The Fisher Family Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development Program at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is now accepting applications for our summer 2027 program, which will run from Sunday, July 18, to Friday, August 6, 2027. The deadline to apply is 11:59 pm PST on Tuesday, January 12, 2027.

The program brings together an annual cohort of approximately 30 mid-career practitioners from countries in political transition who are working to advance democratic practices and enact economic and legal reform to promote human development. Launched by CDDRL in 2005, the program was previously known as the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program. The new name reflects an endowment gift from the Fisher family — Sakurako (Sako), ‘82, and William (Bill), MBA ‘84 — that secures the future of this important and impactful program.

From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, we select our program participants from among hundreds of applicants each year for the significant contributions they have already made to their communities and their potential to make an even greater impact with some help from Stanford. We aim to give them the opportunity to join a global network of over 500 alumni from 96 countries who have all faced similar sets of challenges in bringing change to their countries.

The Fisher Family Summer Fellows Program provides an intensive 3-week on-campus forum for civil society leaders to exchange experiences and receive academic and policy training to enrich their knowledge and advance their work. Delivered by a leading Stanford faculty team composed of Michael McFaul, Kathryn Stoner, Francis Fukuyama, Larry Diamond, Erik Jensen, and more, the program allows emerging and established global leaders to explore new institutional models and frameworks to enhance their ability to promote good governance, accountable politics, and find new ways to achieve economic development in their home countries.

Prospective fellows from Ukraine are also invited to apply for our Strengthening Ukrainian Democracy and Development (SU-DD) Program, which runs concurrently with the Fisher Family Summer Fellows Program. The SU-DD program provides a unique opportunity for mid-career practitioners working on well-defined projects aimed at strengthening Ukrainian democracy, enhancing human development, and promoting good governance. Applicants to the SU-DD program will use the Fisher Family Summer Fellows Program application portal to apply and indicate their interest there. You will then be directed to a series of supplemental questions specific to the SU-DD program, including requiring a detailed description of your proposed project.

At a CDDRL research seminar held on October 15, 2026, Christopher Dann, a pre-doctoral fellow at the Stanford Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and a PhD candidate in Political Science at Stanford, presented his research on legitimacy and large-scale infrastructure in 21st-century autocracies.

His research centered on a puzzle: how have autocracies modernized so successfully in the 21st century while sustaining authoritarian rule? Dann argued that a sizable number of today’s autocracies cultivate reputations for delivery to build mass support for the regime. They do so by organizing development around large-scale infrastructure, which is unusually visible, durable, and difficult to reverse. These qualities make infrastructure a costly and lasting signal of a dictator’s developmental intent, and they give citizens credible reason to believe the regime is committed to the majority’s future welfare.

Dann began by noting that modernization theory expected economic development to bring democracy. Instead, the world has seen a democratic recession, and many regimes, including Vietnam, Rwanda, Serbia, and Türkiye, have modernized while remaining authoritarian. He explained that 20th-century dictatorships were relatively poor and fear-based, relying on repression, coercion, and ideology, and that they bought support cheaply through patronage and targeted transfers. Today, however, autocrats have moved from fear to competence. They favor a rhetoric of economic performance and public services, and the countries with the highest confidence in national government are fast-growing autocracies.

To test this, Dann used data, following a recently released World Bank report, on approximately 150,000 large-scale construction projects worldwide from 2005 to 2024, each costing at least $25 million. The data show that autocracies build more than democracies, spend roughly twice as much per year, and complete and cancel more projects. They also build more new infrastructure rather than maintain old stocks, and they concentrate on transport and energy while democracies put relatively more into education and healthcare. In addition, autocracies build at about a third of the cost per kilometer for transport projects. As Dann explained, these differences arguably stem from longer political time horizons, fewer institutional constraints such as veto points and regulatory hurdles, thus providing a comparative advantage for wealthy, stable autocracies.

To measure the political return, Dann combined nine existing survey datasets covering about 2.5 million respondents in more than 2,300 districts. He then compared districts within the same country that received infrastructure at different times. Using this approach, he found that in autocracies and backsliding regimes, about 40 additional completed projects in a district raised confidence in government by roughly one percentage point, about a quarter of the gap in confidence between Singapore and the neighboring Malaysian state of Johor. Democracies showed no significant effect. Infrastructure also raised leadership approval and lowered perceptions of corruption, and newly built transport projects with government funding drove most of the effect.

Ultimately, Dann’s research offers a new account of authoritarian resilience, one that explains how autocracies govern more educated, urban, and wealthier societies through broad-based, performative distribution. He closed by questioning whether the more well-to-do a nation is in the 21st century, the greater its chances of sustaining autocracy.

The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is pleased to invite applications from pre-doctoral students at the write-up stage and from post-doctoral scholars working in any of the four program areas of democracy, development, evaluating the efficacy of democracy promotion, and rule of law. The application cycle for the 2027-2028 academic year will be open from Monday, September 21, 2026, through Monday, November 30, 2026.

Our goal is to provide an intellectually dynamic environment that fosters lively exchange among Center members and helps everyone to do excellent scholarship. Fellows will spend the academic year at Stanford University focusing on research and data analysis as they work to finalize and publish their dissertation research while connecting with resident faculty and research staff at CDDRL.

Pre-doctoral fellows must be enrolled currently in a doctoral program or equivalent through the time of intended residency at Stanford and must be at the dissertation write-up (post-coursework) phase of their doctoral program. Post-doctoral fellows must have earned their Ph.D. within 3 years of the start of the fellowship, or plan to have successfully defended their Ph.D. dissertations by July 31, 2027.

In addition to our regular call for applications, CDDRL invites applications for the following fellowships:

Gerhard Casper Fellow in Rule of Law: We welcome research on any aspect of rule of law, including judicial politics, criminal justice, and the politicization of judicial institutions. We are an interdisciplinary center; candidates from any relevant field (i.e., the social sciences, law) are welcome to apply. This is a 9-month, residential fellowship, and the Gerhard Casper Fellow will be part of CDDRL’s larger cohort of pre- and postdoctoral fellows. Please apply through the CDDRL fellowship application process and indicate that you would like to be considered for the Gerhard Casper Rule of Law Fellowship.

Jan Koum Israel Studies Program Fellow: We welcome research on any aspect of modern Israel, including Israeli politics, constitutionalism, economics, society, diplomacy, and international affairs. We are an interdisciplinary center; candidates from any relevant field (i.e., the social sciences and law) are welcome to apply. This is a 9-month, residential fellowship, and the Jan Koum Israel Studies Program Fellow will be part of CDDRL’s larger cohort of pre- and postdoctoral fellows. Please apply through the regular CDDRL fellowship application process and indicate that you would like to be considered for the Jan Koum Israel Studies Program Fellowship.