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.

-

Lynn Eden is acting co-director (2008-09) at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University. Eden received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan, held several pre- and post-doctoral fellowships, and taught in the history department at Carnegie Mellon before coming to Stanford. In the area of international security, Eden has focused on U.S. foreign and military policy, arms control, the social construction of science and technology, and organizational issues regarding nuclear policy and homeland security. She co-edited, with Steven E. Miller, Nuclear Arguments: Understanding the Strategic Nuclear Arms and Arms Control Debates (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989). She was an editor of The Oxford Companion to American Military History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), which takes a social and cultural perspective on war and peace in U.S. history. That volume was chosen as a Main Selection of the History Book Club.

Eden's book Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004; New Delhi: Manas Publications, 2004) explores how and why the U.S. government--from World War II to the present--has greatly underestimated the damage caused by nuclear weapons by failing to predict damage from firestorms. It shows how well-funded and highly professional organizations, by focusing on what they do well and systematically excluding what they don't, may build a poor representation of the world--a self-reinforcing fallacy that can have serious consequences, from the sinking of the Titanic to not predicting the vulnerability of the World Trade Center to burning jet fuel. Whole World on Fire won the American Sociological Association's 2004 Robert K. Merton Award for best book in science, knowledge, and technology.

Eden has also written on life in small-town America. Her first book, Crisis in Watertown (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1972) was her college senior thesis; it was a finalist for a National Book Award in 1973. Her second book, Witness in Philadelphia, with Florence Mars (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977), about the murders of civil rights workers Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman in the summer of 1964, was a Book of the Month Club Alternate Selection.

Providing commentary on Dr. Eden's paper is Lieutenant Colonel John Vitacca, a national defense fellow for 2009-2010 at CISAC. 

John holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Marketing from Texas A&M University, a Master of Business Administration degree in Management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a Master of Arts degree in Military Operational Art and Science from Air Command and Staff College, Air University, Alabama.  He is a command pilot with over 3,400 flight hours in the B-2 and B-52, qualified as both an instructor and evaluator pilot.  Prior to coming to CISAC, John served in various assignments including a tour at the Pentagon as the Chief of the Global Persistent Attack Branch and the B-2/Next Generation Bomber subject matter expert.   Most recently, he was the Commander of the 393d Bomb Squadron at Whiteman Air Force Base, one of only two operational B-2 stealth bomber squadrons in the USAF.  His research at CISAC will focus on nuclear weapons policy issues.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Not in residence

0
Affiliate
rsd15_078_0365a.jpg PhD

Lynn Eden is a Senior Research Scholar Emeritus. She was a Senior Research Scholar at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation until January 2016, as well as was Associate Director for Research. Eden received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan, held several pre- and post-doctoral fellowships, and taught in the history department at Carnegie Mellon before coming to Stanford.

In the area of international security, Eden has focused on U.S. foreign and military policy, arms control, the social construction of science and technology, and organizational issues regarding nuclear policy and homeland security. She co-edited, with Steven E. Miller, Nuclear Arguments: Understanding the Strategic Nuclear Arms and Arms Control Debates (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989). She was an editor of The Oxford Companion to American Military History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), which takes a social and cultural perspective on war and peace in U.S. history. That volume was chosen as a Main Selection of the History Book Club.

Eden's book Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004; New Delhi: Manas Publications, 2004) explores how and why the U.S. government--from World War II to the present--has greatly underestimated the damage caused by nuclear weapons by failing to predict damage from firestorms. It shows how well-funded and highly professional organizations, by focusing on what they do well and systematically excluding what they don't, may build a poor representation of the world--a self-reinforcing fallacy that can have serious consequences, from the sinking of the Titanic to not predicting the vulnerability of the World Trade Center to burning jet fuel. Whole World on Fire won the American Sociological Association's 2004 Robert K. Merton Award for best book in science, knowledge, and technology.

Eden has also written on life in small-town America. Her first book, Crisis in Watertown (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1972), was her college senior thesis; it was a finalist for a National Book Award in 1973. Her second book, Witness in Philadelphia, with Florence Mars (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977), about the murders of civil rights workers Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman in the summer of 1964, was a Book of the Month Club Alternate Selection.

CV
Lynn Eden Senior Research Scholar and Associate Director for Research, CISAC Speaker

not in residence

0
Visiting Scholar
Vitacca.jpg

Representing the United States Air Force, Lieutenant Colonel John Vitacca is a national defense fellow for 2009-2010 at CISAC. 

John holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Marketing from Texas A&M University, a Master of Business Administration degree in Management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a Master of Arts degree in Military Operational Art and Science from Air Command and Staff College, Air University, Alabama.  He is a command pilot with over 3,400 flight hours in the B-2 and B-52, qualified as both an instructor and evaluator pilot.  Prior to coming to CISAC, John served in various assignments including a tour at the Pentagon as the Chief of the Global Persistent Attack Branch and the B-2/Next Generation Bomber subject matter expert.   Most recently, he was the Commander of the 393d Bomb Squadron at Whiteman Air Force Base, one of only two operational B-2 stealth bomber squadrons in the USAF.  His research at CISAC focused on nuclear weapons policy issues.

John Vitacca Visiting Scholar, CISAC Commentator
Seminars
-

Abstract
If an armed group cannot be defeated in war, are there conditions in peace that will allow for its demobilization and disbandment?  What are the key barriers that stand in the way?  Using case studies of the three large paramilitary organizations in Northern Ireland since the 1994 ceasefires, I weigh competing arguments from the civil conflict literature about the security concerns of previously warring parties that stand in the way of security normalization.  I find that existing theories miss two crucial forms of post-conflict security crises: intra-community criminality and inter-communal confrontations.  These two kinds of security concerns present two major challenges to the normalization of security that are instructive to broader theory on conflict termination and peace-building.  First, these security concerns are not the kind that outside actors can successfully manage without the partnership of local power brokers.  As a result, state actors institutionalize paramilitary authority rather than replacing it.  Second, the management of these security concerns does not present clear-cut opportunities for signaling the commitment to peace necessary for trust-building amongst formerly warring parties.  Armed groups are forced to make impossible choices that signal weak commitments and make a return to war more likely.

Brenna Marea Powell is a 6th year PhD candidate in the department of Government at Harvard University, and a doctoral fellow at the Multidisciplinary Program on Inequality and Social Policy at the Kennedy School of Government. She received her AB from Stanford in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. Her research interests include inequality, civil conflict and political violence in divided societies. Her three-article dissertation research explores the role of political institutions in redefining ethno-racial boundaries and social hierarchy. This includes work on post-conflict policing in Northern Ireland, racial policy in Brazil, and the politics of ethno-racial classification in the United States.

Eric Morris is a Visiting Scholar at CISAC and is Practitioner-in-Residence at the Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies. Most recently he served as the UN Recovery Coordinator for Aceh and Nias following the Indian Ocean tsunami of December, 2004. He headed the New York Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees from 2002 to 2005. In 2000-01 he served simultaneously as Special Envoy in the Balkans of the High Commissioner for Refugees and as UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Kosovo. In 1998-99 he was Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General for the UN Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, focusing on police and judicial reform issues. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University, an MA from Yale University, and a BA from Baylor University.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Brenna M. Powell CISAC Predoctoral Fellow Speaker

not in residence

0
Visiting Scholar
Morris_Eric.jpg

Eric Morris is a former Visiting Scholar at CISAC and is Practitioner-in-Residence at the Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies. Most recently he served as the UN Recovery Coordinator for Aceh and Nias following the Indian Ocean tsunami of December, 2004. He headed the New York Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees from 2002 to 2005. In 2000-01 he served simultaneously as Special Envoy in the Balkans of the High Commissioner for Refugees and as UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Kosovo. In 1998-99 he was Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General for the UN Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, focusing on police and judicial reform issues. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University, an MA from Yale University, and a BA from Baylor University.

 

(Profile last updated in September 2011.)

Eric Morris CISAC Visiting Scholar Commentator
Seminars
-

In this session of the Shorenstein APARC Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellows Research Presentations, the following will be presented:

Hirofumi Takinami, "Political Economy of the Financial Crises in Japan & United States - A Comparative Study on the Bailout of Financial Institutions"

Currently, the United States is suffering from a financial crisis.  Japan has struggled with a financial crisis from the late 1990's to the early 2000's.  What implications can be drawn from these crisis experiences of the two largest economies in the world?  As one part of a collaborative research with Professor Phillip Lipscy on "Policy Innovation in Japan and the United States:  A Comparative Study of Response to Finiancial Crises", Takinami analyzes which elements are crucial in the use of bailout of financial institutions as a means to address financial crises.  Stressing that taxpayers' understanding and market sentiment are key, he makes arguments especially on the "learning effect" of Japanese financial crisis and the importance of action by the national leader and his/her secretarial organizations.

 

Takashi Uchida, "Comparative Research Study of Manufacturing Between the United States and Japan"

Manufacturing consists of upstream (raw material suppliers), middle stream (casting, dyes, metal press, etc.) and downstream (automobile companies, machinery companies, and electric companies).  To accurately view the structure of manufacturing as "supply chain", Uchida analyzes where manufacturing value comes from.  In particular, Uchida takes a look at the automobile market, comparing the difference between manufacturing in Japan and the United States.

 

Zheng Wang, "Valuation and Integration of Intangible Assets in Mergers and Acquisitions"

In modern economies, a large proportion of a company's assets tend to be intangible, such as brand names.  Intangible assets have become one of the key factors behind a company's competitive strength.  In particular, obtaining a target's intangible assets has been the major driving force in M&A activities during the past years.

M&A for intangible assets tends to be more complicated than for tangible assets, mainly due to the challenges in terms of valuation and post-deal integration.  In this research presentation, Wang analyzes some special issues in valuation and integration of intangible assets in M&As, and tries to draw useful lessons on M&A for intangible assets through case study.

Philippines Conference Room

Hirofumi Takinami Ministry of Finance, Japan Speaker
Takashi Uchida Ministry of Economy, Trade & Inudustry, Japan Speaker
Zheng Wang PetroChina Company Speaker
Seminars
Paragraphs

The state-owned company Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) is India's largest company devoted to exploration and production (E&P). This paper attempts to unpack the dynamic of the government-ONGC relationship. Focusing specifically on how government ownership and control has influenced ONGC's performance and strategy, this paper makes four main arguments.

First, ONGC exists, just as with national oil companies in many other countries, because of a legacy of suspicion about outsiders.  It performed well when it was tasked with things that were not that difficult and when it had help for the more difficult ventures, such as frontier E&P and development.

Second, ONGC has run into trouble as it matured, and the roots of its troubles are mainly in its interactions with the GoI and secondarily in its management.

Third, a slew of reforms instituted since the mid 1990s have fundamentally changed the landscape of the E&P sector in India and the dynamic of government-ONGC relationship. Targeted at improving corporate governance, enhancing competition in E&P, and eliminating price controls, those reforms have had a mixed impact on ONGC's performance and strategy. They also highlight the difficulties the government has had in encouraging higher efficiencies in ONGC and the oil and gas sector.

Fourth, given the deep interconnects of the oil and gas sector with India's political economy, fixing the oil and gas sector essentially entails fixing the larger political economy within which the sector is embedded.

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Working Papers
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Program on Energy and Sustainable Development Working Paper #91
Authors
Varun Rai
-

This lecture will examine the origins of the Cold War in East Asia, how early the Cold War came to Korea, how the Korean War transformed the containment doctrine, how it solidified the continuing divisions in East Asia, and how it transformed defense policy in the United States, leading to a far-flung structure of seemingly permanent military bases in South Korea, Japan, Germany, and many more countries that lasts down to 2010.  Professor Cumings will also examine problems of history and memory regarding what most Americans call "the forgotten war."

