The False Promise of Autocratic Stability
In my travels to more than 50 countries, I have been thrown out of only one - Uzbekistan - just a few months after its emergence as an independent state in 1992 under its first and only president, Islam Karimov. My crime? Working for an American democracy promotion organization and meeting with human rights activists.
What's a Corrupt Election Among Friends?
Solidarity with Iran
Iran's weakened hard-liners crave a US attack
Liberal Is as Liberal Does
This article responds to the "Russian Enigma," a series of essays that ran in the November/December 2006 issue of The American Interest. The authors of those essays agree that liberalism in Russia is on its last legs. As to why liberalism in Russia has faltered, however, they differ. Their fears about the consequences of liberalism's failure also range considerably. Who's right?
Property Rights and Property Wrongs: Survey Evidence on the Legitimacy of Privatization in Russia
About the talk:
Are property rights obtained through dubious means forever tainted with original sin or can rightholders make their ill-gotten gains legitimate by doing good works? Using an experiment embedded in a survey of 1600 residents of conducted in Russia in October 2006, I find that the original sin of an illegal privatization is difficult to expunge, but that businesspeople can improve the legitimacy of property rights by doing good works, such as providing public goods.
About the speaker:
Timothy Frye is a Professor of Political Science at Columbia University. His research and teaching interests are in comparative politics and political economy with a focus on the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. He is the author of Brokers and Bureaucrats: Building Markets in Russia, (Michigan Press 2000), which won the 2001 Hewett Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. He has published articles on property rights, the rule of law, protection rackets, economic reform, presidential power, and trade liberalization. Current projects include a book manuscript on the politics of economic reform in 25 postcommunist countries from 1990-2002 and articles on property rights and the rule of law drawing on surveys of business elites and the mass public in Russia.
Timothy Frye received his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University in 1997. He has an MIA degree from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, and a BA in Russian language and literature from Middlebury College.
This event is co-sponsored by the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies (CREES), under Title VI of the Department of Education.
CISAC Conference Room
Iran's weakened hard-liners crave a US attack
Bombing Iran will exacerbate, not resolve problems, Michael McFaul, Larry Diamond and Abbas Milani demonstrate in a new landmark article. "Rather than throw the reactionaries in Tehran a political lifeline in the form of war, the United States should pursue a more subtle approach: contain Iranian agents in the region, but offer to negotiate unconditionally with Iran on all the outstanding issues. Comprehensive negotiations could offer powerful inducements, such as a lifting of the economic embargo and a significant influx of foreign investment and thus create the jobs necessary to persuade Iran to halt nuclear enrichment. If the hard-liners reject the offer, then they would have to contend with an angry Iranian public. Such internal strife would be far preferable to an Islamic Republic united against the attacking forces of the 'Great Satan.'"
The Authoritarian Dilemma: Explaining Strategies of Electoral Manipulation
Andreas Schedler is Professor of Political Science and Head of the Department of Political Studies at CIDE in Mexico City. His extensive work on political concepts includes journal articles, edited books and book chapters on politics and antipolitics, political disenchantment, democratic transition and consolidation, public accountability, vote buying, electoral authoritarianism, and democratic support. His current empirical research focuses on processes of democratization by elections worldwide since 1980. His latest (edited) book is Electoral Authoritarianism: The Dynamics of Unfree Elections (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 2006).
CISAC Conference Room
Joshua Teitelbaum
CDDRL
Encina Hall
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Teitelbaum was a legislative aide to Congressman Paul N. McCloskey, Jr., of California's 12th District.
He has been a visiting professor in Cornell University's Department of Near Eastern Studies and at the Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, and a Visiting Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He has spoken at the Council on Foreign Relations, San Francisco's Commonwealth Club, the Middle East Institute, the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, the US Naval Postgraduate School, the Department of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the US Army War College, the Italian Ministry of Defense, Israel's National Security Council, the Israeli Foreign Ministry, and most major university Middle East centers in the US and Canada. His comments and expertise have been sought by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Reuters, the Associated Press, the Baltimore Sun, the Jerusalem Post, Ha'aretz, Ma'ariv, Yediot Aharonot, the Straits Times and the Voice of America. He regularly reviews scholarly manuscripts for Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, New York University Press, Palgrave, and C. Hurst & Co.
Dr. Teitelbaum is an Associate of the Proteus Management Group, US Army War College Center for Strategic Leadership, under the sponsorship of the Office of the Director, National Intelligence.