We are proud to announce our next year's cohort of CDDRL Honors Program students! We selected a diverse group of undergraduate majors for the program who will be writing their senior theses on a subject touching upon DDRL with a global impact. Students will work to complete their thesis under the guidance and consultation of CDDRL faculty, but may have a primary thesis advisor from their own department. Upon fulfilling individual department course requirements and completing the honors program, the student will graduate in his/her major with a certificate of honors in Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law. 

Read their bios here.

Kleptocracy--well-organized elite corruption--has come to characterize Russia and much of the post-Communist space and is one of the chief obstacles to democratic development as well as economic growth in Russia and Ukraine. This panel features three experts who have focused on anti-corruption measures in these countries and will discuss the origins, effects, and future of kleptocracy in the region.

Speakers:

Charles Davidson, the publisher of The American Interest and Director of The Kleptocracy Initiative at the George Mason School of Public Policy.

Jeffrey Gedmin, the editor of The American Interest, who previously was president of the Legatum Institute in London and of Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe in Prague.

Oleksandra Ustinova, Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Fellow 2019 and a leading Ukrainian anti-corruption activist for a conversation on kleptocracy in Russia and Ukraine and how it is abetted by American institutions.

Moderator: Francis Fukuyama, CDDRL Mosbacher Director and FSI Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow.

Watch the video here.

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Weaver’s research interests are comparative social policy (with a particular focus on public pension programs in advanced industrial societies) and policy implementation. His recent research focuses on understanding how political institutions, feedback from past policy choices and the strategic behavior of politicians interact to shape public policy choices. He is also interested in understanding the determinants of compliance and non-compliance with public policy across a variety of policy sectors.

“We look forward to having Kent in residence at CDDRL this winter and spring,” said Francis Fukuyama, CDDRL’s Mosbacher director. “Kent will work with Stephen J. Stedman and me on teaching the ‘Leadership and Implementation’ course for the Freeman Spogli Institute’s Masters of Arts in International Policy. He will help our students dig deeper into policy processes and behavioral change.” 

At CDDRL, Weaver will also be completing a book on pension reform in seven wealthy democracies and working on a cross-national project on how politicians balance multiple objectives. More broadly, he will work with CDDRL on developing strategies for utilizing case-method teaching in the classroom and with CDDRL's LAD project on improving the capacity of training programs for public sector officials in developing countries.

"CDDRL is an intellectually vibrant environment. I'm excited to work with the CDDRL team on its programs and participate in the CDDRL community,” says Weaver. “I look forward to interacting with MIP students and learning about their perspectives on many of the issues and challenges the world is facing today."

Contact: weaverrk@stanford.edu

"The way that the economy has developed over the past generation is actually gone contrary to a lot of the existing economic models. The Simon Kuznetz phenomenon says it's not just globalization, it's economic growth. As the country is modernizing, as it's growing economically, it does lead to an increase in inequality. When you reach a  certain level of income, the inequality starts to decrease. That was the experience in Europe, in the 19th and 20th century, that was the case in the United States and so forth. That has not been the case of the countries that have been growing rapidly in recent years, where inequality has continued to increase," says CDDRL Mosbacher Director Francis Fukuyama. Watch here. 

CDDRL Mosbacher Director Francis Fukuyama says for BBC we need national identities that unite rather than divide us. Watch here.

"Are democracy and capitalism compatible? Or, to put it differently: What made democracy and capitalism compatible for decades, even centuries, and what strains this relationship today? The end of the Cold War seemed to settle longstanding debates about the political and economic institutions best able to achieve freedom and security. But a few decades have passed, and our institutions now seem brittle. Longstanding critiques of capitalism are being dusted off and repackaged," writes Didi Kuo in Democracy Journal. Read here.

While Americans may be well acquainted with China’s quest for influence through the projection of power in the diplomatic, economic, and military spheres, they are less aware of the various ways in which Beijing has more recently been exerting cultural and informational influence. According to a new report, some of these ways challenge and even undermine our democratic processes, norms, and institutions.

With a growing realization that the ambition of Chinese influence operations requires far greater scrutiny than it has been getting, a group of American scholars and policy practitioners set out to document the extent of China’s influence-seeking activities in American society. The working group, co-chaired by Larry Diamond, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and at the Hoover Institution, and Orville Schell, Arthur Ross director of the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations, just released its findings and recommendations in a report that has drawn much attention, “Chinese Influence and American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance.” On December 4, Diamond and Schell discussed the report’s findings and implications at a special roundtable organized by Shorenstein APARC’s U.S.-Asia Security Initiative (USASI).

Diamond and Schell described the report’s detailing of a range of assertive and opaque “sharp power” activities that China has stepped up within the United States in multiple sectors, including Congress, state and local government, universities, think tanks, media, corporations, technology and research, and the Chinese American community. These activities, they argue, penetrate deeply the social and political fabric of our democratic society and exploit its openness. Unlike legitimate “soft power” efforts within the realm of normal public diplomacy, they constitute improper interference that demands greater awareness and a calibrated response.

“The report was born out of a recognition that things have changed,” said Schell. “Our engagement with China has either failed or is teetering on the brink of failure. The report aims to put the question of our interaction and exchange with China within the context of policy.”

Diamond noted that “The question at least has to be asked whether there is a threat to U.S. national interests.” He emphasized that the members of the working group that produced the report seek a productive relationship between China and the United States. The report therefore advocates for perspective and framework that are built on three principles regarding U.S.-China relations: transparency, institutional integrity, and reciprocity.

Diamond and Schell were joined at the panel by Hwang Ji-Jen, a Taiwanese scholar in the Institute for East Asian Studies at the University of California - Berkeley, who helped situate the forms and effects of Chinese “sharp power” in the United States in comparison to its practice in and toward Taiwan. Karl Eikenberry, director of USASI, chaired the discussion.

The event was co-sponsored by the US-Asia Security Initiative in the Asia-Pacific Research Center, and FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.

Audio from the event is available for download or streaming: