Stanford University

Poorly Governed Resource-Dependent States: Policy Options for the New Administration

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Many resource dependent states have to varying degrees, failed to provide for the welfare of their own populations, could threaten global energy markets, and could pose security risks for the United States and other countries.  Many are in Africa, but also Central Asia (Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan), Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Burma, East Timor), and South America (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador) Some have only recently become – or are about to become – significant resource exporters.  Many have histories of conflict and poor governance.  The recent boom and decline in commodity prices – the largest price shock since the 1970s – will almost certainly cause them special difficulties.  The growing role of India and China, as commodity importers and investors, makes the policy landscape even more challenging.

We believe there is much the new administration can learn from both academic research, and recent global initiatives, about how to address the challenge of poorly governed states that are dependent on oil, gas, and mineral exports.  Over the last eight years there has been a wealth of new research on the special problems that resource dependence can cause in low-income countries – including violent conflict, authoritarian rule, economic volatility, and disappointing growth.  The better we understand the causes of these problems, the more we can learn about how to mitigate them.

There has also been a new set of policy initiatives to address these issues: the Kimberley Process, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, the World Bank’s new “EITI plus plus,” Norway’s Oil for Development initiative, and the incipient Resource Charter.  NGOs have played an important role in most of these initiatives; key players include Global Witness, the Publish What You Pay campaign, the Revenue Watch Institute, Oxfam America, and an extensive network of civil society organizations in the resource-rich countries themselves.

Some of these initiatives have been remarkably successful.  The campaign against ‘blood diamonds,’ through the Kimberley Process, has reduced the trade in illicit diamonds to a fraction of its former level, and may have helped curtail conflicts in Angola, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.  Many other initiatives are so new they have not been have not been carefully evaluated.

This workshop is designed to bring together people in the academic and policy worlds to identify lessons from this research, and from these policy initiatives, that can inform US policy towards resource-dependent poorly states in the new administration.

» Workshop memos (password protected)

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Stephen Haber Speaker Stanford
Brian Phipps Speaker State Department
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Nilmini Gunaratne Rubin Speaker Senate Foreign Relations
Michael Ross Moderator UCLA
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James D. Fearon

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

(650) 725-1314
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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Theodore and Frances Geballe Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences
Professor of Political Science
james_fearon_2024.jpg PhD

James Fearon is the Theodore and Frances Geballe Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences and a professor of political science. He is a Senior Fellow at FSI, affiliated with CISAC and CDDRL. His research interests include civil and interstate war, ethnic conflict, the international spread of democracy and the evaluation of foreign aid projects promoting improved governance. Fearon was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2012 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002. Some of his current research projects include work on the costs of collective and interpersonal violence, democratization and conflict in Myanmar, nuclear weapons and U.S. foreign policy, and the long-run persistence of armed conflict.

Affiliated faculty at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Affiliated faculty at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
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Desha Girod

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CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow 2008-2009
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Desha Girod is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and Rule of Law at Stanford University where she manages the program Evaluating International Influences on Democratic Development.  Her research focuses on the influence of external actors on political and economic development.  In 2009, she will join the faculty of the Department of Government at Georgetown University.
Desha Girod Speaker Stanford
Ian Gary Speaker Oxfam

Stephen D. Krasner

CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall
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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Emeritus
Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations
Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Emeritus
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Stephen Krasner is the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations. A former director of CDDRL, Krasner is also an FSI senior fellow, and a fellow of the Hoover Institution.

From February 2005 to April 2007 he served as the Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department. While at the State Department, Krasner was a driving force behind foreign assistance reform designed to more effectively target American foreign aid. He was also involved in activities related to the promotion of good governance and democratic institutions around the world.

At CDDRL, Krasner was the coordinator of the Program on Sovereignty. His work has dealt primarily with sovereignty, American foreign policy, and the political determinants of international economic relations. Before coming to Stanford in 1981 he taught at Harvard University and UCLA. At Stanford, he was chair of the political science department from 1984 to 1991, and he served as the editor of International Organization from 1986 to 1992.

He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (1987-88) and at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2000-2001). In 2002 he served as director for governance and development at the National Security Council. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

His major publications include Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investment and American Foreign Policy (1978), Structural Conflict: The Third World Against Global Liberalism (1985), Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (1999), and How to Make Love to a Despot (2020). Publications he has edited include International Regimes (1983), Exploration and Contestation in the Study of World Politics (co-editor, 1999),  Problematic Sovereignty: Contested Rules and Political Possibilities (2001), and Power, the State, and Sovereignty: Essays on International Relations (2009). He received a BA in history from Cornell University, an MA in international affairs from Columbia University and a PhD in political science from Harvard.

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Jojarth proposes conditional distribution of oil revenues scheme for petrostates like Kazakhstan

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Just look at the number of construction cranes around you and you’ll immediately know that you have landed in a petrostate. What’s special about the Caspian oil giant Kazakhstan is the fact that there are two types of cranes—the idle ones and the busy ones. This becomes nowhere more apparent than in the country’s new capital Astana. The idle cranes stand on private construction sites and the busy ones on public construction sites.

Kazakhstan is probably one of the countries worst hit by the global credit crunch. After years of aggressive borrowing on international markets Kazakh banks have had to pull the plug on many domestic projects after their own cash stream evaporated and it became clear that they would need to settle most of the $14 billion in scheduled principal repayments on external debt this year. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) had been warning about the unsustainability of the ever growing debt ratio for the past two years, but to little avail. Growth rates above 9 percent for the past seven years and great future prospects thanks to ever expanding oil production earned Kazakhstan a credit rating of “stable” from Standard & Poor's rating agency. Now, the bubble burst, the S&P rating turned “negative”, and the private cranes stopped.

The busy cranes—in contrast—run 24/7. No effort is spared to make sure that the fancy new government building, the pavement, the flower-adorned square will be finished in time for the highlight of the year: the birthday of both the President Nursultan Nazarbayev and the capital on July 6 (their 68th and 10th, respectively). This simultaneity is no coincident. Astana is largely Nazarbayev’s creation. It was him who anointed the city in the middle-of-nowhere the new capital of the young Republic, who chose its no-nonsense name (“Astana” literally means “capital”), and who caused its population to triple. The upcoming celebrations almost turned into a Nursultan & Nursultan party. If Mr. Sat Tokpakbaye and his fellow parliamentarians had gotten their way, the capital would yet again have undergone a name change—this time to honor its creator more explicitly by endowing it with the President’s first name (there is already an oil field named after him). But out in his modesty, the President declined. With his proposal Mr. Tokpakbayev, achieved the near-impossible: to distinguish himself by loyalty in a Parliament whose members all come from the same Nur-Otan party.

The idle and the busy cranes both stand for different answers to petrostates’ most burning policy question—how to best use the ballooning governmental revenues from the thriving oil and gas sector. Save or spend?—is the 500 billion dollar question (to take the value OPEC earned from net oil export in 2007). Kazakhstan, like 23 other oil and gas producing countries, followed the IMF’s advice and established an oil fund with the goal of sterilizing, stabilizing, and saving governmental oil revenues. The so-called National Fund of the Republic of Kazakhstan (NFRK) has accumulated more than $26 billion in the eight years since inception, and the total value of all oil-related funds around the world is estimated to surpass the astronomical sum of $2.300 trillion. While the theoretical logic underlying the creation of oil funds is compelling, their actual track record in achieving macroeconomic stability and fair intergenerational income distribution is more mixed. As a number of recent studies demonstrate (e.g. Shabsigh and Ilahi 2007; Usui 2007), oil funds are no substitute for the strengthening of all institutions involved in the revenue management and budgeting process. Strong expenditure and deficit control mechanisms are indispensable because such richly endowed funds make it easier for the government to borrow money on international financial markets whereby the fund acts--explicitly or implicitly—as a collateral, which in turn undermines the fiscal prudence that the fund was meant to ensure in the first place. More indirectly, the accumulation of large sums of money creates a moral hazard problem also with respect to private sector spending. The temptation is huge for private (and state-owned) companies to take overly risky decisions in the hope that the oil fund will bail them out in case their speculations turn sour. When oil fund assets correspond to more than a quarter of the country’s GDP—as it is the case in Kazakhstan—this temptation is hard to resist. Recent demands by Kazakh banks to dip into the NFRK for alleviating their liquidity problems provide just one case in point, and the national oil company KazMunaiGas may soon follow suit.

However, spending, rather than saving, does not provide a panacea either and is fraught with its very own set of problems.

First, governments of oil rich countries faces a challenge similar to that of rich parents who want to raise their children to become productive members of society. As the US billionaire investor Warren Buffet was once quoted saying: “a very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing.” Political scientists refer to this concern as the risk of a growing “rentier mentality” (Beblawi 1990), i.e. the tendency of citizens in petrostates to expect the government to solve all their problems rather than relying on their own initiative. The resulting societal dependency may actually suit governments very well since who will bite the hand that feeds him/her? Innovation and entrepreneurship are undermined and undemocratic structures perpetuated. Second, pro-cyclical spending of highly volatile oil revenues results in a series of negative macroeconomic consequences ranging from soaring inflation, exchange rate appreciation, and a further accentuation of the crowding-out of private investments. Finally, a massive explosion in government revenues (e.g. the newly introduced oil export tariff alone is expected to add another $1.5 billion per year) makes it close to impossible for the governmental apparatus to identify and supervise a sufficient number of new spending projects with a satisfactory social return. The floodgates are wide open to white elephant projects, mismanagement, and corruption.

The Kazakh government is acutely aware of this dilemma. Like all other oil producing nations around the world, Kazakhstan is desperately trying to navigate safely between Scylla (saving) and Charybdis (saving). As a possible solution to this dilemma a number of scholars and activists are now proposing the direct distribution of oil revenues to all citizens (and thus the ultimate owners of a country’s natural resource endowment), thereby empowering them to decide for themselves how they want to spend the monetized share of their subsoil assets.

The only real world examples of direct distribution arrangements can be found in the US state Alaska and the Canadian province Alberta. This option has also been proposed for Nigeria (Sala-i-Martin and Subramanian 2003), Iraq (Birdsall and Subramanian 2003; Palley 2003; Sandbu 2006), and Kazakhstan (Makmutova 2008).

While direct distribution arrangements may mitigate some of the problems highlighted above, they have to be greeted with some degree of caution. High levels of corruption and patronage-driven politics not only undermine the effectiveness of top-down development projects but can also jeopardize the fair distribution of oil revenues. Furthermore, even if every entitled citizen does receive his or her share of oil revenues, the long-term impact on a country’s economic development may be small or possibly even negative because of increased inflation and spending on unproductive goods and services imported from abroad. These considerations are not of particular relevance in the two existing examples of direct distribution of oil revenues. Alaska and Alberta both enjoy a relatively good record in fighting corruption and in observing the rule of law. They are both part of a larger, highly developed economy which helps to mitigate inflationary pressure and the risk that citizens will spend most of their additional income on goods imported from abroad. But the picture looks very different in most other oil dependent countries.

One possibility for addressing the risk that directly distributed oil revenues will be spent unproductively is to combine the direct distribution scheme with certain conditions that are intended to encourage citizens to invest in ways that boost their own productivity. This approach has so far not been discussed in academic or policy circles, but the conditional distribution of oil revenues (CDOR) offers the potentials of marrying the merits of two programs that are generally considered to be successful, namely the direct distribution of oil revenues and conditional cash transfer programs employed throughout the world to fight poverty in a more targeted and bottom-up fashion. A whole range of different design options are compatible with this overarching concept. CDOR schemes do not have to adopt the exclusive pro-poor focus of conditional cash transfer programs. In fact, both in Alaska and in Alberta oil revenues are deliberately distributed in an income-blind manner, staying true to the logic that citizens are entitled to a share of oil revenues in their capacity as the ultimate owners of these resources. Also in contrast to most existing conditional cash transfer programs (e.g. Oportunidades in Mexico), the conditions attached to the direct distribution of oil revenues would probably be primarily linked to the use of these revenues rather than some pre-qualifying behavior (e.g. taking infants to regular health check-ups). Eligible spending areas would be selected based on their potential to maximize productivity gains and could include education, health, energy efficiency, start-up capital for small enterprises. Additional design options worth examining include the saving and pooling of CDOR money, which would allow citizens to realize a medium to larger scale common project within the approved spending priorities. For instance, the most promising strategy for greater productivity in Kazakhstan’s agricultural sector lies in the creation of larger units (co-operatives, publicly traded agricultural complexes), and specific incentives may therefore be built into the CDOR scheme to promote such a move away from subsistence farming.

The conditional distribution of oil revenues under any of these design options presents a promising discussion platform for a new initiative the World Bank announced in April 2008—tentatively labeled EITI++. This initiative is meant to help resource rich countries to “manage and transform their natural resource wealth into long-term economic growth that spreads the benefits more fairly among their people”, by focusing not only on the transfer of oil revenues from companies to governments (as does the “original” Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) of 2002) but also on the generation, management, and distribution of oil revenues. The transparency mechanism of double disclosure pioneered by EITI could thereby be used to ensure that all citizens receive the share of oil revenues they are entitled to. Transparency could be further enhanced by tools currently developed by the Google Foundation’s Inform & Empower program.

The implementation of the CDOR scheme could build directly upon the experience gained under conditional cash transfer schemes, including the scientific testing of its effectiveness in a randomized experiment setting. The bottom-up development philosophy underlying the conditional distribution of oil revenues ties nicely in with other approaches to strengthen the consumers of public goods and services that have gained currency over the past decade (e.g. vouchers for health and education services).

With this sketch of a conditional distribution of oil revenues scheme in my pocket (and and unconditional love for the kicking baby in my belly) I navigated my way through yet another construction site to see Mr. Kuandyk Bishimbayev, one of Kazakhstan’s young and rising stars (now the head of the so-called “Division of Socio-Economic Monitoring” within the Presidential Administration). During our meeting I got the impression that my enthusiasm for this novel approach to oil revenue management proved contagious, and since my return to Stanford I have rolled out my networking machinery to spread the virus among my academic colleagues. The time is certainly ripe. With oil prices set to remain high for the foreseeable future Kazakhstan and all other petrostates cannot afford to miss this historic opportunity to promote the diversification of their economies and to create the foundation for a future where oil may lose its dominant position to alternative sources of energy.

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CISAC's Siegfried Hecker testifies before Senate Appropriations Committee

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Siegfried S. Hecker
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Siegfried Hecker testified April 30, 2008, about the importance of expanding the cooperative threat reduction programs to counter the growing proliferation of nuclear weapons and weapons capability. A formal written statement is also available: Hearing of the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development

Thank you Chairman Dorgan, Senator Domenici and distinguished members of the Committee for giving me the opportunity to comment on the National Nuclear Security Administration's Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation programs and its 2009 budget request. I have a written statement that I would like to submit for the record.

This morning I will summarize the three main points in my statement. My opinions have been shaped by 34 years at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and nearly 20 years of practicing nonproliferation with my feet on the ground in places like Russia, China, India, North Korea and Kazakhstan.  Much of this I have done with the strong support and encouragement of Senator Domenici.

1) The proliferation of nuclear weapons and weapons capability is growing. Today, we face a nuclear threat in North Korea, nuclear ambitions in Iran, a nuclear puzzle in Syria, recently nuclear-armed states in Pakistan and India, and an improved, but not satisfactory, nuclear security situation in Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union. The danger of nuclear terrorism is real. This is not a fight the United States can win alone. We cannot simply push the dangers beyond our borders. It is imperative to forge effective global partnerships to combat the threat of nuclear terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Meeting these challenges requires diplomatic initiative and technical cooperation. The United States must lead international diplomacy and DOE/NNSA must provide technical leadership and capabilities. The NNSA has done a commendable job in nuclear threat reduction and combating nuclear proliferation. However, funds to support these activities are not commensurate with the magnitude or the urgency of the threat.

2) CTR began with Nunn-Lugar followed by Nunn-Lugar-Domenici legislation directed at the aftermath of the breakup of the Soviet Union. We must stay engaged with Russia and the other states of the Soviet Union. Much progress has been made, but more needs to be done. We have to change the nature of the partnership to one in which Russia carries more of the burden.

We should expand the cooperative reduction programs aggressively to other countries that require technical or financial assistance. The nuclear threat exists wherever nuclear materials exist. These materials cannot be eliminated, but they can be secured and safeguarded. We should more strongly support the International Atomic Energy Agency and provide more support to countries that try to implement UNSCR 1540 to prevent nuclear terrorism, for example.

We should enlist other nations such as China, India, and for that matter, Russia, to build a strong global partnership to prevent proliferation and combat nuclear terrorism. China and India have for the most part sat on the sidelines while the U.S. has led the fight. Russia has not engaged commensurate with its nuclear status. These efforts are particularly important if nuclear energy is to experience a real renaissance.

3) The hallmark of all of these efforts must be technology, partnership and in-country presence. The DOE/NNSA has in its laboratories the principal nuclear expertise in this country. It should be applauded for sending its technical experts around the world, often in very difficult situations (I met up with the DOE team in North Korea on a bitterly cold February day). However, both for structural reasons and budgetary shortfalls, that technical talent is slowing fading away. We do not have in place the necessary personnel recruitment or the working environment in the laboratories or the pipeline of students in our universities to replenish that talent. I strongly support the NNSA's Next Generation Safeguards Initiative, which is aimed at tackling this problem.

Mr. Chairman, when I first visited Russia's secret cities in 1992 shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, I feared that its collapse may trigger a nuclear catastrophe. The fact that nothing really terrible has happened in the intervening 16 years is in great part due to the DOE/NNSA programs that your are considering today. We must now be just as innovative and creative to deal with the changing nuclear threat today.

In my statement I also mention the implications of my recent trips to North Korea and to India. However, since I am out of time, I will need to leave those for your questions.

Thank you for your attention.

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Cooperative Threat Reduction in North Korea: The Role of South Korea

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Abstract:  Established by the US Congress in 1991, the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program could contribute the safe and secure transportation, storage and dismantlement of nuclear, chemical and other weapons in the former Soviet Union countries, including Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Since December 2002 when Senator Richard G. Lugar proposed a global version of Nunn-Lugar that could coordinate assistance for those nations seeking help in securing or destroying weapons or dangerous materials, including the DPRK, there were several proposals that the CTR program could be implemented in the dismantlement process of the DPRK nuclear weapons programs. This talk deals with implementation of the CTR program in the dismantlement process of the DPRK nuclear weapons programs and possible role of the ROK.

Jungmin Kang is a science fellow at CISAC. Kang brings to the study of nuclear policy issues considerable expertise in technical analyses of nuclear energy issues, based on his studies in South Korea, Japan, and the United States. Kang has co-authored articles on the proliferation-resistance of advanced fuel cycles, spent-fuel storage, plutonium disposition, and South Korea's undeclared uranium enrichment and plutonium experiments. He has contributed many popular articles to South Korea's newspapers and magazines and is frequently interviewed about spent-fuel issues and the negotiations over North Korea's nuclear-weapon program. Kang's recent research focuses on technical analysis of issues related to nuclear weapons and energy of North Korea as well as spent-fuel issues in Northeast Asia. Kang serves on South Korea's Presidential Commission on Sustainable Development where he advises on nuclear energy policy and spent fuel management. Kang received a PhD in nuclear engineering from Tokyo University, Japan, and MS and BS degrees in nuclear engineering from Seoul National University, South Korea. Kang worked in Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security for two years in 1998-2000.

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Jungmin Kang Speaker
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Savings, Sustainability and Equity

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Kirsten finished her PhD at Stanford’s Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources in 2007. Her dissertation was entitled: Sustainability of Comprehensive Wealth – A practical and normative assessment. In a truely interdisciplinary manner, she combined economics, ethics, and engineering to improve and assess a macroeconomic sustainability indicator. She is currently a Teaching Fellow with Stanford’s Public Policy Program and a Research Associate at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. She teaches classes at the intersection of policy analysis and ethics, leads a seminar on comparative research design, and convenes a weekly environmental ethics working group. Her research interests lie in combining quantitative data with normative argument, to this end, she is co-Investigator on a Woods Institute for Environment grant working with PIs Kenneth Arrow and Debra Satz.

