A new administration and Congress provide a key opportunity to improve US cybersecurity and the governance of digital technologies. Yet the challenges appear daunting: viral disinformation, widespread privacy violations, algorithms biased by race, class and gender, ransomware running rampant, and unprecedented tech company scale and market dominance. Additionally, the US faces a persistent deficit in skilled cybersecurity workers, a lack of diversity in the field, and a public with wildly unequal broadband internet access.  Meanwhile, competition among governance regimes, specifically between the United States, Europe and China, has raised the stakes over whether democracies or authoritarian governments will set the rules for the internet. The policy choices made by the new administration will play a pivotal role in shaping our global future. On February 24 at 10am PST, join Kelly Born and Marietje Schaake of Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center, Michael Daniel of the Aspen Institute’s Cyber Group, and Karen Kornbluh for the German Marshall Fund to discuss cyber policy priorities for the new administration.

We provide a counterpoint to recent political developments, including the storming of the US Capitol, using novel evidence on 95,314 extreme right-wing supporters and Nazi collaborators in France, which experienced intense polarization in the 1930s and 1940s. We show how democratic values can be undermined by exogenous networks of influential individuals, including heroes. Heroes are specially positioned to widen the `Overton Window’ and legitimize views previously considered deeply repugnant. Social networks of individuals sharing such an identity can transmit and reinforce this influence, leading to escalating commitments that entrench political positions and make debiasing more difficult. However, heroes can also use their legitimacy to strengthen democracy. A link to our Vox Column is here, and to the working paper is here. 

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Saumitra Jha is an associate professor of political economy at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, a senior fellow at the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Affairs and convenes the Stanford Conflict and Polarization Lab.

Saum’s  research focuses upon understanding the effectiveness of organizations and innovations that societies have developed to address the problems of violence and other political risks, and to seek new lessons for fostering peace and development. His research has been published in leading journals in economics and political science, including Econometrica, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the American Political Science Review and the Journal of Development Economics, and he serves on a number of editorial boards. His research on ethnic tolerance has been recognized with the Michael Wallerstein Award for best published article in political economy from the American Political Science Association and his co-authored research on heroes was awarded the Oliver Williamson Award for best paper by the Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics in 2020. In 2020, Jha was also honored to receive the Teacher of the Year Award, voted by the students of the Stanford GSB Sloan Fellows Program.

For more information, please visit his website: https://saumitra.people.stanford.edu/

Co-sponsored by the Global Populisms Project.

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

Seminar Recording:  https://youtu.be/rOmLa_XcaJc

About the Event: The Trump Presidency has changed transatlantic security relations permanently and fundamentally.  Former UK Ambassador to NATO Sir Adam Thomson, currently Director of the European Leadership Network, will look at the implications for relations between NATO and the European Union at the start of President Biden’s term.  Although some progress on NATO-EU cooperation has been made in the past few years, it was in the shadow of the challenges that Trump posed to both organizations.  Washington and America’s European allies and partners will need to repair the damage to the transatlantic relationship and take a new approach to working together. 

About the Speaker: Sir Adam Thomson has been the Director of the European Leadership Network since 2016. The ELN is an independent, non-partisan, network of leaders from all across the continent dedicated to a safer Europe.

Adam had a 38 year diplomatic career in the British Diplomatic Service. His final posting was as the UK Ambassador to NATO 2014 - 2016. From 2010 Adam served as British High Commissioner to Pakistan and between 2002 and 2006 he was British Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York.  Other postings included Moscow (1981-3), NATO (1983-6) and Washington DC (1991-5). He headed the Foreign Office’s Security Policy Department 1998 – 2002.

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An assessment of Russia that suggests that we should look beyond traditional means of power to understand its strength and capacity to disrupt international politics.

Too often, we are told that Russia plays a weak hand well. But, perhaps the nation's cards are better than we know. Russia ranks significantly behind the US and China by traditional measures of power: GDP, population size and health, and military might. Yet 25 years removed from its mid-1990s nadir following the collapse of the USSR, Russia has become a supremely disruptive force in world politics. Kathryn E. Stoner assesses the resurrection of Russia and argues that we should look beyond traditional means of power to assess its strength in global affairs. Taking into account how Russian domestic politics under Vladimir Putin influence its foreign policy, Stoner explains how Russia has battled its way back to international prominence.

From Russia's seizure of the Crimea from Ukraine to its military support for the Assad regime in Syria, the country has reasserted itself as a major global power. Stoner examines these developments and more in tackling the big questions about Russia's turnaround and global future. Stoner marshals data on Russia's political, economic, and social development and uncovers key insights from its domestic politics. Russian people are wealthier than the Chinese, debt is low, and fiscal policy is good despite sanctions and the volatile global economy. Vladimir Putin's autocratic regime faces virtually no organized domestic opposition. Yet, mindful of maintaining control at home, Russia under Putin also uses its varied power capacities to extend its influence abroad. While we often underestimate Russia's global influence, the consequences are evident in the disruption of politics in the US, Syria, and Venezuela, to name a few. Russia Resurrected is an eye-opening reassessment of the country, identifying the actual sources of its power in international politics and why it has been able to redefine the post-Cold War global order.

This event is co-sponsored with the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, Center for International Security and Cooperation and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

What rules for the web? That question has been given new urgency on January 6th. The European Union, at the end of 2020, proposed the Digital Services Act (DSA). This new legislation aims at creating clarity about the responsibility of tech platforms and intermediaries. European rules, just as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) did, will likely have ripple effects worldwide. Is there room for transatlantic alignment? How do values translate into enforceable rules? Can fundamental rights and economic growth go hand in hand? And who keep the gatekeepers in check? We will dive into the proposed Digital Services Act with leading European experts.

Join Stanford Cyber Policy Center's Marietje Schaake, International Policy Director and former Member of European Parliament in conversation with the CPC’s Daphne Keller, Director of the Center for Internet and Society, Guillermo Beltrà Navarro, European Union’s Digital Policy Lead, Eliška Pírková, Access Now’s Europe Policy Analyst and Joris van Hoboken, Professor of Law at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels.