Stanford University

Security

FSI scholars produce research aimed at creating a safer world and examing the consequences of security policies on institutions and society. They look at longstanding issues including nuclear nonproliferation and the conflicts between countries like North and South Korea. But their research also examines new and emerging areas that transcend traditional borders – the drug war in Mexico and expanding terrorism networks. FSI researchers look at the changing methods of warfare with a focus on biosecurity and nuclear risk. They tackle cybersecurity with an eye toward privacy concerns and explore the implications of new actors like hackers.

Along with the changing face of conflict, terrorism and crime, FSI researchers study food security. They tackle the global problems of hunger, poverty and environmental degradation by generating knowledge and policy-relevant solutions. 

A ‘Democratic Depression’ Could Be Around the Corner

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Democratic institutions worldwide have reached a unique and precarious turning point, said Larry Diamond on a recent episode of the World Class podcast by the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI).

 



After the Cold War, the world became dominated by liberal values and a prevailing consensus for freedom, democracy and human rights, Diamond told World Class host and FSI Director Michael McFaul. During this time, the percentage of democratic states rose from making up about a quarter to more than half of all of the independent states in the world — which had never happened before in history. However, explained Diamond, who is senior fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, this trend may come to an end soon.

“It’s under severe challenge from Russia, China, Iran and from many other countries that were until recently democracies or are in danger of no longer being democracies soon,” Diamond said. “We are in a new and urgent situation.”

In 2018, Freedom House — a non-governmental organization that conducts research on democracy and political freedom — reported a decline in global freedom for the 13th consecutive year, reversing the post-Cold War trend between 1991 and 2006.
        
“We could be on the cusp of a democratic depression,” said Diamond. In his view, here are the four main causes of this worldwide shift. 

[Sign up for the FSI monthly newsletter to receive stories like this directly to your inbox.]

Incremental Authoritarianism
The first cause, according to Diamond, is what he calls “incremental authoritarianism,” which usually occurs when elected populist rulers — such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin or Turkey’s Tayyip Erdoğan, for example — begin to spread conservative, anti-immigrant or anti-pluralist values in an attempt to “save” the nation from corruption or threatening international illiberal values.

“Of course, the corrupting influences are human rights, accountability, pluralism, the rule of law and anything that would constrain their power and eliminate all potential rivals,” Diamond explained.

Russian Rage
The second cause has to do with Russia’s status as what Diamond describes as a “fallen superpower.”. Russia has begun to intervene in the politics of European democracies, meddle with the politics of the U.S. electoral democracy, spread confusion and promote division — all actions that stem from “Russian rage.”

“I think Putin has become unleashed,” he said. “He’s much more aggressive and ambitious now that he has found a cost-effective way of inflicting damage on democracy through disinformation and the penetration of the electoral space of democracies that we thought was sacred and secure.”

Chinese Ambition
Since coming to power in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party has tried to cultivate ties with “sympathetic actors” abroad — whether it be by sending Chinese citizens to U.S. graduate programs or to think tanks — but this effort has been ramped up and extended under Xi Jinping to a degree that hasn’t been seen before, according to Diamond.

“Chinese influence is extending into universities, corporations, Chinese-language media overseas, and certainly into aggressive — and I’d say illegal — technology practices that are boldly trying to create a new world of Chinese influence and even domination by the People’s Republic of China,” he explained.

American Complacency
Finally, Americans have become complacent about the security of their democracy, and many think that it doesn’t require their attention or participation in order to be upheld, said Diamond. In addition, some Americans have also become comfortable about the slow deterioration of their democracy through the polarization of U.S. politics. 

“People are becoming so intense in their feelings about parties and politicians that they won’t even talk to people from the other side at the Thanksgiving dinner table,” Diamond said. “Some of the statements of our own president are not consistent with democratic values…in which everyone is recognized as having the right to speak and in which violence can never be encouraged.”

Read more about Diamond’s thoughts on the state of global democracy in his new book, “Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency.”

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Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a signing ceremony in Beijing's Great Hall of the People on June 25, 2016. (Photo by Greg Baker-Pool/Getty Images).
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Draper Hills 2019 Summer Fellows Reflect on Activism, Democracy and the Importance of Collaboration

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Every summer, the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program brings together international leaders who are pioneering new approaches to advance social and political change in some of the most challenging global contexts. The fellows spend three weeks living and taking classes on the Stanford campus, visiting Silicon Valley tech companies and building a network.

Representing business, government and the nonprofit sector, fellows are working on the frontlines of democratic change to combat the global rise of authoritarianism and populism. The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies spoke to five of the fellows about the impact of the Draper Hills program on their work and activism. These are their stories.

Shaili Chopra, India

shaili3 Shaili Chopra, founder of SheThePeopleTv. Photo: Alice Wenner
“I run a platform called SheThePeopleTv. It's a platform for women, and it aims to share news, opinions, data and statistics through a gendered lens. Women are a critical part of democracy — from where I come, in India, we have 600 million women. That's half of the country's population. I think they must also have half of the country’s voice, which they don't.

“I think a big plus of a program like Draper Hills is that when we are all working in the general construct of democracy, we have shared problems, and we also look for shared solutions. It's very empowering to be around people who understand these situations, or have found solutions or overcame them in their countries, or are going through similar problems. You can discuss them and get a sense of solidarity and a sense of empathy.”

Wiem Zarrouk, Tunisia

wiem1 Wiem Zarrouk, senior advisor to the Minister of Development, Investment and International Cooperation in Tunisia. Photo: Alice Wenner

“I’ve been working for the Tunisian government for three years as an advisor to the Minister of Development, Investment and International Cooperation. I am leading the government reforms to improve Tunisia's ranking in the World Bank Competitiveness Report - Doing Business.

“In Tunisia, we’ve set up most of our democratic institutions, and now we want to improve the business environment to attract more investment in local businesses. Eight years ago, the people went into the streets demanding more jobs. The challenge in Tunisia right now is economic, that’s why economic reforms are important to our government.

“I think the impact of the Draper Hills program will be immediate. I’ve learned a lot here about the link between development and democracies, so it really covers the scope of my work. And it's been great to learn about the theoretical side — the professors are really speaking about things that impact our daily work.” 


Ujwal Thapa, Nepal

ujwal1 Ujwal Thapa, president of the BibekSheel Nepali youth movement. Photo: Alice Wenner

“Bibeksheel Nepali is basically a political startup. It’s a youth-led movement, and we’re focused on changing the norms and mindsets of the culture in Nepal. We work a lot with citizens to instill the values of transparency, empathy and humility because we think democracy needs to be more emotional instead of just logical. I think liberal democracy needs to be understood more in the context of humanity. So it’s an experiment that we're doing in Nepal.

“When we started with the experiment, we decided not to focus only on the state, but thought about a few more components: one is our citizens, another is the society and the third is the government. Nepal recently came out of a violent civil war, and we just built a new constitution that is much more tolerant. Transparency is another value that we want to instill, because of the long isolationist and autocratic dictatorship that has existed in the past.

“Draper Hills is bringing all of these practitioners together who are experimental and innovative. And the world needs better collaboration from people who really believe in the ideals of the 21st century, which are liberal, democratic and more humanistic. That’s one of the strongest aspects of the Draper Hills program.”


N.S. Nappinai, India

nappinai1 N.S. Nappinai, senior practitioner in the Supreme Court of India and Bombay High Court. Photo: Alice Wenner

“I'm a lawyer — I specialize in cyber laws. My work throughout my career has been focused on ensuring responsible technology and the use of technology to fight crime. Two years ago I was appointed by the Supreme Court of India as Amicus Curiae on a matter related to protecting against the uploading of videos and images of gang rape and child pornography online.

“Some of the social media platforms had very good reporting mechanisms, whereas it was more hidden on other platforms. So we ensured that this issue was brought to the forefront so that people know that these are things that can be reported and some action can be taken. The whole idea was that as long as you identify such content at the earliest possible time, then you help the victim that much more.

“For me, balancing victims' rights with free speech is very important. This was a big dilemma that I faced, in terms of ‘How much of what I am doing is likely to stifle free speech?’ A lot of discussions at Draper Hills have helped formulate and structure my thoughts, and it's very nice to get the perspective from people from 26 other countries.”


Hinda Bouddane, Morocco

hinda1 Hinda Bouddane, the first vice president of the elected provincial council of the city of Fez. Photo: Alice Wenner

“I'm involved in women's empowerment and education for girls in Morocco. And especially for women in rural areas — they are less privileged, and many of them don't know their rights. So my fight through JA Worldwide and my activism is to empower these women and to raise awareness about their rights and the importance of education for girls.

