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Without a Fight is a feature length documentary film that explores how soccer can facilitate social change in Kibera, one of Africa’s largest slums.

When: Thursday, April 11th at 6pm

Where: Branner Lounge, Stanford University

RSVP: Join the event on Facebook

Dinner Provided from DARBAR Indian Restaurant

· Introduction by Sarina Beges, CDDRL Program Manager

· Post-screening Q&A with CFK-Kenya Executive Director Hillary Omala and Producer Beth-Ann Kutchma

About the Film

Footage of violent clashes fueled by polarizing national presidential elections is intertwined with profiles of youth from different religious and ethnic backgrounds as they navigate daily life and prepare for the final championship soccer game of the season. The film provides a glimpse often a very positive one into an Africa few have seen. It attempts to break stereotypes associated with people who live in extreme poverty while depicting sports as a tool that could be used to prevent violence among at-risk youth. The film made its World Premiere at the 11 MM Festival in Berlin, Germany in March 2012 and its North American Premiere at the Full Frame Documentary Festival in Durham, NC in April 2012. The soccer league is run by the international development organization,Carolina for Kibera. Watch the Film’s Trailer.

Abstract:

Does formalization really matter for developing economies? Informality has been considered as a negative economic factor as it has been associated with low productivity, high barriers to growth (dead capital), low government revenues and lack of access to credit and property rights. The remedy has been often sought in the formalization of informal economic activities, firms, workers and transactions. However, is formalization anyway a good option for development and growth in such hostile institutional settings like the ones existent in most developing countries including the Middle East? Will formalization save small entrepreneurs from rampant corruption, high interest rates, dependent judiciary, and weak rule of law? or are there alternative means to render the present informal settings more productive and developmental?

Speaker Bio:

Roundtable on Democracy Promotion

Future Directions for Canadian Democracy Promotion

Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law

Stanford University

16 April 2013

Agenda

9:00-9:45 Introductions

Purpose of roundtable and introduction of participants: Larry Diamond and Chris MacLennanOverview presentation on Canada’s experience with democracy promotion since the 1990s: Chris MacLennan

9:45-11:00 Democratization – Latest thinking on democracy, democratization and governance

Key Questions: What is the most recent thinking on democratization – how and why do democratic transitions happen; why do democracies fail; and, why do authoritarian regimes survive and thrive? What is the relationship between good governance and democracy?Lead Discussant: (TBC) to introduce session and offer initial thoughts on current state of democratization scholarship (5-10 minutes).

11:00:11:15 Break

11:15-12:30 Democracy Assistance – What donors can and should be doing to aid democratic transitions

Key Questions: What are the most effective ways to advance democracy through the use of international development assistance (types of programs / instruments, choice of countries, etc.)? Is a focus on governance capacity building enough or are the more political aspects of democracy building necessary?Lead Discussants: Richard Youngs (TBC) (European approaches) and David Yang (TBC) (US approaches) to introduce session and offer initial thoughts from their respective viewpoints (5-10 minutes each).

12:30-1:30 Lunch

1:30-3:30 Canada – Future Directions for Canadian Democracy Promotion

Potential Roles (1:30-2:30)

Key Questions: Is there a particular approach that Canada should take to support democratic development internationally? Should Canada pursue a broad-based approach to democracy promotion (like the US and EU) as it has in the past or should it focus on a specific role or niche internationally? Should Canada adopt a geographic focus (Americas, commonwealth countries, Francophonie) or something targeted to specific democratic challenges (fragile democracies, fragile states, transitioning states)? Is a more political approach required or can Canada maintain a more developmental approach to advancing democracy?Lead Discussant: Robert Miller (TBC) to introduce question and offer initial thoughts (5-10 minutes).

Institutions (2:30-3:30)

Key Questions: What type of institutional arrangements should Canada adopt to undertake democracy promotion? Does Canada need an independent body to advance the more “political” aspects of democracy assistance (e.g., political parties, elections, support to NGOs)? Is a special program needed either focused on democracy assistance or tying development to democracy performance (MCC)?Lead Discussant: Les Campbell (TBC) to introduce question and offer initial thoughts (5-10 minutes).

3:30-4:00 Conclusions and Next Steps

Final Thoughts: AllNext Steps: Chris MacLennan

About the topic: When in late 2009, President Obama ordered the surge of an additional 30,000 troops into Afghanistan to reverse Taliban momentum, major tenets of the U.S. military counterinsurgency doctrine shaped the resulting campaign plan.  Adages such as "protect the population" and "clear, hold, and build" served to guide civil-military actions.  With the hindsight of four years, however, it seems clear that some of the important assumptions upon which the plan was premised were significantly flawed.  Karl Eikenberry, who served in both senior diplomatic and military posts in Afghanistan, will examine the logic of counterinsurgency doctrine as it was applied during the surge and discuss its strengths and shortcomings.

