Stanford University

Corruption

Blogs and Bullets: Social Media and the Struggle for Political Change

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Moderator: Sheldon Himefarb, United States Institute of Peace

From WikFileaks revelations to claims of "Twitter revolutions," the role of new media in shaping global political action is one of the most discussed but least understood phenomena confronting scholars, policymakers, advocates, and the private sector. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has made "digital democracy" a cornerstone of U.S. diplomacy; grassroots organizations like Ushahidi are crowdsourcing everything from protest to disaster relief; and corporations like Cisco and Google are increasingly making news for their role in international development and commerce.

Everyone seems to agree new and social media matter. Less clear is how, when, and why.

In a continuing effort to find answers to these questions, George Washington University, the U.S. Institute of Peace, and the Liberation Technology Program of Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law present a panel to discuss the latest approaches to understanding the role of new media in fostering peace, conflict, and political change. The panel will consider research work in progress, stories from the front lines of diplomacy 2.0, and private sector approaches to facilitating new social media.

Frances C. Arrillaga Alumni Center

Marc Lynch Speaker George Washington University
Clay Shirky Speaker New York University
Olivia Ma News Manager Speaker YouTube

Larry Diamond

CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C147
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 724-6448 (650) 723-1928
0
Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science and Sociology
diamond_encina_hall.png MA, PhD

Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford, where he lectures and teaches courses on democracy (including an online course on EdX). At the Hoover Institution, he co-leads the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and participates in the Project on the U.S., China, and the World. At FSI, he is among the core faculty of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, which he directed for six and a half years. He leads FSI’s Israel Studies Program and is a member of the Program on Arab Reform and Development. He also co-leads the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He served for 32 years as founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy.

Diamond’s research focuses on global trends affecting freedom and democracy and on U.S. and international policies to defend and advance democracy. His book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency, analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the United States and around the world at this potential “hinge in history,” and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad.  A paperback edition with a new preface was released by Penguin in April 2020. His other books include: In Search of Democracy (2016), The Spirit of Democracy (2008), Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (1999), Promoting Democracy in the 1990s (1995), and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria (1989). He has edited or coedited more than fifty books, including China’s Influence and American Interests (2019, with Orville Schell), Silicon Triangle: The United States, China, Taiwan the Global Semiconductor Security (2023, with James O. Ellis Jr. and Orville Schell), and The Troubling State of India’s Democracy (2024, with Sumit Ganguly and Dinsha Mistree).

During 2002–03, Diamond served as a consultant to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and was a contributing author of its report, Foreign Aid in the National Interest. He has advised and lectured to universities and think tanks around the world, and to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other organizations dealing with governance and development. During the first three months of 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. His 2005 book, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, was one of the first books to critically analyze America's postwar engagement in Iraq.

Among Diamond’s other edited books are Democracy in Decline?; Democratization and Authoritarianism in the Arab World; Will China Democratize?; and Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy, all edited with Marc F. Plattner; and Politics and Culture in Contemporary Iran, with Abbas Milani. With Juan J. Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset, he edited the series, Democracy in Developing Countries, which helped to shape a new generation of comparative study of democratic development.

Download full-resolution headshot; photo credit: Rod Searcey.

Former Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Faculty Chair, Jan Koum Israel Studies Program
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Zimbabwean activist defends human rights

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On January 4, the Program on Human Rights at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law launched the inaugural Sanela Diana Jenkins International Human Rights Speaker Series featuring activist leader Jenni Williams of the Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) organization. Williams captivated an audience of 70 with her harrowing account of the persecution and violence non-violent activists face at the hands of the repressive Mugabe regime.

Jenni Williams, a Zimbabwean activist, spoke Tuesday as part of the Sanela Diana Jenkins International Human Rights Speaker Series. Williams is national coordinator of Women of Zimbabwe, Arise!, or WOZA, a nonviolent organization that protests against human rights abuses in Zimbabwe.

“We are human-rights defenders to the nation, mothers to the nation…we defy unjust laws and take our issues to the streets to find a nonviolent way of protesting,” Williams said after showing her audience a slideshow titled “Zimbabwe’s Elections: 30 Years of Torment, Torture & Death,” which depicted images of torture under Robert Mugabe’s regime in her homeland.

Following the slideshow and a video showing members of WOZA protesting for proper electricity, Williams started her speech on a somber note.

“2011 is going to be a year of hell in Zimbabwe, so excuse me for not saying, ‘Happy New Year,’” she said.

“If my grandchildren cannot get a better Zimbabwe, they will think of me badly. We have to correct the past wrongs and re-establish the social dignity of our people.”
-Jenni Williams

In a country where the average life expectancy for women is 37 years, the unemployment rate is 94 percent and Mugabe has been in charge for 30 years, leading a regime accused of corruption, nepotism, bribery and human rights abuse, WOZA seeks to bring democracy and justice to Zimbabwe, she said.

“We aim to mobilize through civic education,” she said. “We capacitate ordinary people with skills for community leadership…we’re creating a society where no new Robert Mugabe can flourish.”

WOZA has carried out 35 street demonstrations in the last 18 months. The grassroots organization relies on ordinary Zimbabweans. Both women and men have swelled its ranks to 75,000 members.

“Our activists are not the employed or the ones who go to university,” Williams said. “They are ordinary people struggling for ordinary everyday things that the politicians needs to be focused on.”

After choosing to remain in Zimbabwe despite mass exodus and the migration of her husband and children to the UK, she has been arrested 33 times, including after the electricity protest. She was held in prison for six days, then returned to her activism once she was freed.

Williams also moves between safe houses in Zimbabwe every six months and was at one time under risk of assassination, she said.

Nonetheless, Williams said, she believes fully in nonviolence, quoting Gandhi and saying, “We love anyone, even our enemies.”

“She’s a pioneer for protecting human rights,” said Davis Albohm, a graduate student in African studies. “She’s doing incredible work that I think a lot of people would not be brave enough to undertake.”

Williams credited her fellow WOZA members for their achievements.

“A shared burden is a burden lightened,” she said. “Our organization has empowered people. We’ve trained them to be human-rights defenders…we see the Zimbabwe we want in our mind’s eye, and we feel it in our hearts.”

Williams said Zimbabwe’s political environment “remains highly violent, uncertain and tense,” speaking of the very real possibility that President Mugabe, now 86, will die in power before opposition defeats him.

Williams said her group’s goals went beyond simply deposing Mugabe.

“Robert Mugabe is only the face of a political system…we want to put the democratic yeast within the society so the loaf will rise,” she said.

Victoria Alvarado ’14 said the talk was “very, very emotionally striking.”

“I found myself in tears at points. She came here to show us that we can help,” Alvarado said.

Williams’ suggestion to the audience was to “appreciate what you have and protect your own rights and freedoms. We need a model to copy.”

And on why she continued to fight a dangerous struggle, Williams cited the future, not only of her nation but of her family.

“If my grandchildren cannot get a better Zimbabwe, they will think of me badly,” she said. “We have to correct the past wrongs and re-establish the social dignity of our people.”

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Corrupt States: Reforming Indian Public Services in the Digital Era

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Why are some governments better able to reform public service delivery than others? The increased availability of information and communication technologies marks an important opportunity for politicians to improve the quality of public services. However, state-level experiences with eGovernment in India display significant variations in the ability of governments to successfully adopt these technologies to provide benefits to citizens. Based on her studies of one-stop, computerized public service centers in sixteen Indian states, Jennifer will discuss the characteristics of states associated with differences in policy outcomes and present original survey evidence on the effects of technology-based reforms on the quality of public services.

Jennifer Bussell is an Assistant Professor of Public Affairs at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin. She received a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research concerns the political economy of development and governance with an emphasis on the role of formal and informal institutions--such as federalism, coalition politics, and corruption--in shaping policy outcomes. She is particularly concerned with the politics of government technology adoption for the benefit of poor citizens in developing countries, with an emphasis on India.

Wallenberg Theater

Jennifer Bussell Assistant Professor of Public Affairs, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs Speaker University of Texas, Austin
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Program on Liberation Technology

New START Treaty wins Senate approval

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President Obama and members of his national security team — including Stanford's Michael A. McFaul, senior advisor on Russia and former Deputy Director of FSI and Director of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law — gather in the Oval Office to celebrate Senate approval of the new START Treaty. Signed in April by President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the treaty was ultimately approved 71/26 in the Senate. The treaty will reduce deployed warheads and missile launchers, and restore mutual verification procedures, and is regarded as one more step toward the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons.
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FSI's Michael McFaul celebrates Senate approval of the START Treaty with President Obama
Pete Souza, White House
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From Political Activism to Democratic Change in the Arab World

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The Program on Arab Reform and Democracy is pleased to announce its second annual conference on May 12-13, 2011.

