In 2024, the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) celebrated the 19th year of its Fisher Family Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development Program. This summer, 26 democracy leaders from across the developing world convened at Stanford for an intensive three-week training focused on democracy, good governance, and rule of law reform. Chosen from a highly competitive applicant pool, the fellows represent a diverse range of professional backgrounds and geographical regions, spanning civil society, public service, social enterprise, media, and technology. Launched in 2005, the program was previously known as the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program. It was renamed in 2023 in recognition of a gift from the Fisher family — Sakurako (Sako), ‘82, and William (Bill), MBA ‘84 — that endowed the program and secured its future.

Fellows were instructed by a leading Stanford faculty team composed of FSI Director and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul; CDDRL Mosbacher Director Kathryn Stoner; Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow Francis Fukuyama; Senior Fellow in Global Democracy Larry Diamond; and Erik Jensen, Lecturer in Law at Stanford Law School on new institutional models and frameworks to enhance their ability to promote good governance, accountable politics, and find new ways to achieve economic development in their home countries.

Esteemed guest lectures were also presented by individuals from the greater FSI and Stanford communities, as well as by Damon Wilson, President of the National Endowment for Democracy; Congressman Ro Khanna (D-CA 17th District); and Donna Norton, Executive VP and Chief Advancement & Strategy Officer of MomsRising, a nonprofit taking on the most critical issues facing women, mothers, and families by mobilizing massive grassroots actions.

During the program, the fellows gave "TED"-style talks during our Fellow Spotlight Series, sharing personal stories about the struggles in their home countries, stories of their fight for justice, equality, and democracy, and stories of optimism and endurance. You can watch their talks in the playlist below:

Mona Tajali, a scholar of gender and politics, has been a visiting scholar at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law since 2023. Her research interests include women’s political participation and representation in Muslim countries, with a comparative focus on Iran, Afghanistan, and Turkey, as well as the institutionalization of women’s rights in semi- or non-democratic contexts. This fall, Tajali brings her extensive expertise to Stanford's undergraduates through a new course, FEMGEN 202: Global Feminisms. Tajali previously designed and taught this course as an associate professor of international relations and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Agnes Scott College, a historically women’s liberal arts college in Atlanta.

"Global Feminisms" is designed to explore the diverse and often conflicting ways in which feminists around the world advocate for gender equality. The course promises to provide students with an interdisciplinary framework to critically engage with feminist theories and practices on a global scale. Rather than merely surveying the various feminist movements, FEMGEN 202 aims to equip students with the analytical tools to understand and research feminist activism across different cultural and political contexts.

The course begins with foundational concepts such as intersectionality, othering, and postcolonial feminism. These concepts are crucial for understanding the historical power dynamics and hierarchies that have shaped feminist discourses, particularly in non-Western contexts. Tajali’s course also delves into the complexities of religiously inspired forms of feminism, including Islamic feminism, challenging students to think beyond traditional Western feminist paradigms.

Tajali’s course is particularly timely as the global feminist movement continues to navigate the challenges of building solidarity across borders. Students will be encouraged to consider how feminists with diverse backgrounds and perspectives can work together to address common concerns, despite sometimes having opposing views on how best to improve the status of women.

Tajali’s academic journey has been marked by a deep commitment to understanding and advancing women’s rights in complex political contexts. Tajali is the author of several significant works, including Women’s Political Representation in Iran and Turkey: Demanding a Seat at the Table (2022) and Electoral Politics: Making Quotas Work for Women (2011), both of which are accessible as open-access publications. Her co-edited volume, Women and Constitutions in Muslim Contexts (2024), was also published this year, applying a gendered lens to the study of national constitutions of several Muslim countries. Her research has been further published in both academic and popular outlets, among them the Middle East Journal, Politics & Gender, The Conversation, and The Washington Post.

Beyond her academic contributions, Tajali has been an active participant in transnational feminist networks. She is a long-term collaborator with Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML), a global solidarity network that advocates for women’s rights in Muslim contexts. Since 2019, she has also served on the executive board of WLUML, further bridging the gap between academia and grassroots activism, and currently directs their Transformative Feminist Leadership Institute.

As Tajali brings her expertise to Stanford this fall, students will have the unique opportunity to engage with global feminist issues through the lens of a scholar deeply immersed in both academic research and practical advocacy. "Global Feminisms" promises to be a transformative course that not only broadens students’ understanding of feminism worldwide but also prepares them to contribute thoughtfully to the ongoing global conversation about gender equality.

How can we encourage citizens to comply with desired civic behaviors? In a CDDRL seminar series talk, Salma Mousa, assistant professor of Political Science at UCLA and former CDDRL postdoctoral fellow, explored this broader question via a field experiment in Lebanon. In conjunction with a municipality and local NGO, Mousa and her team evaluated the effectiveness of a waste sorting intervention.

In 2015, some of Lebanon’s primary landfills reached capacity, forcing displaced waste into the streets and prompting public outcry. Lebanon's crisis is not for lack of money; the country spends ten times more than nearby Tunisia despite having only half the population of Tunisia. This suggests that Lebanon’s issue reflects mismanagement rather than a lack of resources.

A key component of this mismanagement is a lack of sorting at the source of waste. Effective sorting, Mousa argues, requires collaboration between citizens, civil society, and government. Overcoming this collective action problem does not just require physical infrastructure and intrinsic motivation; it also requires that people trust that their neighbors and government will do their part.

To test their sorting intervention, Mousa and her collaborators chose the small, wealthy, and predominantly Christian town of Bikfaya. The town is characterized by high levels of social cohesion and a “green” reputation that is central to its identity.

Working with the municipality and an NGO called “Nadeera,” the team divided the town into neighborhoods, randomly assigning treatment and control. The treatment group received a box with QR codes they could put on their trash bags and an app where they could access feedback on their sorting. They were given instructions on proper waste management and told to sort their waste into recycling, organic materials and other — sticking their personal QR codes on each bag.

After pickup, inspectors at the nearby waste management facility would use the app to provide personalized feedback on sorting quality, giving participants the opportunity to improve.

This intervention makes trash sorting a sanctionable behavior, with social pressure to enforce it, because participation is visible to neighbors via the QR code stickers placed on their trash bags.

The team examined three distinct outcomes. First, the quality of sorting. Second, participation in a raffle for “green” prizes, designed to measure the impact of the intervention on other climate-friendly behaviors. Finally, they measured participation in volunteer opportunities for environmental initiatives.

Two months after the intervention, the program improved sorting quality by an average of 14 percent. That said, at the twelve-month mark, the effect was null. Eight months in, the program and app feedback ceased, making it difficult to distinguish between diminishing long-term effects and lack of sanctioning.

Treated participants entered the raffle at two times the rate of the control group, but the mechanisms behind this increase remain unclear. The rise in uptake could be attributed to behavioral change or familiarity with the NGO as a result of treatment.

On the volunteering measure, the treated group saw a 7% negative effect, meaning they were less likely to sign up for local environmental initiatives if assigned to treatment. Mousa and her collaborators theorize that this is due to moral licensing, or the feeling that they have already done their part.

While the effects of the primary outcome became null after a year, the treated group did see a substantial improvement in sorting quality — a big win for the town on environmental and economic measures. Future iterations of this intervention will include consistent monitoring or cash benefits to promote prolonged participation.

Salam Fayyad, a former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, told a Stanford audience that a peaceful outcome of the Gaza War depends on a principled two-state solution that recognizes Palestinian rights at the outset.

Fayyad engaged in a conversation on April 29 with Larry Diamond and Hesham Sallam at an event hosted by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law’s (CDDRL) Program on Arab Reform and Democracy (ARD). Diamond is the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and director of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy, and Sallam is a CDDRL senior research scholar and associate director for the program.