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Join us for a conversation on Cuba led by scholars and professionals within and outside Cuba who will discuss contemporary Cuba from a variety of perspectives. Going beyond the media headlines and coverage of the July 11th protest, the panelists will discuss Cuba from a longer-term perspective primarily focused on the early 21st century and considering US-Cuban relations, Cuba in the US media, freedom of academic, literary, and artistic expression in Cuba, as well as other relevant topics concerning Cuba’s present and future.

Speakers: Ernesto Domínguez , Darsi Fernández, Sachie Fernández, and Mikael Wolfe.
 

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Please feel free to send your questions in the comments section on the Youtube page and we will read them to the panelists. 

Sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies, CDDRL, and the FSI Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Task Force.

Panel Discussions
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Scholars have long argued that leaders manipulate foreign policy, sometimes even initiating wars in order to enhance their domestic political position. But diversionary wars are relatively rare given the high costs of conflict. In this project, we examine data from major Syrian daily newspapers over a 30-year period (1987–2018) to explore how autocratic regimes use diversionary rhetoric. We find that before the 2011 Arab Uprisings, Syria's state-controlled media concentrated on Israel as a security and political threat. Emphasis on Israel as a diversionary threat decreased during peace negotiations between Syria and Israel, probably in a bid to prepare the Syrian public for normalization of bilateral relations. After 2011, scrutiny of Israel—and other long-standing topics of state discourse—was displaced by discussion of foreign plots and conspiracies against the Syrian state. Our analysis illustrates how authoritarian regimes make use of diversionary strategies as well as how political shocks generate discontinuities in authoritarian rhetoric.

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Political Science Research and Methods
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Lisa Blaydes
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Issue 4
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 Register for System Error, Live!

This event will be held outside on Stanford's campus. In accordance with Santa Clara County Public Health, masks are encouraged to be worn by all at crowded outdoor events.

Join Profs. Rob Reich, Mehran Sahami, and Jeremy Weinstein — the authors of System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot — for a discussion hosted by Professor Michael McFaul, director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. The operating system of Big Tech is broken, and this panel discussion will explore the path to a reboot. Plus, it will also allow you experience Professor Sahami’s famous tradition of throwing candy into the audience!

A forward-thinking manifesto from three Stanford professors — experts who have worked at ground zero of the tech revolution for decades — System Error reveals how Big Tech’s obsession with optimization and efficiency has sacrificed fundamental human values and demands that we change course to renew our democracy and save ourselves.

Armed with an understanding of how technologists think and exercise their power, these three Stanford professors—a philosopher working at the intersection of tech and ethics, the director of the undergraduate computer science program who was also an early Google engineer, and a political scientist who served under Barack Obama—reveal how we can hold that power to account. Troubled by the values that permeate the university and Silicon Valley, these professors worked together to chart a new path forward, creating a popular course to transform how tomorrow’s technologists might better approach their profession. Now, as the dominance of Big Tech becomes an explosive societal conundrum, join us as they share their provocative insights and concrete solutions to help everyone understand what is happening, what is at stake, and what we can do to control technology instead of letting it control us.

Books will be available for purchase at the event, and the authors will be signing copies as well.

This event is hosted by Professor Michael McFaul, director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and it is co-sponsored by the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society, the Stanford School of Engineering, and the Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences.

Rob Reich | FSI Affiliate
Mehran Sahami | Associate Chair for Education, Computer Science Department Associate Chair for Education, Computer Science Department
Jeremy Weinstein | FSI Senior Fellow at CDDRL
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What has happened to digital activism in the 10 years since the Arab Spring? Writer, activist, and 2016 Draper Hills Summer Fellow Abdelrahman Mansour divides the answer to this question into four sections. First, he provides a short history of digital activism before and during the Arab Spring in 2011. Second, he outlines three major changes to the political environment that have affected online activism since 2013. Third, he provides seven observations about how digital activism has changed between 2013 and 2021. Finally, he provides some hopeful predictions about the way forward.

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Encina Hall

616 Jane Stanford Way

Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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CDDRL Visiting Scholar, 2021-23
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Marisa Kellam researches the quality of democracy with a focus on Latin America and a growing interest in East Asia. Her research links institutional analysis to various governance outcomes in democracies along three lines of inquiry: political parties and coalitional politics; mass electoral behavior and party system change; and democratic accountability and media freedom. She has published her research in various peer-reviewed journals, including The British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Party Politics, Electoral Studies, and Political Communication. Originally from Santa Rosa, California, Marisa Kellam earned her Ph.D. in political science from UCLA and spent several years as an assistant professor at Texas A&M University. Since 2013, she has been Associate Professor at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan, where she also served as Director of the English-based degree programs for the School of Political Science & Economics. Currently she is a steering committee member for the V-Dem Regional Center for East Asia.

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The Project on Middle East Political Science partnered with Stanford University’s Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and its Global Digital Policy Incubator for an innovative two week online seminar to explore the issues surrounding digital activism and authoritarianism. This workshop was built upon more than a decade of our collaboration on issues related to the internet and politics in the Middle East, beginning in 2011 with a series of workshops in the “Blogs and Bullets” project supported by the United States Institute for Peace and the PeaceTech Lab. This new collaboration brought together more than a dozen scholars and practitioners with deep experience in digital policy and activism, some focused on the Middle East and others offering a global and comparative perspective. POMEPS STUDIES 43 collects essays from that workshop, shaped by two weeks of public and private discussion.
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Larry Diamond
Eileen Donahoe

Encina Hall, C143
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

650.723.9959
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Nora Sulots is a creative digital storyteller with over a decade of experience helping mission-driven organizations amplify their impact through digital strategy, brand development, and audience engagement. She currently serves as Communications Manager at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), where she leads the design, creation, development, and execution of the center’s communication strategy to promote research, events, and scholarship.

Before joining Stanford, Nora spent eight years at the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund in San Francisco, where she served as Senior Digital Marketing Manager. In that role, she led multi-channel campaigns across email, social media, and web platforms, expanding the organization’s reach, strengthening donor engagement, and building data-driven marketing programs to support organizational goals. Throughout her career, she has consistently focused on elevating institutional storytelling and fostering community connections.

Nora holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communication with an emphasis in media studies from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA. She is passionate about Oxford commas, karaoke, and the new and exciting ways technology can bring people together.

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In a webinar dated, February 12, 2021, a panel of Stanford University scholars shared their reflections on the legacy of the January 25, 2011 Uprising in Egypt. Marking the 10-year anniversary of the uprising and the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, the panel examined the trajectory of authoritarianism in the country over the past decade. Moderated by ARD Associate-Director Hesham Sallam, the panel included former CDDRL Visiting Scholar Nancy Okail, Stanford Professor of History Emeritus Joel Beinin, and CDDRL Senior Research Scholar Amr Hamzawy. The panelists addressed a variety questions including: How have political developments in Egypt and elsewhere in recent years informed our understanding of the January 25 Uprising and its significance? In what ways have authoritarian institutions adapted in the aftermath of the 2011 uprising and how have they shaped the prospects for political change and/or stability? Where are the sites of political contestation and resistance in today’s Egypt?


 

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Joel Beinin Nancy Okail Amr Hamzawy Hesham Sallam
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ABSTRACT 

This talk is based on the speakers’ recently published edited volume The Unfinished Arab Spring: Micro-Dynamics of Revolts between Change and Continuity. Adopting an original analytical approach in explaining various dynamics at work behind the Arab revolts and giving voice to local dynamics and legacies rather than concentrating on debates about paradigms, we highlight micro-perspectives of change and resistance as well as of contentious politics that are often marginalized and left unexplored in favor of macro-analyses. First, we re-examine the stories of the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Morocco and Algeria through diverse and novel perspectives, looking at factors that have not yet been sufficiently underlined but carry explanatory power for what has occurred. Second, rather than focusing on macro-comparative regional trends – however useful they might be – we focus on the particularities of each country, highlighting distinctive micro-dynamics of change and continuity. ​

SPEAKERS BIO

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Fatima el Issawi
Fatima el Issawi is a Reader in Journalism and Media Studies at the University of Essex. Her research focuses on the intersection between media, politics and conflicts in transitional contexts to democracy in North Africa. She is the Principal Investigator for the research project “Media and Transitions to Democracy: Journalistic Practices in Communicating Conflicts- the Arab Spring” funded by the British Academy Sustainable Development Programme, looking at media’s impact on communicating political conflicts in post uprisings in North Africa. Since 2012, el Issawi has been leading empirical comparative research projects on the interplay between media and political change, funded by Open Society Foundation and the Middle East Centre/LSE, covering Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Libya and Algeria. El Issawi’s expertise crosses journalism, public communication, policy and academia. She has over fifteen years of experience as international correspondent in conflict zones in the MENA region. She is the author of “Arab National Media and Political Change” investigating the complex intersections between traditional journalists and politics in uncertain times of transitions to democracy.

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Francesco Cavatorta
Francesco Cavatorta is full professor of political science and director of the Centre Interdisciplinaire de Recherche sur l’Afrique et le Moyen Orient (CIRAM) at Laval University, Quebec, Canada. His research focuses on the dynamics of authoritarianism and democratization in the Middle East and North Africa. His current research projects deal with party politics and the role of political parties in the region. He has published numerous journal articles and books.

Online, via Zoom: REGISTER

Fatima el Issawi University of Essex
Francesco Cavatorta Laval University
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The emergence of a global digital ecosystem has been a boon for global communication and the democratization of the means of distributing information. The internet, and the social media platforms and web applications running on it, have been used to mobilize pro-democracy protests and give members of marginalized communities a chance to share their voices with the world. However, more recently, we have also seen this technology used to spread propaganda and misinformation, interfere in election campaigns, expose individuals to harassment and abuse, and stir up confusion, animosity and sometimes violence in societies. Even seemingly innocuous digital technologies, such as ranking algorithms on entertainment websites, can have the effect of stifling diversity by failing to reliably promote content from underrepresented groups. At times, it can seem as if technologies that were intended to help people learn and communicate have been irreparably corrupted. It is easy to say that governments should step in to control this space and prevent further harms, but part of what helped the internet grow and thrive was its lack of heavy regulation, which encouraged openness and innovation. However, the absence of oversight has allowed dysfunction to spread, as malign actors manipulate digital technology for their own ends without fear of the consequences. It has also allowed unprecedented power to be concentrated in the hands of private technology companies, and these giants to act as de facto regulators with little meaningful accountability. So, who should be in charge of reversing the troubling developments in our global digital spaces? And what, if anything, can be done to let society keep reaping the benefits of these technologies, while protecting it against the risks?

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Eileen Donahoe
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