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.

Democratic Erosion in South Korea

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Gi-Wook Shin
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This podcast conversation with Gi-Wook Shin was originally produced by CSIS.

South Korea may seem to be a mature democracy from the outside, but Gi-Wook Shin, director of APARC and the Korea Program, warns that internally, democratic norms in the ROK are starting to weaken and crumble. He joins Victor Cha and Andrew Schwartz on The Impossible State, a podcast by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), to further discuss his recent Journal of Democracy article, "South Korea's Democratic Decay," and how democratic backsliding in the Moon administration is part of a broader trend of the global decline of democracy. Listen above to the full conversation.

[Subscribe to APARC's newsletters to stay updated on our latest research.]

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President Moon Jae In of South Korea during his inauguration proceedings.
Commentary

Democracy in South Korea is Crumbling from Within

South Korea is following global trends as it slides toward a “democratic depression,” warns APARC’s Gi-Wook Shin. But the dismantling of South Korean democracy by chauvinistic populism and political polarization is the work of a leftist government, Shin argues in a ‘Journal of Democracy’ article.
Democracy in South Korea is Crumbling from Within
Opposing political rallies converge in South Korea
Commentary

Korean Democracy Is Sinking Under the Guise of the Rule of Law

Korean Democracy Is Sinking Under the Guise of the Rule of Law
(From left to right) Siegfried Hecker, Victor Cha, Oriana Mastro, Gi-Wook Shin, Robert Carlin
News

Experts Discuss Future U.S. Relations with North Korea Amid Escalations

Led by APARC, a panel of scholars hosted by the Freeman Spogli Institute weighs in on the implications of recent events on the Korean peninsula and the ongoing uncertainties in charting a future course with the DPRK.
Experts Discuss Future U.S. Relations with North Korea Amid Escalations
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[Left] The Impossible State by CSIS; [Right] Director Gi-Wook Shin
[Left] The Impossible State by CSIS; [Right] Director Gi-Wook Shin
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Gi-Wook Shin discusses the state of democracy in South Korea, and how democratic backsliding there fits into larger patterns of democratic decline underway across the globe.

The Domestic and Foreign Policy Challenges Posed by Russia

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

 

Seminar Recording:  https://youtu.be/lxMWuFvq2NU

 

About the Event: It has become increasingly clear that the Kremlin poses a security challenge to the West, with relations between the United States and Europe, on the one hand, and Russia, on the other, having fallen to their lowest point since the end of the 1980s.  In particular, Moscow seeks to overturn the post-Cold War European security order, which it believes disadvantages Russian interests.  The Russian challenge includes both foreign and domestic policy aspects, as the Kremlin augments traditional political and military tools with more sophisticated efforts to exploit and widen divides within Western societies.

Fiona Hill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, will discuss the challenge posed by Russia and the motives behind it.

 

About the Speaker: 

Fiona Hill is a senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. She recently served as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council from 2017 to 2019. From 2006 to 2009, she served as national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at The National Intelligence Council. She is co-author of “Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin” (Brookings Institution Press, 2015).

Prior to joining Brookings, Hill was director of strategic planning at The Eurasia Foundation in Washington, D.C. From 1991 to 1999, she held a number of positions directing technical assistance and research projects at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, including associate director of the Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project, director of the Project on Ethnic Conflict in the Former Soviet Union, and coordinator of the Trilateral Study on Japanese-Russian-U.S. Relations.

Hill has researched and published extensively on issues related to Russia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, regional conflicts, energy, and strategic issues. Her book with Brookings Senior Fellow Clifford Gaddy,“The Siberian Curse: How Communist Planners Left Russia Out in the Cold,” was published by Brookings Institution Press in December 2003, and her monograph, “Energy Empire: Oil, Gas and Russia’s Revival,” was published by the London Foreign Policy Centre in 2004. The first edition of “Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin” was published by Brookings Institution Press in December 2013, also with Clifford Gaddy.

Hill holds a master’s in Soviet studies and a doctorate in history from Harvard University where she was a Frank Knox Fellow. She also holds a master’s in Russian and modern history from St. Andrews University in Scotland, and has pursued studies at Moscow’s Maurice Thorez Institute of Foreign Languages. Hill is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Virtual Seminar

Fiona Hill Senior Fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe in the Foreign Policy program The Brookings Institution
Seminars
European Security Initiative

Election Debrief

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election debrief event stanford

The US 2020 elections have been fraught with challenges, including the rise of "fake news” and threats of foreign intervention emerging after 2016, ongoing concerns of racially-targeted disinformation, and new threats related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital technologies will have played a more important role in the 2020 elections than ever before.

On November 4th at 10am PST, join the team at the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, in collaboration with the Freeman Spogli Institute, Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, and the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, for a day-after discussion of the role of digital technologies in the 2020 Elections.  Speakers will include Nathaniel Persily, faculty co-director of the Cyber Policy Center and Director of the Program on Democracy and the Internet, Marietje Schaake, the Center’s International Policy Director and International Policy Fellow at Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, Alex Stamos, Director of the Cyber Center’s Internet Observatory and former Chief Security Officer at Facebook and Yahoo, Renee DiResta, Research Manager at the Internet Observatory, Andrew Grotto, Director of the Center’s Program on Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance, and Rob Reich, Faculty Director of the Center for Ethics in Society, in conversation with Kelly Born, the Center’s Executive Director.

Please note that we will also have a YouTube livestream available for potential overflow or for anyone having issues connecting via Zoom: https://youtu.be/H2k62-JCAgE

 

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Renee DiResta

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Renée DiResta is the former Research Manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory. She investigates the spread of malign narratives across social networks, and assists policymakers in understanding and responding to the problem. She has advised Congress, the State Department, and other academic, civic, and business organizations, and has studied disinformation and computational propaganda in the context of pseudoscience conspiracies, terrorism, and state-sponsored information warfare.

You can see a full list of Renée's writing and speeches on her website: www.reneediresta.com or follow her @noupside.

 

Former Research Manager, Stanford Internet Observatory
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Andrew Grotto

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C428

Stanford, CA 94305-6165

(650) 723-9866
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Andrew Grotto

Andrew J. Grotto is a research scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.

Grotto’s research interests center on the national security and international economic dimensions of America’s global leadership in information technology innovation, and its growing reliance on this innovation for its economic and social life. He is particularly interested in the allocation of responsibility between the government and the private sector for defending against cyber threats, especially as it pertains to critical infrastructure; cyber-enabled information operations as both a threat to, and a tool of statecraft for, liberal democracies; opportunities and constraints facing offensive cyber operations as a tool of statecraft, especially those relating to norms of sovereignty in a digitally connected world; and governance of global trade in information technologies.

Before coming to Stanford, Grotto was the Senior Director for Cybersecurity Policy at the White House in both the Obama and Trump Administrations. His portfolio spanned a range of cyber policy issues, including defense of the financial services, energy, communications, transportation, health care, electoral infrastructure, and other vital critical infrastructure sectors; cybersecurity risk management policies for federal networks; consumer cybersecurity; and cyber incident response policy and incident management. He also coordinated development and execution of technology policy topics with a nexus to cyber policy, such as encryption, surveillance, privacy, and the national security dimensions of artificial intelligence and machine learning. 

At the White House, he played a key role in shaping President Obama’s Cybersecurity National Action Plan and driving its implementation. He was also the principal architect of President Trump’s cybersecurity executive order, “Strengthening the Cybersecurity of Federal Networks and Critical Infrastructure.”

Grotto joined the White House after serving as Senior Advisor for Technology Policy to Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, advising Pritzker on all aspects of technology policy, including Internet of Things, net neutrality, privacy, national security reviews of foreign investment in the U.S. technology sector, and international developments affecting the competitiveness of the U.S. technology sector.

Grotto worked on Capitol Hill prior to the Executive Branch, as a member of the professional staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He served as then-Chairman Dianne Feinstein’s lead staff overseeing cyber-related activities of the intelligence community and all aspects of NSA’s mission. He led the negotiation and drafting of the information sharing title of the Cybersecurity Act of 2012, which later served as the foundation for the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act that President Obama signed in 2015. He also served as committee designee first for Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and later for Senator Kent Conrad, advising the senators on oversight of the intelligence community, including of covert action programs, and was a contributing author of the “Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program.”

Before his time on Capitol Hill, Grotto was a Senior National Security Analyst at the Center for American Progress, where his research and writing focused on U.S. policy towards nuclear weapons - how to prevent their spread, and their role in U.S. national security strategy.

Grotto received his JD from the University of California at Berkeley, his MPA from Harvard University, and his BA from the University of Kentucky.

Research Scholar, Center for International Security and Cooperation
Director, Program on Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance
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Nathaniel Persily

Stanford Law School Neukom Building, Room N230 Stanford, CA 94305
650-725-9875
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James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School
Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute
Professor, by courtesy, Political Science
Professor, by courtesy, Communication
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Nathaniel Persily is the James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, with appointments in the departments of Political Science, Communication, and FSI.  Prior to joining Stanford, Professor Persily taught at Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and as a visiting professor at Harvard, NYU, Princeton, the University of Amsterdam, and the University of Melbourne. Professor Persily’s scholarship and legal practice focus on American election law or what is sometimes called the “law of democracy,” which addresses issues such as voting rights, political parties, campaign finance, redistricting, and election administration. He has served as a special master or court-appointed expert to craft congressional or legislative districting plans for Georgia, Maryland, Connecticut, New York, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.  He also served as the Senior Research Director for the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. In addition to dozens of articles (many of which have been cited by the Supreme Court) on the legal regulation of political parties, issues surrounding the census and redistricting process, voting rights, and campaign finance reform, Professor Persily is coauthor of the leading election law casebook, The Law of Democracy (Foundation Press, 5th ed., 2016), with Samuel Issacharoff, Pamela Karlan, and Richard Pildes. His current work, for which he has been honored as a Guggenheim Fellow, Andrew Carnegie Fellow, and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, examines the impact of changing technology on political communication, campaigns, and election administration.  He is codirector of the Stanford Program on Democracy and the Internet, and Social Science One, a project to make available to the world’s research community privacy-protected Facebook data to study the impact of social media on democracy.  He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a commissioner on the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age.  Along with Professor Charles Stewart III, he recently founded HealthyElections.Org (the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project) which aims to support local election officials in taking the necessary steps during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide safe voting options for the 2020 election. He received a B.A. and M.A. in political science from Yale (1992); a J.D. from Stanford (1998) where he was President of the Stanford Law Review, and a Ph.D. in political science from U.C. Berkeley in 2002.   

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Rob Reich

Marietje Schaake

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Marietje Schaake is a non-resident Fellow at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center and at the Institute for Human-Centered AI. She is a columnist for the Financial Times and serves on a number of not-for-profit Boards as well as the UN's High Level Advisory Body on AI. Between 2009-2019 she served as a Member of European Parliament where she worked on trade-, foreign- and tech policy. She is the author of The Tech Coup.


 

Non-Resident Fellow, Cyber Policy Center
Fellow, Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence
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A Cross-National Investigation into Contextual Effects and Populist Radical Right Support

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Populist radical right parties are more successful in some areas than others. However, when trying to explain geographical patterns of support for the populist radical right, similar outcomes in otherwise different contexts and different outcomes in otherwise similar contexts can be observed. In this paper, we show that this paradox can be understood when we examine how citizens are affected differently by the context in which they live. Using a unique dataset containing geocoded survey data and contextual data from four countries (DE, FR, NL and UK), we demonstrate that mediating and moderating variables, such a perceptions of local decline and education level shape the relationship between contextual development such as the increasing presence of immigrants, on the one hand, and populist and nativism attitudes and PRR support, on the other hand.
 

A draft copy of this research paper may be downloaded by using the link provided below under "Event Materials".

Sarah L. de Lange


Sarah L. de Lange is Professor by special appointment at the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam, where she holds the Dr. J.M. Den Uyl chair. Her research interests include societal cleavages, political parties, and extremism, populism, and radicalism. Her recent research projects focus on the emergence of new political oppositions in Europe on that basis of, amongst others, geographical, generational, and educational divides. She has recently concluded the collaborative international project Sub-National Context and Radical Right Support in Europe (supported by an ORA grant) and is currently co-directing the research project Generational Differences in Determinants of Party Choice (supported by an NWO grant). Her co-edited volume Radical Right-Wing Populist Parties in Western Europe: Into the Mainstream?, which appeared with Routledge in 2016, analyses the extent to which radical right-wing populist parties have become part of mainstream politics, as well as the factors and conditions which facilitate this trend.

 

Co-Sponsored by the Global Populisms Project.

A Cross-National Investigation into Contextual Effects and Populist Radical Right Support. A mediated and moderated relationship?
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Sarah L. de Lange University of Amsterdam
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Amanda Su

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PhD Student, Alumni
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Amanda Su is a Health Policy PhD candidate specializing in health economics. Her research interests include healthcare access, delivery, financing, and utilization.

Before Stanford, Amanda was a data scientist at Nuna Health, where she used econometric, statistical, and machine learning techniques to develop and improve an offline patient-PCP matching system. Prior, at Analysis Group, Amanda helped conduct economic analyses, market power studies, and survey experiments to study firm and consumer behavior. Amanda obtained her bachelor's degrees in Economics and Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley.

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Economic Risk within the Household and Voting for the Radical Right

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This talk investigates how unemployment risk within households affects voting for the radical right. Recent advances in the literature demonstrate the role of latent economic threats for understanding the support of radical right parties. We build on these studies and analyze economic risks as a determinant of radical right voting. Crucially, we do not treat individuals as atomistic but investigate households as a crucial context moderating economic risks. Combining large-scale labor market data with comparative survey data, we confirm the relationship between economic risk and support for radical right parties but demonstrate that this direct effect is strongly conditioned by household risk constellations. Voting for the radical right is not only a function of a voters' own but also their partner's risk. We provide additional evidence on the extent to which these effects are gendered and on the mechanisms linking household risk and party choice. Our results imply that much of the existing literature on individual risk exposure underestimates the impact on political behavior due to the neglect of multiplier effects within households. 
 
 
Tarik Abou-Chadi

Tarik Abou-Chadi is Assistant Professor at the department of political science at the University of Zurich. His research focuses on electoral competition, political parties and democratic representation. He is currently the principal investigator of a research project on social status and the tranformation of electoral behavior in Europe. He also hosts the political science teaching and research podcast Transformation of European Politics.
 
 
 
Co-Sponsored by the Global Populisms Project.

Online via Zoom

Tarik Abou-Chadi University of Zurich
Seminars

Digital Trade Wars

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Digital Trade Wars

Please join the Cyber Policy Center, Wednesday, October 21, from 10 a.m. –11 a.m. pacific time, with host Marietje Schaake, International Policy Director of the Cyber Policy Center, in conversation with Dmitry Grozoubinski, founder of ExplainTrade.com, and visiting professor at University of Strathclyde, along with Anu Bradford, Henry L. Moses Professor of Law and International Organizations at Columbia Law School and author of How the European Union Rules the World, for a discussion and exploration of the digital trade war. 

This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required.

 

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Marietje Schaake

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Marietje Schaake is a non-resident Fellow at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center and at the Institute for Human-Centered AI. She is a columnist for the Financial Times and serves on a number of not-for-profit Boards as well as the UN's High Level Advisory Body on AI. Between 2009-2019 she served as a Member of European Parliament where she worked on trade-, foreign- and tech policy. She is the author of The Tech Coup.


 

Non-Resident Fellow, Cyber Policy Center
Fellow, Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence
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Marietje Schaake
Anu Bradford
Dmitry Grozoubinski
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Japan’s Foreign Policy Options in the Changing Asia-Pacific

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This event is being held virtually via Zoom. Please register for the webinar via the below link.

