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.

Missile Defense and the Offense-Defense Relationship

Authors
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs

Executive Summary

  • The U.S.-Russia Strategic Stability Dialogue, agreed by presidents Joseph Biden and Vladimir Putin at their June 2021 summit, has begun. It presumably is addressing the range of issues affecting strategic stability, including reductions in and limits on strategic offensive nuclear forces as well as questions related to missile defense. 
  • Three phases have defined the history of missile defense: the era of unrestrained offense-defense competition prior to the negotiation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty; the period of arms control between 1972 and 2002, during which both defenses and strategic offensive forces were limited; and the current era of unrestrained defenses and controlled strategic offensive forces, from 2002 to the present. 
  • After more than six decades of missile defense investments, strategic offensive forces retain a significant and enduring edge over defensive systems. While progress has been made in defending against shorter-range ballistic missiles and their warheads (which travel at considerably lower velocities than strategic ballistic missile warheads), at no point during any of the three periods has the United States or the Soviet Union/Russia been able to produce a defensive system that has held any short- or medium-term prospect of negating the strategic offensive forces of the other, either on its own or in combination with a counterforce first strike.
  • The concerted effort since 2002 by Washington and NATO to develop their missile defense capabilities against the long-range ballistic missile threats posed by North Korea and Iran has enjoyed only limited success, and the viability of the U.S. homeland defense against Pyongyang’s relatively small and unsophisticated nuclear arsenal is still doubtful. Russia’s incremental improvements to its defensive system around Moscow do not pose a significant threat to the U.S. strategic nuclear capability. 
  • Nevertheless, the prospect of longer-term improvements to U.S. and Russian missile defenses continues to be a source of uncertainty that exercises considerable influence on the force sizing and development of new capabilities, particularly for Russia and the European nuclear powers, France and the United Kingdom. The limited available evidence suggests that China shares similar concerns regarding the viability of its deterrent against new defensive systems. Russian and Chinese planners appear to fear a future U.S. counterforce attack conducted primarily, or even solely, with advanced, high-precision conventional weapons that would disable a major portion of their strategic forces, leaving the remainder to have to penetrate U.S. missile defenses. 
  • For Russia, the prospective long-term threat to its forces posed by the improvement in U.S. defenses and nuclear and conventional counterforce capabilities has prompted it to develop new “exotic” systems designed to ensure its retaliatory capacity, including the Avangard boostglide vehicle, the Poseidon long-range nuclear uncrewed underwater vehicle (UUV) and the Burevestnik nuclearpowered cruise missile. Russia has also expressed significant reservations about further cuts to its strategic offensive forces through arms control, if missile defenses remain unconstrained.
  • France and the United Kingdom have been historically far more sensitive to developments in the Moscow ABM system given their smaller and less technologically advanced nuclear arsenals. Both powers have continued to ensure the long-term viability of their deterrents against prospective Russian improvements through the introduction of improved warheads (France) and planned increases in maximum stockpile size (UK).
  • China’s smaller arsenal means that Beijing may be even more sensitive to developments in U.S. missile defense policy than Moscow. China’s recent apparent expansion of the number of its intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos may in part stem from anxieties regarding the viability of its deterrent against prospective U.S. missile defenses, although the motivation for and extent of an expanded ICBM force are still unclear at the time of writing.
  • Thus, the current era of unrestrained missile defenses since 2002 has seen the deployment of defensive systems of limited short- and medium-term technical potential, combined with considerable anxiety from four of the five recognized nuclear powers that longer-term technological developments may pose a risk to their forces, stimulating their qualitative and quantitative augmentation. This has resulted in a paradox: even as they remain broadly ineffective against all but the most limited threats, strategic missile defenses nevertheless exert a destabilizing influence on the global nuclear balance.1 
  • A number of measures, primarily between the United States and Russia, could help to limit the uncertainty over future missile defense capabilities by placing more explicit restraints on today’s limited missile defenses so that they cannot expand into systems that could put the retaliatory capability of any of the five nuclear powers at risk.
  • These steps could include confidencebuilding measures, such as transparency agreements and reciprocal observation of missile defense interceptor tests, a ban on space-based missile defense interceptors, clearer unilateral explications of the extent and limits of both Washington and Moscow’s missile defense plans, as well as negotiated limits on missile defenses on either a legally or politically binding basis.
  • Given their long-standing interest in missile defenses designed to counter only limited threats and the risks that an offense-defense competition could pose both to stability in the North Atlantic area and the viability of European members’ nuclear arsenals, U.S. NATO allies should do all they can to support these efforts.

 

Read the rest at The Deep Cuts Commission

Hero Image
rocket shooting in the air
U.S. Military
All News button
1
Subtitle

The U.S.-Russia Strategic Stability Dialogue, agreed by presidents Joseph Biden and Vladimir Putin at their June 2021 summit, has begun. It presumably is addressing the range of issues affecting strategic stability, including reductions in and limits on strategic offensive nuclear forces as well as questions related to missile defense.

The Global Spyware Crisis and How to Stop It

-

 

David Kaye event, the global spyware crisis and how to stop it

Join us November 2nd from 12 PM - 1 PM PT for “The Global Spyware Crisis and How to Stop It” featuring David Kaye, professor of law at University of California, Irvine, and moderated by Kelly Born, director of the Cyber Initiative at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. This seminar series is organized by the Cyber Policy Center’s Program on Democracy and the Internet and the Hewlett Foundation’s Cyber Initiative. 

The private surveillance (or spyware) industry has thrived with low levels of transparency and public scrutiny and weak controls on transfers of technology. Governments offer limited information on the use of surveillance products and regulations of private surveillance companies. Meanwhile, these tools – most famously but not exclusively the Pegasus malware of the Israeli NSO Group – are increasingly used against journalists, opposition figures, those in dissent, and others. Public reporting – particularly energized by release of the Pegasus Project reporting by the Forbidden Stories consortium in the summer of 2021 – has begun to generate increasing global concern, and yet policy and law lag far behind. This presentation will focus on a human rights-based legal and policy framework for the regulation and accountability of, as well as transparency within, the private surveillance industry.

Speaker Profile:

David Kaye is a professor of law at the University of California, Irvine, director of its International Justice Clinic, and co-director of the Center on Fair Elections and Free Speech. From 2014 – 2020 he served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression. Author of Speech Police: The Global Struggle to Govern the Internet (2019), he is currently Independent Chair of the Board of the Global Network Initiative and a Trustee of ARTICLE 19.

 

REGISTER

David Kaye Professor of Law, UC Irvine

Fear about China’s new space weapon echoes older worries about war from space

Authors
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs

Look up! The ghosts of space weapons past have once again darkened our cosmic doorway. Recently Britain’s Financial Times reported that China flight-tested a new breed of space weapon when it launched a massive “Long March” rocket tipped with a nuclear-capable, hypersonic glider. The missile briefly entered orbit before descending on its target, which it missed by roughly two dozen miles. The report suggested that the test was evidence that China has “made astounding progress on hypersonic weapons and [is] far more advanced than US officials realised.”

Read the rest at The Washington Post

Hero Image
Chinese flag flying above orbital carrier rocket
7th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition To Kick Off (November 2008) | Stringer/Getty Images
All News button
1
Subtitle

China flight-tested a new breed of space weapon when it launched a massive “Long March” rocket tipped with a nuclear-capable, hypersonic glider. But history tells us why the test isn’t a cause for panic.

The Russia Challenge: Limited or Resurrected?

-

*For fall quarter 2021, CISAC will be hosting hybrid events. Many events will offer limited-capacity in-person attendance for Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, visiting scholars, and students in accordance with Stanford’s health and safety guidelines, and be open to the public online via Zoom. All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

 

REGISTRATION

Zoom

(Open to all)

 

Seminar Recording

About the Event: As relations between the West and Russia plunge to a post-Cold War nadir, how strong a competitor will the Kremlin prove? Will constraints on Putin's autocracy hinder his ability to have Russia play a great power role, or has Russia alrealdy successfully resurrected itself and is now able to exercise significant influence on the global stage? On November 10, Timothy Frye (author of Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin's Russia) and Kathryn Stoner (author of Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order) will discuss the nature and depth of the Russian challenge to the West.

