Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
WASHINGTON, June 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Leading global development experts today called on Congress and the President to elevate development as a key component of the U.S. foreign assistance system to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
The international and domestic challenges of the 21st century -- including transnational threats such as economic instability, terrorism, climate change, and disease -- cannot be met with a foreign assistance apparatus created to confront the challenges of the 20th century, said the experts in a report released today. The report, New Day, New Way: U.S. Foreign Assistance for the 21st Century, contains various proposals of this coalition of experts, the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network (MFAN).
Foreign assistance and other investments in developing countries are vital tools for strengthening U.S. foreign policy, restoring American global leadership, and fighting global poverty, said MFAN co-chair Steve Radelet of the Center for Global Development. Foreign policy experts on both sides of the political aisle now recognize the importance of strong foreign assistance programs. But they also recognize that our foreign assistance programs are out of date and badly in need of modernization to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
The report lays out the importance of foreign assistance as a foreign policy tool which includes defense, diplomacy, and development. It makes the case that it is in the countrys national interest to elevate development assistance and makes specific recommendations such as better accountability, a national strategy for the coordination of the entire U.S. foreign assistance system, and making development a sustainable piece of Americas long-term investments overseas.
"By giving development a seat at the foreign policy table we can narrow the gap between the world's haves and have nots, tackle the challenges posed by climate change, the global food crisis, and the world's weak and failing states and, most importantly, strengthen the moral foundation from which we lead, said MFAN co-chair Gayle Smith of the Center for American Progress.
The report was released today during the launch of MFAN in Congress. Speakers included Rep. Howard L. Berman, chair, House Foreign Affairs Committee; Rep. Nita Lowey, chair, State and Foreign Operations Subcommittee; and Sen. Chuck Hagel, member, Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Members of MFAN include: Steve Radelet (Center for Global Development), Gayle Smith (Center for American Progress), Brian Atwood (Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota), David Beckmann (Bread for the World), Lael Brainard (Brookings Institution), Larry Diamond (Hoover Institution, Stanford University), Sam Worthington (Interaction), Francis Fukuyama (The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University), Carol Lancaster (Mortara Center for International Studies, Georgetown University), George Ingram (Academy for Educational Development), Larry Nowels, Charles MacCormack (Save the Children), Michael A. McFaul (Center on Democracy, Development and Rule of Law, Stanford University), Ray Offenheiser (Oxfam America), Stewart Patrick (Council on Foreign Relations), and William Reese (International Youth Foundation).
I am a philosopher by training and sensibility, and as a philosopher, I take my orientation from Immanuel Kant. Kant said that philosophy addresses three basic questions: What can we know? What should we do? And what may we hope for?
The question about hope is the most important. Philosophy is not about what will be, but about what could be: It is an exploration of possibilities guided by the hope that our world can be made more just by our common efforts.
In our world, 1 billion people are destitute. They live on less than a dollar a day. They are not imprisoned in destitution because of their crimes; they are imprisoned in destitution despite their innocence.
Another 1.5 billion people live only slightly better, on $1–2 a day. They are able to meet their basic needs, but they lack fundamental goods. They, too, are not in poverty because of their crimes. They are in poverty despite their innocence.
That is how 40 percent of our world lives now.
For some of the poor and destitute, things are improving. But the extraordinary global distance between wealthy and poor is growing. The richest 5 percent in the world make 114 times as much as the bottom 5 percent; 1 percent of the world’s people make as much as the poorest 57 percent. So the gap grows and many are left behind. That is morally unacceptable.
The problem of global injustice is not only economic. Billions of people are deprived of basic human rights.
And new forms of global governance, through organizations like the World Trade Organization (WTO), are making decisions with large consequences for human welfare. Whether their decisions are good or bad, they remain largely unaccountable. That, too, is unacceptable.
Some people say that we should not worry so much because there is no such thing as global justice. Some of these skeptics say that justice is an issue only inside a state. Until there is a global state, they say, there is no global justice.
Other skeptics are communitarians. They say that justice only makes sense among people who share a culture. They say that our diverse global society lacks the common culture needed to sustain a commitment to justice.
These statist and communitarian views are misguided in a world of globalization.
Economically, globalization has made the global economy a substantial presence in the economic lives of virtually everyone in the world.
Politically, there are new forms of governance that operate outside the state. These new forms are especially important in the arena of economic regulation, but also have a role in areas of security, labor and product standards, the environment, and human rights. So we have new forms of global politics, with important consequences for human well-being.
Moreover, these new settings of global governance are the focus of an emerging global civil society of movements and nongovernmental organizations. In areas ranging from human rights, to labor standards, to environmental protection these groups contest the activities of states and global rule-making bodies.
The skeptical views may have made sense in a world with more national economic independence, less governance beyond the state, and more self-contained national communities. But that is not our world.
What, then, does the project of global justice mean? In general, it has three elements.
First, we need to ensure the protection of human rights, and we need a generous understanding of the scope of human rights. Human rights are about torture and arbitrary imprisonment, but also about health, education, and political participation. The point of human rights is not simply to protect against threats, but to ensure social membership, to ensure that all people count for something.
Second, new global rule-making bodies operating beyond the state raise questions of justice. These bodies, like the WTO, make rules with important consequences for human welfare. Global justice is about ensuring that governance by such bodies is accountable, that people who are affected are represented, that rulemaking is transparent. When an organization makes policies with large consequences for human welfare, it needs to be held accountable through a fair process.
Third, global justice is about ensuring that everyone has access to the basic goods—food, health care, education, clean water, shelter—required for a decent human life and that when the global economy is moving forward, no one is left behind.
These three elements of global justice all start from the idea that each person matters. In short, global justice is about inclusion: about making sure that no one is left out.
Some people will say that global justice is a nice idea, but that it has no real practical importance. They say that globalization leaves no room for political choices, that it requires every country to follow the same path. We must reject this false assertion of necessity.
Some people say that the right choice for global justice is to increase levels of foreign assistance; some people say that the right choice is to provide credit for poor farmers; some people say that right choice is to empower poor women; some people say that right choice is to reduce disgusting levels of overconsumption and agricultural subsidies in rich countries; some people say that the right choice is to promote a more vibrant civil society so that people can become agents in creating their history rather than its victims and supplicants.
Many things are possible. And once we accept that global justice is a fundamental imperative, and that political choices are possible, then we come back to the political tasks in more developed countries. Many citizens in the advanced economies now experience globalization as a threat. Many fear that a better life for billions who are now destitute may mean a worse life for them.
So global justice is not simply an abstract moral imperative. Global justice is connected to greater justice at home. If we leave everything to the market at home, if we don’t fight for social insurance, education and health, employment and income, then we can be sure of an economic nationalist resurgence with all of its terrible consequences. So the political project of global justice requires a political project of a more just society at home.
This unity of justice—this unity of the national and the global: That is our answer to Kant’s question. That is what we may hope for. That is what we should strive to achieve.
U.S. foreign assistance—the rationale behind it, the amount we give, its orientation and organization—has changed dramatically in the last decade. These changes have challenged its efficacy but have also created new opportunities to modernize U.S. foreign assistance. The importance of supporting development and reducing poverty abroad are understood now as never before to be both moral imperatives and prerequisites for sustained U.S. national security.
Since its origins after World War II, U.S. foreign assistance has served our national interests in three fundamental ways: enhancing national security, expanding global economic opportunities, and promoting American values. These interests are mutually reinforcing, and when the U.S. pursues them each strategically and in tandem it positions itself as a pragmatic and principled world leader.
The international and domestic challenges of the 21st century— including transnational threats such as economic instability, terrorism, climate change, and disease—cannot be met with a foreign assistance apparatus created to confront the challenges of the 20th century. America’s reputation abroad cannot be restored without a fresh, smart approach to U.S. foreign policy and engagement in the world. Our defense and diplomatic tools must be strengthened and modernized, and they must be complemented by equally robust tools for development. U.S. global leadership is based not only on our military clout or economic power, but on our moral stature, which derives from helping others improve their lives and those of their communities and societies.
In early 2007, CSIS launched an expert task force to examine the growing involvement of the Department of Defense as a direct provider of “non-traditional” security assistance, concentrated in counterterrorism, capacity building, stabilization and reconstruction, and humanitarian relief. The task force set out to shed light on what drives this trend, including the new global threat environment; assess what was happening at the same time in the diplomatic and developmental realms; evaluate DOD performance in conducting its expanded missions; and consider the impact of the Pentagon’s enlarged role on broader U.S. national security, foreign policy and development interests. From the outset, the task force sought to generate concrete, practical recommendations to Congress and the White House on reforms and legislation that will create a better and more sustainable balance between military and civilian tools.
J. Stephen Morrison joined CSIS in early 2000. He directs the CSIS Africa Program, the CSIS Task Force on HIV/AIDS (begun in 2001) and most recently co-directed a CSIS Task Force on non-traditional U.S. security assistance. In his role as director of the Africa Program, he has conducted studies on the United States’ rising energy stakes in Africa, counter-terrorism, the stand-up of the U.S. Africa Command, and implications for U.S. foreign policy. In 2005–2006, he was co-director of the Council on Foreign Relations Independent Task Force on Africa, ‘Beyond Humanitarianism: A Strategic U.S. Approach Toward Africa.’ Immediately prior to that, he was executive secretary of the Africa Policy Advisory Panel, commissioned by the U.S. Congress and overseen by then–Secretary of State Colin Powell. From 2005 up to the present, he has directed multi-phase work on China’s expansive engagement in Africa. His work on HIV/AIDS and related global health issues has involved multiple missions to China, Russia, India, Vietnam and Africa, and most recently, a series of focused studies on the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. He publishes widely, testifies often before Congress, and is a frequent commentator in major media on U.S. foreign policy, Africa, foreign assistance, and global public health. From 1996 through early 2000, Morrison served on the secretary of state’s policy planning staff, where he was responsible for African affairs and global foreign assistance issues. From 1993 to 1995, he conceptualized and launched USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives, which operates in countries emerging from protracted internal conflict and misrule. From 1992 until mid-1993, he was the U.S. democracy and governance adviser in Ethiopia and Eritrea. In the period 1987 to 1991, he was senior staff member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa. Morrison holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Wisconsin, has been an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies since 1994, and is a graduate magna cum laude of Yale College. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
CISAC Conference Room
Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a professor of political science, and sociology by courtesy, and coordinator of the Democracy Program at CDDRL. He is a specialist on democratic development and regime change and on U.S. foreign policy affecting democracy abroad. His research examines comparative trends in the quality and stability of democracy in developing countries and post-communist states, and public opinion in new democracies. As a core member of the scientific team of the East Asia Barometer, he is investigating attitudes and values toward democracy in eight East Asian political systems. His research and policy analysis also address the relationship between democracy, governance and development in poor countries, particularly in Africa. In the past two years he has served as consultant to the U.S. Agency for International Development and was a contributing author of its report, "Foreign Aid in the National Interest." He is also co-director of the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy, and founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy.
During the first three months of 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. He is now lecturing and writing about the challenges of post-conflict state-building in Iraq and other countries. He also recently served with a group of Europeans and Americans who produced a report on "Transatlantic Strategy for Democracy and Human Development in the Broader Middle East," published by the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
Diamond has written extensively on the factors that facilitate and obstruct democracy in developing countries and on problems of democracy, development, and corruption, particularly in Africa. He is the author of Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation, Promoting Democracy in the 1990s, and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria. His recent edited books include Islam and Democracy in the Middle East (with Marc F. Plattner and Daniel Brumberg), Political Parties and Democracy (with Richard Gunther), The Global Resurgence of Democracy and The Global Divergence of Democracies (both with Marc F. Plattner), Consolidating Democracy in Korea (with Byung-Kook Kim), and Institutional Reform and Democratic Consolidation in Korea (with Doh Shin). Among his other 20 edited books are the series Democracy in Developing Countries (with Juan Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset); The Self-Restraining State: Power and Accountability in New Democracies (with Andreas Schedler and Marc F. Plattner); and Democratization in Africa and Democracy in East Asia (both with Marc F. Plattner).
Diamond has lectured in more than 20 countries on problems of democratic development. He taught sociology at Vanderbilt University from 1980 to 1985 before joining Stanford and the Hoover Institution. He was a visiting scholar at the Academia Sinica (Taiwan, 1997-98) and a Fulbright Visiting Lecturer at Bayero University (Kano, Nigeria, 1982-83). He received all of his degrees from Stanford University, including a BA in 1974, an MA in 1978, and a PhD in sociology in 1980.
Richard and Rhoda Goldman Conference Room
CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C147
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
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.
Since Saddam Hussein's fall from power last April, the world has learned a great deal about the consequences of his abhorrent rule: mass killings, a brutalized population, staggering corruption, an impoverished population, a devastated environment, neglected educational institutions, a miscarried justice system, and other failing governmental functions. This legacy of Saddam's horrific misrule is the most dramatic demonstration of the vital connection between the vibrancy and economic development of a people and the nature of their governing institutions. The mounting evidence of this linkage around the world must drive a revolution in the way that we administer foreign assistance.
Stephen Krasner is a former director of CDDRL, former deputy director of FSI, an FSI senior fellow, and the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations at Stanford University.
Between 2004-2006, he served as the Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department. While at the State Department, Krasner was a driving force behind foreign assistance reform designed to more effectively target American foreign aid. He was also involved in activities related to the promotion of good governance and democratic institutions around the world.
At CDDRL, Krasner is the coordinator of the Program on Sovereignty. His work has dealt primarily with sovereignty, American foreign policy, and the political determinants of international economic relations. Before coming to Stanford in 1981 he taught at Harvard University and UCLA. At Stanford, he was chair of the political science department from 1984 to 1991, and he served as the editor of International Organization from 1986 to 1992.
He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (1987-88) and at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2000-2001). In 2002 he served as director for governance and development at the National Security Council. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
His major publications include Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investment and American Foreign Policy (1978), Structural Conflict: The Third World Against Global Liberalism (1985), and Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (1999). Publications he has edited include International Regimes (1983), Exploration and Contestation in the Study of World Politics (co-editor, 1999), and Problematic Sovereignty: Contested Rules and Political Possibilities (2001). He received a BA in history from Cornell University, an MA in international affairs from Columbia University and a PhD in political science from Harvard.
CISAC Conference Room
CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Stephen Krasner is the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations. A former director of CDDRL, Krasner is also an FSI senior fellow, and a fellow of the Hoover Institution.
From February 2005 to April 2007 he served as the Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department. While at the State Department, Krasner was a driving force behind foreign assistance reform designed to more effectively target American foreign aid. He was also involved in activities related to the promotion of good governance and democratic institutions around the world.
At CDDRL, Krasner was the coordinator of the Program on Sovereignty. His work has dealt primarily with sovereignty, American foreign policy, and the political determinants of international economic relations. Before coming to Stanford in 1981 he taught at Harvard University and UCLA. At Stanford, he was chair of the political science department from 1984 to 1991, and he served as the editor of International Organization from 1986 to 1992.
He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (1987-88) and at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2000-2001). In 2002 he served as director for governance and development at the National Security Council. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
His major publications include Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investment and American Foreign Policy (1978), Structural Conflict: The Third World Against Global Liberalism (1985), Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (1999), and How to Make Love to a Despot (2020). Publications he has edited include International Regimes (1983), Exploration and Contestation in the Study of World Politics (co-editor, 1999), Problematic Sovereignty: Contested Rules and Political Possibilities (2001), and Power, the State, and Sovereignty: Essays on International Relations (2009). He received a BA in history from Cornell University, an MA in international affairs from Columbia University and a PhD in political science from Harvard.
The purpose of this conference is to review and rethink the collective knowledge on the theory and practice of democratization and foreign democratic assistance. Some of the main topics of review and discussion include the paths and conditions for democratic transitions; rules and procedures for democratic consolidations; guidelines for foreign assistance for democratic promotion and consolidation.
The conference will gather 30 scholars working at the forefront of the theoretical and empirical research on the subject.
The conference is co-sponsored by the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law and the National Academy of Sciences.
Oksenberg Conference Room
Encina Hall
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Michael McFaul is the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in Political Science, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, all at Stanford University. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995 and served as FSI Director from 2015 to 2025. He is also an international affairs analyst for MSNOW.
McFaul served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014).
McFaul has authored ten books and edited several others, including, most recently, Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder, as well as From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia, (a New York Times bestseller) Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should, How We Can; and Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin.
He is a recipient of numerous awards, including an honorary PhD from Montana State University; the Order for Merits to Lithuania from President Gitanas Nausea of Lithuania; Order of Merit of Third Degree from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, and the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Stanford University. In 2015, he was the Distinguished Mingde Faculty Fellow at the Stanford Center at Peking University.
McFaul was born and raised in Montana. He received his B.A. in International Relations and Slavic Languages and his M.A. in Soviet and East European Studies from Stanford University in 1986. As a Rhodes Scholar, he completed his D. Phil. in International Relations at Oxford University in 1991.
CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C147
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
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.
Department of Political Science
Encina Hall
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6044
Professor Karl has published widely on comparative politics and international relations, with special emphasis on the politics of oil-exporting countries, transitions to democracy, problems of inequality, the global politics of human rights, and the resolution of civil wars. Her works on oil, human rights and democracy include The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro-States (University of California Press, 1998), honored as one of the two best books on Latin America by the Latin American Studies Association, the Bottom of the Barrel: Africa's Oil Boom and the Poor (2004 with Ian Gary), the forthcoming New and Old Oil Wars (with Mary Kaldor and Yahia Said), and the forthcoming Overcoming the Resource Curse (with Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs et al). She has also co-authored Limits of Competition (MIT Press, 1996), winner of the Twelve Stars Environmental Prize from the European Community. Karl has published extensively on comparative democratization, ending civil wars in Central America, and political economy. She has conducted field research throughout Latin America, West Africa and Eastern Europe. Her work has been translated into 15 languages.
Karl has a strong interest in U.S. foreign policy and has prepared expert testimony for the U.S. Congress, the Supreme Court, and the United Nations. She served as an advisor to chief U.N. peace negotiators in El Salvador and Guatemala and monitored elections for the United Nations. She accompanied numerous congressional delegations to Central America, lectured frequently before officials of the Department of State, Defense, and the Agency for International Development, and served as an adviser to the Chairman of the House Sub-Committee on Western Hemisphere Affairs of the United States Congress. Karl appears frequently in national and local media. Her most recent opinion piece was published in 25 countries.
Karl has been an expert witness in major human rights and war crimes trials in the United States that have set important legal precedents, most notably the first jury verdict in U.S. history against military commanders for murder and torture under the doctrine of command responsibility and the first jury verdict in U.S. history finding commanders responsible for "crimes against humanity" under the doctrine of command responsibility. In January 2006, her testimony formed the basis for a landmark victory for human rights on the statute of limitations issue. Her testimonies regarding political asylum have been presented to the U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. Circuit courts. She has written over 250 affidavits for political asylum, and she has prepared testimony for the U.S. Attorney General on the extension of temporary protected status for Salvadorans in the United States and the conditions of unaccompanied minors in U.S. custody. As a result of her human rights work, she received the Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa from the University of San Francisco in 2005.
Professor Karl has been recognized for "exceptional teaching throughout her career," resulting in her appointment as the William R. and Gretchen Kimball University Fellowship. She has also won the Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching (1989), the Allan V. Cox Medal for Faculty Excellence Fostering Undergraduate Research (1994), and the Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Graduate and Undergraduate Teaching (1997), the University's highest academic prize. Karl served as director of Stanford's Center for Latin American Studies from 1990-2001, was praised by the president of Stanford for elevating the Center for Latin American Studies to "unprecedented levels of intelligent, dynamic, cross-disciplinary activity and public service in literature, arts, social sciences, and professions." In 1997 she was awarded the Rio Branco Prize by the President of Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, in recognition for her service in fostering academic relations between the United States and Latin America.
FSI
Stanford University
Encina Hall C140
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
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.