This conference focuses on empowering political activism in the Arab world, and features scholars and activists discussing the achievements of and challenges facing political activists in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, and Saudi Arabia.

 

From Political Activism to Democratic Change in the Arab World

Second Annual Conference of the

Program on Arab Reform and Democracy

Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) atStanfordUniversity

May 12-13, 2011

BechtelConferenceCenter,StanfordUniversity

 

 

Thursday May 12, 2011

 

8:30-9:00 Welcome

 

9:00-9:45 Opening Speech

Activism in the Middle East: A Framework

Ellen Lust,YaleUniversity

 

9:45-10:15 Break

 

10:15-12:15 Tunisia and Egypt

Chair: Ellen Lust,YaleUniversity

 

Toward a Second Republic in Tunisia

Christopher Alexander,DavidsonCollege

 

Political Activism of Everyday Life: Lessons from the Tunisian Revolution

Nabiha Jerad,Tunisia

 

Factors Leading to the Egyptian Revolution; Where are We Now?

Ahmed Salah,Egypt

 

Discussant: Michele Dunne, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

 

12:15-1:15 Lunch

 

1:15-3:15 The Gulf

Chair: Larry Diamond,StanfordUniversity

 

The 2011 Uprising in Bahrain and its Consequences on the Participative Institutions

Laurence Louër, SciencesPo

 

Activism in Bahrain and the Struggle for Reform

Maryam Al Khawaja,Bahrain Centre for Human Rights

 

Saudi Arabia: The Impossible Revolution?

Stéphane Lacroix, SciencesPo

 

Challenges to Realistic Political Reforms in Yemen

Munir Mawari,Yemen

 

3:15-3:45 Break

 

3:45-5:15 Syria and Lebanon

Chair: Lina Khatib,StanfordUniversity

 

Activism and the Orphan Reform in Lebanon.

Ziad Majed,AmericanUniversity ofParis

 

Syria from Political Activism to Popular Uprising: A Roadmap to Democracy

Radwan Ziadeh,GeorgeWashingtonUniversity

 

Discussant: Daniel Brumberg,GeorgetownUniversity

 

 

 

Friday May 13, 2011

 

9:00-10:30 Palestine

Chair: Khalil Barhoum,StanfordUniversity

 

Pretending Palestine is Normal

Nathan Brown,GeorgeWashingtonUniversity

 

Palestine: The Non-violent Popular Struggle for Freedom and the Future of Democracy

Mustafa Barghouti, MP,Palestine

 

10:30-11:00 Break

 

11:00-1:00 Jordan and Morocco

Chair: Hicham Ben Abdallah,StanfordUniversity

 

A Decade of Struggling Reform Efforts in Jordan: The Resilience of the Rentier System

Marwan Muasher, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

 

Assessing Current Public Perceptions of Political Activism Development in Jordan

Amer Bani Amer,Al-HayatCenter for Civil Society Development

 

Morocco: Activist Revival vs. Autocratic Resilience

Ahmed Benchemsi,StanfordUniversity

 

 Discussant: Sean Yom,TempleUniversity

 

1:00-2:00 Lunch

 

2:00-4:00 Concluding Roundtable Discussion and Reflections

Chair: Larry Diamond,StanfordUniversity


 

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Bechtel Conference Center

Lina Khatib Moderator

Larry Diamond

CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C147
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 724-6448 (650) 723-1928
0
Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science and Sociology
diamond_encina_hall.png MA, PhD

Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford, where he lectures and teaches courses on democracy (including an online course on EdX). At the Hoover Institution, he co-leads the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and participates in the Project on the U.S., China, and the World. At FSI, he is among the core faculty of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, which he directed for six and a half years. He leads FSI’s Israel Studies Program and is a member of the Program on Arab Reform and Development. He also co-leads the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He served for 32 years as founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy.

Diamond’s research focuses on global trends affecting freedom and democracy and on U.S. and international policies to defend and advance democracy. His book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency, analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the United States and around the world at this potential “hinge in history,” and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad.  A paperback edition with a new preface was released by Penguin in April 2020. His other books include: In Search of Democracy (2016), The Spirit of Democracy (2008), Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (1999), Promoting Democracy in the 1990s (1995), and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria (1989). He has edited or coedited more than fifty books, including China’s Influence and American Interests (2019, with Orville Schell), Silicon Triangle: The United States, China, Taiwan the Global Semiconductor Security (2023, with James O. Ellis Jr. and Orville Schell), and The Troubling State of India’s Democracy (2024, with Sumit Ganguly and Dinsha Mistree).

During 2002–03, Diamond served as a consultant to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and was a contributing author of its report, Foreign Aid in the National Interest. He has advised and lectured to universities and think tanks around the world, and to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other organizations dealing with governance and development. During the first three months of 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. His 2005 book, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, was one of the first books to critically analyze America's postwar engagement in Iraq.

Among Diamond’s other edited books are Democracy in Decline?; Democratization and Authoritarianism in the Arab World; Will China Democratize?; and Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy, all edited with Marc F. Plattner; and Politics and Culture in Contemporary Iran, with Abbas Milani. With Juan J. Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset, he edited the series, Democracy in Developing Countries, which helped to shape a new generation of comparative study of democratic development.

Download full-resolution headshot; photo credit: Rod Searcey.

Former Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Faculty Chair, Jan Koum Israel Studies Program
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Larry Diamond Moderator

Hicham Ben Abdallah

CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

0
Consulting Professor
Ben_Abdallah.jpg MA

Hicham Ben Abdallah received his B.A. in Politics in 1985 from Princeton University, and his M.A. in Political Science from Stanford in 1997. His interest is in the politics of the transition from authoritarianism to democracy.

He has lectured in numerous universities and think tanks in North America and Europe. His work for the advancement of peace and conflict resolution has brought him to Kosovo as a special Assistant to Bernard Kouchner, and to Nigeria and Palestine as an election observer with the Carter Center. He has published in journals such Le Monde,  Le Monde Diplomatique,Pouvoirs, Le Debat, The Journal of Democracy, The New York Times, El Pais, and El Quds.

In 2010 he has founded the Moulay Hicham Foundation which conducts social science research on the MENA region. He is also an entrepreneur with interests in agriculture, real estate, and renewable energies. His company, Al Tayyar Energy, has a number of clean energy projects in Asia and Europe. 

Hicham Ben Abdallah Moderator
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Addressing the Accountability Gap in Statebuilding: The Case of Afghanistan

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Symposium Outline

Ten years after President Bush attempted to reduce U.S. involvement in statebuilding, America and its allies are more heavily involved in it than ever before.  There simply are no viable alternatives to stabilizing fragile states. And yet the tremendous sacrifices we make to rebuild states too often produce regimes where corruption and other abuses of power prevail. In turn these undermine the legitimacy of the regimes and render stability ever more elusive.

The international community may share responsibility for creating this accountability gap. In Afghanistan, the rush to build up the power of the government and to respect its sovereignty have weakened constraints that would subject that power to the will of the Afghan people.

Amid struggles over flawed elections and corruption these past two years, practitioners on the ground have experimented with new approaches to close the accountability gap in Afghanistan. NATO military approaches to governance-led operations have been matched by parallel civilian efforts to work from the bottom-up in engaging Afghan communities and helping them seek solutions through the nascent institutions of the Afghan government. 

These efforts face an uphill challenge, but represent the best hope for closing an accountability gap that threatens all statebuilding efforts. This symposium at Stanford University will bring together practitioners and experts to share experiences and explore options to improve the contemporary practice of statebuilding.

Organizers

The symposium will be hosted by Larry Diamond, Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. Founded in 2002, CDDRL engages in research, training, and teaching, organizing policy dialogues aimed at increasing public understanding of governance and political development. In addition, CDDRL collaborates with scholars, policymakers, and practitioners around the world to advance collective knowledge about the linkages between democracy, sustainable economic development, human rights, and the rule of law.

The research team supporting the symposium is led by Ben Rowswell, a Visiting Scholar who is in residence at CDDRL during the 2010-2011 academic year to carry out the project entitled, Promoting Popular Sovereignty in Statebuilding. Rowswell is a Canadian diplomat on leave, who has recently served both as Director of the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team and as Deputy Head of Mission for the Canadian Embassy in Kabul.  Promoting Popular Sovereignty in Statebuilding and the associated symposium have been made possible by a generous contribution from the Global Peace and Security Fund of Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

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Bechtel Conference Center

Larry Diamond

CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C147
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 724-6448 (650) 723-1928
0
Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science and Sociology
diamond_encina_hall.png MA, PhD

Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford, where he lectures and teaches courses on democracy (including an online course on EdX). At the Hoover Institution, he co-leads the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and participates in the Project on the U.S., China, and the World. At FSI, he is among the core faculty of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, which he directed for six and a half years. He leads FSI’s Israel Studies Program and is a member of the Program on Arab Reform and Development. He also co-leads the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He served for 32 years as founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy.

Diamond’s research focuses on global trends affecting freedom and democracy and on U.S. and international policies to defend and advance democracy. His book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency, analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the United States and around the world at this potential “hinge in history,” and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad.  A paperback edition with a new preface was released by Penguin in April 2020. His other books include: In Search of Democracy (2016), The Spirit of Democracy (2008), Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (1999), Promoting Democracy in the 1990s (1995), and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria (1989). He has edited or coedited more than fifty books, including China’s Influence and American Interests (2019, with Orville Schell), Silicon Triangle: The United States, China, Taiwan the Global Semiconductor Security (2023, with James O. Ellis Jr. and Orville Schell), and The Troubling State of India’s Democracy (2024, with Sumit Ganguly and Dinsha Mistree).

During 2002–03, Diamond served as a consultant to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and was a contributing author of its report, Foreign Aid in the National Interest. He has advised and lectured to universities and think tanks around the world, and to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other organizations dealing with governance and development. During the first three months of 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. His 2005 book, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, was one of the first books to critically analyze America's postwar engagement in Iraq.

Among Diamond’s other edited books are Democracy in Decline?; Democratization and Authoritarianism in the Arab World; Will China Democratize?; and Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy, all edited with Marc F. Plattner; and Politics and Culture in Contemporary Iran, with Abbas Milani. With Juan J. Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset, he edited the series, Democracy in Developing Countries, which helped to shape a new generation of comparative study of democratic development.

Download full-resolution headshot; photo credit: Rod Searcey.

Former Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Faculty Chair, Jan Koum Israel Studies Program
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Larry Diamond Director CDDRL Speaker Stanford University

Ben Rowswell

Encina Hall
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305

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CDDRL Visiting Scholar 2010-11
Rowswell_pic.jpg

Ben Rowswell is a Canadian diplomat with a specialization in statebuilding and stabilization. As Representative of Canada in Kandahar from 2009 to 2010 he directed the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team, leading a team of more than 100 American and Canadian diplomats, aid workers, civilian police and other experts in strengthening the provincial government at the heart of the Afghan conflict. Having served before that as Deputy Head of Mission in Kabul, Rowswell brings a practitioner's knowledge of Afghanistan and of statebuilding in general to the CDDRL.

His previous conflict experience includes two years as Canada's Chargé d'Affaires in Iraq between 2003 and 2005, and with the UN in Somalia in 1993. He has also served at the Canadian embassy in Egypt and the Permanent Mission to the UN, and as a foreign policy advisor to the federal Cabinet in Ottawa. An alumnus of the National Democratic Institute, he founded the Democracy Unit of the Canadian foreign ministry.

Rowswell is a Senior Associate of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the co-editor of "Iraq: Preventing a New Generation of Conflict" (2007). He studied international relations at Oxford and at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.

Ben Rowswell Visiting Scholar, CDDRL Panelist Stanford University
Ashraf Ghani Former Afghan Minister of Finance and Presidential Candidate Keynote Speaker
Ambassador Ronald Neumann US Ambassador to Afghanistan 2005-2007 Panelist

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.
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Francis Fukuyama Olivier Nominelli Fellow, CDDRL Moderator Stanford University
Ambassador Said Jawad Afghan Ambassador to US 2003-2010 Panelist
Erik Jensen Co-Director Rule of Law Program Moderator Stanford Law School
Shuvaloy Majumdar Former Country Director for Afghanistan, International Republican Institute Panelist
Tom Fingar Oksenberg/Rohlen Distinguished Fellow Moderator Freeman Spogli Institute, Stanford
Stephen Stedman Senior Fellow, FSI Speaker Stanford University
Roland Paris Director Panelist Centre for International Policy Studies, University of Ottawa
Major General Nick Carter Commander, ISAF Regional Command South (2009-10) Panelist UK Ministry of Defence
Joanne Trotter Panelist Aga Khan Development Network
Elissa Golberg Director-General, Stabilization and Reconstruction Task Force Moderator Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Grant Kippen Former Chair Panelist Electoral Complaints Commission of Afghanistan
Gerard Russell Former UNAMA Political Officer Panelist
Michael Semple Carr Center for Human Rights Panelist Harvard University
Tarek Ghani Panelist University of California, Berkeley
Ambassador Jawad Ludin Former Afghan Ambassador to Canada, 2009-10 Panelist
Andrew Wilder Panelist US Institute for Peace
Minna Jarvenpaa Former Political Officer Panelist UNAMA
Farhaan Ladhani Director of Strategic Communications Panelist Kandahar Provincal Reconstruction Team, 2009-2010
James Traube Contributing Writer Speaker New York Times Magazine
Symposiums
CDDRL Conferences

Democratic Transition in Egypt

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The Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at CDDRL is pleased to announce a one-day conference to be held on Friday April 29, 2011, entitled, "Democratic Transition in Egypt." This event, co-sponsored by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies at Stanford University, will focus on Egypt's current revolutionary period, to examine this pivotal moment in Egypt's political history and prospects for future reform. The conference brings to Stanford leading Egypt academics from American, European, and Egyptian universities and think tanks.  Panels will examine the background to the revolution, discuss the role of oppositions parties and civil society, and forecast Egypt's political future.

For those who can't make it in person, the conference will be tweeted live from 9:00-5:30 PST on Twitter @StanfordCDDRL, #ARDEG for those interested in following virtually.

Co-sponsored by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies at Stanford University. 

8:30 Welcome

9:00-10:30 Panel 1: The Popular Revolt against the Mubarak Regime

Chair: Joel Beinin, Stanford University

- The popular movement - Emad Shahin, Notre Dame University

- The response of the regime: the effort of the old order to re-establish itself - Samer Shehata , Georgetown University

10:30-10:45 Break

10:45-12:45 Panel 2: The Process of Regime Transition - Till the Presidential Election and Beyond

Chair: Lina Khatib, Stanford University

- The process of negotiations between the regime and opposition groups; how will things look like till the presidential election? - Joshua Stacher, Kent State University

- Crafting Egyptian democracy: the agenda for constitutional and institutional reform - Tarek Masoud, Harvard University

- Internal security and external pressure: is Egypt becoming less repressive? - Jason Brownlee, University of Texas at Austin

12:45-1:45 Lunch

1:45-3:45 Panel 3: Egypt's Changing Political Party Landscape

Chair: Lisa Blaydes, Stanford University

- Secular opposition paries - Samer Soliman, American University in Cairo

- The Muslim Brotherhood: what next? - Omar Ashour, University of Exeter

- Newcomers and veterans in a changing political arena- Hesham Sallam, Georgetown University

3:45-4:00 Break

4:00-5:30 Panel 4: Looking Forwards

Chair: Larry Diamond, Stanford University

- Connecting digital activists to power:  new approaches to democracy promotion - Ben Rowswell, Stanford University

- The presidential and parliamentary elections - Shadi Hamid, Brookings Doha Center

 

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Bechtel Conference Center

Larry Diamond

CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C147
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 724-6448 (650) 723-1928
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Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science and Sociology
diamond_encina_hall.png MA, PhD

Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford, where he lectures and teaches courses on democracy (including an online course on EdX). At the Hoover Institution, he co-leads the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and participates in the Project on the U.S., China, and the World. At FSI, he is among the core faculty of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, which he directed for six and a half years. He leads FSI’s Israel Studies Program and is a member of the Program on Arab Reform and Development. He also co-leads the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He served for 32 years as founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy.

Diamond’s research focuses on global trends affecting freedom and democracy and on U.S. and international policies to defend and advance democracy. His book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency, analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the United States and around the world at this potential “hinge in history,” and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad.  A paperback edition with a new preface was released by Penguin in April 2020. His other books include: In Search of Democracy (2016), The Spirit of Democracy (2008), Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (1999), Promoting Democracy in the 1990s (1995), and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria (1989). He has edited or coedited more than fifty books, including China’s Influence and American Interests (2019, with Orville Schell), Silicon Triangle: The United States, China, Taiwan the Global Semiconductor Security (2023, with James O. Ellis Jr. and Orville Schell), and The Troubling State of India’s Democracy (2024, with Sumit Ganguly and Dinsha Mistree).

During 2002–03, Diamond served as a consultant to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and was a contributing author of its report, Foreign Aid in the National Interest. He has advised and lectured to universities and think tanks around the world, and to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other organizations dealing with governance and development. During the first three months of 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. His 2005 book, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, was one of the first books to critically analyze America's postwar engagement in Iraq.

Among Diamond’s other edited books are Democracy in Decline?; Democratization and Authoritarianism in the Arab World; Will China Democratize?; and Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy, all edited with Marc F. Plattner; and Politics and Culture in Contemporary Iran, with Abbas Milani. With Juan J. Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset, he edited the series, Democracy in Developing Countries, which helped to shape a new generation of comparative study of democratic development.

Download full-resolution headshot; photo credit: Rod Searcey.

Former Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Faculty Chair, Jan Koum Israel Studies Program
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Larry Diamond Moderator Stanford University

Lisa Blaydes

Encina Hall West, Room 408
Stanford, CA 94305-6044

(650) 723-0649
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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Professor of Political Science
lisa_blaydes_108_vert_final.jpg

Lisa Blaydes is a Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. She is the author of State of Repression: Iraq under Saddam Hussein (Princeton University Press, 2018) and Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 2011). Professor Blaydes received the 2009 Gabriel Almond Award for best dissertation in the field of comparative politics from the American Political Science Association for this project.  Her articles have appeared in the American Political Science Review, International Studies Quarterly, International Organization, Journal of Theoretical Politics, Middle East Journal, and World Politics. During the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 academic years, Professor Blaydes was an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. She holds degrees in Political Science (PhD) from the University of California, Los Angeles, and International Relations (BA, MA) from Johns Hopkins University.

 

Affiliated faculty at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Affiliated faculty at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
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Lisa Blaydes Moderator Stanford University
Lina Khatib Moderator Stanford University
Joel Beinin Moderator Stanford University
Hesham Sallam Speaker Georgetown University
Joshua Stacher Speaker Kent State University
Tarek Masoud Speaker Harvard University
Emad Shahin Speaker Notre Dame University
Samer Shehata Speaker Geoergetown University
Jason Brownlee Speaker University of Texas at Austin
Shadi Hamid Speaker Brookings Doha Center
Omar Ashour Speaker University of Exeter

Ben Rowswell

Encina Hall
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305

0
CDDRL Visiting Scholar 2010-11
Rowswell_pic.jpg

Ben Rowswell is a Canadian diplomat with a specialization in statebuilding and stabilization. As Representative of Canada in Kandahar from 2009 to 2010 he directed the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team, leading a team of more than 100 American and Canadian diplomats, aid workers, civilian police and other experts in strengthening the provincial government at the heart of the Afghan conflict. Having served before that as Deputy Head of Mission in Kabul, Rowswell brings a practitioner's knowledge of Afghanistan and of statebuilding in general to the CDDRL.

His previous conflict experience includes two years as Canada's Chargé d'Affaires in Iraq between 2003 and 2005, and with the UN in Somalia in 1993. He has also served at the Canadian embassy in Egypt and the Permanent Mission to the UN, and as a foreign policy advisor to the federal Cabinet in Ottawa. An alumnus of the National Democratic Institute, he founded the Democracy Unit of the Canadian foreign ministry.

Rowswell is a Senior Associate of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the co-editor of "Iraq: Preventing a New Generation of Conflict" (2007). He studied international relations at Oxford and at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.

Ben Rowswell Speaker Stanford University
Samer Soliman Speaker American University in Cairo
Conferences
CDDRL Conferences

Human Rights Education in India

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As human rights education (HRE) becomes a more common feature of international policy discussions, national textbook reforms, and grassroots educational strategies worldwide, greater clarity about what HRE is, does, and means is needed. This presentation reviews existing definitions and models of HRE and offers a case study of one non-governmental organization's (NGO) approach to school-based instruction in India.  Specifically, findings are presented on how household-, school-, and community-level factors mediated students' understandings of HRE.  Data suggest that a variety of factors at the three levels contribute to the HRE program's successful implementation in government schools serving marginalized students (where most NGO programs are in operation in India today).

Professor Monisha Bajaj has been a faculty member in the Department of International and Transcultural Studies at Teachers College, Columbia University since 2005. She teaches in the Programs in International and Comparative Education and advises students in the concentrations of peace education, international humanitarian issues in education, and African education. Her interests are in the areas of comparative and international education, peace and human rights education, the politics of education, social inequalities, critical pedagogy, and curriculum development in the U.S. and abroad. She has focused on research and programmatic work in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Latin America & the Caribbean, and the United States.

Prof. Bajaj received her Ed.D. at Teachers College, Columbia University in International Educational Development, and her M.A. in Latin American Studies and B.A. in Sociology at Stanford University. She has previously worked in the field of human rights and developed a teacher training manual on human rights education for UNESCO while studying as a Fulbright scholar in the Dominican Republic.  She has also consulted on curriculum development issues, particularly related to the incorporation of peace education, human rights, and sustainable development, for non-profit educational service providers in New York City and inter-governmental organizations, such as UNICEF.  Her professional work focuses on examining possibilities for formal and non-formal education to influence social change.

