Stanford University

When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation

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This talk provides an overview of deliberative democracy projects conducted by the Center for Deliberative Democracy and its partners in China, Northern Ireland, Brazil, Bulgaria, Greece, Poland and other countries as well as on a European-wide basis. The projects all involve scientific random samples deliberating about policy choices and providing the before and after results as an input to policy making. The talk will focus particularly on the challenges of conducting such projects when they are intended as a precursor to further democratization or when there is ethnic conflict.

James S. Fishkin holds the Janet M. Peck Chair in International Communication at Stanford University where he is Professor of Communication and Professor of Political Science. He is also Director of Stanford's Center for Deliberative Democracy and Chair of the Dept of Communication.

He is the author of a number of books including Democracy and Deliberation: New Directions for Democratic Reform (1991), The Dialogue of Justice (1992 ), The Voice of the People: Public Opinion and Democracy (1995). With Bruce Ackerman he is co-author of Deliberation Day (Yale Press, 2004). His new book When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation will be published by Oxford University Press in fall 2009.

He is best known for developing Deliberative Polling® - a practice of public consultation that employs random samples of the citizenry to explore how opinions would change if they were more informed. Professor Fishkin and his collaborators have conducted Deliberative Polls in the US, Britain, Australia, Denmark, Bulgaria, China, Greece and other countries.

Fishkin has been a Visiting Fellow Commoner at Trinity College, Cambridge as well as a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, a Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington and a Guggenheim Fellow.

Fishkin received his B.A. from Yale in 1970 and holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale as well as a second Ph.D. in Philosophy from Cambridge.

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James S. Fishkin

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Janet M. Peck Professor of International Communication
Professor of Political Science (by courtesy)
Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
fishkin_2.jpg PhD

James S. Fishkin holds the Janet M. Peck Chair in International Communication at Stanford University, where he is a Professor of Communication and Professor of Political Science (by courtesy). He is also Director of the Deliberative Democracy Lab at CDDRL (formerly the Center for Deliberative Democracy).

He is the author of a number of books, including Democracy and Deliberation: New Directions for Democratic Reform (Yale University Press, 1991), The Dialogue of Justice (Yale University Press, 1992 ), The Voice of the People: Public Opinion and Democracy (Yale University Press 1995). With Bruce Ackerman, he is the co-author of Deliberation Day (Yale University Press, 2004). And more recently, When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation (Oxford University Press, 2009 and Democracy When the People Are Thinking (Oxford University Press, 2018).

He is best known for developing Deliberative Polling® — a practice of public consultation that employs random samples of the citizenry to explore how opinions would change if they were more informed. Professor Fishkin and his collaborators have conducted Deliberative Polls in the US, Britain, Australia, Denmark, Bulgaria, China, Greece, Mongolia, Uganda, Tanzania, Brazil,  and other countries.

Fishkin has been a Visiting Fellow Commoner at Trinity College, Cambridge, as well as a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Fishkin received his B.A. from Yale in 1970 and holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale as well as a second Ph.D. in Philosophy from Cambridge.

Director, Deliberative Democracy Lab
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James S. Fishkin Janet M Peck Chair in International Communication and Professor of Poli Sci Speaker Stanford University
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Social and environmental transformation in Chile's aquaculture industry, 1950-2000

Chile's once-fledgling salmon aquaculture industry is now the second largest in the world. Since 1990, the industry has grown 24-fold and now annually exports more than half-a-million tons of fish worth billions of dollars. But that massive economic growth has had equally massive environmental and social effects.

Rides of a lifetime: A tribute to Ron Raikes

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On September 5th, Ron Raikes was tragically killed in a farm accident. Ron was a stellar Nebraska farmer, an outstanding state senator, a renowned educator, and a good friend of FSE. During the winter quarter of 2008/9, he (and his brother Jeff of the Gates Foundation) spoke to the members of our world food economy class about farming and being a farmer in Nebraska. Ross Feehan was an undergraduate member of that class who went on to become a summer intern on the Raikes farm. Ross’s essay on his experiences is presented here as a tribute to Ron. Roz Naylor Director, FSE

Growing up I always wanted one thing around this time of year: a ride with Santa. Yes, a sky-high journey with that burly, bearded Claus who reportedly could offer children a chance to see the world differently. It seemed like an adventure to me, one that would surely offer a more thorough understanding of Christmas.

