As if the alleged Iranian plan to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S. wasn’t strange and sinister enough, it offered an outlandish twist: American officials say the Iranian plotters wanted to hire a Mexican drug cartel to carry out the murder.

The charges laid out earlier this week are raising questions about how the United States should respond to Iran, skepticism about the Mexican underworld’s possible involvement and concerns about the growing, borderless network of global terrorism.

Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, a law professor and co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and Beatriz Magaloni, an associate professor of political science and affiliated faculty of FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, discuss the developing events.

President Obama is vowing to impose tougher sanctions on Iran. What good will they do?

Cuéllar: Countries use sanctions to achieve multiple goals. Sanctions often put pressure on the regime and disrupt the regime’s capacity to move money, pay for resources, and offer goods and services on the international market. Even if they are imperfectly enforced, sanctions can affect particular individuals or organizations within states. Separately, sanctions signal the resolve of the nation imposing them, and thus the United States can force discussion among governments and diplomats regarding how the international community will respond to a state violating international norms.

Do Mexican drug cartels have the ability and willingness to be the hired guns in global terrorist operations?

Magaloni: Drug cartels are increasingly diversifying their portfolios of crime. They’re not exclusively engaging in the trading of drugs. They’re also engaged in many other criminal activities, including kidnapping, and extortion. And some have engaged in human trafficking.

Can this extend to acts of terror beyond Mexico? At this moment – with the evidence I see – I find it difficult to believe.

Mexican drug gangs do not seem to have that much capacity to operate in the U.S. There is an implicit agreement between government officials in some states and the cartels, and that’s what allows them to operate, often with impunity. But right now, I don’t think they can orchestrate the same type of terror once they cross the border because they do not have the same networks in the US.

How do you expect the criminal case to play out?

Cuéllar:  The criminal complaint alleges that accused individuals sought the assistance of a Mexican drug cartel. Instead of negotiating with that organization, however, the accused ended up interacting with a confidential informant working for American law enforcement agencies. Prosecutors will nonetheless focus on the motivation of the accused and the possibility that individuals with such goals might succeed in forging alliances with transnational criminal organizations in the future.  

How is the criminal activity in Mexico affecting security in the region?

Cuéllar: Although Mexico is a country that faces considerable challenges involving security and state capacity, it is certainly not Somalia or Afghanistan. And the Attorney General indicated that the Mexican government worked closely with U.S. authorities investigating the alleged criminal conspiracy. Nonetheless, Mexico has become a focal point for the activity of certain large criminal organizations with the ability to operate across large territories and to harness different forms of expertise. 

While these criminal networks certainly affect the security environment in both Mexico and the United States, there is often something of a paradox in the nature of the threat they pose. The organizations with the greatest capacity to engage in complicated operations across borders tend to be the ones with the tightest hold on lucrative pieces of the drug trade. And they are probably the most skeptical of getting involved in something that will draw a massive response from the United States.

What may complicate the situation is that some of the criminal organizations are beginning to fragment in response to changing dynamics in illicit markets and conflict with Mexican authorities. Fragmentation tends to weaken hierarchies, disrupting the ability of leaders to discipline the subordinates capable of engaging in violent activity. Continuing fragmentation may further affect the security context, as individuals and smaller organizations compete for resources and seek new markets for illicit activity.

In a piece for the Wall Street Journal on August 13, visiting scholar Evgeny Morozov cautions Western nations to be mindful of the dangerous precedent they set to authoritarian regimes when monitoring Internet content. While recent events in Norway and London may compel governments to employ surveillance tools, Morozov argues that Beijing and Tehran will be vindicated by their own repressive policies.

Did the youthful rioters who roamed the streets of London, Manchester and other British cities expect to see their photos scrutinized by angry Internet users, keen to identify the miscreants? In the immediate aftermath of the riots, many cyber-vigilantes turned to Facebook, Flickr and other social networking sites to study pictures of the violence. Some computer-savvy members even volunteered to automate the process by using software to compare rioters' faces with faces pictured elsewhere on the Internet.

The rioting youths were not exactly Luddites either. They used BlackBerrys to send their messages, avoiding more visible platforms like Facebook and Twitter. It's telling that they looted many stores selling fancy electronics. The path is short, it would seem, from "digital natives" to "digital restives."

As social media's role in the London riots is explored, British politicians are considering whether temporarily banning or censoring sites like Twitter and Facebook would quell or enflame the tensions, Cassell Bryan-Low reports from London.

Technology has empowered all sides in this skirmish: the rioters, the vigilantes, the government and even the ordinary citizens eager to help. But it has empowered all of them to different degrees. As the British police, armed with the latest facial-recognition technology, go through the footage captured by their numerous closed-circuit TV cameras and study chat transcripts and geolocation data, they are likely to identify many of the culprits.

Such regimes are eager to see what kind of precedents will be set by Western officials as they wrestle with these evolving technologiesAuthoritarian states are monitoring these developments closely. Chinese state media, for one, blamed the riots on a lack of Chinese-style controls over social media. Such regimes are eager to see what kind of precedents will be set by Western officials as they wrestle with these evolving technologies. They hope for at least partial vindication of their own repressive policies.

Some British politicians quickly called on the BlackBerry maker Research in Motion to suspend its messaging service to avoid an escalation of the riots. On Thursday, Prime Minister David Cameron said that the government should consider blocking access to social media for people who plot violence or disorder.

After the recent massacre in Norway, many European politicians voiced their concern that anonymous anti-immigrant comments on the Web were inciting extremism. They are now debating ways to limit online anonymity.

Does the Internet really need an overhaul of norms, laws and technologies that gives more control to governments? When the Egyptian secret police can purchase Western technology that allows them to eavesdrop on the Skype calls of dissidents, it seems unlikely that American and European intelligence agencies have no means of listening the calls of, say, a loner in Norway.

We tolerate such drastic proposals only because acts of terror briefly deprive us of the ability to think straight. We are also distracted by the universal tendency to imagine technology as a liberating force; it keeps us from noticing that governments already have more power than is healthy.

The domestic challenges posed by the Internet demand a measured, cautious response in the West. Leaders in Beijing, Tehran and elsewhere are awaiting our wrong-headed moves, which would allow them to claim an international license for dealing with their own protests. The yare also looking for tools and strategies that might improve their own digital surveillance.

After violent riots in 2009, Chinese officials had no qualms about cutting off the Xinjiang region's Internet access for 10 months. Still, they would surely welcome a formal excuse for such drastic measures if the West should decide to take similar measures in dealing with disorder. Likewise, any plan in the U.S. or Europe to engage in online behavioral profiling—trying to identify future terrorists based on their tweets, gaming habits or social networking activity—is likely to boost the already booming data-mining industry. It would not take long for such tools to find their way to repressive states.

But something even more important is at stake here. To the rest of the world, the efforts of Western nations, and especially the U.S., to promote democracy abroad have often smacked of hypocrisy. How could the West lecture others while struggling to cope with its own internal social contradictions? Other countries could live with this hypocrisy as long as the West held firm in promoting its ideals abroad. But this double game is harder to maintain in the Internet era.

In their concern to stop not just mob violence but commercial crimes like piracy and file-sharing, Western politicians have proposed new tools for examining Web traffic and changes in the basic architecture of the Internet to simplify surveillance. What they fail to see is that such measures can also affect the fate of dissidents in places like China and Iran. Likewise, how European politicians handle online anonymity will influence the policies of sites like Facebook, which, in turn, will affect the political behavior of those who use social media in the Middle East.

Should America and Europe abandon any pretense of even wanting to promote democracy abroad? Or should they try to figure out how to increase the resilience of their political institutions in the face of the Internet? As much as our leaders might congratulate themselves for embracing the revolutionary potential of these new technologies, they have shown little evidence of being able to think about them in a nuanced and principled way.

 

In reaction to the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Khan for allegations of rape in May, Kavita Ramdas and Christine Ahn argue in a piece for Foreign Policy in Focus that gender bias is embedded in the global policies and practices at the IMF, which unfairly target women. Kavita Ramdas is the former president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women and a visiting scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.

In reaction to the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Khan for allegations of rape in May, Kavita Ramdas and Christine Ahn argue in a piece for Foreign Policy in Focus that gender bias is embedded in the global policies and practices at the IMF, which unfairly target women. Kavita Ramdas is the president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women and a visiting scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.

As Dominique Strauss-Kahn, head of the world’s most powerful financial institution, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), spends a few nights in Rikers Island prison awaiting a hearing, the world is learning a lot about his history of treating women as expendable sex objects. Strauss-Kahn has been charged with rape and forced imprisonment of a 32-year-old Guinean hotel worker at a $3,000-a-night luxury hotel in New York.

While the media dissects the attempted rape of a young African woman and begins to dig out more information about Strauss-Kahn’s past indiscretions, we couldn’t help but see this situation through the feminist lens of the “personal is political.” 

