Abstract:

In the coming decade new oil discoveries in Africa will leave fragile democracies vulnerable to corruption, patronage and rent seeking behavior. In a piece co-written in Foreign Affairs, CDDRL Director Larry Diamond and Research Associate Jack Mosbacher advocate a new scheme to directly distribute oil revenue to citizens in the form of taxable income. This oil-to-cash system would strengthen accountability and increase citizens ownership of state resources.

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, where he directs the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. Diamond also serves as the Peter E. Haas Faculty Co-Director of the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford. He is the founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy and also serves as Senior Consultant (and previously was co-director) at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy. During 2002-3, he served as a consultant to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and was a contributing author of its report Foreign Aid in the National Interest. He has also advised and lectured to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other governmental and nongovernmental agencies dealing with governance and development. His latest book, The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World (Times Books, 2008), explores the sources of global democratic progress and stress and the prospects for future democratic expansion.

At Stanford University, Diamond is also professor by courtesy of political science and sociology. He teaches courses on comparative democratic development and post-conflict democracy building, and advises many Stanford students. In May 2007, he was named "Teacher of the Year" by the Associated Students of Stanford University for teaching that "transcends political and ideological barriers." At the June 2007 Commencement ceremony, Diamond was honored by Stanford University with the Dinkelspiel Award for Distinctive Contributions to Undergraduate Education. He was cited, inter alia, for fostering dialogue between Jewish and Muslim students; for "his inspired teaching and commitment to undergraduate education; for the example he sets as a scholar and public intellectual, sharing his passion for democratization, peaceful transitions, and the idea that each of us can contribute to making the world a better place; and for helping make Stanford an ideal place for undergraduates."

Jack Mosbacher is a Research Associate at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, where he works with Larry Diamond on democratization trends in Africa. A 2012 Stanford graduate, Jack participated in the Undergraduate Honors Program with the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. His thesis, "Bracing for the Boom: Translating Oil into Development in Uganda," won the Departmental Best Thesis Award, and his work has appeared in Foreign Affairs, The Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Quarterly.

 Please click on link to read article that appeared in Foreign Affairs: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/print/136843

Abstract
This talk reports on a study about the impact of crowdsourcing on a law-making process in Finland. In the studied process, the reform of off-road traffic law was opened for public participation in Finland. The citizens were first asked to share their experiences and problems with off-road traffic and the regulating law on an online platform. Then the participants were asked to share solutions for those problems. Crowdsourcing resulted into 500 ideas, over 4,000 comments and 24,000 votes, which were analyzed and evaluated both with citizens and experts and using an algorithmic consensus tool. The talk discusses deliberative aspects in crowdsourcing and the usefulness of blended expertise, i.e. the mixture of the crowd's and experts' knowledge, in law-making.

Tanja Aitamurto is a visiting researcher at the Program on Liberation Technology at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford. In her PhD project she examines how collective intelligence, whether harvested by crowdsourcing, co-creation or open innovation, impacts incumbent processes in journalism, public policy making and design process. Her work has been published in several academic publications, such as the New Media and Society. Related to her studies, she advises the Government and the Parliament of Finland about Open Government principles, for example about how open data and crowdsourcing can serve democratic processes.

Aitamurto has previously studied at the Center for Design Research and at the Innovation Journalism Program at Stanford. She is a PhD Student at the Center for Journalism, Media and Communication Research at Tampere University in Finland, and she holds a Master’s Degree in Public Policy, and a Master of Arts in Humanities. Prior to returning to academia, she made a career in journalism in Finland specializing in foreign affairs, doing reporting in countries such as Afghanistan, Angola and Uganda. She has also taught journalism at the University of Zambia, in Lusaka, and worked at the Namibia Press Agency, Windhoek. More about Tanja’s work at www.tanjaaitamurto.com and on Twitter @tanjaaita.

ABOUT THE TOPIC: Social scientists have been working hard to understand the circumstances and strategies that improve the chances of favorable human rights outcomes.  Their findings are consistent with the view that the long-term prospects for human rights are good.  Despite this, the activities of the human rights movement seem only marginally related to the forces producing rights improvements, and in some circumstances may even be counterproductive.

Dr. Snyder will also briefly reflect on his work over the years, including his 2012 book of collected essays, Power and Progress in International Relations.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Jack Snyder is the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science and the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. His books include Power and Progress: International Politics in Transition (Routledge 2012); Religion and International Relations Theory (Columbia 2011); Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War (MIT Press, 2005), co-authored with Edward D. Mansfield; From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict (Norton 2000); Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Cornell 1991); and Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention, co-editor with Barbara Walter (Columbia 1999). His articles on such topics as democratization and war, imperial overstretch, war crimes tribunals versus amnesties as strategies for preventing atrocities, and international relations theory after September 11 have appeared in The American Political Science Review, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, International Organization, International Security, and World Politics. His commentaries on current public issues such as the promotion of democracy abroad have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune, and on National Public Radio. A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Snyder received a B.A. in government from Harvard University in 1973, the Certificate of Columbia’s Russian Institute in 1978, and a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia in 1981.

Barry Weingast will present findings from a paper he co-authored with Douglass C. North from Washington University and Gary W. Cox from Stanford University. "The Violence Trap: A Political-Economic Approach to the Problems of Development" examines the problems of development – with a billion people mired in poverty and governments resistant to economic reform – economists and political scientists have proposed a wide range of development or poverty traps:  self-reinforcing mechanisms that prevent developing countries from embarking on the path of steady development. 

Please see attached paper. 

Speaker Bio:

Barry R. Weingast is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution as well as the Ward C. Krebs Family Professor in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University; he served as chair of that department from 1996 to 2001. Weingast is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He has written extensively on problems of political economy of development, federalism, legal institutions and the rule of law, and democracy. He is co-author of Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History (with Douglass North and John Wallis, 2009, Cambridge University Press); editor (with Donald Wittman) The Oxford Handbook of Political Economy (Oxford University Press, 2006); and author (with Douglass North) of "Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in 17th Century England" Journal of Economic History (1989). He has won numerous awards, including the William Riker Prize for scholarly achievement in political science; the James L. Barr Memorial Prize in Public Economics;  the Distinguished Scholar Award in Public Policy, Martin School of Public Policy, University of Kentucky, and the Franklin L. Burdette Pi Sigma Alpha Award (with Kenneth Schultz: the American Political Science Association’s prize for the best paper at the annual meetings).