International Relations

FSI researchers strive to understand how countries relate to one another, and what policies are needed to achieve global stability and prosperity. International relations experts focus on the challenging U.S.-Russian relationship, the alliance between the U.S. and Japan and the limitations of America’s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.

Foreign aid is also examined by scholars trying to understand whether money earmarked for health improvements reaches those who need it most. And FSI’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center has published on the need for strong South Korean leadership in dealing with its northern neighbor.

FSI researchers also look at the citizens who drive international relations, studying the effects of migration and how borders shape people’s lives. Meanwhile FSI students are very much involved in this area, working with the United Nations in Ethiopia to rethink refugee communities.

Trade is also a key component of international relations, with FSI approaching the topic from a slew of angles and states. The economy of trade is rife for study, with an APARC event on the implications of more open trade policies in Japan, and FSI researchers making sense of who would benefit from a free trade zone between the European Union and the United States.

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* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

 

Register in advance for this webinar: https://stanford.zoom.us/webinar/register/8416226562432/WN_WLYcdRa6T5Cs1MMdmM0Mug

 

About the Event: Is there a place for illegal or nonconsensual evidence in security studies research, such as leaked classified documents? What is at stake, and who bears the responsibility, for determining source legitimacy? Although massive unauthorized disclosures by WikiLeaks and its kindred may excite qualitative scholars with policy revelations, and quantitative researchers with big-data suitability, they are fraught with methodological and ethical dilemmas that the discipline has yet to resolve. I argue that the hazards from this research—from national security harms, to eroding human-subjects protections, to scholarly complicity with rogue actors—generally outweigh the benefits, and that exceptions and justifications need to be articulated much more explicitly and forcefully than is customary in existing work. This paper demonstrates that the use of apparently leaked documents has proliferated over the past decade, and appeared in every leading journal, without being explicitly disclosed and defended in research design and citation practices. The paper critiques incomplete and inconsistent guidance from leading political science and international relations journals and associations; considers how other disciplines from journalism to statistics to paleontology address the origins of their sources; and elaborates a set of normative and evidentiary criteria for researchers and readers to assess documentary source legitimacy and utility. Fundamentally, it contends that the scholarly community (researchers, peer reviewers, editors, thesis advisors, professional associations, and institutions) needs to practice deeper reflection on sources’ provenance, greater humility about whether to access leaked materials and what inferences to draw from them, and more transparency in citation and research strategies.

View Written Draft Paper

 

About the Speaker: Christopher Darnton is a CISAC affiliate and an associate professor of national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School. He previously taught at Reed College and the Catholic University of America, and holds a Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University. He is the author of Rivalry and Alliance Politics in Cold War Latin America (Johns Hopkins, 2014) and of journal articles on US foreign policy, Latin American security, and qualitative research methods. His International Security article, “Archives and Inference: Documentary Evidence in Case Study Research and the Debate over U.S. Entry into World War II,” won the 2019 APSA International History and Politics Section Outstanding Article Award. He is writing a book on the history of US security cooperation in Latin America, based on declassified military documents.

Virtual Seminar

Christopher Darnton Associate Professor of National Security Affairs Naval Postgraduate School
Seminars
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Please note: the start time for this event has been moved from 3:00 to 3:15pm.

Join FSI Director Michael McFaul in conversation with Richard Stengel, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. They will address the role of entrepreneurship in creating stable, prosperous societies around the world.

Richard Stengel Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Special Guest United States Department of State

Encina Hall
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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Director, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies, Department of Political Science
Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
2022-mcfaul-headshot.jpg
PhD

Michael McFaul is Director at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in the Department of Political Science, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995.

Dr. McFaul also is as an International Affairs Analyst for NBC News and a columnist for The Washington Post. He served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014).

He has authored several books, most recently the New York Times bestseller From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia. Earlier books include Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should, How We Can; Transitions To Democracy: A Comparative Perspective (eds. with Kathryn Stoner); Power and Purpose: American Policy toward Russia after the Cold War (with James Goldgeier); and Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin.

His current research interests include American foreign policy, great power relations, and the relationship between democracy and development. Dr. McFaul was born and raised in Montana. He received his B.A. in International Relations and Slavic Languages and his M.A. in Soviet and East European Studies from Stanford University in 1986. As a Rhodes Scholar, he completed his D. Phil. in International Relations at Oxford University in 1991. He is currently writing a book on great power relations in the 21st century.

