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.

Reversing the Brain Drain? The Movement of People and Skills in an Era of Economic Globalization

Tuesday, May 31, 2011 | 12:00 PM -Tuesday, May 31, 2011 | 1:15 PM

About the seminar

Dan Wang's talk will examine the economic impact of skilled return migrants on their home countries. While much scholarship contends that members of skilled diasporas are ideally positioned to transfer knowledge and resources back to their home countries, Wang's research
suggests that many returnees are often unable and/or unwilling to do so. He will present findings from a novel 1997–2011 survey of over 4,250 former J1 Visa holders from over 80 countries. The principal outcome under study concerns how skilled returnees reapply and make use of the knowledge they gain abroad (in this case, the United States) upon reentry to their home countries. Specifically, he compares the knowledge transfer outcomes of returnees to those who stayed abroad, and contrasts returnees from different countries and industry contexts, including returnee entrepreneurs. Finally, Germany and China are used as comparative case studies of returnee skill transfer.

About the speaker

Dan Wang is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at Stanford University. His principal research interests include economic sociology, organizations, globalization, technology, and social network analysis. His past research has examined the relationship between China's changing domestic patent laws and the country's R&D collaboration patterns, tactical diffusion through American social movement organization collaboration networks, knowledge transfer in academic co-authorship networks, and statistical methods for addressing measurement error in network analysis. He received is BA in sociology and comparative literature from Columbia University in 2007.

Philippines Conference Room

Dan Wang Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Sociology Speaker Stanford University

Seminars

Social Media in Democratic Mobilization in Egypt: New Trends

Friday, May 20, 2011 | 12:00 PM -Friday, May 20, 2011 | 1:30 PM

A lot of ink has been spilled on the role of social media in the overthrow of the Mubarak regime in Egypt, but a lot less has been said on its role in Egypt’s future. The Program on Liberation Technology at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law will host a seminar with two prominent Egyptian activists to examine this question. Ahmed Salah, one of the co-founders of Kifaya, will discuss the future of technology in democratic mobilization. While Sabah Hamamou, a journalist who works in both traditional and new media, will comment on the role of new media in Egypt's post-revolutionary period. Please join us for this special discussion and rare opportunity to meet two Egyptian activists who have been at the center of the January 25th movement.

About the Speakers

Ahmed Salah is the executive director of the House of New Future and Center For Legal and Human Rights Studies. Salah wears a number of other hats including that of a freelance reporter and independent political activist. He is one of the co-founders of Kifaya and Youth for Change. He is also a co-founder, strategist, ideologist, and foreign affairs representative of the April 6 Youth Movement. His plan to initiate a number of small rallies in the poor and middle class areas across Egypt subsequently helped create the first day of the revolution, January 25th. He is currently working on creating democratic representations from every part of the country.

Sabah Hamamou is one of Egypt’s most acclaimed new media journalists. Her YouTube channel has been viewed over 370,000 times. Hamamou is also a deputy editor at Al Ahram, Egypt’s most prestigious newspaper. Sabah initially joined the protests as a reporter, but when the protesters came under attack on the first evening of the revolution, she posted the videos she had taken from Tahrir Square, instantly getting 90,000 hits. Sabah then led successfully an in-house revolt at Al-Ahram over the newspaper’s insistence on reporting regime propaganda about the revolution.
Lunch will be served.

Download pdf

CISAC Conference Room

Ahmed Saleh Egptian Activist Speaker

Sabah Hamamou Egyptian Activist Speaker

Conferences

University IP Management and the Weakness of Science-based Entrepreneurship in Japan: Impact on Innovation

Read more about University IP Management and the Weakness of Science-based Entrepreneurship in Japan: Impact on Innovation

China's Food Inflation

Read more about China's Food Inflation

News Type

News

Date

Thu, 05/12/2011 - 12:00

Paragraphs

Middle class appetites and rising affluence are driving up the price of food in China, home to 1.3 billion people. Growers are faced with rising demand for food just as the rural labor supply dwindles. Yet the changes in food and work preferences aren't all bad, as they reflect the human and economic development taking place in China, says Scott Rozelle, food economist and Helen Farnsworth Senior Fellow at FSI.

Hero Image

All News button

Interrogating Democracy in World Politics

Read more about Interrogating Democracy in World Politics

Paragraphs

It is often assumed that democracy is both desirable and possible in global politics. Interrogating Democracy in World Politics provides an important counter-argument to this assumption by questioning the history, meaning and concepts of democracy in contemporary international and global politics.

Combining viewpoints from the fields of international relations, political theory and history, the book includes:

Critical examinations of the concept of democracy as a political order and ethical ideal
Assessment of the role and function of democracy in how contemporary political events are understood and evaluated
Analysis of the relationship of democracy to international stability, liberalism and the emergence of capitalist economies

The book focuses on the move from the concept of ‘international politics’ to ‘world politics’, recognising the equal importance of understanding democratic interaction both within and between states. It reviews current scholarly thinking in the field before providing a complex theoretical re-engagement with the meaning of democracy in contemporary world politics.

Interrogating Democracy in World Politics will be of interest to students and scholars of politics and international relations, democratization studies and globalization.

All Publications button

Publication Type

Books

Publication Date

May 12, 2011

Journal Publisher

Routledge

Authors

Laust Schouenborg

Number

978-0-415-59531-5

Bruce Jones and Francis Fukuyama on the World Bank's Development Report

Thursday, June 2, 2011 | 12:00 PM -Thursday, June 2, 2011 | 1:30 PM

Bruce Jones will present on the World Bank's 2011 World Development Report, on "Conflict, Security and Development." The report, which is the World Bank's flagship annual research product, reviews and challenges previous Bank findings on the causes of conflict and fragility; provides new research findings on strategies for recovery from conflict and violence; and sets out a series of directions for national policy and international institutional reform. Dr. Jones will brief on these, as well as on the politics of research and implementation at the World Bank and the UN.

Dr. Bruce Jones is director and senior fellow of the NYU Center on International Cooperation, and senior fellow and director of the Managing Global Insecurity Program at the Brookings Institution. Currently, his is also the Senior External Advisor for the World Bank's Development Report (WDR) on Conflict, Security and Development. Jones will provide an overview and account of the WDR and will be joined by Dr. Francis Fukuyama who will participate as a discussant on the topic.

In March 2010, Jones was appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General as a member of the Senior Advisory Group to guide the Review of International Civilian Capacities.
Dr. Jones’ research focuses on US policy on global order and transnational threats; on multilateral institutions in peace and security issues; on the role of the United Nations in conflict management and international security; and on global peacekeeping, post-conflict operations and fragile state engagements.

Prior to assuming the Directorship of the Center, Dr. Jones served in several capacities at the United Nations. He was Senior Advisor in the Office of the Secretary-General during the UN reform effort leading up to the World Summit 2005, and in the same period was Acting Secretary of the Secretary-General’s Policy Committee. In 2004-2005, he was Deputy Research Director of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change. From 2000-2002 he was Special Assistant to the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East peace process; and held assignments in the UN Interim Mission in Kosovo, and in the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Dr. Jones has been interviewed by or cited in US and international media, including the New York Times, LA Times, Globe and Mail, BBC, CNN, Fox, NPR, and Al Jazeera.
Dr. Jones holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics; and was Hamburg Fellow in Conflict Prevention at Stanford University. He is co-author with Carlos Pascual and Stephen Stedman of Power and Responsibility: Building International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats (Brookings Press, 2009); co-editor with Shepard Forman of Cooperating for Peace and Security (Cambridge University Press, 2009); author of Peacemaking in Rwanda: The Dynamics of Failures; Series Editor of the Annual Review of Global Peace Operations (Lynne Reinner) and author of several book chapters and journal articles on US strategy, global order, the Middle East, peacekeeping, post-conflict peacebuilding, and strategic coordination.

He is Consulting Professor at Stanford University, Adjunct Faculty at the NYU Wagner School of Public Service, and Professor by Courtesy at the NYU Department of Politics.

CISAC Conference Room

Stephen J. Stedman

CDDRL
Encina Hall, C152
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 725-2705 (650) 724-2996

sstedman@stanford.edu

Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science

Stedman_Steve.jpg PhD

Stephen Stedman is a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), an affiliated faculty member at CISAC, and professor of political science (by courtesy) at Stanford University. He is director of CDDRL's Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development and Rule of Law, and will be faculty director of the Program on International Relations in the School of Humanities and Sciences effective Fall 2025.

In 2011-12 Professor Stedman served as the Director for the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy, and Security, a body of eminent persons tasked with developing recommendations on promoting and protecting the integrity of elections and international electoral assistance. The Commission is a joint project of the Kofi Annan Foundation and International IDEA, an intergovernmental organization that works on international democracy and electoral assistance.

In 2003-04 Professor Stedman was Research Director of the United Nations High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change and was a principal drafter of the Panel’s report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility.

In 2005 he served as Assistant Secretary-General and Special Advisor to the Secretary- General of the United Nations, with responsibility for working with governments to adopt the Panel’s recommendations for strengthening collective security and for implementing changes within the United Nations Secretariat, including the creation of a Peacebuilding Support Office, a Counter Terrorism Task Force, and a Policy Committee to act as a cabinet to the Secretary-General.

His most recent book, with Bruce Jones and Carlos Pascual, is Power and Responsibility: Creating International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats (Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 2009).

