Karen Long Jusko is an Assistant Professor (Subject to PhD) in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University, with expertise in comparative democratic politics and quantitative methods for cross-national research. Karen's current research program investigates how electoral rules affect the political representation of the poor. This research has been supported by a Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Dissertation Fellowship, a SSHRC Federalism and Federations Dissertation Supplement, and research grants from the National Poverty Center, and the Luxembourg Income Study, and the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton University.

Dissertation Research

"The Political Representation of the Poor"

How do electoral rules affect the poor? How responsive are elected governments to the interests of low-income citizens? When do parties have an incentive to seek the support of the low-income citizens? These questions motivate a broadly comparative analysis of the relationship between antipoverty policy and electoral rules. Presenting a series of formal analytic examples, and using Luxembourg Income Study data in empirical analysis, this research demonstrates that electoral rules interact with the context in which elections are held -- specifically, the distribution of low-income citizens across electoral districts -- to create or limit legislators' incentives to be responsive to the poor. In this way, the very institutions of democratic government may undermine opportunities for a more equitable society. This dissertation project establishes the foundation of a research agenda motivated by broader questions about whether and how the institutions of contemporary democracies create incentives to build societies that reflect democratic ideals.

Dr. Gilles Kepel is a professor at the Institut d'Études Politiques in Paris and a research director for CNRS Paris. A prominent French scholar and analyst of the Islamic and Arab world, he is the author of several books and articles: Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam; The Revenge of God; Muslim Extremism in Egypt; Allah in the West and his most recent book The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West.

Dr. Kepel is fluent in French, English, Arabic, and Italian. He holds doctorate degrees from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris in political science and sociology

Francis Fukuyama is Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University, and the director of SAIS' International Development program. He is also chairman of the editorial board of a new magazine, The American Interest.

Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on issues relating to questions concerning political and economic development. His book, The End of History and the Last Man, was published by Free Press in 1992 and has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. It made the bestseller lists in the United States, France, Japan, and Chile, and has been awarded the Los Angeles Times' Book Critics Award in the Current Interest category, as well as the Premio Capri for the Italian edition. He is also the author of Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (1995), The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order (1999), Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution (2002, and State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century, (2004). His most recent book America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy was published by Yale University Press in March 2006.

Francis Fukuyama was born on October 27, 1952, in Chicago. He received his B.A. from Cornell University in classics, and his Ph.D. from Harvard in Political Science. He was a member of the Political Science Department of the RAND Corporation from 1979-1980, then again from 1983-89, and from 1995-96. In 1981-82 and in 1989 he was a member of the Policy Planning Staff of the US Department of State, the first time as a regular member specializing in Middle East affairs, and then as Deputy Director for European political-military affairs. In 1981-82 he was also a member of the US delegation to the Egyptian-Israeli talks on Palestinian autonomy. From 1996-2000 he was Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University.

Dr. Fukuyama was a member of the President's Council on Bioethics from 2001-2005. He holds an honorary doctorate from Connecticut College and Doane College, and is a member of advisory boards for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the Journal of Democracy, and The New America Foundation, and FINCA. As an NED board member, he is responsible for oversight of the Endowment's Middle East programs. He is married to Laura Holmgren and has three children.

Along with other western countries, American governmental and non-governmental organisations, academic institutions and foundations, have offered assistance and expertise on a global scale, for example, the establishment of a science base, training, serving on international committees, funding world and regional conferences, and grants. The US-based international media have played an important role. The US has offered leadership in areas such as tobacco economics; some aspects of legislation like smoke-free areas in restaurants and bars; litigation; smoke-free movies; and publicising tobacco industry documents exposing information on industry tactics around the globe.

However, and importantly, the USA has not yet ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), now ratified by 149 countries.

Worldwide, systems are slowly being put into place that will eventually reduce the tobacco epidemic -- data are being collected, legislation and price policies implemented, and health education and cessation programmes introduced. Examples will be given of countries which have now implemented stronger tobacco control policies and programmes than those found in the USA.