This fall, Stanford Continuing Studies will present its third annual Reimagining Democracy course, a six-part speaker series produced with the Office of Community Engagement, the Stanford Democracy Hub, and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). The free public series runs weekly starting October 7 and is hosted by Debra Satz, Vernon R. and Lysbeth Warren Anderson Dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences, and CDDRL's Larry Diamond, Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI).

The series features Stanford scholars who help us understand democracy: how America’s founding 250 years ago shapes public life today, and where we go from here in reimagining and strengthening democratic values and governance, at home and around the world. This year’s series features constitutional, electoral, social science, and humanities experts with conversations connecting to the US November midterm elections and beyond.

The series draws heavily on CDDRL's bench of democracy scholars. Alberto Díaz-Cayeros, Senior Fellow at FSI and Co-Director of CDDRL's Democracy Action Lab, joins Anna Grzymala-Busse, Senior Fellow at FSI, for the October 14 conversation on global democracy and elections, drawing on their comparative work on democratic decline and resilience. Didi Kuo, Center Fellow at FSI and program manager of CDDRL's Program on American Democracy in Comparative Perspective, joins the October 21 session on money in politics, bringing her research on political parties and institutional reform. Nate Persily, James B. McClatchy Professor of Law and Senior Fellow at FSI, brings his expertise in election law to the October 28 session on voting rights and electoral reform. Other sessions bring in Stanford colleagues working across law, history, and public service.

All sessions will be recorded, and videos will be available afterward for those unable to attend live.

On March 5, as part of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law’s Research Seminar Series, Laia Balcells — the Christopher F. Gallagher Family Professor of Government at Georgetown University — delivered a presentation on the impact of transitional justice museums. Balcells presented a series of co-authored studies that have examined the political and social effects of transitional justice museums — institutions that commemorate victims of past violence and shape collective memory in post-conflict or post-authoritarian societies. These museums were presented as part of broader transitional justice efforts, alongside trials, truth commissions, and reparations, all of which aim to address historical injustices and strengthen democratic values. The central question of the research project is whether these museums actually influence visitors’ political attitudes and beliefs, and under what conditions such influence occurs.

Transitional justice museums have become increasingly common around the world, particularly since World War II, as societies have attempted to confront legacies of violence and authoritarian rule. Despite their growing prevalence, their societal impact has remained contested. Some scholars have argued that museums encourage empathy, tolerance, and greater awareness of human rights. Others have warned that they may generate political polarization, especially when the historical narratives they present challenge existing identities or ideological commitments. The presentation, therefore, emphasized the need for systematic evidence to determine when museums persuade audiences and when they instead reinforce existing divisions.

To investigate this question, the research presented by Balcells relied on multiple field experiments conducted in museums across different political contexts. The first case study (co-authored with Valeria Palanza and Elsa Voytas) examined the Museo de la Memoria y de los Derechos Humanos in Santiago, Chile, which commemorates victims of the Pinochet dictatorship. Participants were randomly assigned either to visit the museum or to a control group, and their attitudes were measured before and after the visit. The results suggested that visiting the museum significantly influenced visitors’ emotions and political attitudes. In particular, exposure to the museum increased emotional responses, such as compassion toward victims, and affected views on transitional justice and democratic institutions. Some of these effects also persisted over time, indicating that museum experiences could have lasting attitudinal consequences.

The second case (co-authored with Elsa Voytas) focused on an exhibit on “The Troubles” at the Ulster Museum in Northern Ireland. This context differed from Chile because the conflict involved multiple groups and remained politically sensitive. The research design combined focus groups, field experiments with university students, and survey experiments with members of the general population. Although the exhibit generated strong emotional reactions among visitors, the findings showed little evidence that it significantly changed attitudes toward out-groups or transitional justice policies. Instead, political identities and sectarian divisions remained largely stable. This suggested that in deeply divided societies, emotional responses to historical narratives do not necessarily translate into meaningful changes in political attitudes.

The third case (co-authored with Francesca Parente and Ethan vanderWilden) examined the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. Unlike the previous cases, the Holocaust did not directly implicate the museum’s primary audience in the same way as domestic conflicts. The research tested whether visiting the museum increased support for democratic values and reduced antisemitic attitudes. The findings showed that visits increased agreement with what Balcells and her co-authors described as “inclusive Holocaust lessons,” including stronger support for democracy, human rights, and opposition to genocide and authoritarianism. The museum also increased empathy toward Jewish people and support for Holocaust remembrance, with some effects lasting for at least one month after the visit.

Overall, the comparative analysis suggested that transitional justice museums could shape attitudes, but their effectiveness depended heavily on political and social context. Museums appeared more successful at reinforcing democratic norms and historical awareness than at transforming deeply entrenched intergroup attitudes. The presentation concluded by highlighting what Balcells referred to as the “Transitional Justice Museum Paradox”: societies that most need such institutions to promote reconciliation may also be the places where the likelihood of establishing such museums is lower, and where, if they are built, their impact is most limited.

On December 3, 2025, the Jan Koum Israel Studies Program at CDDRL hosted Dr. Emmanuel Navon, a French-born Israeli international relations scholar and author of The Star and the Scepter: A Diplomatic History of Israel, for a webinar moderated by Amichai Magen, Director of the Jan Koum Israel Studies Program. Covering 3,5000 years of Israeli foreign policy, Navon—a lecturer on International Relations at Tel Aviv University and a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security—explored tensions between political realism (the "scepter") and idealism (the "star") that have shaped Jewish diplomatic thought throughout history. Focused on Vladimir Jabotinsky, David Ben-Gurion, and others, Navon argued that from October 7, 2023, Israeli strategic thinking shifted: facing ideologically-driven enemies willing to sacrifice everything for Israel's destruction, Israelis watched the "iron wall" doctrine of deterrence collapse physically and conceptually.

Navon noted that post-October 7 Israel must move strategically beyond containment and actively dismantle existential threats. He also described a spiritual reawakening among Israelis redefining their Jewish identities in response to unrelenting hatred. He contextualized the global focus on Israel within debates over Western values, democracy, and resistance to Islamist ideology. In response to audience questions about antisemitism, information warfare, and the blurring lines between Israeli foreign policy and diaspora concerns, Navon outlined how, through sophisticated propaganda and rhetoric centered on justice and self-determination, Israel's adversaries project their own colonial ambitions and human rights abuses onto Israel.

A full recording of the webinar can be viewed below:

The October 22, 2025, session of the Israel Insights webinar series featured a discussion with Professor Azar Gat, the Ezer Weitzman Chair of National Security and Head of the International and Executive MA Programs in Security and Diplomacy in the School of Political Science, Government and International Affairs at Tel Aviv University. Hosted by the Jan Koum Israel Studies Program (JKISP) at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, the webinar was moderated by JKISP Director Amichai Magen. Gat described “the problem with the Palestinian problem" as outlined in his recent essay for Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), detailing his approach to why the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has remained uniquely challenging despite decades of negotiation and apparent consensus around a two-state solution. The primary "Palestinian ethos," he argued, has not centered on creating an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, but rather it has centered on the rectification of what is perceived as the injustice of 1948, wherein the Jewish state was established. In the Q&A, Gat and Magen explored implications for Israeli strategy, regional normalization, and the balance between realism and hope in future negotiations.

A full recording of the webinar can be viewed below: