Over the past 23 years, Mongolia’s democracy has advanced on many fronts. The initial transition to democracy was peaceful in both economic and political areas. Since embracing democracy in 1990, democratic development in Mongolia has been coupled with rapid economic growth, sustained by a neo-liberal economic policy. Regionally, Mongolia is often seen as a successful case of democratic transition and development. However, in recent years, the fragilities in Mongolian democracy have revealed themselves, especially domestically, in the booming economic climate that is unparalleled in the country's history.

Mongolia, located in north East Asia, locked between China and Russia, has a unique geopolitical situation, unlike any other country in the world. With these two large, powerful and politically changing neighbors, Mongolia pays constant and careful attention to maintaining diplomatic balance. Russia's historical, political, and cultural influence on Mongolia's 20th century cannot be underestimated. China, in complicated and important areas, represents vast economic opportunities. These economic opportunities, and the development that they drive, are viewed with increased suspicion domestically and regionally. However, Mongolia’s rapid economic development and democratic reforms may create additional opportunities and positive political developments in the region.

Abstract:

This talk is motivated by increased efforts in ICTD to lower rates of violence against women (VAW) worldwide. Conventional wisdom in international development often cites women’s advancement as the key factor in sustainable development strategies, although overall, ICTD has historically done a poor job taking women’s unique development concerns into account. However, new anti-rape and anti-harassment ICT efforts combine gender and technology policy and activity, and raise interesting questions about design, agency and ethics. This discussion introduces these intersections as areas for future research and development.

Speaker Bio:

Revi Sterling is the founder and director of the first Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICTD) professional master’s program in the United States, a program that places equal emphasis on technology, methodology, and development studies.  Previously, Sterling worked at Microsoft for 10 years where she spearheaded Microsoft Research’s efforts in gender equity in computer science. She has served on the leading gender and technology boards, and testified before the U.S. Congress about the need for more women in the technical workforce. She moved into the field of ICTD to research the impact of technology on women’s empowerment in underdeveloped communities. She is most concerned on the “hidden” barriers to ICTD use and access. Some of these topics include gender and power relations, development readiness, community expectation management and systemic disempowerment. Her current research explores the potential of ICT to establish and sustain mental health interventions in remote communities with a history of trauma and isolation. She is the recipient of the 2012 Anita Borg Institute Women of Vision award for Social Impact.

*This event is free and open to the public.*

PANELISTS

Don Emmerson - Director of the Southeast Asia Forum, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center; Affiliated Scholar, Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies; Affiliated Faculty, CDDRL

Erik Jensen - Professor of the Practice of Law, Stanford Law School; Senior Advisor for Governance and Law, The Asia Foundation; Senior Research Scholar, CDDRL; Director, Rule of Law Program, Stanford Law School

Norman Naimark - Director of the Stanford Global Studies Division; Professor of History

Diane H. Steinberg (Panel Chair) - Visiting Scholar at Stanford's Program on Human Rights, Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL)

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Speaker Bio:

Nabil Mouline is a senior researcher in The French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and The School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS). Prior to this, he was a research professor at the Institute of Political Studies of Paris (Sciences Po).
He earned a Ph.D. in history from the Paris-Sorbonne University and a Ph.D. in political science from the Institute of Political Studies of Paris (Sciences Po).

He is the author, among other works, of The Imaginary Caliphate of Ahmad al-Mansûr: Power and Diplomacy in Morocco in the 16th Century (PUF, Paris, 2009) and The Clerics of Islam: Religious Authority and Political Power in Saudi Arabia (PUF, Paris, 2011). Cambridge University Press and Yale University Press will publish the English translation of these two books in 2014 respectively.

During his residency at Stanford, he will work on a book on the sociological history of Saudi Arabia.

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Abstract:

Subnational conflict is the most widespread, enduring, and deadly form of conflict in Asia. Over the past 20 years (1992-2012), there have been 26 subnational conflicts in South and Southeast Asia, affecting half of the countries in this region. Concerned about foreign interference, national governments limit external access to conflict areas by journalists, diplomats, and personnel from international development agencies and non-governmental organizations. As a result, many subnational conflict areas are poorly understood by outsiders and easily overshadowed by larger geopolitical issues, bilateral relations, and national development challenges. The interactions between conflict, politics, and aid in subnational conflict areas are a critical blind spot for aid programs. This study was conducted to help improve how development agencies address subnational conflicts.

Speaker Bios:

Ben Oppenheim is a Fellow (non-resident) at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University. His research spans a diverse set of topics, including fragile states, transnational threats (including pandemic disease risks and terrorism), and the strategic coherence and effectiveness of international assistance in fragile and conflict-affected areas.

Oppenheim has consulted for organizations including the World Bank, the United Nations, the Asia Foundation, the Institute for the Future, and the Fritz Institute, on issues including organizational learning, strategy, program design, foresight, and facilitation. In 2009, he served as Advisor to the first global congress on disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration, supported by the World Bank and the UN.

In 2013, Oppenheim was a visiting fellow at the Uppsala University Forum on Democracy, Peace, and Justice. His research has been supported by a Simpson Fellowship, and a fellowship with the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. He was also a research fellow with UC Berkeley's Institute of International Studies, affiliated with the New Era Foreign Policy Project.

Nils Gilman is the Executive Director of Social Science Matrix. He holds a B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Berkeley. Gilman’s first scholarly interest was in American and European intellectual history, with a particular focus on the institutional development of the social sciences, the lateral transfer and translation of ideas across disciplinary boundaries, and the impact of social scientific ideas on politics and policy.