“Education for girls is really important in fighting discrimination against women. Education empowers women to become financially independent, say no to violence, and to get engaged in the public sphere. Through that, women can be a part of the democratic process not only by voting, but also by taking part from within and running for office.

At Draper Hills, we're deepening our knowledge about topics like the rule of law, democracy and human rights, and hearing many different perspectives. And importantly, we are building a great network to connect many intelligent people from around the world, and we will work together to foster democratic values.”

 

 

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The 2019 Draper Hills Class of 2019 at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Photo: Stanford Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
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Algerian Uprisings Past and Present

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This event is co-sponsored with The Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies.

 

Abstract:

Since February 22 2019, Algerians have taken to the streets in massive numbers to call for an end to a protean regime. While the ruling coalition has offered significant concessions, most notably the resignation of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, protesters insist that their demands have not been met. This talk will shed light on these protests, analyzing them both in a historical lens while also addressing future prospects for democratic change and their implications for regional geopolitics. It will explore, for example, the role of the war of independence (1954-1962) and civil war (1992-1999) in political contestation, questions of language and national identity, and the landscape of the current political opposition. 
 

Speakers:

muriam

Muriam Haleh Davis is Assistant Professor of History at UCSC. She recently co-edited a volume with Thomas Serres entitled, North Africa and the Making of Europe: Institutions, Governance Culture (Bloomsbury Press, 2018). 

 
 
 
 
 
 
thomas

Thomas Serres teaches in the Politics Department at UCSC. He is the author of a monograph on Algeria under Bouteflika, L'Algérie face à la catastrophe suspendue. Gérer la crise et blâmer le peuple sous Bouteflika (Karthala, 2019).  

 

 

 

William J. Perry Conference Room,
Encina Hall, 2nd Floor, 616 Serra St,
Stanford, CA 94305

Seminars
Arab Reform and Democracy Speaker Series

Information Session - Fisher Family CDDRL Honors Program

This event is open to Stanford undergraduate students only. 
 
The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) is currently accepting applications from eligible juniors due February 15, 2019 who are interested in writing their senior thesis on a subject touching upon democracy, economic development, and rule of law (DDRL) from any university department. CDDRL faculty and current honors students will be present to discuss the program and answer any questions.
 
For more information on the Fisher Family CDDRL Honors Program, please click here.
 
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Ground Floor Conference Rm E008 Encina Hall616 Serra MallStanford, CA 94305-6055

 

Stephen J. Stedman

CDDRL
Encina Hall, C152
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 725-2705 (650) 724-2996
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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science
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Stephen Stedman is a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), an affiliated faculty member at CISAC, and professor of political science (by courtesy) at Stanford University. He is director of CDDRL's Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development and Rule of Law, and will be faculty director of the Program on International Relations in the School of Humanities and Sciences effective Fall 2025.

In 2011-12 Professor Stedman served as the Director for the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy, and Security, a body of eminent persons tasked with developing recommendations on promoting and protecting the integrity of elections and international electoral assistance. The Commission is a joint project of the Kofi Annan Foundation and International IDEA, an intergovernmental organization that works on international democracy and electoral assistance.

In 2003-04 Professor Stedman was Research Director of the United Nations High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change and was a principal drafter of the Panel’s report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility.

In 2005 he served as Assistant Secretary-General and Special Advisor to the Secretary- General of the United Nations, with responsibility for working with governments to adopt the Panel’s recommendations for strengthening collective security and for implementing changes within the United Nations Secretariat, including the creation of a Peacebuilding Support Office, a Counter Terrorism Task Force, and a Policy Committee to act as a cabinet to the Secretary-General.

His most recent book, with Bruce Jones and Carlos Pascual, is Power and Responsibility: Creating International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats (Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 2009).

Director, Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development and Rule of Law
Director, Program in International Relations
Affiliated faculty at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
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Didi Kuo

Encina Hall, C150
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305

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Center Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
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Didi Kuo is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University. She is a scholar of comparative politics with a focus on democratization, corruption and clientelism, political parties and institutions, and political reform. She is the author of The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don’t (Oxford University Press) and Clientelism, Capitalism, and Democracy: the rise of programmatic politics in the United States and Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

She has been at Stanford since 2013 as the manager of the Program on American Democracy in Comparative Perspective and is co-director of the Fisher Family Honors Program at CDDRL. She was an Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fellow at New America and is a non-resident fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She received a PhD in political science from Harvard University, an MSc in Economic and Social History from Oxford University, where she studied as a Marshall Scholar, and a BA from Emory University.

