2012 Human Rights Education Symposium

Saturday, June 9, 2012 | 9:00 AM -Saturday, June 9, 2012 | 3:30 PM

A day-long symposium to discuss, share, and learn about teaching human rights education in a wide range of world areas, disciplines, and classroom settings. Emphasis will be on methods of incorporating human rights education into the community college classroom. Sample lesson plans, pedagogic resources and materials, and strategies for reaching diverse student populations will be shared.

Human Rights Educator Fellowships
This symposium, organized by the Stanford Human Rights Education Initiative (SHREI), is the second event in a four-year collaborative effort to encourage the teaching of human rights in California community colleges. Participants are eligible to apply for year-long Human Rights Educator fellowships. Details about the 2012-13 fellowship and other
opportunities at Stanford will be available at the symposium.Attendance is free, but rsvp is required as space is limited.

Stanford Humanities Center

Felisa Tibbitts Fellow Speaker Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government

Jasmina Bojic Founder and Director Speaker United Nations Association Film Festival

Symposiums

Stanford conference to explore indigenous rights in Latin America

Read more about Stanford conference to explore indigenous rights in Latin America

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Wed, 05/02/2012 - 12:00

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The indigenous population in Latin America ranks among the highest in underdevelopment in the world, experiencing high levels of illiteracy, unemployment, poverty, disease, discrimination, violence and expropriation of their lands. In an effort to examine the common trends, actors, and challenges affecting this vulnerable community, the Program on Human Rights (PHR) at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) together with the Center for Latin American Studies is hosting a one-day conference on Tuesday, May 8 2012 at Stanford University to shed light on the important human rights issues indigenous populations face.

Alejandro Toledo, the former president of Peru and its first president of indigenous descent will deliver the opening address. Toledo was a visiting scholar at CDDRL from 2007-2009. The conference will bring together a diverse group of scholars to present research papers on a range of topics relating to indigenous communities in Latin America and the Caribbean, including: violence and security, education, the effect of climate change, health challenges, cultural survival, national and international property rights and political movements.

According to Helen Stacy, the director of the Program on Human Rights, “The goal of the conference is to create an integrated network of professionals that includes Stanford University students, faculty and researchers, who will advance and support continuous research on human rights issues affecting indigenous people in Latin America.”

The lunchtime keynote address will be delivered by the former first lady of Peru, Eliane Karp-Toledo, an anthropologist and economist who specializes in Andean indigenous cultures. Conference speakers include: Alexia Romero, a second year JD candidate at Stanford University, who will address the issue of indigenous property rights; Oliver Kaplan, a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University, who will explore civil war violence in Columbia; Paul Kim, assistant dean and chief technology officer for Stanford’s School of Education, who will speak about the impact of mobile phone technology for indigenous people in Latin America; and Claire Mantini-Briggs, visiting lecturer at UC Berkeley’s Department of Anthropology, who will discuss inequalities in epidemiology and human rights.

The Center on Latin American Studies and the Program on Human Rights view this conference as the beginning of an ongoing research initiative to examine the state of indigenous rights.

The sessions begin at 9:00 am and will be held in the Bechtel Conference Center. They are free and open to the public. To view the complete program and RSVP to the conference, please click here.

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Stanford US-Russia Forum Capstone Conference

