Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
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.
"We must remember that predatory authoritarianism is not stamped into the Russian DNA," writes Larry Diamond in this American Interest article.
At an event co-sponsored by the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Hoover Institution, "former Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou addressed a crowd of 400 University faculty, students and local community members in his Wednesday talk on democracy, cross-strait relations and future challenges facing Taiwan." Read The Stanford Daily's full coverage of President Ma's visit here.
In 2008, when Michael McFaul was asked to leave his perch at Stanford and join an unlikely presidential campaign, he had no idea that he would find himself at the beating heart of one of today’s most contentious and consequential international relationships. As President Barack Obama’s adviser on Russian affairs, McFaul helped craft the United States’ policy known as “reset” that fostered new and unprecedented collaboration between the two countries. And then, as U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014, he had a front-row seat when this fleeting, hopeful moment crumbled with Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency. This riveting inside account combines history and memoir to tell the full story of U.S.-Russia relations from the fall of the Soviet Union to the new rise of the hostile, paranoid Russian president. From the first days of McFaul’s ambassadorship, the Kremlin actively sought to discredit and undermine him, hassling him with tactics that included dispatching protesters to his front gates, slandering him on state media, and tightly surveilling him, his staff, and his family.
From Cold War to Hot Peace is an essential account of the most consequential global confrontation of our time.
Kofi Annan is the Chair of the Kofi Annan Foundation which mobilizes political will to overcome threats to peace, development and human rights. Mr. Annan was the 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations and the first to emerge from within its own ranks. In 2001, Mr. Annan was, together with the United Nations, awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for having revitalized the organization and prioritizing human rights.
With the Kofi Annan Foundation, which this year marks its 10th anniversary, Mr. Annan works for fair and legitimate elections, for peace processes that deliver, for agriculture that serves the poorest and for youth leadership in the fight against violent extremism. In addition, Mr. Annan and the Foundation engage in preventive diplomacy and mediation activities to safeguard peace.
Francis Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Mosbacher Director of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). He is also a professor by courtesy in the Department of Political Science. He was previously at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University, where he was the Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy and director of SAIS' International Development program.
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Francis Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a faculty member of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). He is also Director of Stanford's Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy, and a professor (by courtesy) of Political Science.
Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on issues in development and international politics. His 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. His book In the Realm of the Last Man: A Memoir will be published in fall 2026.
Francis Fukuyama received his B.A. from Cornell University in classics, and his Ph.D. from Harvard in Political Science. He was a member of the Political Science Department of the RAND Corporation, and of the Policy Planning Staff of the US Department of State. From 1996-2000 he was Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University, and from 2001-2010 he was Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. He served as a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics from 2001-2004. He is editor-in-chief of American Purpose, an online journal.
Dr. Fukuyama holds honorary doctorates from Connecticut College, Doane College, Doshisha University (Japan), Kansai University (Japan), Aarhus University (Denmark), the Pardee Rand Graduate School, and Adam Mickiewicz University (Poland). He is a non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Rand Corporation, the Board of Trustees of Freedom House, and the Board of the Volcker Alliance. He is a fellow of the National Academy for Public Administration, a member of the American Political Science Association, and of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is married to Laura Holmgren and has three children.
(October 2025)
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8:30-9:00 a.m. Breakfast
9:00-9:15 a.m. Introductory Remarks
9:15-11:00 a.m. Panel 1: Youth, Culture, and Expressions of Resistance
Ayca Alemdaroglu, Stanford University
“Affective Pedagogies: Governing Youth in the Times of Dissent in Turkey”
Adel Iskandar, Simon Fraser University
“Uprisings Upended: Arab Youth Between Dissociation, Disenchantment, and Desecration”
Yasemin Ipek, Stanford University
“Imagining Social Change after the Syrian Civil War: Entrepreneurial Activism and Cross-Sectarian Political Mobilization in Lebanon”
Chair: Hicham Alaoui, Harvard University
11:00-11:15 a.m. Coffee Break
11:15-1:00 p.m. Panel 2: Situating Gender in the Law and the Economy
Hanan Hammad, Texas Christian University
“Democracy from the Gender Edge”
Alessandra Gonzalez, Stanford University
“Do Source or Host Country Practices Dominate in Female Executive Hiring? Evidence from Firms in the GCC Countries”
Ibtesam Al Atiyat, St. Olaf College
“Repealing Rape Article 308: The Missed Opportunity to Women’s Emancipation in Jordan”
Chair: Joel Beinin, Stanford University
1:00-2:00 p.m. Lunch
2:00-3:45 p.m. Panel 3: Social Movements and Visions for Change
Dina El-Sharnouby, Freie Universität Berlin
“The 2011 Revolutionary Movement in Egypt and Youth’s Socio-Political Imaginaries of Transformation and Change”
Mohamed Daadaoui, Oklahoma City University
“It’s Good to Be the King, or Is It? Protest Movements, the “refo-lutionary” promise of PJD Islamists and the King’s Dilemma in Morocco”
Nora Doaiji, Yale University
“After Saudi Women’s Driving: What Happens When A Marginal Movement Is Centered by the State”
Chair: Amr Hamzawy, Stanford University
8:30-9:00 a.m. Breakfast
9:00-10:45 a.m. Panel 4: The Economy, the State and New Social Actors
Mona Atia, The George Washington University
“Territorial Restructuring and the Politics of Governing Poverty in Morocco”
Amr Adly, European University Institute
“Egypt's Shattered Oligarchy and Big Business Autonomy”
Mahmoud El-Gamal, Rice University
“Egyptian Economic and De-Democratization Trends”
Chair: Lisa Blaydes, Stanford University
10:45-11:00 a.m. Coffee Break
11:00-12:30 p.m. Panel 5: Social Change and International and Regional Dynamics
Hicham Alaoui, Harvard University
"Geopolitical Myths and Realities under Neo-Authoritarianism"
Daniel Brumberg, Georgetown University
“The Roots and Impact of Democracy Resistance and Autocracy Promotion in the Arab World”
Nancy Okail, The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy
"Political Reform, Security, and U.S. Middle East Policy"
Chair: Larry Diamond, Stanford University
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The event will be held at Stanford University. The exact location will be shared via e-mail with registered participants a week prior to the conference. Please read registration instructions below.
“The one bright light in this darkening landscape is that Poles remain committed to democracy,” writes Anna Grzymala-Busse in Current History. Read the full article here.
Jeremy Weinstein writes about the Trump administration's response to the ongoing refugee crisis in Foreign Policy Magazine. Weinstein explains that, for the current administration to "back up its commitment to innovation and efficiency," it could start with "A modern system of matching refugees to the communities where they are most likely to succeed could reduce costs and improve outcomes, forming a critical element of a global reform agenda for refugee resettlement." Read the full story here.
"There is growing consensus that populism constitutes a grave threat to liberal democracy, and to the liberal international order on which peace and prosperity have rested for the past two generations," writes Francis Fukuyama in the World Economic Forum. The fate of the global liberal order could be jeopardized due to rising populist powers and movements. Read the full article here.
The founder of The Bell Liza Osetinskaya and Draper Hills alumna (Russia, '16) talks to CDDRL Mosbacher Director Francis Fukuyama, about Trump and Putin, the U.S.—Russia relations and the future of the world with political populism on the rise. Listen here and read the transcript here.
"For those who believe that liberal democracy constitutes the best form of government, the rise of populist nationalism is a very worrying phenomenon," writes Francis Fukuyama in Credit Suisse Research Institute's "The Future of Politics." Read the full article here.
