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.
The January Taiwan Elections and the Implications for Cross-Strait Relations
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Religion or Politics? Elections and the Adoption of Shari’a Law in Muslim-Majority Democracies—The Case of Indonesia
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Debate surrounding democratization in Muslim-majority countries has centered on the potential for the political process to strengthen or constrain radical Islamist forces. Virtually absent from this discourse is empirical evidence linking the passage of Islamist policies to subsequent electoral outcomes at the local level. Aiming to fill this gap, Dr. Buehler will present and analyze an original dataset of shari’a regulations passed by local governments across Indonesia. He will examine the content and timing of newly-passed shari’a regulations in relation to geopolitical history, the electoral cycle, and electoral outcomes. Such regulations are strongly concentrated in areas with a history of political Islam. They map on to the electoral cycle in ways that suggest that those passing them are motivated less by religious doctrine than by the quest for electoral advantage. However, those passing shari’a regulations do not excel in subsequent elections. In Indonesia, profane political agendas appear to trump Islamist agendas.
Michael Buehler’s specialty at SOAS is Southeast Asian politics with particular reference to state-society relations during democratization and decentralization. His many publications include articles in Comparative Politics, Party Politics, and Indonesia; chapters in Beyond Oligarchy, Deepening Democracy in Indonesia, and Problems of Democratisation in Indonesia; and on-line contributions to Aljazeera, The Diplomat, and New Mandala. His book “The Politics of Shari’a Law: Islamist Activists and the State in Democratizing Indonesia” will be published by Cambridge University Press in August 2016.Image
Michael’s scholarly career has included teaching positions and research fellowships at Columbia University, Northern Illinois University, Northwestern University, and the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies. His doctorate is from The London School of Economics and Political Science.
Michael Buehler
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Michael Buehler
Lecturer in Comparative Politics, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Seminars
The Fate of Authoritarian Elites Under Democracy
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Abstract:
Why do some former authoritarian elites face punishment for their misdeeds after democratic transition whereas others remain untouched or even end up being re-elected to political office, re-appointed in government, or on the boards of state-owned or major private enterprises? Drawing on a new dataset on the upper echelon of outgoing authoritarian elites in countries across Latin America over the last century, this project investigates for the first time why new democracies punish selected former authoritarian elites whereas others elide punishment entirely and even flourish under democracy.
Speaker Bio:
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Michael Albertus is the 2015-16 W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellow and the William C. Bark National Fellow. He is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. His main research focus is on the political conditions under which governments implement egalitarian reforms.
His first book, Autocracy and Redistribution: The Politics of Land Reform, published by Cambridge University Press, examines why and when land reform programs are implemented. His second book project, Flawed by Design: Authoritarian Legacies Under Democracy, explores the role of outgoing authoritarian elite-designed institutions on democratic functioning. Other research interests include political regime transitions and stability, politics under dictatorship, clientelism, and civil conflict. Albertus' work has been published in the British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, Economics & Politics, Comparative Politics, World Development, International Studies Quarterly, and Latin American Research Review.
Michael Albertus
Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago
Seminars