Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
The Program on American Democracy in Comparative Perspective hosts diverse events, including workshops and seminars, to engage the scholarly community in specific aspects of American governance. These events bring speakers and academics to Stanford, particularly to introduce reports and findings in the reform community.
Postdoctoral Scholar at CDDRL, 2012-2013
Postdoctoral Fellow, KFG Transformative Power of Europe, Free University of Berlin, 2013-2014
Internationally, there has been an increasing call for ‘partnership’ in development cooperation. This refers to development cooperation based on negotiation with the recipient government on an equal basis. While both the E.U. and the U.S. have formally committed to this principle, the E.U. is known to be a frontrunner in partnership-based development, while the U.S. was found to be rather slow in implementing this agenda. This paper investigates the degree to which E.U. and U.S. development policies reflect partnership, particularly regarding general features, aid characteristics, conditionality and aid selectivity and aid motives. It finds that, while E.U. development cooperation has traditionally been stronger focused on partnership than it is the case for the U.S., in recent years the gap is narrowing. On the one hand, E.U. development policies have increasingly resembled those of the U.S., as E.U. development assistance is becoming more focused on security and there are increasing conditions on budget support. While U.S. development policies are still strongly driven by security motives, the U.S. has recently madeefforts to increase country ownership.
Is democracy heading toward a depression? CDDRL Director Larry Diamond answers in a recent Foreign Policy piece, assessing the challenges of overcoming a global, decade-long democratic recession. With much of the world losing faith in the model of liberal democracy, Diamond believes the key to setting democracy back on track involves heavy reform in America, serious crackdowns on corruption, and a reassessment of how the West approaches its support for democratic development abroad.
Senator Olympia Jean Snowe is a senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) and served an 18-year career in the Senate, which ended on January 2, 2013. Before her election to the Senate, Snowe represented Maine’s 2nd Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives for 16 years. She was the first woman in U.S. history to serve in both houses of a state legislature and both houses of Congress. When first elected to Congress in 1978, at the age of 31, Snowe was the youngest Republican woman, and the first Greek-American woman, ever elected to Congress. She has won more federal elections in Maine than any other person since World War II, and is the third-longest serving woman in the history of the Congress. Snowe is a former chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, became the first Republican woman ever to secure a full-term seat on the Senate Finance Committee, and was also the first woman senator to chair the Senate Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Seapower, which oversees the Navy and Marine Corps. In 2005, Snowe was named the 54th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine. In 2006, Time magazine named her one of the top ten U.S. senators.
Jason Grumet is the founder and president of the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC). In 2007, Grumet founded BPC with former U.S. Senate Majority Leaders Howard Baker, Tom Daschle, Bob Dole and George Mitchell to develop and promote bipartisan solutions to America’s most difficult public policy challenges. Under Grumet’s leadership, BPC is developing and advocating bipartisan solutions on immigration reform, health care, housing and economic policy, energy security and national security. In 2001, Grumet founded and directed the National Commission on Energy Policy, which produced a comprehensive set of policy recommendations many of which were adopted into law in 2005 and 2007. These policies included specific legislative approaches to promote domestic energy production as well as the first updates of U.S. automotive fuel economy standards in 30 years. Previously, Grumet led the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management, a nonprofit association of air quality agencies in the Northeast. During his eight-year tenure, Grumet expanded the organization’s technical and advocacy capabilities increasing its presence in the national policy debate.
This event is free and open to the public.
Paul Brest Hall
555 Salvatierra Way
Stanford, CA 94305
Jerry Yang & Akiko Yamazaki
Environment & Energy Building
473 Via Ortega, First Floor
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-4225
Bruce E. Cain is a Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and Director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West. He received a BA from Bowdoin College (1970), a B Phil. from Oxford University (1972) as a Rhodes Scholar, and a Ph D from Harvard University (1976). He taught at Caltech (1976-89) and UC Berkeley (1989-2012) before coming to Stanford. Professor Cain was Director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley from 1990-2007 and Executive Director of the UC Washington Center from 2005-2012. He was elected the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000 and has won awards for his research (Richard F. Fenno Prize, 1988), teaching (Caltech 1988 and UC Berkeley 2003) and public service (Zale Award for Outstanding Achievement in Policy Research and Public Service, 2000). His areas of expertise include political regulation, applied democratic theory, representation and state politics. Some of Professor Cain’s most recent publications include “Malleable Constitutions: Reflections on State Constitutional Design,” coauthored with Roger Noll in University of Texas Law Review, volume 2, 2009; “More or Less: Searching for Regulatory Balance,” in Race, Reform and the Political Process, edited by Heather Gerken, Guy Charles and Michael Kang, CUP, 2011; and “Redistricting Commissions: A Better Political Buffer?” in The Yale Law Journal, volume 121, 2012. He is currently working on a book about political reform in the US.
The motivation for the workshop stems from the observation that the United States government routinely fails in one of its foremost tasks: to create, and to pass, budgets. Congress often fails to devise a budget—in many years, it passes Continuing Resolutions to extend the previous year’s budget, punting difficult decisions about which federal programs to cut, maintain, or grow. Even worse, the failure of the President and Congress to reach agreement on the budget has led to 18 government shutdowns since 1978, while shutdowns have remained rare in other advanced democracies.
