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.

Cultivating the Appearance of Neutrality: Autocratic Propaganda in Africa and Asia

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Abstract: 

How do autocrats manipulate the beliefs of their citizens during political crises? We argue that they cultivate a reputation for neutrality so that, during moments of crisis, their pro-regime arguments have some measure of credibility. To test the argument, we employ a corpus of 24 state-affiliated newspapers from Africa and Asia. Using a differences-in-differences estimation strategy, we find that propaganda in autocracies is generally indistinguishable from state-affiliated newspapers in democracies, save for the 15 days prior to an election, when positive coverage of the autocrat and the ruling party triples. This increase, we show, is driven not by more effusive articles, but an increase in the share of articles about the regime. Consequently, the aggregate volume of pro-regime coverage increases, but per article positive coverage does not. We find no evidence that autocrats employ propaganda to issue threats of repression during election seasons, and that their propaganda apparatuses generally avoid defaming the opposition. State-affiliated newspapers in democracies -- much like their autocratic counterparts outside of election seasons -- exhibit generally neutral coverage.

Speaker Bio:

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Dr. Brett Carter is an Assistant Professor at the School of International Relations at the University of Southern California and co-PI of the Lab on Non-Democratic Politics. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University, where he was a Graduate Fellow at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. He was previously a fellow at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, as well as the Hoover Institution. His research focuses on autocratic politics in the Information Age. He is currently working on three book projects: one on autocratic survival in Post-Cold War Africa, one on autocratic propaganda, and one that exploits the Foreign Agents Registration Act to explore the role of autocratic money in American politics.
 

Brett Carter

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Brett Carter is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Southern California, a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, and a Faculty Affiliate at Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. He received a Ph.D. from Harvard University, where he was a fellow at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies.

Carter studies politics in the world's autocracies. His first book, Propaganda in Autocracies: Institutions, Information, and the Politics of Belief (Cambridge University Press), draws on the largest archive of state propaganda ever assembled — encompassing over eight million newspaper articles in six languages from nearly 60 countries around the world — to show how political institutions shape the propaganda strategies of repressive governments. It received the William Riker Prize for the Best Book in Political Economy, the International Journal of Press/Politics Hazel Gaudet-Erskine Best Book Award, Honorable Mention for the Gregory Luebbert Award for the Best Book in Comparative Politics, and Honorable Mention for the APSA Democracy & Autocracy Section's Best Book Award.

His second book, in progress, shows how politics in Africa’s autocracies changed after the fall of the Berlin Wall and how a new era of geopolitical competition — marked by the rise of China and the resurgence of Russia — is changing them again.

Carter’s other work has appeared in the Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, Perspectives on Politics, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Security Studies, China Quarterly, Journal of Democracy, and Foreign Affairs, among others. His work has been featured by The New York Times, The Economist, The National Interest, and NPR’s Radiolab.

Hoover Fellow
CDDRL Affiliated Scholar
CDDRL Visiting Scholar, 2020-2021
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Assistant Professor at the School of International Relations at the University of Southern California
Seminars

How Change Happens (Event cancelled)

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Abstract:

Duncan Green, Oxfam Strategic Adviser and LSE Professor of Practice in International Development, introduces the arguments of his new book, How Change Happens (OUP, October 2016). How Change Happens explores how political and social change takes place, and the role of individuals and organizations in influencing that change. He discusses the challenges that 'systems thinking' creates for traditional aid practices, and how a 'power and systems approach' requires activists, whether in campaigns, companies or governments, to fundamentally rethink the way they understand the world and try to influence it.

 

Speaker Bio:

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Dr. Duncan Green is Senior Strategic Adviser at Oxfam GB, Professor in Practice in International Development at the London School of Economics, honorary Professor of International Development at Cardiff University and a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Development Studies. He is author of How Change Happens (OUP, October 2016) and From Poverty to Power: How Active Citizens and Effective States can Change the World (Oxfam International, 2008, second edition 2012). His daily development blog can be found on http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/.

He was previously Oxfam’s Head of Research, a Visiting Fellow at Notre Dame University, a Senior Policy Adviser on Trade and Development at the Department for International Development (DFID), a Policy Analyst on trade and globalization at CAFOD, the Catholic aid agency for England and Wales and Head of Research and Engagement at the Just Pensions project on socially responsible investment.

 

Dr. Duncan Green Senior Strategic Adviser at Oxfam GB
Seminars

End of the U.S.-led Postwar Order? Allies' Reactions to Trump Diplomacy

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Expected dramatic shifts of foreign policy by leading democracies, including the U.S. and U.K., would shake a future of liberal international order, which has underpinned the stability even after the end of the Cold War. Since Mr. Donald Trump was elected as the 45th President of the U.S., abovementioned discourse is heard everywhere in Europe and Asia today.

It is not clear, if American leadership and military presence would in fact retreat, how American allies behave and whether they can work together to sustain the order. Among others, Japan has been the exceptionally strong believer of such postwar American leadership. It is doubtful that all American allies and friends share same views, having their own historical context with the U.S. and own ideas on order and principles. Hence, naturally they shall differ in losing the confidence on the durability of American leadership.

A new order will be shaped by many factors, but American allies’ perspectives should not be overlooked. Hegemon’s own reluctance for ruling is surely significant. So is other great power’s revisionism, making use of such strategic opportunities. However, American allies has the potential to shape the fate of the order: if they succeed in acting collectively, it shall underpin the global governance for a while, and ensue the order transformation process in rather slow and peaceful pace. 

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If they fail, it shall not only accelerate the U.S. retrenchment, but invite an emergence of divisive and competitive order. Sahashi shares the findings from the international study project which he leads, and argues the difficulty for US allies to unite themselves and the potential order transformation in the long term.

Ryo Sahashi is Associate Professor of International Politics and Director, Faculty of Law, Kanagawa University, Yokohama, and is leading the newly-launched international joint study “Worldviews on the United States.” From 2014-2015, he served as Visiting Associate Professor, Shorenstein APARC, Stanford University.

 

Ryo Sahashi Associate Professor, Kanagawa University
Seminars
Japan Colloquium Series

FBI confirms investigation of Trump campaign, Russia links

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In the interview for CBCNews, Kathryn Stoner, FSI/CDDRL Senior Fellow and the Director of the Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies at Stanford University, claims Russians left trails and didn't fight much to deny their interference in the U.S. 2016 elections because they wanted everyone to know that it was them, to emerge as a great power. Watch the video here.

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Empowering progress: Reformism and State-Building in the Philippines

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Co-sponsored by the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law and the Southeast Asia Program
 
The Philippines is typically characterized as a weak, even patrimonial, state in which powerful oligarchs and political families dominate politics and policymaking.  By implication, the elite should be able to easily suppress reform and the state should be unwilling or incapable of carrying out reforms.   Yet some efforts to achieve socioeconomic and governance reform have succeeded.  How and why is this the case?  And what does this suggest about the changing nature of the Philippine state?

This presentation will examine the dynamics and outcomes of three extended efforts at social, economic and governance reform in the Philippines:  1) agrarian reform; 2) liberalization of the telecommunications sector and 3) fiscal and budget reforms.

Theory and practice will be bridged in an examination of interlinked factors including the autonomy and capacity of the state, the limits on reform imposed by elite-dominated democracy, and the conditions and strategies that have enabled some reforms to succeed.
Particular questions to be addressed will include:
·       What are the political and institutional barriers to reform in the Philippines?  How have these changed over time?
·       How have these barriers been overcome in the cases of “successful” reform?  What does “successful” mean?  
·       How have attempts at reform strengthened or weakened the state?
·       Looking forward, will the typically partial or incremental character of reform result in transformational change, or deflect it?

David Timberman is a political analyst and development practitioner with 30 years of experience analyzing and addressing political, governance and conflict-related challenges, principally in Southeast and South Asia.  As a Visiting Scholar at Stanford/APARC he is working on a book on the contemporary Philippine political economy.  During 2015-2016 he was a Visiting Professor of Political Science at De La Salle University in Manila. He has lived and worked in the Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore, including experiencing first-hand the democratic transitions in the Philippines (1986-1988) and Indonesia (1998-2001). He has written extensively on political and governance issues in the Philippines and has edited or co-edited multi-author volumes on the Philippines, Cambodia, and economic policy reform in Southeast Asia.

David G. Timberman 2016-2017 Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Fellow on Contemporary Southeast Asia
Seminars

Unconventional Monetary Policy in Japan: Comparison with Europe and Implications on Asia

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Dr. Sayuri SHIRAI is currently a professor of Keio University and is also a visiting scholar at the Asian Development Bank Institute. She was a Member of the Policy Board of the Bank of Japan (BOJ) from April 2011 to March 2016, who is responsible for making policy decisions. She also taught at Sciences Po in Paris in 2007–2008 and was an economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from 1993 to 1998.

She is the author of numerous books on a variety of subjects including the People’s Republic of China’s exchange rate system, Japan’s macroeconomic policy, IMF policy, and the European debt crisis. Her most recent book (translated title: Unwinding Super-Easy Monetary Policy), published in August 2016, is about the monetary policies of the BOJ, the European Central Bank, and the Federal Reserve System. She regularly appears on CNBC, Bloomberg, Reuters, BBC, and features in many Japanese TV programs and newspapers, commenting on the Japanese economy and monetary policy. URL: http://www.sayurishirai.jp

Her most recent book in English is Mission Incomplete: Reflating Japan’s Economy published by the Asian Development Bank Institute in February 2017. It is a complete analysis of BOJ’s unconventional monetary easing from the late 1990s to the present. Free Download is available at https://www.adb.org/publications/mission-incomplete-reflating-japan-economy.

Sayuri Shirai Professor at Keio University and Visiting Scholar at Asian Development Bank Institute
Seminars
Japan Colloquium Series

Can Cash Boost Governance in Poor Countries?

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Abstract:

One policy option for countries reliant on natural resources is to share part of the revenues directly with citizens, an idea known as oil to cash. Technological innovation, such as biometric identification and mobile money, now allow direct payments to people on a massive scale. Additional changes in the global marketplace, experiments in India and Kenya, and shifting political views of cash transfers have all affected the potential of cash to boost governance.

 

Speaker Bio:

todd moss
Todd Moss is senior fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington DC and nonresident scholar at the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University’s Baker Institute. A former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Moss is the author of Oil to Cash: Fighting the Resource Curse with Cash Transfers and The Golden Hour, a diplomatic thriller set in West Africa.

Todd Moss Senior fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington DC
Seminars

A Holy War Made in America: The US and the 1914 Germano-Ottoman Call for Global Jihad

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ABSTRACT

In this talk, Karine Walther discusses her new book Sacred Interests: The United States and the Islamic World, 1821-1921. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as Americans increasingly came into contact with the Islamic world, U.S. diplomatic, cultural, political, and religious beliefs about Islam began to shape their responses to world events. In Sacred Interests, Karine V. Walther excavates the deep history of American Islamophobia, showing how negative perceptions of Islam and Muslims shaped U.S. foreign relations from the Early Republic to the end of World War I.

 

SPEAKER BIO

Karine Walther is an Associate Professor of History at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Qatar. She holds a PhD in history from Columbia University, a Maîtrise and Licence in Sociology from the University of Paris VIII and a BA in American Studies from the University of Texas, Austin. Her book, Sacred Interests: The United States and the Islamic World, 1821-1921 was published by the University of North Carolina Press in August of 2015.  Her forthcoming book, tentatively titled Spreading the Faith: American Missionaries, ARAMCO and the Birth of the US-Saudi Special Relationship, 1889-1955 will be published by UNC Press in 2018. 

Karine Walther Associate Professor of History Georgetown University, School of Foreign Service, Qatar
Seminars
Arab Reform and Democracy Speaker Series

Preventing ISIS 3.0: Winning the Peace in Iraq

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ABSTRACT

The Iraqi government, the Peshmerga, the international coalition and a consortium of militia have been winning the war against ISIS in Iraq.  The concern moving forward is whether Iraq’s state institutions have what it takes to prevent ISIS from reemerging in a new, and more deadly form after the current conflict is over. What does recent history, the current military campaign, and the Donald Trump administration’s current trajectory tell us about Iraq’s prospects?

 

SPEAKER BIO

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Zaid Al-Ali is the Senior Adviser on Constitution-Building for the Arab Region at International IDEA and an independent scholar.  In his work, Al-Ali focuses on constitutional developments throughout the Arab region, with a particular focus on Iraq and the wave of reforms that took place in Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan and Yemen following the start of popular uprisings in December 2010.  Al-Ali has published extensively on constitutional reform in the Arab region, including on process design issues and the impact of external influence.  He is the author of The Struggle for Iraq’s Future: How Corruption, Incompetence and Sectarianism Have Undermined Democracy (Yale University Press 2014).  Prior to joining International IDEA, Zaid worked as a legal adviser to the United Nations in Iraq, focusing on constitutional, parliamentary and judicial reform.  He also practiced international commercial arbitration law for 12 years, representing clients in investment and oil and gas disputes mainly as an attorney with Shearman & Sterling LLC in Paris and also as a sole practitioner.  He holds an LL.M. from Harvard Law School, a Maitrise en Droit from the University of Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne) and an LL.B. from King’s College London.  He was a Law and Public Affairs Fellow and Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University in 2015-2016.  He is the founder of the Arab Association of Constitutional Law and is a member of its executive committee.

Reuben Hills Conference Room
2nd Floor East Wing E207
Encina Hall
616 Serra Street
Stanford, California 94305

Zaid Al-Ali Senior Adviser International IDEA
Seminars
Arab Reform and Democracy Speaker Series

Patrick Chamorel: "The French Elections and the Rising Political Divide"

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Due to the overwhelming interest in this event, we are now booked to full capacity and unable to take further reservations.

Please contact khaley@stanford.edu if you would like to be placed on the wait list.

 

This is a watershed French presidential election marked by the collapse of the main political leaders and established political parties as well as the amplification of corruption scandals by social networks.  The French electorate is torn between disengagement from politics, anger and confusion.  In the first ballot on April 23rd, voters are likely to reject the traditional Right/Left divide and stage the run-off campaign as a stark choice between far-Right populist leader Marine Le Pen and 39 year old pro-European centrist Emmanuel Macron.  These candidates and their ideas are the most emblematic incarnation of the clash that increasingly defines Western politics, pitting anti-immigrant and anti-trade nationalists against the more cosmopolitan elites.  Will France vote more like the Dutch or the British and Americans?  With what consequences for herself, Europe and the transatlantic relationship?

Image of Patrick Chamorel, Senior Resident Scholar at the Stanford University Center in Washington DC.

Patrick Chamorel is Senior Resident Scholar at the Stanford University Center in Washington DC. He teaches Political Science, with an emphasis on comparative American and European politics, public policy and political economy, as well as transatlantic relations. He has taught Transatlantic Relations on Stanford’s California campus as well as French Politics at the Stanford in Paris campus. Over the last few years, he has been teaching a semester course and an intensive seminar at the Reims Euro-American campus of Sciences-Po Paris. In addition to Stanford, he has taught at the University of California (Berkeley and Santa Cruz), George Washington University, and Claremont McKenna College where he was the Crown Visiting professor of Government. He was a Fellow of the Institute for Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley, the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC and the Hoover Institution at Stanford, as well as a Congressional Fellow of the American Political Science Association (Offices of Harry Reid in the U.S. Senate and Norman Mineta in the House of Representatives).

Patrick Chamorel has written and lectured extensively on US and European politics. His research has focused recently on US strategic, political and economic relations with Europe and the EU, American and European political and business elites, the impact of globalization on governments, business and civil society, Euro-skepticism in America, and US and French presidential elections. He regularly contributes to the media, including the Wall Street Journal, Die Welt, Les Echos, Atlantico.fr, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and CNN International.

In the 1990s, Patrick Chamorel was a Senior Advisor to the Minister of Industry and in the Policy Planning Office of the Prime Minister in Paris. He is a graduate of Sciences-Po in Paris where he also earned his Ph.D. in Political Science after doing research at UC Berkeley and Stanford University. In addition, he holds a Master in Public Law from the University of Paris.

Patrick Chamorel Senior Resident Scholar and Professor of Political Science Speaker Stanford University Center in Washington, DC
Seminars
European Governance
European Governance Seminar Series
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