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Indonesia: Democratic Hopes, Institutional Woes

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Co-sponsored by the Southeast Asia Program and

the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law

Indonesia features Southeast Asia’s most vibrant and dynamic democracy, but debilitating institutional dysfunctions persist.  Age-old patronage-style practices remain commonplace, despite voter demands for governance reform.  In effect, two mutually incompatible systems operate simultaneously: the rule of law on the one hand—“Ruler’s Law” on the other.  The disarray provides space for mafias and Islamist fringe groups to wield clout.  The contradiction tends to deter investment that Indonesia sorely needs in order to escape a “middle-income trap.”  What are the prospects for change in the April 2019 national elections?  Join the Indonesia political analyst Kevin O’Rourke for a presentation and discussion of poll data, political trends, and potential post-2019 scenarios in the world’s fourth most populous country. 

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Kevin O’Rourke’s Reformasi Weekly analyzes politics and policy-making for organizations operating in Indonesia. Subscribers include embassies, NGOs, universities, and companies. His firm, Reformasi Information Services, provides political risk consul­ting and customized research. His latest publication, 2019 Election Primer: Players, Playing Field and Scenarios (Nov. 2018), reviews in detail the rules, issues, and possible results of the country’s nationwide elections in April 2019. Earlier writings include Who’s Who in Yudhoyono’s Indonesia (2010) and Reformasi: The Struggle for Power in Post-Soeharto Indonesia (2002). Kevin started his career in Indonesia in 1994 as an equity research analyst. He is a graduate of Harvard University with an honors degree in government.

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Philippines Conference Room Encina Hall, 3rd Floor 616 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305
Kevin O’Rourke Writer and producer, Reformasi Weekly Review of Indonesian politics and policymaking
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Chinese Influence & American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance

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For three and a half decades following the end of the Maoist era, China adhered to Deng Xiaoping’s policies of “reform and opening to the outside world” and “peaceful development.” After Deng retired as paramount leader, these principles continued to guide China’s international behavior in the leadership eras of Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. Admonishing Chinese to “keep your heads down and bide your time,” these Party leaders sought to emphasize that China’s rapid economic development and its accession to “great power” status need not be threatening to either the existing global order or the interests of its Asian neighbors. However, since Party general secretary Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, the situation has changed. Under his leadership, China has significantly expanded the more assertive set of policies initiated by his predecessor Hu Jintao. These policies not only seek to redefine China’s place in the world as a global player, but they also have put forward the notion of a “China option” that is claimed to be a more efficient developmental model than liberal democracy.

While Americans are well acquainted with China’s quest for influence through the projection of diplomatic, economic, and military power, we are less aware of the myriad ways Beijing has more recently been seeking cultural and informational influence, some of which could undermine our democratic processes. These include efforts to penetrate and sway—through various methods that former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull summarized as “covert, coercive or corrupting”—a range of groups and institutions, including the Chinese American community, Chinese students in the United States, and American civil society organizations, academic institutions, think tanks, and media.

Some of these efforts fall into the category of normal public diplomacy as pursued by many other countries. But others involve the use of coercive or corrupting methods to pressure individuals and groups and thereby interfere in the functioning of American civil and political life.

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Roundtable on China’s Growing Sharp Power: American and Taiwanese Perspectives

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On 11/29/18 a group of leading experts on China and American foreign policy released “Chinese Influence and American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance,” a report documenting Chinese efforts to influence American society. The report examines China's efforts to influence American institutions, including state and local governments, universities, think tanks, media, corporations, and the Chinese-American community, and differentiates between legitimate efforts--like public diplomacy--and improper interference, which demands greater awareness and a calibrated response.

In this special roundtable, two of the report’s co-editors, Orville Schell and Larry Diamond, and a Taiwanese scholar, Ji-Jen Hwang, will discuss the findings of the report and compare the forms and effects of Chinese “sharp power” in the United States with its practice in and toward Taiwan.

This event is co-sponsored by the US-Asia Security Initiative in the Asia-Pacific Research Center, and the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.  