 

About the Speakers: 

Timothy Frye is the Marshall D. Shulman Professor of Post-Soviet Foreign Policy at Columbia University. Professor Frye received a B.A. in Russian language and literature from Middlebury College, an M.A. from Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia. His research and teaching interests are in comparative politics and political economy with a focus on the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. His most recent book is Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin’s Russia (Princeton University Press, 2021). He co-directs the International Center for the Study of Institutions and Development at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow and edits Post-Soviet Affairs.

Kathryn Stoner is the Deputy Director at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, and at the Center on International Security and Cooperation at FSI. She teaches in the Department of Political Science at Stanford, and in the Program on International Relations, as well as in the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Program. Prior to coming to Stanford in 2004, she was on the faculty at Princeton University for nine years, jointly appointed to the Department of Politics and the Princeton School for International and Public Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School). At Princeton she received the Ralph O. Glendinning Preceptorship awarded to outstanding junior faculty. She also served as a Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at McGill University. She has held fellowships at Harvard University as well as the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC. In addition to many articles and book chapters on contemporary Russia, she is the author or co-editor of six books: "Transitions to Democracy: A Comparative Perspective," written and edited with Michael A. McFaul (Johns Hopkins 2013); "Autocracy and Democracy in the Post-Communist World," co-edited with Valerie Bunce and Michael A. McFaul (Cambridge, 2010); "Resisting the State: Reform and Retrenchment in Post-Soviet Russia" (Cambridge, 2006); "After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transitions" (Cambridge, 2004), coedited with Michael McFaul; and "Local Heroes: The Political Economy of Russian Regional" Governance (Princeton, 1997). Her most recent book is Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order" (Oxford University Press, 2021). She received a BA (1988) and MA (1989) in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and a PhD in Government from Harvard University (1995). In 2016 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Iliad State University, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia.

Virtual Only. This event will not be held in person.

Timothy Frye

Kathryn Stoner

FSI
Stanford University
Encina Hall C140
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 736-1820 (650) 724-2996
0
Satre Family Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
kathryn_stoner_1_2022_v2.jpg MA, PhD

Kathryn Stoner is the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Satre Family Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). From 2017 to 2021, she served as FSI's Deputy Director. She is Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford and teaches in the Department of Political Science, the Program on International Relations, and the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Program. She is also a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution.

Prior to coming to Stanford in 2004, she was on the faculty at Princeton University for nine years, jointly appointed to the Department of Politics and the Princeton School for International and Public Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School). At Princeton, she received the Ralph O. Glendinning Preceptorship, awarded to outstanding junior faculty. She also served as a Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science at Columbia University and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at McGill University. She has held fellowships at Harvard University as well as the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. 

In addition to many articles and book chapters on contemporary Russia, she is the author or co-editor of six books: Transitions to Democracy: A Comparative Perspective, written and edited with Michael A. McFaul (Johns Hopkins 2013);  Autocracy and Democracy in the Post-Communist World, co-edited with Valerie Bunce and Michael A. McFaul (Cambridge, 2010);  Resisting the State: Reform and Retrenchment in Post-Soviet Russia (Cambridge, 2006); After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transitions (Cambridge, 2004), coedited with Michael McFaul; and Local Heroes: The Political Economy of Russian Regional Governance (Princeton, 1997); and Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2021).

She received a BA (1988) and MA (1989) in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and a PhD in Government from Harvard University (1995). In 2016, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Ilia State University in Tbilisi, the Republic of Georgia.

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

Mosbacher Director, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Professor of Political Science (by courtesy), Stanford University
Senior Fellow (by courtesy), Hoover Institution
CV
Hide publication sections
Off
Date Label
Seminars
European Security Initiative

China and the Protection of Its Interests Overseas: Challenges and New Dynamics

-

This is a virtual event. Please click here to register and generate a link to the talk. 
The link will be unique to you; please save it and do not share with others.

November 10, 5:00-6:15 p.m. California time / November 11, 9:00-10:15 a.m. China time
 

Based on his recent Oxford University Press book Protecting China's Interests Overseas: Securitization and Foreign Policy, Dr. Andrea Ghiselli will discuss the role of the actors that contributed to the emergence and evolution of China's approach to the protection of its interests overseas. He will show how the securitization of non-traditional security threats overseas played a key role in shaping the behavior and preferences of Chinese policymakers and military elites, especially with regard to the role of the armed forces in foreign policy. 

While Chinese policymakers were able to overcome important organizational challenges, the future of China's approach to the protection of its interests overseas remains uncertain as Chinese policymakers face important questions about the possible political and diplomatic costs associated with different courses of action.

For more information about Protecting China's Interests Overseas or to purchase a copy, please click here.
 


Portrait of Andrea Ghiselli
Dr. Andrea Ghiselli is an Assistant Professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs of Fudan University. He is also the Head of Research of the TOChina Hub's ChinaMed Project. His research focuses on the relationship between China's economic interests overseas and its foreign and defense policy. Besides his first monograph Protecting China's Interests Overseas: Securitization and Foreign Policy published by Oxford University Press, Dr. Ghiselli's research has been published in a number of peer-reviewed journals like the China Quarterly, the Journal of Strategic Studies, Armed Forces & Society, and the Journal of Contemporary China.

 

Via Zoom Webinar. Register at: https://bit.ly/3AUnPi3

Andrea Ghiselli Assistant Professor, School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University
Seminars

Jawboning As A First Amendment Problem

-

jawboning as a first amendment problem

PART OF THE FALL SEMINAR SERIES

Join us on October 19th for our weekly seminar from 12 PM - 1 PM PT featuring Genevieve Lakier, Professor of Law at University of Chicago's Law School and CPC Co-Director, Nate Persily. This series is organized by the Program on Democracy and the Internet, and the Cyber Initiative at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

For years now, scholars have expressed alarm at the tendency of government officials to pressure—or “jawbone”—social media companies into taking down what the officials consider to be harmful or offensive speech, even when no law requires it. Scholars have worried, for good reason, that the practice of jawboning allows government officials to evade the stringent constraints on their power to regulate speech imposed by the First Amendment. But relatively little attention has been paid to the constitutional question of whether, or rather when, government jawboning itself violates the First Amendment. In fact, answering this question turns out to be quite difficult because of deep inconsistencies in the cases that deal with jawboning, both in the social media context and beyond. In this talk, I will explore what those inconsistencies are, why the case law is so unclear about where the line between permissible government pressure and unconstitutional governmental coercion falls, and what kind of jawboning rule might be necessary to protect free speech values in a public sphere in which both private companies and government officials possess considerable power to determine who can and cannot speak.

  

REGISTER

 

Speaker Profile:

Genevieve Lakier teaches and writes about freedom of speech and American constitutional law. Her work examines the changing meaning of freedom of speech in the United States, the role that legislatures play in safeguarding free speech values, and the fight over freedom of speech on the social media platforms.
 
Genevieve has an AB from Princeton University, a JD from New York University School of Law, and an MA and PhD in anthropology from the University of Chicago. Between 2006 and 2008, she was an Academy Scholar at the Weatherhead Center for International and Area Studies at Harvard University. After law school, she clerked for Judge Leonard B. Sand of the Southern District of New York and Judge Martha C. Daughtrey of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Before joining the faculty, Genevieve taught at the Law School as a Bigelow Fellow and Lecturer in Law. She will serve as the Senior Visiting Research Scholar at the Knight Institute at Columbia University for the 2021-2022 school year, where she will be supervising a project exploring the relationship between the First Amendment and the regulation of lies, disinformation and misinformation.


 

Genevieve Lakier,
Seminars

Thinking about Democracy and Revolution: Egypt’s 2011 Uprising

-

Bread and Freedom book cover
Egypt’s 2011 uprising is widely held to be a case of either failed democratic transition or inauthentic revolution. Scholars of democratic transitions blame Egypt’s bickering civilian politicians for failing to do the hard work of negotiated compromise to build an inclusive democracy. Scholars of revolution doubt that Egypt’s uprising counts as a revolution, since military generals did not cede the reins after Hosni Mubarak’s fall, and ultimately reconquered the state with their July 2013 coup. But what if instead of viewing Egypt as a uniform failure, we mine it for ideas on how to refresh our concepts of democracy and revolution? In this talk, based on her new book Bread and Freedom, Egypt’s Revolutionary Situation, Mona El-Ghobashy presents an interpretation of Egypt’s 2011 uprising that brings out some lost connections between democracy and revolution.
 

Register Now

 

SPEAKER BIO

Mona El-Ghobashy
Mona El-Ghobashy is a scholar of the sociology and history of politics in Egypt, and the broader Middle East and North Africa. She is a Clinical Assistant Professor at Liberal Studies at New York University. Her research focuses on the dynamics of political contestation in Egypt before and after the 2011 uprising. Her first book, Bread and Freedom: Egypt’s Revolutionary Situation, was published by Stanford University Press in July 2021.

This event is co-sponsored by the "Ten Years on Project" and the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies at Stanford University.

Online, via Zoom: REGISTER

Seminars
Arab Reform and Democracy Speaker Series

Growing Climate Solutions

Authors
News Type
Q&As
Date
Paragraphs

A major bill with bipartisan support in Congress would reward farmers for an unusual harvest. The Growing Climate Solutions Act(link is external) promises billions of dollars for climate-smart agriculture practices, such as planting cover crops to reduce erosion and sequester carbon. The bill highlights farming’s potential as a climate change solution, as well as the challenge of controlling the sector’s growing greenhouse gas emissions. Below, Stanford Earth scientists Inês Azevedo, David Lobell and Rob Jackson discuss the surprising amount of greenhouse gases emitted by farming, how farmland conservation programs can help reverse the trend and what the federal government can do to promote more climate-friendly agriculture, among other issues.

Azevedo is an associate professor in the Department of Energy Resources Engineering at Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth). Her research examines the role of food systems in reaching de-carbonized economies. Lobell is the Gloria and Richard Kushel Director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment. He uses unique datasets to study rural areas; his research has shown how reduced soil tillage can increase yields while nurturing healthier soils and lowering production costs. Jackson is the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Provostial Professor of Energy and Environment in Stanford Earth. His work has shown that global emissions of nitrous oxide increased by 30 percent over the past four decades due mostly to large-scale farming with synthetic fertilizers and cattle ranching, and that well-managed soil’s ability to trap carbon dioxide is potentially much greater than previously estimated.

What might the average person be surprised to learn about greenhouse gas emissions from America’s agricultural lands?

Lobell: First, I think people are surprised that the food system actually uses a very small share of fossil fuels, even when you include all the fertilizer production. Second, people are surprised by how many things they think are good, like eating organic or local foods, have very little effect on emissions and can even be worse than conventional alternatives.

Jackson: Many people are aware that fossil fuel use drives most carbon dioxide emissions, but they might not know that more than half of methane and nitrous oxide emissions attributable to human activities come from agriculture.

Azevedo: I think the average person would be surprised to learn agriculture – including livestock, agricultural soils and agricultural production – accounts for about 10 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and, in contrast to some other sectors of the economy, they have increased over time.

Does the Growing Climate Solutions Act go far enough to mitigate and reduce emissions? How could it be stronger?

Lobell: I worry that there isn’t enough emphasis on the main greenhouse gases that agriculture contributes to – nitrous oxide and methane – where progress could probably be made a lot faster than for carbon dioxide. Soil carbon is like motherhood and apple pie – nobody is against it – but I wish that half the energy I see going into how to get more carbon into soil was going into how to reduce emissions of the other gases.

How can programs that reward farmers for certain conservation practices help? 

Jackson: The world’s soils contain far more carbon than the atmosphere, but agricultural activities such as plowing have released two hundred billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere from soils. Conservation programs can help us put some of that carbon back where it belongs, making our soils more fertile and better at retaining water.

Lobell: On one level, these programs can help start the process of making agriculture carbon neutral or even carbon negative. This is important if we want to meet aggressive climate goals. On another level, they can help build a broader political coalition devoted to solving climate change. This might be even more important for climate goals, especially given the disproportionate role of rural states in our federal government.

How should such programs be designed for maximum efficiency and cost-effectiveness?

Lobell: I’m concerned there is a lot of hype out there now on what specific practices can deliver, for example by companies trying to raise large funding rounds on the idea of selling carbon credits. I think it’s important that the programs have a strong system of verification and ability to adjust over time as we learn about what is truly effective.

