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.

Propaganda in Autocracies: Institutions, Information, and the Politics of Belief

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Erin and Brett Carter seminar

A dictator's power is secure, the authors begin in this muscular, impressive study, only as long as citizens believe in it. When citizens suddenly believe otherwise, a dictator's power is anything but, as the Soviet Union's collapse revealed. This conviction – that power rests ultimately on citizens' beliefs – compels the world's autocrats to invest in sophisticated propaganda. This study draws on the first global data set of autocratic propaganda, encompassing nearly eight million newspaper articles from fifty-nine countries in six languages. The authors document dramatic variation in propaganda across autocracies: in coverage of the regime and its opponents, in narratives about domestic and international life, in the threats of violence issued to citizens, and in the domestic events that shape it. The book explains why Russian President Vladimir uses Donald Trump as a propaganda tool and why Chinese state propaganda is more effusive than any point since the Cultural Revolution.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS


Erin Baggott Carter (赵雅芬) is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Southern California and a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. She is also a non-resident scholar at the UCSD 21st Century China Center. She has previously held fellowships at Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and the Center for International Security and Cooperation. She received a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University.

Dr. Carter's research focuses on Chinese politics and propaganda. Her first book, Propaganda in Autocracies, explores how political institutions determine propaganda strategies with an original dataset of eight million articles in six languages drawn from state-run newspapers in nearly 70 countries. She is currently working on a book on how domestic politics influence US-China relations. Her other work has appeared in the British Journal of Political Science, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Security Studies, and International Interactions. Her work has been featured by a number of media platforms, including the New York Times and the Little Red Podcast.

Brett Carter is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Southern California and a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Brett received a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University and has previously held fellowships at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies and Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.

Brett's research focuses on politics in the world's autocracies. His first book, Propaganda in Autocracies, marshals a range of empirical evidence to probe the politics of autocratic propaganda. His second book project, Autocracy in Post-Cold War Africa, explores how Central Africa's autocrats are learning to survive despite the nominally democratic institutions they confront and the international pressure that occasionally makes outright repression costly. His other work has appeared in the Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Security Studies, and Journal of Democracy, among others.

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to Encina E008 in Encina Hall may attend in person.

Hesham Sallam
Hesham Sallam

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to Encina E008 in Encina Hall may attend in person.

Erin Baggott Carter

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Erin Baggott Carter (赵雅芬) is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Southern California and a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. She is also a non-resident scholar at the UCSD 21st Century China Center. She has previously held fellowships at Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and the Center for International Security and Cooperation. She received a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University.

Dr. Carter's research focuses on Chinese politics and propaganda. Her first book, Propaganda in Autocracies (Cambridge University Press), explores how political institutions determine propaganda strategies with an original dataset of eight million articles in six languages drawn from state-run newspapers in nearly 70 countries. She is currently working on a book on how domestic politics influence US-China relations. Her other work has appeared in the British Journal of Political Science, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Security Studies, and International Interactions. Her work has been featured by a number of media platforms, including the New York Times and the Little Red Podcast.

Her research has been supported by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Center for International Studies at the University of Southern California, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University, and the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University.

Dr. Carter regularly tweets about Chinese politics and propaganda at @baggottcarter. She can be reached via email at baggott [at] usc.edu or ebaggott [at] stanford.edu.

Hoover Fellow
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CDDRL Visiting Scholar, 2020-2021
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Erin Baggott Carter

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.

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Norman Joshua

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Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow on Contemporary Asia, 2023-2024
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Norman Joshua was a Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow on Contemporary Asia for the 2023-24 academic year. He obtained his Ph.D. in History fom Northwestern University. His research interests revolve around the histories of authoritarianism, civil-military relations, and economic history in Southeast Asia and East Asia. He is particularly interested in the relationship between historical experiences and the emergence or consolidation of authoritarian governance.

Norman’s dissertation and book project, “Fashioning Authoritarianism: Militarization in Indonesia, 1930-1965,” asks why and how the Indonesian military intervened in non-military affairs before the rise of the New Order regime (1965-1998). Using newly obtained legal and military sources based in Indonesia and the Netherlands, the project argues that the military gradually intervened in the state and society through the deployment of particular policies that were shaped by emergency powers and counterinsurgency theory, which in turn ultimately justified their continuous participation in non-military affairs.

His research highlights the role of social insecurity, legal discourses, and military ideology in studying authoritarianism, while also emphasizing the significance of understanding how durable military regimes legitimize their rule through non-coercive means.

Norman’s other works study revolutionary politics, counterinsurgency, military professionalism, intelligence history, and the political economy of petroleum in Indonesia. His first monograph, Pesindo, Pemuda Sosialis Indonesia 1945-1950 (2015, in Indonesian) examines the politics of youth groups in early revolutionary Indonesia (1945-1949).

At APARC, Norman developed his dissertation into a book manuscript that transcends the boundaries of his initial study. By broadening the scope of his research, he aims to trace the historical and social contexts upon which military authoritarian regimes legitimize their rule through non-coercive mechanisms, thereby enriching our understanding of the long-term effects of colonialism, war, and revolution on societal norms, values, power structures, and institutions

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Daniel Treisman | REDS Seminar: How Great is the Current Danger to Democracy? Assessing the Risk with Historical Data

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Daniel Treisman

 

Just how bad is the current danger of democratic backsliding in the US and around the world?

Influential voices contend that democracy is in decline worldwide and threatened in the US. Using a variety of measures, I show that the global proportion of democracies is, in fact, at or near an all-time high. The current rate of backsliding is not historically unusual and is well-explained by the income levels of existing democracies. Historical data yield extremely low estimated hazards of democratic breakdown in the US—considerably lower than in any democracy that has failed. Western governments are seen as threatened by a supposed decline in popular support for democracy and an erosion of elite norms. But the evidence for these claims is sparse. While deteriorating democratic quality in some countries is indeed a cause for concern, available evidence suggests that alarm about a global slide into autocracy is exaggerated.

Daniel Treisman is a Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles and Interim Director of UCLA’s Center for European and Russian Studies. A graduate of Oxford and Harvard, he has published six books and many articles in leading political science and economics journals, as well as numerous commentaries in public affairs journals and the press. His research focuses on Russian politics and economics as well as comparative political economy, including the analysis of democratization, the politics of authoritarian states, political decentralization, and corruption. 

A former co-editor of The American Political Science Review, he is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and has consulted for the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and USAID. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution (Stanford), the Institute for Human Sciences (Vienna), and the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (Stanford), and he is currently an Andrew Carnegie Fellow. In 2023, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His latest book, co-authored with Sergei Guriev, "Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century" (Princeton University Press, 2022), has been translated into 13 languages and won the Prix Guido et Maruccia Zerilli-Marimo of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques in Paris.

*If you need any disability-related accommodation, please contact Shannon Johnson at sj1874@stanford.edu. Requests should be made by November 23, 2023.

REDS: RETHINKING EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENT AND SECURITY


The REDS Seminar Series aims to deepen the research agenda on the new challenges facing Europe, especially on its eastern flank, and to build intellectual and institutional bridges across Stanford University, fostering interdisciplinary approaches to current global challenges.

REDS is organized by The Europe Center and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and co-sponsored by the Hoover Institution and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.

 

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Anna Grzymała-Busse

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

Daniel Treisman, University of California, Los Angeles
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Hilary Appel | REDS Seminar: Populism and the Durability of the Liberal Order in Europe: EU and NATO Enlargement Reconsidered

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Hilary Appel REDS

 

Given the rise of Euroscepticism, illiberalism, and economic nationalism expressed by populist leaders in Eastern Europe over the past decade, did the EU and NATO enlargement support or detract from establishing and sustaining a commitment to liberalism? How will Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shape the trajectory of liberalism in the region?

EU and NATO accession gave momentum to Eastern Europe’s democratic and capitalist development, despite the many domestic political challenges associated with this dual transition. Given the subsequent rise of Euroscepticism, illiberalism, and economic nationalism expressed by populist leaders over the past decade, and given violations of democratic norms, did the specific process of enlargement support or detract from establishing and sustaining a commitment to liberalism and so-called European values? Moreover, how does the Ukraine war fit into a trajectory of liberal development in Eastern Europe? These are the questions addressed in this presentation.

Hilary Appel is Podlich Family Professor of Government and George R. Roberts Fellow at Claremont McKenna College. Professor Appel has published numerous books and articles on the politics of economic reform in Russia and Eastern Europe in leading scholarly journals like World Politics, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Review of International Political Economy, Post-Soviet Affairs, East European Politics and Societies, and others.

Her co-authored book with Mitchell A. Orenstein, From Triumph to Crisis: Neoliberal Economic Reform in Post-Communist Countries (Cambridge University Press, 2018), won the Silver Medal Laura Shannon Prize for Best Book in European Studies 2018-2019. Prof. Appel has received national fellowships from the Social Science Research Council, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Fulbright Foundation, the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Harriman Institute at Columbia University, and the Institute for the Study of World Politics.

*If you need any disability-related accommodation, please contact Shannon Johnson at sj1874@stanford.edu. Requests should be made by October 5, 2023.

REDS: RETHINKING EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENT AND SECURITY


The REDS Seminar Series aims to deepen the research agenda on the new challenges facing Europe, especially on its eastern flank, and to build intellectual and institutional bridges across Stanford University, fostering interdisciplinary approaches to current global challenges.

REDS is organized by The Europe Center and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and co-sponsored by the Hoover Institution and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.

 

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Anna Grzymała-Busse

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

Hilary Appel, Claremont McKenna College
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In Defense of the deep state

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The term “deep state” originally referred to the hidden security bureaucracies in countries like Turkey and Egypt with sinister overtones. The term has been applied by American conservatives to the existing permanent US bureaucracy, which they argue is exerting tyrannical control over citizens and needs to be destroyed root and branch. The fact is that the US administrative state is highly transparent and plays a critical role in delivering services and outcomes that citizens demand. Modern government cannot function without a high degree of delegation to bureaucratic agents; as such the US “deep state” needs to be defended and not vilified. There are several critical mechanisms for democratic principals to exert control over bureaucratic agents. While there are instances of bureaucratic over-reach, the US system provides a number of checks on agency power that are under-utilised. A separate problem lies in under-delegation, where political principals write detailed rules constraining bureaucratic autonomy in ways that hinder effective and timely government action. Future efforts by conservatives to undermine the “deep state” will result in grave weakening of American government and return the country to the 19th century patronage system.

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Francis Fukuyama

Is the World Still in a Democratic Recession?

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Larry Diamond Seminar

In its 2023 "Freedom in the World" report, Freedom House detected signs of a possible "turning point" away from the steady trend of receding freedom over the past decade and a half. For the first time since 2006, about as many countries gained in freedom as declined, and the egregious mistakes of authoritarian regimes in Russia, China, Venezuela, and Iran exposed "the limits of [these] authoritarian models." Illiberal populists suffered electoral defeats in several European Countries, including the Czech Republic earlier this year, showing that this model can be beaten at the polls. Yet press freedom and civil liberties continue to recede in India, Erdogan has been "reelected" in Turkey, and democracy is under significant pressure from populist and other authoritarian forces in Latin America and Africa. How should we interpret these diverse trends? Is the world still in a "democratic recession"?

ABOUT THE SPEAKER


Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford. He leads the Hoover Institution’s programs on China’s Global Sharp Power and on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region. At FSI, he leads the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy, based at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, which he directed for more than six years. He also co-leads with (Eileen Donahoe) the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He is the founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy and also serves as senior consultant at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy. His research focuses on democratic trends and conditions around the world and on policies and reforms to defend and advance democracy. His latest edited book (with Orville Schell), China's Influence and American Interests (Hoover Press, 2019), urges a posture of constructive vigilance toward China’s global projection of “sharp power,” which it sees as a rising threat to democratic norms and institutions. He offers a massive open online course (MOOC) on Comparative Democratic Development through the edX platform and is now writing a textbook to accompany it.

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to Philippines Conference Room C330 in Encina Hall - Third Floor may attend in person.

Hesham Sallam
Hesham Sallam

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to Philippines Conference Room C330 in Encina Hall - Third Floor may attend in person.

Larry Diamond

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Encina Hall, C147
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 724-6448 (650) 723-1928
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Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science and Sociology
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Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford, where he lectures and teaches courses on democracy (including an online course on EdX). At the Hoover Institution, he co-leads the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and participates in the Project on the U.S., China, and the World. At FSI, he is among the core faculty of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, which he directed for six and a half years. He leads FSI’s Israel Studies Program and is a member of the Program on Arab Reform and Development. He also co-leads the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He served for 32 years as founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy.

Diamond’s research focuses on global trends affecting freedom and democracy and on U.S. and international policies to defend and advance democracy. His book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency, analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the United States and around the world at this potential “hinge in history,” and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad.  A paperback edition with a new preface was released by Penguin in April 2020. His other books include: In Search of Democracy (2016), The Spirit of Democracy (2008), Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (1999), Promoting Democracy in the 1990s (1995), and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria (1989). He has edited or coedited more than fifty books, including China’s Influence and American Interests (2019, with Orville Schell), Silicon Triangle: The United States, China, Taiwan the Global Semiconductor Security (2023, with James O. Ellis Jr. and Orville Schell), and The Troubling State of India’s Democracy (2024, with Sumit Ganguly and Dinsha Mistree).

During 2002–03, Diamond served as a consultant to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and was a contributing author of its report, Foreign Aid in the National Interest. He has advised and lectured to universities and think tanks around the world, and to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other organizations dealing with governance and development. During the first three months of 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. His 2005 book, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, was one of the first books to critically analyze America's postwar engagement in Iraq.

Among Diamond’s other edited books are Democracy in Decline?; Democratization and Authoritarianism in the Arab World; Will China Democratize?; and Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy, all edited with Marc F. Plattner; and Politics and Culture in Contemporary Iran, with Abbas Milani. With Juan J. Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset, he edited the series, Democracy in Developing Countries, which helped to shape a new generation of comparative study of democratic development.

Download full-resolution headshot; photo credit: Rod Searcey.

Former Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Faculty Chair, Jan Koum Israel Studies Program
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Final Module of CDDRL’s “Solving Public Policy Problems” Online Course Out Now

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The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is pleased to announce the release of the fifth and final module of mini-lectures in our Solving Public Policy Problems massive open online course (MOOC).

Case studies like this are instrumental to the curriculum for both CDDRL’s Leadership Academy for Development (LAD) and the Masters’ in International Policy (MIP). They address a wide range of issues in developing countries and are designed to encourage you to think critically about key decisions that have led to policy reforms. This video refers to the implementation segment of the problem-solving framework (Module 1.3).

Facilitating Trade through Effective Border Control: Costa Rica's Challenging Reform Agenda


Peñas Blancas, the border post where all overland commerce passed between Costa Rica and Central American countries to the north, was infamously slow and exceedingly congested. Trucks sometimes waited five days or more to pass through the customs post. The inefficiencies also had a real economic cost, as the border crossing was a major contributor to Costa Rica’s national budget through customs-related taxes and duties. Fixing Peñas Blancas had become a major national priority, and the Deputy Minister of Commerce was put in charge of recommending solutions to the congestion problem and improving the collection of taxes and fees. The task was especially complex because of the power of entrenched opponents of reform and the need to reconcile the competing interests of numerous stakeholders. Any solution would have to take into consideration the ways in which government officials, as well as private-sector actors — from exporters to customs brokers to banks — interacted and conducted business at the border crossing.

