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.

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Reuben W. Hills Conference Room, 2nd floor, Encina Hall East

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

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Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies, Department of Political Science
Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
mcfaul_headshot_2025.jpg PhD

Michael McFaul is the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in Political Science, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, all at Stanford University. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995 and served as FSI Director from 2015 to 2025. He is also an international affairs analyst for MSNOW.

McFaul served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014).

McFaul has authored ten books and edited several others, including, most recently, Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder, as well as From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia, (a New York Times bestseller) Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should, How We Can; and Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin.

He is a recipient of numerous awards, including an honorary PhD from Montana State University; the Order for Merits to Lithuania from President Gitanas Nausea of Lithuania; Order of Merit of Third Degree from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, and the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Stanford University. In 2015, he was the Distinguished Mingde Faculty Fellow at the Stanford Center at Peking University.

McFaul was born and raised in Montana. He received his B.A. in International Relations and Slavic Languages and his M.A. in Soviet and East European Studies from Stanford University in 1986. As a Rhodes Scholar, he completed his D. Phil. in International Relations at Oxford University in 1991. 

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Date Label
Michael McFaul Associate Professor Speaker Department of Political Science, Stanford University
James Goldgeier Associate Professor Speaker Department of Political Science, George Washington University
Seminars
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The end of the Cold War and the emergence of terrorism conducted by non-state actors have radically changed the manner in which science and technology can support national security. We no longer have a primary geographically focused enemy and may be confronted by improvised weapons that, as we have learned, are very effective. Additionally, dealing with terrorism within the boundaries of the country raises organizational and political questions that do not occur in military operations abroad. This talk explores these difficulties and suggests some technical and operational priorities for dealing with the new set of threats that have emerged.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Seminars
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Carter J. Eckert is Professor of Korean History and Director of the Korea Institute at Harvard University. Since 1985, he has been teaching Korean history at Harvard and working to build up the Harvard Korean studies program there. He is the author of a number of books and articles, including Offspring of Empire: The Colonial Origins of Korean Capitalism, which received the John K. Fairbank Prize in East Asian History from the American Historical Association, as well as the John Whitney Hall Book Prize from the Association for Asian Studies. Currently he is engaged in several projects relating to modern Korean history, including the Cambridge History of Korea, and a study of the late president of South Korea, Park Chung Hee, and the role of the military in South Korea's national development.

Encina Hall, East Wing, Third Floor, Okimoto Conference Room

Seminars

The goal of this conference/workshop is to bring together a high level group of economists, political scientists and business economists to discuss the future agenda of economic policy. The interventionist approach to economic policy has been abandoned for a more market type agenda in the nineties, however to a different degree across the countries in the triad. Governments and constituencies continued to be faced by old problems, and additionally were challenged by new ones. The conference investigates whether there is a common agenda in the US, Europe, and East Asia, how far priorities about objectives and consensus about instruments exist, and whether this set of goals and instruments will lead to consensus or conflict in the global economy. Participation is by invitation only, and intensive discussion and communication gets the priority over long papers and a large audience.

Oksenberg Conference Room

Andre Sapir Speaker
Michael Boskin Speaker
Kenneth Arrow Speaker
Karl Aiginger Speaker
Barry Eichengreen Speaker
John Zysman Speaker
Catherine Mann Speaker
Jorgen Elmeskov Speaker
Karl Pichelman Speaker
Ulrike Schaede Speaker
Conferences
Submitted by fsid9admin on
This unit contains lectures, originally given at Stanford University by leading scholars , and accompanying lessons strive to educate students about the past, present, and future implications of weapons of mass destruction by introducing them to the history, policies, ideologies, and strategies involved in decision making in this area.
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