About the speaker: Karl Eikenberry served as the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan from May 2009 until July 2011, where he led the civilian surge directed by President Obama to reverse insurgent momentum and set the conditions for transition to full Afghan sovereignty. Before appointment as Chief of Mission in Kabul, Ambassador Eikenberry had a thirty-five year career in the United States Army, retiring in April 2009 with the rank of Lieutenant General.  He has served in 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. 

Abstract:

The levels of violence in Mexico have dramatically increased in the last few years due to structural changes in the drug trafficking business. The increase in the number of drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) fighting over the control of territory and trafficking routes has resulted in a substantial increase in the rates of homicides and other crimes. This study evaluates the economic costs of drug-related violence. We propose electricity consumption as an indicator of the level of municipal economic activity and use two different empirical strategies to test this. To estimate the marginal effect of violence in the rate of homicides (per 100,000 inhabitants) we use an instrumental variable regression created by Mejía, Castillo and Restrepo (2012). For the average municipality, the marginal negative effect of the increase in homicides rates is substantive for earned income and the proportion of business owners, but not for energy consumption. Although negative and statistically significant, the effects are mild for labor participation. We also employ the methodology of synthetic controls to evaluate the effect that inter-narco wars have on local economies. The analysis indicates that the drug wars in those municipalities that saw dramatic increases in violence between 2006 and 2010 significantly reduced their energy consumption in the years after the change occurred, which is interpreted as a significant reduction in GDP per capita for these municipalities.

Speaker Bio:

Gabriela Calderon holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University. Her research interests include policies that affect gender differences in developing countries, policy evaluation, violence in Latin America and the effect of institutions and governance on the provision of public goods and health/education outcomes. She did her master's degree in economic theory and bachelor's degree in economics at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México. Currently, in the Program on Poverty and Governance, her research analyzes the way institutions and democracy affect the provision of public goods, and the impact they have on health outcomes like infant mortality trends. She is also studying the effects of government interventions that combat drug-trafficking organizations over violence in Mexico.

Her research has focused on the topics of development, public finance, and the evaluation of public policy programs in Mexico. For example, during the summers of 2009/2010, she conducted a field experiment in Zacatecas, Mexico with Giacomo de Giorgi, an assistant professor from Stanford University, and Jesse Cuhna, a former Stanford student. The main task was to evaluate the impact of financial literacy classes on underprivileged women entrepreneurs in the region. To successfully complete an evaluation in an untreated region, they proposed collaborating with the Mexican NGO CREA on a joint project. They contacted local interviewers, trained them, and identified all women entrepreneurs in the 17 communities, in which we conducted the experiment. Preliminary results suggest that the female entrepreneurs who were randomly assigned to treatment earned higher profits, had larger revenues, and served a greater number of clients. They also found that they were more likely to implement formal accounting techniques.

She has also studied programs that are not randomly assigned as an experiment. For example, she has analyzed the effects of a national policy in Mexico of child care services, called Estancias Infantiles para apoyar a Madres Trabajadoras (EI), using administrative, census and household data. Her empirical research strategy identifies the effects of the program on both the men and women who were eligible for the program. She used time, location and eligibility variation, and considered a major threat to identification of the actual effects: for example, a manufacturer who moves into a municipality at approximately the same time as the EI program and who happens to disproportionately demand the skills of women who were eligible to the program happened to have. To ensure that such scenarios do not affect her results, she chose not triple difference strategy, in which all ineligible people are treated as “controls” for the EI-eligible families. Instead, she employs Synthetic Control Methods, using the same methodology as Abadie and Gardeazabal (2003) and Abadie, Diamond and Hainmueller (2010) to ensure that her control group has the same mix of skills and preferences as the EI-eligible group. She adapted the Synthetic Control Method to analyze repeated cross-sectional household data, which are data that are typically available in developing countries

Speaker Bio:

Yael Zeira is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. In fall 2013, she will be Croft Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Mississippi. Her research agenda explores the sources and dynamics of political conflict and violence in the context of the Middle East, with a focus on the political behavior, attitudes and identities of ordinary individuals during times of conflict. Her book project investigates the logic of individual participation in political conflict and violence using original survey and interview research on the Palestinian national movement. Other projects include a field study examining the effect of international legal decisions on the conflict attitudes of individuals in war-torn societies, as well as a new study assessing the impact of family law on women and girls in the Islamic world. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Politics at New York University in fall 2012.