On Tuesday, June 3, a largely student audience gathered for an urgent and moving conversation: Persisting in Hard Times, a panel highlighting the work and insights of four extraordinary practitioners who have spent their lives confronting injustice, responding to crises, and working every day toward a more equitable and humane society.

The conversation was co-organized by Hakeem Jefferson, assistant professor of political science and faculty director of the Program on Identity, Democracy, and Justice at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), and Gillian Slee, the 2024-25 Gerhard Casper Postdoctoral Fellow in Rule of Law at CDDRL and incoming assistant professor of sociology at the University of Georgia. It was co-moderated by Jefferson and Karina Kloos, Executive Director of the Democracy Hub and ePluribus Stanford.

In organizing the event, Slee framed it as follows:

What does it mean to persist in hard times? The country is wrestling with major questions right now — about rights and resources, belonging and expression, well-being and justice. How we proceed will shape our understanding of American democracy and have real consequences for daily life within this country.

You are all here today because you recognize we are living through hard times. Throughout the year, we have had conversations across campus about democratic norms, the rule of law, and the exercise or availability of rights and resources. Students in the room today are wrapping up a quarter of asking critical questions about the state and health of American democracy. These questions and their answers are urgent and consequential.

Still, we seek a different kind of conversation today. Our focus is on persisting through hard times. Our orientation is particular. Today’s panelists draw on unique expertise working in the trenches to respond to crises that imperil dignity, justice, and well-being. When they think about the major questions of our times, each panelist has the capacity to see the faces of clients, constituents, workers, immigrants, students, neighbors, and more. They know what it means to address urgent, immediate crises through on-the-ground daily action. They also know what it means to engage in work that is sometimes underfunded, lonely, and pursued with long odds.

Importantly, their work is fueled by a vision of a wildly promising future in which people, especially those from marginalized groups, have opportunities to thrive.

The panelists brought this vision to life. Professor Pam Karlan, a renowned constitutional scholar and professor at Stanford Law, reflected on the role of history, poetry, and truth in helping her persist. She recommended three poems that offer solace and clarity in this moment: Langston Hughes’ Let America Be America Again, Marge Piercy’s The Low Road, and Tennyson’s Ulysses, with its enduring call: “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

DeCarol Davis, Director of the Community Legal Services Program at Legal Aid at Work, spoke powerfully about being shaped by a Black family with deep roots in the South — roots that helped prepare her for navigating systems marked by discrimination and inequality. She reminded us that persisting is not new, and that her work is animated by a long legacy of Black resilience and clarity of purpose.

Alison Kamhi, Legal Director of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, shared stories of the immigrants her work brings her into contact with — people for whom hard times are not new, but ongoing. She charted what has shifted — and what has not — in U.S. immigration policy and enforcement, and spoke to the emotional and moral weight of sustaining this work amid cruelty and complacency.

Poet, public servant, and Stanford PhD candidate Antonio López offered a stirring meditation on proximity to harm and the moral responsibility it demands. His poem, Opening Statement, anchored the room in both clarity and conviction. It was a poet who reminded us that we are all implicated — and that this implication opens up opportunities for all of us to act. López also pointed us to the many lessons embedded in Black liberation struggles and other freedom movements that offer enduring blueprints for persisting in this moment.

Throughout the conversation, Kloos invited panelists to reflect on where they find joy in the midst of struggle. Drawing from Ross Gay’s Inciting Joy, she asked what it means for joy to coexist with strain and uncertainty — a question that brought the panel back to the everyday practices that nourish courage and clarity.

The audience Q&A that followed surfaced difficult, generative questions: What can the law do — and what can it not do? What does solidarity require of us? And how do we ensure that the most vulnerable among us, including trans communities, are not forgotten in the push for change?

The conversation closed with a powerful exchange about community, belonging, and the intertwined nature of our fates. Jefferson ended by noting that perhaps a key part of persisting in this moment, especially for those of us with so much privilege, is to remember — as Dr. King reminded us — that our fates are inextricably bound together, that unfreedom for our neighbors is unfreedom for us, and that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law proudly congratulates its 2025 graduating class of honors students on their outstanding original research conducted under CDDRL's Fisher Family Honors Program. Among those graduating is Charles Sheiner, an International Relations major, who has won a Firestone Medal for his research on the electoral impact of Biden-era spending programs. Additionally, two students were selected as recipients of the CDDRL Outstanding Thesis Award. Adrian Feinberg, an International Relations major who is also minoring in History, Film & Media Studies, was honored for his research revealing how postwar Yugoslavia utilized the justice system to build state power and suppress dissent. Adelaide Madary, a Political Science major, was honored for her research exploring how local leadership shapes the responses of rural Calabrian communities to immigration, fostering hospitality in some towns and resistance in others.

Both Southern California and Israel suffered disastrous wildfires this year.

In January, the Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles killed 29 people and destroyed thousands of buildings, spurring a United Nations report titled “Once-in-a-generation events now happen frequently.”

In late April, a huge wildfire in central Israel threatened Jerusalem, caused nearby towns to evacuate and led to a national emergency.

The fires are just one example of the devastating effects of climate change experienced by California and Israel, said Alon Tal, an environmental scholar, former Knesset member and part of the Visiting Fellows in Israel Studies program at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, which co-hosted the conference.

Read the full story from J. The Jewish News of Northern California.

Conventional indicators may suggest that the United States is not susceptible to democratic backsliding, given its levels of wealth and the longevity of its political institutions. Yet a different picture emerges when considering assaults on the law following President Donald Trump’s return to power. In a recent CDDRL seminar. U.C. Berkeley Distinguished Professor of Political Science Paul Pierson examined the institutional roots of this trend and how it was shaped by the current moment of polarization and rising inequality.

