FSI's research on the origins, character and consequences of government institutions spans continents and academic disciplines. The institute’s senior fellows and their colleagues across Stanford examine the principles of public administration and implementation. Their work focuses on how maternal health care is delivered in rural China, how public action can create wealth and eliminate poverty, and why U.S. immigration reform keeps stalling.
FSI’s work includes comparative studies of how institutions help resolve policy and societal issues. Scholars aim to clearly define and make sense of the rule of law, examining how it is invoked and applied around the world.
FSI researchers also investigate government services – trying to understand and measure how they work, whom they serve and how good they are. They assess energy services aimed at helping the poorest people around the world and explore public opinion on torture policies. The Children in Crisis project addresses how child health interventions interact with political reform. Specific research on governance, organizations and security capitalizes on FSI's longstanding interests and looks at how governance and organizational issues affect a nation’s ability to address security and international cooperation.
Bloomberg Businessweek writes on China's historic economic reforms and the future to come, quoting Scott Rozelle and REAP's work on education and human capacity building in rural China. Read full text here.
"...About 80 percent of students are “left-behind kids” — children whose parents left for higher-paying jobs, usually on the industrial east coast, and who are looked after by grandparents, relatives or friends.
'China has failed to invest in its single most important asset: its people,' said economist Scott Rozelle at Stanford University. 'It has one of the lowest levels of education.'..."
Ever since the Millennium Message, Putin's first presidential speech on January 1, 2000, the Kremlin's political architects have cultivated a narrative of Russia as a unique nation on a righteous path toward restored greatness. The process of myth-making is intertwined with the policies involved in remaking Russia as a global power, as the regime builds legitimacy through careful messaging on Russian nationhood, history, morality, and geopolitical strength, using law and policy to embed those concepts as institutions and persuade citizens that Russia needs autocracy to survive. This talk traces the Kremlin's cooptation of culture and history to tell a certain story about Russia and its citizens, and examines public opinion polls to assess the degree to which the strategy is working, as well as street protests and radical performance art that attempts to claim spaces of agency for citizens who don't fit into the mythic mold.
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Alice E.M. Underwood is a Pre-Doctoral Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law and a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Comparative Literature at Stanford University. She is a Weiland Fellow at Stanford and a former Title VIII Fellow at the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and has published with Intersection, The Russia File, Russian Life, and Harvard International Review.
Pre-doctoral fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.
Abstract: Nuclear disarmament treaties are not sufficient in and of themselves to neutralize the existential threat of the nuclear weapons. Technologies are necessary for verifying the authenticity of the nuclear warheads undergoing dismantlement before counting them towards a treaty partner’s obligation. A team of scientists working at MIT has developed two novel concepts which leverage isotope-specific nuclear resonance phenomena to authenticate a warhead's fissile components by comparing them to a previously authenticated template. Most actinides such as uranium and plutonium exhibit unique sets of resonances when interacting with MeV photons and eV neutrons. When measured, these resonances produce isotope-specific features in the spectral data, thus creating an isotopic "fingerprint" of an object. All information in these measurement has to be and is encrypted in the physical domain in a manner that amounts to a physical zero-knowledge proof system. Using Monte Carlo simulations and experimental proof-of-concept measurements these techniques are shown to reveal no isotopic or geometric information about the weapon, while readily detecting hoaxing attempts. These new methodologies can dramatically increase the reach and trustworthiness of future nuclear disarmament treaties. The talk will discuss the concepts and recent results, and will give a general overview of nuclear security research pursued at MIT.
Bio: Areg Danagoulian is an Assistant Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT. He did his PhD research in Experimental Nuclear Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Areg’s PhD thesis focused on experiments that used real Compton scattering on the proton at 2-6 GeV, allowing to probe the proton's internal structure and understand how it couples to external excitations. After his PhD Areg worked at Los Alamos as a postdoctoral researcher, and then as a senior scientist at Passport Systems, Inc. (PSI). At PSI Areg focused on the development of Prompt Neutron from Photofission (PNPF) technique, which allows to rapidly detect shielded fissionable materials in the commercial cargo traffic. Areg's current research interests focus on scientific applications in nuclear security, such areas nuclear nonproliferation, technologies for treaty verification, nuclear safeguards, and cargo security. Current specific research areas include: warhead verification using nuclear resonances; use of nuclear reactions for high precision radiography in nuclear security applications.
Areg Danagoulian
Assistant Professor, Nuclear Science and Engineering
MIT
Abstract: Sagan and Valentino's path-breaking survey of public opinion American attitudes towards the laws of war found Americans are relatively insensitive to international norms and taboos against the use of nuclear weapons and the targeting of civilian populations. We replicated a key question on this study – where respondents were asked if they would support saturation bombing an Iranian city to end a war. We also introduced some variations into the experiment to disaggregate any potential influence of international norms and laws from the effect of historical analogies and interest-based frames embedded in the original experiment. Overall, our quantitative and qualitative findings are more optimistic about Americans' sensitivity to the civilian immunity norm. Nonetheless, our findings suggest much depends on whether legal/ethical considerations, rather than tactical ones alone, are part of any national conversation about war policy.
Charli's Bio: Charli Carpenter is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Her teaching and research interests include the laws of war, protection of civilians, humanitarian disarmament, global advocacy networks, and the role of popular culture in global affairs. She has a particular interest in the gap between intentions and outcomes among advocates of human security. She has published three books and numerous journal articles, has served as a consultant for the United Nations, and contributed to Foreign Policy and Foreign Affairs. In addition to teaching and research, Dr. Carpenter spends her time raising future members of the American electorate, snowboarding, and rambling about international politics and popular culture at Duck of Minerva.
Alexander's Bio: Alexander H. Montgomery is associate professor of Political Science at Reed College. He has a B.A. in Physics from the University of Chicago, an M.A. in Energy and Resources from UC-Berkeley, and an M.A. in Sociology and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University. He has been a fellow at the Belfer Center, CISAC, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Woodrow Wilson Center. He has published articles on nuclear proliferation and on the effects of social networks of international organizations on interstate conflict, and is the co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Political Networks (2017).
Matteo Renzi was born in Florence in January 1975. In 2004 he was elected president of the province of Florence; five years later, in 2009, he was elected Mayor of Florence. In 2012 he ran in the primary elections for the centre-left, losing in the run-off. In 2013 he stood once again in the primaries, this time for leader of the Italian Democratic Party (Partito Democratico, PD), winning with 67.5% of the vote.
On February 22, 2014, following the resignation of Enrico Letta and after a vote by a large majority within the PD, he became President of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister of Italy), the youngest in the history of Italy. After the negative result of the constitutional referendum on December 4, 2016, Matteo Renzi resigned as Prime Minister.
In April 2017, almost two million voters took part in the primary elections for Secretary of the PD. Renzi was re-elected with 69% of the votes cast. Following the results of the Italian parliamentary election, in March 2018 he resigned as Leader of the PD.
Matteo Renzi is currently Senator for the Electoral College of Florence, Scandicci, Signa, Lastra a Signa and Impruneta. His activity as a politician has been accompanied by his writing, which includes the books Fuori! (2011), Stilnovo (2012), Oltre la rottamazione (2013), and Avanti! Perché l’Italia non si ferma (2017). He has also taught at Stanford's Florence campus in recent years.
Matteo Renzi, former Prime Minister of Italy
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Existing scholarship attributes various political and economic advantages to democratic governance. These advantages may make more democratic countries prone to financial crises. Democracy is characterized by constraints on executive authority, accountability through free and fair elections, protections for civil liberties, and large winning coalitions. These characteristics bring important benefits, but they can also have unintended consequences that increase the likelihood of financial instability and crises. Using data covering the past two centuries, I demonstrate a strong relationship between democracy and financial crisis onset: on average, democracies are about twice as likely to experience a crisis as autocracies. This is an empirical regularity that is robust across a wide range of model specifications and time periods.
