Stanford University

Resolving America's Islamist Dilema: Lessons from South and Southeast Asia

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U.S. efforts to promote democracy in the Middle East have long been paralyzed by the "Islamist dilemma"-a fear that Islamist parties will be the prime beneficiaries of any democratic opening, and prove both hostile to American foreign policy goals internationally and to democratic liberties domestically. This fear is much exaggerated, argues Shadi Hamid of the Project on Middle East Democracy, and the U.S. can establish an acceptable modus vivendi with Islamist democratic movements without compromising either its vital security interests or its commitment to democracy. 

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The Century Foundation
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Shadi Hamid

McFaul offers historical view of regime change

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In video taken October 14, during a debate with former CIA Director James Woolsey, CDDRL Director Michael A. McFaul attacks the idea that America invaded Iraq solely to promote democracy. McFaul argues that, except in a few rare instances, the United States has never invaded a country unless there was a national security concern.

McFaul and Woolsey also discuss mistakes made in the Iraq War and argue whether or not it was beneficial for either America or Iraq. Woolsey believes a "failure" of the Bush Administration was giving Iraq a "constitution that we [the U.S.] drafted."

The event was sponsored by the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco, McFaul debated former CIA Director James Woolsey on international security and how it factors into each presidential campaign's plans for the country. McFaul is a foreign policy advisor to Sen. Barack Obama; Woolsey is an advisor to Sen. John McCain.

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Necessary Risks: How a New U.S. Administration Can (Finally) Give Us the Middle East Policy We Need

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At the root of current Middle Eastern foreign policy debates on topics ranging from Iran to Iraq to Israel, is a more fundamental challenge for American policy makers: how to combat the general mistrust citizens of the Arab and Muslim world have of the United States. In his new paper, Shadi Hamid suggests that U.S. support for many of the region's more repressive regimes plays an important -- and counter-productive -- role in its efforts to bring peace and stability to the region.

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Progressive Policy Institute
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Shadi Hamid

America and the World: Presidential Candidate Advisors Speak on International Security

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The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Dependence on expensive foreign oil. Challenging diplomacy with nuclear-armed countries. America's next president needs a strong vision and stronger will to tackle these formidable tasks and those that lie ahead. Which candidate is best equipped to meet these challenges? Our panel of top advisors to the Republican and Democratic presidential nominees will address each candidate's plan to improve our international security. Join us to listen and ask questions of these experts.

Sponsored by The Commonwealth Club of California.

Mark Hopkins Intercontinental Peacock Court
999 California St.
San Francisco, CA

Hon. James Woolsey Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Former Director of Central Intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency (1993-1995); Advisor to Senator McCain Speaker

Michael A. McFaul

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

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Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies, Department of Political Science
Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
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Michael McFaul is the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in Political Science, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, all at Stanford University. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995 and served as FSI Director from 2015 to 2025. He is also an international affairs analyst for MSNOW.

McFaul served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014).

McFaul has authored ten books and edited several others, including, most recently, Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder, as well as From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia, (a New York Times bestseller) Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should, How We Can; and Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin.

He is a recipient of numerous awards, including an honorary PhD from Montana State University; the Order for Merits to Lithuania from President Gitanas Nausea of Lithuania; Order of Merit of Third Degree from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, and the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Stanford University. In 2015, he was the Distinguished Mingde Faculty Fellow at the Stanford Center at Peking University.

McFaul was born and raised in Montana. He received his B.A. in International Relations and Slavic Languages and his M.A. in Soviet and East European Studies from Stanford University in 1986. As a Rhodes Scholar, he completed his D. Phil. in International Relations at Oxford University in 1991. 

International Working Group on Russian Sanctions

The International Working Group on Russian Sanctions aims to provide expertise and experience to governments and companies around the world by assisting with the formulation of sanctions proposals that will increase the cost to Russia of invading Ukraine, and support democratic Ukraine in the defense of its territorial integrity and national sovereignty.
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Global Populisms

A new project examining the global surge in populist movements and what it means for established democratic rules and institutions.
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Michael A. McFaul Deputy Director, Freeman Spogli Institute For International Studies and Professor of Political Science, Stanford University; Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution; Advisor to Senator Obama Speaker
Dr. Gloria C. Duffy President and CEO, The Commonwealth Club of California; Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Bill Clinton Moderator
Conferences

Forum on Akbar Ganji's Road to Democracy in Iran

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The FSI Program on Global Justice and the Iranian Studies Program present A Forum on Akbar Ganji's Road to Democracy in Iran.

Ganji is an Iranian journalist and dissident who was imprisoned in Tehran from 2000 to 2006 and whose writings are currently banned in Iran. He has won numerous prestigious awards in Europe and North America. His 56-day hunger strike turned him into a figure of international fame, with many heads of states and hundreds of the world's most renowned public intellectuals demanding his safety and freedom. Ganji first gained prominence in Iran as an investigative journalist when he helped uncover a government conspiracy to murder Iranian intellectuals. In response, the regime put him in prison for six years. Behind bars, Ganji continued to write and produced his famous Republican Manifesto where he argued in favor of a secular liberal democracy for Iran. In April 2008, Ganji's first English language  book appeared from Boston Review Books/MIT Press: The Road to Democracy in Iran, with an introduction by Joshua Cohen and Abbas Milani. 

Ganji will speak in Farsi with consecutive translation in English, and will be joined on the panel by Abbas Milani, director of the Hamid & Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University, and Martha Nussbaum, Ernst Freud Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago. Program on Global Justice Director Joshua Cohen will moderate the discussion.

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Bechtel Conference Center

Joshua Cohen

Program on Global Justice
Encina Hall West, Room 404
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305

(650) 723-0256
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Marta Sutton Weeks Professor of Ethics in Society, and Professor of Political Science, Philosophy, and Law
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Joshua Cohen is a professor of law, political science, and philosophy at Stanford University, where he also teaches at the d.school and helps to coordinate the Program on Liberation Technology. A political theorist trained in philosophy, Cohen has written extensively on issues of democratic theory—particularly deliberative democracy and the implications for personal liberty, freedom of expression, and campaign finance—and global justice. Cohen is author of On Democracy (1983, with Joel Rogers); Associations and Democracy (1995, with Joel Rogers); Philosophy, Politics, Democracy (2010); The Arc of the Moral Universe and Other Essays (2011); and Rousseau: A Free Community of Equals (2011). Since 1991, he has been editor of Boston Review, a bi-monthly magazine of political, cultural, and literary ideas. Cohen is currently a member of the faculty of Apple University.

CDDRL Affiliated Faculty
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Joshua Cohen Director, Program on Global Justice Moderator Stanford University

Abbas Milani

615 Crothers Way,
Encina Commons, Room 128A
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305

(650) 721-4052
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Research Fellow, Hoover Institution
abbas_milani_photo_by_babak_payami.jpg PhD

Abbas Milani is the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University and a visiting professor in the department of political science. In addition, Dr. Milani is a research fellow and co-director of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution.

Prior to coming to Stanford, Milani was a professor of history and political science and chair of the department at Notre Dame de Namur University and a research fellow at the Institute of International Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. Milani was an assistant professor in the faculty of law and political science at Tehran University and a member of the board of directors of Tehran University's Center for International Studies from 1979 to 1987. He was a research fellow at the Iranian Center for Social Research from 1977 to 1978 and an assistant professor at the National University of Iran from 1975 to 1977.

Dr. Milani is the author of Eminent Persians: Men and Women Who Made Modern Iran, 1941-1979, (Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, NY, 2 volumes, November, 2008); King of Shadows: Essays on Iran's Encounter with Modernity, Persian text published in the U.S. (Ketab Corp., Spring 2005); Lost Wisdom: Rethinking Persian Modernity in Iran, (Mage 2004); The Persian Sphinx: Amir Abbas Hoveyda and the Riddle of the Iranian Revolution (Mage, 2000); Modernity and Its Foes in Iran (Gardon Press, 1998); Tales of Two Cities: A Persian Memoir (Mage 1996); On Democracy and Socialism, a collection of articles coauthored with Faramarz Tabrizi (Pars Press, 1987); and Malraux and the Tragic Vision (Agah Press, 1982). Milani has also translated numerous books and articles into Persian and English.

Milani received his BA in political science and economics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1970 and his PhD in political science from the University of Hawaii in 1974.

Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies
Co-director of the Iran Democracy Project
CDDRL Affiliated Scholar
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Abbas Milani Director, Hamid & Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies Panelist Stanford University
Martha Nussbaum Ernst Freud Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics Panelist University of Chicago
Akbar Ganji Iranian dissident journalist and author Keynote Speaker
Workshops

Lisa Blaydes

Encina Hall West, Room 408
Stanford, CA 94305-6044

(650) 723-0649
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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Professor of Political Science
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Lisa Blaydes is a Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. She is the author of State of Repression: Iraq under Saddam Hussein (Princeton University Press, 2018) and Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 2011). Professor Blaydes received the 2009 Gabriel Almond Award for best dissertation in the field of comparative politics from the American Political Science Association for this project.  Her articles have appeared in the American Political Science Review, International Studies Quarterly, International Organization, Journal of Theoretical Politics, Middle East Journal, and World Politics. During the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 academic years, Professor Blaydes was an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. She holds degrees in Political Science (PhD) from the University of California, Los Angeles, and International Relations (BA, MA) from Johns Hopkins University.

 

Affiliated faculty at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Affiliated faculty at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
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Legalized Protection Payments, Taxation, and Economic Growth: Evidence from Ottoman Gaza (ca. 1519-1582).

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Haggay is interested in Middle Eastern historical and contemporary economies, as well as in labor and family economics. This year he is a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford's CDDRL, and he also teaches a course on Middle Eastern economic history at the Stanford's economics department.

During this year Haggay will examine the causes and implications of a major socio-economic transformation, which took place in the Gaza Strip during the second half of the twentieth century: The refugees who initially were less educated than the urbanites became by the 1980s better educated. Haggay suggests that the institution of the Palestinian family and ironically the refugees lack of access to credit market played a key role in the rise of the refugees to educational primacy. One plausible result of this transformation is the growth of the Hamas, whose Gazan leadership includes many highly educated men of refugee origin.

Last year, Haggay finished his Ph.D. in the economics department at the Hebrew University. His dissertation used the case of Ottoman Gaza for examining how the proximity of a semi-arid eco-system ­ a common characteriistic of wide regions of the Middle East ­ affected the demographic,, economic, and political development of an early modern Middle Eastern economy. His job market paper, analyzes a unique micro-dataset on protection payments, which villages made to armed nomadic tribes, for evaluating the interaction of this widespread but usually hidden institution with taxation, economic growth, and military technology. It demonstrates that strong predatory state could enhance economic development in an economy with multiple predators.

http://www.stanford.edu/~haggay/

Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Haggay Etkes

N/A

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CDDRL Hewlett Fellow 2008-09
Haggay_website_pic.jpg

Haggay is interested in Middle Eastern historical and contemporary economies, as well as in labor and family economics. For 2008-09, he was a post-doctoral fellow at CDDRL and also teaches a course on Middle Eastern economic history at the Stanford's economics department.

During the fellowship year, Haggay examined the causes and implications of a major socio-economic transformation, which took place in the Gaza Strip during the second half of the twentieth century: The refugees who initially were less educated than the urbanites became by the 1980s better educated. Haggay suggested that the institution of the Palestinian family and ironically the refugees lack of access to credit market played a key role in the rise of the refugees to educational primacy. One plausible result of this transformation is the growth of the Hamas, whose Gazan leadership includes many highly educated men of refugee origin.

In the previous year, Haggay finished his Ph.D. in the economics department at the Hebrew University. His dissertation used the case of Ottoman Gaza for examining how the proximity of a semi-arid eco-system ­ a common characteriistic of wide regions of the Middle East ­ affected the demographic,, economic, and political development of an early modern Middle Eastern economy. His job market paper, analyzes a unique micro-dataset on protection payments, which villages made to armed nomadic tribes, for evaluating the interaction of this widespread but usually hidden institution with taxation, economic growth, and military technology. It demonstrates that strong predatory state could enhance economic development in an economy with multiple predators.

Haggay Etkes CDDRL Hewlett Fellow 2008-09 Speaker
Seminars

Curse of the Black Gold: 50 Years of oil in the Niger Delta

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Michael Watts, PhD, is a Professor of Geography at the University of California at Berkeley. His interests include the political economy and ecology in Africa and South Asia, US agriculture, and Islamic social movements. Less specifically, Watts is also interested in development, peasant societies, and social and cultural theory.

His recent publications include Afflicted Powers, 2005 and Liberation Ecologies: Environment, Development, Social Movements, 2004, as well as many journal articles and invited papers.

Ed Kashi, is a photojournalist, filmmaker and educator dedicated to documenting the social and political issues that define our times. A sensitive eye and an intimate relationship to his subjects are the signatures of his work.

Kashi’s images have been published and exhibited worldwide. His innovative approach to photography and filmmaking produced the Iraqi Kurdistan Flipbook. Using stills in a moving image format, this creative and thoughtprovoking form of visual storytelling has been shown in many film festivals and as part of a series of exhibitions on the Iraq War at The George Eastman House. Also, an eight-year personal project completed in 2003, Aging in America: The Years Ahead, created a traveling exhibition, an award-winning documentary film, a website and a book which was named one of the best photo books of 2003 by American Photo. Along with numerous awards, including honors from Pictures of the Year International, World Press Foundation, Communication Arts and American Photography, Kashi’s editorial assignments and personal projects have generated four books. In 2008, his latest books will be published; Curse of the Black Gold: 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta and Three.

CO-SPONSORED BY CENTER FOR AFRICAN STUDIES

» http://www.powerhousebooks.com/blackgold.pdf
» http://www.curseoftheblackgoldbook.com/
» http://curseoftheblackgold.blogspot.com/

Oksenberg Conference Room

Michael J. Watts Professor of Geography Speaker University of California at Berkeley, co-sponsored by Center for African Studies
Ed Kashi Photo journalist, filmaker Speaker
Seminars

Is Democracy Promotable?

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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.

Richard and Rhoda Goldman Conference Room

James Traub Writer Speaker New York Times Magazine
Seminars
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