Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is housed in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Institutions and Organizations
Recent Scholarly Publications
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The Economic Costs of Drug-Trafficking Violence in Mexico
June 2017
The levels of violence in Mexico have dramatically increased in the last few years due to structural changes in the drug trafficking business.
Taiwan's Democracy Challenged: The Chen Shui-bian Years
December 2015
At the end of Chen Shui-bian’s two terms as the president of Taiwan, his tenure was widely viewed as a disappointment, if not an outright failure.
Politics of Budgeting
October 2015
Francis Fukuyama discusses Congress's dysfunctional budgetary politics in "The American Interest", asking why the United States is one of the only advanced democracies under constant threat of...
New Challenges for Maturing Democracies in Korea and Taiwan
January 2014
New Challenges for Maturing Democracies in Korea and Taiwan takes a creative and comparative view of the new challenges and dynamics confronting these maturing democracies.Numerous works deal with...
The Economic Costs of Drug-Trafficking Violence in Mexico
December 2013
The levels of violence in Mexico have dramatically increased in the last few years due to structural changes in the drug trafficking business.
The Art of Counting the Governed: Census Accuracy, Civil War, and State Presence
October 2013
Abstract:Recent research in both political science and economics has stressed the importance of the state for providing public goods, curbing civil conict, and fostering economic growth.
The Mexican War on Drugs: Crime and the Limits of Government Persuasion
October 2013
Abstract:In order to successfully battle organized crime, governments require a certain degree of citizens’ support.
Democracy and Economic Growth: Some Regularities
July 2013
Abstract: The paper summarizes and evaluates our current understanding of relations between democracy and economic growth and analyzes the mechanisms of the causality from democracy to growth....
Perverse Complimentarity: Political Connections and the Use of Courts among Private Firms in China
April 2013
We examine whether and how political connections influence the use of courts in transitional and authoritarian settings using survey data of over 3,900 private firms in China.
Understanding the Quality of Government in China: The Cadre Administration Hypothesis
April 2013
China’s remarkable development poses a problem for theories that have stressed the importance of institutions producing “good governance” and minimizing corruption.
Performance Legitimacy, State Autonomy and China's Economic Miracle
April 2013
All the theories that explain post-Mao China’s economic success tend to attribute it to one or several “successful” policies or institutions of the Chinese government, or to account for the success...
Authoritarian Parochialism: Local Congressional Representation in China
April 2013
This paper draws on evidence from loosely structured interviews and data from original surveys of 5,130 delegates in township, county, and municipal congresses to argue that congressional...
Whither Russia? Autocracy Is Here for Now, but Is It Here to Stay?
December 2012
Judging from some of the titles of recent books on Russia—for example, Richard Sakwa's The Crisis of Russian Democracy, Gulnaz Sharafutdinova's Political Consequences of Crony Capitalism inside...
Governing Security: The Hidden Origins of American Security Agencies
November 2012
Description from Stanford University Press:The impact of public law depends on how politicians secure control of public organizations, and how these organizations in turn are used to define...
Economic Justice: Philosophical and Legal Perspectives
September 2012
The economic impact of the U. S. financial market meltdown of 2008 has been devastating both in the U. S. and worldwide.
The Russo-Georgian war and beyond: towards a European great power concert
March 2012
Abstract The brief war between Georgia and Russia in August 2008 provoked vigorous international reactions among the European states as consequence of the sudden shift in the strategic balance....
The Slave Trade and the Origins of International Human Rights Law
December 2011
From Oxford University Press: There is a broad consensus among scholars that the idea of human rights was a product of the Enlightenment but that a self-conscious and broad-based human rights...
The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution
April 2011
Virtually all human societies were once organized tribally, yet over time most developed new political institutions which included a central state that could keep the peace and uniform laws that...
Authoritarian State Building in the Middle East: From Durability to Revolution
February 2011
What accounts for variation in the durability of authoritarian regimes in the post-colonial Middle East? This working paper presents a new explanation that underscores how the geopolitical...
Rousseau: A Free Community of Equals
December 2010
In famously beautiful and laconic prose, Jean- Jacques Rousseau presents us a forceful picture of a democratic society, in which we live together as free and equal, and our politics focuses on the...
The Sorcerer's Apprentice: Islamist Militancy in South Asia
January 2010
Throughout its history, Pakistan has deliberately used non-state actors as a strategy of asymmetric warfare against stronger adversaries such as India and the Soviet Union.
Human Rights for the 21st Century: Sovereignty, Civil Society, Culture
December 2009
A new moral, ethical, and legal framework is needed for international human rights law.
Contract Enforcement and Firm Organization: Evidence from the Indian Textile Industry
October 2009
Using new field-level and international survey evidence we highlight one channel via which weak legal institutions may lower Indian productivity and growth.
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Nathaniel Persily Co-director, Cyber Policy Center, Senior Fellow Professor, Law, Professor, by courtesy, Political Science, Professor, by courtesy, Communication 
