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.
First Annual Stanford Social Entrepreneurship Exchange
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First Annual Stanford Social Entrepreneurship Exchange
This event welcomes undergrads and graduate students across campus --- from those who are just learning about social entrepreneurship to those who are ready to launch a social venture tomorrow, and everyone in between!
So, What is Social Entrepreneurship?
Hear it from Greg Dees, the man who defined it and is often described as the “father of social entrepreneurship”· They did it! Why not You?
Success stories by alumni social entrepreneurs
Pitch for Good!
What makes a good pitch? JD Schramm, faculty director of the Stanford GSB Communications Initiative, has the inside story · Social Entrepreneurship Open House
Discover resources from relevant Stanford departments, centers, programs, and student groups
Stanford Venture Studio Tour
Could this be the first home of your new venture? Find out from the Stanford GSB Center for Entrepreneurial Studies.
Free food and drinks for all!
RSVP: http://csi.gsb.stanford.edu/event-registration-s2e2
For more questions, please contact: Allen Thayer
Co-Sponsored by:
Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students (BASES)
Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, Graduate School of Business
Center for Innovation in Public Healthcare
Center for Social Innovation, Graduate School of Business
Food and Agriculture Resource Management Club, Graduate School of Business
John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships
Office of Technology Licensing
PACS (Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society)
Program in Healthcare Innovation, Graduate School of Business
Program on Social Entrepreneurship, Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
Social E-Capital
Social Innovation Club, Graduate School of Business
Stanford Entrepreneurship Network
Stanford Social Innovation Review
StartX
Sustainable Business Club, Graduate School of Business
Obendorf Hall, Zambrano Building - 3rd floor
Knight Management Center, Stanford Graduate School of Business
Conferences
Five foreign policy questions for Obama and Romney
News Type
Q&As
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Paragraphs
President Obama and Mitt Romney meet for their third debate to discuss foreign policy on Monday, when moderator Bob Schieffer is sure to ask them about last month's terrorist attack in Libya and the nuclear capabilities of Iran.
In anticipation of the final match between the presidential candidates, researchers from five centers at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies ask the additional questions they want answered and explain what voters should keep in mind.
What can we learn from the Arab Spring about how to balance our values and our interests when people in authoritarian regimes rise up to demand freedom?
What to listen for: First, the candidates should address whether they believe the U.S. has a moral obligation to support other peoples’ aspirations for freedom and democracy. Second, they need to say how we should respond when longtime allies like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak confront movements for democratic change.
And that leads to more specific questions pertaining to Arab states that the candidates need to answer: What price have we paid in terms of our moral standing in the region by tacitly accepting the savage repression by the monarchy in Bahrain of that country's movement for democracy and human rights? How much would they risk in terms of our strategic relationship with Bahrain and Saudi Arabia by denouncing and seeking to restrain this repression? What human rights and humanitarian obligations do we have in the Syrian crisis? And do we have a national interest in taking more concrete steps to assist the Syrian resistance? On the other hand, how can we assist the resistance in a way that does not empower Islamist extremists or draw us into another regional war?
Look for how the candidates will wrestle with difficult trade-offs, and whether either will rise above the partisan debate to recognize the enduring bipartisan commitment in the Congress to supporting democratic development abroad. And watch for some sign of where they stand on the spectrum between “idealism” and “realism” in American foreign policy. Will they see that pressing Arab states to move in the direction of democracy, and supporting other efforts around the world to build and sustain democracy, is positioning the United States on “the right side of history”?
~Larry Diamond, director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
What do you consider to be the greatest threats our country faces, and how would you address them in an environment of profound partisan divisions and tightly constrained budgets?
What to listen for: History teaches that some of the most effective presidential administrations understand America's external challenges but also recognize the interdependence between America's place in the world and its domestic situation.
Accordingly, Americans should expect their president to be deeply knowledgeable about the United States and its larger global context, but also possessed of the vision and determination to build the country's domestic strength.
The president should understand the threats posed by nuclear proliferation and terrorist organizations. The president should be ready to lead in managing the complex risks Americans face from potential pandemics, global warming, possible cyber attacks on a vulnerable infrastructure, and failing states.
Just as important, the president needs to be capable of leading an often-polarized legislative process and effectively addressing fiscal challenges such as the looming sequestration of budgets for the Department of Defense and other key agencies. The president needs to recognize that America's place in the world is at risk when the vast bulk of middle class students are performing at levels comparable to students in Estonia, Latvia and Bulgaria, and needs to be capable of engaging American citizens fully in addressing these shared domestic and international challenges.
~Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Should our government help American farmers cope with climate impacts on food production, and should this assistance be extended to other countries – particularly poor countries – whose food production is also threatened by climate variability and climate change?
What to listen for: Most representatives in Congress would like to eliminate government handouts, and many would also like to turn away from any discussion of climate change. Yet this year, U.S. taxpayers are set to pay up to $20 billion to farmers for crop insurance after extreme drought and heat conditions damaged yields in the Midwest.
With the 2012 farm bill stalled in Congress, the candidates need to be clear about whether they support government subsidized crop insurance for American farmers. They should also articulate their views on climate threats to food production in the U.S. and abroad.
Without a substantial crop insurance program, American farmers will face serious risks of income losses and loan defaults. And without foreign assistance for climate adaptation, the number of people going hungry could well exceed 15 percent of the world's population.
~Rosamond L. Naylor, director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment
What is your vision for the United States’ future relationship with Europe?
What to listen for: Between the end of World War II and the end of the Cold War, it was the United States and Europe that ensured world peace. But in recent years, it seems that “Europe” and “European” have become pejoratives in American political discourse. There’s been an uneasiness over whether we’re still friends and whether we still need each other. But of course we do.
Europe and the European Union share with the United States of America the most fundamental values, such as individual freedom, freedom of speech, freedom to live and work where you choose. There’s a shared respect of basic human rights. There are big differences with the Chinese, and big differences with the Russians. When you look around, it’s really the U.S. and Europe together with robust democracies such as Canada and Australia that have the strongest sense of shared values.
So the candidates should talk about what they would do as president to make sure those values are preserved and protected and how they would make the cooperation between the U.S. and Europe more effective and substantive as the world is confronting so many challenges like international terrorism, cyber security threats, human rights abuses, underdevelopment and bad governance.
~Amir Eshel, director of The Europe Center
Historical and territorial issues are bedeviling relations in East Asia, particularly among Japan, China, South Korea, and Southeast Asian countries. What should the United States do to try to reduce tensions and resolve these issues?
What to listen for: Far from easing as time passes, unresolved historical, territorial, and maritime issues in East Asia have worsened over the past few years. There have been naval clashes, major demonstrations, assaults on individuals, economic boycotts, and harsh diplomatic exchanges. If the present trend continues, military clashes – possibly involving American allies – are possible.
All of the issues are rooted in history. Many stem from Imperial Japan’s aggression a century ago, and some derive from China’s more assertive behavior toward its neighbors as it continues its dramatic economic and military growth. But almost all of problems are related in some way or another to decisions that the United States took—or did not take—in its leadership of the postwar settlement with Japan.
The United States’ response to the worsening situation so far has been to declare a strategic “rebalancing” toward East Asia, aimed largely at maintaining its military presence in the region during a time of increasing fiscal constraint at home. Meanwhile, the historic roots of the controversies go unaddressed.
The United States should no longer assume that the regional tensions will ease by themselves and rely on its military presence to manage the situation. It should conduct a major policy review, aimed at using its influence creatively and to the maximum to resolve the historical issues that threaten peace in the present day.
~David Straub, associate director of the Korea Studies Program at the Walter H. Shorentein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Compiled by Adam Gorlick.
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President Obama and Mitt Romney speak during the second presidential debate on Oct. 16, 2012. Their third and final debate will focus on foreign policy.
Reuters
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How Governmental Corruption Breeds Clientelism: Evidence from Mexico
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Abstract:
It has long been recognized that corruption and clientelism feed upon each other. However, how public malfeasance affects citizens' willingness to engage in patron-client relations remains unexplored. This article shows that perceptions, experiences, and information about political corruption influence a citizen's likelihood to sell his or her vote, and the types of gifts, favors, or public services he or she is willing to trade for it. The context of the article is Mexico's presidential and local elections. To circumvent methodological challenges posed by social desirability bias and reverse causation, the article presents evidence from a list experiment embedded in a national representative survey conducted close to the 2012 presidential election, and evidence from a field experiment conducted close to the 2009 municipal elections. I conclude that, given favorable circumstances, governmental corruption breeds forms of political behavior that are detrimental to the proper functioning of democracy, such as vote buying.
About the Speaker:
Ana L. De La O is assistant professor of Political Science at Yale University. She is affiliated with the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, the Institution of Social and Policy Studies, and the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. Her research relates to the political economy of poverty alleviation, clientelism and the provision of public goods. She recently completed a book manuscript that explores the causes and political consequences of the proliferation of Conditional Cash Transfers in Latin America. Her work has been published in academic journals such as the American Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, the Quarterly Journal of Political Science, and the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences. She earned her PhD in Political Science from M.I.T.
Encina Ground Floor Conference Room
Ana L. De la O
Assistant professor, Political Science, Yale University
Speaker
Seminars
How Foreign Assistance Undermines Democracy: Aid Dependence in Cambodia
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The more a country depends on aid, the more distorted are its incentives to manage its own development in sustainably beneficial ways. Cambodia, a post-conflict state that cannot refuse aid, is rife with trial-and-error donor experiments and their unintended results, including bad governance—a major impediment to rational economic growth. Massive intervention by the UN in the early 1990s did help to end the Cambodian civil war and to prepare for more representative rule. Yet the country’s social indicators, the integrity of its political institutions, and its ability to manage its own development soon deteriorated. Based on a comparison of how more and less aid-dependent sectors have performed, Prof. Ear will highlight the complicity of foreign assistance in helping to degrade Cambodia’s political economy. Copies of his just-published book, Aid Dependence in Cambodia, will be available for sale. The book intertwines events in 1990s and 2000s Cambodia with the story of his own family’s life (and death) under the Khmer Rouge, escape to Vietnam in 1976, asylum in France in 1978, and immigration to America in 1985.
Sophal Ear was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2011 and a TED Fellow in 2009. His next book—The Hungry Dragon: How China’s Resources Quest is Reshaping the World, co-authored with Sigfrido Burgos Cáceres—will appear in February 2013. Prof. Ear is vice-president of the Diagnostic Microbiology Development Program, advises the University of Phnom Penh’s master’s program in development studies, and serves on the international advisory board of the International Public Management Journal. He wrote and narrated “The End/Beginning: Cambodia,” an award-winning documentary about his family’s escape from the Khmer Rouge. He has a PhD in political science, two master’s degrees from the University of California-Berkeley, and a third master’s from Princeton University.
Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room
Sophal Ear
Assistant Professor, Department of National Security Affairs
Speaker
US Naval Postgraduate School
Seminars
Turkey and the Arab Spring: Between Ethics and Self-Interest
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Abstract:
Turkey redefined its geographical security environment over the last decade by deepening its engagement with neighboring regions, especially with the Middle East. The Arab spring, however, challenged not only the authoritarian regimes in the region but also Turkish foreign policy strategy. This strategy was based on cooperation with the existing regimes and did not prioritize the democracy promotion dimension of the issue. The upheavals in the Arab world, therefore, created a dilemma between ethics and self-interest in Turkish foreign policy. Amid the flux of geopolitical shifts in one of the world’s most unstable regions, Turkish foreign policy-making elites are attempting to reformulate their strategies to overcome this inherent dilemma. The central argument of the present paper is that Turkey could make a bigger and more constructive impact in the region by trying to take a more detached stand and through controlled activism. Thus, Turkey could take action through the formation of coalitions and in close alignments with the United States and Europe rather than basing its policies on a self-attributed unilateral pro-activism.
Ziya Öniş is Professor of International Relations and the Director of the Center for Research on Globalization and Democratic Governance (GLODEM) at Koç University in Istanbul, Turkey. He received his BSc. and MSc. in Economics from London School of Economics, and his Ph.D. in Development Economics from University of Manchester. He also taught at Boğaziçi University (Istanbul), Işık University (Istanbul), and University of Manchester. He has written extensively on various aspects of Turkish political economy. His most recent research focuses on the political economy of globalization, crises and post-crises transformations, Turkey’s Europeanization and democratization experience and the analysis of new directions in Turkish foreign policy. Among his most recent publications are “Beyond the Global Economic Crisis: Structural Continuities as Impediments to a Sustainable Recovery” (All Azimuth, 2012), “Power, Interests and Coalitions: The Political Economy of Mass Privatization in Turkey” (Third World Quarterly, 2011), “Europe and the Impasse of Center-Left Politics in Turkey: Lessons from the Greek Experience” (Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, 2010), Turkey and the Global Economy: Neo-liberal Restructuring and Integration in the Post-Crisis Era (2009), and Turkish Politics in a Changing World: Global Dynamics and Domestic Transformations (2007)
The event is organized as part of the Annual Koç Lecture Series, a three-year project organized under the framework of the Mediterranean Studies Forum’s Turkish Studies Initiative and in collaboration with Stanford Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, and the Sohaib & Sara Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies. It is also co-sponsored by the CDDRL Program on Arab Reform and Democracy.
Richard and Rhoda Goldman Conference Room
Ziya Öniş
Professor of International Relations and the Director of the Center for Research on Globalization and Democratic Governance (GLODEM)
Speaker
Koç University in Istanbul, Turkey
Panel Discussions
Karen Del Biondo
Encina Hall
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
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kdelbion@stanford.edu
Fulbright and BAEF postdoctoral fellow 2012-2013
Karen Del Biondo is a 2012-2013 postdoctoral scholar at CDDRL. Her research is funded with a Fulbright-Schuman award and a postdoctoral grant from the Belgian-American Educational Foundation (BAEF). She holds an MA in Political Science (International Relations) from Ghent University and an MA in European Studies from the Université Libre de Bruxelles. In 2007-2008 she obtained a Bernheim fellowship for an internship in European affairs at the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Permanent Representation to the EU.
Karen Del Biondo obtained her PhD at the Centre for EU Studies, Ghent University in September 2012 with a dissertation entitled ‘Norms, self-interest and effectiveness: Explaining double standards in EU reactions to violations of democratic principles in sub-Saharan Africa’. Her PhD research was funded by the Flemish Fund for Scientific Research (FWO). Apart from her PhD research, she has been involved in the research project ‘The Substance of EU Democracy Promotion’ (Ghent University/University of Mannheim/Centre of European Policy Studies) and has published on the securitisation of EU development policies. In January 2011 she conducted field research in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Her postdoctoral research will focus on the comparison between EU and US democracy assistance in sub-Saharan Africa.
Karen Del Biondo’s recent publications include: ‘Security and Development in EU External Relations: Converging, but in which direction?’ (with Stefan Oltsch and Jan Orbie), in S. Biscop & R. Whitman (eds.) Handbook of European Union Security, Routledge (2012); ‘Democracy Promotion Meets Development Cooperation: The EU as a Promoter of Democratic Governance in Sub-Saharan Africa’, European Foreign Affairs Review, Vol. 16, N°5, 2011, 659-672; and ‘EU Aid Conditionality in ACP Countries. Explaining Inconsistency in EU Sanctions Practice’, Journal of Contemporary European Research, Vol. 7, N°3, 2011, 380-395.
Cash Rules Everything Around Me: The Commercialization of Online Spying
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Abstract
The so-called "Arab Spring" saw politically and economically disenfranchised citizens take advantage of new tools such as social media and smartphones to break the state’s monopoly on information, and mobilize mass protest. While governments were quick to employ familiar, time-tested mechanisms of repression against demonstrators in the streets and main squares, they fumbled at first in controlling this new digital dissent.
Against an increasingly security-aware online community, the traditional tools
of blocking, filtering, and wiretapping had become less effective. Nervous regimes turned to the largely unregulated $5 billion a year industry in Internet surveillance tools. Once the realm of the black market and intelligence agencies, the latest computer spyware is now sold at trade shows for dictator pocket change.
Activists and journalists soon found themselves the target of e-mails promising exclusive or scandalous information. We analyzed messages forwarded to us by suspicious users, and found spyware products apparently from Gamma International and Hacking Team, recognized players in the surveillance industry. For the first time, we analyzed their products, chasing internet addresses and shell corporations across the globe. As we published our findings, servers disappeared, and spyware was rewritten.
In this talk, we detail the cat and mouse game between authoritarian regimes and dissidents, as well as our ongoing efforts to map out the relationship between surveillance software companies and governments.
Morgan Marquis-Boire works as a Security Engineer at Google specializing in Incident Response, Forensics and Malware Analysis. He is a security researcher and Technical Advisor at the Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto. Recently, he has been working with the Electronic Frontier Foundation on issues surrounding dissident suppression in Syria.Image
Bill Marczak is a Computer Science PhD student at UC Berkeley working on developing new languages, abstractions, and tools for distributed Image
programming. Bill is also a founding member of Bahrain Watch, a
monitoring and advocacy group that seeks to promote effective,
accountable, and transparent governance in Bahrain through research and evidence-based activism.
Wallenberg Theater
Bill Marczak
Computer Science, PhD Student
Speaker
UC Berkeley
Morgan Marquis-Boire
Security Engineer
Speaker
Google
Seminars
The Power of 'Open': Collective Intelligence, Crowdsourcing and Co-creation
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Abstract
The manifestations of 'open' are permeating the society enabled by the rise of participatory culture and improved communication technologies. In her research, Tanja Aitamurto examines the impact of openness on traditionally closed processes such as journalism, policy-making and design. Aitamurto draws on several case studies, in which collective intelligence is harnessed through crowdsourcing, open innovation and co-creation. Her work is based on data from 150 in-depth interviews and about 8,000 data points recorded by netnography. Aitamurto's research is situated in social sciences, informed by organization studies and management science and engineering. She finds that the 'open' challenges the incumbent power structures when participatory mechanisms become a means to practice social control.
Tanja Aitamurto is a visiting researcher at the Program on Liberation Technology at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford. In her PhD project she examines how collective intelligence, whether harvested by crowdsourcing, co-creation or open innovation, impacts incumbent processes in journalism, public policy making and design process. Her work has been published in several academic publications, such as the New Media and Society. Related to her studies, she advises the Government and the Parliament of Finland about Open Government principles, for example about how open data and crowdsourcing can serve democratic processes.
Aitamurto has previously studied at the Center for Design Research and at the Innovation Journalism Program at Stanford. She is a PhD Student at the Center for Journalism, Media and Communication Research at Tampere University in Finland, and she holds a Master’s Degree in Public Policy, and a Master of Arts in Humanities. Prior to returning to academia, she made a career in journalism in Finland specializing in foreign affairs, doing reporting in countries such as Afghanistan, Angola and Uganda. She has also taught journalism at the University of Zambia, in Lusaka, and worked at the Namibia Press Agency, Windhoek. More about Tanja’s work at www.tanjaaitamurto.com and on Twitter @tanjaaita.
Wallenberg Theater
Tanja Aitamurto
Visiting Researcher, Program on Liberation Technology, CDDRL
Speaker
Stanford University
Seminars
Network Neutrality and the First Amendment, According to Verizon
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Abstract:
For almost a decade, network neutrality has been among the most contentious and high-profile subjects of debate in Internet policy. This debate has taken place in government agencies, legislatures, courts, and the public square, in countries around the world. In the U.S., both sides assume the mantle of free expression. Advocates of network neutrality argue that adopting a rule to keep networks "neutral"--forbidding ISPs from discriminating against or blocking particular sites or software--would ensure that anyone can speak and listen to anyone else, without permission, and that any developer can create new speech-technologies like Blogger, Twitter, and Tumblr. Those opposed to network neutrality--primarily ISPs like cable and phone companies--argue that government involvement in the decisions of ISPs abridges their First Amendment rights. They assert a right to "edit" the Internet like a newspaper or cable company edits and curates articles and channels. They also argue that, under standard First Amendment doctrine, network neutrality is presumptively unconstitutional--an argument many academics seem to believe.
The FCC's network neutrality rule, adopted in December 2010, is currently on appeal. Four different amicus briefs, from scholars, former government officials, and others have addressed the First Amendment question.
What can the network neutrality debate tell us about freedom of speech, and translating Constitutional provisions, in the Internet Age?
Marvin Ammori heads a small law firm that advises Silicon Valley companies on public policy issues and is also a Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation and a Visiting Scholar at Stanford Law School's Center for Internet & Society, writing about the U.S. First Amendment. He was previously the head lawyer of an advocacy group, Free Press, where he worked primarily on network neutrality and open Internet issues and handled the Comcast/BitTorrent case. His work for several companies in their opposition to SOPA and PIPA earned him recognition by Fast Company magazine as one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business in 2012.
Wallenberg Theater
Marvin Ammori
Bernard L. Schwartz Fellow, New America Foundation and Counsel
Speaker
Ammori Group Law Firm
Seminars