In 2013, budget negotiations in Congress stalled multiple times as Republicans and Democrats failed to agree on a host of political issues, including the debt ceiling, funding of the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act, and tax rates. These negotiations resulted in budget sequestration of many federal programs, and threatened to reduce the United States credit rating. As the fiscal year deadline of October 1 approached, both chambers of Congress tried to pass budget legislation to fund the government. Economists and experts predicted that failing to meet the deadline would have significant consequences, including a potential default on government debt. Despite these dire warnings, however, the parties failed to reach agreement, culminating in a 16- day shutdown of the federal government from October 1-16, 2014.
The objective of this workshop was to think through the causes of, and solutions to, ineffective budgetary politics and policy-making. This report begins by describing the politics of budgeting in the United States, and situates our procedural and political anomalies in the comparative context of budgetary politics around the world. The next section examines a range of suggestions to improve budgeting, from technical and procedural changes to broader institutional reforms. The report concludes by discussing the limitations of proposed reforms, and by thinking realistically about how to mobilize support for improved budgeting outcomes.
The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law congratulates Belinda Tang for being awarded the David M. Kennedy Honors Thesis Prize for her original research on the implementation of female quota systems in electoral districts in Lesotho. Her honors thesis entitled, "Gender, Policy-making, and Politics: Evidence from a Randomized Policy Experiment in Lesotho," explored mandated quotas for female representation in electoral districts, combining intensive fieldwork and sophisticated econometric analysis. Tang’s research was conducted under the consultation of Jeremy Weinstein, FSI senior fellow, and Pascaline Dupas, associate professor of economics.
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Belinda Tang won the David M. Kennedy Prize for her thesis work on female quota systems in local governments in Lesotho. |
Designed to address the issue of under-representation of women in local electoral districts in Lesotho - female quota systems- Tang concluded, actually decreased female favorability compared to those females who were freely elected into local seats. Tang also found that females experienced bargaining disadvantages compared to males in achieving local infrastructure projects, such as roads.
Four undergraduate Stanford students are awarded the Kennedy Prize each year for their outstanding honors theses in the humanities, social sciences, engineering and the applied sciences. Tang was recognized for her advanced and extensive research approach as well as her strong initiative in gathering and collecting data, despite several setbacks in Lesotho. After graduating this June in the department of economics, she will be working as a research associate at the National Bureau for Economic Research.
Tang is part of a cohort of eight graduating CDDRL senior honors students who were recognized for their original and outstanding theses during a recent luncheon. Many past research projects have been published in distinguished journals and have informed policy on national and international levels, receiving wide recognition. Danna Seligman received the “Best Thesis Award” for her exemplary and original research on America’s political polarization entitled, “The Origins of Political Gridlock in the United States: Modeling Institutional Gridlock as Moral Hazard in the United States Congress.”
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CDDRL recognized Danna Seligman with the "Best Thesis Award" under the CDDRL Senior Honors Program for her original work on the origins of policial gridlock in the United States Congress. She is seen here with Francis Fukuyama, advisor to the Senior Honors Program, and CDDRL Director Larry Diamond. |
The CDDRL Undergraduate Senior Honors Program trains students from any academic department at Stanford to prepare them to write a policy-relevant research thesis with global impact on a subject touching on democracy, development, and the rule of law. Honors students participate in research methods workshops, attend honors college in Washington, D.C., connect to the CDDRL research community, and write their thesis in close consultation with a faculty advisor to graduate with a certificate of honors in democracy, development, and the rule of law. The program is advised under the leadership of Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow Francis Fukuyama.
Over the course of the year-long program, students worked in consultation with CDDRL affiliated faculty members and attended honors research workshops to develop their thesis project. Many traveled abroad to collect data, conduct interviews, and to spend time in the country they were researching. Collectively, their topics documented some of the most pressing issues impacting democracy today in sub-Saharan Africa, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Pakistan, Lesotho, Ghana, and Nepal, among others.
A list of the 2014 graduating class of CDDRL Undergraduate Honors students, their theses advisors, and a link to their theses can be found here:
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Meaghan Conway
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Science, Technology & Society |
Blended Return on Investment (ROI)?: Analyzing the Economic and Social Returns of Private Equity Investment in sub-Saharan African Electricity Utilities Advisors: Francis Fukuyama and William Meehan III |
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Mahilini Kailaiyangirichelvam
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International Relations |
The Prolonged Threat to Food Production: The Impact of the Civil War on Food Production in Northern and Eastern Sri Lanka Advisor: Rosamond Naylor |
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Haiy Le
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International Relations |
Framing the Discourse: State Media and Social Media in Vietnam Advisor: Larry Diamond |
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Devanshi Patel
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International Relations |
Education or Prosecution: Institutional Efforts to Combat Sexual Violence in the United States Military Advisor: Francis Fukuyama |
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Janani Ramachandran
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International Relations |
Determinants of Anti-Americanism in Pakistan Advisor: Francis Fukuyama |
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Danna Seligman
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Political Science |
The Origins of Political Gridlock in the United States: Modeling Institutional Gridlock as Moral Hazard in the United States Congress Advisors: Gary Cox and Francis Fukuyama |
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Belinda Tang
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Economics |
Gender, Policy-making, and Politics: Evidence from a Randomized Policy Experiment in Lesotho Advisors: Pascaline Dupas and Jeremy Weinstein |
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Aditya Todi
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International Relations |
Democratizing Parties: Intra-Party Democracy in Political Parties in Ghana and Nepal Advisor: Larry Diamond |
