The CDDRL community remembers and honors the life of Suvash Darnal, which was tragically taken in a car accident on August 15 outside of Washington, DC. Suvash graduated from the 2011 Draper Hills Summer fellowship at Stanford University just three days before the accident occurred. A passionate human rights advocate for the Dalit community in Nepal, Suvash was the executive director of the Sumata Foundation in Kathmandu. This profound loss was felt by all the members of the 2011 Draper Hills Summer Fellows program, CDDRL faculty, and staff who had spent the last three weeks engaging, learning and benefiting from Suvash's wisdom and insight.

"Suvash was an extraordinarily warm, thoughtful, modest, committed, and optimistic advocate for democracy and human rights," said Larry Diamond, director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. "He will be sorely missed and we will find a proper way to sustain his memory."

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Suvash dedicated his life to supporting and advancing the rights of the Dalit community, an ethnic minority in Nepal and India, working tirelessly to gain equal representation in mainstream politics for all excluded groups. Founder of the Jagaran Media Center, Suvash used the media to build awareness of his cause and trained 500 young Dalit journalists.

Gerhard Casper, President Emeritus of Stanford University, reflected on his last conversation with Suvash over dinner at the graduation ceremony "I sat next to Suvash and he gave me a detailed, optimistic account of the future of Nepal and looked forward to returning home to pursue his tireless advocacy to ensure that Dalits have equal representation in the new constitution."

The death of this young activist is a tremendous loss for the Dalit community, the country of Nepal, and the broader field of human rights. The CDDRL community strives to work together to carry forth Suvash's vision of a more equal and inclusive world for all. Suvash leaves behind a wife and a one-year old-daughter.

The Facebook page, "Remembering Suvash Darnal" has been set up in his honor by the CDDRL community as a living memory of his life.

The Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies (IPS), a joint undertaking of the Freeman Spogli Institute and the School of Humanities & Sciences, is training the next generation of policy experts and leaders. In their second year of the two–year master’s program, students take a two-quarter practicum course, working in teams to conduct policy analyses for real-world client organizations. Read about their demanding projects and findings.


Judicial Performance (California Commission on Judicial Performance)
This report analyzed judicial discipline cases in California between 1990 and 2009 using data collected by the California Commission on Judicial Performance. The purpose of the report was to inform the public about the incidence of misconduct and help the public understand the disciplinary process. The report concluded that the number of disciplinary actions per judge has fallen in the last decade, as compared with the previous ten years.  

Policies to Improve Industrial Competitiveness (World Bank)
This report researched how countries can select Policies to Increase Industrial Competitiveness (PIIC) using case studies and the development of an analytic process for government use in selecting specific industries to support. The analytic process showed that cooperation between the public and private sectors is crucial in policymakers’ ability to select the most beneficial competitiveness policy measures.

Sunni Militancy In India (U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency)
This report analyzed Sunni militancy in India by identifying major Sunni groups, their ideologies, root causes and recent trends.  Utilizing a quantitative overview of Sunni terrorism incidents and deaths, profiles of militant groups, and social network analysis of connections between groups, the report found that the most active and violent Sunni militant groups are related to Pakistan or to the long-running conflict between Pakistan and India in Kashmir.

“The chance to tackle complex, real world policy problems and propose solutions to clients is invaluable for our students as they prepare for their careers” says Kathryn Stoner, Director of IPS and FSI senior fellow.  “It’s one more way that our program bridges theory and practice.”
Rare Earth (Breakthrough Institute and Bay Area Council)
This report examined concerns about domestic shortages of rare earth elements, critical in the production of many clean-tech products.  The report confirmed that China controls a large share of rare earth deposits and production, but found that market forces should increase U.S. production levels in the long run.  The report recommends that the United States accelerate permitting for domestic production and pursue agreements with other rare earth suppliers to mitigate the impact of China's current dominance.

Going Forward: Gas Tax and VMTs (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace)
This report considered the under-funding of the U.S. transportation system, focusing on two ways to generate revenue—the federal gas tax and a prospective vehicle-miles-traveled (VMT) fee. In the long term, introducing fees-per-mile would generate more revenue than increasing fees-per-gallon. Under both proposals, lower income consumers would pay proportionately more, although the difference in distributional impact is minimal for most policy options under consideration.