As summer recedes and December approaches it appears that my wish was granted this past summer while riding shotgun to and from a farm near the small town of Ashland, Nebraska alongside a man who seemed to a twenty-year-old everything I imagined Santa Claus to be at age seven. For five weeks in the company of a farm operator I had the opportunity to broaden my understanding of commercial food production and the managerial complexity, associated risk, and arrant talent involved in much of agriculture today.

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With three separate entities—crop production, cattle feeding, and conservation contracting—the “farm” I traveled to everyday was anything but pedestrian. Most mornings began during the dim hours headed north on a still Route 6, but my early conversations with him were exuberant. In between, and sometimes even during, calls to cattle buyers or astray truckers searching for highways into Ashland free of scales my host would talk to me about cattle market volatility, the method (or madness) ofnegotiation in the feedlot industry, and how trades for heifers and steers from Salina, Kansas hasten grain and livestock futures contracting in Chicago, Illinois. One topic led to the next, and by the time we crossed the railroads at Waverly, we were usually discussing broad issues ranging from the environmental concerns of industrial farming to the social tension in America between people who pejoratively view the actions of Corn Belt farmers and people who produce the food that fills those critics’ plates.

Our driving conversations soon carried over into late mornings and afternoons—anytime when the space for conversation transpired. “The marketplace is fiercely competitive,” he would say to explain the indistinct security governmental support for crop production provides. Daily, his business was subject to environmental and market persuasions. Although federal insurance policies and subsidies were valuable for his business, he was still one of many farmers who jockeyed within a bullish and bearish economy. Prior to hedging his crops, for example, he had to contemplate the eminent yield successes on farms in Iowa in addition to this summer’s drought-induced crop loss in Argentina. But he also could not forget about policy makers in China and Europe who through their governmental measures influence world demand and supply of staple grains. These conversations depicted the realities of an interdependent food market around the globe and helped me distinguish applications of macro-agricultural studies.

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Everything I did became part of the learning experience. How could one truly know the size of a bushel of corn without crawling into a storage bin and scooping a truck load into a delivery chute? But before that corn was picked, the farmer had to select a specific variety to be planted from among the many genetically modified products advertised in catalogs and at events similar to a Monsanto luncheon I attended. The “relative maturity” grading system didn’t mean much to me until I ventured out through the warrens of corn and soybean rows to monitor milk lines and black layer emergence in different fields planted with disparate seeds. Working on the farm allowed me to learn hands-on of the agricultural science and technology I had previously studied within classroom walls.

Familiarizing myself with the farm’s operations did not come without mistakes, however. I will never forget the dexterous and visionary employees who taught me not just that wearing shorts while working on a farm is equivalent to modeling a Speedo at a consulting interview, but more importantly how complicated producing food is with advanced mechanized systems. Whether it be welding an auger for grain transfer, converting a piece of scrap metal into a rotating laptop computer harness for the cattle chute, or actually building a propane-powered irrigation pump, the competency of those with whom I worked was remarkable. I learned untold lessons and skills from colleagues, reminding me that a cattle pen could also be an educational setting. 

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But no business could be productive without a savvy leader. During my last few weeks in Nebraska I spent time alongside the manager I so esteemed. His ability to synthesize futures and cash market strategies, reconcile input and output data to avert risk, and heed both large issues and small in a multifaceted business was phenomenal. The organization was a machine in itself—protean, even despite its seasonality and daily routine.

I could spend many more months in Ashland refining my tractor driving capabilities and acquiring more knowledge of agricultural management and economics. I wish I could witness the crops reach adulthood and the combines combing those matured fields during the autumn months. Yet, I am grateful for the time I had there, and what I learned will help guide me as I continue to navigate through complex issues facing U.S. agriculture and international food security.

This year I will still anticipate Christmas and its enduring celebrity, but I will rest in bed just a bit more calmly on Santa’s night. My conversations in a Toyota truck this summer and the knowledge gained from the entire experience in Nebraska have sated my sleigh-riding hunger and enhanced my studies of food’s complexities. This farm experience was that kind of ride for me, allowing me to evaluate the impact of U.S. commercial farmers within a global agricultural network, admire those who cultivate what we eat, and seek a deeper understanding of food as a livelihood and resource.

