The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) is pleased to announce that undergraduate senior honors student Yihana von Ritter was awarded The Firestone Medal for Excellence in Undergraduate Research for her outstanding thesis examining HIV/AIDS policy in Papua New Guinea. Von Ritter was presented with the award at a ceremony held on June 11 during commencement weekend at Stanford University.
Larry Diamond with Yihana von Ritter (Firestone awardee)
Von Ritter, a political science major, spent the summer of 2010 on the Papua New Guinea island of Karkar, where she performed extensive field research. She interviewed over 40 government officials, medical personnel, religious and civic leaders, youth, and HIV positive individuals. Her thesis entitled "Between Hope and Despair: An Assessment of HIV/AIDS Policy in Papua New Guinea," underscored the fact that while only 1% of Papua New Guinea's adult population is AIDS-infected, a public health crisis is looming if preventative policies are not swiftly adopted.
According to her thesis co-advisor Professor Emeritus David Abernethy, Von Ritter's thesis received the Firestone Medal--awarded to the top ten percent of honors theses in social science, science, and engineering--for its remarkable combination of social science analysis and informed policy advocacy.
"Von Ritter provides policy-relevant recommendations in her thesis to enhance interagency communication and encourage active government leadership (in Papua New Guinea)," said Abernethy. Von Ritter also worked closely with Francis Fukuyama, FSI senior fellow and CDDRL faculty member, who provided guidance and support during the thesis writing process.
Purun Cheong and Kamil Dada were both recipients of the CDDRL Undergraduate Honors Program "Best Thesis Award" for their outstanding research and policy-relevant scholarship. Cheong, an international relations major, critically evaluated the failed United Nations state-building efforts in East Timor in his thesis, "When the Blind lead: The United Nations in East Timor-Lessons in State Building."
After spending a summer conducting research in Pakistan, Dada, a political science major, wrote "Understanding International Democracy Assistance: A Case Study of Pakistan," a sobering account of democracy assistance to Pakistan. Cheong and Dada were both advised by CDDRL director Larry Diamond.
CDDRL congratulates the 2011 graduating class of CDDRL Undergraduate Honors
Students:
Purun Cheong
International Relations
"When the Blind Lead: The United Nations in East Timor- Lessons in State Building"
Kamil Dada
Political Science
"Understanding International Democracy Assistance: A Case study of Pakistan"
Sarah Guerrero
International Relations
"Automation Nation: Electronic Elections, Electoral Governance and Democratic Consolidation in the Philippines"
Ayesha Lalji
International Relations
"Unleashing the Cheetah Generation: How Mobile Banking Enables Access to Capital for the Poor in Developing Countries"
Lauren Swartz
International Relations
"Agribusiness as a Means of Economic Development: Case Studies of Chile and Mexico"
Ann Thompson
History
"The Other Side of the Coin: The US Military and Afghan Women in Contemporary Counterinsurgurgency Operations"
Yihana von Ritter
Political Science
"Between Hope and Despair: An Assessment of HIV/AIDS Policy in Papua New Guinea"
"What if we offered a prayer for the soul of bin Laden?" The question was tossed into the meeting of the February 20 Movement like a hand grenade. But the young men and women gathered in the Moroccan Labor Union building in Rabat didn't duck for cover. Instead, they angrily challenged the questioner, a bearded, middle-aged man representing the Islamist prisoners who have joined from behind the bars with the secular youth movement calling for greater freedoms. "Are you out of your mind?" asked one young man. "Just because we defend you people against torture, it doesn't mean we support terrorism. Don't you impose your creepy agenda on us."
The bearded man beat a hasty retreat. "No problem, let's just do a regular prayer," he said. "We're all Muslims, aren't we?"
The meeting had been held to discuss plans for protest outside the infamous Temara detention center, located in a cork-oak forest near Rabat, where terrorism suspects have been tortured, according to Amnesty International. The Islamist may have thought he could set the agenda: after all, his kind had for decades been the only antimonarchy group of any consequence. But as he discovered, change has come to Morocco.
It must annoy the Islamists that the shots are being called by these new kids on the block — and that their vibrant activism is shaking up the monarchy in ways the Islamists have consistently failed to for more than 30 years. The kids scored their first big success on Feb. 20, when tens of thousands of Moroccans hit the streets of more than 50 towns and cities, demanding change. The protests had been organized by young independent activists responding to calls made on Facebook.
