The Fisher Family Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development Program at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is now accepting applications for our summer 2026 program. The deadline to apply is 11:59 pm PST on Thursday, January 15, 2026.

The program brings together an annual cohort of approximately 30 mid-career practitioners from countries in political transition who are working to advance democratic practices and enact economic and legal reform to promote human development. Launched by CDDRL in 2005, the program was previously known as the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program. The new name reflects an endowment gift from the Fisher family — Sakurako (Sako), ‘82, and William (Bill), MBA ‘84 — that secures the future of this important and impactful program.

From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, our program participants are selected from among hundreds of applicants every year for the significant contributions they have already made to their societies and their potential to make an even greater impact with some help from Stanford. We aim to give them the opportunity to join a global network of over 500 alumni from 97 countries who have all faced similar sets of challenges in bringing change to their countries.

The Fisher Family Summer Fellows Program provides an intensive 3-week on-campus forum for civil society leaders to exchange experiences and receive academic and policy training to enrich their knowledge and advance their work. Delivered by a leading Stanford faculty team composed of Michael McFaul, Kathryn Stoner, Francis Fukuyama, Larry Diamond, Erik Jensen, and more, the program allows emerging and established global leaders to explore new institutional models and frameworks to enhance their ability to promote good governance, accountable politics, and find new ways to achieve economic development in their home countries.

Prospective fellows from Ukraine are also invited to apply for our Strengthening Ukrainian Democracy and Development (SU-DD) Program, which runs concurrently with the Fisher Family Summer Fellows Program. The SU-DD program provides a unique opportunity for mid-career practitioners working on well-defined projects aimed at strengthening Ukrainian democracy, enhancing human development, and promoting good governance. Applicants to the SU-DD program will use the Fisher Family Summer Fellows Program application portal to apply and indicate their interest there. You will then be directed to a series of supplemental questions specific to the SU-DD program, including requiring a detailed description of your proposed project.

Every September, rising seniors in the Fisher Family Honors Program travel to the nation’s capital for CDDRL’s Honors College. This immersive, week-long program gives students an inside look at the institutions and experts in Washington, D.C. who are shaping global debates and working to advance democracy and development around the world.

Throughout the week, students will examine pressing global issues with experts at the Council on Foreign Relations’ Center on Preventive Action and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, gain insights into international development from scholars at the World Bank, and dive into the challenges and advantages of empowering local democratic activists — particularly in countries hostile to democracy — with speakers at the National Endowment for Democracy, among other exciting site visits. They are also encouraged to use this time to connect with experts related to their thesis question.

CDDRL’s Fisher Family Honors Program brings together undergraduates from diverse fields and methodologies who share a passion for understanding democracy, development, and the rule of law. The program challenges students to carry out original, policy-relevant research on these topics and produce a coherent, eloquently argued, and well-written honors thesis.

This year's Honors College begins on Sunday, September 14. It will be led by Stephen Stedman, Senior Fellow and Director of the Fisher Family Honors Program, and research scholar María Ignacia Curiel, alongside Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy Larry Diamond.

The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law proudly congratulates its 2025 graduating class of honors students on their outstanding original research conducted under CDDRL's Fisher Family Honors Program. Among those graduating is Charles Sheiner, an International Relations major, who has won a Firestone Medal for his research on the electoral impact of Biden-era spending programs. Additionally, two students were selected as recipients of the CDDRL Outstanding Thesis Award. Adrian Feinberg, an International Relations major who is also minoring in History, Film & Media Studies, was honored for his research revealing how postwar Yugoslavia utilized the justice system to build state power and suppress dissent. Adelaide Madary, a Political Science major, was honored for her research exploring how local leadership shapes the responses of rural Calabrian communities to immigration, fostering hospitality in some towns and resistance in others.

The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) is pleased to announce that Stephen J. Stedman, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and director of CDDRL's Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development and Rule of Law, has been appointed the new faculty director of the Program in International Relations (IR) in the School of Humanities and Sciences effective Fall 2025. IR offers an interdisciplinary undergraduate major, minor, and honors program allowing students to explore how global, regional, and domestic factors influence relations between actors in the modern state system.

Long an advocate for bridging the gap between academia and policy, Professor Stedman has led three major global task forces to address emerging threats of the 21st century.

From 2018 to 2020, he served as Secretary General of the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age, which assessed the potential dangers of social media and the internet for contemporary democracy. The commission’s report, Protecting Electoral Integrity in the Digital Age, put forward recommendations for governments, social media platforms, NGOs, and civil society organizations to strengthen elections from disinformation and hate speech.

From 2011 to 2012, Professor Stedman served as the Director of the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy, and Security, a body of eminent persons tasked with developing recommendations on promoting and protecting the integrity of elections and international electoral assistance. The Commission was a joint project of the Kofi Annan Foundation and International IDEA, an intergovernmental organization that works on international democracy and electoral assistance.

From 2003 to 2004, Professor Stedman served as the Research Director of the United Nations High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change and was a principal drafter of the Panel’s report, "A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility." The report put forward detailed recommendations for strengthening collective security in the 21st century, including the creation of a new peacebuilding commission, support office and fund, a new mediation support office, a counter terrorism task force, and the endorsement of the responsibility to protect as a means torespond to and prevent atrocities and large scale killing. In 2005, he served as Assistant Secretary-General and Special Advisor to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, with responsibility for working with governments to adopt the Panel’s recommendations.

Professor Stedman’s early research focused on civil wars, in particular how to mediate and implement peace agreements as a means of ending them, a subject that he returns to periodically. He has also written on American foreign policy, international institutions, humanitarianism, and election integrity. At CDDRL, Professor Stedman is also the Principal Investigator for the center's program on Climate Change and Democracy, which investigates the changing politics of a warming world.

Professor Stedman's appointment reflects a deep and ongoing commitment to preparing the next generation of leaders and scholars engaged in international policy and democratic development. He is widely recognized as an advocate for undergraduate education and, in 2018, received the Lloyd W. Dinkelspiel Award for Outstanding Service to Undergraduate Education. He also served as the chair of 51st Senate of the Academic Council at Stanford University. Please join us in congratulating him!

For decades, we tended to think about the Middle East as a region of the world perpetually trailing behind the arc of history — unable to arrive at democracy, economic interdependence, cooperative regionalism, and peace. But what if the Middle East is not a laggard, but a laboratory for 21st-century geopolitics? What if we approach the Middle East through a different lens, as an arena where global and regional powers (United States, Russia, China, Iran, Israel, Egypt, Turkey, etc.) compete to shape a new political order, offering us invaluable insights into the possible futures of global politics?

Geopolitics in the 21st-Century Middle East will explore the actors, trends, and dynamics that created the modern Middle East and shape it today and provide possible scenarios for the future. Featuring experts from across Stanford and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, as well as experts from other institutions, the course starts with a historical overview of the formation of the modern Middle East. It will also analyze the role of states, authoritarianism, and violent non-state actors in the region. The course will then examine how various countries — Egypt, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, and Turkey, for example — approach the deep transformations taking place in the Middle East. Toward the end of the course, students will consider scenarios for the future, including how the Middle East intersects with broader changes in the international system. Finally, the course will discuss prospects for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and evaluate whether the current tumult in the Middle East could create unexpected opportunities for broader regional peace.

Guest lecturers include Ali Yaycıoğlu (Director, Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, Stanford), Lisa Blaydes (Professor in Political Science and Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford), Amichai Magen (Visiting Professor and Fellow in Israel Studies, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford), Hanin Ghaddar (Senior Fellow, Linda and Tony Rubin Program on Arab Politics, Washington Institute), Cole Bunzel (Hoover Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford), Hesham Sallam (Senior Research Scholar, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford), Ayça Alemdaroğlu (Associate Director, Program on Turkey, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford), Abbas Milani (Director, Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies, Stanford), Benjamin Miller (Professor of International Relations, University of Haifa), and Ghaith al-Omari (Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Senior Fellow, Washington Institute).