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.

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This event is open to Stanford undergraduate students only. 

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CDDRL Flyer 2021

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 11, 2021 and runs through February 12, 2021.   CDDRL faculty and current honors students will be present to discuss the program and answer any questions.

For more information on the Fisher Family CDDRL Honors Program, please click here.

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

 Online, via Zoom: REGISTER

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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science
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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
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Deputy Director, CDDRL

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

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Center Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
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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.

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Associate Director for Research, CDDRL
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* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

 

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

 

About the Event: Research on social media and politics has largely focused on two very different political contexts: authoritarian regimes and “normal” democratic polities. However, many countries’ political systems exist between these extremes: there is both “normal” online mobilization and efforts at manipulation that emanate in whole or in part from state-linked actors. In this article, we focus on a country with such a system: Pakistan. We investigate the politics of social media in the run-up to Pakistan’s 2018 general election. The campaign involved both intense, large-scale electoral mobilization and recurrent, credible allegations of influence by the country’s politically powerful army. We analyze millions of Twitter posts in English and Urdu by major political actors and their followers in Pakistan before and just after the 2018 election to identify patterns of 1) normal mobilization and 2) coordinated manipulation. Several findings emerge. First, the main political parties were highly active on social media, with the eventually-victorious Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) of Imran Khan showing a noticeable edge in online enthusiasm that matches the substantial victory of the PTI in the election. Second, there was a noticeable “dissident sphere” on Twitter, seeking to get around a campaign of censorship and media influence by the military. However, dissidents’ messages were largely swamped by the broader party competition and narratives favorable to the PTI and the military. Third, we find evidence of coordinated activities. This appears to have largely favored the PTI and pro-military messages, which saw a substantially higher rate of amplification. Finally, we see evidence of narrative alignment between the PTI and the military – the clusters of their followers seemed to advance pro-PTI and anti-PML-N messages; pro-PTI and anti-PML-N narratives were pervasive in the PML-N and dissident clusters.

 

About the Speakers: 

Asfandyar Mir is a Postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. His research interests are in international security with current work focusing on counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, drone warfare, US counterterrorism policy, South Asia security issues, misinformation dynamics, and Al-Qaida. Some of his research has appeared in peer-reviewed journals, such as International Security, International Studies Quarterly, and Security Studies. My commentary has appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, H-Diplo, Lawfare, and Washington Post Monkey Cage.

 

Tamar Mitts is Assistant Professor at the School of International and Public Affairs and a Faculty Member at the Data Science Institute and the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. Her research applies machine learning and text analysis methods to study political behavior in the digital age, and has been published in the American Political Science Review, International Organization, the Journal of Economic Perspectives, and Political Science Research and Methods, among other outlets.

 

Paul Staniland is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and a nonresident scholar in the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His research focuses on political violence and international security in South Asia. Staniland’s first book, Networks of Rebellion: Explaining Insurgent Cohesion and Collapse, was published by Cornell University Press in 2014, and his second book, Armed Politics: Violence, Order, and the State in South Asia, will be published by Cornell in 2022.

Virtual Seminar

Asfanydar Mir, Tamar Mitts & Paul Staniland

In recent years, we have witnessed a worldwide trend of "democratic depression" in both young and established democracies, where the backsliding from democracy is facilitated by various forces such as populism, nationalism, partisan polarization, and post-truth. Korea is no exception. While the signs of democratic decline are subtle and disguised under the rule of law, they are producing piecemeal erosions of liberal democracy and pluralism in many corners of the Korean society. As a timely warning against the gradual decline of democratic norms and values, this 3-part conference seeks to examine the forces that endanger the Korean democracy and aims to offer some concrete policy prescriptions to remedy the existing and growing signs of democratic decline.

Topics Discussed:

Day 1: November 12, 2020 (4PM-7PM)

  • Political culture and polarization: Pitfall of political over-participation or “street-democracy"
  • Underdevelopment of party politics: Factionalism, weak institutionalization, and poor appreciation
  • Erosion in balance of power: Courts losing legitimacy and respect with politicization
  • Uses and misuses of nationalism in politics

Day 2: November 13, 2020 (4PM-6PM)

  • Two divergences in South Korea’s Economy: Regional and generational disparities
  • Challenges of post-truth: Politicization and polarization of the press, social media, disinformation
  • Education and its impact on civic value and generational gap

Day 3: November 19, 2020 (4PM-6:15PM)

  • Politicization of civil society: Losing function as watchdog of power, former democratic activists becoming new authoritarian leaders
  • How the rise of populist regime affects foreign policy
  • Korean democracy in comparative perspectives

The conference papers will be published as an edited volume.

Via Zoom

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Noa Ronkin
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The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) is pleased to announce its new China Policy Fellowship, which will bring to Stanford mid-career to senior-level experts with extensive research experience on issues vital to U.S. China policy and influence in the policymaking process. With this new offering, APARC seeks to apply cutting-edge academic analysis to pressing challenges affecting U.S. policy toward China and to strengthen U.S.-China relations.

The fellowship will be awarded annually to one expert. While at Stanford, the China Policy Fellow will undertake original research in his/her area of expertise and will play a lead role in organizing a major conference on a topic central to the U.S.-China policy agenda. Each fellow’s work and annual conference will result in a publication that will help advance a deeper understanding of China and its aims.

The fellowship will be hosted by APARC’s China Program, whose mission is to facilitate multidisciplinary, social science-oriented research on contemporary China, with a dual emphasis on basic and policy-relevant research. The appointment of the inaugural 2021-22 China Policy Fellow will begin in the fall quarter of 2021. The new fellowship is made possible thanks to the generosity of an APARC supporter.

“The need to enhance understanding within the United States about China has never been more critical,” says China Program Director Jean Oi, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics. “In these times when divergent claims and bellicose propositions are regularly made by politicians and policymakers in the United States and in China, the China Policy Fellowship will help us promote dialogue between the two nations and empirically-driven research relevant to U.S. China relations. I am delighted that we are able to offer this new fellowship opportunity.”

The application deadline for the 2021-22 China Policy Fellowship is February 15, 2021.

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Dr. Yuen Yuen Ang Awarded Theda Skocpol Prize for Emerging Scholars

Former China Program postdoc and Stanford Ph.D alumna Yuen Yuen Ang has received the Theda Skocpol Prize for Emerging Scholars from the American Political Science Association for her scholarship on China’s transformation into a global superpower.
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Stanford University’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Center invites applications for the inaugural 2021-22 China Policy Fellowship from experts with research experience on issues vital to the U.S. China policy agenda and influence in the policymaking process.

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

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/Q6-ErAxGmQ0

 

About the Event: While research into why repression varies has thrived, essentially no effort has been made to examine stopping large-scale applications once underway. We put forward a new theoretical framework that conceptualizes repressive behavior as a rare/slow-changing process that is unlikely to terminate unless it is perturbed by a significant cost. As such, we maintain that repression is more likely ended by democratization than from diverse factors commonly espoused in the literature and policy community (e.g., military intervention, naming/shaming, international law and economic sanctions). Investigating a new database regarding 239 high-level repression spells for the period 1976-2007, we find that democratization is associated with spell-termination, while there is little systematic pacifying influence for other factors. Additionally, we find that non-violent movements for change largely drive democratization but that these movements have little direct impact on state repression themselves.

Draft Paper

 

About the Speaker: Christian Davenport is a Professor of Political Science and Faculty Associate at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo and Elected Fellow at the American Association for the Arts and Sciences. Primary research interests include political conflict, measurement, racism and popular culture. He is the author of seven books and author of numerous articles appearing in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science and the Annual Review of Political Science (among others). He is the recipient of numerous grants (e.g., 12 from the National Science Foundation) and awards.

Virtual Seminar

Christian Davenport Professor University of Michigan
Seminars
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* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

 

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/5-om1-NWqv0

 

About the Event: Traditional international law is not sufficient for the oversight of emerging uses of the space environment, such as in situ resource utilization and increased militarization and weaponization. The US is pushing the boundaries through innovative contracting, governance instruments such as the Artemis Accords and new institutions such as the Space Force to test the space governance system. This presentation outlines a framework for organizing the system as a whole, including international agreements, national space policy and stakeholder interactions and interrelations.

 

About the Speaker: Aganaba is an assistant professor for the School for the Future in Innovation in Society with a courtesy appointment at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona State University.

She is most known in her industry for promoting the regulation of technologies to be utilized against climate change. This has expanded to the use of satellites to measure greenhouse gas emissions.

She has received the Young Space Leaders Award from the International Astronautical Federation. She has served as the executive director of the World Space Week Association and trainee legal officer for the Nigerian Space Research and Development Agency.

Virtual Seminar

Timiebi Aganaba Assistant Professor School for the Future of Innovation in Society, Arizona State University
Seminars
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* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

 

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/tcWqulaKXy0

 

About the Event: Since the end of World War II, the United States has set out to oust governments in the Middle East on an average of once per decade—in places such as Iran, Afghanistan (twice), Iraq, Egypt, Libya, and Syria. Though pursued for a wide range of reasons, these operations all failed to achieve their ultimate goals, produced a range of unintended and even catastrophic consequences, carried heavy financial and human costs, and often left the countries in question worse off than they were before. Losing the Long Game: The False Promise of Regime Change in the Middle East gives readers a look at the U.S. experience with regime change over the past seventy years, and an insider’s view on U.S. policymaking in the region at the highest levels.

Book Purchase:  https://www.amazon.com/Losing-Long-Game-Promise-Regime/dp/1250217032

 

About the Speaker: Dr. Philip Gordon is the Mary and David Boies Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.  From 2013-15, he served as Special Assistant to the President and White House Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa, and the Gulf Region.  As the most senior White House official focused on the greater Middle East, he worked closely with the President, Secretary of State, and National Security Adviser on the full range of geopolitical, economic, and security issues facing the region.  From 2009-13, Dr. Gordon served as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  In that position he was responsible for 50 countries in Europe and Eurasia as well as for NATO and the European Union (EU).  He is the author of Losing the Long Game: The False Promise of Regime Change in the Middle East, published October 6, 2020.    

Virtual Seminar

Philip Gordon Mary and David Boies Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy Council on Foreign Relations
Seminars
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* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

 

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/yyZ54SgGuz4

 

About the Event: We are beginning to understand that globalization has strategic consequences. Countries are using their position in globalized networks to "weaponize interdependence," through their dominance of information and financial networks. In this talk, Henry Farrell will discuss the research and policy agenda of weaponized interdependence, addressing such questions as: What areas of the global economy are most vulnerable to unilateral control of information and financial networks? How sustainable is the use of weaponized interdependence? What are the possible responses from targeted actors? And how sustainable is the open global economy if weaponized interdependence becomes a default tool for managing international relations?

Book Purchase:   https://amzn.to/3d29F4a

 

About the Speaker: Henry Farrell is SNF Agora Institute Professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, 2019 winner of the Friedrich Schiedel Prize for Politics and Technology, and Editor in Chief of the Monkey Cage blog at the Washington Post. His book (with Abraham Newman) Of Privacy and Power: The Transatlantic Fight over Freedom and Security, was published in 2019 by Princeton University Press, and has been awarded the 2019 Chicago-Kent College of Law / Roy C. Palmer Civil Liberties Prize and the ISA-ICOMM Best Book Award. In addition he has authored or co-authored 34 academic articles, as well as several book chapters and numerous non-academic publications. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Virtual Seminar

Henry Farrell SNF Agora Professor Johns Hopkins SAIS
Seminars
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THE 2020 ELECTION IN THE UNITED STATES will take place on November 3 in the midst of a global pandemic, economic downturn, social unrest, political polarization, and a sudden shift in the balance of power in the U.S Supreme Court. On top of these issues, the technological layer impacting the public debate, as well as the electoral process itself, may well determine the election outcome. The eight-week Stanford University course, “Technology and the 2020 Election: How Silicon Valley Technologies Affect Elections and Shape Democracy,” examines the influence of technology on America’s democratic process, revealing how digital technologies are shaping the public debate and the election.

The eight-week Stanford University course, “Technology and the 2020 Election: How Silicon Valley Technologies Affect Elections and Shape Democracy,” examines the influence of technology on America’s democratic process, revealing how digital technologies are shaping the public debate and the election...

 

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Marietje Schaake
Rob Reich
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ABSTRACT

This talk is based on the speaker's recently released book Archive Wars The Politics of History in Saudi Arabia (Stanford University Press, 2020). The production of history is premised on the selective erasure of certain pasts and the artifacts that stand witness to them. From the elision of archival documents to the demolition of sacred and secular spaces, each act of destruction is also an act of state building. Following the 1991 Gulf War, political elites in Saudi Arabia pursued these dual projects of historical commemoration and state formation with greater fervor to enforce their postwar vision for state, nation, and economy. Seeing Islamist movements as the leading threat to state power, they sought to de-center religion from educational, cultural, and spatial policies. With this book, Rosie Bsheer explores the increasing secularization of the postwar Saudi state and how it manifested in assembling a national archive and reordering urban space in Riyadh and Mecca. The elites' project was rife with ironies: in Riyadh, they employed world-renowned experts to fashion an imagined history, while at the same time in Mecca they were overseeing the obliteration of a thousand-year-old topography and its replacement with commercial megaprojects. Archive Wars shows how the Saudi state's response to the challenges of the Gulf War served to historicize a national space, territorialize a national history, and ultimately refract both through new modes of capital accumulation.

SPEAKER BIO

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Rosie Bsheer
Rosie Bsheer is Assistant Professor of History at Harvard University, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on oil and empire, social and intellectual movements, urban history, historiography, and the making of the modern Middle East. Rosie’s publications include Archive Wars: The Politics of History in Saudi Arabia (Stanford University Press, 2020) and “A Counterrevolutionary State: Popular Movements and the Making of Saudi Arabia,” Past and Present (2018). She is Associate Producer of the 2007 Oscar-nominated film My Country, My Country and a co-editor of Jadaliyya E-zine.

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Rosie Bsheer Assistant Professor of History Harvard University
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