Since that date — so glorious that the youth movement was named after it — hundreds of thousands have demonstrated, at least once a week. The pressure has already compelled King Mohammed VI to promise constitutional reforms, to devolve some of his absolute powers to the elected government. But many young Moroccans want the king to "reign, not rule." The political arm wrestling with the monarchy continues.
But many young Moroccans want the king to "reign, not rule."
The Islamists, long thought to have the only grass-roots organization, had no choice but to line up behind the Feb. 20 banner. But the youth set stringent conditions: they would tolerate no Islamic signs or banners, no chants of "Allahu akbar" (God is great), and no segregation of the sexes. It was a revolution within a revolution.
Not so long ago, the Islamists were condemning as apostates some of the same youth leaders. In 2009, they launched a Facebook group calling for a public daytime meal during the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims can eat only before dawn and after dusk. The objective: to "open a debate on freedom of conscience." Predictably, a national scandal ensued. But this was not an isolated instance of iconoclastic behavior. For several years, groups of Moroccans have been using the power of social media — as well as the ability to attract the conventional media — to clamor for the freedom of belief, sexual liberty (notably for gays) and other individual freedoms that had until then been unthinkable.
The country's conservative majority was suitably horrified, but the young activists were able to rally growing constituencies among human-rights advocates, leftist groups and the middle-class youth. Even so, the core group of renegades continued to be perceived as little more than a bunch of crazy kids — until they and their sympathizers spearheaded the most powerful wave of change since the kingdom's independence, half a century ago.
What are the kids going to do with their newfound status? Nizar Bennamate, a leader of the Feb. 20 Rabat group, says some of their more envelope-pushing demands will have to wait for another day. "For now, democracy is our priority battle," he told me. Fair enough. But sooner or later, this battle will come to a close: Morocco's authoritarian system will irrevocably change, for that is the direction of history. When that day comes, Islamists and secularists will face off for a new fight over the soul of the new Morocco.
Who will win? That's hard to predict. But the secular youth have done well to position themselves as the leaders of the antigovernment protests. That planned demonstration at the Temara detention center was brutally broken up by police: 16 protesters were taken to the hospital, but the others reconvened in Rabat's city center to keep protesting. Nobody's calling them the crazy kids anymore.
Even though the last of the remaining aged survivors of the Second World War who fought and suffered through its horrors are now dying out, interpretations of what happened remain politically and morally contested. It is now an old story that West (but not East) Germany admitted the criminal nature of the Nazi regime, apologized, and incorporated recognition of what occurred into its school curriculum. Officially, Japan never has unambiguously done so and Japanese remain deeply divided over their wartime historical record, including its colonial rule in Asia.
But the story is much more complicated than that because most of the West European countries occupied by Germany during the war only gradually and belatedly admitted that their many collaborators played a crucial role in helping the Germans carry out the Holocaust and fight their war. This was even more the case in East Europe, where many are still evasive about the widespread cooperation with the Nazis that occurred during those years. Poland had to be shocked by Jan Gross’s path-breaking book, Neighbors, before starting to come to grips with the reality of its anti-Semitism, and in many other parts of the region that has not really begun to take place, even now. And in East Asia, the successful channeling of nationalist passions against Japan by the Koreans and Chinese has allowed them to evade the records of their own numerous collaborators.
The importance of World War II memories goes well beyond arguments about guilt or innocence, or concerns about official obscurantism in school textbooks and public avoidance, even denial of the relevance of the topic. The reality is that people have their own version of what happened passed on in family lore, while leaders’ interpretations of their past continue to shape present policy choices.
There has been much valuable scholarship on how both Europe and East Asia have approached issues related to World War II, but relatively little that directly compares the two areas. By bringing together a small group of the best analysts of the contentious twentieth century in both Europe and East Asia, we hope to deepen the comparative scholarship of how they have shaped their historical memory of the wartime past and how that legacy continues to shape current history in both regions. Each panel focuses on a key question and pairs specialists from Asian and European studies to address that same question.
This conference draws upon the three-year Divided Memories and Reconciliation project of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. The papers presented here will be published as an edited volume by a major university press.
The Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) hosted a conference on the democratic transition in Egypt on Friday as part of its Program on Arab Reform and Democracy.
A series of four panels explored a number of issues surrounding the transition to democracy following the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak. Prominent scholars from Stanford and other institutions participated in the conference.
Twelve Egypt scholars from American, Egyptian and European universities and think tanks convened in four panels throughout the day to discuss the revolution, the transition process, the changing political landscape and Egypt's future. The conference was co-sponsored by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies.
Panelists included Hoover Institution senior fellow Larry Diamond, history professor Joel Beinin, political science assistant professor Lisa Blaydes, CDDRL visiting scholar Ben Rowswell and CDDRL Program Manager Lina Khatib. They were joined by academics from Kent State University, Harvard University, Georgetown University, the University of Texas, Notre Dame University, the University of Exeter, the American University in Cairo and the Brookings Doha Center.
Each panel featured an introduction by the chair, followed by two or three 30-minute talks by panelists and a 30-minute Q&A session.
Emad Shahin, an associate professor of religion, conflict and peacebuilding at Notre Dame, opened the first panel with a talk that emphasized the role of the youth in charging the 18 days of protest that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak.
"In 18 days, this movement dismantled three pillars of Mubarak's regime-the security apparatus, NDP [National Democratic Party] and...the military," he said.
Samer Shehata, an assistant professor of Arab politics at Georgetown University, discussed the response of the regime to the protests and the reasons for its failure.
The second panel looked to the future, focusing on the Egyptian presidential elections scheduled for later this year. Speeches addressed the process of negotiations between the regime and opposition groups, the agenda for constitutional and institutional reform and political repression.
Panelist Jason Brownlee, an associate professor in the Department of Government at University of Texas at Austin, drew a parallel between the current situation in Egypt and the one in Russia in 1991. He described the liberal movement as "electorally weak" and said it experienced difficulty in maintaining momentum.
The third panel addressed political parties in the post-revolution landscape, including the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood party. Panelist Hesham Sallam, a doctoral candidate at Georgetown University, spoke on how the timeline for the parliamentary elections, currently set for this September, disadvantages newly formed parties and favors parties such as the Muslim Brotherhood.
"The speed of transition in Egypt gives advantage to existing political parties by not allowing time for newcomers to organize," he said.
"The Brotherhood knows how to play politics where liberals have absolutely no idea," added Shadi Hamid, the director of research at the Brookings Doha Center.
Diamond described parallels with the situation in Iraq in 2004 and 2005.
"The liberals weren't good at organizing, had no mass constituency and got electorally crushed...but they had a constructive influence on the constitution making process," he said.
"We should look at this as an iterative process of several elections to come," he added.
The final panel focused on looking forward. Rowswell presented a new "Open Source Democracy Promotion" project, designed to provide Egyptian activists with an option for crowd sourcing constitutional negotiations.
"The best approach is for informed and engaged citizens to support the Egyptian activists...inspired by the opportunity Egyptians have given themselves but also inspired by what Egyptians have given the world regarding democratic state building and ushering in a new age of democracy based on mutual collaboration and participation," Rowswell said.
Hamid delivered the final talk of the conference, presenting his forecast for the parliamentary elections. He singled out newly formed parties backed by wealthy individuals as key players in the upcoming vote.
"The established political parties will do quite well, but also individuals with name recognition in their districts and those with resources will do well," he said.
Hamid cautioned against overly idealistic projections, given the disorganization of the liberal parties in Egypt.
"We have to be realistic," he said. "We wanted to think for a long time that once there was democracy, Egyptians would become fluffy American-style liberals, and we don't know if that is true."
"From the perspective of international actors doing democracy promotion, I think there's a distinction between encouraging Egyptians to make one choice over another," Rowswell said. "I think it should be ensuring that there is a choice to make."
The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University is pleased to announce the 2012 class of Senior Honors Students. This marked the first year that CDDRL is officially an interdisciplinary honors program, allowing the Center to reach beyond the traditional international relations discipline and recruit students from computer science, economics, political science, history, and beyond.
The 2012 class is composed of 12 remarkable juniors with a global footprint and social conscious, who are interested in undertaking significant research in areas examining civil society in Sudan, Uganda's emerging oil economy, technology's impact on democracy, and transnational justice, among others. This diverse cohort was selected from among a competitive pool of applicants for the opportunity to join the CDDRL scholarly community for the 2011-12 academic year.
Honors students will spend four quarters participating in research seminars to refine their proposed thesis topic, while working in consultation with a CDDRL faculty advisor to supervise their project. In September, the group will travel to Washington DC for honors college where they will visit leading government and development organizations to witness policymaking in practice and consult with key decision-makers.
