About Whitney: Whitney McIntosh is from Melbourne, Australia. At Stanford, she studied International Relations and English before pursuing an interdisciplinary honors thesis through CDDRL. Her thesis explores the way that the conception of ‘security’ rose to prominence over the 20th century, gathering new referents and meanings with changes to the international order. The term ‘security’ came into common parlance following World War I, specifically through the experience of France who felt threatened by potential German aggression. This research reflects general interests in intellectual history, post-conflict reconstruction, and French culture and politics. Outside of her studies, Whitney volunteers with kids with special needs through Kids with Dreams and is the Managing Editor of Liminal Magazine. After Stanford, Whitney hopes to pursue graduate studies in Political Science, before a career in academia.

 

 

Sofia Filippa's thesis, "NGO Family Planning Programs and Indigenous Women's Motivations for Collective Action: A Case Study of Solola, Guatemala ," will receive the CDDRL Award for Outstanding Thesis.

About Sofia:  Sofia was born in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina. As she prepares to graduate, she is looking for ways to get involved with organizations that work to advance women's reproductive rights in Latin America or in the U.S. Writing her thesis has definitely been the driving inspiration behind this decision, and so she is very thankful for having had this opportunity!

Abstract:

By the standards of prosperity and peace, the post-Cold War international order has been  an unparalleled success. Over the last thirty years there has been more creation of wealth, and reduction of poverty, disease, and food insecurity than in all of previous history. During the same period, the numbers and lethality of wars have decreased. Yet these facts have not deterred an alternative assessment that asserts that civil violence, terrorism, and failed states are at unprecedented high levels, and the numbers of refugees are at an all time high.

There is no global crisis of failed states and endemic civil war, no global crisis of refugees and migration, and no global crisis of disorder. Instead what we have seen is a particular historical crisis unfold in the greater Middle East, which has collapsed order within that region, and has fed the biggest threat to international order: populism in the United States and Europe.

Speaker Bio:

Stephen John Stedman is Deputy Director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law (CDDRL), Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford University. At CDDRL Professor Stedman directs the project on American Democracy in Comparative Perspective, which examines the sources and extent of polarization and paralysis in Western democracies. From 2010 to 2012 he served as the Director for the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy, and Security, a body of eminent persons tasked with developing recommendations on promoting and protecting the integrity of elections. Professor Stedman drafted the Commission’s report, Deepening Democracy: A Strategy for Improving the Integrity of Elections Worldwide.  In 2003-2004 Professor Stedman was Research Director of the United Nations High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change and was a principal drafter of the Panel’s report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility. In 2005 he served as Assistant Secretary General and Special Advisor to the Secretary General of the United Nations, with responsibility for working with governments to adopt the Panel’s recommendations for strengthening collective security and for implementing changes within the United Nations Secretariat, including the creation of a Peacebuilding Support Office, a Counter Terrorism Task Force, and a Policy Committee to act as a cabinet to the Secretary General.

Professor Stedman has written widely on transnational threats to international security. He is currently researching the historical development of the concept of security and how its meanings have changed over time. Professor Stedman received his BA, MA and PhD degrees from Stanford University.  He and his wife, Corinne Thomas, are the Resident Fellows in Crothers -- Stanford’s academic theme house on global citizenship.

Abstract:

Colombia’s government set out to reduce crime and violence and increase state legitimacy by raising state presence on the streets of Bogotá, either doubling police patrol time or delivering cleanup and lighting services. We evaluate the effects of those interventions over an 8-month window. Interventions at this scale, in a dense network of streets, require us to account for spillovers into control segments. The policy implications also hinge on these spillovers. We show how to design place-based experiments to test for spatial spillovers over varying distances, and estimate direct and spillover effects using randomization inference. Using administrative data alongside a citywide survey, we find that increasing state presence reduces insecurity on targeted streets, and that there may be increasing returns to state presence and to targeting the least secure places. But data suggests that targeted state presence simply pushes insecurity around the corner.

 

Speaker Bio:

Chris Blattman is the Ramalee E. Pearson Professor of Global Conflict Studies at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. He is an economist and political scientist who studies poverty and violence in developing countries, and has worked mainly in Colombia, Liberia, Uganda, and Ethiopia. Professor Blattman was previously faculty at Columbia and Yale Universities, and holds a PhD in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley and a Master’s in Public Administration and International Development (MPA/ID) from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Abstract:

Within the last fifteen years, nine multilateral development banks (MDBs) have established internal accountability offices (IAOs).  These IAOs, the most well-known of which is the World Bank Inspection Panel, allow communities within borrowing states to bring complaints against MDBs if loan programs cause them harm and violate MDB policies.  The IAOs have been touted as effective fire-alarm mechanisms and remedies to the democratic deficit problem; they have also been criticized as broadly ineffective and toothless.  What explains the variation in IAO impact and efficacy?  I argue that borrowing states significantly constrain the impact of MDB IAOs and that borrowing state influence varies depending on regime type.  Democratic borrowing states will be more willing to absorb the potential costs associated with MDB IAOs—including program changes and possible program termination—than will autocratic states.  The argument is supported with quantitative evidence from a new dataset of all complaints filed through 2015.

Speaker Bio:

Erica Gould is the Director of the International Relations Honors Program at Stanford University. She teaches courses on honors thesis writing, international political economy and international organizations.  She has taught previously at the University of Virginia and Johns Hopkins University.  Dr. Gould’s research has centered mainly around the question of how international organizations are controlled.  She is currently working on a project concerning international organizational decision-making rules and also one on the accountability mechanisms associated with international organizations.  Her publications include Money Talks: The International Monetary Fund, Conditionality and Supplementary Financiers (Stanford University Press, 2006), as well as articles in academic journals and several edited volumes. In addition to her research and teaching, Dr. Gould serves on the Board of Accountability Counsel, an international NGO based in San Francisco.  She received her PhD in Political Science from Stanford University and her BA from Cornell University.

Speaker Bio:

Zeynep Tufekci, a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, writes about the social impacts of technology. She is an assistant professor in the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina, a faculty associate at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard, and a former fellow at the Center for Internet Technology Policy at Princeton. Her research revolves around politics, civics, movements, privacy and surveillance, as well as data and algorithms. Originally from Turkey, Ms. Tufekci was a computer programmer by profession and academic training before turning her focus to the impact of technology on society and social change. She switched to social science, and started calling herself a “technosociologist.” She has been published widely on the interaction of new technologies with society, politics and culture. Her forthcoming book from Yale University Press is tentatively titled “Beautiful Tear Gas: The Ecstatic, Fragile Politics of Networked Protest in the 21st Century.”