Kathryn Stoner Named Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Stoner, a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford, will lead the Center’s efforts to understand how countries can overcome poverty, instability, and abusive rule to become prosperous societies.
![[Left] Kathryn Stoner; [Right] Encina Hall, Stanford University](https://fsi9-prod.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/styles/895x498_x2/public/hero/stoner_encina_cddrl_hero.png?h=c4d9845d&itok=IbEiPWNt)
The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University is pleased to announce that Kathryn Stoner, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of the Institute, as well as an expert in contemporary Russia’s domestic and foreign policies, will assume the role of Mosbacher Director at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), effective September 15, 2021. She replaces Francis Fukuyama, the Olivier-Nomellini Senior Fellow at CDDRL, who has served as the Center’s director since 2015.
Dr. Stoner has served as the Deputy Director of FSI since 2017, and previously served as the Director of the Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy at Stanford for eight years. In her five years as FSI’s Deputy Director, she oversaw tremendous growth and expansion of the Institute’s research and policy initiatives, including the transformation of the Stanford Cyber Initiative into the Cyber Policy Center at FSI, and the incorporation of the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy (MIP) under the institute’s stewardship in 2018.
Prior to serving as FSI deputy director, Kathryn Stoner was a founding faculty member of CDDRL.
“Kathryn helped to launch some of CDDRL’s signature activities today, including the undergraduate honor's program, the large lecture course on democracy and development, which she will continue to teach, and the Draper Hills Summer Fellows program,” said FSI Director Michael McFaul. “We all look forward to the future innovations and creativity that Kathryn will bring to CDDRL in her newest leadership role within the Freeman Spogli Institute.”
The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is an interdisciplinary center for research on development in all of its dimensions: political, economic, social, and legal, and the ways in which these different dimensions interact with one another.
"It has been a great honor to lead CDDRL over the past seven years," said Francis Fukuyama. "This has been a turbulent time for global democracy, which has forced many changes in the Center's research and training agenda. CDDRL has become a focal point for the study of democratic institutions, and is well-positioned to take on coming challenges. I'd like to thank the faculty and staff of CDDRL for all of their hard work and comradeship over this period, and wish Kathryn Stoner the best as she takes over the directorship."
An equally important aspect of CDDRL’s mission is engagement with future and current policymakers. CDDRL hosts an undergraduate honors program and graduate fellowships for students, and four unique leadership development programs to train and mentor emerging public service leaders from around the world.
“We really want our students to be not just multidisciplinary, but interdisciplinary,” Stoner emphasizes. “Different disciplines often look at the same problem and don't always come up with the best solution, because they're ignoring what another discipline can offer. We’re trying to develop unique perspectives and solutions to enduring developmental problems by working across disciplines.”
Prior to arriving at Stanford in 2004, Stoner was on the faculty at Princeton University for nine years, jointly appointed to the Department of Politics and the Princeton School for International and Public Affairs (formerly known as the Woodrow Wilson School). She was awarded the Ralph O. Glendinning Preceptorship for outstanding junior faculty while at Princeton, and also served as a visiting associate professor of political science at Columbia University, and an assistant professor of political science at McGill University. A dual Canadian/American citizen, Kathryn Stoner has a B.A and M.A. in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and a PhD in Government from Harvard University. She was also awarded an honorary doctorate from Iliad State University in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia.
At Stanford she continues her research and teaching on contemporary Russia and nations in democratic transitions. She is the author or co-editor of six books, including her most recent, Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order (Oxford, 2021).
“I am thrilled to take the torch at CDDRL from Francis Fukuyama," said Stoner. "He has provided outstanding leadership at CDDRL, and I look forward to continuing its successful undergraduate, graduate and faculty programming and to establishing new research directions on democracy, global populism, and modern autocracy, among others. CDDRL’s work is especially vital at a time when the veracity and efficacy of democracies worldwide is in question."
