Stanford University

Our Year of Living Dangerously

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"As 2018 unfolds, the domestic and international dimensions of Trump’s crisis-ridden presidency are beginning to intersect in wildly unpredictable and potentially disastrous ways. There are signs of preparations for a U.S. military attack on North Korea by mid-year, and a new report by a leading Russian expert on North Korea indicates that the Pyongyang regime “is convinced that the U.S. is preparing to strike.” This would likely be not a full-scale military assault to terminate the North Korea’s tyrannical regime but rather a punishing “bloody nose” strike, either to send a message about American resolve to halt further testing and development of Kim Jong Un’s nuclear weapons program or to actually destroy as much of its existing infrastructure as possible," writes Larry Diamond in The American Interest. Read here. 

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FSI congratulates our 2018 Rhodes and Schwarzman Scholars

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The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies is proud to congratulate Stanford’s 2018 Rhodes and Schwarzman Scholars. In today’s climate, our scholarly work on foreign policy and international issues can feel ominous, so FSI is especially pleased to share the good news that four of the Rhodes and three of the Schwarzman Scholars studied with us.

Among the newly-appointed Rhodes scholars are Jelani Munroe, Alexis Kallen and Qitong “Tom” Cao, all current or former honors students in the Fisher Family Undergraduate Honors Program at FSI’s Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). Madeleine Chang, co-president of the FSI-sponsored American Middle Eastern Network for Dialogue at Stanford (AMENDS), joins them as well. The Rhodes Scholarships provide all expenses for study at Oxford University; all four will commence in October 2018.

The Schwarzman Scholarships fund one-year master's degrees in global affairs at Beijing’s distinguished Tsinghua University. Scholars include Claire Colberg and Daniel Kilimnik, alumni of the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) Honors Program, and Lucienne “Lucy” Oyer, a current Fisher Family honors student at CDDRL. They will begin study in August 2018.

“We are very proud of these terrific students in the FSI family and our exceptional faculty who have mentored them,” said FSI Director Michael McFaul. “These seven have exhibited extraordinary ideas and leadership here at FSI, and we look forward to seeing the great contributions they will make in their fields.”

While working on his honors thesis on the role of the armed forces in German security policy, Daniel Kilimnik relied on an FSI research grant that enabled him to interview legislators, government officials and academics in Berlin. Once he heads to Beijing, Kilimnik will investigate relationships between China, the U.S. and Europe.

“I can't imagine my undergraduate experience without the professors, mentors, friends and peers I got to know through FSI,” he said. “Without support from CISAC and FSI, I would not have been able to write my thesis.”

One CISAC mentor is Donald Emmerson, an emeritus senior fellow at FSI. As honors student Claire Colberg explored Vietnam’s policies toward China, Emmerson advised her to challenge conventional wisdom.

“All I did for Claire was to encourage her to be intellectually less respectful and more creative,” he said. “I would like to believe that merely by giving her free rein, I helped her develop her own voice.”

Madeleine Chang found her voice by embracing creative problem-solving. With help from FSI Student Programs, Chang was able to do the seemingly impossible: work around President Trump’s travel ban to hold a conference with undergraduates from all over the world, including students affected by the ban.

“The irony of being an American-Middle Eastern group unable to meet in America itself spoke to why we needed to meet: to remind ourselves and others of the incredible potential of young people connecting across borders,” Chang told Stanford News.

Unable to bring all students to the United States, Chang looked across the pond and was able to hold the AMENDS conference at Oxford. FSI senior fellow Larry Diamond and academic program manager Gina Gonzales provided support on- and off-the-ground to keep things moving, even outside the Stanford realm.

“It was incredible to see Maddie leverage her connections at Oxford to turn the challenge of overcoming the travel ban into a fantastic opportunity,” said Gonzales.

Diamond believes interactions with international students are particularly valuable to the academic community. He has advised several Rhodes-bound students who grew up outside the United States.

“It is always a particular joy working with foreign students,” he said. “They teach us so much about their countries, the development challenges they face, and how other parts of the world view the United States.

“You know when you are teaching students like Qitong and Jelani that you are engaging, in some way, future leaders in their fields.”

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Business associations and local taxation in Southeast Asia

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Abstract:

At their best, decentralizing reforms make government more accountable to citizens and empower local governments to invest in their own development. Yet, successful decentralization requires that local governments raise at least some revenue to finance new service delivery responsibilities, and the capacity of local governments to generate tax revenue varies. This variation is evident in the Philippines, where capacity to tax varies greatly across cities despite uniform tax powers. I argue that business associations contribute to this variation by endorsing tax increases to enable cities to spend on infrastructure, but only if they can sustain distributional consensus and forestall local officials from diverting revenues away from business-friendly projects. I present a controlled comparison of two cities, Iloilo and Batangas, to show that business associations resolve distributional conflict by dispersing benefits across members, and monitor public spending by participating in legislative hearings and jointly managing public projects.

 

Speaker Bio:

tans
I am a postdoctoral fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. My research explores the developmental implications of public-private linkages in decentralizing, developing countries, especially in Southeast Asia. I received a PhD in political science at Emory University and an MA in Southeast Asian studies from National University of Singapore.

Postdoctoral fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
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Polarized planet & What is to be done?

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"The problems with our democracy—ever-deepening polarization, incivility, gridlock, dysfunction, conflicts of interest, and disregard for democratic norms—are not just problems of political culture and behavior. Politicians are driven by incentives, especially the desire to get re-elected. Institutions heavily shape these incentives, and our institutions are in need of reform. Unless we reform our democracy, we will be increasingly hard-pressed to improve the health of democracy globally." Listen to Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, explains in this podcast what are the options from here, by Hoover Institution. 

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Why Populist Nationalism Now?

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In this three-parts article on populism, CDDRL Mosbacher Director Francis Fukuyama writes about different forms of populist nationalism. Read "What Is Populism?" here, "Why Populist Nationalism Now?" here and "The Future of Populism at Home and Abroad" here.  

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Sittwe Film Screening & Panel Discussion About Rakhine State, Burma

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Sittwe gives voice to two teenagers separated by conflict and segregation in Burma’s Rakhine state, Phyu Phyu Than, a Rohingya girl and Aung San Myint, a Buddhist boy. Filmed over two years, the youth share their ideas about mutual fear between their communities and the hope of reconciliation.

Sittwe was produced with the Burmese NGO, Smile Education and Development Foundation as a tool for facilitated discussions about peace building in Burma. The film premiered at the Freedom Film Festival in Malaysia where it was awarded the Best Southeast Asia Short Documentary. 

Please join us for the film screening of this short documentary (running time 20 minutes), followed by a panel discussion with Director Jeanne Hallacy, Producer U Myo Win, Sr. Fellow Larry Diamond, and Dr. Clayborne Carson. 

Panelists:

Jeanne Hallacy, Director of Sittwe, has lived in Southeast for decades producing stories about human rights and social justice issues. Her award-winning documentary films are used as agents for change. Her film titles This Kind of Love, Into the Current: Burma’s Political Prisoners, Mercy (meddah) and Burma Diary are distributed by Kanopy and Documentary Educational Resources. Hallacy directs the InSIGHT OUT! Photo Storytelling project training youth living in conflict and post-disaster areas in photography and digital media.

U Myo Win, Producer of Sittwe, is the Director of Smile Education and Development Foundation in Rangoon founded in 2007 in response to rising intolerance and discrimination in Burma. Smile promotes interfaith harmony, religious freedom, peace building and conflict resolution and advocated for legal reform including the Inter-Faith Harmony Bill focused on religious freedom, and combating hate speech and hate crime. U Myo Win is trained in psychological first aid, and has worked extensively on trauma healing and mental health post-disaster. U Myo Win received a degree in Islamic theology and in 2004 completed a graduate degree in psychology from the University of East Yangon.

Dr. Clayborne Carson has devoted most of his professional life to the study of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the movements King inspired. Since receiving his doctorate from UCLA in 1975, Dr. Carson has taught at Stanford University, where he is now Martin Luther King, Jr., Centennial Professor of History and Ronnie Lott Founding Director of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute. 

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. For more than six years, he directed FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, and he continues to lead its programs on Arab Reform and Democracy and Democracy in Taiwan. He is the founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy and also serves as Senior Consultant at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy. His sixth and most recent book, In Search of Democracy (Routledge, 2016), explores the challenges confronting democracy and democracy promotion, gathering together three decades of his work on democratic development, particularly in Africa and Asia.  He has also edited or co-edited more than 40 books on democratic development around the world.

 

This event is co-sponored by CDDRL and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute.

 

Sittwe film poster

Pigott Hall 113, Building 260, 450 Serra Mall, Stanford

Panel Discussions
CDDRL Special Events

Global Populisms: A Threat to Democracy?

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THIS EVENT IS AT THE CAPACITY AND CLOSED. 

 

Conference Program

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3

8:45-10:30  Panel 1: Populism as a Threat — Chaired by Anna Grzymala-Busse

  • Sheri Berman, Professor of Political Science, Barnard College | Columbia University, "Populism Is a Symptom Rather Than a Cause: The Decline of the Center-life and Rise of Threats to Liberal Democracy"
  • John Carey, Professor of Government, Dartmouth College, "The People Versus the Elites: What Do They Value and How Much Do Their Judgments of Democracy Differ?”
  • Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute and Hoover Institution, Stanford University, "When Does Populism Become a Threat to Democracy?"
  • Niall Ferguson, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, "The Cultural Dimensions of Populism”
  • Rick Perlstein, Journalist and bestselling author, "Why Populism Should Not Be an Epithet."

— 10:30-10:45: Coffee break —

10:45-12:30  Panel 2: American Populism — Chaired by Didi Kuo

  • Julia Azari, Associate Professor of Political Science, Marquette University, "Populism, Polarization and American Political Parties” 
  • David Kennedy, Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History, Emeritus, Stanford University, “The Paradoxes of American Populism”
  • Kirk Hawkins, Associate Professor of Political Science, Brigham Young University, "Populism in Comparative Perspective: America and the 2016 Presidential Election”
  • Rob Mickey, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Michigan — Ann Arbor, “Anti-anti Populism, or: The Threat of Populism to U.S. Democracy Is Exaggerated”
  • Rick Valelly, Claude C. Smith '14 Professor of Political Science, Swarthmore College, “The Populist Scare of the 1890s -- And the Aftermath that Changed American Populism"

— 12:30-1:30: Lunch —

1:30-3:15  Panel 3: Comparative Perspectives  — Chaired by Matthias Matthijs

  • Anna Grzymala-Busse, Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor of International Studies and Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute, “Populist or Authoritarian: The Erosion of Democracy in Poland and Hungary”
  • Steve Levitsky, Professor of Government, Harvard University, “Populism and Competitive Authoritarianism in Latin America”
  • Kenneth Roberts, Richard J. Schwartz Professor of Government, Cornell University, "Bipolar Disorders: Partisan Alignments and Populist Out-flanking in the Post-liberal Order”
  • Milada Vachudova: Associate Professor of Political Science, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, "From Competition to Polarization: How Populists Change Party Systems to Concentrate Power”
  • Julie Lynch, University of Pennsylvania, “Populism, Partisan Convergence, and Redistribution in Western Europe”

— 3:15-3:30: Coffee break —

3:30-5:00  Panel 4: International Linkages  — Chaired by Michael McFaul

  • Valerie Bunce, Aaron Binenkorb Professor of International Studies and Professor of Government, Cornell University, "The Putin Regime, Populism Promotion, and the 2016 US Presidential Election"
  • Francis Fukuyama, Olivier-Nomellini Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute, Stanford University "Immigration and Citizenship as Factors in the Rise of Populism"
  • Kathleen McNamara, Professor of Government and Foreign Service, Georgetown University, "When the Banal Becomes Political: the EU in the Age of Populism”
  • Kathryn Stoner, Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute and Hoover Institution, Stanford University, "Is Putin a Populist and Why Does It Matter?”
  • Lucan Way, Professor, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, "Is Russia a Threat to Western Democracy?"

 

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4

 9:00-11:00  Panel 5: Inequality, Investment and Economic Strain — Chaired by Francis Fukuyama

  • Kathy Cramer, Professor of Political Science, University of Wisconsin — Madison, "The Views of Populists: What Trump Voters’ Perspectives and Perceptions of Trump Voters Tell Us about the Threat of Populism to U.S. Democracy"
  • Didi Kuo, Research Scholar, Freeman Spogli Institute, Stanford University, “Parties and Policy Convergence”
  • Margaret Levi, Professor of Political Science, Stanford University, "Populism and the Decline of Labor Unions”
  • Pia Malaney, Senior Economist, Institute for New Economic Thinking"Economic Nationalism as a Driving Force of Populism in the U.S.”
  • Kenneth Scheve, Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute, Stanford University "The Economic Origins of Authoritarian Values: Evidence from Local Trade Shocks in the United Kingdom”

— 11-1 pm Lunch and concluding discussion —

 

CISAC Central, 2nd Floor, Encina Hall at Stanford University, 616 Serra Street, Stanford, CA 94305

Conferences

The Rise of Duterte: A Populist Revolt against Elite Democracy

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Co-sponsored by the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, Center for East Asian Studies, and the Southeast Asia Program

Who is Rodrigo Duterte?  How did he become president of the Philippines?  How has his rule impacted Philippine democracy and society?  Is his ascent part of a broader “Duterte wave” of strongman leadership in Russia, Turkey, India, China, and Southeast Asia?  What is his foreign policy?  How has it affected Sino-US rivalry in Asia including the situation in the South China Sea?  Richard Heydarian will address these and other questions drawing on field research for his latest book, The Rise of Duterte.  Regarding China, he will argue that Duterte’s willingness to realign Manila with Beijing at Washington’s expense offers a glimpse of what China’s rise could imply for nations around the world.  The book will be available for sale at his talk. 

javad richard heydarian
Richard Javad Heydarian is the most prolific and interviewed geopolitical analyst currently writing and speaking not only in the Philippines but arguably in Southeast Asia as well. Outlets for his articles and remarks have included Aljazeera English, The Atlantic, BBC, Bloomberg, The Economist, The Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, The Guardian, The New York Times, Nikkei Asian Review, South China Morning Post, The Straits Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. In addition to the 2017 book that entitles his talk, he has written two others: Asia's New Battlefield: US, China, and the Struggle for Western Pacific (2015) and How Capitalism Failed the Arab World (2014). He lectures widely; has taught political science at Ateneo de Manila University and De La Salle University in the Philippines; has published in leading scholarly journals on Asian politics and security; and is a regular contributor to the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Council on Foreign Relations. 

 

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Richard Javad Heydarian Resident Political Analyst, GMA Network, and Non-resident Fellow, Stratbase-ADR Institute, Manila
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Draper Hills Summer Fellowship application is open

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Draper Hills Summer Fellowship Program at CDDRL is now accepting applications. Deadline is 5:00 pm PST on Wednesday, November 15, 2017.

Launched in 2005, the Draper Hills Summer Fellowship on Democracy and Development Program (DHSFDD) is a three-week academic training program that is hosted annually at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. The program brings together a group of 25 to 30 mid-career practitioners in law, politics, government, private enterprise, civil society, and international development from transitioning countries. This training program provides a unique forum for emerging leaders to connect, exchange experiences, and receive academic training to enrich their knowledge and advance their work.

For three weeks during the summer, fellows participate in academic seminars that expose them to the theory and practice of democracy, development, and the rule of law. Delivered by leading Stanford faculty from the Stanford Law School, the Graduate School of Business, and the departments of economics and political science, these seminars allow emerging leaders to explore new institutional models and frameworks to enhance their ability to promote democratic change in their home countries.

Guest speakers from private foundations, think tanks, government, and the justice system provide a practitioners viewpoint on such pressing issues in the field. Summer Fellows also visit Silicon Valley technology firms such as Benetech, Google and Twitter to explore how technology tools and social media platforms are being used to catalyze democratic practices on a global scale. 

The  program is funded  by the generous support from Bill and Phyllis Draper and Ingrid von Mangoldt Hills.

Learn more here.

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CDDRL's class of 2018 pre- and postdoctoral fellows

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Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) is proud to announce our three incoming fellows who will be joining us in the 2017-2018 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 policing and sectarian conflict in Iraq and Israel, global health and safety regulations and taxation in Southeast Asia.

Learn more in the Q&A below.

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Matthew Nanes

CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow

 

Hometown: Dunwoody, GA

Academic Institution: University of California San Diego

Discipline & Graduation Date:  Political Science, June 2017

Research Interests: Middle East Politics, sectarian conflict, policing and domestic security, comparative institutions

Dissertation Title: From the Bottom-Up: Policing and Sectarian Conflict in Divided Societies

What attracted you to the CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellowship program? I was drawn to the post-doctoral program at CDDRL by the broad range of experts at FSI and across the entire Stanford community. My research interests touch on a wide range of substantive and methodological issues, and I'm very excited to work with experts on a similarly broad range of areas. I was also attracted to CDDRL's focus on bridging the gap between academic scholarship and real-world policy applications.

What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at the CDDRL? My primary goal is to make progress in converting my dissertation, which is about policing and sectarian conflict in Iraq and Israel, into a publishable academic book. To this end, I intend to spend time honing my theoretical argument about the incentives and constraints generated by sectarian inclusiveness in the police and testing this argument using new and existing data. I also intend to continue progress on ongoing research on policing under low state legitimacy in the Philippines, and to lay the groundwork for follow-up research on the Iraqi police. 

Fun fact: During college, I rode a bicycle from Providence, RI to Seattle, WA

 
 

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Rebecca Louise Perlman

CDDRL Pre-doctoral Fellow

Hometown: Newton, MA

Academic Institution: Stanford University 

Discipline & Expected Graduation Date:  Political Science, 2018

Research interests: Regulation, Trade, International institutions

Dissertation Title: For Safety or Profit? The Determinants of Global Health and Safety Regulations

What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre-doctoral Fellowship program? CDDRL brings together an amazing group of scholars, with a diverse set of research interests. I was eager for the opportunity to work with and learn from these individuals, through workshops and day-to-day interactions. 

What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at the CDDRL? I'm looking forward to completing my dissertation and hopefully embarking on some collaborative projects with other CDDRL fellows and/or faculty.

Fun fact: I have a cat named Khaleesi.

 
 

CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow

 

Hometown: Anchorage, AK

Academic Institution: Emory University

Discipline & Graduation Date: Political Science, August 4, 2017

Research Interests: political economy of development, decentralization, taxation, local politics, Southeast Asia

Dissertation Title: Decentralization and the Politics of Local Taxation in Southeast Asia

What attracted you to the CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellowship program? I share CDDRL's concern for the links among multiple dimensions of development, and emphasize the interplay between political and economic institutions in my own research. In addition, the members of the CDDRL community combine disciplinary approaches, technical expertise, and area knowledge to address substantively important and theoretically interesting questions. I am very excited to learn from the community.

What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at the CDDRL? I will revise and expand my dissertation as I prepare it for publication. The dissertation highlights the role of strong local business associations as key institutions for resolving the distributional and monitoring challenges posed by taxation. Yet, it does not explain the origins of those associations. I will address this question by exploring the histories of local business associations in Southeast Asia, particularly those which exhibit surprising strength or weakness despite expectations to the contrary. 

Fun fact: My summer job in college was to umpire American Legion baseball.

 

 

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