The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) is pleased to announce that Stephen J. Stedman, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and director of CDDRL's Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development and Rule of Law, has been appointed the new faculty director of the Program in International Relations (IR) in the School of Humanities and Sciences effective Fall 2025. IR offers an interdisciplinary undergraduate major, minor, and honors program allowing students to explore how global, regional, and domestic factors influence relations between actors in the modern state system.

Long an advocate for bridging the gap between academia and policy, Professor Stedman has led three major global task forces to address emerging threats of the 21st century.

From 2018 to 2020, he served as Secretary General of the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age, which assessed the potential dangers of social media and the internet for contemporary democracy. The commission’s report, Protecting Electoral Integrity in the Digital Age, put forward recommendations for governments, social media platforms, NGOs, and civil society organizations to strengthen elections from disinformation and hate speech.

From 2011 to 2012, Professor Stedman served as the Director of the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy, and Security, a body of eminent persons tasked with developing recommendations on promoting and protecting the integrity of elections and international electoral assistance. The Commission was a joint project of the Kofi Annan Foundation and International IDEA, an intergovernmental organization that works on international democracy and electoral assistance.

From 2003 to 2004, Professor Stedman served as the Research Director of the United Nations High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change and was a principal drafter of the Panel’s report, "A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility." The report put forward detailed recommendations for strengthening collective security in the 21st century, including the creation of a new peacebuilding commission, support office and fund, a new mediation support office, a counter terrorism task force, and the endorsement of the responsibility to protect as a means torespond to and prevent atrocities and large scale killing. In 2005, he served as Assistant Secretary-General and Special Advisor to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, with responsibility for working with governments to adopt the Panel’s recommendations.

Professor Stedman’s early research focused on civil wars, in particular how to mediate and implement peace agreements as a means of ending them, a subject that he returns to periodically. He has also written on American foreign policy, international institutions, humanitarianism, and election integrity. At CDDRL, Professor Stedman is also the Principal Investigator for the center's program on Climate Change and Democracy, which investigates the changing politics of a warming world.

Professor Stedman's appointment reflects a deep and ongoing commitment to preparing the next generation of leaders and scholars engaged in international policy and democratic development. He is widely recognized as an advocate for undergraduate education and, in 2018, received the Lloyd W. Dinkelspiel Award for Outstanding Service to Undergraduate Education. He also served as the chair of 51st Senate of the Academic Council at Stanford University. Please join us in congratulating him!