Stanford University

International Relations

FSI researchers strive to understand how countries relate to one another, and what policies are needed to achieve global stability and prosperity. International relations experts focus on the challenging U.S.-Russian relationship, the alliance between the U.S. and Japan and the limitations of America’s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.

Foreign aid is also examined by scholars trying to understand whether money earmarked for health improvements reaches those who need it most. And FSI’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center has published on the need for strong South Korean leadership in dealing with its northern neighbor.

FSI researchers also look at the citizens who drive international relations, studying the effects of migration and how borders shape people’s lives. Meanwhile FSI students are very much involved in this area, working with the United Nations in Ethiopia to rethink refugee communities.

Trade is also a key component of international relations, with FSI approaching the topic from a slew of angles and states. The economy of trade is rife for study, with an APARC event on the implications of more open trade policies in Japan, and FSI researchers making sense of who would benefit from a free trade zone between the European Union and the United States.

Democracy in Ukraine Thirty Years After the Soviet Collapse

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For decades, the Soviet Union was an authoritarian force in a polarized world. After the political transitions of the 1990s, democracy seemed to finally prevail; however, thirty years later it is in peril across the globe as several traditionally democratic countries have fallen victim to authoritarian backsliding.

The political landscape changed forever on December 1, 1991, when Ukraine held a referendum on its independence from the Soviet Union, garnering overwhelming support from tens of millions of its citizens. This was the pivotal moment that paved the way for the signing of the Belavezha Accords on December 8, 1991, and the final collapse of the USSR.

On the 30th anniversary of this historic event, join us to examine and rethink Ukraine's past and plan for its future as a democratic stronghold in Eastern Europe.

Plus, enjoy a special screening of the docuseries COLLAPSE: How Ukrainians Destroyed the Evil Empire, followed by a conversation with the filmmakers.
 

CONFERENCE AGENDA


10:15 - 11:00 am – Registration open for in-person attendees

11:00 - 11:10 am – Opening Remarks:

  • Kathryn Stoner, Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, Stanford University
  • Oleksiy Honcharuk, Former Prime Minister of Ukraine, Bernard and Susan Liautaud Visiting Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

11:10 am - 12:45 pm – Panel 1: The Soviet Collapse and the Collapse of Democratic Promise (recording)

  • Moderator: Vitali Shkliarov, Political analyst, Belarusian activist, and film director
  • Marta Dyczok, Associate Professor (History and Political Science), Western University
  • Rose Gottemoeller, Steven C. Házy Lecturer at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University, and Former Deputy Secretary General of NATO
  • Norman Naimark, Robert & Florence McDonnell Professor of E. European Studies, and Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University
  • Serhiy Plokhiy, Mykhailo S. Hrushevs'kyi Professor of Ukrainian History and Director of the Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University

12:45 - 2:00 pm – Lunch Break (boxed lunches will be served)

2:00 - 3:30 pm – Panel 2: How Did Ukraine Transition into a Democracy? (recording)

  • Moderator: Myroslava Gongadze, Chief, Ukrainian Service, Voice of America
  • Francis Fukuyama, Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Director of the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy, Stanford University
  • Oleksiy Honcharuk, Former Prime Minister of Ukraine, Bernard and Susan Liautaud Visiting Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
  • Steven Pifer, Former US Ambassador to Ukraine, William J. Perry Research Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University
  • Kathryn Stoner, Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, Stanford University

3:30 - 4:00 pm – Break

4:00 - 6:00 pm – Screening of the docuseries COLLAPSE: How Ukrainians Destroyed the Evil Empire​​

COLLAPSE is a seven-episode docuseries and political thriller that explores the decay of the Soviet Union in its last months. For the first time on screen, the Ukrainian perspective was brought to the global narrative, as well as recently unclassified details from the CIA and KGB archives. The series was produced by Suspilne, a Ukrainian public broadcaster.

