Stanford University

Governance

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.

Domo-Arigato Mr. Robot: Robots and Labor in Japan

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The event is jointly sponsored by the Japan Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership.

 

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Through previously unexamined data from Japan, Professor Robert Dekle presents results from a preliminary study shoing the impact of robotics on Japanese labor between 1980 and 2012.

Robert Dekle is a Professor at the Department of Economics, University of Southern California. His field of research include international finance, open-economy and development, macroeconomics and the economies of Japan and East Asia.    He obtained his Ph.D in economics at Yale University and B.A in economics at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Robert Dekle, Professor of Economics, University of Southern California
Seminars
Japan Colloquium Series

Media Literacy and Civic Confusion: Why What We're Teaching Adds to the Problem

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Abstract:

In the face of information pollution, legislators in seven states have drafted bills to mandate courses in "media literacy" and “digital citizenship.” But what if the problem is not the lack of media literacy--but that the media literacy we do teach is the wrong kind? Drawing on a survey of 7804 middle, high school and college students, along with a focused study of Stanford undergraduates, academics from universities in California and Washington, and professional fact checkers at the nation’s most esteemed publications, I’ll argue that our approaches to information pollution may not only be ineffectual but may exacerbate the problem. Based on promising pilot data, I’ll suggest more comprehensive and effective solutions, and how we might address this issue here on our own Stanford campus.

 

Speaker Bio:

sam wineburg
Sam Wineburg is the Margaret Jacks Professor of Education and, by courtesy, of History & American Studies. Educated at Brown and Berkeley, he holds a doctorate in Psychological Studies in Education from Stanford and an honorary doctorate from Sweden’s Umeå University. In 2004, Wineburg founded the Stanford History Education Group (sheg.stanford.edu), whose curriculum and assessments have been downloaded five million times. His latest work focuses on how people judge the credibility of digital content, research that has been reported in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, BBC, Die Zeit and translated into dozens of languages.

Wineburg’s scholarship sits at the crossroads of three fields: the psychology of learning, history, and education, and his articles have appeared in such diverse outlets as Cognitive Science, Journal of American History, Smithsonian Magazine, Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. In 2002 his book, Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the Future of Teaching the Past won the Frederic W. Ness Award from the Association of American Colleges and Universities for work that makes the most important contribution to the “improvement of Liberal Education and understanding the Liberal Arts.” In 2013, he was named the Obama-Nehru Distinguished Chair by the US-India Fulbright Commission and spent four months crisscrossing India giving lectures about his work. His new book, Why Learn History When It’s Already on Your Phone (Chicago), will be available in September.

Sam Wineburg The Margaret Jacks Professor of Education and, by courtesy, of History & American Studies
Seminars

Andrew Grotto Testifies on "Cybersecurity and California Elections"

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On March 7, 2018, CISAC scholar and Hoover Institution Research Fellow Andrew Grotto testified before a bicameral hearing of the California Legislature on “Cybersecurity and California Elections.” Grotto emphasized the importance of upholding the public's confidence in our electoral infrastructure, and highlighted the need for California's state and county election professionals to implement cybersecurity best practices. 

Andy Grotto
He urged that they practice their incident response and communications plans in order to ensure they are prepared for contingencies during the 2018 election cycle, in light of threats emanating from Russia and elsewhere. 

He also reminded that campaigns and elected officials are also vital components of our nation's electoral infrastructure, and that they too have a responsibility for upholding the public's confidence in our democracy. He emphasized the need for candidates to be vigilant and not allow their campaigns to become unwitting ampflifiers of Russian disinformation efforts. The full testimony is available here.

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Francis Fukuyama: China’s ‘bad emperor’ returns

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"Since 1978, China’s authoritarian political system has been different from virtually all other dictatorships in part because the ruling Communist Party has been subject to rules regarding succession. Term limits for senior leadership have kicked in at regular 10-year intervals three times so far, and the party’s system of cultivating and training new leaders to replace the outgoing ones had allowed it to avoid the stagnation of countries like Egypt, Zimbabwe, Libya or Angola, where presidents ruled for decades. But all of this is out the window now because of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent announcement that term limits on the presidency will be abolished. This means that he will likely be China’s ruler for the rest of his life, turning at one stroke an institutionalized autocracy into a personal one. This builds upon the massive cult of personality he has been cultivating, with “Xi Jinping Thought” now canonized in the Constitution alongside Chairman Mao," writes CDDRL Mosbacher Director Francis Fukuyama in Washington Post. Read the article here. 

 
 
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Nemtsov: Film Screening and Discussion with Filmmaker Vladimir Kara-Murza and Michael McFaul

Nemstov film posterNemtsov is a documentary film about the late leader of the Russian opposition, directed by his friend and colleague Vladimir Kara-Murza. The film chronicles a remarkable political life. It is a story told by those who knew Boris Nemtsov at different times: when he was a young scientist and took his first steps in politics; when he held high government offices and was considered Boris Yeltsin’s heir apparent; when he led Russia’s democratic opposition to Vladimir Putin. The film contains rare archival footage, including from the Nemtsov family. Nemtsov is a portrait. It is not about death. It is about the life of a man who could have been president of Russia.

The film is in Russian, with English subtitles. The screening will be followed by a discussion with Vladimir Kara-Murza.

Vladimir Kara-Murza


Vladimir Kara-Murza is vice chairman of the Open Russia movement and chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom. He was a longtime colleague of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov. Kara-Murza is a former deputy leader of the People’s Freedom Party and was a candidate for the Russian State Duma. He has testified on Russian affairs before parliaments in Europe and North America and played a key role in the passage of the Magnitsky Act, a US law that imposed targeted sanctions on Russian human rights violators. Twice, in 2015 and 2017, he was poisoned with an unknown substance and left in a coma; the attempts on his life were widely viewed as politically motivated. Kara-Murza writes regular commentary for the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, World Affairs, and other periodicals, and has previously worked as a journalist for Russian broadcast and print media, including Ekho Moskvy and Kommersant. He directed two documentary films, They Chose Freedom (on the dissident movement in the USSR) and Nemtsov (on the life of Boris Nemtsov). He is the author of Reform or Revolution (Moscow 2011) and a contributor to Russia’s Choices: The Duma Elections and After (London 2003), Russian Liberalism: Ideas and People (Moscow 2007), Why Europe Needs a Magnitsky Law (London 2013), and Boris Nemtsov and Russian Politics: Power and Resistance (Stuttgart 2018). Kara-Murza is a recipient of the Magnitsky Human Rights Award, the Sakharov Prize for Journalism as an Act of Conscience, and the Geneva Summit Courage Award. He holds an M.A. (Cantab.) in History from Cambridge. He is married, with three children.

This event is cosponsored by the Center for Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies and the European Security Initiative.

Cubberley Auditorium (Education Building)

485 Lasuen Mall

 
Vladimir Kara-Murza Filmmaker
Film Screenings

Voting Patterns in the European Parliament: Is the Structure of Political Conflict Changing?

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In this paper we study the changing multi-dimensional structure of political (ideological) conflict in the European Parliament. We analyze whether a structural change in terms of coalition formation is taking place in the current European Parliament.  Using the roll call votes from the sixth (2004-09), seventh (2009-14), and eighth (2014-19) European Parliaments, we show that, as in the past, two dimensions are needed to explain voting behavior in the European Parliament.  However, we find that the dimensionality of policy space has changed.  Before 2014, the first dimension was left-right and the second dimension was pro/anti-EU; after 2014, the first dimension seems to be related to pro/anti-EU and left-right.  

 

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Abdul Noury is an associate professor in the division of the social sciences at New York University Abu Dhabi. This year he is a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University.

William J. Perry Conference Room
Encina Hall, 2nd floor
616 Serra Street

Abdul Noury Associate Professor of Political Science Speaker New York University Abu Dhabi
Lectures
European Governance
European Governance Seminar Series

Why is Iran Protesting?

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"Protests in Iran have erupted over the past few weeks as citizens from across the country have taken to the streets to voice their opposition against the government. Much of their anger is directed at the status quo, particularly President Hassan Rouhani and the clerical establishment who have shown no sign of following through on initiatives to fight government corruption and improve the economy." Listen to Abbas Milani speak about the issue in World Affairs here.

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Eastern vs. Western Paradigms for Infrastructure Development

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Speaker(s) Bio:

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Francis Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Mosbacher Director of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL).  He is also a professor by courtesy in the Department of Political Science. He was previously at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University, where he was the Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy and director of SAIS' International Development program.

 

 

bushra batainey
Bushra Bataineh is a PhD student in the Civil and Environmental Engineering department at Stanford University. Her research focuses on innovative project delivery mechanisms for water infrastructure worldwide. Her current research, conducted under the Global Projects Center at Stanford, is on private sector participation in water infrastructure projects in developing countries and the emergence of local private sector players. She is also analyzing cases of water sector public private partnerships in the United States in order to draw lessons learned with regards to innovative financial structuring.

 

 

 

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Michael Bennon is a Managing Director at the Stanford Global Projects Center, developing new initiatives for the GPC and managing our student programs and industry affiliations. Michael’s research areas of interest for the center and work experience are in Public Sector finance, infrastructure and real estate investment, and project organization design. Michael served as a Captain in the US Army and US Army Corps of Engineers for five years, leading Engineer units, managing projects, and planning for infrastructure development in the United States, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Thailand. Michael received a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point and received an MSCE and MBA from Stanford University.

Francis Fukuyama

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

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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
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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.
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CDDRL Mosbacher Director and Olivier Nomellini Fellow at FSI
Bushra Bataineh PhD student in the Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford
Michael Bennon Managing Director at the Stanford Global Projects Center
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