Desha is a doctoral candidate at Stanford, where she researches the effects of international organizations on local institution-building. She is devoting her fellowship at CDDRL to completing her dissertation, "Why being resource poor helps postwar development." For her dissertation, Desha carried out field work in Mozambique and Uganda. In addition, she is conducting a study on democracy promotion after regime change by investigating the impact of US intervention in Panama, where she also did field work. Another study investigates the effects of remittances on access to public goods in Mexico. Desha's advisors at Stanford include Jim Fearon, Steve Krasner, David Laitin, and Jeremy Weinstein.

Professor Brown received his B.A. in political science from the University of Chicago and his M.A. and Ph.D. in politics and Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University. He teaches courses on Middle Eastern politics, as well as more general courses on comparative politics and international relations. Brown is author of Peasant Politics in Modern Egypt (1990); The Rule of Law in the Arab World: Courts in Egypt and the Gulf (1997); Constitutions in a Non-Constitutional World: Arab Basic Laws and the Prospects for Accountable Government (2001); and Palestinian Politics After the Oslo Accords: Resuming Arab Palestine (2003).

Professor Brown is the recipient of Fulbright grants to study in Egypt and the Gulf and teach in Israel. He recently served two years as Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Weitseng Chen, a Fulbright scholar, will receive his JSD from Yale Law School in October 2007. His recent research focuses on China's foreign direct investment and property rights transition, the economic behaviors of ethnic foreign investors in China, and a China-Taiwan comparison on their rule of law transition. Prior to his Yale education, Chen practiced law in Taiwan in diverse fields such as Internet and information technology industry, the private sector and public interest affairs, governmental reforms, and international NGO affairs.

Weitseng Chen's recent publications include "East Asian Model and Rule of Law (with Randall Peerenboom, a to be published book chapter)", "WTO: Time's Up for Chinese Banks - China's Banking Reform and Non-Performing Loans Disposal" (Chicago Journal of International Law), "State, Market, and the Law: Law and Development in Taiwan" (Chinese) (Journal of the Humanities & Social Science), and a book titled Law and Economic Miracle: Interaction between Taiwan's Economic Development and Economic & Trade Laws after WWII. (Chinese).

TAMARA COFMAN WITTES directs the Middle East Democracy and Development (MEDD) Project at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, a regional policy center at The Brookings Institution. The MEDD Project conducts research into political and economic reform in the region and US efforts to promote democracy there. It also hosts visiting fellows from the Middle East.

Before joining the Saban Center in December 2003, Dr. Wittes served as Middle East specialist at the US Institute of Peace and previously as director of programs at the Middle East Institute in Washington. She has also taught courses in International Relations and Security Studies at Georgetown University. Dr. Wittes was one of the first recipients of the Rabin-Peres Peace Award, established by President Bill Clinton in 1997.

Dr. Wittes's forthcoming book is Freedom's Unsteady March: America's Role in Building Arab Democracy (Brookings Press). She is also editor of How Israelis and Palestinians Negotiate: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Oslo Peace Process (USIP, 2005). Her recent work includes "What Price Freedom? Assessing the Bush Administration's Freedom Agenda," and "Back to Balancing in the Middle East," co-authored with Martin Indyk. Her analyses of US democracy promotion, Arab politics, the Middle East peace process, and other policy topics have been published in the Washington Post, Policy Review, Political Science Quarterly, the American Interest, the Weekly Standard, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, among others. Dr. Wittes holds a B.A. in Judaic and Near Eastern Studies from Oberlin College; her M.A. and Ph.D. in Government are from Georgetown University. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a professor of political science, and sociology by courtesy, and coordinator of the Democracy Program at CDDRL. He is a specialist on democratic development and regime change and on U.S. foreign policy affecting democracy abroad. His research examines comparative trends in the quality and stability of democracy in developing countries and post-communist states, and public opinion in new democracies. As a core member of the scientific team of the East Asia Barometer, he is investigating attitudes and values toward democracy in eight East Asian political systems. His research and policy analysis also address the relationship between democracy, governance and development in poor countries, particularly in Africa. In the past two years he has served as consultant to the U.S. Agency for International Development and was a contributing author of its report, "Foreign Aid in the National Interest." He is also co-director of the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy, and founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy.

During the first three months of 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. He is now lecturing and writing about the challenges of post-conflict state-building in Iraq and other countries. He also recently served with a group of Europeans and Americans who produced a report on "Transatlantic Strategy for Democracy and Human Development in the Broader Middle East," published by the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Diamond has written extensively on the factors that facilitate and obstruct democracy in developing countries and on problems of democracy, development, and corruption, particularly in Africa. He is the author of Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation, Promoting Democracy in the 1990s, and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria. His recent edited books include Islam and Democracy in the Middle East (with Marc F. Plattner and Daniel Brumberg), Political Parties and Democracy (with Richard Gunther), The Global Resurgence of Democracy and The Global Divergence of Democracies (both with Marc F. Plattner), Consolidating Democracy in Korea (with Byung-Kook Kim), and Institutional Reform and Democratic Consolidation in Korea (with Doh Shin). Among his other 20 edited books are the series Democracy in Developing Countries (with Juan Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset); The Self-Restraining State: Power and Accountability in New Democracies (with Andreas Schedler and Marc F. Plattner); and Democratization in Africa and Democracy in East Asia (both with Marc F. Plattner).

Diamond has lectured in more than 20 countries on problems of democratic development. He taught sociology at Vanderbilt University from 1980 to 1985 before joining Stanford and the Hoover Institution. He was a visiting scholar at the Academia Sinica (Taiwan, 1997-98) and a Fulbright Visiting Lecturer at Bayero University (Kano, Nigeria, 1982-83). He received all of his degrees from Stanford University, including a BA in 1974, an MA in 1978, and a PhD in sociology in 1980.

The Honorable Alejandro Toledo was democratically elected President of Peru from July 2001-July 2006.

He was born in a small and remote village in the Peruvian Andes, 12,000 feet above sea level. He is one of sixteen brothers and sisters from a family of extreme poverty. At the age of six, he worked as a street shoe shiner and simultaneously sold newspapers and lotteries to supplement the family income.

Thanks to an accidental access to education, Dr. Toledo was able to go from extreme poverty to the most prestigious academic centers of the world, later becoming one of the most prominent democratic leaders of Latin America. He is the first Peruvian president of indigenous descent to be democratically elected in five hundred years.

He received a BA from San Francisco University in Economics and Business Administration. From Stanford University, he received a MA in Economics of Human Resources, a MA in Economics, and a PhD in Economics of Human Resources.

He was born in a small and remote village in the Peruvian Andes, 12,000 feet above sea level. He is one of sixteen brothers and sisters from a family of extreme poverty. At the age of six, he worked as a street shoe shiner and simultaneously sold newspapers and lotteries to supplement the family income.

Thanks to an accidental access to education, Dr. Toledo was able to go from extreme poverty to the most prestigious academic centers of the world, later becoming one of the most prominent democratic leaders of Latin America. He is the first Peruvian president of indigenous descent to be democratically elected in five hundred years.

He received a BA from San Francisco University in Economics and Business Administration. From Stanford University, he received a MA in Economics of Human Resources, a MA in Economics, and a PhD in Economics of Human Resources.

This is the second lecture in a series of lectures Dr. Toledo will give. His final lecture will be on May 14th.