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.

Defining the Crime of Aggression

-

Beth Van Schaack is Associate Professor of Law with Santa Clara University School of Law, where she teaches and writes in the areas of human rights, transitional justice, international criminal law, public international law, international humanitarian law, and civil procedure. 

Prof. Van Schaack joined the law faculty from private practice at Morrison & Foerster LLP where her practice focused on international law, commercial law, criminal defense, and human rights. Prior to entering private practice, Prof. Van Schaack was Acting Executive Director and Staff Attorney with The Center for Justice & Accountability, a non-profit law firm in San Francisco dedicated to the representation of victims of torture and other grave human rights abuses. She was also a law clerk with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.  

Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Beth Van Schaack Visiting Scholar Speaker CDDRL
Seminars

Stanford Africa expert to work for National Security Council

Authors
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

Jeremy M. Weinstein, an associate professor of political science, has been appointed Director for Democracy at the National Security Council (NSC). He will be responsible for democracy and governance-related issues and formulate broader U.S. government policies on global development.

"Jeremy brings a brilliant mind, inexhaustible energy, political savvy, and superb social science skills to his new position at the National Security Council," said Larry Diamond, director of the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). "In addition, his recent service on the Committee on the Evaluation of USAID Democracy Assistance Programs and his field research and experiments on governance in Africa should help him bring a creative approach to U.S. policies to advance democracy and improve governance around the world."

Weinstein's new position follows four other Stanford FSI appointments to the Obama administration. Political Science Professor Michael McFaul and Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, a former senior research scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), also work at the NSC as special assistants to the President. McFaul heads Russian and Eurasian affairs and Sherwood-Randall is responsible for European affairs. Law Professor Mariano-Florentino Cuellar serves on the White House Domestic Policy Council in charge of directing criminal justice and immigration policy, and Paul Stockton, a former CISAC senior research scholar, is an assistant secretary of defense responsible for homeland defense and Americas' security affairs.

Weinstein, who is on leave from Stanford, is a faculty member at CDDRL and CISAC. His academic research focuses on civil wars, ethnic politics, the political economy of development, democracy and Africa.

Political Science Professor Scott D. Sagan, CISAC co-director, said although Weinstein is one of the nation's leading scholars on African politics his interests and expertise are much broader. "Jeremy has written compelling studies of the causes of civil war and the roots of conflict resolution and democratic reform," he said. "He will bring important insights from social science and history to help Washington policy-makers address complex policy problems throughout the developing world."

FSI Director Coit D. "Chip" Blacker, the Olivier Nomellini Professor in International Studies, who served under former President Bill Clinton, said the Obama administration is fortunate to have someone of Weinstein's caliber. "Jeremy's intellectual drive, his field experience with conflict-ridden countries, and his passion for democracy and better governance will help strengthen U.S. relations with states in transition and improve prospects for political and economic advance."

In 2008, during Obama's campaign, Weinstein served as an advisor on development and democracy. He continued working during the transition as a member of the National Security Policy Working Group and the Foreign Assistance Agency Review Team.

Weinstein, 34, is the author of Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence, which received the 2008 William Riker Prize for the best book on political economy. His most recent book is Coethnicity: Diversity and the Dilemmas of Collective Action, published in 2009. He has also published articles in a variety of journals including Foreign Affairs, the American Political Science Review (APSR), the Journal of Conflict Resolution, Foreign Policy and the Journal of Democracy. Two articles in APSR, titled, "Handling and Manhandling Civilians in Civil War" and "Why Does Ethnic Diversity Undermine Public Goods Provision," received, respectively, the 2005 Sage Prize and 2007 Gregory Luebbert Award, and the 2008 Heinz Eulau Award and the 2008 Michael Wallerstein Award. In 2008, Weinstein also received the Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching at Stanford.

Weinstein earned a bachelor's with high honors from Swarthmore College in 1997, and a master's and doctorate in political economy and government from Harvard University in 2001 and 2003, respectively. He is a native of Palo Alto, California.

