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.

The Comparative Politics of Climate Change Policy

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Abstract:

My presentation will not be of an academic paper but of a proposal for a research project. The Balzan Prize for International Relations, which I was recently awarded, provides funding that I intend to use to stimulate the development of a subfield in which political science has lagged: the comparative politics of climate change policy. The project is designed to be comparative in method, simultaneously theoretical and empirical, and deeply collaborative. I also hope that the project will stimulate new thinking in comparative politics and international relations. Causal inference on the basis of observational data is weak in contemporary comparative politics, but new methodological innovations have not consistently been focused on substantively important issues. Perhaps innovating in an understudied field will also facilitate a combination of rigor and relevance. My presentation will be designed to stimulate theoretical, empirical, and methodological suggestions.

 

Speaker Bio:

robert keohane
Robert O. Keohane (PhD Harvard 1966) is Professor of Public and International Affairs (Emeritus) in the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. He has served as Editor of International Organization and as President of the International Studies Association and the American Political Science Association. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the American Philosophical Society, and the National Academy of Sciences; and he is a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy. He has been a recipient of the Balzan Prize: International Relations: History Theory, 2016; the James Madison Award, American Political Science Association, 2014, for lifetime achievement; the Centennial Medal, Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 2012; the Skytte Prize from the Johan Skytte Foundation, Uppsala Sweden, 2005; the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order, 1989, and two honorary doctorates. His publications include Power and Interdependence (with Joseph S. Nye, Jr., originally published in 1977), After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (1984), Designing Social Inquiry (with Gary King and Sidney Verba, 1994), and Power and Governance in a Partially Globalized World (2002). His current work focuses on the international and comparative politics of climate change policy.

Robert O Keohane Visiting Fellow at CDDRL
Seminars

This Sputnik Moment

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"As authoritarian states like China double down on strategic investments and project their “sharp power” abroad, the United States may finally be reaching a new Sputnik moment," writes Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies in his latest for The American Interest. Read here. 

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U.S.-China Rivalry and the Origins of Taiwan's Developmental State

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Abstract 

Scholars have credited a model of state-led capitalism called the developmental state with producing the first wave of the East Asian economic miracle. Using historical evidence based on original archival research, this talk offers a geopolitical explanation for the origins of the developmental state. In contrast to previous studies that have emphasized colonial legacies or domestic political factors, I argue that the developmental state was the legacy of the rivalry between the United States and Communist China during the Cold War. Responding to the acute tensions in Northeast Asia in the early postwar years, the United States supported emergency economic controls in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan to enforce political stability. In response to the belief that the Communist threat would persist over the long term, the U.S. strengthened its clients by laying the foundations of a capitalist, export-oriented economy under bureaucratic guidance. The result of these interventions was a distinctive model of state-directed capitalism that scholars would later characterize as a developmental state.

I verify this claim by examining the rivalry between the United States and the Chinese Communists and demonstrating that American threat perceptions caused the U.S. to promote unorthodox economic policies among its clients in Northeast Asia. In particular, I examine U.S. relations with the Chinese Nationalists on Taiwan, where American efforts to create a bulwark against Communism led to the creation of an elite economic bureaucracy for administering U.S. economic aid. In contrast, the United States decided not to create a developmental state in the Philippines because the Philippine state was not threatened by the Chinese Communists. Instead, the Philippines faced a domestic insurgency that was weaker and comparatively short-lived. As a result, the U.S. pursued a limited goal of maintaining economic stability instead of promoting rapid industrialization. These findings shed new light on the legacy of statism in American foreign economic policy and highlight the importance of geopolitics in international development.

 

Bio

James Lee

James Lee is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Politics at Princeton University. He specializes in International Relations with a focus on U.S. foreign policy in East Asia and relations across the Taiwan Strait. James also serves as the Senior Editor for Taiwan Security Research, an academic website that aggregates news and commentary on the economic and political dimensions of Taiwan's security.

 

This event is co-sponsored by the Taiwan Democracy Project in the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative in the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), both part of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

James Lee Ph.D. Candidate Princeton University
Lectures

Draper Hills Summer Fellowship application is open

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Draper Hills Summer Fellowship Program at CDDRL is now accepting applications. Deadline is 5:00 pm PST on Wednesday, November 15, 2017.

Launched in 2005, the Draper Hills Summer Fellowship on Democracy and Development Program (DHSFDD) is a three-week academic training program that is hosted annually at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. The program brings together a group of 25 to 30 mid-career practitioners in law, politics, government, private enterprise, civil society, and international development from transitioning countries. This training program provides a unique forum for emerging leaders to connect, exchange experiences, and receive academic training to enrich their knowledge and advance their work.

For three weeks during the summer, fellows participate in academic seminars that expose them to the theory and practice of democracy, development, and the rule of law. Delivered by leading Stanford faculty from the Stanford Law School, the Graduate School of Business, and the departments of economics and political science, these seminars allow emerging leaders to explore new institutional models and frameworks to enhance their ability to promote democratic change in their home countries.

Guest speakers from private foundations, think tanks, government, and the justice system provide a practitioners viewpoint on such pressing issues in the field. Summer Fellows also visit Silicon Valley technology firms such as Benetech, Google and Twitter to explore how technology tools and social media platforms are being used to catalyze democratic practices on a global scale. 

The  program is funded  by the generous support from Bill and Phyllis Draper and Ingrid von Mangoldt Hills.

Learn more here.

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Sviatoslav Vakarchuk joins Stanford as a visiting scholar this fall

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Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) is pleased to welcome Sviatoslav Vakarchuk as a visiting scholar for the fall quarter. Vakarchuk is a Ukrainian civic activist, musician and the lead vocalist and founder of the band “Okean Elzy.“ He will be in residence at CDDRL this fall to attend courses and study with some of the leading intellectuals and academics at CDDRL. He holds a doctorate degree in theoretical physics from the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv.

Vakarchuk is also the founder of a charity fund called “Lyudi Maybutnyogo” (People of the Future) and co-founder of the Center for Economic Strategy, an independent policy think tank dedicated to supporting reforms and sustainable economic growth in Ukraine. He served as a Yale World Fellow in 2015.

Vakarchuk will be interacting with the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program during his residency at CDDRL. Launched in 2016, the Program seeks to provide Ukrainian leaders with opportunities for professional growth and development, as well as the chance to work on a project over the course of a 10-month residency at Stanford.

“We look forward to welcoming Slava Vakarchuk to the CDDRL community this fall,” said Francis Fukuyama the Mosbacher director of CDDRL. “His presence will add a great deal towards our understanding of Ukraine's democratic transition.”

During his stay in the US, Vakarchuk will be offering a set of open lectures on Ukraine and participating in several events at CDDRL. More information on these public events will be forthcoming.

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Left to right: Michael McFaul, Director FSI; Olena Sotnyk, Member of Parliament, Ukraine; Sviatoslav Vakarchuk, Visiting Scholar CDDRL; Victor Liakh, President at East Europe Foundation.
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CDDRL's class of 2018 pre- and postdoctoral fellows

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Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) is proud to announce our three incoming fellows who will be joining us in the 2017-2018 academic year to develop their research, engage with faculty and tap into our diverse scholarly community. 

The pre- and postdoctoral program will provide fellows the time to focus on research and data analysis as they work to finalize and publish their dissertation research, while connecting with resident faculty and research staff at CDDRL. 

Fellows will present their research during our weekly research seminar series and an array of scholarly events and conferences.

Topics of the incoming cohort include policing and sectarian conflict in Iraq and Israel, global health and safety regulations and taxation in Southeast Asia.

Learn more in the Q&A below.

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Matthew Nanes

CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow

 

Hometown: Dunwoody, GA

Academic Institution: University of California San Diego

Discipline & Graduation Date:  Political Science, June 2017

Research Interests: Middle East Politics, sectarian conflict, policing and domestic security, comparative institutions

Dissertation Title: From the Bottom-Up: Policing and Sectarian Conflict in Divided Societies

What attracted you to the CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellowship program? I was drawn to the post-doctoral program at CDDRL by the broad range of experts at FSI and across the entire Stanford community. My research interests touch on a wide range of substantive and methodological issues, and I'm very excited to work with experts on a similarly broad range of areas. I was also attracted to CDDRL's focus on bridging the gap between academic scholarship and real-world policy applications.

What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at the CDDRL? My primary goal is to make progress in converting my dissertation, which is about policing and sectarian conflict in Iraq and Israel, into a publishable academic book. To this end, I intend to spend time honing my theoretical argument about the incentives and constraints generated by sectarian inclusiveness in the police and testing this argument using new and existing data. I also intend to continue progress on ongoing research on policing under low state legitimacy in the Philippines, and to lay the groundwork for follow-up research on the Iraqi police. 

Fun fact: During college, I rode a bicycle from Providence, RI to Seattle, WA

 
 

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Rebecca Louise Perlman

CDDRL Pre-doctoral Fellow

Hometown: Newton, MA

Academic Institution: Stanford University 

Discipline & Expected Graduation Date:  Political Science, 2018

Research interests: Regulation, Trade, International institutions

Dissertation Title: For Safety or Profit? The Determinants of Global Health and Safety Regulations

What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre-doctoral Fellowship program? CDDRL brings together an amazing group of scholars, with a diverse set of research interests. I was eager for the opportunity to work with and learn from these individuals, through workshops and day-to-day interactions. 

What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at the CDDRL? I'm looking forward to completing my dissertation and hopefully embarking on some collaborative projects with other CDDRL fellows and/or faculty.

Fun fact: I have a cat named Khaleesi.

 
 

CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow

 

Hometown: Anchorage, AK

Academic Institution: Emory University

Discipline & Graduation Date: Political Science, August 4, 2017

Research Interests: political economy of development, decentralization, taxation, local politics, Southeast Asia

Dissertation Title: Decentralization and the Politics of Local Taxation in Southeast Asia

What attracted you to the CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellowship program? I share CDDRL's concern for the links among multiple dimensions of development, and emphasize the interplay between political and economic institutions in my own research. In addition, the members of the CDDRL community combine disciplinary approaches, technical expertise, and area knowledge to address substantively important and theoretically interesting questions. I am very excited to learn from the community.

What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at the CDDRL? I will revise and expand my dissertation as I prepare it for publication. The dissertation highlights the role of strong local business associations as key institutions for resolving the distributional and monitoring challenges posed by taxation. Yet, it does not explain the origins of those associations. I will address this question by exploring the histories of local business associations in Southeast Asia, particularly those which exhibit surprising strength or weakness despite expectations to the contrary. 

Fun fact: My summer job in college was to umpire American Legion baseball.

 

 

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Digital Technology and Democracy: Launch of the Global Digital Policy Incubator

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Michael McFaul, Director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Professor Political Science

and FSI Senior Fellow, Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution

Francis Fukuyama, Mosbacher Director, Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law,

Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow at FSI and the Hoover Insitution

Eileen Donahoe, Executive Director, Global Digital Policy Incubator

 

Cordially Invite you to a conference conmemorating the launch of the 

Global Digital Policy Incubator

Friday, October 6, 2017

Bechtel Conference Center, Encina Hall

Registration / Coffee / Meet the Speakers

9:30-10:00am

Welcome to the Global Digital Policy Incubator

10:00-10:015am

When Freedom of Expression Conflicts with Democracy

Enhancing the Quality of Discourse Necessary to Sustain Democracy                  10:15-11:45am

Moderator: Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and FSI

Timothy Garton Ash, Hoover Institution, Stanford, Oxford University & Free Speech Debate

Francis Fukuyama, Director, Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, Stanford

Brittan Heller, Director of Technology & Society, Anti-Defamation League

Ieva Kupce Ilves, Cybersecurity expert, former head of Cybersecurity Policy, MoD Latvia

Justine Isola, Product Policy Manager at Facebook

When Information Becomes the Weapon

Expanding notions of National Security in the Digital Context                                 12:00-1:45pm

​Moderator: Michael Mcfaul, Director of FSI, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia

Toomas Ilves, Former President of Estonia

Mike Brown, Presidential Innovation Fellow, DIUX, Fformer CEO Symantec

Denis McDonough, White House Chief of Staff to former President Obama, Senior Principle, Markle Foundation

Nicole Wong, former U.S. Deputy CTO, former Google Vice President & Deputy General Counsel,

former Legal Director of Product, Twitter

Digital Platforms and Democratic Responsibility

Emerging Private Sector Roles in Protecting Freedom and Security                       2:00-3:30pm

Moderator: Larry Kramer, President of the Hewlett Foundation 

Juniper Downs, Global Head of Public Policy and Government Relations, Youtube

Daphne Keller, Director of Intermediary Liability, Center for Internet & Society, Stanford Law School

Andrew McLaughlin, Co-Founder, Higher Ground Labs, Venter Partner, Betaworks, former U.S. Dep. CTO

Nick Pickles, Senior Public Policy Manager, Twitter

Mike Posner, Director, NYU Stern Center for Business & Human Rights, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor

Keynote Conversation 

Digital Technology, Diplomacy, and Democratic Values                                                     

Former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton

In conversation with Eileen Donahoe, Executive Director of the Global Digital Policy Incubator,

former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council

4:30 - 5:30pm

Cemex Auditorium, Knight Management Center

*event by invitation only, doors open at 3:30pm, guests must be in their seats 4:15pm*

Ticket Lottery for (Stanford students only) will open Wednesday, September 27 through the

Stanford Ticket Office 

Conferences
CDDRL Special Events

Ali Yaycioglu

Lane History Corner
450 Serra Mall, 200-011

(650) 723-3609
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Associate Professor of History
Director, Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies
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Dr. Ali Yaycıoğlu is a historian specializing in the History of the Ottoman Empire, Middle East, and Modern Turkey. Currently he is serving as the director of the Abbasi Program of Islamic Studies and the Middle East Studies Forum.

His research focuses on different dimensions of political, economic, and legal institutions and practices, as well as the social and cultural dynamics of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Dr. Yaycıoğlu is particularly intrigued by visions, representations, and documentation of concepts like property, territory, and nature in early periods. His is also interested in the application of digital tools to comprehend, visualize, and conceptualize these historical perspectives. Dr. Yaycıoğlu offers courses on the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Empires, Markets, and Networks in the Early Modern World, Global History of the Age of Revolutions, Doing Economic History, and Digital Humanities.

Dr. Yaycıoğlu's first book, Partners of the Empire: Crisis of the Ottoman Order in the Age of Revolutions (Stanford, 2016), reevaluates the Ottoman Empire within the global context of the revolutionary age in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He also co-edited the Ottoman Digital Humanities Special Issue of the Journal of Ottoman and Turkish Studies (2023) and Crafting History: Essays on the Ottoman World and Beyond in Honor of Cemal Kafadar (Boston, 2023). Dr. Yaycıoğlu's essays on the history and contemporary affairs of the Republic of Turkey were published in his Uncertain Past Time: Empire, Republic, and Politics (in Turkish, Istanbul, 2024).

Currently, he is immersed in two book projects: Karlowitz Moment: The Ottoman Empire and the Making of the Modern World, 1699-1839, a reconsideration of the Ottoman experience in the global context during the long eighteenth century and The Order of Debt: Power, Wealth, and Death in the Ottoman Empire, analyzing property, finance, and Ottoman statehood in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Dr. Yaycıoğlu is the co-editor of the Stanford Ottoman World Series: Critical Studies in Empire, Nature and Knowledge also oversees a digital history project, Mapping Ottoman Epirus, housed in Stanford’s Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA).

Born and raised in Ankara, Turkey, Dr. Yaycıoğlu earned degrees in International Relations from the Middle East Technical University and Ottoman History from Bilkent University. Further studies led him to McGill University in Montreal, where he focused on Arabic and Islamic legal history. He completed his Ph.D. in History and Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard in 2008, followed by post-doctoral studies in the Agha Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard and later in Hellenic Studies at Princeton. He Joined the History Department at Stanford in 2011. Dr. Yaycıoğlu regularly writes opinion pieces in Gazete Oksijen and other venues in Turkish and English on History and contemporary politics, mainly focusing on Turkey and the Middle East. In parallel with his academic pursuits, Dr. Yaycıoğlu is engaged in visual arts under the name "Critical Imagination," conducting artistic work in Palo Alto and Istanbul through the Atölye20 platform.

Affiliated faculty, The Europe Center
Affiliated faculty, CDDRL
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Why We Need Foreign Aid

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"The United States thus confronts a genuine dilemma. For reasons associated with our own security—especially related to transnational terrorism and pandemic disease—we need to improve governance in badly governed states, but our traditional aid programs have not been successful. We, therefore, need to re-think the objectives of foreign assistance and to distinguish foreign assistance from humanitarian programs that save lives even if they do not change policies. Our fundamental objective should be American national security. We need to identify programs that are consistent with our own interests and with the interests of political elites in target states. We have to find the sweet spot where our interests overlap," writes Stephen D. Krasner for The American Interest. Read the article here.

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I still believe in progress

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"The year 2017 marks the 25th anniversary of the publication of one of Francis Fukuyama’s most famous works, The End of History and the Last Man, which argued that the worldwide spread of liberal democracy may signal the end point of humanity’s sociocultural evolution and become the final form of human government. Can Fukuyama’s theory still tell us something important about the world?" Read here CDDRL Mosbacher Director Francis Fukuyama in conversation with Jaroslaw Kuisz and Łukasz Pawlowski. 

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