For many in the developing world, the IMF and its draconian policies of structural adjustment have systematically “raped” the earth and the poor and violated the human rights of women. It appears that the personal disregard and disrespect for women demonstrated by the man at the highest levels of leadership within the IMF is quite consistent with the gender bias inherent in the IMF’s institutional policies and practice.

Systematic Violation of Women’s Human Rights

The IMF and the World Bank were established in the aftermath of World War II to promote international trade and monetary cooperation by giving governments loans in times of severe budget crises. Although 184 countries make up the IMF’s membership, only five countries—France, Germany, Japan, Britain, and the United States—control 50 percent of the votes, which are allocated according to each country’s contribution.

The IMF has earned its villainous reputation in the Global South because in exchange for loans, governments must accept a range of austerity measures known as structural adjustment programs (SAPs). A typical IMF package encourages export promotion over local production for local consumption. It also pushes for lower tariffs and cuts in government programs such as welfare and education. Instead of reducing poverty, the trillion dollars of loans issued by the IMF have deepened poverty, especially for women who make up 70 percent of the world’s poor.

IMF-mandated government cutbacks in social welfare spending have often been achieved by cutting public sector jobs, which disproportionately impact women. Women hold most of the lower-skilled public sector jobs, and they are often the first to be cut. Also, as social programs like caregiving are slashed, women are expected to take on additional domestic responsibilities that further limit their access to education or other jobs.

In exchange for borrowing $5.8 billion from the IMF and World Bank, Tanzania agreed to impose fees for health services, which led to fewer women seeking hospital deliveries or post-natal care and naturally, higher rates of maternal death.  In Zambia, the imposition of SAPs led to a significant drop in girls’ enrollment in schools and a spike in “survival or subsistence sex” as a way for young women to continue their educations.

But IMF’s austerity measures don’t just apply to poor African countries. In 1997, South Korea received $57 billion in loans in exchange for IMF conditionalities that forced the government to introduce “labor market flexibility,” which outlined steps for the government to compress wages, fire “surplus workers,” and cut government spending on programs and infrastructure. When the financial crisis hit, seven Korean women were laid off for every one Korean man. In a sick twist, the Korean government launched a "get your husband energized" campaign encouraging women to support depressed male partners while they cooked, cleaned, and cared for everyone.

Nearly 15 years later, the scenario is grim for South Korean workers, especially women. Of all OECD countries, Koreans work the longest hours: 90% of men and 77% of women work over 40 hours a week.  According to economist Martin Hart-Landsberg, in 2000, 40 percent of Korean workers were irregular workers; by 2008, 60 percent worked in the informal economy. The Korean Women Working Academy reports that today 70 percent of Korean women workers are temporary laborers.

Selling Mother Earth

IMF policies have also raped the earth by dictating that governments privatize the natural resources most people depend on for their survival: water, land, forests, and fisheries. SAPs have also forced developing countries to stop growing staple foods for domestic consumption and instead focus on growing cash crops, like cut flowers and coffee for export to volatile global markets. These policies have destroyed the livelihoods of small-scale subsistence farmers, the majority of whom are women.

“IMF adjustment programs forced poor countries to abandon policies that protected their farmers and their agricultural production and markets,” says Henk Hobbelink of GRAIN, an international organization that promotes sustainable agriculture and biodiversity. "As a result, many countries became dependent on food imports, as local farmers could not compete with the subsidized products from the North. This is one of the main factors in the current food crisis, for which the IMF is directly to blame."

In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), IMF loans have paved the way for the privatization of the country’s mines by transnational corporations and local elites, which has forcibly displaced thousands of Congolese people in a context where women and girls experience obscenely high levels of sexual slavery and rape in the eastern provinces. According to Gender Action, the World Bank and IMF have made loans to the DRC to restructure the mining sector, which translates into laying off tens of thousands of workers, including women and girls who depend on the mining operations for their livelihoods. Furthermore, as the land becomes mined and privatized, women and girls responsible for gathering water and firewood must walk even further, making them more susceptible to violent crimes.

We Are Over It

Women’s rights activists around the globe are consistently dumbfounded by how such violations of women’s bodies are routinely dismissed as minor transgressions. Strauss-Kahn, one of the world’s most powerful politicians whose decisions affected millions across the globe, was known for being a “womanizer” who often forced himself on younger, junior women in subordinate positions where they were vulnerable to his far greater power, influence, and clout. Yet none of his colleagues or fellow Socialist Party members took these reports seriously, colluding in a consensus shared even by his wife that the violation of women’s bodily integrity is not in any sense a genuine violation of human rights.

Why else would the world tolerate the unearthly news that 48 Congolese women are raped every hour with deadening inaction? Eve Ensler speaks for us all when she writes, “I am over a world that could allow, has allowed, continues to allow 400,000 women, 2,300 women, or one woman to be raped anywhere, anytime of any day in the Congo. The women of Congo are over it too.”

We live in a world where millions of women don’t speak their truth, don’t tell their dark stories, don’t reveal their horror lived every day just because they were born women.  They don’t do it for the same reasons that the women in the Congo articulate – they are tired of not being heard. They are tired of men like Strauss-Kahn, powerful and in suits, believing that they can rape a black woman in a hotel room, just because they feel like it. They are tired of the police not believing them or arresting them for being sex workers. They are tired of hospitals not having rape kits. They are tired of reporting rape and being charged for adultery in Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia.

Fighting Back

For each one of them, and for those of us who have spent many years investing in the tenacity of women’s movements across the globe, the courage and gumption of the young Guinean immigrant shines like the torch held by Lady Liberty herself. This young woman makes you believe we can change this reality. She refused to be intimidated.  She stood up for herself. She fought to free herself—twice—from the violent grip of the man attacking her. She didn’t care who he was—she knew she was violated and she reported it straight to the hotel staff, who went straight to the New York police, who went straight to JFK to pluck Strauss-Kahn from his first-class Air France seat.

In a world where it often feels as though wealth and power can buy anything, the courage of a young woman and the people who stood by her took our breath away. These stubborn, ethical acts of working class people in New York City reminded us that women have the right to say “no.”  It reminded us that “no” does not mean “yes” as the Yale fraternities would have us believe, and, most importantly that no one, regardless of their position or their gender, should be above the law.  A wise woman judge further drove home the point about how critically important it is to value women’s bodies when she denied Strauss-Kahn bail citing his long history of abusing women.

Strauss-Kahn sits in his Rikers Island cell. It would be a great thing if his trial succeeds in ending the world’s tolerance for those who discriminate and abuse women. We cannot tolerate it one second longer.  We cannot tolerate it at the personal level, we must refuse to condone it at the professional level, and we must challenge it every time it we see it in the policies of global institutions like the International Monetary Fund.

     

Nicholas DugdaleContent-Disposition: form-data; name="preferredphoto3"

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Nicholas Dugdale

 

Roxana Gharegozlou
Roxana Gharegozlou

 

Daniel Mattes

Daniel Mattes

 

Jack Mosbacher
Jack Mosbacher

 

Jenna Nicholas
Jenna Nicholas

 

Daniel Ong
Daniel Ong

 

Annamaria Prati
Annamaria Prati

 

Otis Reid

The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University is pleased to announce the 2012 class of Senior Honors Students. This marked the first year that CDDRL is officially an interdisciplinary honors program, allowing the Center to reach beyond the traditional international relations discipline and recruit students from computer science, economics, political science, history, and beyond.

The 2012 class is composed of 12 remarkable juniors with a global footprint and social conscious, who are interested in undertaking significant research in areas examining civil society in Sudan, Uganda's emerging oil economy, technology's impact on democracy, and transnational justice, among others. This diverse cohort was selected from among a competitive pool of applicants for the opportunity to join the CDDRL scholarly community for the 2011-12 academic year.

Honors students will spend four quarters participating in research seminars to refine their proposed thesis topic, while working in consultation with a CDDRL faculty advisor to supervise their project. In September, the group will travel to Washington DC for honors college where they will visit leading government and development organizations to witness policymaking in practice and consult with key decision-makers.

Please join CDDRL in congratulating the 2012 Senior Honors students and welcoming them to the Center.

Below are profiles of our 12 honors students highlighting their academic interests, what brought them to apply to CDDRL, and some fun facts.  

 

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Mitul Bhat

Mitul Bhat

Major: Economics, International Relations

Hometown: New Delhi

Perspective thesis topic: Relationship between income inequality and corruption in Latin America

What interests you about the field of Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law? I was lucky enough to grow up in several different countries, which I think gave me a very real awareness of how different economic development is across and even within countries. I want to better understand why the discrepancies exist and what can be done to help the people who suffer most from global inequity. I recognize that this is a multifaceted issue, with obstacles and potential solutions in government, civil society, the business sector, and elsewhere, and this is why I am interested in the combined field of Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.

Why you are excited about joining the CDDRL community? I am drawn to the interdisciplinary nature of the Center -- an issue like development, in which I am particularly interested, cannot be solved through Political Science or Economics methods alone and so I can learn about the topic in a more well-balanced way. The chance to interact with professors and fellow students who are engaged in interesting work across all aspects of the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law, appeals to me as well.

Future aspiration post-Stanford: Work in the field of development economics

Fun fact about yourself: I have never broken a bone.

 

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Shadi Bushra

Shadi Bushra

Major: International Relations/ Human Biology

Hometown: Khartoum, Sudan; Savage, MN

Perspective thesis topic: How can youth movements in Sudan promote democracy and government accountability?

What interests you about the field of Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law? The process of democratization is one of the most studied and least uniform among any of political science's many subfields. It has been proven to be correlated with greater welfare, higher standards of living, peace and more responsive government. Yet despite these documented effects, a large portion of the world is living under faux-democratic or authoritarian governments.

More personally, my own family left Sudan in the early years of the Bashir regime because my father was a political activist, although we return for summers. Having seen the first-hand effects of such repression on individuals and communities I am very interested in how democracy can be spread to those places where it is least likely. I think my country of Sudan is a good place to start.

Why you are excited about joining the CDDRL community? CDDRL boasts some of the greatest scholars in the field of democracy. It will be an honor and a pleasure to tap the Center's resources and minds to further my own understanding and research in the field.

Future aspiration post-Stanford: Perhaps working in journalism in Africa or the Middle East. Other options include working with an NGO or the UN in the aforementioned regions.

 

Fun fact about yourself: I love watching and practicing boxing, Brazilian jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts. I'm also a budding photography enthusiast.

 

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Colin Casey

Colin Casey

Major: Political Science

Hometown: Annapolis, Maryland

Perspective thesis topic: Political Economy of Conflict and Transition in Sudan

What interests you about the field of Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law?Throughout my time at Stanford I have been moved by both the remarkable successes and dramatic failures of economic development and political transformation across the globe. My work both inside and outside the classroom has forced me to confront the fact that today newspapers are filled with stories of both healthy political discourse and nation-sweeping political upheaval, of civil stability and civil war, of fabulous wealth and stunning poverty. The field of Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law has captivated my interest, therefore, not only because it is intellectually challenging but also because the questions that define it are critical to the well-being of people all over the world. Having the chance to explore these questions with the CDDRL program is an honor and a privilege.

Why you are excited about joining the CDDRL community? The opportunity to write an honors thesis with at CDDRL is an opportunity to explore, to engage, and to grapple. It is an opportunity to build upon the work I have done and to deepen my understanding of the work I will do. It is an opportunity to apply my love for critical thinking and problem solving, to journey further into the fascinating complexities of the developing world, and to face off with the awesome challenges of political and economic transformation. And because it provides me the privilege of utilizing extensive resources, working hands-on with leaders of the academic world, and sharing thoughts and theories on issues of global importance with other smart and passionate students, it is an opportunity that thrills me.

Future aspiration post-Stanford: After I graduate, I hope to work in the international development field. There are a number of organizations that are finding new and creative ways to stimulate emerging markets through investment and micro-finance, but the industry as a whole still suffers from structural inefficiencies, and there is great progress to be made both in terms of identifying viable and profitable enterprises and unleashing the enormous potential of the developing world.

Fun fact about yourself: Last summer, I rode my bike across the country from New Jersey to  California to raise money for the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation, a San Francisco based organization that is building a school in Southern Sudan. 

 

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Nicholas DugdaleContent-Disposition: form-data; name="preferredphoto3"

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Nicholas Dugdale

Nick Dugdale

Major: Political Science and Classics

Hometown: Corte Madera, CA

Perspective thesis topic: Tax Evasion in Greece (more specifically: what social, political, and economic factors promote widespread tax evasion, particularly in the Greek context)

What interests you about the field of Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law?

Why you are excited about joining the CDDRL community? CDDRL provides an amazing  opportunity to work closely with the leading scholars in the field, as well as to collaborate with other students who share similar interests. 

Future aspiration post-Stanford: Work in the international development field for the UN or a similar organization 

Fun fact about yourself: I am a competitive sailor and have represented the US at 3 world championships.

 

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Roxana Gharegozlou
Roxana Gharegozlou

Roxana Gharegozlou

Major: International Relations

Hometown: Tehran, Iran/ Vancouver, Canada

Prospective thesis topic: Transitional Justice: Assessing the Impact of Truth Commissions

What interests you about the field of Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law? The range of salient issues that the field encompasses and its potential to break new ground in theory, practice, and policy formation. I am particularly interested in the linkages between human rights and governance.

Why you are excited about joining the CDDRL community? I am looking forward to being part of a global network of talented scholars and practitioners whose insights and experiences will be an invaluable resource as I move forward with my research into democracy, development, and the rule of law.

Future aspiration post-Stanford: Fieldwork in human rights

Fun fact about yourself: I am originally from the Qashqa'i tribe of Iran.

 

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Daniel Mattes

Daniel Mattes

Daniel Mattes

Major: International Relations (Minor in Modern Languages - Italian and Arabic)

Hometown: San Francisco, California

Perspective thesis topic: The International Criminal Court and Efforts at Localization of its Mission

What interests you about the field of Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law? My interests continue to center on the Middle East and Africa, two regions with the worst human rights records and most tragic histories of conflict, but ones that also offer clear opportunities for reform, growth, and inspirational transformation. The rule of law, most directly pertinent to my thesis topic, is and will continue to be a vital facet in encouraging domestic and global societies to respect the rights of their people. This field is filled with arduous challenges as well as tremendous opportunities that surface each day in the current events facing the world.

 

Why you are excited about joining the CDDRL community? The program at CDDRL offers a tremendous opportunity in the form of a smaller student group that is motivated for discussion, analysis, and research by the dynamic professors with whom they work, the great resources available to them by the Center, and their own personal desire to not only observe but also impact the world. I want a pragmatic and useful thesis that contributes to the creation of strong human rights protections and hope where there currently is none. CDDRL, its resources, and the faculty offer me such an opportunity.

Future aspiration post-Stanford: I would love to spend some more time in Italy (following my six months in Florence), but even more, I want to travel around the Middle East and Africa, both for personal interest and for career/academic opportunities. After that, I’m open to any opportunity that comes my way – whether that is law or graduate school, a job, or even the Peace Corps.

 

Fun fact about yourself: I live in a house called the Enchanted Broccoli Forest.

 

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Hava Mirell

Major: History and the Law

Hometown: Los Angeles, CA

Perspective thesis topic: The Impact of International Diplomatic Pressure on Zimbabwe

What interests you about the field of Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law?  As a history major focusing on Southern Africa, I'm constantly studying successful and unsuccessful democracies, failed development projects, and the complete absence of the rule of law. After studying these topics for the past three years and spending six months in South Africa, I want to use the CDDRL Honors Program to finally understand from a political science perspective why it is that democracy has or has not succeeded in Southern Africa, why corruption is so prevalent, and how we can improve economic growth in the region. 

Why you are excited about joining the CDDRL community? I'm excited to join the CDDRL community because of the incredible resources, especially the brilliant faculty, that the Center offers. Nowhere else on campus can you ask a question about governance in Zimbabwe and receive a response from one of the leading experts on this topic. Just the opportunity to talk to the CDDRL faculty, let alone actually work with them and have them as advisors, is unbelievable. I'm beyond excited for the upcoming year.  

Future aspiration post-Stanford: International human rights lawyer

Fun fact about yourself: I've never seen The LIttle Mermaid.

 

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Jack Mosbacher
Jack Mosbacher

Jack Mosbacher

Major: Political Science

Hometown: Woodside, CA

Perspective thesis topic: The Implications of Uganda's Emerging Oil Economy

What interests you about the field of Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law? I am most interested in the emphasis on policy-making and the constantly evolving scholarship in this very contemporary area of academia.

 

Why you are excited about joining the CDDRL community? I am so excited to have the opportunity to work one-on-one with the wonderful researchers in the CDDRL community and to be a part of the international effort to promote improved governance and substantive rule of law in some of the world's darkest places.

Future aspiration post-Stanford: Chaplain in US Army.

 

Fun fact about yourself: I play on the baseball team at Stanford - but I also love musical theater and opera.

 

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Jenna Nicholas
Jenna Nicholas

Jenna Nicholas           

Major: International Relations

Hometown: London

Perspective thesis topic: What is the genesis, evolution and apparent trajectory of Chinese philanthropy, non-profits and social enterprise in China?

What interests you about the field of Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law? I think that often democracy, development and the rule of law are considered as independent entities but they are deeply interconnected with one another. As we promote any one of them, it is essential that we consider the causal effects on the other two.

