Stanford University

Elections

Spies and Terrorists: Subversive Networks Across Ideologies and Times

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Clandestine craft and low-tech methods still serve to evade and attack hi-tech defenses. Technologies change, yet covert organizing principles persist. They can be traced through time and across different perpetrators - particularly terrorist and espionage networks - as different as al Qaeda and the Soviet KGB. The talk will use these two case studies to illustrate the underlying principles of how clandestine networks still apply strategies to limit information, connectivity, and traceable technology use in order to enhance their survival and asymmetric capabilities against superior opponents. Strategies evolve, but some of the core principles remain. Their better understanding sheds new light on organizational survival and national/international security issues. The research draws on the book manuscript in progress using organization and information theories, with discourse and technical analysis methods, to systematically examine documentary evidence found in the Hoover Institution Archives as well as the contemporary primary and other sources.

Katya Drozdova is a Senior Research Scientist at National Security Innovations (NSI) and Visiting Scholar at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Dr. Drozdova's research focuses on the interplay between human and technological networks in organizations, with emphasis on asymmetric threats and US national security implications. Her work examines how organizations use technology to counter and conceal their human network vulnerabilities. This covers problems of countering terrorism, insurgency, espionage and weapons of mass destruction proliferation; advancing cyber- and energy security; and strengthening both security as well as liberty. She has published on issues ranging from organizational survival to intelligence analysis and defense policy. Katya conducts academic as well as applied research providing actionable findings and analytic tools to the US Department of Defense and Intelligence Community via NSI. Earlier, she has served as a Research Scholar at New York University's (NYU) Alexander Hamilton Center, as well as Science Fellow and researcher with NSA-funded Consortium for Research on Information Security and Policy at Stanford University's Center for International Security And Cooperation (CISAC), among others. Katya earned her PhD from NYU's Stern School of Business, Department of Information, Operations, and Management Sciences (MA in International Policy Studies and BA in International Relations and from Stanford University).

Martha Crenshaw is a senior fellow at CISAC and FSI and a professor of political science by courtesy. She was the Colin and Nancy Campbell Professor of Global Issues and Democratic Thought and professor of government at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., from 1974 to 2007. Her current research focuses on innovation in terrorist campaigns, the distinction between "old" and "new" terrorism, why the United States is the target of terrorism, and the effectiveness of counterterrorism policies.

She has written extensively on the issue of political terrorism; her first article, "The Concept of Revolutionary Terrorism," was published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution in 1972. Her recent work includes "Terrorism, Strategies, and Grand Strategies," in Attacking Terrorism (Georgetown University Press), "Terrorism and Global Security," in Leashing the Dogs of War: Conflict Management in a Divided World (United States Institute of Peace Press), and "Explaining Suicide Terrorism: A Review Essay," in the journal Security Studies. She is also the editor of a projected volume, The Consequences of Counterterrorist Policies in Democracies, for the Russell Sage Foundation in New York.

She served on the Executive Board of Women in International Security and chaired the American Political Science Association (APSA) Task Force on Political Violence and Terrorism. She has also served on the Council of the APSA and is a former President and Councilor of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP). In 2004 ISPP awarded her its Nevitt Sanford Award for Distinguished Scientific Contribution and in 2005 the Jeanne Knutson award for service to the society. She serves on the editorial boards of the journals International Security, Orbis, Political Psychology, Security Studies, and Terrorism and Political Violence. She coordinated the working group on political explanations of terrorism for the 2005 Club de Madrid International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security. She is a lead investigator with the National Center for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland, funded by the Department of Homeland Security. She was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2005-2006. She served on the Committee on Law and Justice and the Committee on Determining Basic Research Needs to Interrupt the Improvised Explosive Device Delivery Chain of the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science. She was a senior fellow at the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism in Oklahoma City for 2006-2007.

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Katya Drozdova Visiting Scholar, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and Senior Research Scientist, National Security Innovations Speaker
Martha Crenshaw Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) and Senior Fellow at CISAC and FSI Commentator
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Mapping Militant Organizations

April 2009 Dispatch - Late Democratizers? Authoritarian Developmentalism and Political Change in Pacific Asia

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Mark Thompson
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Some theorists of modernization have influentially claimed that successful “late industrialization” led by developmental states creates economies too complex, social structures too differentiated, and (middle-class-dominated) civil societies too politically conscious to sustain nondemocratic rule. Nowhere is this argument—that economic growth drives democratic transitions—more evident than in Northeast and Southeast Asia (hereafter Pacific Asia).

South Korea and Taiwan, having democratized only after substantial industrialization, seem to fit this narrative well. But “late democratizers” have been the exception rather than the rule. Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand democratized before high per capita incomes were achieved. Malaysia, and especially Singapore are more wealthy than they are democratic. The communist “converts” to developmentalism, China and Vietnam, are aiming for authoritarian versions of modernity. Table 1* shows that there is no clear pattern in Pacific Asia. Indeed, according to the nongovernmental organization Freedom House (and using the World Bank categories of low, lower middle, upper middle, or high income), poor and rich countries alike in Pacific Asia are rated “free,” “partly free,” or “not free.”

What key factors have influenced the different timing of democratization in Pacific Asia? Democratization has occurred early in the developmental process when authoritarian states have failed to create sustainable economic growth, which in turn has led to mounting debt. Many reasons explain this phenomenon, but a primary cause is the so-called failure to “deepen”—that is, certain countries’ inability to become major manufacturers of high-tech and heavy industrial goods. For example, when economic crises rocked the Philippines in the mid-1980s and Indonesia in the late 1990s, both nations lacked the economic maturity and breadth to rebound, prompting abrupt financial collapse. These nations’ political systems were too ossified to channel popular unrest, and mass mobilization resulted. Ideologically, the Marcos and Suharto regimes faced accusations of cronyism, as favored business leaders stepped in to rescue failing conglomerates, sidelining once-influential technocrats in the process. In the end, these countries’ limited economic development actually broke down their authoritarian systems.

 “Late industrializers,” by contrast, do succeed in industrial “deepening.” But they are often less successful in terms of “widening”—the perception that the benefits of development are being fairly shared in society. Statistics show that South Korea and Taiwan are relatively equal societies. Nevertheless, neither of these technocratically oriented authoritarian regimes was able to blunt criticisms that growth was unjustly distributed. South Korean workers and native Taiwanese felt particularly disadvantaged. In Malaysia, too, tensions are now mounting about distribution along ethnic lines. Electoral authoritarianism helped to defuse earlier crises in South Korea and Taiwan, but beginning in the mid-1980s, opposition forces in both nations launched successful challenges through the ballot box to bring about democratization. In Malaysia, the opposition scored major gains in the 2008 elections. Ideologically, all three authoritarian regimes were weakened by activist campaigns for social justice, which mobilized middle class professionals.

One can only speculate about whether Singapore will one day democratize. Its economy has continually deepened, most recently through a major drive to grow a biotech industry. At the same time, it has widened through a series of welfare-related measures focused on housing and pensions. The Singaporean government has also perfected a system of electoral authoritarianism, allowing some competition and participation without threatening the ruling party’s hold on power. Ideologically, the government has long determined the political agenda through its collectivist campaigns (including the once high-profile “Asian values” discourse). However, when Singapore’s founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, eventually passes away, the nation’s technocratic elite may be tempted to democratize. Democratization would give the government greater legitimacy to reform welfare provision, which many believe is currently limiting Singapore’s competitiveness. The main arguments are summarized in table two.*

It is evident that China and Vietnam are trying to imitate the Singaporean model. Though each faces many obstacles, both countries have already made great strides in industrial deepening and widening through an elaborate postcommunist welfare system. Ideologically, these countries will rely not just on growth—which will inevitably slow during the current economic crisis—but also on appeals to a collectivist identity that is simultaneously both nationalist and neo-Confucianist in character. Whether China and Vietnam eventually democratize or remain authoritarian despite modernization is one of the most important political questions in the world today.

* Please contact the Manager of Corporate Relations for a full PDF copy of this dispatch, including tables.

 

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Hospital Characteristics Associated with Timeliness of Care in Veterans with Lung Cancer

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Rationale: Timeliness is one of six important dimensions of health care quality recognized by the Institute of Medicine. Objectives: To evaluate timeliness of lung cancer care and identify institutional characteristics associated with timely care within the VA Health Care System. Methods: We used data from a VA nation-wide retrospective chart review and an independent audit of VA cancer programs to examine the association between time to first treatment and potentially explanatory institutional characteristics (e.g. volume of lung cancer patients) for 2,372 veterans diagnosed with lung cancer between 1/1/02 and 9/1/05 at 127 VA medical centers. We developed linear mixed effects models to control for clustering of patients within hospitals and stratified analyses by stage. Measurements and Main Results: Median time to treatment varied widely between (23 to 182 days) and within facilities. Median time to treatment was 90 days in stage I or II patients and 52 days in those with more advanced disease (p<0.0001). Factors associated with shorter times to treatment included a non-academic setting and the existence of a specialized diagnostic clinic (in patients with limited stage disease), performing a patient flow analysis (in patients with advanced disease), and leadership beliefs about providing timely care (in both groups). However, institutional characteristics explained <1% of the observed variation in treatment times. Conclusions: Time to lung cancer treatment in U.S. veterans is highly variable. The numerous institutional characteristics we examined explained relatively little of this variability, suggesting that patient, clinician, and/or unmeasured institutional characteristics may be more important determinants of timely care.

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Learning to Share: Under What Conditions Do States Delegate Governance?

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A potential solution for weak or failing states is to enact a delegation agreement whereby a host relinquishes authority over some governance function to an external actor. Through case studies in Melanesia, I find that these arrangements can be implemented as treaties, rather than contracts, so that the external actor can in such cases remain somewhat exempt from the normal procedure or law of the host state. I also generate hypotheses about the conditions under which host states and external actors enact these self-enforcing equilibria: host states request these agreements either where a failure of law and order requires assistance to reestablish control over the use of force, or where a budgetary crisis necessitates funding to provide public goods. External actors agree to them where the host state poses a transnational security threat, and where the reputational and actual costs of the mission are low, as judged against alternative methods for resolving the threat. The next step in this project, then, is to test these hypotheses in other cases to see if similar agreements are enacted in different regions, and, if so, whether the same incentives also explain the decisions elsewhere.

Aila M. Matanock is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Stanford. Her current research is on effective governance for minimizing conflict, and on bringing violent groups into elections in conflicted states. Before coming to Stanford, she was employed by the RAND Corporation as a research assistant and summer associate on non-proliferation and counterterrorism projects. She received an undergraduate degree magna cum laude in Social Studies from Harvard University, while also working with the Belfer Center's Managing the Atom Project and with the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Seminar summary:

In her presentation, "Learning to Share: Under What Conditions do States Delegate Governance?" Aila Matanock seeks to define the concept of delegated governance and to identify the circumstances under which it arises. Drawing from field research with political elites in Australia and the Melanesian micro-states, she presents the variation in degrees of shared governance arrangements, from strict delegation to semi delegation, contracting and monitoring.

She defines delegated governance as an arrangement between a host state and an external actor that involves sharing in the decision function of the host state. She emphasizes the incentives of both host state and external actor as a framework for identifying the set of conditions under which we might expect to observe delegated governance. She argues and finds, in the Melanesian cases, that host states are more likely to seek delegation agreements if (1) they have lost their monopoly over the use of force (and there is no civil war or major ethnic cleavage); or (2) they are suffering from a severe budgetary crisis. External actors, for their part, enter into such agreements based on the costs they believe they will incur: reputational gains within the international community and domestic support for the delegation arrangement decrease an external actor's cost perception and increase its likelihood of entering into such an agreement. Matanock concludes that the Melanesian cases inform us that governance delegation is not an infrequent phenomenon. It is likely to emerge where lawlessness threatens both the host and external actor, but is constrained by the level of violence and the cleavages in society.

Matanock's presentation prompted questions about the scope and generalizability of the argument (To what extent do these findings reflect a special relationship between Australia and the Melanesian states? Would this apply in larger states such as Cambodia and Liberia, where the costs to an external actor might be greater?); the specific factors leading to the choice of delegated governance over other options (such as contracting, monitoring,...); and the power relationship between external actor and host state.

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Aila Matanock PhD candidate, Political Science Speaker Stanford
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Crisis, Crackdown, and Credibility in Malaysia

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In 2009, buffeted by the global economic slowdown, Malaysia’s economy is predicted to shrink.  Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak is expected to replace unpopular Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi as Malaysia’s top leader early in April.  On 23 March the government banned the two main opposition newspapers, Suara Keadilan and Harakah.  Earlier in March an opposition lawmaker was forced out of the national parliament after demanding that Najib answer allegations of involvement in the gruesome murder of a Mongolian model, Altantuya Shaaribuu, in 2006.  The killing has been linked to a 110-million-euro “commission” paid to a close confidante of Najib by a French firm for the sale of submarines to Malaysia.  In February Najib used local parliamentary defections to take over Perak, one of the five states won in March 2008 by the opposition in elections whose results embarrassed the government.  An independent poll shows that Najib is even less popular than Badawi.  Prof. Chin will address the implications of these and other aspects of current political turbulence in Malaysia.

James Chin has written widely on Malaysian politics and the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia, among other topics.  Minority rights, ethnic politics, and good governance are among his current interests.  Before his Monash appointment he headed a business school.  Before that he worked as a financial journalist.  He has a doctorate from Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand.

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James Chin Head, School of Arts and Social Sciences Speaker Monash University's Malaysian Campus, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia
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Experiments in Governance in Developing Countries Project (EGAP)

Policymakers, funding agencies, and implementing organizations are increasingly focused on identifying the most effective strategies for promoting development. They have embraced the use of randomized trials as a strategy for assessing the impact of interventions in health, education, agriculture, and a range of other sectors. Donors and NGOs have forged close partnerships with academic institutions to bring the most rigorous methodologies to bear to uncover strategies that work in reducing poverty in the developing world.

Explaining Vote Choice in Africa's Emerging Democracies

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The presentation by Josephine T. Andrews and Kris Inman entitled, "Explaining Vote Choice in Africa's Emerging Democracies", offers new insight into voting strategies within Africa's seven most-free democracies, including Ghana, Namibia, Senegal, Botswana, Mali, and South Africa. Using data from the Afrobarometer in 2005, they found evidence of retrospective voting: individuals who view their president as more corrupt are less likely to support the president's party with their vote. They also found evidence of ethnic voting, but weaker support for clientelistic voting. In subsequent work, they look forward to exploring whether retrospective voting undermines the prospect of democratic reversal.

Josephine Andrews, Associate Professor, Dept. of Political Science, UC Davis.  Primary research interest is on institutional design in emerging democracies, with recent work on established party systems of Western Europe (recent papers in Electoral Studies and British Journal of Political Science).  Current research involves political participation and corruption in Africa's emerging democracies as well as continuing work on party leaders and party systems of West and Eastern Europe.

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Josephine Andrews Associate Professor, Political Science Speaker UC Davis
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CISAC's Paul Stockton to write for HLSWatch

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Homeland Security Watch's author since February 2007, Jonah Czerwinski, transitioned into a position in government and thus handed the blog over to new hands. Joining CISAC Senior Research Scholar Paul Stockton in writing for HLSWatch on a weekly basis will be Philip Palin, senior fellow with the National Institute for Strategic Preparedness.

Homeland Security Watch's author since February 2007, Jonah Czerwinski, transitioned into a position in government and thus handed the blog over to new hands. Joining CISAC Senior Research Scholar Paul Stockton in writing for HLSWatch on a weekly basis will be Philip Palin, senior fellow with the National Institute for Strategic Preparedness.

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Are American Physicians more Satisfied? - Results from an International Study of Physicians in University Hospitals.

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Understanding the factors that affect physicians' job satisfaction is important not only to physicians themselves, but also to patients, health system managers, and policy makers. Physicians represent the crucial resource in health-care delivery. In order to enhance efficiency and quality in health care, it is indispensable to analyse and consider the motivators of physicians. Physician job satisfaction has significant effects on productivity, the quality of care, and the supply of physicians.

The purpose of our study was to assess the associations between work-related monetary and non-monetary factors and physicians' work satisfaction as perceived by similar groups of physicians practicing at academic medical centres in Germany and the U.S.A., two countries that, in spite of differing health-care systems, simultaneously experience problems in maintaining their physician workforce. We used descriptive statistics, factor and correlation analyses to evaluate physicians' responses to a self-administered questionnaire.

Our study revealed that overall German physicians were less satisfied than U.S. physicians. With respect to particular work-related predictors of job satisfaction we found that similar factors contributed to job satisfaction in both countries. To improve physicians' satisfaction with working conditions, our results call for the implementation of policies that reduce the time burden on physicians to allow more time for interaction with patients and colleagues, increase monetary incentives, and enhance physicians' participation in the development of care management processes and in managerial decisions that affect patient care.

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Laurence C. Baker

The Forensics of Election Fraud with Application to Russia, Ukraine and Taiwan

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Peter Ordeshook is Professor of Political Science at Caltech, member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, author or coauthor of An Introduction to Positive Political Theory; Game Theory and Political Theory; Lessons for Citizens of a New Democracy; Voters, Parties and Elections; A Political Theory Primer; Time Discounting in Social Networks; Designing Federalism; and (forthcoming) The Forensics of Election Fraud.

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Peter Ordeshook Professor of Political Science Speaker Caltech
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