Registration Link: https://bit.ly/3n4NMpJ

 

This event is part of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center's Shifting Geopolitics and U.S.-Asia Relations webinar series.
 
For Japan’s new Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, foreign policy might pose a most significant challenge as he faces a shifting geopolitical landscape with a more assertive China, an emboldened North Korea, an ever more ambivalent South Korea, and a seemingly less committed US in the region. In this international environment, what foreign policy options does Japan have and what can we expect from the Suga administration? To answer these questions, panelists Shinichi Kitaoka, President of the Japan International Cooperation Agency, and Susan Thornton, former US assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, will discuss key diplomatic challenges for Japan including its management of the US-China-Japan trilateral relations, its handling of important neighboring countries such as North and South Korea and Russia, its larger strategies in the Indo-Pacific region, and its engagement with global institutions. This event will be moderated by Japan Program Director Kiyoteru Tsutsui.
 

SPEAKERS

Headshot of Shinichi Kitaoka
Dr. Shinichi Kitaoka is President of the Japan International Cooperation Agency. Before assuming the present post, he was President of the International University of Japan. Dr. Kitaoka’s career includes Professor of National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) (2012-), Professor ofGraduateSchools for Law and Politics, the University of Tokyo(1997-2004, 2006-2012), Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Deputy Permanent Representativeof Japan to the United Nations (2004-2006), Professor of College of Law and Politics, Rikkyo University (1985-1997). Dr. Kitaoka’s specialty is modern Japanese politics and diplomacy. He obtained his B.A. (1971) and his Ph.D. (1976) both from the University of Tokyo. He is Emeritus Professor of the University of Tokyo. He has numerous books and articles in Japanese and English including A Political History of Modern Japan: Foreign Relations and Domestic Politics (Tokyo: Yuhikaku,2011), Political Dynamics of the United Nations: Where Does Japan Stand? (Tokyo: Chuokoron-Shinsha, 2007) and Japan as a Global Player (Tokyo: NTT Publishing, 2010). He received many honors and awards including the Medal with Purple Ribbon for his academic achievements in 2011.

 

Headshot of Susan Thornton
Susan A. Thornton is a retired senior U.S. diplomat with almost 30 years of experience with the U.S. State Department in Eurasia and East Asia. She is currently a Senior Fellow and Research Scholar at the Yale University Law School Paul Tsai China Center, Director of the Forum on Asia-Pacific Security at the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Until July 2018, Thornton was Acting Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs at the Department of State and led East Asia policy making amid crises with North Korea, escalating trade tensions with China, and a fast-changing international environment. In previous State Department roles, she worked on U.S. policy toward China, Korea and the former Soviet Union and served in leadership positions at U.S. embassies in Central Asia, Russia, the Caucasus and China. Thornton received her MA in International Relations from Johns Hopkins SAIS and her BA from Bowdoin College in Economics and Russian. She serves on several non-profit boards and speaks Mandarin and Russian.

Via Zoom Webinar.

Registration Link: https://bit.ly/3n4NMpJ

Dr. Shinichi Kitaoka, President Japan International Cooperation Agency
Susan A. Thornton Former US Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs
Panel Discussions
Japan Colloquium Series

“The Perfect Weapon” Special Screening & Panel Discussion

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

 

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/VJgMJyNz3F4

 

About the Event: Join David Sanger, National Security Correspondent for the New York Times, Amy Zegart, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies, Monica M. Ruiz, Program Fellow for the Cyber Initiative and Special Projects at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Alex Stamos, Adjunct Professor at the Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies, Michael McFaul, Director at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and Herb Lin, Senior Research Scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, for a panel discussion of The Perfect Weapon, an HBO documentary special based on the best-selling book by New York Times national security correspondent David E. Sanger, which is now available to stream on HBO Max. Directed by John Maggio, the film explores the rise of cyber conflict as a primary way in which nations now compete with and sabotage one another. Cheap, invisible and devastatingly effective, cyber weapons are the present and future of geopolitical conflict – a short-of-war pathway to exercising power. The Perfect Weapon draws on interviews with top military, intelligence and political officials for a comprehensive view of a world of new vulnerabilities, particularly as fear mounts over how cyberattacks and influence operations may affect the 2020 U.S. election, vulnerable power grids, America’s nuclear weapons arsenal, and the global networks that are the backbone of private enterprise. The film also explores how the U.S. government is struggling to defend itself from cyberattacks while simultaneously stockpiling and using the world's most powerful offensive cyber arsenal.

Watch the film trailer HERE.

 

About the Speakers: 

Dr. Herb Lin is senior research scholar for cyber policy and security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and Hank J. Holland Fellow in Cyber Policy and Security at the Hoover Institution, both at Stanford University.  His research interests relate broadly to policy-related dimensions of cybersecurity and cyberspace, and he is particularly interested in the use of offensive operations in cyberspace as instruments of national policy and in the security dimensions of information warfare and influence operations on national security.  In addition to his positions at Stanford University, he is Chief Scientist, Emeritus for the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies, where he served from 1990 through 2014 as study director of major projects on public policy and information technology, and Adjunct Senior Research Scholar and Senior Fellow in Cybersecurity (not in residence) at the Saltzman Institute for War and Peace Studies in the School for International and Public Affairs at Columbia University; and a member of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. In 2016, he served on President Obama’s Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity.  Prior to his NRC service, he was a professional staff member and staff scientist for the House Armed Services Committee (1986-1990), where his portfolio included defense policy and arms control issues. He received his doctorate in physics from MIT.

 

Dr. Michael 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.

Dr. McFaul also is as 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). Continue Reading >>>

 

Monica M. Ruiz is the Program Fellow for the Cyber Initiative and Special Projects at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. In her work on the Cyber Initiative, she supports efforts to build a more robust cybersecurity field and improve policy-making. She also manages the foundation’s portfolio of Special Projects grants, part of a pool of flexible funds that allow the foundation to respond to unanticipated opportunities, explore potential initiatives, collaborate with other funders and facilitate cross-pollinating work across the foundation’s programs.

Prior to joining the foundation, Monica was the first recipient of the Boren Fellowship to travel to Estonia, where her research focused on cybersecurity issues and she studied the Russian language. Earlier in her career, she worked at U.S. Southern Command in the J9 Partnering Directorate, where she served as the military education coordinator between the Command and partners in the region.

Born in Ecuador and raised in Miami, she holds a bachelor’s degree from Florida International University and a master’s degree from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

 

David E. Sanger is a national security correspondent and  senior writer for the New York Times, a contributor to CNN and an adjunct lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government. In a 38-year reporting career for The Times, he has been on three teams that have won Pulitzer Prizes, most recently in 2017 for international reporting. His latest book, “The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage and Fear in the Cyber Age,’’ published in 2018, examined the emergence of cyberconflict as the primary way large and small states are competing and undercutting each other, changing the nature of global power. An HBO documentary based on the book will air in the Fall of 2020.

He is also the author of two Times best sellers on foreign policy and national security: “The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power,” published in 2009, and “Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power,” published in 2012. For The Times, Mr. Sanger has served as Tokyo bureau chief, Washington economic correspondent, White House correspondent during the Clinton and Bush administrations, and chief Washington correspondent. He co-teaches “Central Challenges in American National Security, Strategy and the Press” at Harvard.

 

Alex Stamos is a cybersecurity expert, business leader and entrepreneur working to improve the security and safety of the Internet through his teaching and research at Stanford University. Stamos is an Adjunct Professor at Stanford’s Freeman-Spogli Institute and a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution.

Prior to joining Stanford, Alex served as the Chief Security Officer of Facebook. In this role, Stamos led a team of engineers, researchers, investigators and analysts charged with understanding and mitigating information security risks to the company and safety risks to the 2.5 billion people on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. During his time at Facebook, he led the company’s investigation into manipulation of the 2016 US election and helped pioneer several successful protections against these new classes of abuse. As a senior executive, Alex represented Facebook and Silicon Valley to regulators, lawmakers and civil society on six continents, and has served as a bridge between the interests of the Internet policy community and the complicated reality of platforms operating at billion-user scale. In April 2017, he co-authored “Information Operations and Facebook”, a highly cited examination of the influence campaign against the US election, which still stands as the most thorough description of the issue by a major technology company. Continue Reading >>>

 

Dr. Amy Zegart is a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies (FSI), professor of political science (by courtesy) at Stanford University, and a contributing editor to The Atlantic. She is also the Davies Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, where she directs the Robert and Marion Oster National Security Affairs Fellows program. From 2013 to 2018, she served as co-director of the Freeman Spogli Institute’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and founder and co-director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Program. She previously served as the chief academic officer of the Hoover Institution.

Her areas of expertise include cybersecurity, US intelligence and foreign policy, drone warfare, and political risk. An award-winning author, she has written four books. These include Bytes, Bombs, and Spies: The Strategic Dimensions of Offensive Cyber Operations (2019) coeditor with Herb Lin; Political Risk: How Businesses and Organizations Can Anticipate Global Insecurity (2018) with Condoleezza Rice; Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and Origins of 9/11 (2007), which won the National Academy of Public Administration’s Brownlow Book Award; Flawed by Design: The Evolution of the CIA, JCS, and NSC (1999); and Eyes on Spies: Congress and the US Intelligence Community (Hoover Institution Press, 2011). She has also published in leading academic journals, including International Security, the Journal of Strategic Studies, and Political Science Quarterly. Continue Reading >>>

Virtual Seminar

Herb Lin, Michael McFaul, Monica M. Ruiz, David Sanger, Alex Stamos, and Amy Zegart
Panel Discussions

What Does It Mean to Be an American?: A Web-based Curriculum Toolkit

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Gary Mukai
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For several years, I had been anticipating September 2, 2020—the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II—to be a momentous day. And, with the approach of the 75th anniversary of the permanent closing on November 28, 1945 of the Poston Relocation Center, the concentration camp that detained my family during World War II, I also anticipated that 2020 would be a time of reflection on the question, “What does it mean to be an American?”

In 1942, approximately 120,000 people of Japanese descent—approximately two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens—primarily along the West Coast were incarcerated by their country, the United States. My grandparents and parents were among them. They were sharecroppers in Salinas, California, prior to the Pearl Harbor attack and following Executive Order 9066, which was signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, they were forced to leave their homes and move to the Salinas Assembly Center, which was hastily built on the Salinas fairgrounds and racetracks. A few months later on the Fourth of July, they were sent to the Poston Relocation Center, Arizona, one of the ten permanent concentration camps for Japanese Americans.

cemetary Hachiro Mukai grave, Epinal American Cemetery, Dinozé, France; courtesy Virginie Benoit-Erhard, Epinal American Cemetery
From behind barbed wire and guard towers, hundreds volunteered or were drafted to serve in the U.S. Army. Several of my relatives served in the U.S. Army’s segregated 442nd Infantry Regiment, which was composed almost entirely of second-generation Japanese Americans. “Go For Broke”—risk everything in an all-out effort—was its motto. One of them, Hachiro Mukai, was killed in action on October 22, 1944. Because his family was incarcerated and could not have a proper burial at their family gravesite in California, they decided to have him buried in the Epinal American Cemetery, France. Another relative, Shinichi Mukai, survived and shared searing stories with me about the irony of being drafted out of a concentration camp, training in Mississippi and not knowing if he should enter “White” or “Colored” entrances, and fighting bigotry in Europe.


This month, in addition to reading about solemn ceremonies marking the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II, I read “Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’,” in The Atlantic, September 3, 2020, with difficulty as I thought about Hachiro and others who had given the ultimate sacrifice and their Gold Star Families. Through Shinichi, I know that Hachiro and the other Japanese American soldiers wanted to prove that they were every bit as American as anyone else. As a high school student from 1968 to 1972, I struggled with accepting what my family had endured during World War II in part because my high school U.S. history textbook mentioned nothing of their experience, as my family was not part of the “master narrative” of U.S. history.

