Stanford University

Society

FSI researchers work to understand continuity and change in societies as they confront their problems and opportunities. This includes the implications of migration and human trafficking. What happens to a society when young girls exit the sex trade? How do groups moving between locations impact societies, economies, self-identity and citizenship? What are the ethnic challenges faced by an increasingly diverse European Union? From a policy perspective, scholars also work to investigate the consequences of security-related measures for society and its values.

The Europe Center reflects much of FSI’s agenda of investigating societies, serving as a forum for experts to research the cultures, religions and people of Europe. The Center sponsors several seminars and lectures, as well as visiting scholars.

Societal research also addresses issues of demography and aging, such as the social and economic challenges of providing health care for an aging population. How do older adults make decisions, and what societal tools need to be in place to ensure the resulting decisions are well-informed? FSI regularly brings in international scholars to look at these issues. They discuss how adults care for their older parents in rural China as well as the economic aspects of aging populations in China and India.

Sectarian Inclusion in Post-Conflict Policing

-

Abstract:

Societies with deep-seated ethnic or religious divisions pose a challenge for governance: how can a single set of political institutions govern a fragmented population peacefully and effectively? As the institution responsible for implementing and enforcing laws, the police are an especially critical piece of the governance puzzle. I explore the role of sectarian inclusion in the police forces in Iraq and Israel, two countries with legacies of violent conflict along identity lines. I argue that integrating minority groups into the rank-and-file of the police addresses common motives for anti-state violence by shaping citizens' expectations about how they will be treated by the state. I present survey, experimental, and observational evidence showing that citizens interpret police integration as a credible signal that the government does not intend to harm them, which in turn reduces citizens’ willingness to turn to violence.

 

Speaker Bio:

matthew nanes
Matthew Nanes is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. His research explores the way that political institutions shape the citizen-state relationship, particularly in societies plagued by violent conflict and low state legitimacy. Most of his work is in the Middle East, where he has conducted field work in a number of countries including Jordan, Israel, Egypt, and Oman. He is also involved in ongoing research on policing in the Philippines. Matthew received a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California San Diego and holds a B.A. from Rice University.

Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
Seminars

Nathaniel Persily

Stanford Law School Neukom Building, Room N230 Stanford, CA 94305
650-725-9875
0
James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School
Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute
Professor, by courtesy, Political Science
Professor, by courtesy, Communication
headshot_3.jpg

Nathaniel Persily is the James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, with appointments in the departments of Political Science, Communication, and FSI.  Prior to joining Stanford, Professor Persily taught at Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and as a visiting professor at Harvard, NYU, Princeton, the University of Amsterdam, and the University of Melbourne. Professor Persily’s scholarship and legal practice focus on American election law or what is sometimes called the “law of democracy,” which addresses issues such as voting rights, political parties, campaign finance, redistricting, and election administration. He has served as a special master or court-appointed expert to craft congressional or legislative districting plans for Georgia, Maryland, Connecticut, New York, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.  He also served as the Senior Research Director for the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. In addition to dozens of articles (many of which have been cited by the Supreme Court) on the legal regulation of political parties, issues surrounding the census and redistricting process, voting rights, and campaign finance reform, Professor Persily is coauthor of the leading election law casebook, The Law of Democracy (Foundation Press, 5th ed., 2016), with Samuel Issacharoff, Pamela Karlan, and Richard Pildes. His current work, for which he has been honored as a Guggenheim Fellow, Andrew Carnegie Fellow, and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, examines the impact of changing technology on political communication, campaigns, and election administration.  He is codirector of the Stanford Program on Democracy and the Internet, and Social Science One, a project to make available to the world’s research community privacy-protected Facebook data to study the impact of social media on democracy.  He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a commissioner on the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age.  Along with Professor Charles Stewart III, he recently founded HealthyElections.Org (the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project) which aims to support local election officials in taking the necessary steps during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide safe voting options for the 2020 election. He received a B.A. and M.A. in political science from Yale (1992); a J.D. from Stanford (1998) where he was President of the Stanford Law Review, and a Ph.D. in political science from U.C. Berkeley in 2002.   

CV
Hide publication sections
Off
Date Label

The Rise of Duterte: A Populist Revolt against Elite Democracy

-

Co-sponsored by the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, Center for East Asian Studies, and the Southeast Asia Program

Who is Rodrigo Duterte?  How did he become president of the Philippines?  How has his rule impacted Philippine democracy and society?  Is his ascent part of a broader “Duterte wave” of strongman leadership in Russia, Turkey, India, China, and Southeast Asia?  What is his foreign policy?  How has it affected Sino-US rivalry in Asia including the situation in the South China Sea?  Richard Heydarian will address these and other questions drawing on field research for his latest book, The Rise of Duterte.  Regarding China, he will argue that Duterte’s willingness to realign Manila with Beijing at Washington’s expense offers a glimpse of what China’s rise could imply for nations around the world.  The book will be available for sale at his talk. 

javad richard heydarian
Richard Javad Heydarian is the most prolific and interviewed geopolitical analyst currently writing and speaking not only in the Philippines but arguably in Southeast Asia as well. Outlets for his articles and remarks have included Aljazeera English, The Atlantic, BBC, Bloomberg, The Economist, The Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, The Guardian, The New York Times, Nikkei Asian Review, South China Morning Post, The Straits Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. In addition to the 2017 book that entitles his talk, he has written two others: Asia's New Battlefield: US, China, and the Struggle for Western Pacific (2015) and How Capitalism Failed the Arab World (2014). He lectures widely; has taught political science at Ateneo de Manila University and De La Salle University in the Philippines; has published in leading scholarly journals on Asian politics and security; and is a regular contributor to the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Council on Foreign Relations. 

 

Download pdf
Richard Javad Heydarian Resident Political Analyst, GMA Network, and Non-resident Fellow, Stratbase-ADR Institute, Manila
Seminars

Labor Activism under Egypt’s New Authoritarianism

-

ABSTRACT

Despite security surveillance, forced dismissals of labor activists, and referrals of labor activists and protesters to military trials, labor activism remains at the forefront of societal resistance to authoritarian policies and practices in today’s Egypt. Unionized workers in public and private industrial facilities, as well as civil servants inside the state bureaucracy, continue to demonstrate and organize strikes to articulate their economic and social demands and to defend workers’ rights to freedoms of expression and association. Protests by labor activists have even impacted key sectors, such as public transportation and healthcare. While the Ministry of Manpower and Immigration has settled some formal complaints and requests filed by workers and civil servants, most cases have been referred to labor courts. The ministry has also resorted to providing temporary financial assistance and other short-term benefits to appease some workers and civil servants and to address the upsurge in labor protests. This talk will examine the various administrative, security, legislative, and judicial tools that the regime of Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi has employed to undermine labor activism. Joel Beinin will serve as a discussant.

 

SPEAKER BIO

Amr Hamzawy is a Senior Research Scholar at CDDRL. He studied political science and developmental studies in Cairo, The Hague, and Berlin. He was previously an associate professor of political science at Cairo University and a professor of public policy at the American University in Cairo. Between 2016 and 2017, he served as a senior fellow in the Middle East program and the Democracy and Rule of Law program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC. 

His research and teaching interests as well as his academic publications focus on democratization processes in Egypt, tensions between freedom and repression in the Egyptian public space, political movements and civil society in Egypt, contemporary debates in Arab political thought, and human rights and governance in the Arab world. He is currently writing a new book on contemporary Egyptian politics, titled Egypt’s New Authoritarianism.

Hamzawy is a former member of the Egyptian parliament, and was elected to office in the country’s first legislative elections following the January 25, 2011 revolution. He is also a former member of the Egyptian National Council for Human Rights. Hamzawy contributes a weekly op-ed to the Egyptian independent newspaper al-Shorouk and a weekly op-ed to the London based newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi.

 

DISCUSSANT BIO

Joel Beinin is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History and Professor of Middle East History at Stanford University.  He received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1982 before coming to Stanford in 1983.  From 2006 to 2008 he served as Director of Middle East Studies and Professor of History at the American University in Cairo.  In 2002 he served as president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America.

Beinin’s research and writing focus on the social and cultural history and political economy of modern Egypt, Palestine, and Israel and on US policy in the Middle East.  He has written or edited eleven books, most recently Workers and Thieves: Labor Movements and Popular Uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt (Stanford University Press, 2015); Social Movements, Mobilization, and Contestation in the Middle East and North Africa, 2nd edition (Stanford University Press, 2013) co-edited with Frédéric Vairel; and The Struggle for Worker Rights in Egypt (Solidarity Center, 2010).

 Reuben Hills Conference Room
 2nd Floor East Wing E207
 Encina Hall
 616 Serra Street
 Stanford, California 94305

Amr Hamzawy

0
amr.jpg

Amr Hamzawy is the director of the Carnegie Middle East Program. He studied political science and developmental studies in Cairo, The Hague, and Berlin. He was previously an associate professor of political science at Cairo University and a professor of public policy at the American University in Cairo.

His research and teaching interests as well as his academic publications focus on democratization processes in Egypt, tensions between freedom and repression in the Egyptian public space, political movements and civil society in Egypt, contemporary debates in Arab political thought, and human rights and governance in the Arab world. His new book On The Habits of Neoauthoritarianism – Politics in Egypt Between 2013 and 2019 appeared in Arabic in September 2019.

Hamzawy is a former member of the People’s Assembly after being elected in the first Parliamentary elections in Egypt after the January 25, 2011 revolution. He is also a former member of the Egyptian National Council for Human Rights. Hamzawy contributes a weekly op-ed to the Arab daily al-Quds al-Arabi.

 

Former Senior Research Scholar, CDDRL
Senior Research Scholar, CDDRL
Seminars
Arab Reform and Democracy Speaker Series

Draper Hills Summer Fellowship application is open

News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

Draper Hills Summer Fellowship Program at CDDRL is now accepting applications. Deadline is 5:00 pm PST on Wednesday, November 15, 2017.

Launched in 2005, the Draper Hills Summer Fellowship on Democracy and Development Program (DHSFDD) is a three-week academic training program that is hosted annually at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. The program brings together a group of 25 to 30 mid-career practitioners in law, politics, government, private enterprise, civil society, and international development from transitioning countries. This training program provides a unique forum for emerging leaders to connect, exchange experiences, and receive academic training to enrich their knowledge and advance their work.

For three weeks during the summer, fellows participate in academic seminars that expose them to the theory and practice of democracy, development, and the rule of law. Delivered by leading Stanford faculty from the Stanford Law School, the Graduate School of Business, and the departments of economics and political science, these seminars allow emerging leaders to explore new institutional models and frameworks to enhance their ability to promote democratic change in their home countries.

Guest speakers from private foundations, think tanks, government, and the justice system provide a practitioners viewpoint on such pressing issues in the field. Summer Fellows also visit Silicon Valley technology firms such as Benetech, Google and Twitter to explore how technology tools and social media platforms are being used to catalyze democratic practices on a global scale. 

The  program is funded  by the generous support from Bill and Phyllis Draper and Ingrid von Mangoldt Hills.

Learn more here.

Hero Image
rsd17 063 0508a
All News button
1

Identity and Identity Politics

-

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:

bb fukuyama
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.

 

 

Francis Fukuyama

Encina Hall, C148
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305

0
Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Director of the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy
Research Affiliate at The Europe Center
Professor by Courtesy, Department of Political Science
yff-2021-14290_6500x4500_square.jpg

Francis Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a faculty member of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). He is also Director of Stanford's Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy, and a professor (by courtesy) of Political Science.

Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on issues in development and international politics. His 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. His book In the Realm of the Last Man: A Memoir will be published in fall 2026.

Francis Fukuyama received his B.A. from Cornell University in classics, and his Ph.D. from Harvard in Political Science. He was a member of the Political Science Department of the RAND Corporation, and of the Policy Planning Staff of the US Department of State. From 1996-2000 he was Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University, and from 2001-2010 he was Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. He served as a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics from 2001-2004. He is editor-in-chief of American Purpose, an online journal.

Dr. Fukuyama holds honorary doctorates from Connecticut College, Doane College, Doshisha University (Japan), Kansai University (Japan), Aarhus University (Denmark), the Pardee Rand Graduate School, and Adam Mickiewicz University (Poland). He is a non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Rand Corporation, the Board of Trustees of Freedom House, and the Board of the Volcker Alliance. He is a fellow of the National Academy for Public Administration, a member of the American Political Science Association, and of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is married to Laura Holmgren and has three children.

(October 2025)

Global Populisms

A new project examining the global surge in populist movements and what it means for established democratic rules and institutions.
Read More
CV
Hide publication sections
Off
Date Label
The Mosbacher Director of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL).
Seminars

Online Disinformation during Crisis Events

-

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
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.

William J. Perry Conference Room,  Encina Hall, 2nd Floor, 616 Serra St, Stanford, CA 94305

Kate Starbird Assistant Professor at the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) at the University of Washington
Seminars

Whatever Happened to the Arab Spring?

-

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:

cookfdheadshot
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.

 

 

[[{"fid":"228192","view_mode":"crop_870xauto","fields":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"Steven Cook flyer","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_credit[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto","alt":"","title":""},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"2":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"Steven Cook flyer","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false,"field_credit[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto","alt":"","title":""}},"link_text":null,"attributes":{"class":"media-element file-crop-870xauto","data-delta":"2"}}]]

Philippines Conference Room
Encina Hall, 3rd Floor
616 Serra St
Stanford, CA 94305

Steven A. Cook Council on Foreign Relations
Seminars

Fake News in the 2016 Election

-

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 nyan
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.

William J. Perry Conference Room, Encina Hall, 2nd Floor, 616 Serra St, Stanford, CA 94305

Brendan Nyhan Professor in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College
Seminars

Humanitarian Hypocrisy

-

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:

everett
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.

Visiting Scholar at CDDRL
Seminars
Subscribe to Society