Orville Schell

Orville Schell is the Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at Asia Society in New York. He is a former professor and Dean at the University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. Schell was born in New York City, graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard University in Far Eastern History, was an exchange student at National Taiwan University in the 1960s, and earned a Ph.D. (Abd) at University of California, Berkeley in Chinese History. He worked for the Ford Foundation in Indonesia, covered the war in Indochina as a journalist, and has traveled widely in China since the mid-70s.

Schell is the author of fifteen books, ten of them about China, and a contributor to numerous edited volumes. His most recent books are: Wealth and Power, China’s long March to the 21st Century; Virtual Tibet; The China Reader: The Reform Years; and Mandate of Heaven: The Legacy of Tiananmen Square and the Next Generation of China’s Leaders. He has written widely for many magazine and newspapers, including The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, Time, The New Republic, Harpers, The Nation, The New York Review of Books, Wired, Foreign Affairs, the China Quarterly, and the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times.

He is a Fellow at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University, a Senior Fellow at the Annenberg School of Communications at USC and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Schell is also the recipient of many prizes and fellowships, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Overseas Press Club Award, and the Harvard-Stanford Shorenstein Prize in Asian Journalism.

Larry Diamond

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. For more than six years, he directed FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, where he now leads its Program on Arab Reform and Democracy and its Global Digital Policy Incubator. He is the founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy and also serves as Senior Consultant at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy. His research focuses on democratic trends and conditions around in the world, and on policies and reforms to defend and advance democracy.  His 2016 book, In Search of Democracy, explores the challenges confronting democracy and democracy promotion, gathering together three decades of his writing and research, particularly on Africa and Asia.  He has just completed a new book on the global crisis of democracy, which will be published in 2019, and is now writing a textbook on democratic development.

Karl Eikenberry

is Director of the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative and faculty member at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, faculty member of the Center for International Security and Cooperation, and Professor of Practice at Stanford University. He is also an affiliate with the FSI Center for Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law, and The Europe Center.

Prior to his arrival at Stanford, he served as the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan from 2009 until 2011. Before appointment as Chief of Mission on Kabul, Ambassador Eikenberry had a thirty-five year career in the United States Army, retiring in April 2009 with the rank of Lieutenant General. His military operational posts included commander and staff officer with mechanized, light, airborne, and ranger infantry units in the continental U.S., Hawaii, Korea, Italy, and Afghanistan as the Commander of the American-led Coalition forces. He held various policy and political-military positions, including Deputy Chairman of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Military Committee in Brussels, Belgium; Director for Strategic Planning and Policy for U.S. Pacific Command at Camp Smith, Hawaii; U.S. Security Coordinator and Chief of the Office of Military Cooperation in Kabul, Afghanistan; Assistant Army and later Defense Attaché at the United States Embassy in Beijing, China; Senior Country Director for China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mongolia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense; and Deputy Director for Strategy, Plans, and Policy on the Army Staff.

Ji-Jen Hwang

Dr. Ji-Jen Hwang is a Research Scholar in the Institute for East Asian Studies (IEAS) at UC Berkeley. Before that, he was a Professor & Program Director of the International Master Program in Strategic Studies at the National Defense University in the Republic of China (Taiwan). In 2014-15, Dr. Hwang was a visiting fellow with the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) located in Washington D.C. He also completed an internship at the United States Library of Congress while doing his Master’s coursework. A native of Taiwan, he holds a Ph.D. in politics from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in the U.K., as well as a Masters in Library Science & Information Studies from the University of North Carolina. He has been working for a non-profit Think Tank based in Washington D.C. area as a Deputy Managing Director since April 2018. His current research is focused on relations between the United States, China, and Taiwan, in which he particularly aims to study how social media and the features in cyberspace have political impacts on these relations. He is well-known known as an expert in this area and been invited as a special lecturer to think tanks such as CSIS in Washington D.C., ASPI in Canberra, NATO, GlobalSec in Europe, and INSS in Seoul.

 

Philippines Conference Room
Encina Hall, 3rd Floor
616 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305

Orville Schell
Larry Diamond
Ji-Jen Hwang
Karl Eikenberry
Panel Discussions

Special Nov. 28 Event: Russia's Latest Attack on Ukraine, What does it mean for Ukraine and for the West?

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On November 25, Russian border patrol ships rammed a Ukrainian naval tug and then fired upon and seized it along with two Ukrainian gunboats that were legally attempting to pass through the Kerch Strait into the Sea of Azov. Russia then temporarily closed the strait to all Ukrainian shipping. What is the significance of these Russian actions for Ukraine and, more broadly, for the West, and how should the West respond?  

Stanford's Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program at the Center on Democracy, Development and Rule of Law, the Europe Center together with FSI faculty members has organized a special panel discussion to address these issues on Wednesday, November 28 at 4:30 pm in the Rueben Hills conference room on the 2nd floor of Encina Hall in the East Wing.

Please join Ambassador Steven Pifer, Ambassador Michael McFaul, and our CDDRL Ukrainian Emerging Leaders (Nataliya Mykolska, Ivan Prymachenko and Oleksandra Ustinova) for this special event to diagnose the situation in Ukraine and what it means from a US and Ukrainian perspective. 

We look forward to seeing you there!

 

Rueben Hills Conference Room, 2nd floor Encina Hall

The Khashoggi Affair and Saudi Arabia’s War Against Dissent

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This event will be livestreamed. Click here to access the livestreaming page.

ABSTRACT

The clampdown on political dissent inside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has attracted intense attention in the wake of the recent murder of journalist and opinion-shaper Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey earlier this month. This panel analyzes the murder of Khashoggi in the context of the foreign and domestic policies of KSA’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It also seeks to understand the implications of this event for freedom of expression in the Arab world, U.S.-Saudi relations, and the future of stability inside the Kingdom.

 

 

PANELISTS

 

Moderator: 
Larry Diamond 
Senior Fellow, FSI; 
Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, 
Stanford University

 

Janine Zacharia 
Journalist; 
Carlos Kelly McClatchy Visiting Lecturer, Communication, 
Stanford University

 

Hesham Sallam 
Associate Director, ARD, 
Stanford University

 

 

larry diamond 1

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. For more than six years, he directed FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, where he now leads its Program on Arab Reform and Democracy and its Global Digital Policy Incubator. He is the founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy and also serves as Senior Consultant at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy. His research focuses on democratic trends and conditions around in the world, and on policies and reforms to defend and advance democracy.  His 2016 book, In Search of Democracy, explores the challenges confronting democracy and democracy promotion, gathering together three decades of his writing and research, particularly on Africa and Asia.  He has just completed a new book on the global crisis of democracy, which will be published in 2019, and is now writing a textbook on democratic development.

 

 

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Janine Zacharia is the Carlos Kelly McClatchy Visiting Lecturer at Stanford University where she teaches journalism classes, including news reporting and writing fundamentals, and foreign correspondence. She was the Jerusalem Bureau Chief and Middle East Correspondent for the Washington Post from December 2009 through April 2011. During her time at the Washington Post, she reported widely throughout the Middle East beyond Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including assignments in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Turkey. She reported on the uprisings in Egypt and Bahrain as they began in early 2011. From 2005-2009, Ms. Zacharia worked as chief diplomatic correspondent for Bloomberg News based in Washington. During this period, she traveled to more than 40 countries with then U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other senior administration and military officials. Ms. Zacharia’s earlier career included five years as Washington bureau chief for the Jerusalem Post, and five years in Jerusalem working for various news outlets including the Reuters news agency. She was a regular contributor to the New Republic and has appeared routinely as a cable news analyst on MSNBC, CNN and other networks. She was also a regular panelist on Gwen Ifill’s Friday evening roundtable, Washington Week in Review. During the 2008-2009 academic year, Ms. Zacharia was awarded a Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University. She earned her Bachelor’s of Arts degree in Literary Studies from Middlebury College and is originally from Long Island.

 

hesham sallam headshot

Hesham Sallam is a Research Associate at CDDRL and serves as the Associate-Director of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy. He is also a co-editor of Jadaliyya ezine and a 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). Sallam received a Ph.D. in Government (2015) and an M.A. in Arab Studies (2006) from Georgetown University, and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh (2003).

 

*An earlier list of speakers included Nora Doaiji, who could not participate on the panel due to unforeseen scheduling conflicts.

 

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William J. Perry Conference Room,
Encina Hall, 2nd Floor, 616 Serra St,
Stanford, CA 94305

Panel Discussions
Arab Reform and Democracy Speaker Series

The Midterm Elections

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Two days after the midterm elections, join a panel of Stanford experts to discuss the election outcomes. What do they mean for Congress, for the Republican and Democratic parties, and for Trump? How many Americans voted, who were they, and what issues mattered to their votes? The panel will contextualize the election results within broader trends in American democracy. Watch here.