Deepening partisanship, Pierson explained, has eroded the checks and balances embedded in U.S. institutions. Some assert that polarization is not abnormal in our country’s history, but Pierson believes that the state of polarization today poses unprecedented challenges. Politics has been increasingly nationalized, with state elections serving as a virtual training ground for ambitious politicians. Local media have declined in influence relative to nationally oriented partisan news outlets like Fox News. State issues are blending into national politics. These trends have undermined the system of federalism that historically kept the national government in check. 

As politicians have become more concerned about teamsmanship and partisan loyalty, the path of least resistance for them has been to prop up their party leaders even at the expense of democratic processes. In the past, partisan politicians could be trusted to keep their leaders in check should they behave undemocratically, regardless of how popular they may be. A case in point is President Richard Nixon, who had been reelected in a landslide in 1972, but was later held accountable by members of his own party once his transgressions were revealed in the wake of the Watergate scandal. The same cannot be said for the contemporary Trump era, as politicians appear reluctant to hold their president accountable due to partisan considerations. This trend has undermined horizontal oversight and, arguably, vertical accountability. On the latter, political elites have failed to adequately press citizens to hold the current administration accountable. 

The U.S. remains an extreme outlier in its growing wealth inequality, as mirrored by the ascendancy of ultra-wealthy plutocrats. Campaign funding has been increasingly dominated by the ultra-wealthy, many of whom supported the Republican ticket in the 2024 election. That said, these individuals’ influence is not unlimited, considering that the president has leverage over them and has shown willingness to threaten their interests should they behave disloyally. 

Despite blatant warning signs, there are some reasons to temper the alarmism surrounding the prospects of democratic backsliding in the United States. President Trump is not overwhelmingly popular, and aspects of his agenda will unlikely garner support from most of the electorate. Furthermore, whether his legacy will endure following the end of his presidency is unclear. Indeed, the vulnerabilities of U.S. political institutions remain salient. But plenty of room remains for resisting anti-democratic transgressions, given the non-partisan orientation of the judiciary and the small size of the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The challenges confronting U.S. political institutions in the face of hyperpolarization and deepening wealth inequality demonstrate that democracy should not be taken for granted and that more efforts are needed to protect and strengthen democratic accountability.

A recording of Professor Pierson's talk can be viewed below:

As part of the CDDRL research seminar series, Clémence Tricaud, Assistant Professor of Economics at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, delivered a talk on the evolving nature of electoral competition in the United States. Her presentation explored a question of growing political and public interest: Are U.S. elections truly getting closer — and if so, why does that matter?

To begin answering this, Tricaud emphasized the need to clarify what we mean by “closeness.” She distinguished between vote margins, which measure how much one candidate wins over another in a specific race, and seat margins, which reflect the difference in how many seats each party wins in a legislative body like the House, Senate, or Electoral College.

These margins have real consequences. Seat margins affect which party holds power, the likelihood of legislative gridlock, and how legitimate elected officials are perceived to be. Vote margins, on the other hand, influence how informed and motivated voters are, especially if they feel their votes can truly make a difference.

Using a vast dataset covering over 150 years of U.S. federal elections, Tricaud and her coauthors documented a striking trend: while seat margins have narrowed significantly over the past 60 years, vote margins have remained relatively stable. In fact, there has been a decline in the number of extremely close races at the district level. This raises a puzzling question — how can national elections appear tighter if the races themselves are not actually becoming more competitive?

To address this, Tricaud presented a novel theoretical model of electoral competition. Building on the classic “Downsian framework,” where candidates try to appeal to the median voter, her model incorporates multiple districts, national and local shifts in voter preferences, and differences in whether candidates tailor their platforms to local constituencies or follow national party lines.

The model explains that two major changes have reshaped U.S. elections:

1. Better Information: Thanks to advances in polling and data analytics, candidates now have a much clearer sense of where voters stand.
2. Nationalization of Politics: Candidates increasingly campaign on unified national platforms rather than platforms tailored to respond to local issues.
    

Together, these changes help parties target just enough competitive districts to win control, even if many races remain lopsided. This leads to narrower seat margins without narrower vote margins.

Tricaud also examined campaign finance data to show how this shift affects political behavior. Since only a small number of districts are truly competitive, campaign resources are increasingly concentrated in these few swing districts. This geographic targeting could have troubling implications: growing political attention to a handful of places, rising regional inequalities, and a sense of disconnection between local voters and national outcomes.

In sum, Clémence Tricaud’s presentation provided a fresh lens on how modern campaigns operate and why elections may feel closer than they truly are. By disentangling seat and vote margins, her work sheds light on the evolving dynamics of U.S. democracy — and the challenges that come with it.

As the global climate crisis accelerates, cities around the world are grappling with an increasingly urgent question: how can local governments protect communities, infrastructure, and ecosystems from the rising tide of environmental disruption? This May, Stanford University will bring that question to the forefront with a landmark event examining how two dynamic and diverse cities — Los Angeles and Tel Aviv-Yafo — are responding to the climate challenge from the ground up.

Taking place May 29–30, 2025, and hosted by the Visiting Fellows in Israel Studies program at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Environmental Social Sciences department at Stanford’s Doerr School of Sustainability, “Climate Resilience and Local Governmental Policy: Lessons from Los Angeles and Tel Aviv” will be the largest academic conference ever held on Israel’s climate policy. The two-day event will convene experts from both cities to explore how local institutions are building equitable, sustainable, and adaptive systems to confront growing environmental risks.