Ever wanted to see the North Pole? Try Nebraska.

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Promoting Clean Development Competing Market Mechanisms Post-2012

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(Excerpt) According to climate scientists, averting the worst consequences of climate change requires that the increase in global temperature should be limited to 2°C (or 3.6°F). to achieve that objective, global emissions of green house gases (GHGs)—the main human cause of global warming—must be reduced to 50 percent of 1990 levels by 2050.

The key to successful climate change abatement at those scales lies in leveraging the collective actions of developed and developing countries. Cumulatively, developed countries have been responsible for most human emissions of GHGs. that picture will be quite different in the future as emissions from the developing world take over the top mantle. Given this dynamic, there is a general agreement internationally that developed countries will lead emissions reductions efforts and that developing countries will follow with “nationally ap- propriate mitigation actions.” turning that agreement into environmentally beneficial action requires close international coordination between the developed and developing countries in allocating the responsibility for the necessary reductions and following up with credible actions. However, the instruments employed so far to promote the necessary collective action have proved to be insufficient, unscalable, and questionable in terms of environmental benefit and economic efficiency.

Currently, the most important and visible link be- tween developed and developing countries’ efforts on climate change is the Clean development Mechanism (CdM). the CdM uses market mechanisms—the “carbon markets”—to direct funding from developed countries to those projects in developing countries that lead to reductions in emissions of warming gases. In reality, the experience with the CdM has been mixed at best since its inception in 2006. while the CdM has successfully channeled funding to many worthy projects that reduce emissions of warming gasses, it has also spawned myriad projects with little environmental benefits. overall, the CdM has led to a significant overpayment by developed countries for largely dubious emissions reductions in developing countries.

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Varun Rai

Bankruptcy, Guns or Campaigns: Explaining Armed Organizations' Post-War Trajectories

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What happens to armed organizations after they sign peace accords? Why do they dissolve, return to war, or form non-violent political parties? This seminar addresses and seeks to explain this empirical variation in former armed groups’' trajectories, using extensive micro-level data on the Colombian paramilitaries. In so doing, it seeks to contribute an organizational-level study of peace-building. The trajectories explored in this seminar fundamentally shape prospects for peace, state-building, and democratization, influence post-war patterns of human rights abuses, and impact the legalization of war economies.

Sarah Zukerman Daly is a 2009-2010 Predoctoral Fellow and Visiting Scholar.  She is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Sarah holds a BA (2003) with Distinction in International Relations from Stanford University and a MS (2004) with Distinction in Development Studies from the London School of Economics. She is also an alumna of the 2002-2003 CISAC Undergraduate Honors Program.

Sarah's dissertation analyzes variation in demilitarized groups' post-war trajectories. Specifically, it asks, why, in the aftermath of peace agreements, do armed actors form political parties, remilitarize, or go out of business? Her other current projects seek to explain sub-national variation in insurgency onset in Colombia; state strategies towards ethnic minorities in the former Soviet Union; and the role of emotions in transitional justice.

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Sarah Zukerman Daly Predoctoral Fellow and Visiting Scholar, CISAC; PhD candidate, Department of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Speaker
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Conflict Resolution

The Future of Real-Existing Democracy

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Philippe C. Schmitter has been on the faculty of the European University Institute (EUI) from 1996 to 2004, after ten years at Stanford University.  He was educated at Dartmouth College, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the University of Geneva and received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.  He taught for many years at the University of Chicago (1967-1982) and held visiting appointments at the University of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro, the Institute for the Integration of Latin America in Buenos Aires, Harvard University, the Universities of Geneva, Zürich, Paris and Mannheim, the Wissenschaftszentrum in Berlin, the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris, the Fundacion Juan March in Madrid and the Instituto de Ciencias Sociais in Lisbon.  Before coming to Stanford in 1986, he spent the previous four years as a professor at the EUI. Currently, he has been a recurrent visiting professor at the Central European University in Budapest, at the Istituto delle Scienze Humanistiche in Florence and at the University of Siena.

Schmitter has conducted research on comparative politics and regional integration in both Latin America and Western Europe, with special emphasis on the politics of organized interests.  His dissertation dealt with the rise and persistence of corporatism in Brazil and his early work focused on the role of this mode of interest intermediation in Latin America and Western Europe. With Gerhard Lehmbruch, he edited Trends Toward Corporatist Intermediation and Patterns of Corporatist Policy-Making.  He is the co-author (with Guillermo O=Donnell) of Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Prospects for Democracy (4 vols.) and is currently completing a book on Essaying the Consolidation of  Democracy.  In recent years, he has devoted increasing attention to the "emerging polity@ of the European Community, first in a co-authored book on Governance in the European Union (with Gary Marks, Fritz Scharpf and Wolfgang Streeck) and in a book entitled: How to Democratize the European Union ....and Why Bother?  With Alexandre Trechsel, he has written a Green Paper for the Council of Europe on The Future of Democracy in Europe.

He has been the recipient of numerous professional awards and fellowships, including a Guggenheim in 1978, and has been vice-president of the American Political Science Association.  He was honoured with the award for lifetime achievement in European politics by the ECPR in 2008, and with the award for lifetime achievement in the study of European integration by EUSA, the Mattei Dogan Prize of the IPSA and the Johan Skytte Prize by Uppsala University - all in 2009.  His greatest achievement, however, was to have been rejected twice for membership in the political science section of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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Philippe C. Schmitter

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Stanford University
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616 Serra Street
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Philippe C. Schmitter is a visiting scholar at CDDRL during winter quarter 2010. Since 1967 he has been successively assistant professor, associate professor and professor in the Politics Department of the University of Chicago, then at the European University Institute (1982-86) and at Stanford (1986-96). He was Professor of Political Science at the European University Institute in Florence, Department of Political and Social Sciences until September 2004. He is now Emeritus of the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute.

He has been visiting professor at the Universities of Paris-I, Geneva, Mannheim and Zürich, and Fellow of the Humboldt Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation and the Palo Alto Centre for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences.

He has published books and articles on comparative politics, on regional integration in Western Europe and Latin America, on the transition from authoritarian rule in Southern Europe and Latin America, and on the intermediation of class, sectoral and professional interests.

His current work is on the political characteristics of the emerging Euro-polity, on the consolidation of democracy in Southern and Eastern countries, and on the possibility of post-liberal democracy in Western Europe and North America.
Recently, Professor Schmitter was awarded the The Johan Skytte Prize in political science (2009).

He earned his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley.

Philippe C. Schmitter Professorial Fellow Speaker European University Institute
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New books released by CDDRL faculty

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Philosophy, Politics, Democracy: Selected Essays, released Oct 2009 (by Joshua Cohen): Over the past twenty years, Joshua Cohen has explored the most controversial issues facing the American public: campaign finance and political equality, privacy rights and robust public debate, hate speech and pornography, and the capacity of democracies to address important practical problems. In this highly anticipated volume, Cohen draws on his work in these diverse topics to develop an argument about what he calls, following John Rawls, "democracy's public reason." He rejects the conventional idea that democratic politics is simply a contest for power, and that philosophical argument is disconnected from life. Political philosophy, he insists, is part of politics, and its job is to contribute to the public reasoning about what we ought to do.

When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation: All over the world, democratic reforms have brought power to the people, but under conditions where the people have little opportunity to think about the power that they exercise. In this book, James S. Fishkin combines a new theory of democracy with actual practice and shows how an idea that harks back to ancient Athens can be used to revive our modern democracies. The book outlines deliberative democracy projects conducted by the author with various collaborators in the United States, China, Britain, Denmark, Australia, Italy, Bulgaria, Northern Ireland, and in the entire European Union. These projects have resulted in the massive expansion of wind power in Texas, the building of sewage treatment plants in China, and greater mutual understanding between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. The book is accompanied by a DVD of "Europe in One Room" by Emmy Award-winning documentary makers Paladin Invision. The film recounts one of the most challenging deliberative democracy efforts with a scientific sample from 27 countries speaking 21 languages.

