Stanford University

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.

Akira Muto

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Global Affiliate Visiting Scholar, 2018-19
Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Japan
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Akira Muto is a global affiliate visiting scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) for 2018-19.  Muto has over 25 years of experience in the Foreign Ministry of Japan with background in Russia and policy planning.  He served as director of the Russian division, deputy director general (Ambassador) in charge of former Soviet Union states, as well as director of policy coordination division.  Additionally, he served as director of free trade agreement and economic partnership division and the director of the fourth division of Intelligence Service. As a diplomat, his previous assignments included Washington D.C., Moscow and Boston (Consul General).  In recent years, he served as Cabinet Councillor at National Security Secretariat and was engaged in various international security affairs.  His research interest covers strategic relations among US-Japan Alliance, Russia and China in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Psychology of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un: The Measure of a Man

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Dr. Kenneth Dekleva's talk is one of the first times that a leadership analysis/political psychology profile of North Korea's Kim Jong Un has been presented in an academic setting.  He will discuss how such a profile can be useful to academic scholars, policy makers, and the national security community.

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Dr. Dekleva is McKenzie Foundation Chair in Psychiatry I, Director of Psychiatry-Medicine Integration, and Associate Professor in the Dept. of Psychiatry, Peter J. O’Donnell Brain Institute, University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, Dallas, TX.  He is board-certified in adult psychiatry, with additional qualification in forensic psychiatry.  Dr. Dekleva received his BA in History at UC Berkeley, and later undertook post-baccalaureate pre-medical studies at Columbia University, NY; he subsequently received his MD at UT Southwestern Medical School, Dallas, TX, and also completed post-graduate/residency training in psychiatry therein.  After working in a variety of academic, clinical and forensic psychiatric settings in the DFW area, he served as a Regional Medical Officer/Psychiatrist and senior US diplomat during 2002-2016, largely overseas (Moscow; Vienna; London; New Delhi; Mexico City), except for a 2-year assignment as Director of Mental Health Services, US Dept. of State, Washington, DC during 2013-2015.  He retired from the US Dept. of State in 2016 with the rank of Minister-Counselor.  Dr. Dekleva has published and/or presented (at local, regional, national, and international conferences) political psychology/leadership profiles of various world leaders since the mid-90s, including Radovan Karadzic, Slobodan Milosevic, Kim Jong Il, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong Un.  His work has been published in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 38 North, The Diplomat, and the Cipher Brief; he has also given various interviews to media outlets such as NPR, Background Briefing, Smerconish/Sirius XM, and CNN.

Philippines Conference RoomEncina Hall, 3rd Floor616 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305
Kenneth Dekleva, MD Associate Professor, The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School
Seminars

Yosuke (Jack) Hatano

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Global Affiliate Visiting Scholar, 2018-20
Shizuoka Prefectural Government
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Yosuke Hatano is a global affiliate visiting scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) for 2018-19 and 2019-20.  Hatano has over seven years experience in the global energy trading business and energy infrastructure development projects at both private companies and in the private sector, including time as a branch office representative in Indonesia.  He joined the local government of the Shizuoka prefecture in 2014 and has experience in tourism promotion and destination marketing.  He has also engaged in the policies for small- and medium-sized enterprises promoting and developing the regional economy and industry.  Most recently, Hatano worked on international general affairs between the Shizuoka and the world.  He received his masters degree in international relations from Waseda University in 2007.

Michael McFaul named the new Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies

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To recognize his exceptional contributions to political science, FSI Director Michael McFaul has been named the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies, effective June 14, 2018.

“As a scholar here at Stanford and in the policy realm in Washington, DC, Mike has shown exceptional leadership,” said Ann Arvin, Stanford University’s vice provost and dean of research.

As a Stanford student, McFaul was mentored by the original Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies, Coit “Chip” Blacker. Following in his mentor’s footsteps, McFaul also split his time between Stanford and the White House.

McFaul received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Stanford in 1986. After completing a PhD in international relations at Oxford University, he joined Stanford’s faculty in 1995 as an assistant professor in political science. In 2009, he lent his expertise in Russian affairs to the Obama administration, first as special assistant to the president and senior director for Russian and Eurasian affairs at the National Security Council, then as U.S. ambassador to the Russian Federation from 2012 to 2014. He returned to Stanford as director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Peter and Helen Bing senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

“Mike’s distinction as a scholar of international affairs together with his experience as an ambassador to Moscow make him the perfect choice for this chair,” said Richard Saller, dean of Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences, which oversees the political science department.

McFaul’s new appointment as chair was approved by the Stanford Advisory Board of the Academic Council and President Marc Tessier-Lavigne. It was made possible through the generosity of Kenneth E. Olivier and Angela Nomellini.

“Ken and Angela have been close partners in our success at FSI and in the work being done across Stanford,” said McFaul. “Their support for our initiatives, this chair, and the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellowship, now held by Francis Fukuyama, have been instrumental in supporting FSI’s research, teaching and policy. I am deeply honored to be named the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies.”

Olivier is a member of the Stanford Board of Trustees and the FSI Council. He graduated from Stanford in 1974 and is the former chairman and CEO of Dodge & Cox.

Nomellini is the former chair and a current member of the Stanford Graduate School of Education Advisory Council. She graduated from Stanford in 1975.

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Michael McFaul
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Weakest strongman: an interview with Harold Trinkunas

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Nicolás Maduro may have held on to political power. But the collapse of the state he heads is continuing apace by any measure. We spoke with Harold Trinkunas, of the Brookings Institution and Stanford University, about Maduro’s own fecklessness, the decaying internal and external institutions attending it, and Venezuela’s ongoing crisis.

 

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The Octavian Report
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3
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Genocide and Global and/or World History: Reflections

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Soon after Raphael Lemkin coined the term “genocide” in Axis Rule in Occupied Europe in 1944, he began working on a world history of genocide to popularize his neologism. Correspondence with funding organizations and publishers shows that he was soliciting interest in a book on the subject as early as 1947 and that he had produced substantial draft chapters by the following year. Before his death in 1959, he had almost completed the book on genocide in world history but, in marked contrast to the present, publishers were uninterested in the project, which was neither completed nor published. Both Lemkin and his approach were forgotten until the 1980s, when a small group of social scientists founded a marginal field called comparative genocide studies.

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Journal of Genocide Research
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Norman M. Naimark
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1
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Looking Past CVID with North Korea

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Gi-Wook Shin
Joyce Lee
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While the Trump administration may still believe in CVID, Gi-Wook Shin and Joyce Lee argue that–at present–it is no longer a realistic goal.

In an article for for 38 North, Shin and Lee explain why it may be too late for CVID, explore Kim Jong-un’s possible agenda, and provide their thoughts on what the goal of negotiations should now be going forward.

Article is available online without subscription or login
 

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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo shakes hands with North Korean leader Kim Jon-un Getty Images / The White House
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Web-Event: E. Donahoe in 'Pulling at the Strings: Kremlin's Interference in Elections'

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In the immediate aftermath of the Helsinki Summit, FSI's Eileen Donahoe joins Sen. Marco Rubio; Sen. Mark Warner; Damian Colllins, the MP for Folkestone & Hythe and Chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee; and former Ukrainian Minister for Finance Natalie Jaresko, in a discussion about how to #stopmeddling in democratic elections. 

 

Today, while the President of the United States challenged the US intelligence agencies’ conclusion on Russia’s interference in 2016 election, the Atlantic Council and the Alliance of Democracies organized a series of conversations on “Kremlin’s Interference in Elections.”

Eileen Donahoe, Executive Director of the Global Digital Policy Incubator at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University was among the speakers. She called the meeting of transatlantic parliamentarians, an "important show of transatlantic support for democracy and recognition that we need to take election integrity seriously!"

 

To discover their sessions on #electionintegrity and to learn about how we can better #DefendDemocracy, check out the Atlantic Council's webcast of the event here.

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Laura Jakli

Encina Hall, C147 616 Jane Stanford Way Stanford, CA 94305-6055
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CDDRL Predoctoral Fellow, 2018-20
Fellow, Program on Democracy and the Internet, 2018-20
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​I am a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. Starting in 2023, I will be an Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School's Business, Government and the International Economy (BGIE) unit.

My research examines political extremism, destigmatization, and radicalization, focusing on the role of popularity cues in online media. My related research examines a broad range of threats to democratic governance, including authoritarian encroachment, ethnic prejudice in public goods allocation, and misinformation. 

​My dissertation won APSA's Ernst B. Haas Award for the best dissertation on European Politics. I am currently working on my book project, Engineering Extremism, with generous funding from the William F. Milton Fund at Harvard.

My published work has appeared in the American Political Science Review,  Governance,  International Studies Quarterly, Public Administration Review, and the Virginia Journal of International Law, along with an edited volume in Democratization (Oxford University Press). My research has been featured in KQED/NPR, The Washington Post, and VICE News.
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I received my Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley in 2020. I was a Predoctoral Research Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University and the Stanford Program on Democracy and the Internet. I hold a B.A. (Magna Cum Laude; Phi Beta Kappa) from Cornell University and an M.A. (with Distinction) from the University of California, Berkeley.

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Providing Quality Infrastructure in Rural Villages: The Case of Rural Roads in China

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When seeking to build high quality and cost-effective infrastructure in rural villages, a fundamental question is: Who is better at doing so? Should the village leadership or a government agency above the village finance and/or manage the construction of the infrastructure project? To answer this question, we surveyed all rural road projects in 101 villages in rural China between 2003 and 2007 and measured the quality and per kilometer cost of each road. According to our analysis, road quality was higher when more of the project funds came from the government agency above. Moreover, projects had lower cost per kilometer when the village leaders managed the road construction. Overall, our findings suggest that to build high quality and cost-effective rural roads village leaders and government agencies should collaborate and each specialize in a specific project role.

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Journal of Development Economics
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Scott Rozelle
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