Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
"For all its recent setbacks, democracy still has the resources not only to resist but also to beat back the authoritarian tide," writes Larry Diamond for The American Interest. Read the article here.
Larry Diamond looks at the global and domestic threats to the principles of liberal democracy for The Brian Lehrer Show. Listen here.
In the honor of publication of Larry Diamond's "Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency" Foreign Affairs are providing past the paywall article "Democracy Demotion: How the Freedom Agenda Fell Apart" by Larry Diamond. Read here.
Two CDDRL honors students will present their theses at this week's CDDRL Research Seminar on Wednesday, June 5, from 12-1:30pm.
Sophia Pink's thesis, "Think like a Scientist: Interventions to Reduce Politically Motivated Reasoning" will receive the CDDRL Award for Outstanding Thesis 2019Image
About Sophia:
Hometown: Washington, DC
Major: Product Design
Thesis Advisor: Robb Willer
Thesis Title: Think like a Scientist: Interventions to Reduce Politically Motivated Reasoning
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? When we are faced with information about political issues, our ability to reason is easily hijacked by our biases. We often have a conclusion in mind and use the information to justify our pre-existing views. This is called “politically motivated reasoning.” If our society wants to continue to have the meaningful political discussions essential for a functioning democracy, we need tools to defend ourselves against these biases.
This thesis includes a thorough literature review of the research on motivated reasoning with hypotheses for interventions that may reduce motivated reasoning. It also tests an intervention to reduce politically motivated reasoning with a experimental study. Instead of blaming individuals, we need to design tools to equip people to analyze political information without biases getting in the way.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergraduate honors program? I was excited to learn from the cohort of amazing students. Working with students from different departments over the course of a year helped me produce stronger research and be a better colleague.
Future aspirations post-Stanford: I hope to use the tools of ethnographic research, behavioral science, and data science to design experiences that help people make better decisions and live more fulfilling lives.
Alex Trivella's Thesis,"Thwarting Electoral Revolution: The Communal State and Authoritarian Consolidation in Venezuela" will receive a Firestone Medal, given to the top 10% of all honors theses. Image
About Alex:
Hometown: Caracas, Venezuela
Major: History
Thesis Advisor: Beatriz Magaloni
Thesis Title: Thwarting Electoral Revolution: The Communal State and Authoritarian Consolidation in Venezuela
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? As Venezuela faces a new political era of single-party dictatorship, the future of the country remains uncertain. It is still unclear how the party will proceed in its consolidation of power and what institutions will remain relevant. Studying the evolution of Communal State structures exposes the political framework available to the Venezuelan government and may reveal a path to redemocratization.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergraduate honors program? The CDDRL honors program provided me the opportunity to engage with some of the complex questions I had about the socioeconomic collapse of my country. I was also excited for the new perspectives available through the program's multidisciplinary focus.
Future aspirations post-Stanford: I would like to pursue a Master's in International Policy and possibly work in something relating to democratization. I also hope to help rebuild Venezuela in the future.
Reuben Hills Conference room
Encina Hall, 2nd floor East
As China and Russia attack free governments and push strongman rule, the U.S. has gone silent—and a new tide of authoritarianism is gathering, writes Larry Diamond. Read here.
CLOSED WORKSHOP
Since 2012, the Governance Project at CDDRL has sought to develop better comparative measures of state quality. Existing measures like the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators, TI’s Transparency Perceptions Index, or the state-quality measures in the Varieties of Democracy series are based on perception or expert surveys. They often produce aggregate measures for an entire country, without distinguishing between ministries, levels of government, or regions within countries. And almost none of them measure aspects of governance like bureaucratic autonomy that many observers feel are critical to state performance.
The Governance Project has developed a survey instrument that seeks to correct some of these deficiencies by surveying bureaucrats in different countries directly. While such a survey is obviously subject to its own problems like social acceptability bias, they at least try to reach into the insides of executive branches in ways that existing perception surveys do not. To date, the project has completed surveys in China, Brazil, Ukraine, and is undertaking one in India. The survey instrument is based on the Federal Viewpoint Survey (FedView), which has surveyed US bureaucrats over an extended length of time and can serve as a comparative baseline. These surveys are conducted in conjunction with local partners that perform the actual surveys and provide input and analysis into the survey instrument.
It is our hope to generate cross-national comparative data that will encompass an increasing number of countries, and in the long-run produce time-series data. Our model is the World Values Survey, which from the 1980s going forward has expanded the number of countries covered. We hope to make this data publicly available to academic researchers around the world.
The Governance Project has entered into a cooperative agreement with the World Bank and University College, London, to devise a common survey instrument, to standardize surveying practices, and to coordinate the choice of survey targets for future surveys.
This workshop is co-sponsored with Stanford University's Center on Global Poverty and Development.
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Koret-Taube Conference Center
366 Galvez St.
Stanford, CA 94305
Abstract:
Inequality has long been widely and rightly seen as one of the greatest threats to democracy. For political scientists, the most lethal kind of inequality for democracy is some form of economic inequality. In this project, I adopt a more historical and ideological approach to the question of how inequality threatens democracy. Specifically, focusing on twentieth-century post-colonial contexts, I argue that inequalities of citizenship that are historically grounded in founding narratives of nationalism are also detrimental to a country’s democratic prospects across time.
Speaker Bio:
Eileen Donahoe discusses the likely implications of government regulations a foreseeable criminal consequences on big tech companies in the piece by David Ingram for NBC News.
Read it here.
Global Digital Policy Incubator’s Associate Director for Research, Megan Metzger, was on the Stats + Stories podcast speaking about RT news online, and how it fits into the Russian state’s information strategy. She also spoke more broadly about the opportunities and challenges that social media has created, and what we as individuals can do to make the internet a better place.