6:00 - 7:00 pm – Q&A with Filmmakers (recording)

  • Moderator: Yaroslav Lodygin, Film director, scriptwriter, and Board Member of Ukrainian Public Broadcasting Company, producer of "COLLAPSE"
  • Marta Dyczok, Associate Professor (History and Political Science), Western University
  • Serhiy Plokhiy, Mykhailo S. Hrushevs'kyi Professor of Ukrainian History and Director of the Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University
  • Oleksandr Zinchenko, "COLLAPSE" screenwriter and historian
     

Hybrid event: Online via Zoom, and in-person in Bechtel Conference Center

Conferences
CDDRL Special Events

The World House Global Network presents Saumitra Jha

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On Friday, November 12, 2021, at 10:00 am PT, The World House Global Network is honored to host Saumitra Jha who will discuss: "Nonviolence: Lessons from India's Independence Struggle."

Register Now

Saumitra Jha

Saumitra Jha is an associate professor of political economy at Stanford Graduate School of Business, and, by courtesy, of economics and of political science at Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences; and convenes the Stanford Conflict and Polarization Lab. He is also a senior fellow at the Center for Democracy, Development and Rule of Law within the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Affairs.

Jha’s research has been published in leading journals in economics and political science, including Econometrica, Quarterly Journal of Economics, American Political Science Review and Journal of Development Economics, and he serves on a number of editorial boards. His research on ethnic tolerance has been recognized with the Michael Wallerstein Award for best published article in political economy from the American Political Science Association in 2014 and his coauthored research on heroes with the Oliver Williamson Award for best paper by the Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics in 2020. Jha was honored to receive the Stanford MSx Teacher of the Year Award, voted by the students program in 2020.

Online via Zoom. Register Now 

Saumitra Jha Stanford University

Turkey-US Relations: Can the Vicious Cycle be Broken?

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Turkey-US relations have been going through the most turbulent episode since 2016. While occasional divergence of opinion between partners is natural, the frequency and the intensity of such disagreements have sharply increased over time, creating major trust issues between the allies. This talk will address the main causes behind the rift between Turkey and the US,  and warning against the path-dependent foreign policy behavior, will make specific policy recommendations to manage the bilateral tensions.
 

Register Now


​Oya Dursun-Özkanca
Oya Dursun-Özkanca is the Endowed Chair of International Studies Professor of Political Science at Elizabethtown College and the author of Turkey–West Relations: The Politics of Intra-alliance Opposition (Cambridge University Press 2019), and The Nexus Between Security Sector Reform/Governance and Sustainable Development Goal-16: An Examination of Conceptual Linkages and Policy Recommendations (The Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance 2021). Her edited volumes include The European Union as an Actor in Security Sector Reform (Routledge, 2014) and External Interventions in Civil Wars (with Stefan Wolff, Routledge, 2014).

In Fall 2021, she is a visiting scholar at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University. 

Online via Zoom

Oya Dursun-Özkanca Professor Endowed Chair of International Studies and Professor of Political Science Elizabethtown College
Seminars
CDDRL Special Events

Cuba en el siglo XXI

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Stanford CLAS and CDDRL logos

Join us for a conversation on Cuba led by scholars and professionals within and outside Cuba who will discuss contemporary Cuba from a variety of perspectives. Going beyond the media headlines and coverage of the July 11th protest, the panelists will discuss Cuba from a longer-term perspective primarily focused on the early 21st century and considering US-Cuban relations, Cuba in the US media, freedom of academic, literary, and artistic expression in Cuba, as well as other relevant topics concerning Cuba’s present and future.

Speakers: Ernesto Domínguez , Darsi Fernández, Sachie Fernández, and Mikael Wolfe.
 

Join the Livestream


Please feel free to send your questions in the comments section on the Youtube page and we will read them to the panelists. 

Sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies, CDDRL, and the FSI Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Task Force.

Event will be streamed live on YouTube.

Panel Discussions

Is Deliberation an Antidote to Extreme Partisan Polarization? Reflections on “America in One Room”

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This paper is positioned at the intersection of two literatures: partisan polarization and deliberative democracy. It analyzes results from a national field experiment in which more than 500 registered voters were brought together from around the country to deliberate in depth over a long weekend on five major issues facing the country. A pre–post control group was also asked the same questions. The deliberators showed large, depolarizing changes in their policy attitudes and large decreases in affective polarization. The paper develops the rationale for hypotheses explaining these decreases and contrasts them with a literature that would have expected the opposite. The paper briefly concludes with a discussion of how elements of this “antidote” can be scaled.

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American Political Science Review
Authors
James S. Fishkin
Alice Siu
Larry Diamond
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pp. 1 - 18

The World House Global Network presents Gerald and Marita Grudzen

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On Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 10am PT, The World House Global Network is honored to have Gerald and Marita Grudzen, founders of Global Ministries University who will discuss: "A Case Study in the Value of Interfaith Education for building Global Partnerships."
 

Register Now

The World House Global Network - Gerald and Marita Grudzen image

About Gerald Grudzen:

Gerald Grudzen, Ph.D. was one of the founders of Global Ministries University in 2001 shortly after the tragedy of 9/11. Grudzen has served as President of Global Ministries University since 2001 and has developed graduate interfaith education programs in collaboration with universities and research institutes in the United States, Africa, Turkey, India, and Thailand. Grudzen earned his Ph.D. in the history of Christianity and Islam from Columbia University.  He received a John Templeton award in 2003 for the development of the first scientific curriculum by Christian and Muslim scholars for the first major universities in Europe. He did this research in collaboration with the Ian Ramsey Center at Oxford University. In 2010 Grudzen co-led the largest American academic delegation ever sponsored by the US State Department for interfaith and intercultural dialogue with faculty members 'at several Egyptian Universities throughout Egypt including Al Azhar University in Cairo, the leading Sunni Muslim education center in the world.  

Beginning in 2012, Grudzen and Global Ministries Universities undertook a major effort to combat religious extremism in the coastal areas of Kenya where there had been frequent terrorist incidents.  The project brought together religious leaders and educators from both the coastal region and throughout Kenya to train these leaders in interfaith dialogue and methods of conflict resolution.  The success of this program led to its integration  with the Tangaza University Institute for Interreligious Dialogue and Islamic Studies in 2019. In 2021 Grudzen and his wife, Marita Grudzen,  co-chaired the US Hub for a three-day interfaith conference on Pope Francis' encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, co-sponsored with Tangaza Univesity and other Christian and Muslim universities in Kenya and Indonesia in collaboration with the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue at the Vatican.  Over 3000 participants took part in this conference from 15 different countries. A second international, interfaith conference is scheduled for February of 2023. Grudzen has authored or co-authored several books on the role of interfaith dialogue and collaboration in promoting peace and reconciliation across the world.

About Marita Grudzen:

Marita Grudzen, MHS, is Associate Director Emerita and a founding member of the Stanford Geriatric Education Center, a national center in ethnogeriatrics within Stanford University School of Medicine. Ms. Grudzen was co-recipient with Chaplain Bruce Feldstein, MD, of the Templeton Award(2001-06) for the medical school required curriculum they developed, Spirituality and Meaning in Medicine. Ms. Grudzen chaired a qualitative study of diverse healing practices in six ethnic minority populations in the Bay Area which was translated into health professional educational programming. She also developed a relationship of trust with the Afghan leadership in Fremont, CA during a series of three focus groups she co-led with the Afghan elder women’s community. Most recently, Marita co-developed the curriculum for the Fremont Community Ambassador Program for Seniors, and 25 hour Hospital to Home Transition training for volunteers from the Ethnic Minority Senior Services Consortium of San Jose, CA. Marita has received an international award from the Prime Minister of Turkey for her contribution to the First International Care Congress in Istanbul from May 2-8, 2005.

Since August of 2011, every year Ms. Grudzen with her husband have co-developed, implemented, evaluated and revised a 40 hour Interfaith Leadership Program in partnership with Christian, Muslim and African Indigenous Religious leaders in Kenya. Recruiting local expert and community leaders as co-presenters they returned every August until the current Covid era and maintain communication through the year with their interfaith partners through Skype and email.

Online via Zoom. Register Now 

Gerald and Marita Grudzen Global Ministries University 

The Russia Challenge: Limited or Resurrected?