Jackson: Rather than focusing primarily on carbon dioxide, agricultural incentives would be well served to reduce emissions of methane and nitrous oxide through practices such as better fertilizer and manure management. Methane’s warming potential is 30 times higher than carbon dioxide’s over a century, and nitrous oxide’s warming potential is nearly 300 times higher. Reducing them is a great bang for our climate buck.

From a global perspective, how important is agriculture’s role as a potential climate change solution, and how can policymakers better quantify and track it?

Azevedo: One of the recent things our recent research has shown is that although reducing emissions from fossil fuels is essential for meeting the Paris Agreement goals, other sources of emissions may also preclude its attainment. Specifically, even if all fossil fuel emissions were immediately halted, the achievement of the agreement’s 1.5 degree Celsius maximum temperature increase target would likely not be feasible if global food systems continue along their current trends.

Lobell: I think accelerating public research in this area will be critical, particularly for ways to accurately measure carbon accumulation or emissions reductions on individual farms. If this had been a well-funded area, we might be in a much better position in terms of leveraging all of the private sector enthusiasm for it. Since food is a traded commodity, it will also be important to monitor global land-use change and the extent to which our domestic policies might be having unintended consequences elsewhere.


Azevedo and Jackson are also senior fellows at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and the Precourt Institute for Energy. Lobell is also a professor of Earth system science in Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences, the William Wrigley Senior Fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.

Hero Image
grain field
All News button
1
Subtitle

Stanford scientists discuss climate-smart agriculture

Fisher Family CDDRL Honors Program Information Session AY 22-23

-

The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) will be accepting applications from eligible juniors on who are interested in writing their senior thesis on a subject touching upon democracy, economic development, and rule of law (DDRL) from any university department.  The application period opens on January 10, 2022 and runs through February 11, 2022.   For more information on the Fisher Family CDDRL Honors Program, please click here.

Join us online via Zoom on Friday, January 21st at 12:00pm (PST) to learn more! 

REGISTER NOW

CDDRL faculty and current honors students will be present to discuss the program and answer any questions.

 

Online via zoom. REGISTER HERE.

Stephen J. Stedman

CDDRL
Encina Hall, C152
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 725-2705 (650) 724-2996
0
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science
Stedman_Steve.jpg PhD

Stephen Stedman is a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), an affiliated faculty member at CISAC, and professor of political science (by courtesy) at Stanford University. He is director of CDDRL's Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development and Rule of Law, and will be faculty director of the Program on International Relations in the School of Humanities and Sciences effective Fall 2025.

In 2011-12 Professor Stedman served as the Director for the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy, and Security, a body of eminent persons tasked with developing recommendations on promoting and protecting the integrity of elections and international electoral assistance. The Commission is a joint project of the Kofi Annan Foundation and International IDEA, an intergovernmental organization that works on international democracy and electoral assistance.

In 2003-04 Professor Stedman was Research Director of the United Nations High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change and was a principal drafter of the Panel’s report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility.

In 2005 he served as Assistant Secretary-General and Special Advisor to the Secretary- General of the United Nations, with responsibility for working with governments to adopt the Panel’s recommendations for strengthening collective security and for implementing changes within the United Nations Secretariat, including the creation of a Peacebuilding Support Office, a Counter Terrorism Task Force, and a Policy Committee to act as a cabinet to the Secretary-General.

His most recent book, with Bruce Jones and Carlos Pascual, is Power and Responsibility: Creating International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats (Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 2009).

Director, Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development and Rule of Law
Director, Program in International Relations
Affiliated faculty at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Hide publication sections
Off
Date Label

Didi Kuo

Encina Hall, C150
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305

0
Center Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
didi_kuo_2023.jpg

Didi Kuo is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University. She is a scholar of comparative politics with a focus on democratization, corruption and clientelism, political parties and institutions, and political reform. She is the author of The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don’t (Oxford University Press) and Clientelism, Capitalism, and Democracy: the rise of programmatic politics in the United States and Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

She has been at Stanford since 2013 as the manager of the Program on American Democracy in Comparative Perspective and is co-director of the Fisher Family Honors Program at CDDRL. She was an Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fellow at New America and is a non-resident fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She received a PhD in political science from Harvard University, an MSc in Economic and Social History from Oxford University, where she studied as a Marshall Scholar, and a BA from Emory University.

Hide publication sections
Off
Date Label
Subscribe to Governance