Why you are excited about joining the CDDRL community? I am really excited about engaging with people who are all working on different areas of study and are willing and interested to share their research with each other. As we embark on trying to understand the complexities of democracy, development and the rule of law, it is fascinating to reflect upon cross-disciplinary approaches to issues, innovation of thoughts and ideas whilst at the same time appreciating consensus and respecting divergence of views.

Future aspiration post-Stanford: I am very interested in the integration of business with societal issues which leads to fields such as philanthro-capitalism, social entrepreneurship, micro-finance and venture philanthropy. I am particularly interested in models of organization which facilitate cooperative research and develop metrics of success in the developmental field. I intend to find a role for myself somewhere at the forefront of creative development which will have an impact on the world.

 

Fun fact about yourself: When I was 12 years old, I spoke on behalf of the Baha’i faith on the importance of protecting the environment for Commonwealth Day at Westminster Abbey. Before the event I was talking to Desmond Tutu and he gave me a high five for being cheeky! Recently I met him again at the Skoll World Forum and reminded him of our last encounter. This time he gave me two high fives and a hug!  

 

 

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Daniel Ong
Daniel Ong

Daniel Ong

Major: Computer Science

Hometown: Facebook

Physical Hometown: Singapore

Perspective thesis topic: How technology (mobile phones, email, twitter/fb) is changing the way social consciousness is formed- and how that affects democratic processes.

What interests you about the field of Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law? I may be majoring in a very different field, but the issues and questions that DDRL constantly visits are ones which come up constantly in my mind. If there was more time, I would have double majored in Political Science and CS- but right now, I'm focused on learning all I can and seeing how I can use technology to make things better.

 

Why you are excited about joining the CDDRL community? The conversations, and the chance to bounce ideas and thoughts off people who have so much domain knowledge in these areas. Just the chance to learn from them, and refine my ideas is invaluable in itself.

 

Future aspiration post-Stanford: Entrepreneur-in-Government, or startup

 

Fun fact about yourself: I am a machine which turns coffee into code (and hopefully, a thesis paper)

 

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Annamaria Prati
Annamaria Prati

Annamaria Prati

Major: International Relations

Hometown: Mountain View, California

Perspective thesis topic: United Nations Electoral Assistance

What interests you about the field of Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law? This field works to answer some of the most pertinent questions of our time and can have widespread implications for the greater world.

Why you are excited about joining the CDDRL community? It is a great community of scholars that is working on incredibly interesting projects. CDDRL has shown me that research does not mean looking down from an ivory tower, and I am looking forward to learning more.

Future aspiration post-Stanford: Going to grad school

Fun fact about yourself: I play the harp

 

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Otis Reid

Otis Reid

Major: Public Policy and Economics

Hometown: Chapel Hill, NC

Perspective thesis topic:  Regulatory Development and Stock Market Effectiveness in Ghana

What interests you about the field of Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law?  Development is, in my opinion, the central challenge of our time. I'm very excited about having the chance to help contribute to our knowledge of this field and ultimately to help accelerate the development process, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Given the interconnections between development, governance, and accountability, being at a center that looks at all three is particularly interesting.

Why you are excited about joining the CDDRL community? Honestly, it was the T-shirt that really got me ("Democracy Never Looked So Good"). No, more seriously, I'm very excited to have a chance to build more relationships across the different disciplines of democracy, development, and governance and to see how research can help to drive policy.

Future aspiration post-Stanford: After Stanford, I want to enter the policy-making community around development. I'm interested in the intersection of development and security, so I'd ultimately love to have a position on the National Security Council helping to coordinate development policy. (Professor Jeremy Weinstein's current position on the NSC is a model for the type of position that I'd like to hold.)

Fun fact about yourself: I spent my seventh grade year living in Paris, France - the second most time I've spent outside the country is last summer, which I spent in Accra, Ghana.

On April 13, Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch discussed Obama's human rights record to an audience of over 125 students and faculty, marking Roth's first speaking engagement at Stanford University. This event was hosted by the Program on Human Rights at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, and was the final installment of the Sanela Diana Jenkins International Human Rights Speaker Series.

David Abernethy, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Stanford University, introduced Roth and provided a detailed overview of his professional background and the stunning growth and impact Human Rights Watch has witnessed since Roth took the helm in 1993. Under Roth's leadership and strategic direction, Human Rights Watch tripled in size, expanding its reach to over 90 countries worldwide. 

"Human rights Watch does a remarkable job in combining carefully documented facts with advocacy for a better world, including naming and shaming egregious violators of universally accepted norms," said Abernethy, in emphasizing the courageous work Human Rights Watch pioneers on a global scale.

Abernethy noted that Human Rights Watch is a "is a north, south, east, west NGO, directed towards all points on the compass and operating from all those points, as a truly globalized institution."

At the outset of his comments, Roth framed President Obama's human rights record as a desire to abandon the principles of the George W. Bush administration and embrace an approach that is in stark contrast to the Bush years of unilateral diplomacy.

Obama has evolved -- it has been a journey from being not George Bush to being himself.
- Kenneth Roth

Since assuming office in 2009, Roth noted, "Obama has evolved -- it has been a journey from being not George Bush to being himself."

Roth highlighted the differences between both presidents, emphasizing the fact that, "most significantly in terms of contrast, Obama was going to lead by example," Roth said. "He was going to have a domestic policy that he and we could be proud of and that would persuade others just by virtue of what the US did itself."

In reflecting on the evolution of Obama's approach to human rights since assuming office, Roth saw Obama moving from rhetoric to practice. Roth cited a number of examples where the Obama administration delivered substantially on their commitment to defend these principles and others where they had fallen short.

In terms of multilateral promotion of human rights, Roth discussed how the Obama administration supported the efforts of the United Nation's Human Rights Council by successfully lobbying for the U.S. to become a member and helping to revive the Council into a more effective body in holding governments accountable. 

According to Roth, "the Council has introduced tough resolutions on Libya, the Ivory Coast, Iran, and revived this tool and the ability of a group of a government's peers to condemn it."

Roth also mentioned how the Obama administration has been a key player in supporting the International Criminal Court (ICC) by voting in favor of referring Libya to the ICC, arresting the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army in the Congo, and exerting pressure on Sudan to surrender President Bashir.

These actions, Roth maintained, "strengthened a key international institution designed to stop the impunity that lies behind so many of the world's worst atrocities."

While, Roth thought Obama had certainly struck a much more modest tone on the world stage than Bush, he did stress that Obama had retained the option of humanitarian intervention and is not afraid to use military force when necessary, highlighting the recent examples of Libya and Cote d'Ivoire.

Roth believed that Obama's biggest shift was towards China's human rights record. In 2009, Obama was hesitant to exert pressure on the Chinese concerning their human rights practice, which proved to be an ineffective strategy in advancing US interests. Since the January 2011 China summit in Washington, Obama dramatically reasserted himself, calling on China to expand human rights protections and realized "human rights is not a dangerous topic."

In surveying the Obama administration's policy in the Middle East and North Africa, Roth judged it as "inconsistent" toward the recent pro-democracy movements where strategic concerns have sometimes outweighed more ideological ones.

In Egypt, Roth believed the administration took too long to take an active stand against Mubarak in support of the protesters, but eventually came around to prove they were "better late than never."

Similarly in Yemen, Roth described the administration as hesitant to initially oppose President Saleh because it jeopardized their relationship with an important counter-terrorism ally.

In Bahrain, Roth explained that the administration refuses to take an active stance and continues to discuss the possibility of reconciliation in light of the flagrant human rights abuses committed at the hands of the Bahraini regime. Roth claimed that Obama is acting in the best interest of the US's Saudi partners who are "terrified" at the prospect of a Shiite revolution in Bahrain. 

Roth characterized the administration's position towards Israel as a "predictable disappointment," in that the US vetoed a UN Security Council resolution classifying the settlements as a violation of international law and rejected the Goldstone report, refusing to recognize the positive aspects of this comprehensive investigation of the war in Gaza.

On domestic policies, Roth commended Obama's immediate effort to end the Bush policy of torture and shutter the CIA secret detention facilities, but was disappointed that Obama refused to prosecute the Bush torturers and investigate where the torture took place. 

Roth described the issue of long-term detention without trial as a work in progress, believing that Obama's hesitation to release a core group of 48 prisoners in Guantanamo stemmed from his concerns about potential future acts of terrorism. 

In closing, Roth was optimistic about Obama's evolution over the past two years, noting the great strides he has taken to actively implement his values in US human rights policy. However, he was cautious in highlighting the tensions that exist between US interests and human rights, claiming that Obama still has a ways to go in striking a better balance between the two.

This event was a rare opportunity for the CDDRL community to hear from a leading investigator and critic of human rights abuses, committed to reducing human suffering on a global scale.