All News button
1

Prospects for a Regional Human Rights Court in Southeast Asia

-

Carolyn A. Mercado is a senior program officer with The Asia Foundation in the Philippines. In this position she manages the Law and Human Rights program. She assists in the development, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of other selected activities within the Foundation's Law and Governance program and handles mediation and conflict management, and other forms of dispute resolution processes. She has also served as a temporary consultant to the Asian Development Bank on the Strengthening the Independence and Accountability of the Philippine Judiciary project and the Legal Literacy for Supporting Governance project.

Prior to joining the Foundation, Ms. Mercado was an intern with the Center of International Environmental Law in Washington. Previously, she served consultancies in Manila for the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, the International Maritime Organization, NOVIB, and the Philippines Department of Environment and Natural Resources. She has served as lecturer on environmental law at Ateneo de Manila University, San Sebastian College of Law, and the Development Academy of the Philippines. She also previously served as executive director of the Developmental Legal Assistance Center, corporate secretary of the Alternative Law Groups, and as a legal aide to a member of the Philippine Senate.

Education: B.A. in political science from the University of the Philippines; LL.B. from the University of the Philippines College of Law. She was also a Hubert Humphrey Fellow in international environmental law, University of Washington and a European Union Scholar in environmental resource management, Maastricht School of Business in the Netherlands.

CO-SPONSORED BY SEAF

Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Carolyn Mercado Senior Program Officer Speaker The Asia Foundation
Seminars
Program on Human Rights

Development, Democracy and Welfare States: Latin America, East Asia and Eastern Europe

-

Stephan Haggard is the Lawrence and Sallye Krause Distinguished Professor at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He is the author of Pathways from the Periphery: the Political Economy of Growth in the Newly Industrializing Countries (1990) and The Political Economy of the Asian Financial Crisis (2000) and co-author of The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions (1995 with Robert Kaufman), Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid and Reform (with Marcus Noland, 2007) and Development, Democracy and Welfare States: Latin America, East Asia and Eastern Europe (with Robert Kaufman, 2008). He is currently working on a second volume on North Korea with Marcus Noland entitled North Korea Opens and a project on Robert Kaufman on inequality and politics.

His scholarly articles have appeared in International Organization, World Politics, Comparative Politics, The Journal of Asian Studies, Latin American Research Review, Comparative Political Studies, World Development, Studies in Comparative International Development and The Journal of Democracy. His commentary has appeared in a number of outlets, including The Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, and Newsweek.

Download pdf

Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Stephan Haggard Lawrence and Sallye Krause Distinguished Professor at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) Speaker University of California, San Diego (UCSD)
Seminars

Gurgaon and Faridabad - An Exercise in Contrasts

Paragraphs

There is a general sense that the legal system in India is inefficient. First, there is over-legislation and unnecessary State intervention, both in the form of statutes and administrative law (rules, regulations, procedures). This increases non-transparency and contributes to rent-seeking, which is not distributionally neutral, because the relatively poor tend to suffer more. Second, over-legislation exists simultaneously with under-governance, because laws aren't enforced and the dispute resolution system, including enforcement of contracts, isn't credible.

Reforming legal institutions is not only a desirable end in itself, it also has the byproduct of adding to GDP growth. While these points are unassailable, most empirical work on documenting inefficiencies of the Indian legal system is fraught with problems. For a start, cross-country comparisons tend to be overly simplistic, ignoring the specifics of the legal regime and the context within which the country is situated. In addition, legal indicators used, even when they are not cross-country, tend to be too macro and aggregate and are indiscriminately used. For instance, data collected for Hyderabad are applied to all of Andhra Pradesh. This paper adopts a different approach. It draws contrasts between Gurgaon and Faridabad, districts (and towns) not only located within the same State, but also districts with similar historical and geographical backgrounds. This enables one to control for many variables that cause different trajectories of legal and economic development within and across countries. The paper then seeks to explain the differential growth in these two geographical regions through differences in the legal land regimes.

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Working Papers
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
CDDRL Working Papers
Authors

Distribution of Highways Public Private Partnerships in India: Key Legal and Economic Determinants

Paragraphs

Private sector participation and private investment have become the mainstay of the Government of India's policy toward infrastructural development. The success of the ongoing eleventh five-year plan critically depends on the success of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) in infrastructure. Moreover, several state governments are also trying to attract PPPs for the provision of public goods.