Bruce Cumings teaches international history, modern Korean history and East Asian political economy at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1987 and where he is the Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professor and the chairman of the History Department.  He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1975. He has taught at Swarthmore College (1975-77), the University of Washington (1977-86), and Northwestern University (1994-97). He is the author of the two-volume study, The Origins of the Korean War (Princeton University Press, 1981, 1990), War and Television (Visal-Routledge, 1992), Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History (W. W. Norton, 1997; updated ed. 2005), Parallax Visions: Making Sense of American—East Asian Relations (Duke University Press, 1999; paperback 2002), North Korea: Another Country (New Press, 2003), co-author of Inventing the Axis of Evil  (New Press, 2004), and is the editor of the modern volume of the Cambridge History of Korea (forthcoming). He is a frequent contributor to The London Review of Books, The Nation, Current History, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and Le Monde Diplomatique. The first volume of his Origins won the John King Fairbank book award of the American Historical Association for the best book on East Asia in the previous two years, and the second volume won the Quincy Wright book award of the International Studies Association. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1999, and is the recipient of fellowships from the Ford Foundation-funded Foreign Area Fellows program, NEH, the MacArthur Foundation, the Center for Advanced Study at Stanford, and the Abe Fellowship Program of the Social Science Research Council. He was also the principal historical consultant for the Thames Television/PBS 6-hour documentary, Korea: The Unknown War. He recently published Dominion From Sea to Sea: Pacific Ascendancy and American Power, which was ranked as one of the top 25 books of 2009 by the Atlantic Monthly. Random House will publish his short book, The Korean War, on the war’s 60th anniversary in 2010. He is also contracted to publish a new, single-volume synoptic edition of The Origins of the Korean War.

Philippines Conference Room

Bruce Cumings Professor and Chairman of the History Department, University of Chicago Speaker
Conferences
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

The Liberation Technology Seminar Series will take a break during Spring Quarter 2010 in order to present a class taught by co-sponsors of the program, Joshua Cohen, Professor of Political Science, Philosophy and Law and Terry Winograd, Professor of Computer Science. This class will have small project teams work with computer scientists from the University of Nairobi to design new technologies for promoting development and democracy. Students conduct observations to identify needs, generate concepts, create prototypes, and test their appropriateness. Some projects may continue past the quarter towards full-scale implementation. It will be taught through the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford.

The Liberation Technology Seminar Series will resume in Fall 2010 and hopes to present some of the projects from the class as well as a variety of other speakers on the role of information and communication technology in advancing freedom, human rights, and economic and social development.  A conference is also being planned for the early Fall so please keep an eye on our website.

Hero Image
Encina Columns Winter 2010 l
All News button
1
-

Abstract
Social science interpretations of the meltdown emphasize system characteristics such as complexity and coupling, and/or culture as in neo-institutional theories.  Examining regulatory changes, regulatory agents, elected representatives, firms and the many warnings, I argue that the role of human agents has been greatly neglected. Building on earlier work on "executive failure" I offer an agentic interpretation that is missing from both of the social science interpretations. Structure (systems) and culture (neo institutional theory) are valuable but incomplete.

Charles Perrow is an emeritus professor of sociology at Yale University and a visiting professor at CISAC in the winter and spring terms. Among his award-winning research is Organizing America: Wealth, Power, and the Origins of American Capitalism (Princeton, 2002), and Normal Accidents: Living with High Risk Technologies (Princeton, 1999). His recent articles include "Modeling Firms in the Global Economy," Theory and Society, 2009, v 38:3, May, 217-243, "Organizations and Global Warming," in Constance Lever-Tracy, ed. Handbook of Society and Climate change (Routledge, forthcoming, 2010), "Complexity, Catastrophe, and Modularity," Sociological Inquiry 78:2, May 2008 162-73; "Conservative Radicalism," Organization 15:2 2008 271-77; "Disasters Evermore? Reducing our Vulnerabilities to Natural, Industrial, and Terrorist Disasters," Social Research 75:3 Fall, 2008. His recent membership on a National Academy of Science panel on the possibilities of certifying software led to his current work on cyber security. He is also writing on the economic meltdown, but his major interest now is the institutional/organizational aspects of global warming. He received his BA, MA, and PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, all in sociology.

Kenneth Arrow is the Joan Kenney Professor of Economics and Professor of Operations Research, emeritus; a CHP/PCOR fellow; and an FSI senior fellow by courtesy. He is a Nobel Prize-winning economist whose work has been primarily in economic theory and operations, focusing on areas including social choice theory, risk bearing, medical economics, general equilibrium analysis, inventory theory, and the economics of information and innovation. He was one of the first economists to note the existence of a learning curve, and he also showed that under certain conditions an economy reaches a general equilibrium. In 1972, together with Sir John Hicks, he won the Nobel Prize in economics, for his pioneering contributions to general equilibrium theory and welfare theory.

Arrow has served on the economics faculties of the University of Chicago, Harvard and Stanford. Prior to that, he served as a weather officer in the U.S. Air Corps (1942-46), and a research associate at the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics (1947-49). In addition to the Nobel Prize, he has received the American Economic Association's John Bates Clark Medal. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. He received a BS from City College, an MA and PhD from Columbia University, and holds approximately 20 honorary degrees.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Charles Perrow CISAC Visiting Professor Speaker
Kenneth Arrow Joan Kenney Professor of Economics and Professor of Operations Research, Emeritus and CHP/PCOR Fellow; FSI Senior Fellow by courtesy Speaker
Seminars
-

On December 10, 1991, East Palo Alto resident Rick Walker was convicted of a murder he did not commit. Linked to the crime by false testimony and questionable legal tactics, Walker would spend the next 12 years of his life in some of California's most dangerous prisons. Once exonerated, he would face yet another barrier to justice: the California State Legislature. Entitled to one hundred dollars for every day spent falsely imprisoned, Walker's attempts to receive his just due became caught in the partisan battle over the 2003
California budget.

$100 a Day examines this story of gross injustice, political partisanship, and the heroic struggle to prove Walker's innocence and help him rebuild his life. Associate Dean Larry Marshall, who co-founded and served as legal director of the world-renowned Center on Wrongful Convictions, where he represented many wrongly convicted inmates, will introduce the documentary.  After the screening, Professor Juliet Brodie, Director of the Stanford Community Law Clinic, will moderate a panel featuring:

  • Rick Walker
  • State Senator Joe Simitian
  • filmmaker Gwen Essegian

Co-sponsored by the Levin Center for Public Service and Public Interest Law; Haas Center for Public Service; Center on Philanthropy and Civic Society; Stanford Law School Criminal Law Society; American Constitution Society; Stanford Journal of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties; Stanford in Government; and the Program on Human Rights, CDDRL.

Stanford Law School
Room 280B

Larry Marshall Associate Dean Commentator Stanford Law School
Juliet Brody Director Commentator Stanford Community Law Clinic
Rick Walker Panelist
Joe Simitian California State Senator Panelist
Gwen Esseglan Filmmaker Panelist
Conferences
-

This 2009-10 interdisciplinary research workshop examines the trajectory of human rights discourse and institutions in Africa by means of regional and international comparisons. Africa is the third, and most recent, region to establish a regional human rights court, the African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights (ACPHR). At this critical juncture in African human rights, there is an urgent need for deeper understandings and applications of the law of human rights.

This workshop will be of interest and benefit to faculty and graduate students conducting research in the following areas: African studies; human rights; law; anthropology; cultural studies; history; political science and international relations; philosophy; and sociology.

The workshop, coordinated by Helen Stacy (Law School, FSI), met once during Fall quarter and will meet three times during the Winter and Spring quarters of the 2009-2010 academic year.

Our first meeting of Spring quarter features Professor Harri Englund, Department of Social Anthropology at University of Cambridge and author of many articles and books including Prisoners of Freedom: Human rights and the African Poor (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006).

Encina West
Rm. 208

Helen Stacy Senior Fellow, CDDRL, Senior Lecturer, Stanford Law School Moderator
Harri Englund Department of Social Anthropology at University of Cambridge Speaker
Workshops
Subscribe to Governance