Stanford University

International Development

FSI researchers consider international development from a variety of angles. They analyze ideas such as how public action and good governance are cornerstones of economic prosperity in Mexico and how investments in high school education will improve China’s economy.

They are looking at novel technological interventions to improve rural livelihoods, like the development implications of solar power-generated crop growing in Northern Benin.

FSI academics also assess which political processes yield better access to public services, particularly in developing countries. With a focus on health care, researchers have studied the political incentives to embrace UNICEF’s child survival efforts and how a well-run anti-alcohol policy in Russia affected mortality rates.

FSI’s work on international development also includes training the next generation of leaders through pre- and post-doctoral fellowships as well as the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program.

Education Under Fire event

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Please join the Stanford Baha'i Club, in collaboration with the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law; the Center on Philanthrophy and Civil Society, Stanford Amnesty International, Stanford Six Degrees in defending Article 26 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights on

Friday, April 6 from 7:00-9:00pm

We will be screening Education Under Fire, a moving documentary about this issue. Following the screening, we will be having a panel discussion.

Imagine you are sitting in class at Stanford University when armed guards come into the classroom and arrest everyone in your class. Your professor is sentenced to five years in prison; you are expelled not only from Stanford, but from any institution of higher education in the country. Your crime? Gaining a higher education. Your professor’s crime? Providing higher education. Fortunately, this is not happening today at Stanford, but it is happening right now to many young people in Iran.

Since its inception, the Baha’i community of Iran has been suffering different forms of human rights violations, from intense persecution to being denied employment, the ability to bury their dead, access to higher education. Their crime? Being a Baha’i. The Bahá'í Institute for Higher Education (BIHE) was founded in 1987 in response to the Iranian government's continuing campaign to deny Iranian Bahá'ís access to higher education. The need to create a new university for those who were denied access to higher education captivated the talents and minds of exceptional faculty and staff from within Iran and abroad. For twenty years they have dedicated their efforts to building an exemplary institution and cultivating a student body prepared for fulfilling careers, future study, and social responsibility. But this has come with constant struggles and limited resources. In May 2011, the government launched a coordinated attack against the BIHE–raiding dozens of homes, confiscating computers and materials and detaining eighteen professors and administrators. Seven of those arrested received four or five-year prison terms. Their only crime: educating the youth in their community.

We also have a facebook event here - http://www.facebook.com/events/291432670928509/

  
Download pdf

CEMEX AUDITORIUM, Stanford

Conferences

Institution-building in Hard Places: Challenges, Contexts, Pathways

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Abstract: 

This talk draws on case study evidence from Princeton University’s Innovations for Successful Societies to reflect on some current theories about building accountable government.  The focus is on settings where geography, insecurity, and limited resources render conventional management strategies unworkable.

Speaker Bio:

Jennifer Widner is professor of politics and international affairs and director of the Mamdouha S.Bobst Center for Peace & Justice at Princeton University. She runs a research program on institution building and institutional reform called Innovations for Successful Societies, a joint initiative of the Bobst Center and  the Woodrow Wilson School. Before joining the Princeton faculty in 2004-5, she taught at Harvard and the University of Michigan.  Her current research focuses on the political economy of institutional reform, government accountability, and service delivery.  She also remains interested in constitution writing, constitutional design, and fair dealing—topics of earlier research. She is author of Building the Rule of Law (W. W. Norton), a study of courts and law in Africa, and she has published articles on a variety of topics in Democratization, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Development Studies, The William & Mary Law Review, Daedalus, the American Journal of International Law, and other publications.  She is completing work on a book about making government work in challenging settings, drawing on experiences in Africa, Asia, and parts of Latin America. 

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Jennifer Widner Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School Speaker Princeton University
Seminars

The United States and the Arab Awakening -- An Early Assessment

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Abstract:

Tamara Cofman Wittes, who helped manage the State Department's response to the Arab Awakening and now directs the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, will reflect on the US government's reactions to the dramatic change underway in the Arab world -- how the Obama Administration viewed the uprisings, and how its policy evolved over time as different cases emerged from Tunisia to Libya and Syria. What were the key concerns shaping the US policy response to events? How much difference did American policy make to outcomes on the ground? And, given the complex variety of outcomes now visible in the region, where is American policy toward Arab political change headed over time? 

Speaker Bio:

Tamara Cofman Wittes directs the Middle East Democracy and Development (MEDD) Project at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, a regional policy center at The Brookings Institution. The MEDD Project conducts research into political and economic reform in the region and US efforts to promote democracy there. It also hosts visiting fellows from the Middle East.


