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Olena Nikolayenko (Ph.D. Toronto) is a Visiting Postdoctoral Scholar and the recepient of post-doctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Her research interests include comparative democratization, public opinion, social movements, youth, and corruption. In her dissertation, she analyzed political support among the first post-Soviet generation grown up without any direct experience with communism in Russia and Ukraine. Her current research examines why some youth movements are more successful than others in applying methods of nonviolent resistance to mobilize the population in non-democratic regimes. She has recently conducted fieldwork in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Serbia, and Ukraine.

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Visiting Scholar 2007-2009
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Olena Nikolayenko is a recepient of the 2007-2009 post-doctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Her research interests include comparative democratization, public opinion, social movements, youth, and corruption. In her dissertation, she analyzed political support among the first post-Soviet generation grown up without any direct experience with communism in Russia and Ukraine. She has a PhD from the University of Toronto, Canada.

At CDDRL, she examined why some youth movements are more successful than others in applying methods of nonviolent resistance to mobilize the population in non-democratic regimes. She has recently conducted fieldwork in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Serbia, and Ukraine.

Selected Publications

  • 2008. "Contextual Effects on Historical Memory: Soviet Nostalgia among Post-Soviet Adolescents." Communist and Post-Communist Studies 41(2): 243-259
  • 2008. "Life-Cycle, Generational and Period Effects on Protest Potential in Yeltsin's Russia." Canadian Journal of Political Science 41(2): 437-460
  • 2007. "The Revolt of the Post-Soviet Generation: Youth Movements in Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine." Comparative Politics 39(2): 169-188
  •  2007. "Web Cartoons in a Closed Society: Animal Farm as an Allegory of Belarus." PS: Political Science and Politics 40(2): 307-310
  • 2004. "Press Freedom during the 1994 and 1999 Presidential Elections in Ukraine: A Reverse Wave?" Europe-Asia Studies 56(5): 661-686
Olena Nikolayenko Visiting Scholar Speaker CDDRL
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James Traub is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, where he has worked since 1998. From 1994 to 1997, he was a staff writer for The New Yorker. He has also written for The New York Review of Books, Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic and elsewhere. His articles have been widely reprinted and anthologized. He has written extensively about international affairs and especially the United Nations. In recent years, he has reported from Iran, Iraq, Sierra Leone, East Timor, Vietnam, India, Kosovo and Haiti. He has also written often about national politics and urban affairs, including education, immigration, race, poverty and crime.

Most recently, Traub authored the critically acclaimed book, The Best Intentions: Kofi Annan and the UN in the Era of American World Power. His previous books include, The Devil's Playground: A Century of Pleasure and Profit in Times Square, which was published in 2004, and City On A Hill, a book on open admissions at City College that was published in 1994 and won the Sidney Hillman Award for nonfiction. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

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James Traub Writer Speaker New York Times Magazine
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Do external factors facilitate or hamper domestic democratic development? Do international actors influence the development of greater civil and political freedom, democratic accountability, equality, responsiveness and the rule of law in domestic systems? How should we conceptualize, identify and evaluate the extent and nature of international influence?

These are some of the complex questions that this volume approaches. Using new theoretical insights and empirical data, the contributors develop a model to analyze the transitional processes of Romania, Turkey, Serbia and Ukraine. In developing this argument, the book examines:

  • the adoption, implementation and internalization of the rule of law
  • the rule of law as a central dimension of liberal and substantive democracy
  • the interaction between external and domestic structures and agents

Offering a different stance from most of the current literature on the subject, International Actors, Democratization and the Rule of Law makes an important contribution to our knowledge of the international dimensions of democratization. This book will be of importance to scholars, students and policy-makers with an interest in the rule of law, international relations theory and comparative politics.

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“Emerging democracies must demonstrate that they can solve governance problems and meet citizens’ expectations for freedom, justice, a better life, and a fairer society.”

If the big global story of the 1980s and 1990s was the remarkable expansion of democracy, the bad news of this decade is that democracy is slipping into recession. In the two decades following the Portuguese revolution in 1974, the number of democracies tripled (from 40 to 120) and the percentage of the world’s states that are at least electoral democracies more than doubled (to about 60 percent). Since the late 1990s however, there has been little if any net progress in democracy. To be sure, significant new transitions to democracy took place in countries like Mexico, Indonesia, Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine. But globally, the democratic wave has been neutralized and is now at risk of being overtaken by an authoritarian undertow, which has extinguished democracy in such states as Pakistan, Russia, Nigeria, Venezuela, Bangladesh and Kenya. In fact, two-thirds (15) of all the reversals of democracy (23) since 1974 have taken place just in the last eight years, since the October 1999 military coup in Pakistan.

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Fortunately, breakdowns of democracy do not always persist for long. Pakistan held remarkably vibrant parliamentary elections in February 2008, in which the party of the autocratic, unelected president, Pervez Musharraf, was crushed. Should the legitimate parties succeed in curtailing Musharraf’s power or forcing him from office, a transition back to democracy could be completed. Thailand has made a similar cycle of return, Bangladesh figures to do so this year, and Nepal is trying to do so. The remote mountain kingdom of Bhutan has quickly gone from absolute to constitutional monarchy, and Mauritania, a desert-poor Muslim-majority country, has also made a democratic transition. But many of the new democracies of recent decades are shallow and in trouble. And freedom has been lurching backwards. By the ratings of Freedom House, last year was the worst year for freedom since the end of the Cold War, with 38 countries declining in their levels of political rights and civil liberties and only 10 improving.

Two other negative trends are important to note. One is the implosion of democratic openings in the Arab world. Under pressure from the George W. Bush administration beginning in 2003, several authoritarian Arab regimes liberalized political life and held competitive, multiparty elections. Then, Islamist political forces made dramatic gains in Egypt and Lebanon and won a majority of seats in Palestine and Iraq — and suddenly the Bush Administration got cold feet. Arab democrats who had surfaced and mobilized felt abandoned and betrayed. The liberal secular politician Ayman Nour, who had the temerity to challenge President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt’s first contested presidential election, languishes in prison three years later. The country’s political opening is now frozen, while more than a billion dollars in American aid continues to flow to the regime.

The second negative trend is that authoritarian states have, unfortunately, learned some of the lessons of democratic breakthroughs of the past decade, particularly the color revolutions that brought down neocommunist autocracies in Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan. As a result, they have closed political space, swallowed up or arrested independent media, crushed independent political opposition, sabotaged or shut down innovative uses of the Internet, and sought to block or sever external flows of democratic assistance. Vladimir Putin’s Russia (with its sinister cabal of savvy Kremlin “political technologists”) has blazed the trail in this authoritarian pushback, but China, Belarus, Iran, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and other “post” communist and Middle Eastern dictatorships have followed suit. To make matters worse, China and Russia have drawn together with the Central Asian dictatorships in a new club, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, to formalize and advance their authoritarian pushback.

To renew democratic progress in the world, we must understand the reasons for the democratic recession. Authoritarian learning is one. Another has been the inconsistent and often unilateralist policies of the United States. Although President Bush has done much to put democracy promotion at the center of American foreign policy and has substantially increased funding for U.S. democracy assistance programs, he has also alienated potential allies in the effort to advance democracy globally by associating democracy promotion with the use of (largely unilateral) force, as in Iraq; by promoting democracy with a tone that was often self-righteous and a style that was too often poorly coordinated with our democratic allies; and then by failing to sustain pressure for democratic change when the going got rough in the Middle East.

Structural factors have also driven the recession of democracy. One has had to do with the global political economy. As the price of oil has gone up, the prospects for democracy have receded. Russia, Nigeria, and Venezuela have all seen their democracies slip back into authoritarianism as oil prices have skyrocketed, sending huge new infusions of discretionary revenue into the hands of autocratic leaders, which they have used to buy off opponents and strengthen their security apparatuses. In Iran and Azerbaijan, surging oil revenues have shored up authoritarian states that once seemed vulnerable.

A second and more pervasive factor has had to do with the performance of the new democracies. Some new democracies are holding their own (like Mali) and even making progress (like Brazil and Indonesia) in the face of enormous accumulated problems and challenges. But the general reality, even in these countries, is that democracy often does not work for average citizens. Rather, it is blighted by multiple forms of bad governance: abusive police and security forces, domineering local oligarchies, inept and indifferent state bureaucracies, corrupt and pliant judiciaries, and ruling elites who routinely shred the rule of law in the quest to get rich in office. As a result, citizens grow alienated from democracy and become susceptible to the patronage crumbs of corrupt political bosses and the demagogic appeals of authoritarian populists like Putin in Russia and Hugo Chávez in Venezuela.

“If democracies do not work better to contain crime and corruption, generate economic growth, relieve economic inequality, and secure freedom and a rule of law, people will eventually lose faith and turn to authoritarian alternatives.”Before democracy can spread further, it must take deeper root where it has already sprouted. Emerging democracies must demonstrate that they can solve governance problems and meet citizens’ expectations for freedom, justice, a better life, and a fairer society. If democracies do not work better to contain crime and corruption, generate economic growth, relieve economic inequality, and secure freedom and a rule of law, people will eventually lose faith and turn to authoritarian alternatives. Struggling democracies must be consolidated, so that all levels of society become enduringly committed to democracy as the best form of government and to the country’s constitutional norms and restraints. Western governments and international aid donors can assist in this process by making most foreign aid contingent on key principles of good governance: a free press, an independent judiciary, and vigorous, independently led institutions to control corruption. International donors also need to expand their efforts to assist these institutions of horizontal accountability as well as initiatives in civil society that monitor the conduct of government and press for institutional reform.

The only way to stem the democratic recession is to show that democracy really is the best form of government — that it can not only provide political freedom but also improve social justice and human welfare.

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“Should the United States promote democracy around the world?” Stanford alumna Kathleen Brown, a former FSI advisory board member, former Treasurer of the State of California, and current head of public finance (Western region) Goldman Sachs

How are democracy, development, and the rule of law in transitioning societies related? How can they be promoted in the world’s most troubled regions? These were among the provocative issues addressed by faculty from the Freeman Spogli Institute’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, as part of Stanford Day in Los Angeles on January 21, 2006. Panelists included Michael A. McFaul, CDDRL director, associate professor of political science, and senior fellow, the Hoover Institution; Kathryn Stoner, associate director for research and senior research associate at CDDRL; and Larry Diamond, coordinator of CDDRL’s Democracy Program, a Hoover Institution senior fellow, and founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy.

The capstone of a day devoted to “Addressing Global Issues and Sharing Ideas,” the CDDRL panel was attended by more than 850 alumni, Stanford trustees, and supporters as part of the nationwide “Stanford Matters” series. Moderated by Stanford alumna Kathleen Brown, a former FSI Advisory Board member, former treasurer of the State of California, and current head of public finance (western region) Goldman Sachs, the panel looked at some of the toughest trouble spots in the world, including Iraq, Russia, and other parts of the former Soviet Union.

“Should the United States promote democracy around the world?” Brown began by asking Center Director Michael McFaul. “The President of the United States has said that the United States should put the promotion of liberty and freedom around the world as a fundamental policy proposition,” McFaul responded, noting “it is the central policy question in Washington, D.C., today.” It is not a debate between Democrats and Republicans, he continued, but rather between traditional realists, who look at the balance of power, and Wilsonian liberals, who argue that a country’s conduct of global affairs is profoundly affected by whether or not it is a democracy. The American people, McFaul noted, are divided on the issue. In opinion polls, 55 percent of Republicans say we should promote democracy, while 33 percent say no. Among Democrats, only 13 percent answer unequivocally that the United States should promote democracy.

“The President of the United States has said that the United States should put the promotion of liberty and freedom around the world as a fundamental policy proposition, and it is the central policy question in Washington, D.C., today.” CDDRL Director Michael McFaulAsserting that the United States should promote democracy, McFaul offered three major arguments. First is the moral issue—democracies are demonstrably better at constraining the power of the state and providing better lives for their people. Democracies do not commit genocide, nor do they starve their people. Moreover, most people want democracy, opinion polls show. Second are the economic considerations—we benefit from open societies and an open, liberal world trade system, which allows the free flow of goods and capital. Third is the security dimension. Every country that has attacked the United States has been an autocracy; conversely, no democracy has ever attacked us. The transformation of autocracies, including Japan, Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union, has made us safer.

It is plausible to believe that the benefits of transformation in the Middle East will make us more secure, McFaul argued. “It would decrease the threats these states pose for each other, their need for weapons, and the need for U.S. intervention in the region,” he stated. Democratic transformation would also address a root cause of terrorism, as the vast majority of terrorists come from autocratic societies. There are, however, short-term problems, McFaul pointed out. Free elections could lead to radical regimes less friendly to the United States, as they have in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and now in Palestine. U.S. efforts to promote democracy, he noted, can actually produce resistance.

Having advanced a positive case, McFaul asked FSI colleague Stoner-Weiss, “So, how do we promote democracy?” Stoner-Weiss, also an expert on Russia, said it is instructive to see how Russia has fallen off the path to democracy. In 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, it seemed to be an exciting time, rife with opportunity. “Here was an enemy, a major nuclear superpower, turning to democracy,” she stated. Despite initial U.S. enthusiasm, the outcome has not been a consolidated democracy. Russia, under Vladimir Putin, is becoming a more authoritarian state, a cause for concern because it is a nuclear state and a broken state—with rising rates of HIV and unable to secure its borders or control the flow of illegal drugs.

“So can we promote democracy?” Stoner-Weiss asked. The answer is a qualified yes, from Serbia to Georgia, and the Ukraine to Kyrgyzstan. But Russia has 89 divisions, 130 ethnicities, 11 time zones, and is the largest landmass in the world, she noted. Moving from a totalitarian state to a democracy and an open economy is enormously complicated. As Boris Yeltsin said in retiring as president on December 31, 1999, “What we thought would be easy turned out to be very difficult.”

Where is Russia today? It ranks below Cuba on the human development index; it is moving backward on corruption; and its economic development is poor, with 30 percent of the public living on subsistence income. Under Putin’s regime, private media have come under pressure, television is totally stated controlled, elections for regional leaders have been canceled, troops have remained in Chechnya, and Putin has supported controversial new legislation to curb civil liberties and NGO’s operating in Russia.

“How did Russia come to this?” she asked. In retrospect, the power of the president has been too strong. Initial “irrational exuberance” in the United States and Europe about what we could do has given way to apathy. Under Yeltsin, rule was oligarchical and democracy disorganized. Putin came to office promising a “dictatorship of law” to rid the country of corruption. Yet Russia under Putin, who rose through the KGB and never held elective office, has become far less democratic. He has severely curtailed civil liberties. The economy, dependent on oil and natural gas, is not on a path of sustainable growth.

“What can the United States do?” Stoner-Weiss asked. We have emphasized security over democracy, she pointed out, and invested in personal relations with Russia’s leaders, as opposed to investing in political process and institutions. We do have important opportunities, she noted. Russia chairs the G-8 group of major industrial nations this year, providing major opportunities for consultation, and wants to join the World Trade Organization. The United States should advance an institutional framework to help put Russia back on a path to democracy, a rule of law, and more sustainable growth, she argued.

Diamond, an expert on democratic development and regime change, examined U.S. involvement in the Middle East, noting that it is difficult to be optimistic at present. “Democracy is absolutely vital in the battle against terrorism,” he stated. The United States has to drain the swamp of rotten governments, lack of opportunity for participation and the pervasive indignity of human life. “The dilemma we face,” he pointed out, “is getting from here to there in the intractable Middle East.” There is not a single democracy in the Arab Middle East. This is not because of Islam, but rather the authoritarian nature of regimes in the region and the problem of oil.

“Can we promote democracy under these conditions?” Diamond asked. We need to get smart about it, he urged, noting that success depends on the particular context of each country. “If we want to promote democracy, the first rule is to know the country, its language, culture, history, and divisions,” he stated. We need to know, he continued, “who stands to benefit from a democratic transformation and, conversely, who stands to lose?” Rulers of these countries need to allow the space for freedom, for civic and intellectual pluralism, for open societies and meaningful participation. The danger is that there could be one person, one vote, one time. A second rule is that “academic knowledge and political practice must not be compartmentalized.” “To succeed,” Diamond stated, “we need to marry academic theories with concrete knowledge of these countries’ traditions, cultures, practices, and proclivities.”

In the lively question-and-answer session, panelists were asked, “Under what conditions is it appropriate to use force to promote democracy?” McFaul answered that we cannot invade in the name of democracy—we rebuilt Japan in that name but we did not invade that nation. We invaded Iraq in the name of national security. We know how to invade militarily, but still must learn how to build democracy. Effectiveness in the promotion of democracy, Diamond pointed out, requires the exercise of “soft” power—engagement with other societies, linkages with their schools and associations, and offering aid to democratic organizations around the world. Stoner-Weiss concurred, noting that we have used soft power effectively in some parts of the former Soviet Union, notably the Ukraine. People-to-people exchanges definitely help, she added.

To combat Osama bin Laden and the threat of future attacks in the United States, Diamond stated, we must halt the proliferation of nuclear weapons. North Korea and Iran are two of the most important issues on the global agenda. And we have got to improve governance in the Middle East in order to reduce the chances that the states of the region will breed and harbor stateless terrorists. A democratic Iran is in our interest, McFaul emphasized. Saudi Arabia must change as well—the only issue is whether change occurs with evolution or revolution. Democracy, economic development, and the rule of law, McFaul concluded, are inextricably intertwined.

Asked by alumnus and former Stanford trustee Brad Freeman what needs to happen to re-democratize Russia, McFaul pointed out that inequality has been a major issue in Russia—a small portion of the population controls its wealth and resources and, therefore, the political agenda and the use of law. Russia has been ruled by men and needs the rule of institutions, said Stoner-Weiss. We should insist that Putin allow free and fair elections, freedom of the press, and freedom of political expression, and re-focus efforts on developing the institutions of civil society, she stated.

Reform is a generational issue, McFaul emphasized. We need to educate and motivate the young so they can change their country from within. The Stanford Summer Fellows Program, which brought emerging leaders from 28 transitioning countries to Stanford in the program’s inaugural year of 2005, provides an important venue for upcoming generations to meet experienced U.S. leaders and others fighting to build democracies in their own countries. Such exchanges help secure recognition that building support for democracy, sustainable development, and the rule of law is a transnational issue.

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Ray Salvatore Jennings is a practitioner scholar with extensive experience within war to peace transitions in over 20 countries including Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Indonesia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia, Peru, and Sierra Leone. Over the last twenty years, he has served as country director and senior consultant with the United States Institute of Peace, the United Nations, the United States Agency for International Development, the World Bank, and many non-governmental organizations. He has served as a Senior Fellow with the United States Institute of Peace, and as a Public Policy Scholar and an Eastern European Research Scholar with the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. He is currently conducting research with the Stanford University Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law on comparative cases of democratic breakthrough, teaching post-conflict reconstruction and transitional development at Georgetown and Syracuse Universities and is a social development consultant to the World Bank on Middle East and North African affairs. He is the author of numerous articles and is co-authoring a book on democratic breakthrough with Michael McFaul. His media appearances include CNN, CSPAN, NPR and the BBC.

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Hicham Ben Abdallah received his B.A. in Politics in 1985 from Princeton University, and his M.A. in Political Science from Stanford in 1997. His interest is in the politics of the transition from authoritarianism to democracy.

He has lectured in numerous universities and think tanks in North America and Europe. His work for the advancement of peace and conflict resolution has brought him to Kosovo as a special Assistant to Bernard Kouchner, and to Nigeria and Palestine as an election observer with the Carter Center. He has published in journals such Le Monde,  Le Monde Diplomatique,Pouvoirs, Le Debat, The Journal of Democracy, The New York Times, El Pais, and El Quds.

In 2010 he has founded the Moulay Hicham Foundation which conducts social science research on the MENA region. He is also an entrepreneur with interests in agriculture, real estate, and renewable energies. His company, Al Tayyar Energy, has a number of clean energy projects in Asia and Europe. 

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Olena Nikolayenko is a recepient of the 2007-2009 post-doctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Her research interests include comparative democratization, public opinion, social movements, youth, and corruption. In her dissertation, she analyzed political support among the first post-Soviet generation grown up without any direct experience with communism in Russia and Ukraine. She has a PhD from the University of Toronto, Canada.

At CDDRL, she examined why some youth movements are more successful than others in applying methods of nonviolent resistance to mobilize the population in non-democratic regimes. She has recently conducted fieldwork in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Serbia, and Ukraine.

Selected Publications

  • 2008. "Contextual Effects on Historical Memory: Soviet Nostalgia among Post-Soviet Adolescents." Communist and Post-Communist Studies 41(2): 243-259
  • 2008. "Life-Cycle, Generational and Period Effects on Protest Potential in Yeltsin's Russia." Canadian Journal of Political Science 41(2): 437-460
  • 2007. "The Revolt of the Post-Soviet Generation: Youth Movements in Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine." Comparative Politics 39(2): 169-188
  •  2007. "Web Cartoons in a Closed Society: Animal Farm as an Allegory of Belarus." PS: Political Science and Politics 40(2): 307-310
  • 2004. "Press Freedom during the 1994 and 1999 Presidential Elections in Ukraine: A Reverse Wave?" Europe-Asia Studies 56(5): 661-686
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For the last two decades, Soviet and the Russian leaders worked with Western leaders to integrate the former Soviet empire, and above all else Russia, into the western community of states. Disputes over NATO expansion, the wars in Chechnya, or the bombing campaign against Serbia periodically slowed the process of integration. Nonetheless, leaders in both Russia and the West never let the long-term economic, security, and even ideological benefits of integration be jeopardized by these intermittent disagreements.

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The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University is pleased to announce its new class of Stanford Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development. This year's fellows - 27 outstanding civic, political, and economic leaders from 22 countries in transition - have been selected from more than 500 applications.

Fellows's Biographies

David Abesadze, Republic of Georgia, is the head of policy analysis division in the Political Department of the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and is also an assistant professor of social and political studies at Tbilisi State University, where he teaches a graduate course on the politics of development. Through the SSFDD program, he hopes to broaden his theoretical knowledge of development by examining influential works in the field, and to explore how case-specific methodologies and policies have been used to solve development problems.

Huda Ahmed, Iraq, is the 2006-07 Elizabeth Neuffer Fellow of the International Women Media Foundation at M.I.T., an intern at the US National Public Radio, and also a reporter for Knight Ridder in Baghdad. Prior to joining Knight Ridder, she worked as a reporter for The Washington Post in Baghdad, and translated for both The Daily Baghdad Observer and Al Jumhurriya Daily under the former regime. Ahmed's s work has ranged from portraying the heart-rending struggles of women and children in war and politics, to documenting human rights abuses by police and occupying forces. At SSFDD, she is interested in learning more about international conflicts, international law, human rights reporting, media and cross cultural research.

Jafar Alshayeb, Saudi Arabia, is the elected Chairman for the Qatif Municipal Council and a regular political commentator for many local and international media channels. He sponsored the "Tuesday Cultural Forum," a weekly gathering of community leaders and activists that promoted dialogue on social and political issues. Alshayeb, a founding member of human rights and NGOs, has also led charity foundations and youth programs dedicated to social development, and participated in the National Dialogue Meetings in Saudi Arabia. Through SSFDD, he would like to explore new ideas and exchange experiences in the fields of social development and democratic transformation.

Dr. Abduljalil Al Singace, Bahrain, is the media director of the Bahrain Academics Society and an Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bahrain. Abduljalil co-founded the Movement of Liberties and Democracy (HAQ), where he is responsible for media communications, human rights reports, and the establishment of relationships with international organizations. At SSFDD, Abduljalil is interested in learning more about the use of media in democratic development.

Dr. Donya Aziz, Pakistan, is a member of Pakistan's National Assembly and the joint secretary of the country's majority party, the Pakistan Muslim League. She currently serves as the Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Population Welfare, and sits on various National Assembly committees including defense, health and foreign affairs. During her time at SSFDD, Donya hopes to learn more about how she can contribute to a future where Pakistani women are able to fully exercise their democratic, political, and professional rights.

Dr. Mohammad Azizi, Afghanistan, is the economic adviser to the Embassy of Afghanistan in Tokyo and the chairman of Center for Policy Priorities (CFPP) in Afghanistan. As a human rights activist and advocate for the empowerment of people in public decision-making, he frequently delivers lectures on international economics, public policy, and macroeconomics and received the Most Active Young Afghan award in 2005, by the New York- based organization Afghan Communicator. Mohammed is particularly interested in democracy promotion in Afghanistan.

Kingsley N. T. Bangwell, Nigeria, is the founder and executive director of the Youngstars Foundation, an organization mobilizing youth participation in democracy and development in Nigeria and Ghana, where his most recent undertaking was a three-part youth training project on good governance and civic participation in several provinces across Nigeria. In the past, he has served as the Nigerian representative in the World Youth Alliance and as a consultant for the British Council on a youth publication project, which he co-authored. He intends to discover the best ways to foster active youth involvement in good governance and political participation in fledgling democracies.

Alina Belskaya, Belarus, was forced to flee her country under threat of imprisonment for her involvement in demonstrations against the authoritarian regime of A. Lukashenka. In Belgium, where she currently lives, she works for the German Marshall Fund on issues related to the Euro-Atlantic integration of Belarus and the wider Black Sea region. A member of the Crisis Management Initiative, she also sits on the board of the Youth Atlantic Treaty Association. Alina would like to learn more about the role of NATO in democratization and the role of grass roots movements in improving socioeconomic conditions of communities.

Jay P. Chaudhary, Nepal, popularly known as Jay Nishaant, is the television producer and host of the TV program Tatastha Tarka (the "Independent Argument"). This weekly political and current affairs talk show on Nepal's largest private sector channel, Kantipur Television Network, is one of the most widely viewed prime time talk shows in the country. In the past, Jay has implemented several democracy promotion programs in Nepal as Manager of Media and Democracy Projects of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. Jay is interested in learning more about how to sustain a grass roots movement to institutionalize democracy in Nepal.

Garrett J. Cummeh III, Liberia, is the director of the Center for Transparency and Accountability in Liberia (CENTAL), a research-based local advocacy NGO, dedicated to promoting the tenets of transparency and accountability. Since 2004, he has worked on transparency issues by forming the Campaign Monitoring Coalition (CMC), which carried out the first ever Campaign Finance Monitoring in Africa, during the 2005 transitional elections in Liberia. He is presently the Executive Secretary of the National Coalition of Civil Society Organizations in Liberia. During the SSFDD program, Garrett would like to learn more about post conflict governance and rebuilding, as well as strategies to strengthen Liberia's compliance with and implementation of measures against corruption.

Maria Eismont, Russia, is the director of the independent print media program of the New Eurasia Foundation. The program aims to increase the quantity and quality of independent newspapers in Russia's regions. In an effort to improve both business and editorial practices of the regional press, this program provides training and consulting to the staff of independent regional newspapers. Previously, Maria worked as a journalist in several Russian leading publications and covered the regions of Chechnya, Kosovo, and Central Africa for the Reuters news agency. Maria is interested in learning and sharing information on developing a free press.

Rabih El Chaer, Lebanon, is the advisor to the minister of public works and transportation and counsels on public policy, crisis management, legislative proposals, image building and political strategy. As a human rights activist, Mr. Chaer founded the Maharate Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting freedom of expression and media accountability in the Arab region. He is a regular contributor to An-Nahar, Lebanon's leading Arabic language daily newspaper. Rabih has been a regular guest on television news programs since 1993 and is known for his outspoken advocacy of democracy, freedom and political reforms. At Stanford, he wants to gain more substantial knowledge of US electoral campaigns, political party organization, and lobbying.

Safinaz El Tarouty, Egypt, is an assistant lecturer in the Political Science Department of the British University in Egypt, and a researcher at Partners in Development (PID), a think tank where she organizes forums on various aspects of constitutional reform in Egypt. Her Master's thesis was the first academic study on the issue of reform within the National Democratic Party in Egypt and her current Ph.D. dissertation at Cairo University examines the social changes and transformation in Egypt's ministerial elite. Safinaz is particularly interested in issues dealing with political parties, elections, women electoral participation and judicial supervision of elections.

Iulian Fruntasu, Moldova, is the Director of European Initiatives Program of the Soros Foundation-Moldova, which provides assistance with the implementation of the Moldova Action Plan in grant-giving to operational projects. He was also a former diplomat involved in arms-control issues and a member of missions of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia. As a noted author of several books and articles, he is known for his insightful political commentary on democratic development and international relations. Iulian is interested in exploring issues dealing with development and democracy assistance and internet media regulations.

Giao N. Hoang, Vietnam, is the vice director of the Center for Legal Research & Services, senior lecturer at Vietnam National University Law School, and chairman of the Center for Research and Consulting on Policy, Law, and Development. He teaches public international law and human rights law and researches issues related to the rule of law and reform in Vietnam. He manages about thirty projects to promote the rule of law, good governance, and democracy at the grassroots level in over twenty provinces in Vietnam. He comes to SSFDD hoping to learn more about the relationship of political parties to governments in democratic countries and how to prevent parties from abusing the government's power.

Franck Kamunga Cibangu, DRC, is a human rights and humanitarian law activist currently based in Kenya. He is the director of the Droits Humains Sans Frontières NGO, and coordinator of the Africa Democracy Forum, a pan-African network of 300 NGOs and activists working together on democracy, governance, and human rights. He also does research for the United States Peace Institute and the Council for the Development of Social Research in Africa, and is a member of the Steering Committee of the African Migration Alliance, which focuses on migration issues in Africa. In the past, he has served as legal adviser at the Independent Electoral Commission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His areas of interest for SSFDD include judicial training in electoral systems, conflict resolution, and human rights advocacy.

Maina Kiai, Kenya, is the first chairman of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, an independent state institution established by the Parliament to lead in the protection and promotion of human rights in the country. From 2001 to 2003, Mr. Kiai was the Africa Director for the International Human Rights Law Group in Washington, DC. From 1999-2001 he was the Africa director of Amnesty International in London, UK, which he joined from the Kenyan Human Rights Commission, and NGO where he was executive director. Mr. Kiai was described by the New York Times as Kenya's leading human rights activist in 1997. He hopes the summer program will assist him in developing strategies for effective redress and promotion of human rights, and advancing the development of independent media.

Hasmik Minasyan, Armenia, is the Policy Officer of the 'Right to Be Heard' Program of Oxfam GB, where she works on issues related to poverty reduction. As part of this position, she coordinates the Civil Society Partnership Network, a network of twenty-six NGOs working on poor development in Armenia, and the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) Armenia National Coalition. In 2006, she organized the MDG Celebrity Concert, which mobilized more than ten thousand people. Her primary interests at SSFDD are the development of civil society and democratic political institutions in transitional countries.

Yang Peng, China, is the general secretary of the China Center for Public Policy in Beijing and the director of the China Beijing Enterprise Culture Institute. A highly accomplished scholar, he also helped to promote civil rights protection activities and has become one of China's most important democratic intellectuals. He was also the chief designer of the Alxa Ecological Protection Association, now the largest and most influential environmental NGO in China. He is interested in peaceful democratic transition problems and design of democratic institutions.

Aasiya Riaz, Pakistan, is joint director of Pakistan Institute for Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT), an independent research and training institution strengthening democratic governance in Pakistan. She was also a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy where she worked on subjects such as US think tanks and civil-military relations. Aasiya has worked with the mainstream press and electronic media in Pakistan as well, as serving as the editor of the international monthly magazine Pakistan Calling. During the SSFDD program, she would like to focus on strengthening democracies in transition and civil-military relations.

Kate Sam-Ngbor, Nigeria, is the public policy advisor of the Rivers State government. She was instrumental in the design of the popular "Democracy and Good Governance" pilot program by USAID, which played an influential role in the eventual return of democracy to Nigeria. A journalist by trade, she was the chairperson of the Nigeria Association of Women Journalists and later the chairperson of the Nigeria Union of Journalists. She has also founded and/or helped to organize a number of NGOs on topics from sustainable development to women's rights. She comes to SSFDD to learn about judicial integrity, respect for the rule of law, freedom of the press, among other interests.

Zvisinei Sandi, Zimbabwe, is a lecturer at Masvingo State University and founder and secretary general of the Senior Society for Gender Justice. She is a journalist and an academic who has worked for the state-controlled Zimbabwe Newspapers Group and later for the independent Financial Gazette. She hopes to use her time with SSFDD to become a more effective human rights advocate and observe the approaches different countries take to the teaching of democracy, good governance, and the rule of law.

Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine, is the director of the NGO Kyiv Media Law Institute and a lecturer at the School of Journalism at the Kyiv National University. As a member of several governmental advisory bodies and the secretary of the Public Council on Freedom of Speech and Information, Mr. Shevchenko has drafted a number of influential pieces of legislation that have became laws in Ukraine. He looks forward to the great opportunity of establishing professional relations with his counterparts from other countries as well as experts on democracy, economic development and the rule of law in transitioning economies.

Majid Tavallaei, Iran, is the managing director of Nameh Research and Information Institute, which aims to provide novel approaches to achieving non-violent transitions for a democratic Iran. As the editor-in-chief of the monthly journal, Naameh, which the Islamic Republic of Iran has banned, he has contributed over 40 articles on pertinent social-political issues in Iran. He is also one of the founding members of the Iranian People's Liberation Party (IPLP), a social democracy platform that promotes new civic movements. He hopes his time at SSFDD will help develop further his understanding of effective political activism.

Vera Tkachenko, Kazakhstan, is a lawyer and currently a candidate for an MSc in Criminal Justice Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. For the last 6 years, as one of the regional directors of the international NGO Penal Reform International, she has been working on criminal justice reform issues in Central Asia. Her main interests pertain to the effective development of criminal justice systems with sustainable institutions, traditions and legal frameworks, and mainstreaming and actualizing the legal reform as part of a broader democratization process.

Roya Toloui, Iran, is a clinical pathologist, feminist, journalist, and human rights activist from Kurdistan, Iran. Roya has promoted social activism through the Kurdish women's magazine, Rasan, as editor-in-chief and the Kurdish Women Supporting Peace and Human Rights in Kurdistan, as a founding member. She was arrested on August 2, 2005 for her outspoken criticism of the authorities and upon her release on bail she fled to Iran and sought refuge in the United States. In November 2006, she won the Freedom of Expression Award from international PEN and OXFOM/NOVIB. During her time at SSFDD, Roya hopes to join other activists to form solidarity and support in the struggle for democracy.

Dr. Hossam Youssef, Egypt, is a Commissioner Judge at the Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court. He is also a Lecturer at the Cairo University School of Law, where he teaches Constitutional Law and Contracts under both the American and Egyptian legal systems. Additionally, he is a member of the board of directors at The Egyptian Mineral Resources Authority, and is a Legal Advisor to the Egyptian Minister of Petroleum, advising the Egyptian Ministry of Petroleum on oil and gas concessions. At SSFDD, Hossam hopes to learn more about how the mechanisms of the American legal system are used to protect human rights and preserve the rule of law.

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