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.

The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution

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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 applied to all citizens. Some went on to create governments that were accountable to their citizens. We take these institutions for granted, but they are absent or are unable to perform in many of today's developing countries-with often disastrous consequences for the rest of the world.

In The Origins of Political Order, Francis Fukuyama, author of the bestselling The End of History and the Last Man, provides a sweeping account of how today's basic political institutions developed. The first of a major two-volume work begins with politics among our primate ancestors and follows the story through the emergence of tribal societies, the growth of the first modern state in China, the beginning of a rule of law in India and the Middle East, and the development of political accountability in Europe up until the eve of the French Revolution.

Drawing on a vast body of knowledge-history, evolutionary biology, archaeology, and economics-Fukuyama has produced a brilliant, provocative work that offers fresh insights on the origins of democratic societies and raises essential questions about the nature of politics.

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Books
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Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux
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Francis Fukuyama
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978-0-374-22734-0

''Origins of Political Order - From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution'' book launch for Francis Fukuyama

''Origins of Political Order - From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution'' book launch for Francis Fukuyama

Egyptian activists and scholars connect in digital townhall

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On April 4, the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law in collaboration with the Cloud to Street project held a digital townhall meeting connecting three Egyptian  pro-democracy activists with scholars at Stanford, Harvard, and the University of British Columbia. The web-based platform allowed virtual participants to see and hear from activists broadcast live from Tahrir Lounge in the epicenter of the January 25 movement, which shook Mubarak from three decades of rule. The Egyptian activists, Sabah Hamomou, Mona Shahien, and Adbel Rahman Faris, provided personal testimony to how political action and technology combined to produce such explosive results.

The Cloud to Street project includes CDDRL visiting scholar Ben Rowswell and a team of experienced diplomats and academics from the University of British Columbia and Harvard. The Cloud to Street team deployed to Egypt two weeks ago on a fact-finding mission to connect with activists, listen to their stories, and assess their needs as they begin to construct the foundations of a democratic state. Rowswell moderated the 90-minute virtual session that included 35 virtual participants who posed questions and provided comments through a live chat tool, sparking a conversation amongst the online community.

The session began with Rowswell asking the activists about how they became involved in the events leading up to the revolution. Shahien, a founder of the Revolutionary Youth Union and a shadow minister for the Reform and Development party, confided that she had never intended to join the movement originally but was "downloaded" as an activist after responding to an advertisement on Facebook.

Hamamou an acclaimed media journalist and blogger, joined the protests when she witnessed wave after wave of activists pass by her office. She set up a camera in Tahrir Square posting a live stream of footage on her blog, documenting the protests as they unfolded. Faris, a blogger and member of the Revolutionary Youth Coalition, used Facebook to coordinate and mobilize protests initiated by this citizen-based movement.

Hamamou responded to questions about the future of state-run media, discussing how she lobbied for the transition of al-Ahram's (Egypt's largest newspaper) overnight transition from pro-regime to pro-revolution and its attempt to make media more representative of the new Egypt. While, traditional media has played a role in the revolution, particularly when the Internet was blocked, Shahien claimed that papers have lost credibility as more people turn to online sources for accurate and uncensored reporting.

What was clear from all three leaders was the transformation of Egypt's youth from a state of political apathy to activism. "Many youth didn't want to be part of political life, it's a dirty job they don't want to be part of.  Now this is changing since January 25," said Shahien. Similarly, she added that the Revolutionary Youth Union is reaching out to women and empowering them through civic education.

The virtual chat was ablaze with questions about what is next and how academics and outsiders can be helpful (if at all) to their efforts. Faris explained, "Mubarak may have left but the regime still remains with all its corruption." He emphasized the importance of this period of transition for street-based initiatives, which should not be compromised by the rush to form political parties.

Shahien added "getting rid of Mubarak's regime will take years, we can't just exclude them, they will come back. Our role is to change the rules-journalists and political activists."

All three activists emphasized the importance of letting Egyptians shape a future democratic state for themselves, free from foreign government interference, but they welcomed exchanges with NGOs and international civil society to lend their expertise.

Hamamou described the revolution as a collective enterprise driven by secularists and Islamists alike, who worked together towards the common goal of overthrowing the regime. Looking forward, she envisioned Egypt in the same light as a "civil" (secular) country ruled by the people and separating religion from the political space. 

While, social media was successful in catalyzing this youth-led movement, it is clear that there is significant work that still needs to be done on the ground to reach the general public. In response to this challenge, Shahien launched the Tahrir Lounge project to train activists and equip them with the offline tools necessary to conduct civic education events across Egypt, particularly in rural communities. She even proposed creating a mobile application that will educate the public on their rights, civil liberties, and build awareness during the democratic transition.

Going forward, the Cloud to Street initiative and its academic partners will be working with Egyptian partners on the ground to identify ways to harness their expertise in service of Egyptian democracy activists.

For detailed information on the Cloud to Street Initiative and to read blogs, watch videos, and learn more about the activists featured in the townhall, please visit www.cloudtostreet.org or follow us on Twitter@cloudtostreet.

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The Chinese Century? Business and Education in the 21st Century

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Europe dominated the 19th century. The 20th century saw the rise of the United States. Will the 21st century be "the Chinese Century"? Using a series of Harvard Business School Cases, this lecture will explore production, consumption, and education for China's new middle class, and think about China's future, in the light of its past.

William C. Kirby is T. M. Chang Professor of China Studies at Harvard University and Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He is a Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor. He serves as Director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and Chairman of the Harvard China Fund.

A historian of modern China, Professor Kirby's work examines China's business, economic, and political development in an international context. He has written on the evolution of modern Chinese business (state-owned and private); Chinese corporate law and company structure; the history of freedom in China; the international socialist economy of the 1950s; relations across the Taiwan Strait; and China's relations with Europe and America. His current projects include case studies of contemporary Chinese businesses and a comparative study of higher education in China, Europe, and the United States.

This talk is co-sponsored with the Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS).

Philippines Conference Room

William C. Kirby T. M. Chang Professor of China Studies at Harvard University and Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration Speaker Harvard Business School
Seminars

Education for All? The Political Economy of Primary Education in Kenya

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Daniel Posner is Total Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and currently a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.  His research focuses on ethnic politics, research design, distributive politics and the political economy of development in Africa. His work investigates, among other topics, the sources of ethnic identification and the political, social and economic outcomes that ethnicity affects-coalition-building, voting, collective action, public goods provision, and economic growth-with special attention to the mechanisms through which it has its impact. His methodological approach is to find creative ways to maximize leverage for making strong descriptive and causal claims, through the use of experiments (in the lab, in the field, and occurring "naturally"), new data sources (including the re-appropriation of data collected for other purposes), and the adoption of techniques from other disciplines such as satellite geography, public health, and behavioral economics.

His most recent co-authored book, Coethnicity: Diversity and the Dilemmas of Collective Action (Russell Sage, 2009) employs experimental games to probe the sources of poor public goods provision in ethnically diverse communities. His first book, Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa (Cambridge, 2005), explains why and when politics revolves around one dimension of ethnic cleavage rather than another. He has received several awards for his work, including the Luebbert Award for best book in Comparative Politics (2006 and 2010), the Heinz Eulau Award for the best article in the American Political Science Review (2008), the Michael Wallerstein Award for the best article in Political Economy (2008), the best book award from the African Politics Conference Group (2006), and the Sage Award for the best paper in Comparative Politics presented at the APSA annual meeting (2004). He has been a Harvard Academy Scholar (1995-98), a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution (2001-02), a Carnegie Scholar (2003-05) and, this year, a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (2010-11). He currently serves on the editorial boards of World Politics, PS, and the Annual Review of Political Science. He is the co-founder of the Working Group in African Political Economy (WGAPE). He received his BA from Dartmouth College and his PhD from Harvard University. Before moving to MIT, he taught for twelve years at UCLA.

Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Daniel Posner Total Professor of Political Science Speaker Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Seminars

CDDRL Conferences

CDDRL conferences bring together leading thinkers, academics, and practitioners to share research and exchange ideas on the most pressing issues in the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law. CDDRL conferences typically occur each quarter of the academic year and feature substantive research outputs, including; working papers, conference reports, and interactive media, which are all posted to the event containers listed below.

Ahmed Benchemsi

CDDRL
616 Serra Street
Encina Hall
Stanford, CA 94305

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Visiting Scholar Program on Arab Reform and Democracy
Benchemsi_headshot.jpg MPhil

Ahmed Benchemsi is a visiting scholar at Stanford University's Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. His focus is on the democratic grassroots movement that recently burgeoned in Morocco, as in Tunisia and Egypt. Ahmed researches how and under what circumstances a handful of young Facebook activists managed to infuse democratic spirit which eventually inspired hundreds of thousands, leading them to hit the streets in massive protests. He investigates whether this actual trend will pave the way for genuine democratic reform or for the traditional political system's reconfiguration around a new balance of powers - or both.  

Before joining Stanford, Ahmed was the publisher and editor of Morocco's two best-selling newsweeklies TelQuel (French) and Nishan (Arabic), which he founded in 2001 and 2006, respectively. Covering politics, business, society and the arts, Ahmed's magazines were repeatedly cited by major media such as CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera and more, as strong advocates of democracy and secularism in the Middle East and North Africa.

Ahmed received awards from the European Union and Lebanon's Samir Kassir Foundation, notably for his work on the "Cult of personality" surrounding Morocco's King. He also published op-eds in Le Monde and Newsweek where he completed fellowships.

Ahmed received his M.Phil in Political Science in 1998 from Paris' Institut d'Etudes Politiques (aka "Sciences Po"), his M.A in Development Economics in 1995 from La Sorbonne, and his B.A in Finance in 1994 from Paris VIII University.

Vivek Srinivasan

Encina Hall
Office C149

(650) 561-6039
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picture-4171-1416339295.jpg PhD

I joined the Liberation Technology Program as the Manager in February 2011 after completing my Ph.D. in Social Sciences from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. Prior to this, I worked with campaigns on various socio-economic rights in India, including the right to food, education and the right to information. Based on these experiences I have written (and co-authored) extensively on issues surrounding the right to food, including Notes from the right to food campaign: people's movement for the right to food (2003), Rights based approach and human development: An introduction (2008), Gender and the right to food: A critical re-examination (2006), Food Policy and Social Movements: Reflections on the Right to Food Campaign in India (2007).  

In working with these campaigns, I realised the widespread disparities in the provision of basic public services in India. This led me examine how Tamil Nadu, a southern Indian state, developed extensive commitment to providing such services to all its residents in my doctoral dissertation.  Oxford University Press published my book based on the dissertation entitled, "Delivering services effectively: Tamil Nadu and Beyond" in 2014.

As a full-time activist, I also experimented with various IT platforms to make the campaigns effective. This interest brought me to the Liberation Technology Program at Stanford. I am currently leading a research project entitled "Combating corruption with mobile phones".

Visiting Scholar
Former Academic Research & Program Manager, Liberation Technology
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