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. 

US-PRC-Taiwan Relations under the Trump Administration

-

Co-sponsored by the Taiwan Democracy Project at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, and the China Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC)

 

Abstract

As President Trump assumes office, it is timely to consider the state of US-People's Republic of China (PRC)-Taiwan relations and how they might evolve in the coming years. Uncertainty regarding US-PRC-Taiwan relations is running high—it is far greater than eight years ago when Barack Obama assumed office. Trump’s phone call with Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen shortly after winning the election and his subsequent suggestion that Taiwan could be used as a bargaining chip to extract trade concessions from China have alarmed Beijing and created anxiety in Taipei. In Washington, Trump’s actions and statements have fueled policy debates about whether to abandon the “one China” policy which has been a mainstay of US policy for 37 years.  How the Trump administration will adjust relations with Beijing and Taipei is unknown. In the months ahead, a new dynamic may be created in the US-PRC-Taiwan triangular relationship in which the source of instability is neither China nor Taiwan, but rather is the United States. 

 

Biography

Bonnie S. Glaser is a senior adviser for Asia and the director of the China Power Project at CSIS, where she works on issues related to Chinese foreign and security policy. She is concomitantly a non-resident fellow with the Lowy Institute in Sydney, a senior associate with CSIS Pacific Forum and a consultant for the U.S. government on East Asia. From 2008 – mid-2015 Ms. Glaser was a Senior Adviser with the Freeman Chair in China Studies, and from 2003 to 2008, she was a senior associate in the CSIS International Security Program. Prior to joining CSIS, she served as a consultant for various U.S. government offices, including the Departments of Defense and State.

Ms. Glaser has written extensively on various aspects of Chinese foreign policy, including Sino-U.S. relations, U.S.-China military ties, cross-Strait relations, China’s relations with Japan and Korea, and Chinese perspectives on missile defense and multilateral security in Asia. Her writings have been published in the Washington Quarterly, China Quarterly, Asian Survey, International Security, Problems of Communism, Contemporary Southeast Asia, American Foreign Policy Interests, Far Eastern Economic Review, Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, New York Times, and International Herald Tribune, as well as various edited volumes on Asian security. Ms. Glaser is a regular contributor to the Pacific Forum quarterly Web journal Comparative Connections. She is currently a board member of the U.S. Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific, and a member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the Institute of International Strategic Studies. She served as a member of the Defense Department’s Defense Policy Board China Panel in 1997. Ms. Glaser received her B.A. in political science from Boston University and her M.A. with concentrations in international economics and Chinese studies from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

 

Philippines Conference Room

Encina Hall, 3rd Floor

Bonnie Glaser Director of the China Power Project and Senior Advisor for Asia Center for Strategic and International Studies
Lectures

How the Mexican Drug War Affects Kids and Schools? Evidence on Effects and Mechanisms

Paragraphs

In this paper published by the International Journal of Educational Development, we investigate the impact of drug-related violence in Mexico on academic achievement. We use panel of elementary and lower secondary schools and locality-level firearm homicides from 2006 to 2011. We rely on school fixed-effects models to estimate the impact on math test scores of turf war exposure and turf war persistence (e.g. months of exposure) during the academic year. According to the results, both exposure and persistence of criminal violence reduces math test scores. The analysis of heterogeneous effects shows that schools located in poor urban settings experience the largest negative effects. Further, we find stronger negative effects of drug-related violence exposure in lower secondary schools with street gang presence nearby. Finally, we further examine potential mechanisms driving the effects of criminal violence on test scores. Our findings indicate that turf war exposure and persistence are associated with a loss of instructional time due to higher teacher absenteeism and turnover, as well as student absenteeism, tardiness, and propensity to leave school days early.