In this final lecture, Francis Fukuyama introduces the Costa Rica Border Case, focusing on the problem of ineffective border control and its impact on trade facilitation. He elaborates on the shortcomings of Costa Rica’s border crossing controls and outlines how an effective stakeholder analysis could have helped the reform leader, President Laura Chinchilla, build a coalition for policy reform. The lecture delves into who the supporters and opponents are, their respective vested interests, and what they seek to gain from the reforms. Furthermore, it analyzes the strategies to expand the reform leader’s coalition and evaluates the feasibility of implementing their proposed solutions. Through this case study, students will learn how reform leaders can apply stakeholder analysis to formulate an implementation strategy.

You can read the case study here, access the full series on our YouTube page, and watch Module 5 below:

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Module 3 of CDDRL’s “Solving Public Policy Problems” Online Course Out Now

This single-video module examines the case of Gifford Pinchot and Sustainable Forest Management. Through this case study, students will gain a better understanding of how good communication is important for persuading stakeholders that a reform objective is both achievable and beneficial.
Module 3 of CDDRL’s “Solving Public Policy Problems” Online Course Out Now
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Reimagining Public Policy Education at Stanford and Beyond

The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is proud to announce the launch of a new free massive open online course aimed at providing participants with a foundational knowledge of the best means for enacting effective policy change in their home countries.
Reimagining Public Policy Education at Stanford and Beyond
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Francis Fukuyama teaches Module 5 of CDDRL's "Solving Public Policy Problems" MOOC
Francis Fukuyama teaches the final lecture in CDDRL's "Solving Public Policy Problems" online course.
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This module examines the issue of ineffective border control in Costa Rica, its impact on trade, and the various stakeholders involved. Through this case study, students will learn how reform leaders apply stakeholder analysis to formulate an implementation strategy.

2023 Shorenstein Journalism Award: The Easily Overlooked Dangers of a Soft Tyranny — A Discussion with The Caravan's Hartosh Singh Bal

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Flyer for the 2023 Shorenstein Journalism Award with speaker headshots.

The 2023 Shorenstein Journalism Award Honors Indian Magazine The Caravan at a Discussion Featuring Hartosh Singh Bal, Executive Editor of The Caravan


A soft tyranny is a state that maintains the façade of constitutional processes, retaining their structure while foregoing their spirit. For those looking at India from the outside, it appears elections are held regularly, judicial processes are in place, and a large and diverse private media continues to thrive. The reality, however, is that in India today, the Constitution is subservient to a ruling ideology that is majoritarian and violative of its spirit. The government acts according to this new set of values, while institutions meant to check its overreach have largely been rendered powerless.

Join APARC as we honor The Caravan, India’s reputed long-form narrative journalism magazine of politics and culture, winner of the 2023 Shorenstein Journalism Award. The Shorenstein Award recognizes outstanding journalists and news organizations for excellence in coverage of the Asia-Pacific region. The 2023 award honors The Caravan for its steadfast coverage that champions accountability and media independence in the face of India's democratic backsliding.

The award discussion will feature Hartosh Singh Bal, executive editor of The Caravan.

Mr. Bal's keynote will be followed by a conversation with two experts: Kalyani Chadha, an associate professor of journalism at Northwestern University's Medill School for Journalism, Media, and Integrated Marketing Communications, and Larry Diamond, Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. The event will conclude with an audience Q&A session.

Moderator: Raju Narisetti, publisher at McKinsey Global Publishing, McKinsey and Company, who is also a member of the selection committee for the Shorenstein Journalism Award.

Speakers   
 

Portrait of Hartosh Singh Bal

Hartosh Singh Bal is the executive editor at The Caravan. He formerly worked as the magazine’s political editor for ten years. He has worked with a number of Indian publications including The Indian Express and Tehelka. He has written for The New York Times, The Guardian, and Foreign Affairs, and is the author of Waters Close Over Us: A Journey Along the Narmada and the co-author of A Certain Ambiguity, A Mathematical Novel. He is trained as an engineer and a mathematician.

 

Portrait of Kalyani Chadha

Kalyani Chadha is an associate professor of journalism at Northwestern University's Medill School for Journalism, Media, and Integrated Marketing Communications. Her research is primarily centered around the examination of journalistic practice as well as the societal implications of new media technologies in varied contexts. Informed by critical and sociological theorizing, her scholarship is international in its orientation, with a particular emphasis on journalism-related developments in India and media globalization in Asia. Her recent work focuses on the implications of the rise of right-wing media in India. Additionally, she is also co-editing a collection on journalism and precarity.

Chadha’s work has appeared in a variety of journals such as Journalism Studies, Journalism Practice, Digital Journalism, Journal of Media Ethics, the International Journal of Communication and Media, Culture and Society, as well as several edited anthologies and encyclopedias. Chadha currently serves on the editorial boards of Journalism Practice and Digital Journalism and is vice-head of AEJMC’s Mass Communication and Society Division.

Prior to joining Medill, Chadha was on the faculty of the University of Maryland’s Merrill College of Journalism. While at Maryland, she directed the Media, Self and Society program, a living-learning community for academically talented undergraduates and was awarded the Annual Undergraduate Studies Teaching Award in 2015.

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Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford. He leads the Hoover Institution’s programs on China’s Global Sharp Power and on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region. At FSI, he leads the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy, based at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, which he directed for more than six years. He also co-leads with (Eileen Donahoe) the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He is the founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy and also serves as senior consultant at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy.

His research focuses on democratic trends and conditions around the world and on policies and reforms to defend and advance democracy. His most recent book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency, analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the United States and around the world at this potential “hinge in history,” and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad. He has also edited or coedited more than forty books on democratic development around the world.

Moderator

 

Raju Narisetti

Raju Narisetti is a career journalist who has served as publisher at McKinsey Global Publishing, McKinsey and Company since 2020. From July 2018 to December 2019, he was a professor of professional practice and director of the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship Program at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. His journalism career spans roles with major international news and media organizations. At The Wall Street Journal, he served as a reporter, deputy national editor of the American edition, managing editor and editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe, and deputy managing editor in charge of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa for the newspaper's global brand. He was also managing editor, digital at The Washington Post, and senior vice president of growth and strategy for News Corporation. He was the founding editor of Mint and facilitated the publication's emergence as India's second-largest business newspaper.    

Narisetti photo by Niccolò Caranti, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Raju Narisetti


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Hartosh Singh Bal
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Stanford Researchers Explore the Challenges Created By and Reforms Needed to Improve China’s Belt and Road Initiative

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The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched by China in 2013, is a sweeping and ambitious development strategy aimed at enhancing global connectivity through the construction of extensive infrastructure networks across Asia, Europe, Africa, and beyond. While heralded as a potential catalyst for economic growth and cooperation, the BRI has also attracted a spectrum of criticisms. Concerns range from worries about the debt burdens placed on participating countries due to large-scale infrastructure investments to questions about transparency in project agreements and financing terms. Additionally, the initiative's geopolitical implications, potential environmental impacts, and uneven distribution of benefits have sparked debates about its long-term viability and impact on recipient nations.

CDDRL researchers Francis Fukuyama, the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and Michael Bennon, a research scholar and program manager for CDDRL’s Global Infrastructure Policy Research Initiative, have written widely about BRI’s challenges. Their latest essay, “China’s Road to Ruin: The Real Toll of Beijing’s Belt and Road,” published today in the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs, explores the current state of the BRI, the challenges it has created, and the reforms needed to protect the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) from the fallout of the BRI debt crisis.

Below, Fukuyama and Bennon share their insights on the potential implications of the BRI on global development finance, as well as suggestions for reforms that could bolster the ability of international financial institutions to manage any potential debt crises arising from these projects.

What are the key factors contributing to the risk of debt crises stemming from the Belt and Road Initiative? How significant is this risk in your assessment?


It is clear that fears from a few years ago about China using “debt trap diplomacy” to gain access to strategic assets were overblown. The real problem is that poorly conceived Chinese projects have created a new round of sovereign debt crises for developing countries and put the burden of resolving them on international institutions like the IMF. This diverts time and resources away from activities that would contribute to the long-term development of many poor countries.

Assessments of the current emerging markets debt crisis have tended to focus on the amount of BRI debt that exists in aggregate or for a particular country since it is such a large initiative. A much more important factor is transparency regarding the debts associated with BRI projects and the key terms of those debts. Without considerable transparency efforts, loans to large infrastructure projects are naturally opaque. They include many contingent liabilities for borrowing governments. These are liabilities that may be the responsibility of the borrowing government if they materialize. A lack of transparency over BRI debt also undermines the trust needed when a restructuring is necessary if other lenders become concerned that other “hidden” bilateral debts are not participating. So a key difference is not simply the debt crisis itself but the lack of trust among key bilateral lenders.

The real problem is that poorly conceived Chinese projects have created a new round of sovereign debt crises for developing countries and put the burden of resolving them on international institutions like the IMF.
Francis Fukuyama and Michael Bennon

How have the dynamics of global development finance changed with the emergence of large-scale initiatives like the BRI? What challenges does this pose to established financial institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF?


The BRI has impacted the World Bank and the IMF in very different ways. For the World Bank, it simply represents a very viable alternative for countries in need of bilateral loans for large infrastructure projects. For decades, the World Bank has developed and improved its Environmental and Social safeguards for infrastructure projects. These are intended to improve project outcomes, but they also clearly impose costs in funding and project delays for borrowers. With the emergence of the BRI, borrowers had an alternative source of financing without the World Bank’s same safeguards.

For the IMF, the challenge is clearly on assisting countries in credit distress and managing the restructuring process, and this has been playing out over the last few years. The IMF has developed programs to lend into and then “referee” debt restructurings in the past, but the present situation is very unique both financially and geopolitically.

Are there lessons that can be drawn from historical cases of emerging market debt crises that could inform strategies to prevent or manage such crises in the context of the BRI?


Historically the best “solution” for an emerging market debt crisis is a fast, deep restructuring that gives the distressed borrower the headroom to resume economic growth. That is the opposite of what is happening for the initial restructurings in the current emerging market debt crisis. There is very little trust among lenders, and those restructurings that have been negotiated have been underwhelming. Geopolitically speaking, the emerging market debt crisis currently underway is a bit unique.

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COLOMBO, SRI LANKA - NOVEMBER 13: Construction is underway for the Ritz Carlton and the JW Marriott hotels, which is a Chinese-managed project seen on November 13, 2018, in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
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Francis Fukuyama and Michael Bennon share their insights on the potential implications of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on global development finance, as well as suggestions for reforms that could bolster international stakeholders’ ability to manage any potential debt crises arising from BRI projects.

APARC Invites Fall 2024 Asia Studies Fellowship Applications

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Noa Ronkin
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This announcement was updated on October 6, 2023, to reflect the addition of two new fellowship offerings focused on contemporary Taiwan.

The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) is pleased to invite applications for a suite of fellowships in contemporary Asia studies to begin fall quarter 2024.

The Center offers postdoctoral fellowships that promote multidisciplinary research on Asia-focused health policy; contemporary Japan; contemporary Asia broadly defined; postdoctoral fellowships and visiting scholar positions as part of the new Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab; and a fellowship for experts on Southeast Asia. Learn more about each opportunity and its eligibility and specific application requirements:

Asia Health Policy Postdoctoral Fellowship

Hosted by the Asia Health Policy Program at APARC, the fellowship is awarded annually to one recent PhD undertaking original research on contemporary health or healthcare policy of high relevance to countries in the Asia-Pacific region, especially developing countries. Appointments are for one year beginning in fall quarter 2024. The application deadline is December 1, 2023.

Postdoctoral Fellowship on Contemporary Japan

Hosted by the Japan Program at APARC, the fellowship supports research on contemporary Japan in a broad range of disciplines including political science, economics, sociology, law, policy studies, and international relations. Appointments are for one year beginning in fall quarter 2024. The application deadline is December 1, 2023.  
 

Apply for the Japan Postdoctoral Fellowship
 

Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellowship on Contemporary Asia

APARC offers two postdoctoral fellowship positions to junior scholars for research and writing on contemporary Asia. The primary research areas focus on political, economic, or social change in the Asia-Pacific region (including Northeast, Southeast, and South Asia), or international relations and international political economy in the region. Appointments are for one year beginning in fall quarter 2024. The application deadline is December 1, 2023.  
 

Apply for the Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellowship on Contemporary Asia
 

Next Asia Postdoctoral and Visiting Fellowships

The Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab (SNAPL) is a new initiative committed to addressing Asia's emergent social, cultural, economic, and political challenges. Housed at Shorenstein APARC, the lab is led by Center and Korea Program Director Gi-Wook Shin.

SNAPL is offering one or two postdoctoral fellowships (two years in length) to begin in fall quarter 2024. There are four fellowship tracks and applicants can apply for any of them: "Talent Flows and Development,” "Nationalism and Racism," "U.S.-Asia Relations," and "Democratic Crisis and Reform." Each postdoctoral fellow will lead one thematic research group and support student programming for SNAPL alongside general research and publication activities. The deadline to apply for fall quarter 2024 admission is December 1, 2023.

SNAPL is also offering three visiting fellow positions to researchers and professionals from Asia with a PhD or a substantial record of achievement related to the Lab's four research themes. One of these three positions will be specifically dedicated to research on the Philippines. Visiting scholar appointments are for one year, and the deadline to apply for fall quarter 2024 admission is March 1, 2024.

 

Postdoctoral and Visiting Scholar Positions on Contemporary Taiwan

APARC invites applications for a postdoctoral fellowship and a visiting scholar position on contemporary Taiwan to begin in fall quarter 2024. We welcome applications from candidates studying issues related to how Taiwan can meet the challenges and opportunities of economic, social, technological, environmental, and institutional adaptation in the coming decades, using a variety of disciplines including the social sciences, public policy, and business.

The application deadline for fall quarter admission to the postdoctoral fellowship is January 1, 2024. The application deadline for fall quarter admission to the visiting scholar position is March 1, 2024.


Apply for the Fellowships on contemporary Taiwan  
 

Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Fellowship on Southeast Asia

The Lee Kong Chian National University of Singapore-Stanford (LKC NUS-Stanford) Fellowship on Southeast Asia provides experts on Southeast Asia the opportunity to conduct research on or related to contemporary Southeast Asia. Fellows spend three to four months at both institutions. At Stanford, APARC's Southeast Asia Program hosts the fellowship. Appointments will begin and end within the period from September 1, 2024 to May 31, 2025. The application deadline is January 26, 2024.  
 

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The Center offers a suite of fellowships for Asia researchers to begin in fall quarter 2024. These include postdoctoral fellowships on Asia-focused health policy, contemporary Japan, and the Asia-Pacific region, postdoctoral fellowships and visiting scholar positions with the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab, and fellowships for experts on Southeast Asia.

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