Abstract:

The concept of identity is a modern one in which individuals and groups seek recognition of the dignity of a hidden inner self. The concept can be traced back to Luther, but takes its characteristically modern form in the thought of Kant and Rousseau. In the 19th century identity manifests itself as nationalism and in the 21st as Islamism, both of which are triggered by the modernization of agrarian societies and the identity confusion that process entails. In liberal societies identity takes an individualistic rather than a collective form, though the two forms begin eventually to converge in what we understand as contemporary identity politics. In today’s America, the Left has defined itself in terms of various identity groups, which has triggered a search for identity on the Right in the rise of Donald Trump. The demand for recognition of narrow group rights is dangerous for liberal societies, and needs to be replaced by more integrative forms of national identity.

 

Speaker Bio:

Francis Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Mosbacher Director of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL).  He is also a professor by courtesy in the Department of Political Science. He was previously at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University, where he was the Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy and director of SAIS' International Development program.

 

 

Abstract:

Since 2013, my collaborators and I have conducted research on how rumors and misinformation spread through social media during crisis events. Recently, our work has revealed how a subsection of the alternative media ecosystem facilitates the spread of disinformation—in the form of conspiracy theories or “alternative narratives” about man-made crisis events. This disinformation is often employed as part of a political agenda and poses new information security risks. In this talk, I’ll present highlights from our research on alternative narratives, describing some of the specific tactics being used to spread disinformation. I’ll also share some preliminary findings on more recent work examining the structure and dynamics of the media ecosystem that has taken shape around the ongoing crisis in Syria. Finally, I’ll discuss some of the broader implications of online disinformation for emergency and humanitarian responders as well as society at large.

 

Speaker Bio:

Kate Starbird is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) at the University of Washington (UW). Kate's research is situated within human-computer interaction (HCI) and the emerging field of crisis informatics—the study of the how information-communication technologies (ICTs) are used during crisis events. One aspect of her research focuses on how online rumors spread—and how online rumors are corrected—during natural disasters and man-made crisis events. More recently, she has begun exploring the propagation of disinformation and political propaganda through online spaces. Kate earned her PhD from the University of Colorado at Boulder in Technology, Media and Society and holds a BS in Computer Science from Stanford University.

Cosponsored by The Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies

 

Abstract:

Half a decade after Arabs across the Middle East poured into the streets to demand change, hopes for democracy have disappeared in a maelstrom of violence and renewed state repression. Egypt remains an authoritarian state, Syria and Yemen are in the midst of devastating civil wars, Libya has descended into anarchy, and the self-declared Islamic State rules a large swath of territory. Even Turkey, which also experienced large-scale protests, has abandoned its earlier shift toward openness and democracy and now more closely resembles an autocracy. How did things go so wrong so quickly across a wide range of regimes? In False Dawn: Protest, Democracy, and the New Middle East, noted Middle East regional expert Steven A. Cook looks at the trajectory of events across the region from the initial uprising in Tunisia to the failed coup in Turkey to explain why the Middle Eastern uprisings did not succeed.

 

Speaker Bio:

Steven A. Cook is Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He is an expert on Arab and Turkish politics as well as U.S.-Middle East policy. Cook is also the author of The Struggle for Egypt: From Nasser to Tahrir Square, which won the Washington Institute for Near East Policy's gold medal in 2012; and Ruling But Not Governing: The Military and Political Development in Egypt, Algeria, and Turkey.

 

 

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Abstract:

The factually dubious for-profit articles known as “fake news” were read and shared by millions of people during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, but little is known scientifically about who read fake news, the mechanisms by which it was disseminated, and the extent to which fact-checks reached fake news consumers. In this study, we use behavioral data to better understand the prevalence and spread of “fake news.” (Joint work with Andrew Guess and Jason Reifler.)

 

Speaker Bio:

Brendan Nyhan is a Professor in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College. His research, which focuses on misperceptions about politics and health care, has been published in journals including the American Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Medical Care, Pediatrics, Political Analysis, Political Behavior, Political Psychology, Social Networks, and Vaccine. Before coming to Dartmouth, he was a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research at the University of Michigan. Nyhan has also been a contributor to the New York Times website, The Upshot, since its launch in 2014. He previously served a media critic for Columbia Journalism Review; co-edited Spinsanity, a non-partisan watchdog of political spin that was syndicated in Salon and the Philadelphia Inquirer; and co-authored All the President's Spin, a New York Times bestseller that Amazon.com named one of the ten best political books of the year in 2004.

Abstract:

Although peace operations are the main policy instrument for directly protecting civilians from severe violence, only a few are designed to reflect threatened civilians’ security needs. In a forthcoming book, Humanitarian Hypocrisy: Civilian Protection and the Design of Peace Operations, I examine how four major democracies – the US, UK, France, and Australia – contribute to this situation by facilitating gaps between a force’s ambitions to protect civilians and its resources for doing so. Although missions affected by these gaps gesture toward protecting civilians, they can actually worsen their suffering. I describe these gaps as a form of organized hypocrisy and argue that their attraction lies in their ability to help leaders balance competing normative and material pressures to protect civilians while also limiting associated costs. The argument has implications both for when these gaps are most likely and for how leaders can benefit from them politically. I support it with diverse evidence based on quantitative analysis of original data and four in-depth case studies.

 

 

Speaker Bio:

Andrea Everett is a Visiting Scholar at CDDRL. Her research focuses on humanitarian politics and policy. Her first book, Humanitarian Hypocrisy, is forthcoming with Cornell University Press in December 2017, and her work has also been published in Security Studies and Conflict Management and Peace Science. She received her PhD from the Department of Politics at Princeton University in 2012 and has previously worked as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Politics Department at UC, Santa Cruz and as an Assistant Professor in the Department of International Affairs at the University of Georgia. She also holds a B.A. from Stanford and studied in Berlin as a Fulbright Scholar.

Abstract:

Modernization theory, institutional capacity, and rational choice institutionalism are the three candidate theories that explain how rich democratic states got to be rich and democratic. External development efforts will only be successful if he objectives or external and internal elites are complementary. This is only likely to be the case for 30-40 countries in the world. For the other 130 poorer countries the best that can be hoped for is good enough governance.

 

Speaker Bio:

Stephen D. Krasner is the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations at Stanford, and a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute, and the Hoover Institution. From February 2005 to April 2007 he was Director of the Policy Planning Staff at the Department of State. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the United States Institute of Peace, and was a member of the Foreign Policy Advisory Board of the Department of State from 2012 to 2014. He edited International Organization from 1986 to 1992. Professor Krasner is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is a Mercator Fellow at the Free University and was a Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg in 2000-2001. He has written or edited eight books and more than eighty articles.

Abstract:

In the year 1200, many of the largest cities in Western Europe were inhabited by just tens of thousands of individuals while Middle Eastern and Central Asia cities had upwards to 100,000 residents each. By 1800, however, this pattern had reversed. This paper explores the importance of historical trade in explaining patterns of urban growth and decline in the run-up to the Industrial Revolution. To address the issue of the endogenous development of trade routes, the paper’s empirical analysis is focused on trade networks which connected historical cities located near natural harbors, maritime choke points and desert oases. These findings speak to why Middle Eastern and Central Asian cities – long beneficiaries of locational centrality between Europe and Asia – declined as Europeans found alternative routes to the East and opened new trade opportunities in the New World.

 

Speaker Bio:

Lisa Blaydes is an Associate Professor of Political Science. She is the author of Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 2011). Her articles have appeared in the American Political Science Review, the Annual Review of Political Science, International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Theoretical Politics, Middle East Journal, and World Politics.

Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event. 

 

Abstract:

Over the past decades, there has been a revolution in terms of who controls knowledge and information. This rapid change has imperiled the way we think. Without pausing to consider the cost, the world has rushed to embrace the products and services of four titanic corporations. Franklin Foer, a correspondent at the Atlantic and former editor of the New Republic, has written a polemic against the monopolistic practices of Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple. He argues they have ushered in a new, dangerous age of conformism. A threat to the very foundations of the republic. In the words of Steve Coll—the Pulitzer Prize-winner—his book is “an argument in the spirit of those brave democracy protesters who stand alone before tanks."

 

Speaker Bio:

Franklin Foer is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and fellow at the New America Foundation. For seven years, he served as editor of The New Republic. Foer has written for Slate and New York magazine. His previous book How Soccer Explains the World has been translated into 27 languages and was the winner of a National Jewish Book Award.