Claire Adida is a Ph.D. candidate in political science and a pre-doctoral fellow at CDDRL at Stanford. Her dissertation, “Immigrant Exclusion and Insecurity in Africa” explains why some immigrant communities integrate into their host societies while others face exclusion and hostility.

Her research interests include: ethnic identity and ethnic politics; African politics and development; field methods; comparative political behavior; the political economy of development; migration and development; public goods provision; trust and informal institutions

Kim Cranston is C.E.O. and Chair of the Board of TransparentDemocracy, Chair of the Board of the Global Security Institute, a member of the Board of the Los Altos Community Foundation, and a member of the Human Rights Watch California Committee North. Born in San Francisco, Kim graduated from U.C. Santa Cruz with a B.A. in Environmental Studies and from Hastings College of the Law. Kim has worked previously as director of Corporate Social Responsibility and the Transparent Commerce Initiative for One Cosmos Network, a new media company; as President of the Social Venture Network, a network of socially conscious business and social entrepreneurs and investors; as a consultant to the State of the World Forum; as Chief of Staff to California Lieutenant Governor Leo T. McCarthy; as Vice President of Business Affairs for Platypus Productions, Inc., a cable television production company; as a lawyer with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher; as a law clerk to Federal District Court Judge Terry J. Hatter; and in several political campaigns, including as Chair, Cranston for Senate, 1986. Kim has served as a board member and volunteer to organizations addressing issues affecting the environment, civic participation, and the nonprofit sector.

This is a CDDRL's seminar within our Democracy in Taiwan Program.

Vincent Wei-cheng Wang is Chair and Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Richmond. He was a former Coordinator of the American Political Science Association Conference Group on Taiwan Studies and a board member of the American Association for Chinese Studies. He has published over fifty scholarly articles and book chapters on Asian politics and international relations, Taiwan’s domestic politics and external relations, United States-Asian relations, and comparative political economy of East Asia and Latin America. His most recent publication is “Taiwan: Conventional Deterrence, Soft Power, and the Nuclear Option,” in Muthiah Alagappa, ed., The Long Shadow: Nuclear Weapons and Security in 21st Century Asia (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 2008). He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

James Traub is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, where he has worked since 1998. From 1994 to 1997, he was a staff writer for The New Yorker. He has also written for The New York Review of Books, Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic and elsewhere. His articles have been widely reprinted and anthologized. He has written extensively about international affairs and especially the United Nations. In recent years, he has reported from Iran, Iraq, Sierra Leone, East Timor, Vietnam, India, Kosovo and Haiti. He has also written often about national politics and urban affairs, including education, immigration, race, poverty and crime.

Most recently, Traub authored the critically acclaimed book, The Best Intentions: Kofi Annan and the UN in the Era of American World Power. His previous books include, The Devil's Playground: A Century of Pleasure and Profit in Times Square, which was published in 2004, and City On A Hill, a book on open admissions at City College that was published in 1994 and won the Sidney Hillman Award for nonfiction. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Derek Chollet is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, D.C., where he also teaches at Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program. He served in the State Department during the Clinton administration, as foreign policy adviser to former U.S. Senator John Edwards, and assisted former U.S. Secretaries of State James A. Baker III and Warren Christopher with their memoirs. He has written or coedited three books on American foreign policy, and his articles have appeared in the Washington Post, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Monthly, and numerous other publications.

James Goldgeier is a professor of political science and international affairs at The George Washington University and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has authored or coauthored three books on foreign policy, and his articles have appeared in publications including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the National Interest, the Washington Post, Financial Times, and the Weekly Standard. He has held fellowships at Stanford University, the Brookings Institution, the Library of Congress, and the Woodrow Wilson Center and has served at the State Department and on the National Security Council staff.

Drs. Chollet and Goldgeier co-authored America Between the Wars: From 11/9 to 9/11, published in June 2008 by Public Affairs.