I had anticipated that the 75th anniversary of the end of the war would prompt unity and reflections on how far we have come as a nation in terms of embracing diversity. Instead, I will remember 2020 as one of the most divisive years in my lifetime. My hope is that the free educational web-based curriculum toolkit—“What Does It Mean to Be an American?”—will help us in a modest way to move toward “a more perfect Union.” Authored by SPICE’s Rylan Sekiguchi for use at the high school and college levels, the curriculum examines what it means to be American. The website was developed by the Mineta Legacy Project’s Dianne Fukami, Debra Nakatomi, and Amy Watanabe in partnership with SPICE. Inspired by the life and career of Secretary Norman Y. Mineta, the six themed lessons are: Immigration, Civil Liberties & Equity, Civic Engagement, Justice & Reconciliation, Leadership, and U.S.–Japan Relations. Mineta, as a 10-year-old boy, was incarcerated with his family at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center, Wyoming, one of the ten permanent concentration camps. In the video “Bridging Two Countries: Norman Y. Mineta,” Mineta notes the following when asked why he wears an American flag pin on his lapel.

I still get treated like a foreigner and feel that… Am I really being fully accepted as an American citizen?… and so I want to make sure everyone knows I am one.
Secretary Norman Y. Mineta

The six standards-aligned lessons use primary source materials, interactive exercises, and personal videos that connect to students’ lives and showcase a diverse range of American voices—from young adults to former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush whose replies to “What does it mean to be an American?” are highlighted here.

Well, we’re debating that now again. It’s almost like right after the Civil War. We’re debating, “Should we restrict the franchise or expand it?”
President Bill Clinton
It means that we value and cherish the right for people to express their will in the public square without recrimination. It means that we believe in freedom.
President George W. Bush

The curriculum is designed to encourage critical thinking through class activities and discussions and introduce new voices and perspectives on issues that are as relevant today as they have been for much of America’s past. One of the most compelling videos focuses on “What Does It Mean to Be a Young Black Man in America?,” which prompted me to reflect on Shinichi’s encounter in Europe with the segregated 92nd Infantry Division, composed of African Americans, who along with the 442nd helped to break through the Gothic Line, the final main German defensive line in northern Italy. My hope is that young students today—when considering civil liberties-related issues—will also remember the sacrifices of those before them.

There are three objectives of the curriculum. The first is to empower educators to foster student inquiry around the question “What does it mean to be an American?” The second is to help educators discover how best to leverage the resource for their own classrooms. We hope that teachers will reflect on the toolkit vis-à-vis specific curricular needs and assess its optimal integration into their existing practice. The third is to have students consider the importance of the six themes in their lives and to know that they too have important voices in the shaping of what it means to be an American.

I wish that my high school U.S. history teacher had introduced curriculum like this to me. To learn, for example, that the 442nd Infantry Regiment had become the most decorated unit in U.S. military history for its size and length of service—including 21 Medals of Honor and eight Presidential Unit Citations—would have given Hachiro a voice in the curriculum. Many Americans like Hachiro remain buried in Europe. Each year, French people, whose towns were liberated by the 442nd, kindly pay their respects at Hachiro’s grave. I hope that future U.S. presidents will visit cemeteries like the Epinal American Cemetery as well.

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SPICE’s Rylan Sekiguchi and Jonas Edman Share Stage with Secretary Norman Mineta
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Secretary Norman Mineta and SPICE’s Rylan Sekiguchi speak at the Ronald Reagan Library

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Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush interviewed for the Mineta Legacy Project

Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush interviewed for the Mineta Legacy Project
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What Does It Mean to Be an American?; image courtesy Mineta Legacy Project
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“What Does It Mean to Be an American?” is a free educational web-based curriculum toolkit for high school and college students that examines what it means to be an American developed by the Mineta Legacy Project and Stanford’s SPICE program.

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