Speaker bio:

Jonathan Rodden is a professor in the political science department at Stanford who works on the comparative political economy of institutions. He has written several articles and a pair of books on federalism and fiscal decentralization. His most recent book, Hamilton’s Paradox: The Promise and Peril of Fiscal Federalism, was the recipient of the Gregory Luebbert Prize for the best book in comparative politics in 2007. He frequently works with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on issues related to fiscal decentralization.

He has also written papers on the geographic distribution of political preferences within countries, legislative bargaining, the distribution of budgetary transfers across regions, and the historical origins of political institutions. He is currently writing a series of articles and a book on political geography and the drawing of electoral districts around the world.

Rodden received his PhD from Yale University and his BA from the University of Michigan, and was a Fulbright student at the University of Leipzig, Germany. Before joining the Stanford faculty in 2007, he was the Ford Associate Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Speaker bio:

Martin Carnoy is the Vida Jacks Professor of Education at Stanford University School of Education. Prior to coming to Stanford, he was a Research Associate in Economics, Foreign Policy Division, at the Brookings Institution. He is also a consultant to the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, UNESCO, IEA, OECD, UNICEF, International Labour Office.

Dr. Carnoy is a labor economist with a special interest in the relation between the economy and the educational system. To this end, he studies the US labor market, including the role in that relation of race, ethnicity, and gender, the US educational system, and systems in many other countries. He uses comparative analysis to understand how education influences productivity and economic growth, and, in turn, how and why educational systems change over time, and why some countries educational systems are marked by better student performance than others'. He has studied extensively the impact of vouchers and charter schools on educational quality, and has recently focused on differences in teacher preparation and teacher salaries across countries as well as larger issues of the impact of economic inequality on educational quality.

Currently, Dr. Carnoy is launching new comparative projects on the quality of education in Latin America and Southern Africa, which include assessing teacher knowledge in mathematics, filming classroomsm and assessing student performance. He is also launching major new project to study changes in university financing and the quality of engineering and science tertiary education in China, India, and Russia.

Dr. Carnoy received his BA in Electrical Engineering from California Institute of Technology, MA and PhD in Economics from the University of Chicago.

Lina Khatib is the co-founding Head of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. She joined Stanford University in 2010 from the University of London where she was an Associate Professor. Her research is firmly interdisciplinary and focuses on the intersections of politics, media, and social factors in relation to the politics of the Middle East. She is also a consultant on Middle East politics and media and has published widely on topics such as new media and Islamism, US public diplomacy towards the Middle East, and political media and conflict in the Arab world, as well as on the political dynamics in Lebanon and Iran. She has an active interest in the link between track two dialogue and democratization policy. She is also a Research Associate at SOAS, University of London, and, from 2010-2012, was a Research Fellow at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School.

Amr Adly has a Ph.D. from the European University Institute-Florence, Department of political and social sciences (Date of completion: September 2010). His thesis topic was "The political economy of trade and industrialization in the post-liberalization period: Cases of Turkey and Egypt". The thesis was published by Routledge in December 2012 under the title of State Reform and Development in the Middle East: The Cases of Turkey and Egypt.

He has several other academic publications that have appeared in the Journal of Business and Politics, Turkish Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies, in addition to articles in several other periodicals and newspapers in English and Arabic.

Before joining Stanford, he worked as a senior researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, heading the unit of social and economic rights, and at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a diplomat.

At Stanford, he is leading a research project on reforming the regulatory environment governing entrepreneurship after the Arab Spring in Egypt and Tunisia, which will result in policy papers as well as conferences in the two countries.

Adel Iskandar is a scholar of media and international communication. He is the author and coauthor of several works including Al-Jazerra: The Story of the Network that is Rattling Governments and Redefining Modern Journalism (co-authored with Mohammed el-Naway, Basic Books, 2003). Iskandar's work deals with the intersections of media (pring, electronic, and digital) culture, identity, and politics, and he has lectured extensively on these topics at universateries worldwide. His latest publications include two coedited volumes titled Edward SAid: A Legacy of Emancipation and Representation (co-edited with Hakem Rustom, University of California Press, 2010) and Mediating the Arab Uprisings (Tadween, 2013). His just published title the uthored anthology Egypt In Flux: Essay on an unfinished Revolution (OUP/AUC Press, 2013. Iskandar is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University.

Hesham Sallam is a doctoral candidate in government at Georgetown University and co-editor of Jadaliyya ezine. He is former program specialist at the U.S. Institute of Peace. His research focuses on Islamist movements and the politics of economic reform in the Arab World. Sallam’s research has previously received the support of the Social Science Research Council and the U.S. Institute of Peace. Past institutional affiliations include Middle East Institute, Asharq Al-Awsat, and the World Security Institute. He is editor of Egypt's Parliamentary Elections 2011-2012: A Critical Guide to a Changing Political Arena (Tadween Publishing, 2013).