In this paper, we have studied the performance of the Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) programme of Government of India, for development of highways and expressways. The focus of the study is on the following questions: Why have some projects attracted private investment while others have not? Why only a few states have attracted PPPs, while some others have completely failed to do so? We have also discussed some other issues related to the PPP policy and its limited success. We have provided a set of legal and economic variables that explain the skewed distribution of PPPs across projects as well as across the states. We have shown that the richer states have attracted more PPPs than the poorer ones. Besides, the probability of PPP is higher for projects located on national highways connecting richer states, and those located closer to mega cities. Moreover, ceteris paribus, the quality of governance, in terms of the level of property rights protection, in a state is also a significant explanatory variable. Empirical evidence in support of these claims is conclusive and robust. In the light of our findings, we have answered the following additional questions: Is PPP a viable and desirable public policy for development of infrastructure in poor states? What are the lessons emerging from the Indian experience with PPPs so far? Our dataset includes all of the highway and expressway projects that have been or are being developed as a part of the National Highways Development Project (NHDP).

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Working Papers
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
CDDRL Working Papers
Authors

State Development, State Building, and Foreign Aid

-

Stephen Krasner is a former director of CDDRL, deputy director of FSI, an FSI senior fellow, and the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations at Stanford University.

From February 2005 to April 2007 he served as the Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department. While at the State Department, Krasner was a driving force behind foreign assistance reform designed to more effectively target American foreign aid. He was also involved in activities related to the promotion of good governance and democratic institutions around the world

At CDDRL, Krasner was the coordinator of the Program on Sovereignty. His work has dealt primarily with sovereignty, American foreign policy, and the political determinants of international economic relations. Before coming to Stanford in 1981 he taught at Harvard University and UCLA. At Stanford, he was chair of the political science department from 1984 to 1991, and he served as the editor of International Organization from 1986 to 1992.

He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (1987-88) and at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2000-2001). In 2002 he served as director for governance and development at the National Security Council. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

His major publications include Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investment and American Foreign Policy (1978), Structural Conflict: The Third World Against Global Liberalism (1985), and Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (1999). Publications he has edited include International Regimes (1983), Exploration and Contestation in the Study of World Politics (co-editor, 1999), and Problematic Sovereignty: Contested Rules and Political Possibilities (2001). He received a BA in history from Cornell University, an MA in international affairs from Columbia University and a PhD in political science from Harvard.

CISAC, East Wing conference room
2nd Floor
ENCINA HALL

Stephen D. Krasner

CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 723-0676 (650) 724-2996
0
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Emeritus
Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations
Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Emeritus
krasner.jpg MA, PhD

Stephen Krasner is the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations. A former director of CDDRL, Krasner is also an FSI senior fellow, and a fellow of the Hoover Institution.

From February 2005 to April 2007 he served as the Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department. While at the State Department, Krasner was a driving force behind foreign assistance reform designed to more effectively target American foreign aid. He was also involved in activities related to the promotion of good governance and democratic institutions around the world.

At CDDRL, Krasner was the coordinator of the Program on Sovereignty. His work has dealt primarily with sovereignty, American foreign policy, and the political determinants of international economic relations. Before coming to Stanford in 1981 he taught at Harvard University and UCLA. At Stanford, he was chair of the political science department from 1984 to 1991, and he served as the editor of International Organization from 1986 to 1992.

He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (1987-88) and at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2000-2001). In 2002 he served as director for governance and development at the National Security Council. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

His major publications include Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investment and American Foreign Policy (1978), Structural Conflict: The Third World Against Global Liberalism (1985), Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (1999), and How to Make Love to a Despot (2020). Publications he has edited include International Regimes (1983), Exploration and Contestation in the Study of World Politics (co-editor, 1999),  Problematic Sovereignty: Contested Rules and Political Possibilities (2001), and Power, the State, and Sovereignty: Essays on International Relations (2009). He received a BA in history from Cornell University, an MA in international affairs from Columbia University and a PhD in political science from Harvard.