 

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Journal Articles
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
International Journal of Educational Development
Authors
Brenda Jarillo Rabling
Beatriz Magaloni
External URL

Police Analysts from Mexico's Commission on National Security Participate in Stanford Workshop

News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

Effective Law Enforcement Institutions and Democratic Accountability: Workshop Focuses on Regional Issues in Law Enforcement

The Stanford Program on Poverty and Governance delivered its five-day training course, “Effective Law Enforcement Institutions and Democratic Accountability,” to law enforcement professionals from the Planning Unit of the Mexican Comision Nacional de Seguridad (CNS). Held in Encina Hall October 11-15, 2016, the workshop was led by Professors Beatriz Magaloni and Alberto Diaz-Cayeros as part of their U.S. State Department-funded research project on police accountability and citizen trust in Mexico. Stanford political scientists and legal scholars participated in the week-long workshop to address a wide range of topics focused on the dynamics between criminal violence, police practices and citizen trust. Highlights of the unique curriculum included:

  • Design of police interventions by Beatriz Magaloni and Alberto Diaz Cayeros, with discussion of drug policy, fighting organized crime, what law enforcement looks like up close, and prevention of violence.
  • How to measure the success of police operations by Edgar Franco, a doctoral student in Political Science.
  • Use of empirical evidence to develop effective public policy by Gustavo Robles, Ph.D candidate in Political Science, with a discussion of methods for gathering and analyzing data and how to develop indicators for performance, results and impact.
  • Regional issues with a focus on Latin America, including anomie and law, by Stanford Law School visiting professor Rogelio Perez-Perdomo.
  • Roundtable moderated by Beatriz Magaloni featuring Francis Fukuyama, Erik Jensen and Stephen Stedman on accountability, anti-corruption practices, trust in public institutions, civil engagement, and the role of international organizations.
  • A lecture by legal scholar Mirte Posterna from the Stanford Law School on human Rights, security and anti-drug policy.

The Mexican delegation took afiled trip to the Stockton Police Department to meet with Chief of Police Eric Jones, an innovator in effective community policing and use of body-worn cameras. They also a visited Stanford's new David Rumsey Map Center, where scholars can work with digital mapping software to manipulate, enlarge, quantify, aggregate, and visualize geo-data in unique ways for research.

The final session of the workshop focused on developing collaborative approaches between scholars and law enforcement practitioners in Mexico on a CNS-sponsored "risk terrain" project currently underway in Acapulco, with an analysis of police patrolling data, the role of schools in mitigating risk for youth violence and gang activity, and the design of federal police surveys.

The workshop and site visits were instrumental in advancing key goals of U.S. State Department-funded research project on project police accountability and citizen trust, which include assessing the efficacy of new law enforcement approaches in coordinating policing between federal, states and municipal agencies, mapping criminal activity and drug trafficking routes in Mexico, and correlating socio-economic characteristics with levels of trust among Mexican citizens.

Hero Image
encina group shot
All News button
1

Former Foreign Minister of Russia, Andrei Kozyrev. “The Future of U.S.-Russian Relations”

-

[[{"fid":"225053","view_mode":"crop_870xauto","fields":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_credit[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_related_image_aspect[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto"},"type":"media","attributes":{"width":"870","style":"font-size: 13.008px; width: 300px; height: 367px; float: left; margin-right: 15px; margin-top: 60px;","class":"media-element file-crop-870xauto"}}]]

 

 

As the Trump administration prepares to take office, it joins with the previous incoming Bush and Obama administrations in promising to improve U.S.-Russian relations. However, both President Bush and Obama left office with relations far worse than when they took office. Andrey Kozyrev, the first Foreign Minister of the newly independent Russian Federation, will discuss his views on the future prospects of the relationship, and examine some of the deep-rooted issues that contribute to current political tensions between our countries.

Andrei Kozyrev is the former Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation. In 1974 he graduated from the Moscow State Institute for International Relations and subsequently earned a degree in Historical Sciences. He joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1974 and served as head of the Department of International Organizations from 1989-1990. He became the Foreign Minister of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in October 1990 and retained his position when the Russian Federation gained independence in 1991.Kozyrev was an early proponent for increased cooperation between the United States and Russia and advocated for the end of the Cold War. He was a participant in the historic decision taken in December 1991 between the leaders of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine to peacefully dissolve the Soviet Union. As Russia’s first Foreign Minister, Kozyrev promoted a policy of equal cooperation with the newly formed independent states of the former Soviet Union, as well as improved relations with Russia’s immediate neighbors and the West.Kozyrev left the post of Foreign Minister in January 1996, but continued in politics by representing the northern city of Murmansk in the Russian Duma for four years. Since 2000, Kozyrev has lectured on international affairs and served on the boards of a number of Russian and international companies. He is also a distinguished fellow with the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute.

This event has reached full capacity, please email Magdalena Fitipaldi at magdafb@stanford.edu to get on the waiting list.

This event is co-sponsored by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.

Note location change:

Encina Hall, 2nd Floor

616 Serra St
Stanford, CA 94305

 

 

Andrei Kozyrev Former Foreign Minister of Russia
Lectures

Competing Narratives on Syria amid International Escalation

-

ABSTRACT

By now, those following the news on Syria have been saturated with analysis, data, information, and misinformation on developments there since 2011. Yet we observe an increasing gravitation to mutually exclusive narratives that adorn websites and publications on the situation in Syria: (a) the narrative of pure and consistent revolution versus that of (b) external conspiracy/designs on Syria. Both narratives carry grains of truth, but are encumbered by maximalist claims and fundamental blindspots that forfeit various potentials for enduring cease-fires and/or transitions, let alone mutual understanding. This talk will address these competing narratives in the context of international escalation marked by increasing US-Russian tension and continued multi-layered conflicts on the battlefield. It closes with addressing a framework for understanding and gauging potential prospects despite conflicting declarations by all parties involved.

 

SPEAKER BIO

unnamed
Bassam Haddad is Director of the Middle East Studies Program and Associate Professor at the School of Policy, Government, and International Affairs (SPGIA) at George Mason University. He is the author of Business Networks in Syria: The Political Economy of Authoritarian Resilience (Stanford University Press, 2011) and Co-Editor of Dawn of the Arab Uprisings: End of an Old Order? (Pluto Press, 2012). Bassam serves as Founding Editor of the Arab Studies Journal a peer-reviewed research publication and is co-producer/director of the award-winning documentary film, About Baghdad, and director of a critically acclaimed film series on Arabs and Terrorism, based on extensive field research/interviews. Bassam is Co-Founder/Editor of Jadaliyya Ezine and the Executive Director of the Arab Studies Institute, an umbrella for five organizations dealing with knowledge production on the Middle East. He serves on the Board of the Arab Council for the Social Sciences and is Executive Producer of Status Audio Journal.

 

 

*This event is supported by the Stanford Initiative for Religious and Ethnic Understanding and Coexistence

[[{"fid":"224129","view_mode":"crop_870xauto","fields":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"Bassam Haddad flyer","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_credit[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_related_image_aspect[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto"},"type":"media","attributes":{"width":"870","class":"media-element file-crop-870xauto"}}]]

Reuben Hills Conference Room
2nd Floor East Wing E207
Encina Hall
616 Serra Street
Stanford, California 94305

Bassam Haddad Associate Professor George Mason University
Seminars
Arab Reform and Democracy Speaker Series

Accidental State: Chiang Kai-shek, the United States, and the Making of Taiwan

-

Accidental State

Abstract

The existence of two Chinese states—one controlling mainland China, the other controlling the island of Taiwan—is often understood as a seemingly inevitable outcome of the Chinese civil war. Defeated by Mao Zedong, Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists fled to Taiwan to establish a rival state, thereby creating the “Two Chinas” dilemma that vexes international diplomacy to this day. Accidental State challenges this conventional narrative to offer a new perspective on the founding of modern Taiwan.

Hsiao-ting Lin marshals extensive research in recently declassified archives to show that the creation of a Taiwanese state in the early 1950s owed more to serendipity than careful geostrategic planning. It was the cumulative outcome of ad hoc half-measures and imperfect compromises, particularly when it came to the Nationalists’ often contentious relationship with the United States.