 

Traitel Bldg. Hauck Auditorium

 

Nathaniel Persily

Stanford Law School Neukom Building, Room N230 Stanford, CA 94305
650-725-9875
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James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School
Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute
Professor, by courtesy, Political Science
Professor, by courtesy, Communication
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Nathaniel Persily is the James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, with appointments in the departments of Political Science, Communication, and FSI.  Prior to joining Stanford, Professor Persily taught at Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and as a visiting professor at Harvard, NYU, Princeton, the University of Amsterdam, and the University of Melbourne. Professor Persily’s scholarship and legal practice focus on American election law or what is sometimes called the “law of democracy,” which addresses issues such as voting rights, political parties, campaign finance, redistricting, and election administration. He has served as a special master or court-appointed expert to craft congressional or legislative districting plans for Georgia, Maryland, Connecticut, New York, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.  He also served as the Senior Research Director for the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. In addition to dozens of articles (many of which have been cited by the Supreme Court) on the legal regulation of political parties, issues surrounding the census and redistricting process, voting rights, and campaign finance reform, Professor Persily is coauthor of the leading election law casebook, The Law of Democracy (Foundation Press, 5th ed., 2016), with Samuel Issacharoff, Pamela Karlan, and Richard Pildes. His current work, for which he has been honored as a Guggenheim Fellow, Andrew Carnegie Fellow, and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, examines the impact of changing technology on political communication, campaigns, and election administration.  He is codirector of the Stanford Program on Democracy and the Internet, and Social Science One, a project to make available to the world’s research community privacy-protected Facebook data to study the impact of social media on democracy.  He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a commissioner on the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age.  Along with Professor Charles Stewart III, he recently founded HealthyElections.Org (the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project) which aims to support local election officials in taking the necessary steps during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide safe voting options for the 2020 election. He received a B.A. and M.A. in political science from Yale (1992); a J.D. from Stanford (1998) where he was President of the Stanford Law Review, and a Ph.D. in political science from U.C. Berkeley in 2002.   

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Professor of Law at Stanford Law School
Doug Rivers Senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor of political science at Stanford University
Morris Fiorina Wendt Family Professor and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution

Francis Fukuyama

Encina Hall, C148
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305

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Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Director of the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy
Research Affiliate at The Europe Center
Professor by Courtesy, Department of Political Science
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Francis Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a faculty member of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). He is also Director of Stanford's Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy, and a professor (by courtesy) of Political Science.

Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on issues in development and international politics. His 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. His book In the Realm of the Last Man: A Memoir will be published in fall 2026.

Francis Fukuyama received his B.A. from Cornell University in classics, and his Ph.D. from Harvard in Political Science. He was a member of the Political Science Department of the RAND Corporation, and of the Policy Planning Staff of the US Department of State. From 1996-2000 he was Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University, and from 2001-2010 he was Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. He served as a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics from 2001-2004. He is editor-in-chief of American Purpose, an online journal.

Dr. Fukuyama holds honorary doctorates from Connecticut College, Doane College, Doshisha University (Japan), Kansai University (Japan), Aarhus University (Denmark), the Pardee Rand Graduate School, and Adam Mickiewicz University (Poland). He is a non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Rand Corporation, the Board of Trustees of Freedom House, and the Board of the Volcker Alliance. He is a fellow of the National Academy for Public Administration, a member of the American Political Science Association, and of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is married to Laura Holmgren and has three children.

(October 2025)

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Moderator

Didi Kuo

Encina Hall, C150
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305

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Center Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
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Didi Kuo is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University. She is a scholar of comparative politics with a focus on democratization, corruption and clientelism, political parties and institutions, and political reform. She is the author of The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don’t (Oxford University Press) and Clientelism, Capitalism, and Democracy: the rise of programmatic politics in the United States and Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

She has been at Stanford since 2013 as the manager of the Program on American Democracy in Comparative Perspective and is co-director of the Fisher Family Honors Program at CDDRL. She was an Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fellow at New America and is a non-resident fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She received a PhD in political science from Harvard University, an MSc in Economic and Social History from Oxford University, where she studied as a Marshall Scholar, and a BA from Emory University.

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Academic Research & Program Manager, Program on American Democracy in Comparative Perspective
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