Fiscal Responsibility Index (Comeback America Initiative/Peterson Foundation)
This project developed a simple, comprehensive analytic tool and framework, called the Fiscal Responsibility Index, to assess sovereign fiscal responsibility and sustainability. The index was designed to illustrate where the United States is, where it is headed, and how it compares with other nations in the area of fiscal responsibility and sustainability. The U.S. ranks near the bottom when compared with 33 OECD and BRIC nations.

To begin his talk, Archon Fung poses the following question: why is there no "killer" ICT platform in politics? After all, there are highly disruptive platforms in social media, commerce and other realms. These so-called "killer" platforms tend to be characterized by three features: notably that many users adopt the ICT platform and abandon the old way of doing something; the new platform improves users' experience by changing how they do some activity; and the organizations using new killer platforms displace those that do not use them.

Fung proceeds to present explanations for this puzzle, following a brief clarification of the scope of his question. When Fung refers to politics, he is not referring to aspects like partisan mobilization, e-government or the public sphere; instead, he examines the potential for ICT platforms in the realms of decision-making, problem solving and accountability. While the typical level of resolution for discussion is on the macro effects of ICT as a social force, Fung's analysis stems from his narrowing in on ICT platforms (such as Facebook, Wikipedia, Ushahidi, and others) themselves.

The first argument Fung presents in answer to his initial question is that both the suppliers and the demanders are different in politics than in other areas (e.g. commerce). Politics is aggregative, characterized by collective action and results, not focused on "individual benefits and gratification" like commerce and social interaction might be.

Second, while it is possible to have parallel, collaborative production in some types of platforms (e.g. Wikipedia), production in politics is characterized by strategic action. Various examples can help illustrate that there are key differences between commerce and politics on the supply side. In commerce, Amazon's customers want books and Amazon wants to sell books. While citizens want influence in the public sphere, however, politicians and officials typically do not want to give citizens power to influence the public sphere. Although there are counterexamples, as in some cities (such as Belo Horizonte) in Brazil, where 10% of the electorate directly influences public spending online through the Participatory Budgeting process, these cases are few and far between.

Another important factor is that there are much more ambiguous benefits in politics than in other spheres. While it is well understood that amassing more Facebook, Amazon or Google users will result in more money or fame, it is less well know what the benefits of more public deliberation or accountability might be. Since the factors that explain platform success in other areas don't translate to politics, Fung concludes, there is less innovation in the supply side.

In order to understand cases in which ICT platforms have nevertheless become important on the local level, Fung and his colleagues carried out a large case study analysis of specific examples from Brazil, Chile, Kenya, India, and Slovakia. Through analyzing these cases, which include such examples as São Paolo's Cidade Democrática, Santiago's Reclamos, Nairobi's Budget Tracking Tool and others, the researchers arrive at three key conclusions.

1. ICT platforms that have had success within the realm of politics that Fung is interested in have been characterized by the predominance of professionals and organizations among their users. The main users of Cidade Democratica, for example, are organizations and professionals.
2. Second, ICTs do not necessarily act independently. Instead, journalism and media play an important role, and even make up the main base of users for platforms like Bratislava's Fair Play Alliance and Mumbai Votes. After all, ICT can help journalists reduce research costs and represents a neutral and credible source.
3. ICT's do not go around or undermine traditional NGOs and government. Instead, at least in the cases examined, they are typically effective because they operate through these existing organizations. Kiirti in Bangalore is one example.

The bottom line from Fung's case study analysis is that getting context right can be more important for an ICT platform's success than getting the technology right. Typically, the uptake of a platform only occurs once all other pieces are in place.

In the final part of his talk, Fung addressed audience questions, many of which related to Fung's chosen standards for a killer platform. One audience member asked why Facebook could not be considered a killer platform, given its many uses for political purposes. After all, Facebook enables a kind of action to occur that would have occurred before, since it can often be accessed even in countries where public gatherings may be restricted. Another questioned why Wikileaks was not considered a killer platform. Fung replied that while Wikileaks does bring together people and information better, a killer platform would need to transform the nature of politics from group to individuals, which no existing platform has yet achieved.