Coethnicity: Diversity and the Dilemmas of Collective Action, released Aug 2009 (edited by James Habyarimana, Macartan Humphreys, Daniel N. Posner, Jeremy M. Weinstein): Ethnically homogenous communities often do a better job than diverse communities of producing public goods such as satisfactory schools and health care, adequate sanitation, and low levels of crime. Coethnicity reports the results of a landmark study that aimed to find out why diversity has this cooperation-undermining effect. The study, conducted in a neighborhood of Kampala, Uganda, notable for both its high levels of diversity and low levels of public goods provision, hones in on the mechanisms that might account for the difficulties diverse societies often face in trying to act collectively. Research on ethnic diversity typically draws on either experimental research or field work. Coethnicity does both. By taking the crucial step from observation to experimentation, this study marks a major breakthrough in the study of ethnic diversity.

Political Liberalization in the Persian Gulf: The countries of the Persian (or Arab) Gulf produce about thirty percent of the planet's oil and keep around fifty-five percent of its reserves underground. The stability of the region's autocratic regimes, therefore, is crucial for those who wish to anchor the world's economic and political future. Yet despite its reputation as a region trapped by tradition, the Persian Gulf has taken slow steps toward political liberalization. The question now is whether this trend is part of an inexorable drive toward democratization or simply a means for autocratic regimes to consolidate and legitimize their rule. In this volume, Joshua Teitelbaum addresses the push toward political liberalization in the Persian Gulf and its implications for the future, tracking eight states as they respond to the challenges of increased wealth and education, a developing middle class, external pressures from international actors, and competing social and political groups.

Promoting Democracy and the Rule of Law: American and European Strategies, released Aug 2009 (edited by Amichai Magen, Thomas Risse, and Michael A. McFaul): European and American experts systematically compare US and EU strategies to promote democracy around the world -- from the Middle East and the Mediterranean, to Latin America, the former Soviet bloc, and Southeast Asia. In doing so, the authors debunk the pernicious myth that there exists a transatlantic divide over democracy promotion.

Democracy and Authoritarianism in the Postcommunist World, ships Dec 2009 (edited by Valerie Bunce, Michael A. McFaul, Kathryn Stoner): This volume brings together a distinguished group of scholars working on Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to examine in depth three waves of democratic change that took place in eleven different former Communist nations. The essays draw important conclusions about the rise, development, and breakdown of both democracy and dictatorship in each country and together provide a rich comparative perspective on the post-Communist world.

Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should and How We Can, ships Nov 2009 (by Michael A. McFaul): This book offers examples of the tangible benefits of democracy – more accountable government, greater economic prosperity, and better security – and explains how Americans can reap economic and security gains from democratic advance around the world. In the final chapters of this new work, McFaul provides past examples of successful democracy promotion strategies and offers constructive new proposals for supporting democratic development more effectively in the future.

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The Politics of Revenue-Raising Tax Reform in Latin America

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Tasha Fairfield is a Hewlett Pre-Doctoral Fellow at CDDRL and a Ph.D candidate in the

Department of Political Science at UC Berkeley.  She has conducted extensive fieldwork

in Latin America, including Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia.

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Tasha Fairfield Hewlett Fellow Speaker CDDRL
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Development, Democracy and Welfare States: Latin America, East Asia and Eastern Europe

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Stephan Haggard is the Lawrence and Sallye Krause Distinguished Professor at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He is the author of Pathways from the Periphery: the Political Economy of Growth in the Newly Industrializing Countries (1990) and The Political Economy of the Asian Financial Crisis (2000) and co-author of The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions (1995 with Robert Kaufman), Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid and Reform (with Marcus Noland, 2007) and Development, Democracy and Welfare States: Latin America, East Asia and Eastern Europe (with Robert Kaufman, 2008). He is currently working on a second volume on North Korea with Marcus Noland entitled North Korea Opens and a project on Robert Kaufman on inequality and politics.

His scholarly articles have appeared in International Organization, World Politics, Comparative Politics, The Journal of Asian Studies, Latin American Research Review, Comparative Political Studies, World Development, Studies in Comparative International Development and The Journal of Democracy. His commentary has appeared in a number of outlets, including The Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, and Newsweek.

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Stephan Haggard Lawrence and Sallye Krause Distinguished Professor at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) Speaker University of California, San Diego (UCSD)
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