Does the Law Have a Sense of Humor?
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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.
Undemocratic Outcomes of Uganda's Return to Multi-partyism
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In 2005, a national referendum returned Uganda to multi-party competition, lifting a ban on the activities of political parties that had been in place since the National Resistance Movement took power in 1986.
The decision to restore formal pluralistic competition was arrived at in large part by international pressure on the government of President Yoweri Museveni.
However, five years later, as Uganda heads into its second round of elections under a multi-party system next year, the country is less “democratic” and has been described as a virtual one party state.
In some instances, observers have commented that the Ugandan parliament under the single-party “Movement” system had more bite than the current multiparty plebiscite, which is little more than a rubberstamp of the ruling National Resistance Movement.
What explains the apparent failure of the multi-party era to advance real democratic reforms in Uganda?
Angelo Izama is an investigative reporter at the Daily Monitor, Uganda's only independent newspaper, as well as a radio talk show panelist, researcher, consultant and analyst on security and governance in the Great Lakes Region of East Africa. In his 7-year career in the media he has also worked as a radio producer, host, news manager and multi-media journalist for the Nation Media Group in Uganda. He has been a frequent commentator on current affairs for international news agencies including the BBC, Reuters, Al-Jazeera, AFP and African-based organizations. Mr. Izama was a fall 2007 Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, where he proposed and assessed regional options for peace in Northern Uganda regarding the Lords Resistance Army. In 2008 he founded Fanaka Kwa Wote, a Ugandan-based think tank, to advance research on human security and democracy in the Great Lakes region.
In the course of his career, Mr. Izama has covered topics including national elections in 2001 and 2005, the conflict in Northern Uganda, internal security, corruption, and most recently, issues surrounding the discovery of oil in western Uganda. In 2009 he filed a case using Uganda's Access to Information Act to compel the government to make public the details of oil Production Sharing Agreements signed with foreign oil companies. The case was dismissed in February, on the same day Mr. Izama was arrested and charged with criminal libel in Ugandan courts over his critical writing.
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
Angelo Izama
Investigative Reporter
Speaker
Daily Monitor, Uganda
Seminars
Elizabeth Eagen on human rights, evidence-based policymaking, and donor support for technology innovation
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Elizabeth Eagen introduced the Human Rights Data Initiative at the Open Society Institute - a project to support human rights organizations in using technology to further their goals.
The management of information is crucial to human rights work but the majority of organizations are at a very early stage of being able to utilize new technologies. For organizations tracking human rights violations, the stream of work is continuous and leaves little time for strategic thinking about the adoption of new tools.
When thinking about the role of technology, there has been a tendency for human rights organizations to focus on the way that they communicate their work more widely; for example, investing in a better website design. This neglects more fundamental issues around the management of the core databases and information flows that drive human rights work. Many of the current developments in the field of technology for development enable organizations to communicate issues in a powerful way. Visualizations using satellite data - for example to show the extent of damage resulting from conflict in Georgia - are an effective way of conveying a situation quickly. But they lack the details human rights organizations require: who was attacked and when; are the buildings civilian or military targets? There is really no substitute for the kind of human evidence required to build a convincing case that human rights violations have taken place. Often much of this case is paper based. This presents a real challenge of how to capture all of this history and make it manageable.
The Human Rights Data Initiative project is in the process of giving human rights organizations in the Open Society Institute network the opportunity to think about what kind of technology tools might contribute best to their work. This project requires gaining a better understanding of how the organization operates and what barriers might exist to utilizing technology. This might be something as basic as poor internet connection or as complex as an overall organizational culture. The goal is for human rights groups in the network to reach a position where they better understand their technology needs and how best to fill them.
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Matt Halprin and Stephen King on using technology to catalyze large-scale social change
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Matt Halprin is a Partner leading Omidyar Network's Media and Stephen King is the Director of Investments and is based in London. They introduced us to the work of Omidyar Network which invests in market-based efforts to give people the technology tools they need to improve their lives.
The network was set up in 2004 by Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay, and his wife Pam. It comprises both a venture capital fund and a grant-making foundation. The network has a strong focus on individual empowerment and is committed to market-based solutions, believing that business is one of the best mechanisms for achieving sustainable social impact. Omidyar looks to invest in projects that have potential to impact large numbers of people and that show signs of real innovation - for example, new business models or new markets.
So far $307 million has been committed, with $138 million going to for-profit investments and $169 million to non-profit grants. There are two broad areas of focus:
- Access to capital: This encompasses projects around microfinance, entrepreneurship and property rights.
- Media, markets and transparence: This encompasses projects around social media, marketplaces and government transparency. Omidyar are particularly interested in the role of journalism in ensuring accountability of governments.
Projects in the Unities States include:
- The Sunlight Foundation - works to make information about Congress and Federal government more accessible and meaningful to citizens; created the first searchable site for all federal government contracts to monitor where money is going.
- Global Integrity - uses quantitative and qualitative analysis to provide a scorecard tracking governance and corruption in different countries.
In the developing world, Omidyar looks to supports access to greater information and government transparency, which it views as key drivers of prosperity. The network is supporting global organizations, national partners in three African countries (Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya) and is establishing a pan-African mechanism for smaller grants. Current global projects include:
- Ushahidi - an open source platform to report and share data in the aftermath of a crisis. Omidyar will be working to help Ushahidi to build traffic to the site and to tackle the challenge of verifying reports.
- Infonet - a web portal that acts as an information hub for all national and devolved budgets in Kenya; currently used by NGOs, citizen groups and the media.
- Mzalendo - a one stop shop for citizens to track the activities of parliamentarians in Kenya.
- FrontlineSMS - a two way communication tool using laptops and mobile phones for organizations without internet access.
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Special Panel Discussion within our Democracy in Taiwan Program
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Dan Blumenthal is a resident fellow at American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. He is a current commissioner and former vice chairman of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, where he directs efforts to monitor, investigate, and provide recommendations on the national security implications of the economic relationship between the two countries. Previously, he was senior director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia in the Secretary of Defense's Office of International Security Affairs and practiced law in New York prior to his government service. At AEI, in addition to his work on the national security implications of U.S.-Sino relations, he coordinates the Tocqueville on China project, which examines the underlying civic culture of post-Mao China. Mr. Blumenthal also contributes to AEI's Asian Outlook series. Kao-cheng Wang received his Ph.D. in Political Science from University of Pennsylvania. He is Professor and former Director of Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies, Tamkang University, Taipei. Suisheng Zhao is Professor at the Graduate School of International Studies and Executive Director of the Center for China-US Cooperation, University of Denver. He is a member of the Board of Governors of the US Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific, a member of the National Committee on US-China Relations, and a Research Associate at the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University. He is the founding editor of the Journal of Contemporary China. |
Oksenberg Conference Room
Dan Blumenthal
Fellow
Speaker
American Enterprise Institute
Kao-cheng Wang
Professor, Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies
Speaker
Tamkang University
Suisheng Zhao
Professor, Graduate School of International Studies
Speaker
University of Denver
Conferences
Thinking About Foreign Aid: Development Assistance in Failed and Recovering States
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Join the Stanford Association for International Development in exploring issues of development and post-conflict health on February 20th in Annenberg Auditorium with Andrew Natsios, the Director of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) from 2001-2005, and four expert panels of academics, NGO organizers, and government officials. Panels include:
- Humanitarian Intervention: The Question of Sovereignty
- The Spread of Infectious Disease in the Wake of Conflict
- The Psychological Scars of War
- Refuges and Refugees: Children in Conflict Zones
We are excited to have thirteen expert speakers, a large and talented staff, and all of you as our guests. We hope to see you there!
Made possible by our sponsors: Office of Global Health; Center for Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law; Stanford Association for International Development; Bingham Grant; VPUE; Humanities & Sciences; Stanford in Government; ASSU Undergraduate Senate; ASSU Speaker's Bureau
Annenberg Auditorium
Lou Henry Hoover Building
Andrew Natsios
Director of the US Agency for International Development
Keynote Speaker
USAID
Conferences
Exporting U.S. Criminal Justice
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Abstract
In the years leading up to and following the end of the Cold War, the U.S. government embarked on a new legal transplant project, carried out through the foreign promotion of U.S. criminal justice techniques, procedures, and transnational crime priorities. Over the course of the 1990s, U.S. foreign criminal justice development initiatives rapidly expanded. This Article seeks to answer two questions, which to date remain largely unaddressed in the relevant scholarly literatures: Why, in the Cold War's wake, when the U.S. criminal justice system had come to be viewed in significant respects in terms of failure, did U.S. criminal law development programs take shape and proliferate? What have been the associated outcomes?
In discussing the paper it would be most useful to discuss the Introduction, Parts I, II.A-C4a, (skipping II.C.4.b&c), Part III.B (skipping part III.A), and the Conclusion section. Included is a table of contents and hope that helps this make sense: basically, if time doesn't permit a skim through the whole article, read 1-35, 42-44, and 55-74 (skipping 36-41 and 45-54).
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
Allegra McLeod
Post Doctoral Fellow
Speaker
Program on Global Justice at Stanford University
Workshops
The Challenges of China's ICT Policies
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Since the inception of reform and opening-up thirty years ago, China has established a record of astonishing economic achievements and is, or will soon be, surpassing Japan as the world's second largest economy, something few people would have imagined three decades ago.
The information and communications technologies (ICT) industry is the backbone of the Chinese export driven growth strategy, which many argue as the primary driver of China's economic growth. Recent ICT policy initiatives demonstrate China's shifting strategy in pursuing a different path for the next phase of economic growth.
Promoting indigenous innovation and strengthening information security may be considered the two major thrusts of Chinese ICT policy initiatives. Technical standards, IPR treatments, government procurement, and special industry incentives are some examples of the former domain; internet filtering, compulsory certification of information security product, and encryption control are examples of the latter.
Many of these initiatives are controversial in the international trade arena. However, the real challenges of these policy initiatives concern whether they work to achieve the Chinese government's goal of maintaining sustainable growth. This presentation will attempt to evaluate these challenges.