Taiwan’s political status was fraught from the start. The island had been formally ceded to Japan after the First Sino–Japanese War, and during World War II the Allies promised Chiang that Taiwan would revert to Chinese rule after Japan’s defeat. But as the Chinese civil war turned against the Nationalists, U.S. policymakers reassessed the wisdom of backing Chiang. The idea of placing Taiwan under United Nations trusteeship gained traction. Cold War realities, and the fear of Taiwan falling into Communist hands, led Washington to recalibrate U.S. policy. Yet American support of a Taiwan-based Republic of China remained ambivalent, and Taiwan had to eke out a place for itself in international affairs as a de facto, if not fully sovereign, state.

 

Biography

Hsiao-ting Lin is a research fellow and curator of the East Asia Collection at the Hoover Institution. He holds a BA in political science from National Taiwan University (1994) and an MA in international law and diplomacy from National Chengchi University in Taiwan (1997). He received his DPhil in oriental studies in 2003 from the University of Oxford, where he also held an appointment as tutorial fellow in modern Chinese history. In 2003–4, Lin was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California at Berkeley. In 2004, he was awarded the Kiriyama Distinguished Fellowship by the Center for the Pacific Rim, University of San Francisco. In 2005–7, he was a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he participated in Hoover’s Modern China Archives and Special Collections project. In April 2008, Lin was elected a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland for his contributions to the studies of modern China’s history.

Lin’s academic interests include ethnopolitics and minority issues in greater China, border strategies and defenses in modern China, political institutions and the bureaucratic system of the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang), and US-Taiwan military and political relations during the Cold War. He has published extensively on modern Chinese and Taiwanese politics, history, and ethnic minorities, including Accidental State: Chiang Kai-shek, the United States, and the Making of Taiwan (Harvard University Press, 2016); Modern China’s Ethnic Frontiers: A Journey to the West (Routledge, 2011); Breaking with the Past: The Kuomintang Central Reform Committee on Taiwan, 1950–52 (Hoover Press, 2007); Tibet and Nationalist China’s Frontier: Intrigues and Ethnopolitics, 1928–49 (UBC Press, 2006), nominated as the best study in the humanities at the 2007 International Convention of Asia Scholars; and over a hundred journal articles, book chapters, edited volumes, reviews, opinion pieces, and translations. He is currently at work on a manuscript that reevaluates Taiwan’s relations with China and the United States during the presidency of Harry Truman to that of Jimmy Carter.

 

This event is sponsored by the Taiwan Democracy Project in the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. It is free and open to the public, and lunch will be served. Please RSVP by November 28.

Reuben Hills Conference Room

2nd Floor, Encina Hall East

Hsiao-ting Lin Librarian, East Asian Archives, Hoover Institution
Lectures

Tales of freedom and justice

News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

The 12th annual Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program gathered 25 democracy leaders from around the developing world for a three-week training program on democracy, good governance, and the rule of law reform. Selected from a large pool of applicants, the fellows have diverse backgrounds across sectors and geographies, working in civil society, public service, social enterprise, media and technology.

Fellows were instructed by an all-star roster of Stanford scholars and policy experts, including former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; FSI Director and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul; CDDRL Mosbacher Director Francis Fukuyama and Larry Diamond, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Fellows also met industry leaders such as Eric Schmidt of Google, democracy leaders such as Carl Gershman of the National Endowment for Democracy and others. During the program, they shared their personal stories about the struggle in their home countries, but also stories of their fight for justice, equality, and democracy, stories of optimism and endurance.

You can find some of their talks below and for more videos visit our YouTube channel. 

 

Kasha Nabagesera (Uganda)

The founding member of Uganda's LGBTI Movement

"I am the only founding member of Uganda's LGBTI movement who is still based in the country"

 

 

Kasha Nabagesera is the executive director of Kuchu Times Media Group, the first LGBTI media platform in Africa. She is known as the “founding mother” of the LGBTI movement in Uganda - where homosexuality is illegal - advocating for equal rights and the eradication of all forms of discrimination based on sexual orientation. Listen to her story about big losses and big wins, everyday dangers and hope.

Rafael Marques de Morais (Angola)

Investigative reporter, MakaAngola

"Why the government is after you when you are sleeping so much?"

Rafael Marques de Morais is an award-winning journalist and human rights activist in Angola, working to investigate corruption and abuse of power by the country’s ruling family. He founded Makaangola, a watchdog website dedicated to exposing corruption and human rights abuses in Angola. Find out why his son thinks that his father is harmless for the government.

Belabbes Benkredda (Algeria)

The founder of Munathara Initiative

"Debate is the central part of the democratic equation."

Belabbes Benkredda is an award-winning social innovator and the founder of the Munathara Initiative, the Arab world’s largest online and television debate forum highlighting voices of youth, women, and marginalized communities. Operating in 11 Arab countries, Munathara’s monthly prime-time TV debates are the only civil society-run, independent political talk program on Arabic television. Munathara Initiative organized over 650 workshops with more than 10 thousand participants from 12 countries. They have around 90 thousand of registered users. More importantly, Munathara Initiative provided safe public space for young women to voice their opinions and mark their presence in public, traditionally dominated by the middle-aged men.  

 

Hero Image
dhsf16collagesmall01
All News button
1

Introducing CDDRL's incoming pre- and postdoctoral fellows

News Type
Q&As
Date
Paragraphs

Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) is proud to announce our four incoming fellows who will be joining us in the 2016-2017 academic year to develop their research, engage with faculty and tap into our diverse scholarly community. 

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

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

Topics of the incoming cohort include electoral fraud in Russia, how the elite class impacts state power in China, the role of emotions in support for democracy in Zimbabwe, and market institutions in Nigeria. 

Learn more in the Q&A below.

natalia embedded
Natalia Forrat

CDDRL Pre-Doctoral Fellow

Hometown: Tomsk, Russia

Academic Institution: Northwestern University

Discipline and expected date of graduation: Sociology, April 2017

Research Interests: authoritarianism, state capacity, social policy, civil society, trust, Russia and post-communist countries

Dissertation Title: The State that Betrays the Trust: Infrastructural State Power, Public Sector Organizations, and Authoritarian Resilience in Putin's Russia

What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/post-doctoral program? I study the connection between state capacity and political regimes - the topic that is at the core of many research initiatives at CDDRL. Learning more about this work and receiving feedback for my dissertation will enrich and sharpen my analysis, while helping me to place it into a comparative context. I am looking forward to discussing my work with the faculty who study the post-Soviet region. I also will explore policy implications of my work with the help of policy experts at CDDRL.

What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at the CDDRL? Besides finishing writing my dissertation, I will workshop three working papers to prepare them for publication. The first one argues that Putin's regime used the school system to administer a large-scale electoral fraud in 2012 presidential elections; the second one shows how the networks of social organizations were used by subnational autocrats to strengthen the regime; and the third one will look at the factors that make the abuse of such organizations more difficult in some regions. In addition to these papers I will continue developing my post-graduation research project exploring the relationship between social trust and distrust, institutions, political competition, and democratization.

Fun fact: I have spent 25 years of my life in Siberia, and I can tell you: Chicago winters are worse!

 
 

shelby embedded
Shelby Grossman

CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow

Hometown: Reading, MA

Academic Institution: Harvard University

Discipline & Graduation Date:  Government, Summer 2016

Research interests: political economy of development, private governance, market institutions, Sub-Saharan Africa, survey methods

Dissertation Title: The Politics of Order in Informal Markets: Evidence from Lagos

What attracted you to the CDDRL post-doctoral program? I was attracted to CDDRL largely for its community of scholars. Affiliated faculty work on the political economy of development and medieval and modern market institutions, topics that are tied to my own interests.

What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at the CDDRL? I plan to prepare a book manuscript based on my dissertation, a project that explains variation in the provision of pro-trade institutions in private market organizations through the study of physical marketplaces in Nigeria. In addition, I will continue to remotely manage an on-going project in Nigeria (with Meredith Startz) investigating whether reputation alleviates contracting frictions. I also plan to work on submitting to journals a few working papers, including one on the politics of non-compliance with polio vaccination in Nigeria (with Jonathan Phillips and Leah Rosenzweig). 

Fun fact: Contrary to popular belief, not all cheese is vegetarian. I have a website to help people determine if a cheese is vegetarian or not: IsThisCheeseVegetarian.com. 

 
 

daniel embedded
Daniel Mattingly

CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow

Hometown: Oakland, California

Academic Institution: University of California, Berkeley

Discipline & Graduation Date: Political Science, Summer 2016

Research Interests: Governance, rule of law, state building, authoritarian politics, Chinese politics

Dissertation Title: The Social Origins of State Power: Democratic Institutions and Local Elites in China

What attracted you to CDDRL?  The Center has a fantastic community of scholars and practitioners who work on the areas that I'm interested in, including governance and the rule of law. I'm excited to learn from the CDDRL community and participate in the Center's events. The fellowship also provides me with valuable time to finish my book manuscript before I start teaching.

What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at the CDDRL? While at CDDRL, I plan to prepare my book manuscript and to work on some related projects on local elites and state power in China and elsewhere. 

Fun fact: I grew up on an organic farm in Vermont.

 
 

lauren embedded
Lauren E. Young

CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow

Hometown: Saratoga, CA

Academic Institution: Columbia University 

Discipline & Graduation Date: Political Science (Comparative Politics, Methods), May 2016 (defense), Oct 2016 (degree conferral)

Research Interests: political violence, political economy of development, autocratic persistence, democratization, protest, electoral violence

Dissertation Title: The Psychology of Repression and Dissent in Autocracy

What attracted you to the CDDRL post-doctoral program? As a graduate of the CISAC honors program when I was an undergraduate at Stanford, I have seen first-hand how intellectually stimulating, collaborative, and plugged into policy CDDRL is. While at the center I will be revising my dissertation work on the political psychology of participation in pro-democracy movements in Zimbabwe for submission as a book manuscript, and moving forward new projects that similarly seek to understand how different forms of violence by non-state actors affects citizens' preferences and decision-making. Because of its deep bench of experts on autocracy, narco-trafficking, and insurgency, CDDRL will add enormous value to these projects.

What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at the CDDRL?  During my fellowship year, my primary goal is to revise my research on Zimbabwe into a book manuscript. I defended my dissertation as three stand-alone articles, including two experiments showing that emotions influence whether opposition supporters in Zimbabwe express their pro-democracy preferences and a descriptive paper showing that repression has a larger effect on the behavior of the poor. To prepare the book manuscript during my fellowship, I will bring in additional quantitative and qualitative descriptive evidence and tie the three papers together into a cohesive argument about how opposition supporters make decisions about participation in protest, why emotions have such a large effect on these decisions, and how this affects variation across individuals and the strategic choices of autocrats and activists.

Fun fact: During my fieldwork I took an overnight train from Victoria Falls to a southern city in Zimbabwe and hitch-hiked into a national park. It got a little nerve-wracking when night started to fall, but ended with  an invitation to a barbecue! 

 

 
Hero Image
cddrl fellows 2016 logo
All News button
1

Report: State Strengthening in Afghanistan

Paragraphs

About the Report

In March 2015, the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), Chatham House, and Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law held a two-day conference on “State-Strengthening in Afghanistan 2001–2014: Learning from the Past to Inform the Future.” CDDRL's Erik Jensen and Karl Eikenberry represented CDDRL at this event. This report comprises a selection of papers presented at the conference. One of the papers entitled, "Rule of Law and Statebuilding in Afghanistan: Testing Theory with Practice" was co-authored by CDDRL's Erik Jensen. The papers look back critically at thirteen years of international intervention in Afghanistan, focusing on the impact of state-strengthening exercises on security, democratization, governance, the economy, rule of law, infrastructure, civil society participation, youth development, and women’s empowerment. They describe, from the perspective of Afghan and international policy makers and experts, the immense and often unforseen challenges in rebuilding the Afghan state.

All Publications button
1
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Peaceworks
External Purchase Links
External URL

CDDRL honors students recognized for outstanding theses

Authors
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law congratulates its undergraduate honors class for completing their original research and undergraduate theses. They graduated from Stanford University on June 12 with honors in their respective disciplines.

Graduates include Vehbi “Deger” Turan, who was awarded the Firestone Medal for his thesis entitled “Augmenting Citizen Participation in Governance through Natural Language Processing.” Turan’s project employed existing literature on democratic participation, case studies and an original algorithm in order to devise a means by which government agencies can evaluate public comments received via the Internet on political issues.

The Firestone Medal for Excellence in Undergraduate Research recognizes Stanford's top ten percent of honors theses in social science, science and engineering among the graduating senior class.

Turan decided to explore this topic shortly after joining the Fisher Family CDDRL Honors Program.

According to the program’s Director Stephen Stedman, “After listening to a research seminar at our Center, Deger believed that he could develop an aggregation tool to help policy makers understand such immense data.”

Francis Fukuyama, the Mosbacher Director of CDDRL also noted, “Deger is perhaps the best example to date of why interschool honors programs are valuable. He is a computer science major who came to us expressing an interest in using his background in artificial intelligence to help solve critical public policy problems.” Fukuyama together with Associate Professor of Political Science Justin Grimmer advised Turan on his honor’s thesis.

Turan will be starting a new position at Atomic Labs’ Zenreach start-up after graduation.

The CDDRL Award for Outstanding Thesis was given to Rehan Adamjee whose thesis explored the different factors at play in choosing between healthcare providers in a rural area of Pakistan.

Adamjee and Turan are just two members of a the 2016 cohort of 11 honors students, many of whom traveled to foreign countries to collect original data, conduct interviews and research their thesis topics. Their topics range from timely case studies on the use of social media as a tool of empowerment to a glimpse at the effects of regional politics on healthcare reform in Post-Soviet Russia.

The 2016 class joins 76 graduates from CDDRL’s honors program since its launch in 2007.

The Fisher Family CDDRL Honors Program trains Stanford students from diverse majors to write theses with global policy implications on a subject related to democracy, development and the rule of law. Students attend a class on research methods the spring quarter of their junior year. During their senior year, in tandem with the CDDRL research community and their faculty advisor, students conduct both local and international research in order to write their theses. Students travel to Washington, DC for the annual honors college to meet policymakers and members of the development community to enrich their thesis topics.

A list of our graduating students along with links to all their theses can be found below.

 

NAMEMAJORTHESIS

Rehan Adamjee

Economics; Public Policy

Advisor: Jayanta Bhattacharya

Anna Blue

International Relations

Advisor: Alberto Diaz Cayeros

Sarah Johnson

Economics

Advisor: Lisa Blaydes

Shang-Ch’uan Li

Materials, Science and Engineering

Advice and Consent: Increase in Malaysian Judges Appointed from the Practicing Bar after the Passage of the Judicial Appointments Commission Act 2009

Advisors: Erik Jensen, Justin Grimmer

Hannah Meropol

Political Science

Advisor: Lisa Blaydes

Jelani Munroe

Economics; Public Policy

Advisor: Pete Klenow

Hannah Potter

International Relations

Advisor: Stephen Stedman

Tebello Qhotsokoane

Public Policy

Advisor: Marcel Fafchamps

Hadley Reid

Human Biology

Advisor: Grant Miller

Paul Shields

International Relations; Slavic Language & Literature

Advisor: Kathryn Stoner

Deger Turan

Computer Science

Advisors: Francis Fukuyama, Justin Grimmer

 

Meet our Class of 2017 

Hero Image
headline
The graduating class of 2015-2016 CDDRL senior honors students take a group photo with CDDRL Mosbacher Director Francis Fukuyama and the Fisher Family CDDRL Honors Program Director Stephen Stedman. From left to right: Didi Kuo (CDDRL honors program mentor); Jelani Munroe; Stephen Stedman; Tebello Qhotsokoane; Paul Shields; Shang-Ch’uan Li; Hannah Potter; Hadley Reid; Vehbi Deger Turan; Sarah Johnson; Hannah Meropol; Rehan Adamjee; Anna Blue
Alice Kada
All News button
1
Subscribe to Security