Gilman is the author of Mandarins of the Future: Modernization Theory in Cold War America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), the co-editor of Staging Growth: Modernization, Development, and the Global Cold War (University of Massachusetts Press, 2003) and Deviant Globalization: Black Market Economy in the 21st Century (Continuum Press, 2011), as well as the founding Co-editor of Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development. He also blogs and tweets.

Prior to joining Social Science Matrix in September 2013, Gilman was research director at Monitor 360, a San Francisco consultancy that addresses complex, cross-disciplinary global strategic challenges for governments, multinational businesses, and NGOs. He has also worked at a variety of enterprise software companies, including Salesforce.com, BEA Systems, and Plumtree Software. Gilman has taught and lectured at a wide variety of venues, from the Harvard University, Columbia University, and National Defense University, to PopTech, the European Futurists Conference, and the Long Now Foundation.

Bruce Jones is a senior fellow and the director of the Project on International Order and Strategy in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. He is also the director of the Center on International Cooperation at New York University.

Jones served as the senior external advisor for the World Bank’s 2011 World Development Report, Conflict, Security and Development, and in March 2010 was appointed by the United Nations secretary-general as a member of the senior advisory group to guide the Review of International Civilian Capacities. He is also consulting professor at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University and professor (by courtesy) at New York University’s department of politics.

Jones holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics, and was Hamburg fellow in conflict prevention at Stanford University.

He is co-author with Carlos Pascual and Stephen Stedman of Power and Responsibility: Building International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats (Brookings Press, 2009); co-editor with Shepard Forman and Richard Gowan of Cooperating for Peace and Security (Cambridge University Press, 2009); and author of Peacemaking in Rwanda: The Dynamics of Failures(Lynne Reinner, 2001).

Jones served as senior advisor in the office of the secretary-general during the U.N. reform effort leading up to the World Summit 2005, and in the same period was acting secretary of the Secretary-General’s Policy Committee. In 2004-2005, he was deputy research director of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change. From 2000-2002 he was special assistant to and acting chief of staff at the office of the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process. 

Abstract:
The peoples of Burma/Myanmar have faced military rule, human rights violations, and poor health outcomes for decades. The country Is now undergoing a political liberalization, and multiple changes in political, social and economic life. The human rights and health situation of the country's many ethnic nationalities remain challenging, and represent one of the clearest threats to the prospect of successful transition to peace, and to democracy. We will explore the current health and human rights situation in the country, the ongoing threats to peace, and ways forward for this least developed nation as it emerges from 5 decades of military rule.

Chris Beyrer MD, MPH, is a professor of Epidemiology, International Health, and Health, Behavior, and Society at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. He is the founding Director of the University¹s Center for Public Health and Human Rights, which seeks to bring the tools of population-based sciences to bear on Health and rights threats. Dr. Beyrer also serves as Associate Director of the Johns Hopkins Centers for AIDS Research (CFAR) and of the Center for Global Health. He has been involved in health and human rights work with Burmese populations since 1993. Prof. Beyrer is the author of more than 200 scientific papers, and author or editor of six books, including War in the Blood: Sex, Politics and AIDS in Southeast Asia, and Public Health and Human Rights: Evidence-Based Approaches. He has served as a consultant and adviser to numerous national and international institutions, including the National Institutes of Health, the World Bank, WHO, UNAIDS, the Open Society Foundations, the Walter Reed Army Institute for Research, amfAR The Foundation for AIDS Research, Physicians for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch. Dr. Beyrer received a BA in History from Hobart and Wm. Smith Colleges, his MD from SUNY Downstate in Brooklyn, NY, and completed his residency in Preventive Medicine, public health training, an MPH and a Infectious Diseases Fellowship at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He received an honorary Doctorate (PhD) in Health Sciences from Chiang Mai University in Thailand, in 2012, in recognition of his 20 years of public health service in Thailand

Abstract
Earlier generations of radicals understood themselves to be in an ongoing battle against the privatization of land and water.  They instrumentalized maps in the court system as a tool for battling for native sovereignty over traditional lands, protecting the rights of squatters, and securing access to water by poor farmers in the developing world.   Wherever battles for the commons take the form of a war for access to particular spaces, maps can help, whether activists are striking against high rents in the city, or protecting rivers from pollution.  Today, crowdsourced maps of land, food, and water present an opportunity for makers who want to work in support of a movement. My talk will highlight some of the most and least promising frontiers ahead.

 Professor Jo Guldi is presently Assistant Professor in the History of Britain and its Empire at Brown, where I teach courses related to capitalism, empire, land use, and computation.  Born in Dallas, Texas, I received my AB from Harvard University, and then studied at Trinity College, Cambridge before completing my PhD in History at the University of California, Berkeley, after which I continued on to postdocs at the University of Chicago and the Harvard Society of Fellows.  My first book, Roads to Power: Britain Invents the Infrastructure State (Harvard University Press, 2011), tells the story of how Britain built the first nation connected by infrastructure and technology caused strangers to stop speaking on the public street.  My next monograph, The Long Land War, will tell the story of international land reform movements from the Irish land war to Movimiento sin Tierra, lingering on legal reformers and civil servants, London's dredlocked squatters and their accidental influence on World Bank Policy, and the genesis of participatory mapping from Marxist development economists in the 1970s through radical coders in contemporary Chennai.