Kathryn Stoner

Kathryn Stoner

Kathryn Stoner, MA, PhD

  • Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
  • Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
  • Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford
  • Senior Fellow (by courtesy), Hoover Institution

FSI
Stanford University
Encina Hall C140
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 736-1820 (voice)
(650) 724-2996 (fax)

Biography

Kathryn Stoner is the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), and a Senior Fellow at CDDRL and the Center on International Security and Cooperation at FSI. From 2017 to 2021, she served as FSI's Deputy Director. She is Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford and she teaches in the Department of Political Science, and in the Program on International Relations, as well as in the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Program. She is also a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution.

Prior to coming to Stanford in 2004, she 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 the Woodrow Wilson School). At Princeton she received the Ralph O. Glendinning Preceptorship awarded to outstanding junior faculty. She also served as a Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at McGill University. She has held fellowships at Harvard University as well as the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC. 

In addition to many articles and book chapters on contemporary Russia, she is the author or co-editor of six books: "Transitions to Democracy: A Comparative Perspective," written and edited with Michael A. McFaul (Johns Hopkins 2013);  "Autocracy and Democracy in the Post-Communist World," co-edited with Valerie Bunce and Michael A. McFaul (Cambridge, 2010);  "Resisting the State: Reform and Retrenchment in Post-Soviet Russia" (Cambridge, 2006); "After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transitions" (Cambridge, 2004), coedited with Michael McFaul; and "Local Heroes: The Political Economy of Russian Regional" Governance (Princeton, 1997); and "Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order" (Oxford University Press, 2021).

She received a BA (1988) and MA (1989) in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and a PhD in Government from Harvard University (1995). In 2016 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Iliad State University, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia.

Download full-resolution headshot; photo credit: Rod Searcey.

publications

Conference Memos
January 2023

Putin’s Nation Building Project and the End of Russia’s Transition: Implications for Europe and Global Democracy

Author(s)
cover link Putin’s Nation Building Project and the End of Russia’s Transition: Implications for Europe and Global Democracy

Current research

In The News

Alexei Navalny
News

Remembering Alexei Navalny, Russia's Unwavering Opposition Leader

Scholars from the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies share their memories and perspectives of Navalny, who died while incarcerated in a Russian penal colony.
cover link Remembering Alexei Navalny, Russia's Unwavering Opposition Leader
Crew onboard a 'Terminator' tank support fighting vehicle during a Victory Day military parade in Red Square marking the 75th anniversary of the victory in World War II, on June 24, 2020 in Moscow, Russia.
News

Understanding Prigozhin’s Mutiny and What Is — and Isn’t — Happening in Russia

Scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies offer insight on what Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny may signal about Russia, Putin’s power, and the war in Ukraine.
cover link Understanding Prigozhin’s Mutiny and What Is — and Isn’t — Happening in Russia
Iran Solidarity from Freedom House
News

CDDRL Joins Call for Global Solidarity in Supporting the Iranian Struggle for Freedom

The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University is proud to join a coalition of nearly 500 experts, organizations, dignitaries, and heads of state calling on the international community to strengthen its support for Iranian pro-democracy protesters.
cover link CDDRL Joins Call for Global Solidarity in Supporting the Iranian Struggle for Freedom