CV
Stephen Krasner Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and the Hoover Institution; Deputy Director Speaker FSI
Seminars

Charter Cities

-

Paul Romer is a Senior Fellow in the Stanford Center for International Development (SCID) and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). His contributions to the field of economics include being the primary developer of New Growth Theory, which reduces the traditional emphasis on the scarcity of objects and directs attention to the power of new ideas. His theory has brought renewed optimism about the potential for growth in both advanced and developing economies.

For his work on the economics of ideas, Paul was named one of America's 25 most influential people by TIME magazine (1997), elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2000) and awarded the Horst Claus Recktenwald Prize in Economics (2002). He is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Fellow of the Econometric Society. Prior to his current Stanford University position, he taught in the university's Graduate School of Business as the STANCO 25 Professor of Economics and was honored with the Distinguished Teaching Award (1999). Before moving to Stanford, Paul taught economics at the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Chicago and the University of Rochester. He received his PhD in economics from the University of Chicago.

In addition to his career in teaching and research, Paul founded Aplia, Inc., which is now part of Cengage Learning. Aplia, which develops and applies technologies to improve student learning, grew out of Paul's conviction that it is possible to use information technology to raise productivity in education. This lesson has important implications for how societies keep up with the growing demand for highly educated workers-a demand that is driven by the use of new technology in all other sectors of the economy.

Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Paul Romer Senior Fellow Speaker Stanford Center for International Development (SCID) and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR)
Seminars

Abebe Gellaw

CDDRL
616 Serra St.
Encina Hall
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

0
CDDRL Visiting Scholar 2009-2010
abebe_0_440_0-1.jpg

Abebe Gellaw came to Stanford as the 2008-09 John S. Knight Fellow for Professional Journalists and Yahoo International Fellow. He is currently a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and visiting scholar at the Centre on Democracy Development and Rule of Law. He is working on a book project, Ethiopia under Meles: Why the transition from military rule to democracy failed.

He holds a bachelor's degree in Political Science and International Relations from the Addis Ababa University ['95] and a post-graduate diploma in law from London Metropolitan University ['03]. He began his career in journalism in 1993 as a freelance writer focusing on human rights and political issues. He worked for various print and online publications including the Ethiopian Herald, the only English daily in the country. Abebe is also a founding editor of Addisvoice.com, a bilingual online journal focusing on Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa.

He has received many awards and bursaries including, an international journalism training bursary at the London-based Reuters Foundation in 1998. He also received a Champions of Change Millennium Award in 2002 and was subsequently awarded lifetime membership of the Millennium Awards Fellowships in the UK. He also received a British Telecom Community Connections Award that same year. In 2007, he was honored by the UK branch of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy for his commendable journalism and advocacy endeavors.

His recent articles appeared in the Far East Economic Review and Global Integrity's  The Corruption Notebooks 2008, a collection of essays on corruption and abuse of power written by leading journalists around the word. 

Sample publications

Video interviews

CV

Kieran Oberman

Program on Global Justice
616 Serra St.
Encina Hall
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 723-0145
0
PGJ Fellow 2009-2011
P1010050.JPG

Kieran Oberman completed his PhD at Oxford University.  His thesis,  "Immigration and Freedom of Movement," argued that people have a human right to freedom of movement that entails a right to cross international borders. He thus concluded that immigration restrictions could not be justified outside of emergency situations.

In his post-doctoral workat Stanford, where he divides  his time between The Program on Global Justice and the Center for Ethics in Society, Kieran is continuing to focus on the ethical issues surrounding international migration.  While at Stanford he has completed an article, "Immigration, Global Poverty and the Right to Stay", that argues against using migration as a means to address the problem of global poverty.  The article is forthcoming in Political Studies.  He has also written an article that explores the question of whether the brain drain of skilled workers from poor states could justify the imposition of immigration restrictions.  He is currently working on a publication, based upon his dissertation, entitled "Immigration as a Human Right". 

In the spring Kieran will teach a class entitled Introduction to Global Justice. The course is designed to encourage students to think critically about some of the most important issues in international politics including global poverty, terrorism, war, development and climate change.

Subscribe to International Relations