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.

Alejandra Aldridge

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CDDRL Predoctoral Scholar, 2021-22
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Alejandra Aldridge is a PhD candidate in the Political Science department at Stanford University. Her dissertation examines how partisanship colors citizens' approval of presidential actions that violate democratic norms. Broadly, her research interests include  executive politics, public opinion, democratic norms, experimental methods, survey methodology, and gender and politics. Alejandra graduated from Brigham Young University with a BA in Political Science. On the side, she loves tennis, Crossfit, Sprinkles cupcakes, and dark chocolate.

 

 

Aytuğ Şaşmaz

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CDDRL Postdoctoral Scholar, 2021-22
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I am a political scientist (PhD degree expected in July 2021 from Harvard) working on political parties, social welfare policies and local governance, primarily in the Middle East and North Africa. My dissertation project focuses on secular parties in the region and explores why they could not form a robust electoral alternative to the Islamist parties in the post-uprisings period. In other projects, I explore voters' responses to executive aggrandizement (focusing on Turkey), and social welfare in the context of ethnic and organizational diversity (focusing on Lebanon). Prior to PhD, I worked as an education policy analyst in Turkey, managing several research projects in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, World Bank and UNICEF. I hold a BA degree in Political Science from Boğaziçi, and Master's degrees from the LSE and Brown. 

The Autocratic Middle Class

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About the Event:

The Autocratic Middle Class studies the post-communist middle classes – not as a force for democracy, but as a source of support for autocracy and authoritarian resilience. It helps to explain why authoritarianism deepened across the ex-Soviet region over a period when the middle class was rapidly expanding; why anti-Putin protests in Russia have thus far failed to achieve a critical mass; and why it has been so difficult to consolidate democracy in Ukraine. Drawing on attitudinal surveys, unique data on protest participation, and extensive fieldwork in the former Soviet Union, this book shows that state dependence weakens the middle classes’ incentives to prefer and pursue democracy and sheds light on why development doesn’t necessarily lead to democratization.

 

About the Speaker:

Bryn Rosenfeld
Bryn Rosenfeld is Assistant Professor of Government at Cornell University. Her research interests include political behavior, development and democratization, protest, post-communist politics, and survey methodology. Her new book, The Autocratic Middle Class examines how middle-class economic dependence on the state impedes democratization and contributes to authoritarian resilience. She is the recipient of a Juan Linz Best Dissertation Prize and a Best Article Award honorable mention, both by the American Political Science Association’s Democracy & Autocracy Section. Her work appears in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, Comparative Political Studies, and Sociological Methods & Research. She holds a PhD from Princeton.

Online, via Zoom:  REGISTER

Bryn Rosenfeld Assistant Professor of Government at Cornell University
Seminars

Kurt M. Campbell and Laura Rosenberger on U.S.-China Relations: 2021 Oksenberg Conference

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Please note that the event end time has changed to 1 PM (PT) due to a last-minute schedule conflict for our speakers.


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 it with others.

 

Kurt Campbell, Deputy Assistant to the President and Coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs, United States National Security Council (NSC); and Laura Rosenberger, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for China and Taiwan, NSC, will discuss President Biden’s China strategy, how it might differ from that of the Trump administration, and how the US can best pursue its values and interests amidst China’s rise in the Indo-Pacific. 

The Oksenberg Conference, held annually honors the legacy of the late Professor Michel Oksenberg (1938–2001) who was a senior fellow at Shorenstein APARC and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Professor Oksenberg also served as a key member of the National Security Council when the United States normalized relations with China, and consistently urged that the United States engage with Asia in a more considered manner. In tribute, the Oksenberg Lecture recognizes distinguished individuals who have helped to advance understanding between the United States and the nations of the Asia-Pacific.

 

Speakers 
 

Portrait of Kurt Campbell
Kurt M. Campbell serves as Deputy Assistant to the President and Coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs on the United States National Security Council. He was previously Chairman and CEO of The Asia Group, LLC, a strategic advisory and capital management group. From 2009 to 2013, he served as the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, where he is widely credited as being a key architect of the “pivot to Asia.” For advancing a comprehensive US strategy that took him to every corner of the Asia-Pacific region, Secretary Hillary Clinton awarded him the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award (2013) — the nation’s highest diplomatic honor. Campbell was formerly the CEO and Co-Founder of the Center for a New American Security and concurrently served as the Director of the Aspen Strategy Group and Chairman of the Editorial Board of the Washington Quarterly. He is the author or editor of ten books including Difficult Transitions: Why Presidents Fail in Foreign Policy at the Outset of Power and Hard Power: The New Politics of National Security. He received his BA from UC San Diego and his Doctorate in International Relations from Brasenose College at Oxford University.
 

Portrait of Laura Rosenberger
Laura Rosenberger serves as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for China and Taiwan on the United States National Security Council (NSC). Rosenberger was most recently the director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy and a senior fellow at The German Marshall Fund (GMF) of the United States. Before she joined GMF, she was foreign policy advisor for Hillary for America, where she coordinated development of the campaign’s national security policies, messaging, and strategy. Prior to that, she served in a range of positions at the State Department and the NSC. As chief of staff to Deputy Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and later as then-Deputy National Security Advisor Blinken’s senior advisor, she counseled on the full range of national security policy. In her role at the NSC, she also managed the interagency Deputies Committee, the U.S. government’s senior-level interagency decision-making forum on our country’s most pressing national security issues. Rosenberger also has extensive background in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly Northeast Asia. She served as NSC director for China and Korea, managing and coordinating U.S. policy on China and the Korean Peninsula, and in a variety of positions focused on the Asia-Pacific region at the Department of State, including managing U.S.–China relations and addressing North Korea’s nuclear programs. She also served as special assistant to Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns, advising him on Asia-Pacific affairs and on nonproliferation and arms control issues. Rosenberger first joined the State Department as a presidential management fellow.
 

Portrait of Michael McFaulMichael McFaul is Director at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in the Department of Political Science, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995. McFaul also is an International Affairs Analyst for NBC News and a columnist for The Washington Post. He served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014). He has authored several books, most recently the New York Times bestseller From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia. Earlier books include Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should, How We Can; Transitions To Democracy: A Comparative Perspective (eds. with Kathryn Stoner); Power and Purpose: American Policy toward Russia after the Cold War (with James Goldgeier); and Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin.

Via Zoom. Register at: https://bit.ly/3vWF2Wa

Kurt M. Campbell <br><i>Deputy Assistant to the President and Coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs, National Security Council</i><br><br>
Laura Rosenberger <br><i>Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for China and Taiwan, National Security Council</i><br><br>
Michael McFaul, moderator <br><i>Director, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies, Department of Political Science, Stanford University</i><br><br>
Conferences
Oksenberg Conference

The Trump Takedown: An Online Discussion With Members of the Facebook Oversight Board

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the trump takedown

The Facebook Oversight Board will release its decision concerning the takedown of President Donald Trump's account this Wednesday. On Thursday, May 6, from 2:00 to 3:15 PM Pacific, members of the Oversight Board will be joined by the leaders of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center to discuss the Board's decision. Two members of the Oversight Board, Michael McConnell and Julie Owono, will be joined by Nate Persily, Renee DiResta, Daphne Keller, Marietje Schaake and Alex Stamos to discuss the decision and its implications for Facebook's handling of similar controversies around the world.

REGISTER

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WATCH THE LIVESTREAM

 

Digital Activism and Authoritarian Adaptation in the Middle East

REGISTER

 

Digital Activism and Authoritarian Adaptation in the Middle East Agenda (1 of 2)

Digital Activism and Authoritarian Adaptation in the Middle East Agenda (2 of 2)

Panel 1: Digital Activism

Tuesday, May 25, 2021 | 9-10:30 am PT

Opening Remarks: Marc Lynch, Eileen Donahoe, and Larry Diamond

Moderator: Hesham Sallam

  • Wafa Ben-Hassine: “The Hyper-Aware and Not-So-Aware: What's Next for the MENA Region's Activists and Society at Large Vis-a-Vis the Internet?”
  • Adel Iskander: “Re(Membering) Culture and Heritage: Egypt's Latest Political Turf War”
  • Zachary Steinert-Threlkeld: “Civilian Behavior on Social Media During Civil War”
  • Joshua Tucker: “Beyond Liberation Technology? The Recent Uses of Social Media by Pro-Democracy Activists”

 

Panel 2: Authoritarian Abuses of Internet Technologies

Thursday, May 27, 2021 | 9-10:30 am PT

Moderator: Marc Lynch

  • Marwa Fatafta: “Transnational or Cross-Border Digital Repression in the MENA Region”
  • Andrew Leber: “Social Media Manipulation in the MENA: Inauthenticity, Inequality, and Insecurity” (Co-authored paper with Alexei Abrahams)
  • Marc Owen Jones: “Tracking Adversaries: The Evolution of Manipulation Tactics on Gulf Twitter”
  • Xiao Qiang: “Chinese Digital Authoritarianism and Its Global Impact”

 

Panel 3: Government Reshaping of Norms and Practices to Constrain Online Activity

Tuesday, June 1, 2021 | 9-10:30 am PT

Moderator: Eileen Donahoe

  • Ahmed Shaheed: “Binary Threat: How State Cyber Policy and Practice Undermines Human Rights in the Middle East and North Africa Region”
  • Mona Elswah, Mahsa Alimardani: "The Hurdles Involved in Content Moderation in the MENA Region"
  • Mohamed Najem: “The Role of the Gulf in Governing Digital Space in the Arab Region”
  • James Shires: “The Techno-Regulation of Critical Communications Infrastructures and Their Political Potential in the Gulf”
  • Alexei Abrahams: “The Web (In)Security of Middle Eastern Civil Society and Media”

 

Panel 4: Cross-Border Information Operations

Thursday, June 3, 2021 | 9-10:30 am PT

Moderator: Larry Diamond

  • Alexandra Siegel: “Official Foreign Influence Operations: Transnational State Media in the Arab Online Sphere”
  • Hamit Akin Unver: “Russian Disinformation Operations in Turkey: 2015-2020”
  • Shelby Grossman and Renee DiResta: “In-House vs. Outsourced Trolls: How Digital Mercenaries Shape State Influence Strategies”
  • Nathaniel Gleicher: “Covert Manipulation, Overt Influence, Direct Exploit: Understanding and Countering Influence Operations in the Middle East and Beyond”
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When Beijing Goes to Washington: Autocratic Lobbying Influence in Democracies

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On April 21, 2021, the APARC China Program hosted Professor Erin Baggott Carter, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Southern California, and Visiting Scholar at the Stanford Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. Her program, "When Beijing Goes to Washington: Autocratic Lobbying Influence in Democracies," explored how lobbying from China and China-based companies can affect policy in the United States. Professor Jean Oi, William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics and director of the APARC China Program, moderated the event.

Professor Baggot Carter based her talk on a dataset drawn from the public records of the US Foreign Agents Registration Act, which includes over 10,000 lobbying activities undertaken by the Chinese government between 2005 and 2019. According to Baggot Carter, the evidence suggests that Chinese government lobbying makes legislators at least twice as likely to sponsor legislation that is favorable to Chinese interests. Moreover, US media outlets that participated in Chinese-government sponsored trips subsequently covered China as less threatening. Coverage pivoted away from US-China military rivalry and the CCP’s persecution of religious minorities and toward US-China economic cooperation. These results suggest that autocratic lobbying poses an important challenge to democratic integrity. Watch now: 

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U.S.-China Relations in the Biden Era

Dr. Thomas Wright examines the recent history of US-China relations and what that might mean for the new administration.
U.S.-China Relations in the Biden Era
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Professor Erin Baggot Carter tells us how autocratic lobbying affects political outcomes and media coverage in democracies.

Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin's Russia

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* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

 

This event is co-sponsored by the Project on Russian Power and Purpose in the 21st Century and the Center for International Security and Cooperation.

 

Seminar Recording:  https://youtu.be/gDD68gqClt8

 

About the Event: Media and public discussions tend to understand Russian politics as a direct reflection of Vladimir Putin’s seeming omnipotence or Russia’s unique history and culture. Yet Russia is similar to other autocracies—and recognizing this illuminates the inherent limits to Putin’s power. Weak Strongman challenges the conventional wisdom about Putin’s Russia, highlighting the difficult trade-offs that confront the Kremlin on issues ranging from election fraud and repression to propaganda and foreign policy.

Drawing on three decades of his own on-the-ground experience and research as well as insights from a new generation of social scientists that have received little attention outside academia, Timothy Frye reveals how much we overlook about today’s Russia when we focus solely on Putin or Russian exceptionalism. Frye brings a new understanding to a host of crucial questions: How popular is Putin? Is Russian propaganda effective? Why are relations with the West so fraught? Can Russian cyber warriors really swing foreign elections? In answering these and other questions, Frye offers a highly accessible reassessment of Russian politics that highlights the challenges of governing Russia and the nature of modern autocracy.

Rich in personal anecdotes and cutting-edge social science, Weak Strongman offers the best evidence available about how Russia actually works.

 

Book Purchase: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691212463/weak-strongman

Discount Code: FRYE 30%

 

About the Speaker: Timothy Frye is the Marshall D. Shulman Professor of Post-Soviet Foreign Policy at Columbia University and Co-Director of the International Center for the Study of Institutions and Development at the Higher School of Economics, Moscow. He is also the Editor of Post-Soviet Affairs.

Professor Frye received a B.A. in Russian language and literature from Middlebury College in 1986, an M.I.A. from Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs in 1992, and a Ph.D. from Columbia in 1997. He served as the Director of the Harriman Institute from 2009-2015 and as Chair of the Political Science Department from 2016-18.

Virtual Seminar

Timothy Frye Professor Columbia University
Seminars
European Security Initiative

What Does India Want from a Partnership? A Conversation with Shivshankar Menon

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This event is part of Shorenstein APARC's spring webinar series "The United States in the Biden Era: Views from Asia."
 
India claims to prize its strategic autonomy, but it has built an unprecedented partnership with the United States. New Delhi and Washington both see each other as indispensable in their strategic competition with China. They have accordingly deepened their military relationship, begun to coordinate policies on regional issues, and built larger regional groupings like the Quad. Despite perennial disruptions – such as the recent fracas over COVID-related supplies – the foundations of the relationship are strong. But what kind of partnership does India seek with the United States? This conversation will examine how India views the Biden Administration; but more broadly, it will also examine India’s strategy in calibrating its partnership with the U.S., and how that might advance its larger policy goals

Menon_shivshankar_aparc
Ambassador Shivshankar Menon is a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, New Delhi, and a Visiting Professor at Ashoka University. His long career in public service spans diplomacy, national security, atomic energy, disarmament policy, and India’s relations with its neighbours and major global powers. Menon served as national security advisor to the Indian Prime Minister from 2010 to 2014, and foreign secretary of India from 2006 to 2009. Previously, he served as ambassador and high commissioner of India to Israel (1995-1997), Sri Lanka (1997-2000), China (2000-2003) and Pakistan (2003-2006). From 2008 to 2014, he was also a member of India’s Atomic Energy Commission. A career diplomat, he also served in India’s missions to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Geneva and the United Nations in New York. He is the author of Choices: Inside the Making of Indian Foreign Policy, published in 2016, and his latest book, India and Asian Geopolitics; The Past, Present, was published in April 2021. He is a graduate of St. Stephens College of the University of Delhi, where he studied ancient Indian history and Chinese. He speaks Chinese and some German.
 

Arzan_Tarapore_May4
Dr. Arzan Tarapore is the South Asia research scholar at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, where he leads the newly-restarted South Asia research initiative. He is also a senior nonresident fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research. His research focuses on Indian military strategy and contemporary Indo-Pacific security issues. He previously held research positions at the RAND Corporation, the Observer Research Foundation, and the East-West Center in Washington. Prior to his scholarly career, he served for 13 years in the Australian Defence Department. Arzan holds a PhD in war studies from King’s College London.

Co-sponsored by The Center for South Asia at Stanford University

 
 
 

Via Zoom webinar
Register at:  https://bit.ly/3t3n4iJ

Shivshankar Menon Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, New Delhi, and a Visiting Professor at Ashoka University Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress, New Delhi, and a Visiting Professor at Ashoka University
Arzan Tarapore (Moderator) South Asia Research Scholar, Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University South Asia Research Scholar, Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University
Seminars

"Negotiating the New START Treaty"

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* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

 

This event is co-sponsored by the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Center for International Security and Cooperation.

 

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/s3MMxYH6bfU

 

About the Event: Rose Gottemoeller served as the US chief negotiator of the New START treaty. The first woman to lead a major nuclear arms negotiation, she played a critical role in creating US policy on arms control and ensuring that a deeply divided Congress came together to ratify the treaty to safeguard the future of all Americans.  

In her new book, Negotiating the New START Treaty, Gottemoeller gives an insider’s account of the negotiations between the US and Russian delegations in Geneva in 2009 and 2010.  

On May 21, at 1p Pacific, Gottemoeller will discuss her book, her years of high-level experience and her analysis of the complicated relationship between the US and Russia with Michael McFaul, director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the former US Ambassador to Russia.  

Gottemoeller and McFaul were in the trenches together during the negotiations--he in the White House, she in Geneva. In this online event, they will discuss the New START treaty and the key role it played in President Obama's nuclear policies. 

McFaul will interview Gottemoeller and moderate a Q&A with the audience. This event is co-sponsored by the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Center for International Security and Cooperation. 

 

About the Speaker: Rose Gottemoeller is the Frank E. and Arthur W. Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and its Center for International Security and Cooperation.

Before joining Stanford Gottemoeller was the Deputy Secretary General of NATO from 2016 to 2019, where she helped to drive forward NATO’s adaptation to new security challenges in Europe and in the fight against terrorism.  Prior to NATO, she served for nearly five years as the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the U.S. Department of State, advising the Secretary of State on arms control, nonproliferation and political-military affairs. While Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance in 2009 and 2010, she was the chief U.S. negotiator of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with the Russian Federation.

Prior to her government service, she was a senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, with joint appointments to the Nonproliferation and Russia programs. She served as the Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center from 2006 to 2008, and is currently a nonresident fellow in Carnegie's Nuclear Policy Program. She is also a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. 

At Stanford, Gottemoeller teaches and mentors students in the Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy program and the CISAC Honors program; contribute to policy research and outreach activities; and convene workshops, seminars and other events relating to her areas of expertise, including nuclear security, Russian relations, the NATO alliance, EU cooperation and non-proliferation.

Virtual Seminar

Rose Gottemoeller

Center for International Security and Cooperation
Encina Hall
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

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William J. Perry Lecturer, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution
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Rose Gottemoeller is the William J. Perry Lecturer at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Research Fellow at the Hoover Institute.

Before joining Stanford, Gottemoeller was the Deputy Secretary General of NATO from 2016 to 2019, where she helped to drive forward NATO’s adaptation to new security challenges in Europe and in the fight against terrorism.  Prior to NATO, she served for nearly five years as the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the U.S. Department of State, advising the Secretary of State on arms control, nonproliferation and political-military affairs. While Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance in 2009 and 2010, she was the chief U.S. negotiator of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with the Russian Federation.

Prior to her government service, she was a senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, with joint appointments to the Nonproliferation and Russia programs. She served as the Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center from 2006 to 2008, and is currently a nonresident fellow in Carnegie's Nuclear Policy Program.  

At Stanford, Gottemoeller teaches and mentors students in the Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy program and the CISAC Honors program; contributes to policy research and outreach activities; and convenes workshops, seminars and other events relating to her areas of expertise, including nuclear security, Russian relations, the NATO alliance, EU cooperation and non-proliferation. 

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