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*For fall quarter 2021, CISAC will be hosting hybrid events. Many events will offer limited-capacity in-person attendance for Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, visiting scholars, and students in accordance with Stanford’s health and safety guidelines, and be open to the public online via Zoom. All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

 

REGISTRATION

Zoom

(Open to all)

 

Seminar Recording

About the Event: As relations between the West and Russia plunge to a post-Cold War nadir, how strong a competitor will the Kremlin prove? Will constraints on Putin's autocracy hinder his ability to have Russia play a great power role, or has Russia alrealdy successfully resurrected itself and is now able to exercise significant influence on the global stage? On November 10, Timothy Frye (author of Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin's Russia) and Kathryn Stoner (author of Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order) will discuss the nature and depth of the Russian challenge to the West.

 

About the Speakers: 

Timothy Frye is the Marshall D. Shulman Professor of Post-Soviet Foreign Policy at Columbia University. Professor Frye received a B.A. in Russian language and literature from Middlebury College, an M.A. from Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia. His research and teaching interests are in comparative politics and political economy with a focus on the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. His most recent book is Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin’s Russia (Princeton University Press, 2021). He co-directs the International Center for the Study of Institutions and Development at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow and edits Post-Soviet Affairs.

Kathryn Stoner is the Deputy Director at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, and at the Center on International Security and Cooperation at FSI. She teaches in the Department of Political Science at Stanford, and in the Program on International Relations, as well as in the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Program. Prior to coming to Stanford in 2004, she was on the faculty at Princeton University for nine years, jointly appointed to the Department of Politics and the Princeton School for International and Public Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School). At Princeton she received the Ralph O. Glendinning Preceptorship awarded to outstanding junior faculty. She also served as a Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at McGill University. She has held fellowships at Harvard University as well as the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC. In addition to many articles and book chapters on contemporary Russia, she is the author or co-editor of six books: "Transitions to Democracy: A Comparative Perspective," written and edited with Michael A. McFaul (Johns Hopkins 2013); "Autocracy and Democracy in the Post-Communist World," co-edited with Valerie Bunce and Michael A. McFaul (Cambridge, 2010); "Resisting the State: Reform and Retrenchment in Post-Soviet Russia" (Cambridge, 2006); "After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transitions" (Cambridge, 2004), coedited with Michael McFaul; and "Local Heroes: The Political Economy of Russian Regional" Governance (Princeton, 1997). Her most recent book is Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order" (Oxford University Press, 2021). She received a BA (1988) and MA (1989) in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and a PhD in Government from Harvard University (1995). In 2016 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Iliad State University, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia.

Virtual Only. This event will not be held in person.

Timothy Frye

Kathryn Stoner

FSI
Stanford University
Encina Hall C140
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 736-1820 (650) 724-2996
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Satre Family Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
kathryn_stoner_1_2022_v2.jpg MA, PhD

Kathryn Stoner is the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), and a Senior Fellow at CDDRL and the Center on International Security and Cooperation at FSI. From 2017 to 2021, she served as FSI's Deputy Director. She is Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford and she teaches in the Department of Political Science, and in the Program on International Relations, as well as in the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Program. She is also a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution.

Prior to coming to Stanford in 2004, she was on the faculty at Princeton University for nine years, jointly appointed to the Department of Politics and the Princeton School for International and Public Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School). At Princeton she received the Ralph O. Glendinning Preceptorship awarded to outstanding junior faculty. She also served as a Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at McGill University. She has held fellowships at Harvard University as well as the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC. 

In addition to many articles and book chapters on contemporary Russia, she is the author or co-editor of six books: "Transitions to Democracy: A Comparative Perspective," written and edited with Michael A. McFaul (Johns Hopkins 2013);  "Autocracy and Democracy in the Post-Communist World," co-edited with Valerie Bunce and Michael A. McFaul (Cambridge, 2010);  "Resisting the State: Reform and Retrenchment in Post-Soviet Russia" (Cambridge, 2006); "After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transitions" (Cambridge, 2004), coedited with Michael McFaul; and "Local Heroes: The Political Economy of Russian Regional" Governance (Princeton, 1997); and "Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order" (Oxford University Press, 2021).