Dr. John C. Chiang was appointed as Director of Global Innovation Research Center at Peking University in June 2008. He joined PKU in February 2006 as Professor in the Department of Management of Technology at the School of Software and Microelectronics. Dr. Chiang is also President of USITO, the organization representing five major US IT industry trade associations and close to 50 individual U.S. IT companies in China, a role he has held since October 2008.
Dr. Chiang came to China in 2000, joining Motorola China as Deputy GM of the infrastructure business unit, spearheading its post-WTO strategy. He then moved to Motorola China HQ, serving as Senior Director of Strategy and Business Development. In 2003, he served as Director of Motorola China R&D Institute, and in 2004, he became the founding president of Motorola (China) Technologies, Limited.
From October 2006 to September 2008, Dr. Chiang was a Partner in DragonBridge Capital, a U.S.-based merchant bank with China as its primary serving market.
Dr. Chiang was born in Beijing, raised in Taiwan, and received the Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1975. He received the EMBA from Georgia State University in 1989.
After his academic career, Dr. Chiang joined Bell Laboratories in 1979, and later held progressive technical and managerial positions at Racal-Milgo, Hayes, and GTE. He was Senior Vice President of Operations at KG Telecom and led the launch of the first private mobile services in Taiwan, during 1997-2000.
Dr. Chiang currently also serves as the Vice Chair of the China Association of Standards and as an Investment Advisor to the Beijing Municipal Government.
Philippines Conference Room
John C. Chiang
Director, Global Innovation Research Center
Speaker
Peking University
Seminars
Exploring the Missing Link Between Liberalization and Democratization in the Middle East
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One of the routine assumptions of students of democratization has been that there is a close, causal relationship between liberalization and democratization. The former is said to drive those who concede it toward convoking credible elections and, eventually, tolerating ruler accountability to citizens. The link between those processes of regime transformation is alleged to be the mobilization of civil society. It has been argued that the weakness or absence of this linkage is one (among many) of the conditions which make the polities of the Middle East and North Africa resistant to democratization. We propose to open a public discussion on this topic.
Philippe Schmitter is Professor Emeritus at the European University Institute (EUI), and was on the faculty of the EUI from 1996 to 2004, after ten years at Stanford University. He is also a recurrent visiting professor at the Central European University in Budapest, at the Istituto delle Scienze Humanistiche in Florence and the University of Siena.
He has been vice-president of the American Political Science Association and the recipient of numerous professional awards and fellowships, including a Guggenheim in 1978, the award for lifetime achievement in European politics by the ECPR in 2008, and the award for lifetime achievement in the study of European integration by EUSA in 2009.
Sean Yom is a Hewlett Postdoctoral Fellow at CDDRL at Stanford University. He finished his Ph.D. at the Department of Government at Harvard University in June 2009, with a dissertation entitled "Iron Fists in Silk Gloves: Building Political Regimes in the Middle East". His primary research explores the origins and durability of authoritarian regimes in this region, focusing on the historical interplay between early social conflicts and Western geopolitical interventions.
Encina Ground Floor Conference Room
Philippe C. Schmitter
CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
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Visiting Scholar 2010
Philippe C. Schmitter is a visiting scholar at CDDRL during winter quarter 2010. Since 1967 he has been successively assistant professor, associate professor and professor in the Politics Department of the University of Chicago, then at the European University Institute (1982-86) and at Stanford (1986-96). He was Professor of Political Science at the European University Institute in Florence, Department of Political and Social Sciences until September 2004. He is now Emeritus of the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute.
He has been visiting professor at the Universities of Paris-I, Geneva, Mannheim and Zürich, and Fellow of the Humboldt Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation and the Palo Alto Centre for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences.
He has published books and articles on comparative politics, on regional integration in Western Europe and Latin America, on the transition from authoritarian rule in Southern Europe and Latin America, and on the intermediation of class, sectoral and professional interests.
His current work is on the political characteristics of the emerging Euro-polity, on the consolidation of democracy in Southern and Eastern countries, and on the possibility of post-liberal democracy in Western Europe and North America.
Recently, Professor Schmitter was awarded the The Johan Skytte Prize in political science (2009).
He earned his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley.
Sean Yom
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CDDRL Hewlett Fellow 2009-2010
Sean Yom finished his Ph.D. at the Department of Government at Harvard University in June 2009, with a dissertation entitled "Iron Fists in Silk Gloves: Building Political Regimes in the Middle East." His primary research explores the origins and durability of authoritarian regimes in this region. His work contends that initial social conflicts driven by strategic Western interventions shaped the social coalitions constructed by autocratic incumbents to consolidate power in the mid-twentieth century--early choices that ultimately shaped the institutional carapaces and political fates of these governments. While at CDDRL, he will revise the dissertation in preparation for book publication, with a focus on expanding the theory to cover other post-colonial regions and states. His other research interests encompass contemporary political reforms in the Arab world, the historical architecture of Persian Gulf security, and US democracy promotion in the Middle East. Recent publications include articles in the Journal of Democracy, Middle East Report, Arab Studies Quarterly, and Arab Studies Journal.
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