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Phillip Y. Lipscy (Stanford University) is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Thomas Rohlen Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. His fields of research include international and comparative political economy, international organizations, and the politics of East Asia, particularly Japan. Lipscy’s book from Cambridge University Press, Renegotiating the World Order: Institutional Change in International Relations, examines how countries seek greater international influence by reforming or creating international organizations.
Phillip Lispcy
Assistant Professor of Political Science and Thomas Rohlen Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Manuel Ramos is a Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy (MIP) student at Stanford University in the Class of 2019. He spent this past summer working on justice issues in Kenya for the World Bank's Development Impact Evaluation (DIME). Funding is made available to MIP students for 10-week summer internships with organizations that work on international policy issues.
People who are acquainted with the work of Shorenstein APARC’s Asia Health Policy Program (AHPP) may be aware of the Innovation for Healthy Aging collaborative research project led by APARC Deputy Director and AHPP Director Karen Eggleston. This project, which identifies and analyzes productive public-private partnerships advancing healthy aging solutions in East Asia and other regions, encompasses an upcoming volume, co-authored by Eggleston with Harvard University professors Richard Zeckhauser and John Donohue, about public and private roles in governance of multiple sectors in China and the United States, including health care and elderly care. This volume, however, is not the first collaboration between Eggleston and Zeckhauser.
Zeckhauser, the Frank P. Ramsey Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School, is known for his many policy investigations that explore ways to promote the health of human beings, to help markets work more effectively, and to foster informed and appropriate choices by individuals and government agencies. In 2006, Eggleston and Zeckhauser co-wrote a paper about antibiotic resistance as a global threat, an issue that has since received much attention as it has become a critical public health and public policy challenge. Zeckhauser was a pioneer in framing antibiotic resistance as a global threat.
On October 20, 2018, Eggleston was among some 150 colleagues, students, and friends who participated in a special symposium at the Kennedy School to celebrate Zeckhauser’s 50th anniversary of teaching and research, and to anticipate what the next 50 years might bring in the multiple fields he has influenced throughout his long career.
Eggleston joined the first of two panels in that symposium, where she spoke about Zeckhauser’s impact on health policy and about what academics and policymakers should be tackling next on the path to addressing the global threat of antibiotic resistance.
The panel was moderated by Harvard Professor Edward Glaeser. In addition to Eggleston, it included Jeffrey Liebman, Daniel Schrag, and Cass Sunstein.
A video recording of the panel is made available by the Kennedy School. Listen to Eggleston’s remarks (beginning at the 8:42 and 36:20 time marks):
Russia has evolved into an autocracy under Putin's 18-year long rule. The political landscape resembles a desert with just a few oases of relatively strong civil initiatives and political movements. Under these circumstances, people who are eager to continue their activities inside Russia - be it cultural or philanthropic projects - face hard moral choices to either collaborate with the regime or refuse to do so and sacrifice many opportunities along the way. In light of these circumstances, is there any ground for optimism? What are the necessary pre-conditions for strong movements in Russia? What are the visions for post-Putin Russia? Zhanna Nemtsova, the founder of the Boris Nemstov Foundation for Freedom and a news show/anchor for the Deutsche Welle broadcaster shares her insights into the current state of affairs in Russia during this special lunchtime event hosted by the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law together with the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.
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Zhanna Nemtsova is a Russian journalist currently working at Deutsche Welle, a German international broadcaster. At Deutsche Welle, Nemtsova hosts the weekly Russian-language program "Nemtsova.Interview," which features discussions on current events. Nemtsova founded the Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom to promote the ideas of freedom and education and to preserve her father's liberal political legacy after he was assassinated in 2015. The Foundation awards the Boris Nemtsov Prize to courageous Russians for their demonstrated dedication to fighting for democratic rights in Russia, hosts the annual Boris Nemtsov Forum in Berlin and supports Russian political prisoners and asylum seekers. On May 10 the Boris Nemtsov Foundation, in cooperation with Charles University in Prague, launched the Boris Nemtsov Center for Russian Studies. Nemtsova holds a bachelor’s of science degree in economics with a minor in foreign languages from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.
Zhanna Nemtsova
Founder of the Boris Nemstov Foundation for Freedom
