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.

How New is the “New” National Front?

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*Please note room changed to CISAC central*

 

Abstract:

mlp prise aux mots couverture seuil
Will Marine Le Pen be the next French President in 2017?

Since she took over the National Front in 2011, Marine Le Pen has carried the far right party to first place, winning an unprecedented 30% of the votes in France’s latest December 2015 elections. What does she say that resonates with French voters so strongly? And how did she manage to turn the once infamous “FN” into an almost mainstream party that claims to be the last champion of French republican values?

Using text mining software and textual analyses, Cécile Alduy has ciphered more than 500 speeches and texts by Jean-Marie and Marine Le Pen to pinpoint exactly how, and on what topics, the daughter’s discourse differs from that of her father.

In this talk, literary studies meet digital humanities and political science to crack the new National Front rhetorical code and uncover the deeper ideological and mythological structures beyond the stylistic polishing.

 

Speaker Bio:

cecile alduy
Cécile Alduy is Associate Professor of French literature and culture at Stanford University. She is the author of Marine Le Pen prise aux mots. Décryptage du nouveau discours frontiste (Seuil, 2015) and Politique des “Amours” (Droz, 2007) and co-editor of the special issue “The Charlie Hebdo Attacks and their Aftermath” for Occasion, a Stanford University online peer-reviewed publication. A specialist of the National Front and French political discourse, she is a contributor to Politico, The Nation, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Al Jazeera America, The Boston Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Rue89 and Le Monde.

Cécile Alduy Associate Professor, Stanford University
Seminars

Election Ethics: Fair Play & Due Process

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Abstract:

Electoral competition, like athletic competition, requires its own norms of fair play. While the rules of the game, and the institutional umpire to enforce those rules, are important components for achieving the goal that the competition be fair, they do not suffice. The participants themselves must have their own standards of fair play apart from the rules and the referee. This need is particularly acute with respect to negative campaign ads, since the First Amendment bars the government from umpiring the fairness of those ads. But the same problem applies to other aspects of electoral competition, including compliance with campaign finance rules. What are these norms of fair electoral competition? Are they only intuitive, or can they be systematized? More specifically, insofar as incumbent candidates are officeholders, does due process constrain the use of their power to attain an unfair advantage in their race for reelection?

 

Speaker Bio:

foley
Edward Foley directs Election Law @ Moritz at Ohio State’s law school, where he also holds the Ebersold Chair in Constitutional Law. His book Ballot Ballots: The History of Disputed Elections in the United States, published by Oxford University Press, was available as of December 2015. Ned also serves as the reporter for the American Law Institute’s Election Law Project, which is developing nonpartisan rules for the resolution of disputed elections. (The American Law Institute is the well-respected professional society responsible for the Restatements of Law and the Model Penal Code, among many other projects.) While Ned has special expertise on the topics of recounts, he is conversant in all topics of election law, including redistricting and campaign finance, and recently co-authored a casebook Election Law and Litigation: The Judicial Regulation of Politics (Aspen 2014), which covers all aspects of election law. He and his casebook co-authors also have a contract with Oxford University Press to write a treatise on election law—remarkably the first of its kind in the United States in over a century. He is also a co-author of From Registration to Recounts: The Ecosystems of Five Midwestern States (2007).

Edward B. Foley The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law
Seminars

Next steps in Indonesia-US relations

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Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo was recently in Washington, D.C., for his first-ever presidential visit to the United States. In an op-ed for the East Asia Forum, Stanford scholar Donald Emmerson examines what the two countries can do to continue to build cooperation gained on the trip.

The op-ed can be viewed by clicking here, and an archive of Emmerson’s editorials on the East Asia Forum can be found by clicking here.

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U.S. President Barack Obama and Indonesia's President Joko Widodo shake hands after their meeting at the White House, Oct. 26, 2015.
Reuters/Jonathan Ernst
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The Case for Compulsory Voting

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Abstract:

Compulsory voting reinforces the distinctive and valuable role that elections play in contemporary democracy. Some scholars have suggested that mandatory voting laws can improve government responsiveness to members of poor and marginalized groups who are less likely to vote. Critics of compulsory voting object that citizens can participate in a wide variety of ways; voting is not important enough to justify forcing people to do it. These critics neglect the importance of voting’s particular role in contemporary democratic practice, though. The case for compulsory voting rests on an implicit, but widely shared, understanding of elections as special moments of mass participation that manifest the equal political authority of all citizens. The most prominent objections to mandatory voting fail to appreciate this distinctive role for voting and the way it is embedded within a broader democratic framework.

 

Speaker Bio:

echapman

Emilee is an assistant professor of Political Science at Stanford. Her current research project examines the distinctive value of voting in contemporary democratic practice, and its significance for electoral reform and the ethics of participation.

