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Maiko Ichihara is Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Law and the School of International and Public Policy at Hitotsubashi University, Japan, and a Visiting Scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. She is a committee member of the World Movement for Democracy, East Asia Democracy Forum, and Partnership for Democratic Governance (Japan), and is a co-chair of Democracy for the Future project at the Japan Center for International Exchange. Throughout her career, she has undertaken research on international relations, democracy support, and Japanese foreign policy. She earned her Ph.D. in political science from the George Washington University and her M.A. from Columbia University. Her recent publications include: “Universality to Plurality? Values in Japanese Foreign Policy,” in Yoichi Funabashi and G. John Ikenberry, eds., The Crisis of Liberalism: Japan and the International Order (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, forthcoming); “International Power Structure and Strategic Motivations: Democracy Support by Japan and Indonesia,” JICA-RI Working Paper, No. 194 (August 2019); and Japan’s International Democracy Assistance as Soft Power: Neoclassical Realist Analysis (New York and London: Routledge, 2017).

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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, and New York, and 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 also coauthor of the leading election law casebook, The Law of Democracy (Foundation Press, 5^th ed., 2016), with Samuel Issacharoff, Pamela Karlan, and Richard Pildes. His current work, for which he has been honored as an 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 has edited several books, including Public Opinion and Constitutional Controversy (Oxford Press, 2008); The Health Care Case: The Supreme Court’s Decision and Its Implications (Oxford Press 2013); and Solutions to Political Polarization in America (Cambridge Press, 2015).   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.  

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

About this Event: Russian decision making, though at times characterized as tactical or perhaps opportunistic, reflects a strategic consensus with a discernible theory of victory. Russian grand strategy reflects more an evolution rather than a revolution in thinking, with continuity prevailing over change. Framed by enduring threat perceptions, the quest for a geopolitical space, and the ever present mismatch between Moscow's desired position in international politics versus its means to attain it. Conversely Russian strategy in conflict reflects considerable adaptation, while still leveraging hard military power, there is a tangible shift towards reasonable sufficiency and emergent strategy over more deliberate approaches.

About the Speaker: Michael Kofman serves as Director of the Russia Studies Program at the CNA Corporation and a Fellow at the Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, D.C. His research focuses on Russia and the former Soviet Union, specializing in the Russian armed forces, Russian military thought, and strategy. Previously he served at the National Defense University as a Program Manager and subject matter expert, advising senior military and government officials on issues in Russia and Eurasia. Mr. Kofman's other affiliations include being a Senior Editor at War on the Rocks, where he regularly authors articles on strategy, the Russian military, Russian decision making, and related foreign policy issues.