Please join CDDRL in congratulating the 2012 Senior Honors students and welcoming them to the Center.
Below are profiles of our 12 honors students highlighting their academic interests, what brought them to apply to CDDRL, and some fun facts.
Mitul Bhat
Mitul Bhat
Major: Economics, International Relations
Hometown: New Delhi
Perspective thesis topic: Relationship between income inequality and corruption in Latin America
What interests you about the field of Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law? I was lucky enough to grow up in several different countries, which I think gave me a very real awareness of how different economic development is across and even within countries. I want to better understand why the discrepancies exist and what can be done to help the people who suffer most from global inequity. I recognize that this is a multifaceted issue, with obstacles and potential solutions in government, civil society, the business sector, and elsewhere, and this is why I am interested in the combined field of Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.
Why you are excited about joining the CDDRL community? I am drawn to the interdisciplinary nature of the Center -- an issue like development, in which I am particularly interested, cannot be solved through Political Science or Economics methods alone and so I can learn about the topic in a more well-balanced way. The chance to interact with professors and fellow students who are engaged in interesting work across all aspects of the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law, appeals to me as well.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: Work in the field of development economics
Fun fact about yourself: I have never broken a bone.
Shadi Bushra
Shadi Bushra
Major: International Relations/ Human Biology
Hometown: Khartoum, Sudan; Savage, MN
Perspective thesis topic: How can youth movements in Sudan promote democracy and government accountability?
What interests you about the field of Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law? The process of democratization is one of the most studied and least uniform among any of political science's many subfields. It has been proven to be correlated with greater welfare, higher standards of living, peace and more responsive government. Yet despite these documented effects, a large portion of the world is living under faux-democratic or authoritarian governments.
More personally, my own family left Sudan in the early years of the Bashir regime because my father was a political activist, although we return for summers. Having seen the first-hand effects of such repression on individuals and communities I am very interested in how democracy can be spread to those places where it is least likely. I think my country of Sudan is a good place to start.
Why you are excited about joining the CDDRL community? CDDRL boasts some of the greatest scholars in the field of democracy. It will be an honor and a pleasure to tap the Center's resources and minds to further my own understanding and research in the field.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: Perhaps working in journalism in Africa or the Middle East. Other options include working with an NGO or the UN in the aforementioned regions.
Fun fact about yourself: I love watching and practicing boxing, Brazilian jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts. I'm also a budding photography enthusiast.
Colin Casey
Colin Casey
Major: Political Science
Hometown: Annapolis, Maryland
Perspective thesis topic: Political Economy of Conflict and Transition in Sudan
What interests you about the field of Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law?Throughout my time at Stanford I have been moved by both the remarkable successes and dramatic failures of economic development and political transformation across the globe. My work both inside and outside the classroom has forced me to confront the fact that today newspapers are filled with stories of both healthy political discourse and nation-sweeping political upheaval, of civil stability and civil war, of fabulous wealth and stunning poverty. The field of Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law has captivated my interest, therefore, not only because it is intellectually challenging but also because the questions that define it are critical to the well-being of people all over the world. Having the chance to explore these questions with the CDDRL program is an honor and a privilege.
Why you are excited about joining the CDDRL community? The opportunity to write an honors thesis with at CDDRL is an opportunity to explore, to engage, and to grapple. It is an opportunity to build upon the work I have done and to deepen my understanding of the work I will do. It is an opportunity to apply my love for critical thinking and problem solving, to journey further into the fascinating complexities of the developing world, and to face off with the awesome challenges of political and economic transformation. And because it provides me the privilege of utilizing extensive resources, working hands-on with leaders of the academic world, and sharing thoughts and theories on issues of global importance with other smart and passionate students, it is an opportunity that thrills me.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: After I graduate, I hope to work in the international development field. There are a number of organizations that are finding new and creative ways to stimulate emerging markets through investment and micro-finance, but the industry as a whole still suffers from structural inefficiencies, and there is great progress to be made both in terms of identifying viable and profitable enterprises and unleashing the enormous potential of the developing world.
Fun fact about yourself: Last summer, I rode my bike across the country from New Jersey to California to raise money for the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation, a San Francisco based organization that is building a school in Southern Sudan.
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Nicholas Dugdale
Nick Dugdale
Major: Political Science and Classics
Hometown: Corte Madera, CA
Perspective thesis topic: Tax Evasion in Greece (more specifically: what social, political, and economic factors promote widespread tax evasion, particularly in the Greek context)
What interests you about the field of Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law?
Why you are excited about joining the CDDRL community? CDDRL provides an amazing opportunity to work closely with the leading scholars in the field, as well as to collaborate with other students who share similar interests.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: Work in the international development field for the UN or a similar organization
Fun fact about yourself: I am a competitive sailor and have represented the US at 3 world championships.
Roxana Gharegozlou
Roxana Gharegozlou
Roxana Gharegozlou
Major: International Relations
Hometown: Tehran, Iran/ Vancouver, Canada
Prospective thesis topic: Transitional Justice: Assessing the Impact of Truth Commissions
What interests you about the field of Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law? The range of salient issues that the field encompasses and its potential to break new ground in theory, practice, and policy formation. I am particularly interested in the linkages between human rights and governance.
Why you are excited about joining the CDDRL community? I am looking forward to being part of a global network of talented scholars and practitioners whose insights and experiences will be an invaluable resource as I move forward with my research into democracy, development, and the rule of law.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: Fieldwork in human rights
Fun fact about yourself: I am originally from the Qashqa'i tribe of Iran.
Daniel Mattes
Daniel Mattes
Daniel Mattes
Major: International Relations (Minor in Modern Languages - Italian and Arabic)
Hometown: San Francisco, California
Perspective thesis topic: The International Criminal Court and Efforts at Localization of its Mission
What interests you about the field of Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law? My interests continue to center on the Middle East and Africa, two regions with the worst human rights records and most tragic histories of conflict, but ones that also offer clear opportunities for reform, growth, and inspirational transformation. The rule of law, most directly pertinent to my thesis topic, is and will continue to be a vital facet in encouraging domestic and global societies to respect the rights of their people. This field is filled with arduous challenges as well as tremendous opportunities that surface each day in the current events facing the world.
Why you are excited about joining the CDDRL community? The program at CDDRL offers a tremendous opportunity in the form of a smaller student group that is motivated for discussion, analysis, and research by the dynamic professors with whom they work, the great resources available to them by the Center, and their own personal desire to not only observe but also impact the world. I want a pragmatic and useful thesis that contributes to the creation of strong human rights protections and hope where there currently is none. CDDRL, its resources, and the faculty offer me such an opportunity.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: I would love to spend some more time in Italy (following my six months in Florence), but even more, I want to travel around the Middle East and Africa, both for personal interest and for career/academic opportunities. After that, I’m open to any opportunity that comes my way – whether that is law or graduate school, a job, or even the Peace Corps.
Fun fact about yourself: I live in a house called the Enchanted Broccoli Forest.
Hava Mirell
Major: History and the Law
Hometown: Los Angeles, CA
Perspective thesis topic: The Impact of International Diplomatic Pressure on Zimbabwe
What interests you about the field of Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law? As a history major focusing on Southern Africa, I'm constantly studying successful and unsuccessful democracies, failed development projects, and the complete absence of the rule of law. After studying these topics for the past three years and spending six months in South Africa, I want to use the CDDRL Honors Program to finally understand from a political science perspective why it is that democracy has or has not succeeded in Southern Africa, why corruption is so prevalent, and how we can improve economic growth in the region.
Why you are excited about joining the CDDRL community? I'm excited to join the CDDRL community because of the incredible resources, especially the brilliant faculty, that the Center offers. Nowhere else on campus can you ask a question about governance in Zimbabwe and receive a response from one of the leading experts on this topic. Just the opportunity to talk to the CDDRL faculty, let alone actually work with them and have them as advisors, is unbelievable. I'm beyond excited for the upcoming year.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: International human rights lawyer
Fun fact about yourself: I've never seen The LIttle Mermaid.
Jack Mosbacher
Jack Mosbacher
Jack Mosbacher
Major: Political Science
Hometown: Woodside, CA
Perspective thesis topic: The Implications of Uganda's Emerging Oil Economy
What interests you about the field of Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law? I am most interested in the emphasis on policy-making and the constantly evolving scholarship in this very contemporary area of academia.
Why you are excited about joining the CDDRL community? I am so excited to have the opportunity to work one-on-one with the wonderful researchers in the CDDRL community and to be a part of the international effort to promote improved governance and substantive rule of law in some of the world's darkest places.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: Chaplain in US Army.
Fun fact about yourself: I play on the baseball team at Stanford - but I also love musical theater and opera.
Jenna Nicholas
Jenna Nicholas
Jenna Nicholas
Major: International Relations
Hometown: London
Perspective thesis topic: What is the genesis, evolution and apparent trajectory of Chinese philanthropy, non-profits and social enterprise in China?
What interests you about the field of Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law? I think that often democracy, development and the rule of law are considered as independent entities but they are deeply interconnected with one another. As we promote any one of them, it is essential that we consider the causal effects on the other two.
Why you are excited about joining the CDDRL community? I am really excited about engaging with people who are all working on different areas of study and are willing and interested to share their research with each other. As we embark on trying to understand the complexities of democracy, development and the rule of law, it is fascinating to reflect upon cross-disciplinary approaches to issues, innovation of thoughts and ideas whilst at the same time appreciating consensus and respecting divergence of views.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: I am very interested in the integration of business with societal issues which leads to fields such as philanthro-capitalism, social entrepreneurship, micro-finance and venture philanthropy. I am particularly interested in models of organization which facilitate cooperative research and develop metrics of success in the developmental field. I intend to find a role for myself somewhere at the forefront of creative development which will have an impact on the world.
Fun fact about yourself: When I was 12 years old, I spoke on behalf of the Baha’i faith on the importance of protecting the environment for Commonwealth Day at Westminster Abbey. Before the event I was talking to Desmond Tutu and he gave me a high five for being cheeky! Recently I met him again at the Skoll World Forum and reminded him of our last encounter. This time he gave me two high fives and a hug!
Daniel Ong
Daniel Ong
Daniel Ong
Major: Computer Science
Hometown: Facebook
Physical Hometown: Singapore
Perspective thesis topic: How technology (mobile phones, email, twitter/fb) is changing the way social consciousness is formed- and how that affects democratic processes.
What interests you about the field of Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law? I may be majoring in a very different field, but the issues and questions that DDRL constantly visits are ones which come up constantly in my mind. If there was more time, I would have double majored in Political Science and CS- but right now, I'm focused on learning all I can and seeing how I can use technology to make things better.
Why you are excited about joining the CDDRL community? The conversations, and the chance to bounce ideas and thoughts off people who have so much domain knowledge in these areas. Just the chance to learn from them, and refine my ideas is invaluable in itself.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: Entrepreneur-in-Government, or startup
Fun fact about yourself: I am a machine which turns coffee into code (and hopefully, a thesis paper)
Annamaria Prati
Annamaria Prati
Annamaria Prati
Major: International Relations
Hometown: Mountain View, California
Perspective thesis topic: United Nations Electoral Assistance
What interests you about the field of Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law? This field works to answer some of the most pertinent questions of our time and can have widespread implications for the greater world.
Why you are excited about joining the CDDRL community? It is a great community of scholars that is working on incredibly interesting projects. CDDRL has shown me that research does not mean looking down from an ivory tower, and I am looking forward to learning more.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: Going to grad school
Fun fact about yourself: I play the harp
Otis Reid
Otis Reid
Major: Public Policy and Economics
Hometown: Chapel Hill, NC
Perspective thesis topic: Regulatory Development and Stock Market Effectiveness in Ghana
What interests you about the field of Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law? Development is, in my opinion, the central challenge of our time. I'm very excited about having the chance to help contribute to our knowledge of this field and ultimately to help accelerate the development process, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Given the interconnections between development, governance, and accountability, being at a center that looks at all three is particularly interesting.
Why you are excited about joining the CDDRL community? Honestly, it was the T-shirt that really got me ("Democracy Never Looked So Good"). No, more seriously, I'm very excited to have a chance to build more relationships across the different disciplines of democracy, development, and governance and to see how research can help to drive policy.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: After Stanford, I want to enter the policy-making community around development. I'm interested in the intersection of development and security, so I'd ultimately love to have a position on the National Security Council helping to coordinate development policy. (Professor Jeremy Weinstein's current position on the NSC is a model for the type of position that I'd like to hold.)
Fun fact about yourself: I spent my seventh grade year living in Paris, France - the second most time I've spent outside the country is last summer, which I spent in Accra, Ghana.
On April 11, the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) hosted an event to celebrate the release of Francis Fukuyama's latest book, The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution. The occasion drew an audience of over 100 faculty, students, and members of the community, who were eager to hear Fukuyama introduce the first volume of this "magnum opus," which traces the history of the development of political institutions through the eighteenth century. Fukuyama was joined by two Stanford faculty members to provide commentary on the book; Ian Morris, Professor of Classics and History, and Barry Weingast, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institute.
Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and in residence at CDDRL since July 2011, coming to Stanford from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). CDDRL Director, Larry Diamond opened the event by commenting on how CDDRL is the ideal intellectual home for the Origins of Political Order, which examines democracy, development, and the rule of law from an evolutionary perspective. Diamond discussed the richness and breadth of Fukuyama's scholarship, which is not confined to one region or discipline but is truly global and interdisciplinary in nature, underpinning the philosophy and approach of CDDRL's research agenda.
Fukuyama provided the audience with an overview of how he conceived of writing such a sweeping account of political development, which began when his former teacher and mentor, the late Samuel Huntington asked him to write the forward to a new version of the 1968 classic, Political Order in Changing Societies. It occurred to him that there was little scholarship available that focused on where institutions first originated and how they evolved throughout human history. Fukuyama stressed the practical importance of this empirical question and its application to the present day, as Arab states struggle to create viable political institutions in the wake of revolution.
Fukuyama described modern political order as consisting of three characteristics that are the foundational analysis of his book--the state, rule of law, and accountability. In discussing the evolution of the state, Fukuyama characterized it as the "long term historical struggle against a family."
Examining history through an anthropological lens, Fukuyama described early societies as orderly, with specific rules based on biologically grounded mechanisms, favoritism towards kin, and reciprocal altruism. Cooperation among relatives and friends is something that "every human society defaults to in the absence of institutions that provide different incentives," said Fukuyama.
These early social orders evolved into modern states once patrimonialism was replaced by a more impersonal form of politics, and citizens were no longer favored based on their ties to the ruler. Fukuyama traces the first modern state to ancient China during the time of the Qin dynasty in the third century BC, which created an impersonal, rational, and centralized bureaucracy that diverged from the patrimonial systems of the past. Similarly, in the Muslim world a system of military slavery was adopted by the Ottoman empire to break young men's allegiance to their family and generate loyalty to the Sultan.
While state institutions were constructed in the Arab, Hindu, and Chinese worlds, underneath these systems, Fukuyama stressed, are strong kinship groups that continued to influence the formation of the modern state. By contrast, he claimed, "Europe is the only world civilization that gets beyond kinship on a social but not a political level."
Examining the development of rule of law, Fukuyama described it as, "an outgrowth of religious law administered by a hierarchy residing outside the state that puts limits on the executive." In order to institutionalize law, a cadre of legal specialists were trained and law was made coherent through codification.
Something that I find striking about the rise of democracy or accountable government in Europe is how accidental and contingent it is. - Francis Fukuyama
Fukuyama discussed how the sequence in the development of institutions can often be an accident of history that will ultimately determine its type of governance. "Something that I find striking about the rise of democracy or accountable government in Europe is how accidental and contingent it is," Fukuyama continued, "you would not have democratic institutions in the west were it not for the survival of certain feudal institutions into the modern period."
European monarchical authority was limited by feudal institutions called estates, parliaments, sovereign courts, and the like, consisting of the upper nobility, gentry, and bourgeoisie, which served as a balance of power against the central state. Fukuyama argued that this ultimately led to constitutional governance in England, but not in France, Spain, Russia, or Hungary, were parliaments were weak and divided.
Stanford historian and classicist Ian Morris, author of Why the West Rules for Now, lent an historical account of Fukuyama's book, commenting on the breadth of the scholarship and soundness of his historical judgment, which he views as a rarity in academia. On the whole Morris agreed with Fukuyama's argument, particularly the way he stressed the evolutionary basis of social and political change.
However, he disagreed with a specific detail of Fukuyama's analysis, where he classified the Qin dynasty as the first modern state. Instead, Morris views the Qin as part of a broader package of shifts occurring during the 1st millennium BCE, from China to the Mediterranean basin where patrimonial states evolved toward more "high-end type states," which separate political power from kinship networks.
On a deeper level, Morris believes there are more similarities than differences in patterns of human development. The biggest divergences did not occur until the last 500 years when according to Morris, "geographical forces have driven the rule of law, accountable government, and all that's happened since the French Revolution."
Barry Weingast, Professor of Political Science at Stanford and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, provided a theoretical examination of The Origins of Political Order, discussing the important gap Fukuyama's book fills in defining political development since Huntington's seminal 1968 piece.
Weingast highlighted two areas of the book--the role of ideas and the issue of violence. According to Weingast, the role of ideas is a causal feature of Fukuyama's analysis but he does include ancient Greece and Rome, telling the story of republics and how ideas defined their political development. Weingast discusses the dilemma that lies at the heart of governance from the time of the Romans to the early American republic, which is characterized as a 2,000-year struggle of how to scale-up into larger societies, capable of defending themselves from other larger societies.
Examining the concept of violence, Weingast argues that Fukuyama does not give enough attention to the theoretical element of violence and challenges the way he conceptualizes it through Max Weber's definition of a modern state, which "has a monopoly on the legitimate uses of violence."
The debut of Fukuyama's treatise on political development left everyone in the room with a fresh perspective on where modern institutions evolved from to more fully understand their characteristics and complexities today. We look forward to the second volume of this book, which will bring the story up to the present day.
Abstract Both cultural nationalism and democratic theory seek to legitimate political power by rendering it compatible with the freedom of those over whom it is exercised, i.e., by appeal to a notion of collective self-rule. Both doctrines thus advance a self-referential theory of political legitimacy: their principle of legitimation refers right back to the very persons over whom political power is to be exercised. Since self-referential theories base legitimation in a collective self, they must necessarily combine the question of legitimation with the question of boundaries. The problem is that it is impossible to solve both problems together once it is assumed that the collectivity in question is in principle bounded. Cultural nationalism claims that political power is legitimate insofar as it authentically expresses the nation's pre-political culture, but it cannot fix the nation's cultural boundaries pre-politically. Hence the collapse into ethnic nationalism. The democratic theory of bounded popular sovereignty claims that political power is legitimate insofar as it expresses the people's will, but cannot itself legitimate the pre-political boundaries of the people it presupposes. Hence the collapse into cultural nationalism. Only a theory of unbounded popular sovereignty avoids this collapse of demos into nation into ethnos, but such a theory departs radically from traditional theory. It abandons the notion of a pre-politically constituted "will of the people," supports the formation of global democratic forums, and challenges the legitimacy of unilaterally controlled political boundaries.
Arash Abizadeh is associate professor in the Department of Political Science and associate member of the Department of Philosophy, McGill University, and specializes in contemporary political theory and the history of political philosophy. His research focuses on democratic theory and questions of identity, nationalism, and cosmopolitanism; immigration and border control; and seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophy, particularly Hobbes and Rousseau. He is currently finishing a book titled The Oscillations of Thomas Hobbes: Between Insight and the Will.
Graham Stuart Lounge
Arash Abizadeh
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science
Speaker
McGill University
The recent uprisings
in North Africa and the Middle East represent one of the most dramatic global
political developments since the fall of the Berlin Wall. What factors and
forces led to the sudden collapse of well-entrenched regimes and the emergence
of democratic reform movements across a region long accustomed to hereditary
succession and autocratic rule?
Does the current upheaval reflect unique circumstances in the Arab
World? Or should it be viewed in
the wider context of governance issues and challenges that have arisen in Asian
and other settings beyond North Africa and the Middle East? As a
governance specialist whose international career has spanned Arab and Asian
societies, David Arnold will share his insights regarding these questions.
David
D. Arnold became
the president of The Asia Foundation on January 1, 2011, after serving as the
president of the American University in Cairo (AUC) for seven years. At AUC he
superintended the construction of a new, state-of-the-art $400 million campus,
including the region's largest English-language library; spearheaded a $125
million fundraising campaign, the largest in the University's history; and
oversaw academic innovations including AUC’s first-ever PhD program and
master’s programs in education, biotechnology, gender studies, digital
journalism, and refugee studies.
Under his leadership, AUC also expanded its continuing education and
community outreach activities and created new scholarship opportunities for its
students. Mr. Arnold’s earlier
career included six years as executive vice president of the Institute of
International Education and more than ten years of service in the Ford
Foundation including stints in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. He earned his Master’s in Public
Administration at Michigan State University following a BA from the University
of Michigan.
Philippines Conference Room
David D. Arnold
President
Speaker
The Asia Foundation
Larry Diamond with Yihana von Ritter (Firestone awardee)
Mitul Bhat
Shadi Bushra
Colin Casey
Nicholas DugdaleContent-Disposition: form-data; name="preferredphoto3"
Roxana Gharegozlou
Daniel Mattes
Jack Mosbacher
Jenna Nicholas
Daniel Ong
Annamaria Prati
Otis Reid
