chinese Sources and Methods, Chinese Politics and Political Economy of Authoritarian Regimes.  

Prior to joining UC San Diego, Shih was a professor of political science at Northwestern University and former principal for The Carlyle Group.

Questions? Contact Xinmin Zhao at xinminzhao@stanford.edu
 

Mary Elise Sarotte received her AB in History and Science from Harvard and her PhD in History from Yale. She is an expert on the history of international relations, particularly European and US foreign policy, transatlantic relations, and Western relations with Russia. Her book, Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate, was shortlisted for both the Cundill Prize and the Duke of Wellington Medal, received the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Prize Silver Medal, and won the Pushkin House Prize for Best Non-Fiction Book on Russia. Not One Inch is now appearing in multiple Asian and European languages, including a best-selling and updated version in German, Nicht einen Schritt weiter nach Osten. In 2026, Sarotte will return to Yale for a joint appointment as a tenured professor in both the Jackson School of Global Affairs and the School of Organization and Management.

Kathryn Stoner is the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), and a Senior Fellow at CDDRL and the Center on International Security and Cooperation at FSI. From 2017 to 2021, she served as FSI's Deputy Director. She is Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford, and she teaches in the Department of Political Science, in the Program on International Relations, as well as in the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Program. She is also a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution.