Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
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This book originated in a conference on "Liberation Technology in Authoritarian Regimes" held at Stanford University in Oct. 2010.
The revolutions sweeping the Middle East provide dramatic evidence of the role that technology plays in mobilizing citizen protest and upending seemingly invulnerable authoritarian regimes. A grainy cell phone video of a Tunisian street vendor’s self-immolation helped spark the massive protests that toppled longtime ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and Egypt’s "Facebook revolution" forced the ruling regime out of power and into exile.
While such "liberation technology" has been instrumental in freeing Egypt and Tunisia, other cases—such as China and Iran—demonstrate that it can be deployed just as effectively by authoritarian regimes seeking to control the Internet, stifle protest, and target dissenters. This two-sided dynamic has set off an intense technological race between "netizens" demanding freedom and authoritarians determined to retain their grip on power.
Liberation Technology brings together cutting-edge scholarship from scholars and practitioners at the forefront of this burgeoning field of study. An introductory section defines the debate with a foundational piece on liberation technology and is then followed by essays discussing the popular dichotomy of "liberation" versus "control" with regard to the Internet and the sociopolitical dimensions of such controls. Additional chapters delve into the cases of individual countries: China, Egypt, Iran, and Tunisia.
This book also includes in-depth analysis of specific technologies such as Ushahidi—a platform developed to document human-rights abuses in the wake of Kenya’s 2007 elections—and alkasir—a tool that has been used widely throughout the Middle East to circumvent cyber-censorship.
Liberation Technology will prove an essential resource for all students seeking to understand the intersection of information and communications technology and the global struggle for democracy.
Contributors: Walid Al-Saqaf, Daniel Calingaert, Ronald Deibert, Larry Diamond, Elham Gheytanchi, Philip N. Howard, Muzammil M. Hussain, Rebecca MacKinnon, Patrick Meier, Evgeny Morozov, Xiao Qiang, Rafal Rohozinski, Mehdi Yahyanejad
Asia is a major source and destination for victims of human trafficking. The region's booming sex tourism industry, China's appetite for Burmese child-brides, and widespread poverty foster a black market that goes unchecked. Governments often have little incentive to combat the internal and cross-border sale of people, sometimes profiting from revenue generated by sex tourism and a cheap, unregulated shadow labor market.
Helen Stacy, director of the CDDRL Program on Human Rights and a FSI senior fellow, says now is the time to address human trafficking and the mechanisms to fight it in Asia. As U.S. foreign policy pivots toward Asia, human rights issues are becoming integrated into regional discussions on trade and economic development. According to Stacy, regional trade blocs - such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) - are using their collective strength to get serious about human rights and curb trafficking.
Stacy, a lawyer by training, has dedicated a great deal of research to examining the shifting landscape of the international human rights movement. Her 2009 book, Human Rights for the 21st Century: Sovereignty, Civil Society, Culture, highlighted the success of sub-regional organizations in using their economic, political, and security cooperation as a platform to pursue human rights issues.
Stacy points to one of Africa's sub-regional organizations - the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) - as a surprising benchmark in pursuing a collective plan of action against human trafficking. The 15 ECOWAS nations signed harmonized legislation outlining how to enforce laws and punish offenders.
Building off this research and her recent travels to Asia, Stacy is writing a new book that will examine how regional and sub-regional institutions in Africa and Asia are able to successfully enact and enforce human rights agreements.
Why the emphasis on regional and sub-regional institutions when examining human rights enforcement?
Africa, Europe, Latin America, and Southeast Asia have created regional bodies for country-to-country dialogue in their region. Given the vastness of their population and territory, sub-regional groups are now forming to advance economic and security cooperation. Intriguingly, the African and Southeast Asian sub-regional bodies principle purpose is economic cooperation, which makes their human rights activity very different from either national government or the international level human rights activity. Countries of varying political interests and economic capacity that had no interest in human rights are now negotiating cross-border human rights agreements with their regional neighbors. They are now being swept into a “regional group-think” approach to human rights.
Why focus on Africa and Asia?
Africa and Asia are huge markets for the U.S. and Asia holds China, the other world economic superpower. In Africa, China is consuming resources at a staggering rate but with scant attention to human rights. The U.S. must manage a complicated dance about trade and human rights in its negotiations with China. China is also a huge economic presence in Southeast Asia, and with the U.S. diplomatic “pivot” to Asia, it’s the right time for the U.S. to be focusing on Asian Pacific human rights.
What is ASEAN's role as a sub-regional organization in Southeast Asia?
ASEAN is a free trade organization that has really started to gather its forces since the Asian financial crisis. At the same time, Asian national governments have realized that their relationship with China makes them vulnerable. On the one hand they want China’s investment money; on the other hand they want to assert their own national goals and standards and not be consumed by China’s huge demand for resources. ASEAN understands that it must have institutions of good regional governance if they are to be taken seriously by the ASEAN Plus Three countries (China, Korea and Japan), or beyond to the U.S., Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.
Why does ASEAN care about human trafficking?
There aren't any accurate statistics of the number of victims whose bodies are being sold – that’s just an unfortunate reality of any black market. Global estimates are that 27 million people are enslaved, half of them children. That’s more today than the entire 300-year long Atlantic slave trade. Governments are realizing that if they want to claim national governance credibility they have to at least acknowledge the problem, sign human rights agreements, and start cooperating with their neighbors.
What are the steps ASEAN is taking to combat human trafficking?
ASEAN has committed itself to a trafficking agreement in 2014. They signed their first human rights convention in November 2012. I have been meeting with the country representatives here at Stanford and overseas and this is a serious diplomatic cadre. The U.S. has its own ambassador, which again is all part of its pivot toward Asia. President Obama made a landmark speech about human trafficking in September 2012 and the U.S. Agency for International Development is now incorporating anti-trafficking programming into their agenda. There has never been this level of international understanding of human slavery as a global phenomenon. My interest lies in seeing how the regional and sub-regional organizations respond to this moment.
What are your plans for your next book?
The book is about new actors, markets, and technologies that yield both good and bad human rights outcomes. The number of “deep-pocket” non-governmental groups is growing exponentially: both helpful ones like philanthropic organizations, and worrying ones like black market and underground political organizations. One way or another they have profound influences upon the actions of national governments and regional and sub-regional institutions.
How does human trafficking factor into your research?
Human trafficking is my lens because it provides a unique window into a country and region. It provides information about the status of minorities; levels of health, education, and poverty; and a national government’s commitment to human rights and the rule of law. A trafficking analysis shines light on when regional co-operation, economic aid, and philanthropic assistance improves human rights. It also reveals when corrupt governments profit from predatory black market trade in humans, guns, and drugs. If we understand this better we can guide intelligence professionals, civil society, communications people, and policy-makers in human rights reform.
Stacy will be discussing her evolving research agenda on human trafficking, with a focus on Burma's current human rights challenges, at the weekly CDDRL seminar on Feb. 7. For more information, please click here.
The road to the 18th Party Congress was contentious, leading to its delayed convocation. Nevertheless, the processes of generational turnover in China’s leadership at the Chinese Communist Party’s 18th National Congress extended patterns of formal politics that trace their roots to Deng Xiaoping’s political reforms of the 1980s, that advanced in the Jiang Zemin era in the 1990s, and that matured under outgoing General Secretary Hu Jintao in the 2000s. As such, the transition in the party leadership at the 18th Congress marked another step forward in the institutionalization of Chinese leadership politics.
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Alice Lyman Miller is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and teaches in the Departments of History and Political Science at Stanford. She is also a senior lecturer in the Department of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.
Prior to coming to Stanford in 1999, Miller taught at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C. from 1980–2000. From 1974–90, Miller worked in the Central Intelligence Agency as a senior analyst in Chinese foreign policy and domestic politics, and branch and division chief, supervising analysis on China, North Korea, Indochina, and Soviet policy in East Asia. Miller has lived and worked in Taiwan, Japan, and the PRC, and she speaks Mandarin Chinese.
Miller's research focuses on foreign policy and domestic politics issues in China and on the international relations of East Asia. She is editor and contributor to the Hoover Institution’s China Leadership Monitor, which has since 2001 offered online authoritative assessments of trends in Chinese leadership politics to American policymakers and the general public. Miller has published extensively on policy issues dealing with China, including several articles and book chapters, as well as two books: Science and Dissent in Post-Mao China: The Politics of Knowledge (University of Washington Press, 1996), and, with Richard Wich, Becoming Asia: Change and Continuity in Asian International Relations Since World War II (Stanford University Press, 2011). She is currently working on a new book, tentatively entitled The Evolution of Chinese Grand Strategy, 1550–Present, that brings a historical perspective to bear on China's rise in the contemporary international order.
Miller graduated from Princeton University in 1966, receiving a B.A. in Oriental Studies. She earned an M.A. and a Ph.D. in history from George Washington University in 1969 and 1974. Formerly H. Lyman Miller, she transitioned in 2006.
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The Internet Freedom Fellows program brings human rights activists from across the globe to Geneva, Washington, and Silicon Valley to meet with fellow activists, U.S. and international government leaders, and members of civil society and the private sector engaged in technology and human rights. A key goal of the program is to share experiences and lessons learned on the importance of a free Internet to the promotion of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly as fundamental human rights. As a part of the Silicon Valey tour, the six fellows for this year will stop at Stanford for a round table discussion.
The fellows will present their work pertaining to internet freedom and challenges they face, that we will have a chance to discuss. The event is free and open to the public.
You can find more information about the fellowship program at:
The internet freedom fellows for this year are:
Mac-Jordan Disu-Degadjor
@MacJordaN
A co-founder and executive of the sole blogging association in Ghana, Blogging Ghana, Mr. Disu-Degadjor promotes the freedom of expression through blogs and social media both on and off-line. Starting in 2009, Mac-Jordan and other young Ghanaians organized 18 BarCamps across Ghana, providing aspiring Ghanaian bloggers with technical help and networking opportunities. These conferences are designed to inspire youth to get on-line wherever and however they can.
On several occasions, Mac-Jordan has presented on the need to use blogs and other social media to amplify youth voices. In 2009, Global Voices appointed him as their aggregator for Ghana, and Dr. Dorothy Gordon, the Director-General of Ghana's Advanced Information Technology Institute, stated that he was a critical and necessary voice for the advancement of the nation.
Michael Anti
@mranti
Michael Anti was a computer programmer before turning to journalism in 2001. He is a longstanding advocate for a freer internet in China, noting that social media is the force that may ultimately challenge the political foundation of the country. Mr. Anti believes that the internet will facilitate a new conception of civic participation, inspiring the Chinese to see freedom of speech as a fundamental right. Microsoft MSN was forced to delete his award winning blog under pressure from the Chinese government, causing a media uproar in 2005. He has been an advocate of Virtual Private Networks for Chinese citizens, stating that those who don’t use them are “second-class citizens in the world of the internet.” Mr. Anti is known for his prolific career as a journalist, his 2012 Ted Talk, and his commitment to a freer China.
Edetaen Ojo
@EdetOjo; @MRA_ Nigeria
Edetaen Ojo is the director of The Media Rights Agenda, an organization that promotes excellence and professionalism in journalism. He spearheaded and orchestrated the movement that led the Nigerian legislature to pass the Freedom of Information Act, which empowers journalists to seek and access information from government establishments.
Mr. Ojo holds over twenty years of experience promoting and defending internet freedom as part of the broader right to freedom of expression, through monitoring transgressions and limitations on freedom and human rights online. His involvement in international human rights includes positions on the advisory group for the BBC World Service Trust-led Africa Media Development Initiative (AMDI) and the Task Force of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). Mr. Ojo also serves as Convenor (Chair) of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX), a global network of organizations with its secretariat in Toronto, Canada.
Grigory Okhotin
@okhotin; @OvdInfo
Grigory Okhotin is a prominent journalist and human rights activist in Russia. Previously the director of the news site Inosmi.RU, Mr. Okhotin resigned in protest of the censorship imposed upon public media in Russia. After his resignation, Mr. Okhotin began writing publically about censorship and human rights violations in Russia.
After experiencing detainment himself, Mr. Okhotin co-founded the portal ovdinfo.org to provide a public forum for sharing information about Russian citizens detained while exercising their right to freedom of assembly. Mr. Okhotin’s website is unique in that it provides real-time detailed information about those who have been detained, and features mini-interviews in which activists describe the manner of their arrest and the conditions of their confinement. According to Mr. Okhotin, “That helps us to understand what happens behind closed doors.”
Usamah Mohamed
@simsimt
Usamah Mohamed is a computer programmer and human rights activist, who currently owns and operates an IT business in Khartoum. During the recent wave of anti-government demonstrations in Sudan, Mr. Mohamed organized peaceful demonstrations from the Twitter page he supervises and supplied international media with fresh pictures and news on demonstrations across the country. The government took several steps to halt Mr. Mohamed’s work, including subjecting him to a period of detention. Undeterred, Mr. Mohamed continues to use social media to promote human rights in Sudan. The U.S. Embassy follows his blog daily, considering it an important source of news and opinions about Sudan. In April 2012, Usamah was chosen to be a part of the Sudan Social Media Team to meet with the U.S. Department of State’s special representative to Muslim communities, Farah Pandith.
Mr. Mohamed currently trains activists to use online tools effectively and efficiently. This includes training on blogging, bypassing online censorship, using circumvention tools, digital and online security, citizen journalism, effective audio and video recording, and live-tweeting for the coverage of events such as protests, sit-ins, and forums.
Bronwen Robertson
Bronwen Robertson is the Director of Operations for a London based NGO called Small Media. While in Iran working on a PhD in music, Ms. Robertson became interested in working for the rights of repressed Iranians, especially homosexuals. In Iran, Ms. Roberson spearheaded a research project and report entitled “LGBT Republic of Iran: An Online Reality?” The report, published in May of this year, led to a number of projects that connect Farsi speaking communities worldwide. One such project is a website called Degarvajeh, which gives online support to the LGBT community by providing general information and the proper Farsi vocabulary to discuss LGBT issues in a non-derogatory fashion.
Through Small Media, Ms. Robertson works to counter Iran’s efforts to block websites and censor information. Small Media spends much of its time working on creating new and innovative ways to make the internet safe and useful for Iranians. The group holds numerous online training sessions in personal online security, citizen journalism, and general information. They also report on related issues such as cultural censorship in Iran, Iranian women sports, and struggles faced by Iranian Bloggers. Recently, the group held an awareness raising workshop to demonstrate the challenges faced by Iranians using the internet under oppression.
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Nicolas Berggruen
Nicolas Berggruen is the Chairman of Berggruen Holdings, a private company, which is the direct investment vehicle of The Nicolas Berggruen Charitable Trust. Through the Nicolas Berggruen Institute on Governance, an independent, nonpartisan think tank, he encourages the study and design of systems of good governance suited for the 21st century. Mr. Berggruen is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy.
Nathan Gardels
Nathan Gardels has been editor of New Perspectives Quarterly since it began publishing in 1985. He has served as editor of Global Viewpoint and Nobel Laureates Plus (services of LATimes Syndicate/Tribune Media) since 1989. Mr. Gardels has written widely for The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Harper's, U.S. News & World Report and the New York Review of Books. He has also written for foreign publications. Since 1986, Gardels has been a Media Fellow of the World Economic Forum (Davos), and he has been a member of the Councilof Foreign Relations, as well as the Pacific Council, for many years.
From Winston Churchill at the end of World War II to Francis Fukuyama at the end of the Cold War, liberal democracy has been extolled as the best system of governance to have emerged out of the long experience of history. Today, such a confident assertion is far from self-evident. Democracy, in crisis across the West, must prove itself.
It is time, the authors argue, to take another look at democracy as we know it not just because of the sustained success of non-Western modernity, notably in the more authoritarian Asia of Singapore or China, but because the West itself has changed.
While China must lighten up, the authors quip, the US must tighten up. As the 21st Century unfolds, both of these core systems of the global order must contend with the same reality: a genuinely multi-polar world where no single power dominates and in which societies themselves are becoming increasingly diverse.
To cope, the authors argue that both East and West can benefit by adapting each other’s best practices. The authors’ essential thesis is that a post-post Cold War world characterized by the interdependence of plural identities and the spread of information technology both requires and enables a new system of “intelligent governance” to meet its challenges. Greater complexity of diversity requires a calibration of institutions that balances the distributed, participatory power of social media with smart governing capacity at the systemic level for the common good and long-term sustainability. Getting that balance right by “devolving, involving and decision-division” will make the difference between dynamic and stalled societies.
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Francis Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a faculty member of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). He is also Director of Stanford's Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy, and a professor (by courtesy) of Political Science.
Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on issues in development and international politics. His 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. His book In the Realm of the Last Man: A Memoir will be published in fall 2026.
Francis Fukuyama 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, and of the Policy Planning Staff of the US Department of State. From 1996-2000 he was Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University, and from 2001-2010 he was Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. He served as a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics from 2001-2004. He is editor-in-chief of American Purpose, an online journal.
Dr. Fukuyama holds honorary doctorates from Connecticut College, Doane College, Doshisha University (Japan), Kansai University (Japan), Aarhus University (Denmark), the Pardee Rand Graduate School, and Adam Mickiewicz University (Poland). He is a non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Rand Corporation, the Board of Trustees of Freedom House, and the Board of the Volcker Alliance. He is a fellow of the National Academy for Public Administration, a member of the American Political Science Association, and of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is married to Laura Holmgren and has three children.
(October 2025)
Bruce Gilley is an Associate Professor of Political Science in the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government at Portland State University. His research centers on comparative and international politics, and he is a specialist on the politics of China and Asia. He is the author of four university-press books, including China’s Democratic Future (2004) and co-editor of several volumes including Political Change in China: Comparisons with Taiwan (co-edited with Larry Diamond) (2008) and the forthcoming Reshaping China: Why Middle Powers Matter (with Andrew O’Neil). His article “Not So Dire Straits: How the Finlandization of Taiwan Benefits U.S. Security” appeared in Foreign Affairs in 2010. He holds a PhD from Princeton University and an M.Phil. from the University of Oxford.
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Speaker Bio:
Greg Distelhorst is a Ph.D. candidate in the MIT Department of Political Science and a predoctoral fellow at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. His dissertation addresses public accountability under authoritarian rule, focusing on official responsiveness and citizen activism in contemporary China. This work shows how citizens can marshal negative media coverage to discipline unelected officials, or "publicity-driven accountability." These findings result from two years of fieldwork in mainland China, including a survey experiment on tax and regulatory officials. A forthcoming second study measures the effects of citizen ethnic identity on government responsiveness in a national field experiment. His dissertation research has been funded by the U.S. Fulbright Program, the Boren Fellowship, and the National Science Foundation. A second area of research is labor governance under globalization, where he has examined private initiatives to improve working conditions in the global garment, toy, and electronics supply chains.
For more on Greg's research, please visit:
http://web.mit.edu/polisci/people/gradstudents/greg-distelhorst.html
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Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Greg Distelhorst is a Ph.D. candidate in the MIT Department of Political Science and a predoctoral fellow at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. His dissertation addresses public accountability under authoritarian rule, focusing on official responsiveness and citizen activism in contemporary China. This work shows how citizens can marshal negative media coverage to discipline unelected officials, or "publicity-driven accountability." These findings result from two years of fieldwork in mainland China, including a survey experiment on tax and regulatory officials. A forthcoming second study measures the effects of citizen ethnic identity on government responsiveness in a national field experiment. His dissertation research has been funded by the U.S. Fulbright Program, the Boren Fellowship, and the National Science Foundation. A second area of research is labor governance under globalization, where he has examined private initiatives to improve working conditions in the global garment, toy, and electronics supply chains.
The Program on Human Rights at Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law inaugurated the 2012-2013 Sanela Diana Jenkins Speaker Series by hosting a Dec. 7 seminar with the former prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Honorable Luis Moreno-Ocampo. The lecture series will bring to light current challenges and possibilities for the ICC over the next decade, which include: how to determine reparations for victims; U.S. and ICC relations; and nation-state cooperation. During the 2012-2013 academic year, the series will examine the ICC by hosting debates with local, national and international experts, academics and activists.
On July 1, 2002, the ICC was established by more than 100 nations to ensure that those who have committed violations of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity are brought to justice. National governments that have signed the treaty establishing the ICC have promised to progressively structure their national criminal systems so these egregious human rights violators will be brought before their own people and courts under fair trial processes.
In the last decade the ICC has brought 16 cases to the court from seven different conflicts in Africa.
“The ICC is now firmly established as international destination for genocidaires,” said Helen Stacy, director of the Program on Human Rights. “In the coming decade, we shall know better whether the ICC deters would-be genocidaires before they commit their awful crimes. The next decade will also show if the world's biggest exceptionalists — such as the U.S. and China —are willing to accept ICC jurisdiction. The time is ripe for this series to assess the impact of the international criminal justice on human rights after devastating conflict, both its triumphs and its shortcomings,” continued Stacy.
Moreno-Ocampo came to the ICC with a distinguished record as a prosecutor in the trials of Argentine military officials of the 1976-1983 military dictatorship. Over his ten year term in the ICC, Moreno-Ocampo was responsible for establishing the Office of the Prosecutor as an institution, opening ICC investigations and prosecuting those who were ultimately brought to trial.
The ICC and Moreno-Ocampo symbolize historic achievements in international law. The 121 signatories to the treaty recognizing the ICC demonstrated that international criminal justice is an important issue on the global political agenda. In addition, the ICC’s actions in its first decade have not only had a positive impact on the lives of tens of thousands of direct victims, but also for millions of people in affected communities and societies who have re-built their lives after years of civil war, genocide, murder, rape and the destruction of property.
“We are looking forward to a lively conversation about important issues of global politics and justice at Stanford and on the web,” said Richard Steinberg, visiting professor of international relations at Stanford and editor-in-chief of the Online Forum. Steinberg, who is also a professor of Law at UCLA, added, “The series will feature debate on key questions about the ICC, including the extent to which peace and international justice are compatible and how the ICC can retain its legitimacy as a justice institution while navigating the perils of international politics.”
The Sanela Diana Jenkins ICC Speakers Series will take place over three academic quarters: a fall quarter workshop with Luis Moreno-Ocampo; a winter quarter speaker series open to the entire Stanford community and the public (and also a one-unit credit course for Stanford students); and a spring quarter conference. The results of these conferences will be compiled in a working papers series on the ICC and international criminal justice. Beginning January 8, 2013, speaker series presentations will also be presented to and debated by a global audience on the Human Rights & International Criminal Law Online Forum at www.stanfordhumanrights.com.
For more information on the series, please visit: http://humanrights.stanford.edu/events/one_decade_of_the_international_….