Abstract
The American government is at a crossroads in its relationship with the people it governs. Despite long-standing official denials, documents leaked to the press by 29-year-old government contractor Edward Snowden show that the United States has a vast domestic spying program in which it indiscriminately collects information on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans in the name of foreign intelligence and counterterrorism. These revelations impact our domestic law and policy as well as commercial and international interests.  In this talk, Granick will review what we now know about government surveillance, discuss the legality of these programs and discuss principles to help lawmakers and the public understand and respond to mass surveillance. 

Jennifer Granick is the Director of Civil Liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society. Jennifer returns to Stanford after working with the internet boutique firm of Zwillgen PLLC. Before that, she was the Civil Liberties Director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.  Jennifer practices, speaks and writes about computer crime and security, electronic surveillance, consumer privacy, data protection, copyright, trademark and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. From 2001 to 2007, Jennifer was Executive Director of CIS and taught Cyberlaw, Computer Crime Law, Internet intermediary liability, and Internet law and policy. Before teaching at Stanford, Jennifer spent almost a decade practicing criminal defense law in California. She was selected by Information Security magazine in 2003 as one of 20 "Women of Vision" in the computer security field. She earned her law degree from University of California, Hastings College of the Law and her undergraduate degree from the New College of the University of South Florida.

Abstract:

In the coming decade new oil discoveries in Africa will leave fragile democracies vulnerable to corruption, patronage and rent seeking behavior. In a piece co-written in Foreign Affairs, CDDRL Director Larry Diamond and Research Associate Jack Mosbacher advocate a new scheme to directly distribute oil revenue to citizens in the form of taxable income. This oil-to-cash system would strengthen accountability and increase citizens ownership of state resources.

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, where he directs the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. Diamond also serves as the Peter E. Haas Faculty Co-Director of the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford. He is the founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy and also serves as Senior Consultant (and previously was co-director) at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy. During 2002-3, he served as a consultant to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and was a contributing author of its report Foreign Aid in the National Interest. He has also advised and lectured to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other governmental and nongovernmental agencies dealing with governance and development. His latest book, The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World (Times Books, 2008), explores the sources of global democratic progress and stress and the prospects for future democratic expansion.

At Stanford University, Diamond is also professor by courtesy of political science and sociology. He teaches courses on comparative democratic development and post-conflict democracy building, and advises many Stanford students. In May 2007, he was named "Teacher of the Year" by the Associated Students of Stanford University for teaching that "transcends political and ideological barriers." At the June 2007 Commencement ceremony, Diamond was honored by Stanford University with the Dinkelspiel Award for Distinctive Contributions to Undergraduate Education. He was cited, inter alia, for fostering dialogue between Jewish and Muslim students; for "his inspired teaching and commitment to undergraduate education; for the example he sets as a scholar and public intellectual, sharing his passion for democratization, peaceful transitions, and the idea that each of us can contribute to making the world a better place; and for helping make Stanford an ideal place for undergraduates."

Jack Mosbacher is a Research Associate at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, where he works with Larry Diamond on democratization trends in Africa. A 2012 Stanford graduate, Jack participated in the Undergraduate Honors Program with the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. His thesis, "Bracing for the Boom: Translating Oil into Development in Uganda," won the Departmental Best Thesis Award, and his work has appeared in Foreign Affairs, The Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Quarterly.

 Please click on link to read article that appeared in Foreign Affairs: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/print/136843

Abstract: Taiwan (the Republic of China) has been changing with the times. So has its diplomacy. Having served his country for more than 40 years in various important diplomatic posts under different administrations, Ambassador Chen is one of Taiwan’s most seasoned diplomats. He joins us to share his personal experience and perspectives of Taiwan’s diplomacy. It is a historical review, but also an attempt to explore the future. Ambassador Chen believes that the diplomacy of Taiwan is unique because of its unique background. Although it should be defined by its own people, the country has been heavily influenced by the Chinese Mainland and the United States of America. How to promote Taiwan’s interests while preserving its identity and dignity, and conducting the balancing exercises in an asymmetric international environment has always been the crux of diplomacy in Taiwan. Ambassador Chen’s insights will allow us a better understanding of diplomacy in Taiwan, its successes and frustrations and presenting a possible roadmap for the future.

C.J. Chen is the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China (1999-2000). He has also served as Taiwan’s de facto Ambassador to the United States (2000-2004) and European Union (2004-2006). Having spent most of his career in the Foreign Ministry, Mr. Chen is regarded as one of Taiwan’s most accomplished diplomats and an expert on U.S./Taiwan relations. He was educated in Taiwan, Britain, Spain and the US, and has extensive experience representing his nation in the United States. He began his first tour of duty in Washington, D.C. in 1971 and was later a key member of the team that negotiated with the United States government for the future relations between Taiwan and the U.S. after the U.S. switched diplomatic ties from the Republic of China (ROC) to the People’s Republic of China) in 1979. Mr. Chen was heavily involved in communicating with the U.S. Congress during the implementation of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) which still serves as the back bone and framework for U.S./ Taiwan relations. In addition to Mr. Chen’s diplomatic experience, he was also selected by the Kuomintang (KMT), to be a member of the Legislative Yuan, where served under both the blue (KMT) and green (DPP) administrations.