Before joining the Saban Center in December 2003, Dr. Wittes served as Middle East specialist at the US Institute of Peace and previously as director of programs at the Middle East Institute in Washington. She has also taught courses in International Relations and Security Studies at Georgetown University. Dr. Wittes was one of the first recipients of the Rabin-Peres Peace Award, established by President Bill Clinton in 1997.

 
Dr. Wittes’s latest book is Freedom’s Unsteady March: America’s Role in Building Arab Democracy (Brookings Press). She is also editor of How Israelis and Palestinians Negotiate: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Oslo Peace Process (USIP, 2005). Her recent work includes “What Price Freedom? Assessing the Bush Administration’s Freedom Agenda,” and “Back to Balancing in the Middle East,” co-authored with Martin Indyk.

 Her analyses of US democracy promotion, Arab politics, the Middle East peace process, and other policy topics have been published in the Washington Post, Policy Review, Political Science Quarterly, the American Interest, the Weekly Standard, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, among others. Dr. Wittes holds a B.A. in Judaic and Near Eastern Studies from Oberlin College; her M.A. and Ph.D. in Government are from Georgetown University. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

CISAC Conference Room

Tamara Wittes Director, Middle East Democracy and Development (MEDD) Project Speaker Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution
Seminars

Democratic Transitions and Development in Africa: Beyond Prebendalist Systems

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 Abstract:

Systemic corruption undermines state capacity, imperils socio-economic development, and diminishes democracy. In his Nairobi speech as a U.S. senator in August 2006, Barack Obama described the struggle to reduce corruption as "the fight of our time". An international conference in Lagos, Nigeria, in September 2011 was devoted to Richard Joseph's influential 1987 book, Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria: The Rise and Fall of the Second Republic.Transforming prebendalist systems must be at the center of strategies to strengthen democracy and achieve poverty-reducing economic growth in Africa and other regions.

 Speaker Bio: 

Richard Joseph is John Evans Professor of International History and Politics at Northwestern University and Non resident Senior Fellow in Global Economy and Development at the Brookings Institution. As a Fellow of The Carter Center, he participated in democracy and peace initiatives in Ghana, Zambia, Ethiopia, Liberiaand Sudan. He has written extensively on issues of democracy, governance and political economy. His books include Radical Nationalism in Cameroun (1977), Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria (1987) and edited books, Gaullist Africa: Cameroon under Ahmadu Ahidjo (1978), State, Conflict and Democracy in Africa (1999), and (with Alexandra Gillies), Smart Aid for African Development (2009). He served as Principal Investigator of the Research Alliance to Combat HIV/AIDS (REACH), a collaborative program in Nigeria, 2006–2011. His current writing and policy projects concern growth, democracy and security. To address these issues, he is designing a collaborative project, AfricaPlus (http://africaplus.wordpress.com/), whose first focus country is Nigeria.

Here is the link to Richard Joseph remarks and the PowerPoint for the talk.

http://africaplus.wordpress.com/author/africaplus/

CISAC Conference Room

Richard Joseph John Evans Professor of International History and Politics Speaker Northwestern University
Seminars

Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellowship program grows

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“A postdoctoral program is crucial to the intellectual development of any strong academic institution. I am proud the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center will serve as a home next year for these four talented emerging Asia scholars. Not only will they benefit from taking part in our vibrant research and publishing activities, but they will also bring new expertise and perspectives to our Center.”

-Gi-Wook Shin, Director, Shorenstein APARC

 
In the coming academic year, the Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellowship program will double in size.

The four incoming fellows represent the best of the next generation of contemporary Asia scholars. Their research ranges from civil society and authoritarian governance in China to ethnic conflict in South Asia, and Korean migration and identity to election politics in Japan.

During their time at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC), the fellows will conduct their own research and writing, present their work at public seminars, and take part in the research and publishing activities of the Center. Postdoctoral fellows will also have the chance to exchange ideas with Shorenstein APARC experts and interact with the many distinguished visitors who visit each year from throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

In addition, the Asia Health Policy Program at Shorenstein APARC will welcome two postdoctoral fellows in the 2012–13 academic year: an Asia Health Policy Fellow and a Developing Asia Fellow.

Postdoctoral fellows are a vital part of the academic life of the Center, and their relationships with Shorenstein APARC will continue throughout their entire careers.

The Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellowship Program is made possible through the generosity of Walter H. Shorenstein.

“This fellowship has changed the trajectory of my academic career. It has given me the intellectual space to be highly productive and the freedom to expand my understanding of world events in order to enhance my future teaching and research. Thanks in large part to the fellowship, I was able to obtain an appointment as an assistant professor in the Department of International Relations at Boston University.”