She received a BA (1988) and MA (1989) in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and a PhD in Government from Harvard University (1995). In 2016 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Iliad State University, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia.

Download full-resolution headshot; photo credit: Rod Searcey.

Mosbacher Director, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Professor of Political Science (by courtesy), Stanford University
Senior Fellow (by courtesy), Hoover Institution
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Seminars

Authoritarian media and diversionary threats: lessons from 30 years of Syrian state discourse

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Scholars have long argued that leaders manipulate foreign policy, sometimes even initiating wars in order to enhance their domestic political position. But diversionary wars are relatively rare given the high costs of conflict. In this project, we examine data from major Syrian daily newspapers over a 30-year period (1987–2018) to explore how autocratic regimes use diversionary rhetoric. We find that before the 2011 Arab Uprisings, Syria's state-controlled media concentrated on Israel as a security and political threat. Emphasis on Israel as a diversionary threat decreased during peace negotiations between Syria and Israel, probably in a bid to prepare the Syrian public for normalization of bilateral relations. After 2011, scrutiny of Israel—and other long-standing topics of state discourse—was displaced by discussion of foreign plots and conspiracies against the Syrian state. Our analysis illustrates how authoritarian regimes make use of diversionary strategies as well as how political shocks generate discontinuities in authoritarian rhetoric.

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Political Science Research and Methods
Authors
Lisa Blaydes
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Issue 4

Fisher Family CDDRL Honors Program Information Session AY 22-23

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The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) will be accepting applications from eligible juniors on who are interested in writing their senior thesis on a subject touching upon democracy, economic development, and rule of law (DDRL) from any university department.  The application period opens on January 10, 2022 and runs through February 11, 2022.   For more information on the Fisher Family CDDRL Honors Program, please click here.

Join us online via Zoom on Friday, January 21st at 12:00pm (PST) to learn more! 

REGISTER NOW

CDDRL faculty and current honors students will be present to discuss the program and answer any questions.

 

Online via zoom. REGISTER HERE.

Stephen J. Stedman

CDDRL
Encina Hall, C152
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 725-2705 (650) 724-2996
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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science
Stedman_Steve.jpg PhD

Stephen Stedman is a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), an affiliated faculty member at CISAC, and professor of political science (by courtesy) at Stanford University. He is director of CDDRL's Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development and Rule of Law, and will be faculty director of the Program on International Relations in the School of Humanities and Sciences effective Fall 2025.

In 2011-12 Professor Stedman served as the Director for the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy, and Security, a body of eminent persons tasked with developing recommendations on promoting and protecting the integrity of elections and international electoral assistance. The Commission is a joint project of the Kofi Annan Foundation and International IDEA, an intergovernmental organization that works on international democracy and electoral assistance.

In 2003-04 Professor Stedman was Research Director of the United Nations High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change and was a principal drafter of the Panel’s report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility.

In 2005 he served as Assistant Secretary-General and Special Advisor to the Secretary- General of the United Nations, with responsibility for working with governments to adopt the Panel’s recommendations for strengthening collective security and for implementing changes within the United Nations Secretariat, including the creation of a Peacebuilding Support Office, a Counter Terrorism Task Force, and a Policy Committee to act as a cabinet to the Secretary-General.

His most recent book, with Bruce Jones and Carlos Pascual, is Power and Responsibility: Creating International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats (Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 2009).

Director, Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development and Rule of Law
Director, Program in International Relations
Affiliated faculty at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
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Didi Kuo

Encina Hall, C150
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305

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Center Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
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Didi Kuo is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University. She is a scholar of comparative politics with a focus on democratization, corruption and clientelism, political parties and institutions, and political reform. She is the author of The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don’t (Oxford University Press) and Clientelism, Capitalism, and Democracy: the rise of programmatic politics in the United States and Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

She has been at Stanford since 2013 as the manager of the Program on American Democracy in Comparative Perspective and is co-director of the Fisher Family Honors Program at CDDRL. She was an Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fellow at New America and is a non-resident fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She received a PhD in political science from Harvard University, an MSc in Economic and Social History from Oxford University, where she studied as a Marshall Scholar, and a BA from Emory University.

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