Prior to entering Stanford’s Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources in 2003 Kirsten worked at the World Bank for five years. Her work at the World Bank focused on the environmental impacts of infrastructure projects, remediation of industrial sites, carbon finance, compliance of projects with the World Bank’s environmental and social policies and corporate environmental strategy development. Her projects spanned the globe, including India, Kazakhstan, Dominican Republic, Peru, Colombia and Brazil. She is comfortable holding conversations over a beer or two in French, Spanish and Dutch. For two years, she served as an elected official of the World Bank’s Staff Association board, representing 8,500 staff to management on myriad issues. She won numerous awards at the World Bank and from community groups for her professional achievements and volunteer work.

Kirsten is an environmental engineer trained first at the University of Virginia (BS ‘96) and the Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands (MS ’98). More recently, she completed an MS in Applied Environmental Economics from Imperial College of London (’05).

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Kirsten Oleson Public Policy Speaker Stanford University
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Linda Randall Meier Research Workshop on Global Justice

Oil Dependent Producer States

Just over a year ago, Professor Thomas Heller, Director of CDDRL's Rule of Law Program, had just launched a new project on oil dependent producer states. The project has now become one of the mainstays of the CDDRL law program.

Twenty-seven Stanford Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development announced for 2007

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The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University is pleased to announce its new class of Stanford Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development. This year's fellows - 27 outstanding civic, political, and economic leaders from 22 countries in transition - have been selected from more than 500 applications.

Fellows's Biographies

David Abesadze, Republic of Georgia, is the head of policy analysis division in the Political Department of the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and is also an assistant professor of social and political studies at Tbilisi State University, where he teaches a graduate course on the politics of development. Through the SSFDD program, he hopes to broaden his theoretical knowledge of development by examining influential works in the field, and to explore how case-specific methodologies and policies have been used to solve development problems.

Huda Ahmed, Iraq, is the 2006-07 Elizabeth Neuffer Fellow of the International Women Media Foundation at M.I.T., an intern at the US National Public Radio, and also a reporter for Knight Ridder in Baghdad. Prior to joining Knight Ridder, she worked as a reporter for The Washington Post in Baghdad, and translated for both The Daily Baghdad Observer and Al Jumhurriya Daily under the former regime. Ahmed's s work has ranged from portraying the heart-rending struggles of women and children in war and politics, to documenting human rights abuses by police and occupying forces. At SSFDD, she is interested in learning more about international conflicts, international law, human rights reporting, media and cross cultural research.

Jafar Alshayeb, Saudi Arabia, is the elected Chairman for the Qatif Municipal Council and a regular political commentator for many local and international media channels. He sponsored the "Tuesday Cultural Forum," a weekly gathering of community leaders and activists that promoted dialogue on social and political issues. Alshayeb, a founding member of human rights and NGOs, has also led charity foundations and youth programs dedicated to social development, and participated in the National Dialogue Meetings in Saudi Arabia. Through SSFDD, he would like to explore new ideas and exchange experiences in the fields of social development and democratic transformation.

Dr. Abduljalil Al Singace, Bahrain, is the media director of the Bahrain Academics Society and an Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bahrain. Abduljalil co-founded the Movement of Liberties and Democracy (HAQ), where he is responsible for media communications, human rights reports, and the establishment of relationships with international organizations. At SSFDD, Abduljalil is interested in learning more about the use of media in democratic development.

Dr. Donya Aziz, Pakistan, is a member of Pakistan's National Assembly and the joint secretary of the country's majority party, the Pakistan Muslim League. She currently serves as the Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Population Welfare, and sits on various National Assembly committees including defense, health and foreign affairs. During her time at SSFDD, Donya hopes to learn more about how she can contribute to a future where Pakistani women are able to fully exercise their democratic, political, and professional rights.

Dr. Mohammad Azizi, Afghanistan, is the economic adviser to the Embassy of Afghanistan in Tokyo and the chairman of Center for Policy Priorities (CFPP) in Afghanistan. As a human rights activist and advocate for the empowerment of people in public decision-making, he frequently delivers lectures on international economics, public policy, and macroeconomics and received the Most Active Young Afghan award in 2005, by the New York- based organization Afghan Communicator. Mohammed is particularly interested in democracy promotion in Afghanistan.

Kingsley N. T. Bangwell, Nigeria, is the founder and executive director of the Youngstars Foundation, an organization mobilizing youth participation in democracy and development in Nigeria and Ghana, where his most recent undertaking was a three-part youth training project on good governance and civic participation in several provinces across Nigeria. In the past, he has served as the Nigerian representative in the World Youth Alliance and as a consultant for the British Council on a youth publication project, which he co-authored. He intends to discover the best ways to foster active youth involvement in good governance and political participation in fledgling democracies.

Alina Belskaya, Belarus, was forced to flee her country under threat of imprisonment for her involvement in demonstrations against the authoritarian regime of A. Lukashenka. In Belgium, where she currently lives, she works for the German Marshall Fund on issues related to the Euro-Atlantic integration of Belarus and the wider Black Sea region. A member of the Crisis Management Initiative, she also sits on the board of the Youth Atlantic Treaty Association. Alina would like to learn more about the role of NATO in democratization and the role of grass roots movements in improving socioeconomic conditions of communities.

Jay P. Chaudhary, Nepal, popularly known as Jay Nishaant, is the television producer and host of the TV program Tatastha Tarka (the "Independent Argument"). This weekly political and current affairs talk show on Nepal's largest private sector channel, Kantipur Television Network, is one of the most widely viewed prime time talk shows in the country. In the past, Jay has implemented several democracy promotion programs in Nepal as Manager of Media and Democracy Projects of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. Jay is interested in learning more about how to sustain a grass roots movement to institutionalize democracy in Nepal.

Garrett J. Cummeh III, Liberia, is the director of the Center for Transparency and Accountability in Liberia (CENTAL), a research-based local advocacy NGO, dedicated to promoting the tenets of transparency and accountability. Since 2004, he has worked on transparency issues by forming the Campaign Monitoring Coalition (CMC), which carried out the first ever Campaign Finance Monitoring in Africa, during the 2005 transitional elections in Liberia. He is presently the Executive Secretary of the National Coalition of Civil Society Organizations in Liberia. During the SSFDD program, Garrett would like to learn more about post conflict governance and rebuilding, as well as strategies to strengthen Liberia's compliance with and implementation of measures against corruption.

Maria Eismont, Russia, is the director of the independent print media program of the New Eurasia Foundation. The program aims to increase the quantity and quality of independent newspapers in Russia's regions. In an effort to improve both business and editorial practices of the regional press, this program provides training and consulting to the staff of independent regional newspapers. Previously, Maria worked as a journalist in several Russian leading publications and covered the regions of Chechnya, Kosovo, and Central Africa for the Reuters news agency. Maria is interested in learning and sharing information on developing a free press.

Rabih El Chaer, Lebanon, is the advisor to the minister of public works and transportation and counsels on public policy, crisis management, legislative proposals, image building and political strategy. As a human rights activist, Mr. Chaer founded the Maharate Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting freedom of expression and media accountability in the Arab region. He is a regular contributor to An-Nahar, Lebanon's leading Arabic language daily newspaper. Rabih has been a regular guest on television news programs since 1993 and is known for his outspoken advocacy of democracy, freedom and political reforms. At Stanford, he wants to gain more substantial knowledge of US electoral campaigns, political party organization, and lobbying.

Safinaz El Tarouty, Egypt, is an assistant lecturer in the Political Science Department of the British University in Egypt, and a researcher at Partners in Development (PID), a think tank where she organizes forums on various aspects of constitutional reform in Egypt. Her Master's thesis was the first academic study on the issue of reform within the National Democratic Party in Egypt and her current Ph.D. dissertation at Cairo University examines the social changes and transformation in Egypt's ministerial elite. Safinaz is particularly interested in issues dealing with political parties, elections, women electoral participation and judicial supervision of elections.

Iulian Fruntasu, Moldova, is the Director of European Initiatives Program of the Soros Foundation-Moldova, which provides assistance with the implementation of the Moldova Action Plan in grant-giving to operational projects. He was also a former diplomat involved in arms-control issues and a member of missions of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia. As a noted author of several books and articles, he is known for his insightful political commentary on democratic development and international relations. Iulian is interested in exploring issues dealing with development and democracy assistance and internet media regulations.

Giao N. Hoang, Vietnam, is the vice director of the Center for Legal Research & Services, senior lecturer at Vietnam National University Law School, and chairman of the Center for Research and Consulting on Policy, Law, and Development. He teaches public international law and human rights law and researches issues related to the rule of law and reform in Vietnam. He manages about thirty projects to promote the rule of law, good governance, and democracy at the grassroots level in over twenty provinces in Vietnam. He comes to SSFDD hoping to learn more about the relationship of political parties to governments in democratic countries and how to prevent parties from abusing the government's power.

Franck Kamunga Cibangu, DRC, is a human rights and humanitarian law activist currently based in Kenya. He is the director of the Droits Humains Sans Frontières NGO, and coordinator of the Africa Democracy Forum, a pan-African network of 300 NGOs and activists working together on democracy, governance, and human rights. He also does research for the United States Peace Institute and the Council for the Development of Social Research in Africa, and is a member of the Steering Committee of the African Migration Alliance, which focuses on migration issues in Africa. In the past, he has served as legal adviser at the Independent Electoral Commission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His areas of interest for SSFDD include judicial training in electoral systems, conflict resolution, and human rights advocacy.

Maina Kiai, Kenya, is the first chairman of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, an independent state institution established by the Parliament to lead in the protection and promotion of human rights in the country. From 2001 to 2003, Mr. Kiai was the Africa Director for the International Human Rights Law Group in Washington, DC. From 1999-2001 he was the Africa director of Amnesty International in London, UK, which he joined from the Kenyan Human Rights Commission, and NGO where he was executive director. Mr. Kiai was described by the New York Times as Kenya's leading human rights activist in 1997. He hopes the summer program will assist him in developing strategies for effective redress and promotion of human rights, and advancing the development of independent media.

Hasmik Minasyan, Armenia, is the Policy Officer of the 'Right to Be Heard' Program of Oxfam GB, where she works on issues related to poverty reduction. As part of this position, she coordinates the Civil Society Partnership Network, a network of twenty-six NGOs working on poor development in Armenia, and the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) Armenia National Coalition. In 2006, she organized the MDG Celebrity Concert, which mobilized more than ten thousand people. Her primary interests at SSFDD are the development of civil society and democratic political institutions in transitional countries.

Yang Peng, China, is the general secretary of the China Center for Public Policy in Beijing and the director of the China Beijing Enterprise Culture Institute. A highly accomplished scholar, he also helped to promote civil rights protection activities and has become one of China's most important democratic intellectuals. He was also the chief designer of the Alxa Ecological Protection Association, now the largest and most influential environmental NGO in China. He is interested in peaceful democratic transition problems and design of democratic institutions.

Aasiya Riaz, Pakistan, is joint director of Pakistan Institute for Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT), an independent research and training institution strengthening democratic governance in Pakistan. She was also a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy where she worked on subjects such as US think tanks and civil-military relations. Aasiya has worked with the mainstream press and electronic media in Pakistan as well, as serving as the editor of the international monthly magazine Pakistan Calling. During the SSFDD program, she would like to focus on strengthening democracies in transition and civil-military relations.

Kate Sam-Ngbor, Nigeria, is the public policy advisor of the Rivers State government. She was instrumental in the design of the popular "Democracy and Good Governance" pilot program by USAID, which played an influential role in the eventual return of democracy to Nigeria. A journalist by trade, she was the chairperson of the Nigeria Association of Women Journalists and later the chairperson of the Nigeria Union of Journalists. She has also founded and/or helped to organize a number of NGOs on topics from sustainable development to women's rights. She comes to SSFDD to learn about judicial integrity, respect for the rule of law, freedom of the press, among other interests.

Zvisinei Sandi, Zimbabwe, is a lecturer at Masvingo State University and founder and secretary general of the Senior Society for Gender Justice. She is a journalist and an academic who has worked for the state-controlled Zimbabwe Newspapers Group and later for the independent Financial Gazette. She hopes to use her time with SSFDD to become a more effective human rights advocate and observe the approaches different countries take to the teaching of democracy, good governance, and the rule of law.

Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine, is the director of the NGO Kyiv Media Law Institute and a lecturer at the School of Journalism at the Kyiv National University. As a member of several governmental advisory bodies and the secretary of the Public Council on Freedom of Speech and Information, Mr. Shevchenko has drafted a number of influential pieces of legislation that have became laws in Ukraine. He looks forward to the great opportunity of establishing professional relations with his counterparts from other countries as well as experts on democracy, economic development and the rule of law in transitioning economies.

Majid Tavallaei, Iran, is the managing director of Nameh Research and Information Institute, which aims to provide novel approaches to achieving non-violent transitions for a democratic Iran. As the editor-in-chief of the monthly journal, Naameh, which the Islamic Republic of Iran has banned, he has contributed over 40 articles on pertinent social-political issues in Iran. He is also one of the founding members of the Iranian People's Liberation Party (IPLP), a social democracy platform that promotes new civic movements. He hopes his time at SSFDD will help develop further his understanding of effective political activism.

Vera Tkachenko, Kazakhstan, is a lawyer and currently a candidate for an MSc in Criminal Justice Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. For the last 6 years, as one of the regional directors of the international NGO Penal Reform International, she has been working on criminal justice reform issues in Central Asia. Her main interests pertain to the effective development of criminal justice systems with sustainable institutions, traditions and legal frameworks, and mainstreaming and actualizing the legal reform as part of a broader democratization process.

Roya Toloui, Iran, is a clinical pathologist, feminist, journalist, and human rights activist from Kurdistan, Iran. Roya has promoted social activism through the Kurdish women's magazine, Rasan, as editor-in-chief and the Kurdish Women Supporting Peace and Human Rights in Kurdistan, as a founding member. She was arrested on August 2, 2005 for her outspoken criticism of the authorities and upon her release on bail she fled to Iran and sought refuge in the United States. In November 2006, she won the Freedom of Expression Award from international PEN and OXFOM/NOVIB. During her time at SSFDD, Roya hopes to join other activists to form solidarity and support in the struggle for democracy.

Dr. Hossam Youssef, Egypt, is a Commissioner Judge at the Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court. He is also a Lecturer at the Cairo University School of Law, where he teaches Constitutional Law and Contracts under both the American and Egyptian legal systems. Additionally, he is a member of the board of directors at The Egyptian Mineral Resources Authority, and is a Legal Advisor to the Egyptian Minister of Petroleum, advising the Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum on oil and gas concessions. At SSFDD, Hossam hopes to learn more about how the mechanisms of the American legal system are used to protect human rights and preserve the rule of law.

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Boris Yeltsin's Arms Control Legacy

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Boris Yeltsin found himself leading a nuclear superpower after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The new Russian Federation not only possessed the largest number of nuclear weapons of any of the nuclear states, but it also shared them with its three post-Soviet neighbors--Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Belarus. Transferring control of these weapons to Moscow and consolidating the remaining nuclear weapons in Russia was a serious challenge.

Most of the credit for the orderly and safe transfer belongs to the professionals in the military who actually did the job, and to Kazakh, Ukrainian, Belarusian, and U.S. diplomats who worked out the legal side of consolidating the former Soviet nuclear arsenal. But we should not underestimate the contribution from Yeltsin and other political leaders. They allowed the professionals to do their job, which helped diffuse political tensions in the process.

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Nonproliferation Activities in Uzbekistan: Status and Perspectives

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Within the last 10 years several non-proliferation programs have been realized in Uzbekistan. Those programs include actions on upgrading physical protection systems of facilities possessing nuclear reactors and powerful radioactive sources, measures on improving nuclear security and radioactive safety, equipping the country's exit/entry points in order to prevent illicit trafficking of nuclear and radioactive materials, improving safeguards and radioactive monitoring of environment. Special attention was given to conversion of research reactors to low enrichment uranium and treatment of highly enriched fresh and spent reactor fuel. The programs have been performed in cooperation with U.S. energy and defense departments, the International Atomic Energy Agency and related institutions.

Bekhzod Yuldashev is a CISAC science fellow. He served as a consultant-advisor at the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2006-2007. Prior to that, he was director-general of the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Uzbekistan Academy of Science from 1990 to 2006. From 1984 to 1990, he served as head of the laboratory in the Physical Technical Institute in Tashkent, where he had been a senior researcher since 1972.

Yuldashev has published about 300 scientific papers dedicated to various subjects of particle and nuclear physics in the wide range of primary energies. In particular, he experimentally obtained the first evidence of dibaryon resonances, discovered the effect of emitting energetic nucleons from local subsystems in nuclei, observed anomalously high production of eta-mesons and cumulative delta-isobars on nuclei and has experimentally proven that production and decay of vector and tensor resonances are the origins of so-called leading pions with an opposite sign to the primary one in high energy interactions. He has more than 20 patents on nuclear applications.

He is a full member of the Academy of Science of Uzbekistan and served as the academy's president from September 2000 through November 2005. In 2000-2004 he was elected a Member of Parliament of the Republic of Uzbekistan, and in 2004-2005 was elected a Senator.

He is a fellow of Islamic Academy of Sciences, a member of the American Physical Society. From 1992 to 2002, he was an elected member of the Scientific Council of the Joint Institute of Nuclear Research, in Dubna, Russia, one of two international nuclear centers in the world. He is also a member of the IAEA's Standing Advisory Group for Nuclear Applications, a fellow of the Islamic Countries Academy, and foreign member of the National Academy of Kazakhstan. He is an honorary professor of Samarkand State University and honorary doctor of the Joint Institute of Nuclear Research (2004). He won the 2004 Economic Cooperation Organization's excellence award in science and technology and the 1983 Uzbekistan State Prize for Science and Technology.

Yuldashev graduated from Tashkent and Moscow Universities in 1968. He earned his PhD in physics and mathematics from the Joint Institute of Nuclear Research, Dubna, Russia, in 1971.

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Bekhzod Yuldashev Speaker
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Is there a "Resource Curse"?: Mineral Wealth and Institutions in the Soviet Successor States

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Political Science has very few "accepted truths." One of the most prominent is the claim that countries endowed with natural resources, particularly mineral wealth, are doomed to suffer from poor economic performance, unbalanced growth, weak states, and authoritarian regimes - often referred to as the "resource curse." This claim, however, is not without its critics. In recent years, a few scholars have contended that the resource curse is essentially a myth. Rather, the main culprit is the absence of viable political, economic, and social institutions, such as secure property rights and an effective bureaucracy. Yet, their emphasis on the importance of strong institutions is entirely consistent with the conventional wisdom that they are challenging. The main point of departure between these two bodies of literature is whether weak institutions are endogenous to resource wealth, and thus, inevitable in mineral rich states, or exogenous, and thus, can account for the variation in performance across these states. The experience of the Soviet successor states, which consist of both mineral rich and mineral poor countries, provides a unique opportunity to assess the relationship between mineral wealth and institutional capacity, and, in doing so, to consider whether there is in fact a resource curse.

About the speaker:

Pauline Jones Luong is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Brown University. She received her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1998 and was an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies from 1998-1999 and 2001-2002. Her primary research interests include: the rise and impact on emerging institutions; identity and conflict; and the political economy of market reform. Her area of focus is the former Soviet Union, particularly the Russian Federation and the newly independent Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan). She has published a number of articles and books. Her books include Institutional Change and Political Continuity in Post-Soviet Central Asia: Power, Perceptions, and Pacts (Cambridge University Press, 2002) and an edited volume entitled The Transformation of Central Asia: States and Societies from Soviet Rule to Independence (Cornell University Press, 2003)

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Pauline Jones Luong Associate Professor of Political Science Speaker Brown University
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