Director, Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development and Rule of Law

Director, Program in International Relations

Affiliated faculty at the Center for International Security and Cooperation

Hide publication sections

Off

Date Label

Tue, 09/17/2024 - 09:44

Stephen J. Stedman Senior Fellow Moderator Stanford University

Francis Fukuyama

Encina Hall, C148
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305

f.fukuyama@stanford.edu

Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

Director of the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy

Research Affiliate at The Europe Center

Professor by Courtesy, Department of Political Science

yff-2021-14290_6500x4500_square.jpg

Francis Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a faculty member of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). He is also Director of Stanford's Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy, and a professor (by courtesy) of Political Science.

Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on issues in development and international politics. His 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. His book In the Realm of the Last Man: A Memoir will be published in fall 2026.

Francis Fukuyama received his B.A. from Cornell University in classics, and his Ph.D. from Harvard in Political Science. He was a member of the Political Science Department of the RAND Corporation, and of the Policy Planning Staff of the US Department of State. From 1996-2000 he was Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University, and from 2001-2010 he was Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. He served as a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics from 2001-2004. He is editor-in-chief of American Purpose, an online journal.

Dr. Fukuyama holds honorary doctorates from Connecticut College, Doane College, Doshisha University (Japan), Kansai University (Japan), Aarhus University (Denmark), the Pardee Rand Graduate School, and Adam Mickiewicz University (Poland). He is a non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Rand Corporation, the Board of Trustees of Freedom House, and the Board of the Volcker Alliance. He is a fellow of the National Academy for Public Administration, a member of the American Political Science Association, and of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is married to Laura Holmgren and has three children.

(October 2025)

Global Populisms

A new project examining the global surge in populist movements and what it means for established democratic rules and institutions.

Hide publication sections

Off

Date Label

Thu, 10/10/2024 - 15:18

Francis Fukuyama Senior Fellow Panelist Stanford University

Bruce Jones Director and Senior Fellow Speaker NYU Center on International Cooperation

Seminars

Internal and External Innovation Ecosystems in China 2.0

Read more about Internal and External Innovation Ecosystems in China 2.0

Innovations in Strengthening Local Economic Governance in Asia

Thursday, May 19, 2011 | 12:00 PM -Thursday, May 19, 2011 | 1:30 PM

SPEAKERS
V. Bruce J. Tolentino - Chief Economist/ Director of Economic Reform and Development Programs at The Asia Foundation
Véronique Salze-Lozac'h - Regional Director of Economic Reform and Development Programs at The Asia Foundation
Nina V. Merchant - Assistant Director of Economic Reform and Development Programs at The Asia Foundation

Meet Asia Foundation economics experts as they share their experiences working with on-the-ground partners to enhance economic growth throughout Asia. The Foundation is recognized internationally for its innovative work on economic governance and a political economy approach to reform, including programs in regulatory reform, strengthening local economic governance, private sector development, anticorruption, trade liberalization, and promotion of private investment. The Foundation has developed one-of-a-kind economic reform and development strategies, projects, interventions, and activities designed to enhance and sustain economic growth, with particular attention to effective local economic governance.

Complimentary copies of Innovations in Strengthening Local Economic Governance in Asia will be available during the presentation. We hope you can join us for what promises to be a lively conversation about the future of Asia’s economy.

Co-sponsored by the Asia Foundation

Philippines Conference Room

Seminars

Speaker Information Page of "Innovation Beyond Boundaries: Partnerships for Advancing Smart, Green Living"

SPEAKER CHECKLIST *for conference website and printed materials* Please email all information to yanmei@stanford.edu
Item Required	Date Due
Short biography in paragraph format with your name, organization/institution and area of work to be used for the conference pack, not longer than 200 words.	June 6, 2011
Headshot suitably large for printing (at least 350 pixels in both dimensions)	June 6, 2011
Draft Presentation	June 21, 2011
Final Presentation	9am, June 27, 2011

KEY QUESTIONS to be addressed

What roles are public-private partnerships and other forms of collaboration playing to advance innovations in smart green industries, such as in the built environment or intelligent transportation?
What innovations - not only in technologies and products but also in processes, models and platforms - are leading the way?
What results are emerging from living labs, leading cities, or other outstanding examples of public-private partnerships around the world?
How do results stack up against economic, energy and social metrics, e.g. economic productivity, quality of life, energy impact, financial payback, user response, etc.?
What are implications for business strategies?
What government policies are effectively nurturing advancement in these areas?

important notes to speakers

Please take your tent card to the stage when your session starts.
Please sit on the stage when your session starts and stay throughout the session for all speakers, your session discussant and the discussion open to the floor.

Download pdf

Download doc

Download pdf

Related Multimedia

Global Populisms

Related Multimedia

SPEAKER CHECKLIST

for conference website and printed materials

Please email all information to yanmei@stanford.edu