________________________________________________

Stanford U.S.-Russia Forum Capstone Conference

April 18 - 20, 2012, Stanford University

CONFERENCE AGENDA

Day 1 Wednesday, April 18th, 2012

12:00 - 1:00pm Lunch

1:30 - 2:30pm Panel: Business

Speakers: Birger Steen, Parallels CEO; Bobby Chao, DFJ DragonFund Managing

Director; David Yang, ABBYY Founder and Chairman of the Board

Moderator: Alexandra Johnson, DFJ

Topic: International Entrepreneurs and VCs in Conversation

4:30 - 6pm Keynote

Speaker: Francis Fukuyama

Topic: Regime Change in Middle East and Post-Soviet Space

6:00 - 7:00pm Dinner

Day 2 Thursday, April 19th, 2012

9:15 - 10:30am Delegate Presentations -- Civil Society

Groups: U.S.-Russia Perceptions, Corruption

11:00am - 12:30pm Panel: Civil Society

Speakers: Professor Kathryn Stoner-Weiss of Stanford, Professor Steve Fish of

Berkeley

Moderator: Dr. Patricia Young of Stanford

Topic: The Post-Election Political Landscape in Moscow

12:30 - 2:30pm: Joint BBQ with the Russian Student Association

Performance: Fleet Street

2:30 - 3:30pm Speaker: Gender

Speaker: Professor Katherine Jolluck, Stanford

Topic: Women in the Post-Soviet Sphere

5:15 - 7:15pm Delegate Presentations -- Economy

Groups: Investment Banking, Public-Private Partnerships, Resource Curse

Day 3 Friday, April 20th, 2012

9:30 - 11:00am Panel: Nuclear Defense

Speakers: Professor David Holloway of Stanford, Ambassador Jack Matlock of

Columbia, Professor Theodore Postol of MIT

Moderator: Dr. Benoît Pelopidas of Stanford

Topic: NATO, US and Russia & Cooperative Missile Defense

11:30am - 1:30 pm Delegate Presentations -- Security

Groups: Afghanistan, Missile Defense, Space

1:45 - 2:45pm Lunch

3:00 - 4:30pm Speaker: Foreign Policy

Speakers: Professor Abbas Milani of Stanford

Topic: Russia, U.S. and Iran Sanctions

4:45 - 6:00pm Delegate Presentations -- Institutions

Groups: Education, Immigration

6:30-8:30pm Closing Dinner

Keynote: Professor Stephen Walt of Harvard

Additional Information:

Meals only for SURF delegates, officers and paid attendees.

All presentations and panels will be held at the Black Community Services

Center, Room 418

Santa Teresa Street, Stanford, CA.

The closing dinner will be held at the Stanford Faculty Club, 439 Lagunita Drive

Stanford, CA.

The Closing Dinner is available by invitation only

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Black Community Service Center
418 Santa Teresa Street
Stanford, California

Birger Steen CEO Parallels Speaker

Bobby Chao Managing Director, DFJ DragonFund Speaker

David Yang ABBYY Founder and Chairman of the Board Speaker

Alexandra Johnson DFJ Moderator

Francis Fukuyama

Encina Hall, C148
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305

f.fukuyama@stanford.edu

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 Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) Speaker Stanford University

Kathryn Stoner

FSI
Stanford University
Encina Hall C140
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 736-1820 (650) 724-2996

kstoner@stanford.edu

Satre Family Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

kathryn_stoner_1_2022_v2.jpg MA, PhD

Kathryn Stoner is the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), and a Senior Fellow at CDDRL and the Center on International Security and Cooperation at FSI. From 2017 to 2021, she served as FSI's Deputy Director. She is Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford and she teaches in the Department of Political Science, and in the Program on International Relations, as well as in the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Program. She is also a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution.

Prior to coming to Stanford in 2004, she was on the faculty at Princeton University for nine years, jointly appointed to the Department of Politics and the Princeton School for International and Public Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School). At Princeton she received the Ralph O. Glendinning Preceptorship awarded to outstanding junior faculty. She also served as a Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at McGill University. She has held fellowships at Harvard University as well as the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC.

In addition to many articles and book chapters on contemporary Russia, she is the author or co-editor of six books: "Transitions to Democracy: A Comparative Perspective," written and edited with Michael A. McFaul (Johns Hopkins 2013); "Autocracy and Democracy in the Post-Communist World," co-edited with Valerie Bunce and Michael A. McFaul (Cambridge, 2010); "Resisting the State: Reform and Retrenchment in Post-Soviet Russia" (Cambridge, 2006); "After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transitions" (Cambridge, 2004), coedited with Michael McFaul; and "Local Heroes: The Political Economy of Russian Regional" Governance (Princeton, 1997); and "Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order" (Oxford University Press, 2021).

She received a BA (1988) and MA (1989) in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and a PhD in Government from Harvard University (1995). In 2016 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Iliad State University, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia.

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

Mosbacher Director, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law

Professor of Political Science (by courtesy), Stanford University

Senior Fellow (by courtesy), Hoover Institution

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Thu, 04/10/2025 - 15:56

Kathryn Stoner-Weiss Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Speaker Stanford University

Dr. Patricia Young Moderator Stanford University

Katherine Jolluck Professor Speaker Stanford University

Steve Fish Professor Speaker UC Berkeley

David Holloway Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, Professor of Political Science & Senior Fellow at Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Speaker

Jack Matlock Ambassador Speaker Columbia

Theodore Postol Professor Speaker MIT

Dr. Benoit Pelopidas Moderator Stanford University

Abbas Milani

615 Crothers Way,
Encina Commons, Room 128A
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305

(650) 721-4052

Research Fellow, Hoover Institution

abbas_milani_photo_by_babak_payami.jpg PhD

Abbas Milani is the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University and a visiting professor in the department of political science. In addition, Dr. Milani is a research fellow and co-director of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution.

Prior to coming to Stanford, Milani was a professor of history and political science and chair of the department at Notre Dame de Namur University and a research fellow at the Institute of International Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. Milani was an assistant professor in the faculty of law and political science at Tehran University and a member of the board of directors of Tehran University's Center for International Studies from 1979 to 1987. He was a research fellow at the Iranian Center for Social Research from 1977 to 1978 and an assistant professor at the National University of Iran from 1975 to 1977.

Dr. Milani is the author of Eminent Persians: Men and Women Who Made Modern Iran, 1941-1979, (Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, NY, 2 volumes, November, 2008); King of Shadows: Essays on Iran's Encounter with Modernity, Persian text published in the U.S. (Ketab Corp., Spring 2005); Lost Wisdom: Rethinking Persian Modernity in Iran, (Mage 2004); The Persian Sphinx: Amir Abbas Hoveyda and the Riddle of the Iranian Revolution (Mage, 2000); Modernity and Its Foes in Iran (Gardon Press, 1998); Tales of Two Cities: A Persian Memoir (Mage 1996); On Democracy and Socialism, a collection of articles coauthored with Faramarz Tabrizi (Pars Press, 1987); and Malraux and the Tragic Vision (Agah Press, 1982). Milani has also translated numerous books and articles into Persian and English.

Milani received his BA in political science and economics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1970 and his PhD in political science from the University of Hawaii in 1974.

Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies

Co-director of the Iran Democracy Project

CDDRL Affiliated Scholar

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Thu, 08/22/2024 - 11:53

Abbas Milani Director, Iranian Studies Program, Division of International Comparative & Area Studies Speaker Stanford University

Conferences

Public Goods Provision and the Efficacy of Governance

On May 18-19, the Program on Poverty and Governance will host a two-day conference on the provision of public goods and good governance throughout the world. This conference, co-sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies, will bring together an interdisciplinary group of economists, political scientists, policymakers, and public health researchers examining these questions. Public goods—goods and services such as education, healthcare, sanitation, potable water, and other benefits provided by the government—are intrinsically tied to issues of governance, which we broadly define as the exercise of political authority and the use of institutional resources to manage society’s problems and affairs. More specifically, factors such how political leaders get elected, the way in which government projects get funded, whether the community participates in decision-making, and the extent to which the distribution of government benefits is done through clientelistic networks, among others, play an important role in the quality and coverage of public goods that governments provide. Additionally, a critical question in large parts of the developing world relates to the role of international players and foreign aid in the provision of public goods –does external provision of public goods enable or hinder governmental capacity to deliver public services in poor communities? Through two days of presentations and panel discussions, the conference will explore how various facets of governance affect the provision of public goods and services throughout the world.

The conference will be held in Encina Hall at Stanford University May 18th and 19th, 2012. Guests are encouraged to RSVP by May 16th. Any questions may be addressed to the Program on Poverty and Governance program associate Elena Cryst.

Click Here for Papers

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CISAC Conference Room

Beatriz Magaloni

Dept. of Political Science
Encina Hall, Room 436
Stanford University,
Stanford, CA

(650) 724-5949

magaloni@stanford.edu

Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations

Professor of Political Science

beatriz_magaloni_2024.jpg MA, PhD

Beatriz Magaloni Magaloni is the Graham Stuart Professor of International Relations at the Department of Political Science. Magaloni is also a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute, where she holds affiliations with the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). She is also a Stanford’s King Center for Global Development faculty affiliate. Magaloni has taught at Stanford University for over two decades.

She leads the Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab (Povgov). Founded by Magaloni in 2010, Povgov is one of Stanford University’s leading impact-driven knowledge production laboratories in the social sciences. Under her leadership, Povgov has innovated and advanced a host of cutting-edge research agendas to reduce violence and poverty and promote peace, security, and human rights.

Magaloni’s work has contributed to the study of authoritarian politics, poverty alleviation, indigenous governance, and, more recently, violence, crime, security institutions, and human rights. Her first book, Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and its Demise in Mexico (Cambridge University Press, 2006) is widely recognized as a seminal study in the field of comparative politics. It received the 2007 Leon Epstein Award for the Best Book published in the previous two years in the area of political parties and organizations, as well as the Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association’s Comparative Democratization Section. Her second book The Politics of Poverty Relief: Strategies of Vote Buying and Social Policies in Mexico (with Alberto Diaz-Cayeros and Federico Estevez) (Cambridge University Press, 2016) explores how politics shapes poverty alleviation.

Magaloni’s work was published in leading journals, including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Criminology & Public Policy, World Development, Comparative Political Studies, Annual Review of Political Science, Cambridge Journal of Evidence-Based Policing, Latin American Research Review, and others.

Magaloni received wide international acclaim for identifying innovative solutions for salient societal problems through impact-driven research. In 2023, she was named winner of the world-renowned Stockholm Prize in Criminology, considered an equivalent of the Nobel Prize in the field of criminology. The award recognized her extensive research on crime, policing, and human rights in Mexico and Brazil. Magaloni’s research production in this area was also recognized by the American Political Science Association, which named her recipient of the 2021 Heinz I. Eulau Award for the best article published in the American Political Science Review, the leading journal in the discipline.

She received her Ph.D. in political science from Duke University and holds a law degree from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México.

Director, Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab

Co-director, Democracy Action Lab

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Beatriz Magaloni Host

Conferences

Education Under Fire event

Friday, April 6, 2012 | 7:00 PM -Friday, April 6, 2012 | 9:00 PM

Please join the Stanford Baha'i Club, in collaboration with the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law; the Center on Philanthrophy and Civil Society, Stanford Amnesty International, Stanford Six Degrees in defending Article 26 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights on

Friday, April 6 from 7:00-9:00pm

We will be screening Education Under Fire, a moving documentary about this issue. Following the screening, we will be having a panel discussion.

Imagine you are sitting in class at Stanford University when armed guards come into the classroom and arrest everyone in your class. Your professor is sentenced to five years in prison; you are expelled not only from Stanford, but from any institution of higher education in the country. Your crime? Gaining a higher education. Your professor’s crime? Providing higher education. Fortunately, this is not happening today at Stanford, but it is happening right now to many young people in Iran.

Since its inception, the Baha’i community of Iran has been suffering different forms of human rights violations, from intense persecution to being denied employment, the ability to bury their dead, access to higher education. Their crime? Being a Baha’i. The Bahá'í Institute for Higher Education (BIHE) was founded in 1987 in response to the Iranian government's continuing campaign to deny Iranian Bahá'ís access to higher education. The need to create a new university for those who were denied access to higher education captivated the talents and minds of exceptional faculty and staff from within Iran and abroad. For twenty years they have dedicated their efforts to building an exemplary institution and cultivating a student body prepared for fulfilling careers, future study, and social responsibility. But this has come with constant struggles and limited resources. In May 2011, the government launched a coordinated attack against the BIHE–raiding dozens of homes, confiscating computers and materials and detaining eighteen professors and administrators. Seven of those arrested received four or five-year prison terms. Their only crime: educating the youth in their community.

We also have a facebook event here - http://www.facebook.com/events/291432670928509/

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CEMEX AUDITORIUM, Stanford

Conferences

The United States and the Arab Awakening -- An Early Assessment

Thursday, May 10, 2012 | 12:00 PM -Thursday, May 10, 2012 | 1:30 PM

Abstract:

Tamara Cofman Wittes, who helped manage the State Department's response to the Arab Awakening and now directs the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, will reflect on the US government's reactions to the dramatic change underway in the Arab world -- how the Obama Administration viewed the uprisings, and how its policy evolved over time as different cases emerged from Tunisia to Libya and Syria. What were the key concerns shaping the US policy response to events? How much difference did American policy make to outcomes on the ground? And, given the complex variety of outcomes now visible in the region, where is American policy toward Arab political change headed over time?

Speaker Bio:

Tamara Cofman Wittes directs the Middle East Democracy and Development (MEDD) Project at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, a regional policy center at The Brookings Institution. The MEDD Project conducts research into political and economic reform in the region and US efforts to promote democracy there. It also hosts visiting fellows from the Middle East.

Before joining the Saban Center in December 2003, Dr. Wittes served as Middle East specialist at the US Institute of Peace and previously as director of programs at the Middle East Institute in Washington. She has also taught courses in International Relations and Security Studies at Georgetown University. Dr. Wittes was one of the first recipients of the Rabin-Peres Peace Award, established by President Bill Clinton in 1997.

Dr. Wittes’s latest book is Freedom’s Unsteady March: America’s Role in Building Arab Democracy (Brookings Press). She is also editor of How Israelis and Palestinians Negotiate: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Oslo Peace Process (USIP, 2005). Her recent work includes “What Price Freedom? Assessing the Bush Administration’s Freedom Agenda,” and “Back to Balancing in the Middle East,” co-authored with Martin Indyk.

Her analyses of US democracy promotion, Arab politics, the Middle East peace process, and other policy topics have been published in the Washington Post, Policy Review, Political Science Quarterly, the American Interest, the Weekly Standard, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, among others. Dr. Wittes holds a B.A. in Judaic and Near Eastern Studies from Oberlin College; her M.A. and Ph.D. in Government are from Georgetown University. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

CISAC Conference Room

Tamara Wittes Director, Middle East Democracy and Development (MEDD) Project Speaker Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution

Seminars

From Prague Spring to Arab Spring: Global and Comparative Perspectives on Protest and Revolution, 1968-2012

Friday, March 2, 2012 | 9:00 AM -Friday, March 2, 2012 | 5:00 PM

36th Annual Stanford - Berkeley Conference on Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies

From Prague Spring to Arab Spring: Global and Comparative Perspectives on Protest and Revolution,

1968-2012

Friday, March 2, 2012

9:30 am - 5:00 pm

McCaw Hall, Arrillaga Alumni Center, Stanford

9:30 a.m.

Coffee

9:45 a.m.

Welcome and Opening Remarks

Robert Crews (Director, Stanford CREEES)

10:-00 – 11:45

Panel One – Who Makes Revolutions?

Chair: Katherine Jolluck (Stanford)

Jane Curry (Santa Clara Univ.), “Media - New and Old: How It Has Made Protest and Revolutions”

Joel Beinin (Stanford), “Working Classes and Regime Change in Egypt and Poland”

Edith Sheffer (Stanford), “Global 1989?”

1:00 – 3:00

Panel Two – How (Some) Revolutionaries Prevail and Others Fail

Chair: Gail Lapidus (Stanford)

Cihan Tuğal (UCB), “Islam and Neoliberalism in the Revolutionary Process”

Sean Hanretta (Stanford), “The Arab Spring and West Africa: Influences and Consequences”

Djordje Padejski (Stanford), “Serbian Fall: Lessons from a Democratic Revolution”

Natalya Koulinka (Stanford), “A Revolution that Persistently Fails: The Case of Belarus”

3:00-3:15

Break

3:15 - 4:45

Panel Three – Interpreting Protest Movements

Chair: John Dunlop (Stanford)

Jason Wittenberg (UCB), “Political Protest and Democratic Consolidation in Hungary”

Kathryn Stoner-Weiss (Stanford), “Arab Spring, Slavic Winter?”

Edward Walker (UCB), “The Collapse of Soviet Socialism and the Arab Spring Compared”

4:45-5:00

Closing Remarks

Yuri Slezkine (Director, UCB ISEEES)

Co-sponsored by: the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley and the Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies at Stanford University, with funding from the U.S. Department of Education Title VI National Resource Centers program

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Frances C. Arrillaga Alumni Center

Robert Crews Speaker CREEES

Katherine Jolluck Speaker Stanford

Jane Curry Santa Clara University Speaker

Joel Beinin Speaker Stanford

Edith Sheffer Speaker Stanford

Gail W. Lapidus Speaker Stanford

Cihan Tugal Speaker UCB

Sean Hanretta Speaker Stanford

Djordje Padejski Speaker Stanford

Natalya Koulinka Speaker Stanford

Jason Wittenbrg Speaker UCB

Kathryn Stoner

FSI
Stanford University
Encina Hall C140
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 736-1820 (650) 724-2996

kstoner@stanford.edu

Satre Family Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

kathryn_stoner_1_2022_v2.jpg MA, PhD

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

Mosbacher Director, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law

Professor of Political Science (by courtesy), Stanford University

Senior Fellow (by courtesy), Hoover Institution

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Thu, 04/10/2025 - 15:56

Kathryn Stoner-Weiss Speaker Stanford

Edward Walker Speaker UCB

Yuri Slezkine Speaker UCB ISEEES

Conferences

Implementing a Biometric Payment System:The Andhra Pradesh Experience

Thursday, March 15, 2012 | 4:30 PM -Thursday, March 15, 2012 | 6:00 PM

Abstract:
The Government of India is embarking on an ambitious program to provide all residents with a biometric unique ID (UID) to improve beneficiary experiences in public programs. The Andhra Pradesh Smartcard Program is the longest-running biometric electronic benefits transfer (EBT) initiative in India and the experiences from Andhra Pradesh can therefore provide key insights into the process and impact of implementing such a biometrically authenticated payment system. The Andhra Pradesh Smartcard Study is a large-scale randomized evaluation of the impact of using biometric smartcards on beneficiary welfare and has been underway for 18 months at this point. Professor Muralidharan will present preliminary results from this research focusing on the insights gained from studying the process of rolling out Smartcards in Andhra Pradesh.

Karthik Muralidharan is an assistant professor of economics at the University of California, San Diego where he has been on the faculty since 2008.Born and raised in India, he earned an A.B. in economics (summa cum laude) from Harvard, an M.Phil. in economics from Cambridge (UK), and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard. He is a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a Junior Affiliate at the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), a Member of the Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) network, an Affiliate at the Center of Evaluation for Global Action (CEGA), and a Research Affiliate with Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA).

Prof. Muralidharan's primary research interests include development, public, and labor economics. Specific topics of interest include education, health, and social protection; measuring quality of public service delivery; program evaluation; and improving the effectiveness of public spending (with a focus on developing countries). Courses taught include undergraduate and graduate classes in development economics, program evaluation, and the economics of education.

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Karthik Muralidharan Assistant Professor of Economics Speaker UC San Diego

Seminars

Mobile Phones and Economic Development in Africa: Evidence from Policy and Field Experiments

Monday, February 6, 2012 | 4:15 PM -Monday, February 6, 2012 | 6:00 PM

Abstract

Mobile phone coverage and adoption has grown substantially over the past decade, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa. In the absence of public goods infrastructure in many countries, mobile phone technology has the potential to reduce communication and transaction costs and improve access to information, goods and services, particularly for remote rural populations. Research suggests that mobile phone coverage has had positive impacts on agricultural and labor market efficiency in certain countries, but empirical microeconomic evidence is still limited. This paper presents the results of several mobile phone-related field experiments in sub-Saharan Africa, whereby mobile phones have been used for learning, money transfers and civic education programs. These experiments suggest that mobile phone technology can result in reductions in communication and transaction costs, as well as welfare gains, in particular contexts. Nevertheless, mobile phone technology cannot serve as the “silver bullet” for development, and careful impact evaluations of mobile phone development projects are required. In addition, mobile phone technology must work in partnership with other public good provision and investment to achieve optimal development outcomes.

Speaker Bio:

Jenny C. Aker is an assistant professor of economics at the Fletcher School and department of economics at Tufts University. She is also a non-resident fellow at the Center for Global Development and a member of the Advisory Board for Frontline SMS.

After working for Catholic Relief Services as Deputy Regional Director in West and Central Africa between 1998 and 2003, Jenny returned to complete her PhD in agricultural economics at the University of California-Berkeley. Jenny works on economic development in Africa, with a primary focus on the impact of information and information technology on development outcomes, particularly in the areas of agriculture, agricultural marketing and education; the relationship between shocks and agricultural food market performance; the determinants of agricultural technology adoption; and impact evaluations of NGO and World Bank projects. Jenny has conducted field work in many countries in West and Central Africa, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, DRC, The Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Sudan, as well as Haiti and Guatemala.

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CISAC Conference Room

Jenny Aker Assistant Professor of Economics Speaker Tufts University

Seminars

________________________________________________Stanford U.S.-Russia Forum Capstone Conference

April 18 - 20, 2012, Stanford University

CONFERENCE AGENDA

Global Populisms

36th Annual Stanford - Berkeley Conference on Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies

________________________________________________

Stanford U.S.-Russia Forum Capstone Conference