Support for Prof. Bajaj's visit comes from the Charles F. Riddell Fund, administered by the Office of Residential Education, Stanford University.

Co-sponsors for this event are the Bechtel International Center; the Center for Ethics in Society; the Center for South Asia; the Education and Society Theme (EAST) House; the International Comparative Education Program of the Stanford University School of Education; and the Program on Human Rights at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.

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CERAS 204

Monisha Bajaj Professor Speaker Department of International and Transcultural Studies, Columbia University
Conferences
Human Rights Education

No Picnic: The Dynamics of Culture in the Contemporary Arab World

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In this analysis of the region, Hicham Ben Abdallah points out that, while political issues are important to understanding the authoritarian political structures of the Arab world, it is also important to understand the dynamics of culture.  Ben Abdallah demonstrates the proliferation of cultural practices through which societies and individuals learn to live in a complex mix of parallel and conflicting ideological tendencies -- with the increasing Islamicization of everyday ideology developing alongside the proliferation of secular forms of cultural production, while both negotiate for breathing room under the aegis of an authoritarian state. 

He describes how the state takes advantage of a segmented cultural scene by posing as a restraint against the extremes of the salafist norm, while channeling modernist cultural expression into safe institutional and patronage reward systems  and into a commercialized process of "festivalization," all of which celebrate a depoliticized "Arab" identity. 

Hicham Ben Abdallah refers us to the deep history of Islam, which protected divergent cultural and intellectual influences as the patrimony of mankind.  He suggests a new cultural paradigm, inspired by this history while understanding the necessity for political democratization and cultural modernism.  We must, he argues, be unafraid to face the challenges implied in the tension between the growing influence of a salafist norm and the widespread embrace of implicitly secular cultural practices throughout the Arab world.   

Hicham Ben Abdallah El Alaoui received a B.A. in Politics from Princeton University, and an M.A in Politics from Stanford University. He recently founded the Moulay Hicham Foundation for Social Science Research on North Africa and the Middle East, and serves as its Director.   

Through this Foundation he has established the Program on Good Governance and Political Reform in the Arab World, at The Freeman Spogli Institute's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University.  Hicham Ben Abdallah is a member of the Advisory Board of the Freeman Spogli Institute. 

He has also recently founded a program in Global Climate Change, Democracy and Human Security (known as the "Climate Change and Democracy Project), in the Division of Social Sciences, Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, at the University of California, Santa Barbara.   

In 1994, at Princeton University, Hicham Ben Abdallah endowed the Institute for the Trans-regional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia.  This Institute has become an important venue for study and debate on the region. 

Hicham Ben Abdallah is also active in global humanitarian and social issues. He serves on the Human Rights Watch Board of Directors for the Middle East and North Africa.   He has worked with the Carter Center on a number of initiatives, including serving as an international observer with the Carter Center delegations during elections in Palestine in 1996 and 2006, and in Nigeria in 2000.  In 2000, he served as Principal Officer for Community Affairs with the United Nations Mission in Kosovo . 

Hicham Ben Abdallah is also an entrepreneur in the domain of renewable energy.  His company, Al Tayyar Energy, develops projects that produce clean energy at competitive prices.  He has implemented several of these projects in Asia, Europe and North America.

CISAC Conference Room

Hicham Ben Abdallah

CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

0
Consulting Professor
Ben_Abdallah.jpg MA

Hicham Ben Abdallah received his B.A. in Politics in 1985 from Princeton University, and his M.A. in Political Science from Stanford in 1997. His interest is in the politics of the transition from authoritarianism to democracy.

He has lectured in numerous universities and think tanks in North America and Europe. His work for the advancement of peace and conflict resolution has brought him to Kosovo as a special Assistant to Bernard Kouchner, and to Nigeria and Palestine as an election observer with the Carter Center. He has published in journals such Le Monde,  Le Monde Diplomatique,Pouvoirs, Le Debat, The Journal of Democracy, The New York Times, El Pais, and El Quds.

In 2010 he has founded the Moulay Hicham Foundation which conducts social science research on the MENA region. He is also an entrepreneur with interests in agriculture, real estate, and renewable energies. His company, Al Tayyar Energy, has a number of clean energy projects in Asia and Europe. 

Hicham Ben Abdallah Visiting Scholar Speaker CDDRL
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