-Jeremy Menchik, 2011–12 Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow


2012–13 Shorenstein PostDoctoral Fellows

Diana Fu

Diana Fu will be joining Shorenstein APARC from Oxford University’s Department of Politics and International Relations, and from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she recently served as a political science research fellow. Her research interests encompass state-society relations in authoritarian regimes, civil society, governance, and labor contention. She will be completing a series of journal articles about civil society and authoritarian governance in China. Fu holds an MPhil in international development from Oxford University where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar, and a BA in global studies and political science from the University of Minnesota.

Jaeeun Kim
Jaeeun Kim is a postdoctoral research associate at the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University. She is interested in issues of identity within the context of international migration, which she explores in her dissertation Colonial Migration and Transborder Membership Politics in Twentieth-Century Korea. She is also developing a project focusing on ethnic Korean migrants from northeast China to the United States, including issues such as legalization strategies and conversion patterns. Kim holds an MA and a PhD in sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a BA in law from Seoul National University.

Daniel M. Smith
Daniel M. Smith, a PhD candidate with the Department of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), is completing his dissertation on the causes and consequences of political dynasties in developed democracies, with particular focus on Japan. He has conducted research in Japan as a Japanese Ministry of Education research scholar (2006–2007), and as a Fulbright dissertation research fellow (2010–2011). Smith holds an MA in political science from UCSD, and a BA in political science and Italian from the University of California, Los Angeles. After completing his fellowship at Shorenstein APARC, he will join the Department of Government at Harvard University as an assistant professor.

Ajay Verghese
Ajay Verghese is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at The George Washington University. His work focuses on comparative politics and international relations, and his research interests include South Asia, ethnicity, ethnic conflict, historical analysis, and qualitative methods. Verghese has conducted language training and fieldwork in India, with support from organizations such as the American Institute of Indian Studies and the U.S. State Department Critical Language Scholarship Program. He will be turning his dissertation into a book entitled The Colonial Origins of Ethnic Violence: India and the Indian Ocean Region. Verghese holds a BA in political science and French from Temple University.

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Encina Hall, Stanford University campus | George Krompacky
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How entrepreneurs harness the power of cloud computing

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The cloud offers game-changing opportunities for start-ups to large enterprises, if entrepreneurs and enterprise leaders know how best to harness its power. A panel of cloud computing experts shared their wealth of experience to a full house at the special event on Innovation in the Cloud: How Cloud Computing is Changing the Landscape of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, organized by the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE) in partnership with China America Innovation Network (CHAIN).

In this featured panel discussion at the Stanford Graduate School of Business for Stanford's Entrepreneurship Week 2012, the panel shared insights on cloud computing technology changes, enterprise transformation, business model innovation, investor strategies, and market opportunities, with more than 200 Stanford students, faculty, entrepreneurs and Valley professionals.

The panel was composed of serial entrepreneur Jim Dai, CEO of CalmSea, IT expert Sam Ghods, vice president of technology at Box.com, marketing expert Ken Oestreich, senior director of cloud and virtualization marketing at EMC, and investor Cindy Padnos, founder and managing director of Illuminate Ventures. Robert Scoble, startup liaison officer at Rackspace and a technical evangelist, moderated the discussion.

The panelists acknowledged that users had grown to accept everything could be virtual, and cloud is radically changing the face of enterprise strategy, processes, and outcomes. Cloud computing can dramatically decrease timelines and investment costs which encourages flexible growth and experimentation by rapid iteration. This shift, together with cloud computing’s cost effectiveness, strongly favors the way start-ups work.

For entrepreneurs, one piece of good news is that cloud allows smaller firms to compete with big players in new ways. This trend has also prompted the rise of micro VCs, with typical investments of $100,000 to $500,000. While SMEs continue to embrace cloud-based services, how large enterprises adapt and evolve the cloud market will remain interesting.

Stanford Entrepreneurship Week 2012 takes place February 27 through March 7. This collection of over 30 events is hosted by the Stanford Entrepreneurship Network (SEN), a federation of programs, student groups and organizations supporting entrepreneurship in the Stanford community.

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Stanford research poised to play role as Japan restructures power industry

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Northeastern Japan is rebuilding itself after last year's earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear accident. The devastation to the region is unquestionable, but so are the opportunities for energy industry reform and innovation. Masahiko Aoki and Kenji E. Kushida spoke with the Stanford News Service about developments in the region, and about possible links to Silicon Valley technologies.
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Tokyo Electric Power Company's Tama substation in northwest Tokyo, May 2010. | Flickr/ykanazawa1999
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