 

 

 


Emilee Chapman Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford
Seminars

How Nations Succeed: Reducing Extreme Violence

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Abstract:

From El Salvador to Pakistan, high levels of internal violence characterize a growing number of poorly consolidated electoral democracies. Gangs, violent criminals, insurgents, and low-intensity conflict seem to entrench in many of these countries for decades. But some countries have managed to reduce extreme levels of violence. How did they succeed? And why were other, similarly situated countries unable to achieve similar success? Based on current and historical case studies, this upcoming book identifies continuities that suggest why these countries are so violent, and commonalities in the paths countries have taken to reduce violence. The findings are policy-focused and unexpected, even undesired. But they offer ideas to policy-makers based on the reality of what has worked, rather than the hopes of what might be achieved.

 

Speaker Bio:

kleinfeld rachel
Dr. Rachel Kleinfeld is a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where she focuses on the rule of law, security, and governance. She previously served for nearly ten years as the founding CEO of the Truman National Security Project, a movement to promote U.S. security policies that advance stability, security, and human dignity worldwide, for which Time Magazine named her one of the top 40 under 40 political leaders in the United States. From 2011-2014 she was chosen by Hillary Clinton to serve on the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board, which advises the Secretary of State quarterly. Rachel has consulted on governance, security, and the rule of law for the U.S. and other governments, and international, nonprofit, and private organizations. She appears regularly in national and international media, and is the author of multiple books and articles, including Advancing the Rule of Law Abroad: Next Generation Reform, which was named one of the best foreign policy books of 2012 by Foreign Affairs magazine. She received her M. Phil and D. Phil from St. Antony’s College, Oxford, which she attended as a Rhodes Scholar, and her B.A. from Yale University. Rachel was born in a log cabin on a dirt road in her beloved Fairbanks, Alaska.

Rachel Kleinfeld Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Seminars

Whither the Russian Economy? A Lecture by Sergei Guriev

This event is now full.  We are no longer able to accept further RSVPs. 

 

The Russian Economy is in a recession due to a perfect storm of the low oil prices, sanctions and the lack of reforms. First time since 1998, Russians see a major fall in their real incomes. How long will the recession continue?  What can the Russian government do? What will happen after the recession is over?
 

Sergei Guriev is a professor of economics at Sciences Po in Paris, France. From 2004 to 2013, Dr. Guriev was a tenured professor of economics and rector of the New Economic School in Moscow. He will begin an appointment as Chief Economist of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in 2016.

Dr. Guriev’s research interests include contract theory, corporate governance, political economics and labor mobility. Dr. Guriev has published in international refereed journals including American Economic Review, Journal of European Economic Association, Journal of Economic Perspectives and American Political Science Review.  In 2006, he was selected a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. In 2011, he was a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Europe, in 2012-14 – a co-chair of the Global Agenda Council on the New Economic Thinking, and in 2014-15 – a member of the Global Agenda Council on the Geoeconomics. In 2000 and 2005, he was awarded Gold Medal for the Best Research in Development Economics by the Global Development Network. In 2001, he was announced the Best Academic Manager in Humanities by Russia’s Science Support Foundation. In 2009-11, he was included in the top 100 of the President of Russia’s Cadre Reserve. In 2009, he was also awarded the Bill Maynes Award by the Eurasia Foundation. In 2009 and 2010 he received the Independent Director of the Year prize from Russia’s National Association of Independent Directors. In 2010, he received a Certificate in Company Directorship from the Institute of Directors (UK) and was voted the Best Independent Director by the Association of Managers of Russia and the Russian Institute of Directors.
 
He has been a board member of Sberbank (2008-14), E.ON Russia (2013-14), Alfa-Strakhovanie Insurance Company (2009-13), Russia Venture Company (2009-13), Russian Home Mortgage Lending Agency (2008-12) and Russian Agricultural Bank (2008-09), a member of the President of Russia’s Council on Science, Technology and Education (2008-12), and a member of the board of the Dynasty Foundation (2007-2015).  He is a member of the Scientific Council of the BRUEGEL think tank (Brussels), of the Advisory Council of the Peterson Institute on International Economics (Washington, DC), and of the Academic Advisory Board, Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University. He is also a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research, London.
Sergei Guriev Professor of Economics Speaker Sciences Po, Paris
Lectures
European Security Initiative
European Security Initiative Lecture Series

The Politics of Higher Education in India

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Abstract:

India has the third largest system of higher education in the world, with many expecting this system to drive India's economic development going forward. And yet there is profound variation across this system, as some public universities perform admirably even as others suffer from endemic problems that we associate with weak states: absenteeism, bribery, and the like. What explains why some public universities seem to function so well even as others struggle? I argue that the presence or absence of meritocratic practices explains this variation, and in this talk, we shall examine the conditions under which meritocracy comes about. This research brings together five years of archival work, more than one-hundred interviews, as well as data from a large survey I conducted.

 

Speaker Bio:

dinsha mistree

 

Dinsha Mistree is a Postdoctoral Fellow at CDDRL, where he studies governance in developing countries. He is currently working on a book project examining India's higher education sector. Dinsha's previous work has appeared or is forthcoming at Comparative Politics, Springer Press, and Cambridge University Press. Dinsha holds a PhD in Politics from Princeton as well as Bachelor's and Master's Degrees from MIT.

 

 

 

Dinsha Mistree Postdoctoral Fellow at CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow at CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow at CDDRL
Seminars
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