Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is housed in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Read the article in the December 2023 issue of Stanford Magazine.
Beatriz Magaloni can tell you which criminal justice reforms make communities safer in Mexico and beyond.
When Stanford University researchers, including Professors Pascaline Dupas and Marcel Fafchamps, set out to test a new way of assessing relative poverty, applying a peer-ranking methodology they devised to data from a large metropolis in Côte d’Ivoire and rural Indonesia, their method worked—in some ways better than other poverty measures.
Read the full article from the Stanford King Center on Global Development here.
Multi-year datasets from the King Center’s African Urbanization and Development Research Initiative continue to inform research and policy insights in Ethiopia and Côte d’Ivoire.
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Ukraine’s 17th Prime Minister (August 2019 – March 2020). In just 5 months Mr. Honcharuk initiated important changes that other Ukrainian politicians had not dared to do for years (launched of large and small privatization processes, started of land market implementation, conducted Naftogaz unbundling, started combating shade markets –– illegal gambling houses and petrol stations were closed, launched of Anti-Raider (illegal seizure of business or property) Office that would react within just 24 hours to any cases of such illegal seizure, etc).
Before he served as a Deputy Head of the Presidential Office of Ukraine and was a member of the National Reforms Council under the President of Ukraine. Previously for more than ten years, Mr. Honcharuk has been working in the legal sphere. He has established a reputation as a strong professional and qualified specialist. Mr. Honcharuk is also known as a strong fighter for business community rights. 2005-2008, he worked as a lawyer at PRIOR-Invest investment company and later on headed its legal department. During 2008-2015, he worked as an arbitration manager and managing partner at Constructive Lawyers, a law firm he had founded, which provided legal services in the field of investment and financing real estate construction.
From 2015-2019, Oleksiy Honcharuk headed Better Regulation Delivery Office non-governmental organization (BRDO). Among his achievements as the head of the BRDO was the cancellation of around 1000 Government acts and adoption of more than 50 decisions, facilitating activity of business in Ukraine. Oleksiy Honcharuk also served as an external advisor to the First Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine.
Oleksiy Honcharuk has a degree in law from Interregional Academy of Personal Management and in Public Administration from National Academy for Public Administration under the President of Ukraine. He was born on July 7, 1984, in Zhmerynka, Vinnytsia region.
Please join us in congratulating Beatriz Magaloni, professor of political science, FSI senior fellow, and faculty director of the Program on Poverty, Violence & Governance, winner of the 2021 Heinz I. Eulau Award for the best article published in American Political Science Review!
In this award-winning article entitled “Killing in the Slums: Social Order, Criminal Governance and Police Violence in Rio de Janeiro," Professor Magaloni, Edgar Franco-Vivanco, and Vanessa Melo explore the conditions that allow criminal organizations to establish local governance structures and the mechanisms that enable the police to regain territorial control and legitimacy.
The article finds that in territories reigned by criminal orders, police have to gain legitimacy in the eyes of the community and emerge as the sole embodiment of coercive force and emerge as the legitimate embodiment of physical force. But this is not always easy. For instance, when criminal rule effectively provides local security and public goods, the state will have a hard time gaining territorial control. Why? Because residents often feel safer under the authority of drug lords than with the police presence. However, where criminal orders cannot restrain their forces from fighting among themselves and victimizing residents, it is significantly easier for the government to regain territorial control and create a legitimate state order. To do so, the state has to constrain violence, monitor and sanction police officers’ abusive behaviors, and bring public justice systems to the poor. Otherwise, the state will likely fail to retake territorial control, allowing criminal orders to prevail.
To read more, check out the article here.
Congratulations, Professor Magaloni, on this high honor!
The award-winning article is entitled “Killing in the Slums: Social Order, Criminal Governance and Police Violence in Rio de Janeiro.” Professor Magaloni coauthored the article with Edgar Franco-Vivanco, who earned his Ph.D. from Stanford and is now at the University of Michigan; and with Vanessa Melo, a graduate student in Anthropology at UCLA.
Along with being a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Saumitra Jha is an associate professor of political economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and convenes the Stanford Conflict and Polarization Lab.
Jha’s research has been published in leading journals in economics and political science, including Econometrica, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the American Political Science Review and the Journal of Development Economics, and he serves on a number of editorial boards. His research on ethnic tolerance has been recognized with the Michael Wallerstein Award for best published article in Political Economy from the American Political Science Association in 2014 and his co-authored research on heroes with the Oliver Williamson Award for best paper by the Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics in 2020. Jha was honored to receive the Teacher of the Year Award, voted by the students of the Stanford MSx Program in 2020.
Saum holds a BA from Williams College, master’s degrees in economics and mathematics from the University of Cambridge, and a PhD in economics from Stanford University. Prior to rejoining Stanford as a faculty member, he was an Academy Scholar at Harvard University. He has been a fellow of the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance and the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton University, and at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. Jha has consulted on economic and political risk issues for the United Nations/WTO, the World Bank, government agencies, and for private firms.
Jerry Kaplan is widely known as an Artificial Intelligence expert, serial entrepreneur, technical innovator, educator, bestselling author, and futurist.
A renowned Silicon Valley veteran, Jerry Kaplan founded several storied technology companies over his 35-year career, two of which became public companies. Kaplan may be best known for his key role in defining the tablet computer industry as the founding CEO of GO Corporation in 1987. Prior to GO, Kaplan co-founded Teknowledge, Inc., one of the first Artificial Intelligence companies to commercialize Expert Systems, which went public in 1986. In 1994, Kaplan co-founded Onsale, Inc., the world's first Internet auction website, which went public in 1997. In 2004, he pioneered the emerging market for social games by starting Winster.com, where he served as CEO for eight years.
Jerry Kaplan is a former Lecturer and Research Affiliate at CDDRL, a Visiting Lecturer in Computer Science, and a Fellow at the Center for Legal Informatics at Stanford University Law School. His research and teaching focusses on the social and economic Impact of Artificial Intelligence. He is an inventor on more than a dozen patents, and has published over twenty refereed papers in academic journals and conference proceedings. Kaplan holds a PhD in Computer and Information Science from the University of Pennsylvania, and a BA in History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Chicago.
Jerry Kaplan is the author of three books, including the best-selling classic "Startup: A Silicon Valley Adventure" (Houghton-Mifflin). Selected by Business Week as one of the top ten business books of 1995, Startup was optioned to Sony Pictures. "Humans Need Not Apply: A Guide to Wealth and Work in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” (Yale University Press) was honored by The Economist as one of the top ten science and technology books of 2015. His latest book, "Artificial Intelligence: What Everyone Needs to Know" (Oxford University Press) was a 2016 Amazon new release #1 best seller in Artificial Intelligence.
Jerry Kaplan has been profiled in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Business Week, Red Herring, and Upside. He is a frequent commentary contributor to major newspapers and magazines. He received the 1998 Ernst & Young Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year Award, Northern California; served on the Governor's Electronic Commerce Advisory Council Member under Pete Wilson, Governor of California (1999); and received an Honorary Doctorate of Business Administration from California International Business University, San Diego, California (2004).
This paper examines why governments in underdeveloped countries systematically pursue policies that prevent long-term economic growth. Focusing on the design and implementation of Mexico's massive land redistribution program, we argue that governments do so to improve their chances of political survival. Mexico’s incumbent PRI regime gave peasants communal property under a restrictive and inefficient property rights regime. This form of land reform created dependence upon the regime for survival. We find empirical support for this hypothesis using data from a panel of Mexican states from 1917-1992. Land distribution was higher during election years and where the threat of rural unrest was greater. We also show that economic growth and modernization eroded PRI support over the long term, and, further, that PRI support eroded more slowly in states receiving greater levels of land. Inefficient land redistribution therefore served the PRI’s electoral interests, generating a loyal political clientele; and it contributed to political stability. Nonetheless, this policy carried steep costs: land reform substantially depressed long-term economic growth. These findings hold across various model specifications and instrumental variables estimation.
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Following in the footsteps of last year’s international conference on violence and policing in Latin American and U.S. Cities, on April 28th and 29th of 2015, the Poverty Goverance and Violence Lab (PovGov) at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) turned Encina Hall at the Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies (FSI) into a dynamic, instructive and stimulating discussion platform. The exchange of experiences, expertise and ideals that flourished within this space helped create a “dialogue for action,” as speakers and participants explored the various dimensions of youth and criminal violence in Mexico, Brazil and the United States, while advocating for the importance of opening up adequate pathways to hope. The event was sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies, The Bill Lane Center for the America West, The Mexico Initiative at FSI, and the Center on International Security and Cooperation.
Poverty relief programs are shaped by politics. The particular design that social programs take is, to a large extent, determined by the existing institutional constraints and politicians' imperative to win elections. The "Political Logic of Poverty Relief" places elections and institutional design at the core of poverty alleviation. The authors develop a theory with applications to Mexico about how elections shape social programs aimed at aiding the poor. Would political parties possess incentives to target the poor with transfers aimed at poverty alleviation, or would they instead give these to their supporters? Would politicians rely on the distribution of particularistic benefits rather than public goods? The authors assess the welfare effects of social programs in Mexico and whether voters reward politicians for targeted property alleviation programs. The book provides a new interpretation of the role of cash transfers and poverty relief assistance in the development of welfare state institutions.
To purchase the book, click here.
Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) is proud to announce our four incoming fellows who will be joining us in the 2016-2017 academic year to develop their research, engage with faculty and tap into our diverse scholarly community.
The pre- and postdoctoral program will provide fellows the time to focus on research and data analysis as they work to finalize and publish their dissertation research, while connecting with resident faculty and research staff at CDDRL.
Fellows will present their research during our weekly research seminar series and an array of scholarly events and conferences.
Topics of the incoming cohort include electoral fraud in Russia, how the elite class impacts state power in China, the role of emotions in support for democracy in Zimbabwe, and market institutions in Nigeria.
Learn more in the Q&A below.
CDDRL Pre-Doctoral Fellow
Hometown: Tomsk, Russia
Academic Institution: Northwestern University
Discipline and expected date of graduation: Sociology, April 2017
Research Interests: authoritarianism, state capacity, social policy, civil society, trust, Russia and post-communist countries
Dissertation Title: The State that Betrays the Trust: Infrastructural State Power, Public Sector Organizations, and Authoritarian Resilience in Putin's Russia
What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/post-doctoral program? I study the connection between state capacity and political regimes - the topic that is at the core of many research initiatives at CDDRL. Learning more about this work and receiving feedback for my dissertation will enrich and sharpen my analysis, while helping me to place it into a comparative context. I am looking forward to discussing my work with the faculty who study the post-Soviet region. I also will explore policy implications of my work with the help of policy experts at CDDRL.
What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at the CDDRL? Besides finishing writing my dissertation, I will workshop three working papers to prepare them for publication. The first one argues that Putin's regime used the school system to administer a large-scale electoral fraud in 2012 presidential elections; the second one shows how the networks of social organizations were used by subnational autocrats to strengthen the regime; and the third one will look at the factors that make the abuse of such organizations more difficult in some regions. In addition to these papers I will continue developing my post-graduation research project exploring the relationship between social trust and distrust, institutions, political competition, and democratization.
Fun fact: I have spent 25 years of my life in Siberia, and I can tell you: Chicago winters are worse!
CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow
Hometown: Reading, MA
Academic Institution: Harvard University
Discipline & Graduation Date: Government, Summer 2016
Research interests: political economy of development, private governance, market institutions, Sub-Saharan Africa, survey methods
Dissertation Title: The Politics of Order in Informal Markets: Evidence from Lagos
What attracted you to the CDDRL post-doctoral program? I was attracted to CDDRL largely for its community of scholars. Affiliated faculty work on the political economy of development and medieval and modern market institutions, topics that are tied to my own interests.
What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at the CDDRL? I plan to prepare a book manuscript based on my dissertation, a project that explains variation in the provision of pro-trade institutions in private market organizations through the study of physical marketplaces in Nigeria. In addition, I will continue to remotely manage an on-going project in Nigeria (with Meredith Startz) investigating whether reputation alleviates contracting frictions. I also plan to work on submitting to journals a few working papers, including one on the politics of non-compliance with polio vaccination in Nigeria (with Jonathan Phillips and Leah Rosenzweig).
Fun fact: Contrary to popular belief, not all cheese is vegetarian. I have a website to help people determine if a cheese is vegetarian or not: IsThisCheeseVegetarian.com.
CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow
Hometown: Oakland, California
Academic Institution: University of California, Berkeley
Discipline & Graduation Date: Political Science, Summer 2016
Research Interests: Governance, rule of law, state building, authoritarian politics, Chinese politics
Dissertation Title: The Social Origins of State Power: Democratic Institutions and Local Elites in China
What attracted you to CDDRL? The Center has a fantastic community of scholars and practitioners who work on the areas that I'm interested in, including governance and the rule of law. I'm excited to learn from the CDDRL community and participate in the Center's events. The fellowship also provides me with valuable time to finish my book manuscript before I start teaching.
What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at the CDDRL? While at CDDRL, I plan to prepare my book manuscript and to work on some related projects on local elites and state power in China and elsewhere.
Fun fact: I grew up on an organic farm in Vermont.
CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow
Hometown: Saratoga, CA
Academic Institution: Columbia University
Discipline & Graduation Date: Political Science (Comparative Politics, Methods), May 2016 (defense), Oct 2016 (degree conferral)
Research Interests: political violence, political economy of development, autocratic persistence, democratization, protest, electoral violence
Dissertation Title: The Psychology of Repression and Dissent in Autocracy
What attracted you to the CDDRL post-doctoral program? As a graduate of the CISAC honors program when I was an undergraduate at Stanford, I have seen first-hand how intellectually stimulating, collaborative, and plugged into policy CDDRL is. While at the center I will be revising my dissertation work on the political psychology of participation in pro-democracy movements in Zimbabwe for submission as a book manuscript, and moving forward new projects that similarly seek to understand how different forms of violence by non-state actors affects citizens' preferences and decision-making. Because of its deep bench of experts on autocracy, narco-trafficking, and insurgency, CDDRL will add enormous value to these projects.
What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at the CDDRL? During my fellowship year, my primary goal is to revise my research on Zimbabwe into a book manuscript. I defended my dissertation as three stand-alone articles, including two experiments showing that emotions influence whether opposition supporters in Zimbabwe express their pro-democracy preferences and a descriptive paper showing that repression has a larger effect on the behavior of the poor. To prepare the book manuscript during my fellowship, I will bring in additional quantitative and qualitative descriptive evidence and tie the three papers together into a cohesive argument about how opposition supporters make decisions about participation in protest, why emotions have such a large effect on these decisions, and how this affects variation across individuals and the strategic choices of autocrats and activists.
Fun fact: During my fieldwork I took an overnight train from Victoria Falls to a southern city in Zimbabwe and hitch-hiked into a national park. It got a little nerve-wracking when night started to fall, but ended with an invitation to a barbecue!