 

 

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Russ Feingold, the former U.S. senator perhaps best known for pushing campaign finance reform, will spend the spring quarter at Stanford lecturing and teaching.

Feingold will be the Payne Distinguished Lecturer and will be in residence at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies while teaching and mentoring graduate students in the Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies and the Stanford Law School.

Feingold was recently the State Department’s  special envoy to the Great Lakes Region of Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo. He will bring his knowledge and longstanding interest in one of the most challenging, yet promising, places in Africa to campus with the cross-listed IPS and Law School course, “The Great Lakes Region of Africa and American Foreign Relations: Policy and Legal Implications of the Post-1994 Era.”

Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat who served three terms in the Senate between 1993 and 2011, co-sponsored the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. Better known as the McCain-Feingold Act, the legislation regulated the roles of soft money contributions and issue ads in national elections.

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Stanford Report: The First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, spoke at SCPKU today and said study abroad allows students to realize that countries all have a stake in each other's success.  Following her remarks, she held a conversation with students on the Stanford campu via SCPKU's Highly Immersive Classroom. Read more.

 

 

 

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Indian politician Rahul Gandhi offered his perspectives on challenges to India’s democracy amid global transitions during a talk on May 31 at Stanford University.

“It’s in times like this, of great uncertainty and of turbulence, that you need acts of imagination,” he said during his address, "The New Global Equilibrium," which was sponsored by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), part of Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI).

Gandhi highlighted global innovations in mobility, energy systems, and artificial intelligence and big data, or connectivity. “They’re going to affect everything” in India and elsewhere.

Gandhi is a former member of the Indian Parliament, who represented the constituencies of Amethi, Uttar Pradesh, and Wayanad, Kerala in the Lok Sabha. He is a member of the main opposition party, the Indian National Congress, and was the party president from December 2017 to July 2019.

Gandhi reminisced about the ‘Unite India March,’ a democratic-inspired walk he led across the country that started with 125 people in September 2022 and ended with millions of people joining the 2,540-mile journey. And, although the ruling government had all the “force,” the instruments of control in society, the marchers were never stopped, he noted.

“This was a question that just kept rotating in my mind,” Gandhi said. “They have the force, but they don’t have power, and I realized that force and power are two completely different things. Most politicians confuse force and power, and they think they're the same thing. They’re completely different things. Power is an act of imagination, always in the present, and it is not linear. And power comes when you go close to the truth. That’s why we could not be stopped by force.”

Most politicians confuse force and power, and they think they're the same thing. They’re completely different things. Power is an act of imagination, always in the present, and it is not linear. And power comes when you go close to the truth.
Rahul Gandhi
Former President, Indian National Congress

He compared this to other moments of “power” in history, such as when President Kennedy said, ‘let’s go to the moon,’ or when Mahatma Gandhi stood up to the British Empire colonial powers in India, and when the American colonists created the Declaration of Independence to start separating from Britain.

Gandhi said acts of “force” did not drive these historical turning points; rather, they revealed the magnitude of the power of imagination that potentially exists among people to create a better, more just, and visionary world.

Such visioning needs to also inspire and transform the U.S.-India relationship, he believes.

“We already have a bridge between us, and it’s important that this bridge is not simply a bridge based on force, but that it is a bridge based on understanding of the realities of both our people,” said Gandhi, noting the software and technical skills of the Indian people in general match up extremely well with the leading-edge technology systems and markets in the U.S.

Dinsha Mistree and Rahul Gandhi
Rahul Gandhi (R) in conversation with CDDRL affiliated scholar Dinsha Mistree (L) during a speaking engagement at Stanford University on May 31, 2023. Basil Raj Kunnel

U.S. Relationship, Manufacturing, China


After his remarks, Gandhi engaged in an audience Q&A and conversation with Dinsha Mistree, an affiliated scholar with CDDRL. Gandhi elaborated that the political disconnect in India is attributable to a concentration of wealth, inequality throughout society, the current political system, and technology that’s outpacing the ability of social systems and people to digest and manage all the connectivity.

“With social media and technology, there’s a bit of a lag between the political system and technological progress, and I think democracies are struggling with that. I think evolution in the systems is going to take some time, but it’ll happen,” he said.

With social media and technology, there’s a bit of a lag between the political system and technological progress, and I think democracies are struggling with that. I think evolution in the systems is going to take some time, but it’ll happen.
Rahul Gandhi
Former President, Indian National Congress

On economics, Gandhi said that while China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a massive infrastructure project that aims to stretch around the globe and seems to promote prosperity, it’s ultimately a non-democratic and authoritarian vision of the world. More visioning needs to be done by leading democratic countries on what prosperity entails for societies that may not be as wealthy as others.

“What’s the counter vision? So that’s where I see the gap. Of course, there is military cooperation (with the U.S.). That’s important. But it can’t just be military cooperation,” he said.

As for China, their top-down manufacturing policies are a challenge for democratic countries like India. Gandhi recommends that India follows a more decentralized manufacturing process.

“You cannot simply ignore the manufacturing might of China. You have to compete with. I don’t think it’s an option. So, what does that competition look like? I’m not talking about conflict, I’m talking about competition. How do we create an alternative vision?” he said, adding that it was a “fatal mistake” for the U.S. to parcel out its manufacturing in recent decades to China.

In response to an audience question on India’s position of formal neutrality in the Ukraine-Russia war, Gandhi said, “We have a relationship with Russia, and we have certain dependencies on Russia. So, I would have a very similar stance as the government of India. I mean, it might not be popular, but it is what it is. At the end of the day, we have to also look out for our interests.”

A packed auditorium of nearly 600 people gathered to hear Mr. Gandhi speak
A packed auditorium of nearly 600 people gathered to hear Mr. Gandhi speak. Basil Raj Kunnel

Democracy and Political Opposition


Mistree shared in an email prior to the event that Gandhi believes that India and the U.S. could work together in better ways on trade and economics.

For example, Gandhi’s view is that India could become a manufacturing powerhouse, which is a departure from the current ruling party’s position, while the U.S. continues to innovate and turns to India for more of its manufacturing needs, Mistree said.

“There’s a lot of space for these two countries to work much more closely together,” he said, adding that the Indian diaspora in America represents the second largest immigrant group in the country right now, and both countries share common security challenges in Asia.

Larry Diamond, Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at FSI, noted that Gandhi is the leader of the most important opposition party in India.

“You can’t have a democracy unless you have a political opposition that is free to criticize the ruling party, and contest for power. He has also been questioning directly the concentration and abuse of power by the current government,” Diamond wrote in an email prior to Gandhi’s talk.

Diamond added that U.S. and India have important, economic and strategic interests that should move forward in partnership based on their own logic.

“We need to hear and take seriously the concerns of political opposition and civil society in India, and we need to make clear to the Indian government that violations of basic democratic standards present obstacles to the deepening of U.S.-Indian ties,” Diamond said.

We need to hear and take seriously the concerns of political opposition and civil society in India, and we need to make clear to the Indian government that violations of basic democratic standards present obstacles to the deepening of U.S.-Indian ties.
Larry Diamond
Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy, FSI

Gandhi was on a six-day visit to the United States to interact with the Indian diaspora and express his party’s commitment to democratic values in India and across the world.

He said, “There are difficult times, but there are also times of opportunity. I think there are times when acts of imagination and acts of true power will resonate and can transform the way we think of ourselves.”

Rahul Gandhi takes photos with fans following his talk at Stanford University
Rahul Gandhi takes photos with fans following his talk at CEMEX Auditorium. Basil Raj Kunnel

For additional coverage of this event, read "Rahul Gandhi emphasizes role of technology, imagining in India’s future," by Amina Wase in The Stanford Daily.

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President Sauli Niinistö of Finland participates in a panel of Finnish and Stanford scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.
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President Sauli Niinistö of Finland Discusses Security Cooperation and Defense with FSI Scholars

As the war in Ukraine continues to reshape security needs in Europe and globally, scholars from the Freeman Spogli Institute agree that Finland can play a unique leadership role in defense and cybersecurity alliances.
President Sauli Niinistö of Finland Discusses Security Cooperation and Defense with FSI Scholars
Michael McFaul, Oriana Skylar Mastro, Ken Jimbo, Kiyoteru Tsutsui, Larry Diamond, and Francis Fukuyama speaking at the Yomiuri Conference, Tokyo.
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Stanford Experts Explore the Roles of Taiwan and Ukraine in Countering Autocratic Challenges to Democracy

At the Yomiuri International Conference, Freeman Spogli Institute scholars Larry Diamond, Francis Fukuyama, Oriana Skylar Mastro, Michael McFaul, and Kiyoteru Tsutsui examined lessons from the war in Ukraine, the risks of a crisis over Taiwan, and the impacts of both geopolitical flashpoints for defending democracy and for a coordinated approach to deterrence in the Indo-Pacific.
Stanford Experts Explore the Roles of Taiwan and Ukraine in Countering Autocratic Challenges to Democracy
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Rahul Gandhi, an Indian politician and former president of the Indian National Congress, delivered a speech at Stanford University on May 31, emphasizing the power of imagination in overcoming challenges to India's democracy. Gandhi also discussed the need for a stronger U.S.-India relationship, addressed the impact of technological progress, and highlighted the importance of competition with China in manufacturing.

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About the Event: Nuclear-armed states–including Russia and China–have sought to secure their nuclear arsenals from preemptive attack by deploying mobile ground-launched missiles. However, a spate of technological developments remote-sensing technologies has spurred a debate about whether nuclear arsenals will remain survivable. Current scholarship implicitly assumes that mobile missiles will be operated sub-optimally, vastly underestimating the difficulty of tracking mobile missiles and hence their survivability. In this paper, I introduce a qualitative model of tracking and use it to analyze how a set of remote sensing technologies, including space-based radar, could be used in concert to attempt to track mobile missiles. Using this model, I show that mobile missiles can be easily made survivable today using simple operational countermeasures. I then show how technological countermeasures, some of which are already deployed today, could allow mobile missiles to remain survivable into the near future, even as remote sensing capabilities continue to develop.

About the Speaker: Thomas MacDonald is a fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He has an interdisciplinary scientific background which he applies to interesting technical problems which are interwoven with political concerns. His current research focuses on the verification of nuclear arms control and nonproliferation agreements. This work is along two tracks, developing verifiable and feasible arms control proposals to revitalize a flagging arms control establishment, and researching probabilistic methods to find novel approaches to stubborn arms control challenges.

He completed his PhD in nuclear science and engineering at MIT. His dissertation work studied the national security implications of advancing and emerging technologies, specifically remote sensing technologies used to track mobile missiles carrying nuclear weapons. He also completed a MSc in pharmaceutical sciences from the University of Toronto where he synthesized nanoparticles for detecting and treating cancer, and holds a BSc in biochemistry from the University of Waterloo.

 

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

William J. Perry Conference Room

Thomas MacDonald
Seminars
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Seminar Recording

About the Event: This talk will look at the experience of India in terms of its security, identity, and the command of nuclear weapons since 1998.

About the Speaker: Professor Amitabh Mattoo is Professor of Disarmament Studies at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is also Honorary Professorial Fellow at the Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne. He has been an Advisor of Cabinet-Rank to the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, and a Vice Chancellor of the University of Jammu. He has been a member of India’s National Security Council’s Advisory Board and a member of the Prime Minister’s National Knowledge Commission. He was awarded the Padma Shri by the President of India for his contribution to public life.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

William J. Perry Conference Room

Amitabh Mattoo
Seminars
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Michael McFaul, director of Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and several other members of the International Working Group on Russian Sanctions will speak about and answer questions about the group's new white paper, "Action Plan 2.0 on Strengthening Sanctions against the Russian Federation." The event will begin with brief presentations from the following working group members, with additional commentary from other members afterwards: 
 

  • Anders Åslund, Senior Fellow, Stockholm Free World Forum
  • Andriy Boytsun, Founder and Editor of the Ukrainian SOE Weekly; Independent Corporate Governance Consultant; Former Member of the Strategic Advisory Group for Supporting Ukrainian Reforms
  • Benjamin Hilgenstock, Senior Economist, KSE Institute in Frankfurt, Germany
  • Dr. Craig Kennedy, Center Associate, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University, and Former Vice Chairman, Bank of America Merrill Lynch
  • Oleksandr Novikov, Head of the National Agency on Corruption Prevention
  • Nataliia Shapoval, Vice President for Policy Research, Kyiv School of Economics
     

Additional comments by:
 

  • James Hodson, Director and Chief Executive Officer of AI for Good; Researcher at the Jozef Stefan Institute Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in Slovenia
  • Dr. Benjamin Schmitt, Project Development Scientist at Harvard University; Senior Fellow for Democratic Resilience at the Center for European Policy Analysis; Rethinking Diplomacy Fellow at Duke University
  • Pavlo Verkhniatskyi, Managing Partner and Director at COSA
Michael A. McFaul
Michael McFaul

Via Zoom

Seminars
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Flyer for Asia in 2030, APARC@40 Conference and Celebration with an image of Encina Hall facade

The culmination of a special event series celebrating Shorenstein APARC's 40th Anniversary, "Asia in 2030, APARC@40"

Join us in celebrating APARC's 40 years of research, education, and engagement. Recognizing the accomplishments of the past four decades and looking forward to the future, the two-day program will highlight multiple aspects of APARC’s core areas of expertise and examine key forces affecting Asia’s present and shaping its future.

1-1:30 p.m.

Opening Session

Opening Remarks

Gi-Wook Shin
Director of Shorenstein APARC and the Korea Program
William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea
Professor of Sociology
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Stanford University

Congratulatory Remarks

Kathryn Ann “Kam” Moler
Vice Provost and Dean of Research
Marvin Chodorow Professor
Professor of Applied Physics, Physics, and Energy Science Engineering
Stanford University

Condoleezza Rice
Tad and Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution
Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution
Denning Professor of Global Business and the Economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business
Professor of Political Science
Senior Fellow at Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Stanford University

Scott D. Sagan
Co-Director and Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science
Mimi and Peter Haas University Fellow in Undergraduate Education
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Stanford University


1:30-2:45 p.m. 

The Future of Diplomacy

John Everard
Former Ambassador to Belarus, Uruguay, and North Korea for the United Kingdom
Coordinator of the UN Security Council’s Panel of Experts on North Korea
Former Pantech Fellow at Shorenstein APARC

Laura Stone
Former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Maldives
Former Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for China and Mongolia;
Former Director of the Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs
Former Director of Economic Policy Office in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs
Visiting Scholar and Inaugural China Policy Fellow at Shorenstein APARC at Stanford University

Moderator

Michael Beeman
Former Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Japan, Korea, and APEC at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative
Visiting Scholar at Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University


2:45-3 p.m. ~ Coffee and Tea Break


3-4:15 p.m.

The Future of Asian Studies

Panelists

Donald K. Emmerson
Director of the Southeast Asia Program at Shorenstein APARC
Affiliated Faculty with the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
Affiliated Scholar with the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies
Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Stanford University

Thomas B. Gold
Professor of Sociology
University of California, Berkeley

Jisoo Kim
Korea Foundation Associate Professor of History, International Affairs, and East Asian Languages and Literatures
Director of the Institute for Korean Studies
Co-Director of the East Asia National Resource Center
The George Washington University

Moderator

Kiyoteru Tsutsui
Deputy Director of Shorenstein APARC
Director of the Japan Program
Henri H. and Tomoye Takahashi Professor and Senior Fellow in Japanese Studies
Professor of Sociology
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Stanford University


4:15-4:30 p.m. ~ Coffee and Tea Break


4:30-6 p.m.

Oksenberg Panel: The Future of U.S.-China Relations

Introduction

Jean C. Oi
Director of the China Program at Shorenstein APARC
Lee Shau Kee Director of the Stanford Center at Peking University
William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Stanford University

Panelists

M. Taylor Fravel
Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science and Director, Security Studies Program
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

David Michael Lampton
Professor Emeritus and former Hyman Professor and Director of SAIS-China and China Studies, School of Advanced International Studies at John Hopkins University
Former Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow at Shorenstein APARC

Oriana Skylar Mastro
Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Stanford University

Moderator

Thomas Fingar
Former U.S. Department of State Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Analysis, Director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific, and Chief of the China Division
Former Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis and Chairman of the National Intelligence Council
Fellow at Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
 

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