Stanford University

International Development

FSI researchers consider international development from a variety of angles. They analyze ideas such as how public action and good governance are cornerstones of economic prosperity in Mexico and how investments in high school education will improve China’s economy.

They are looking at novel technological interventions to improve rural livelihoods, like the development implications of solar power-generated crop growing in Northern Benin.

FSI academics also assess which political processes yield better access to public services, particularly in developing countries. With a focus on health care, researchers have studied the political incentives to embrace UNICEF’s child survival efforts and how a well-run anti-alcohol policy in Russia affected mortality rates.

FSI’s work on international development also includes training the next generation of leaders through pre- and post-doctoral fellowships as well as the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program.

Empowering the World: Entrepreneurship and the Future of Foreign Policy

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Please note: the start time for this event has been moved from 3:00 to 3:15pm.

Join FSI Director Michael McFaul in conversation with Richard Stengel, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. They will address the role of entrepreneurship in creating stable, prosperous societies around the world.

Richard Stengel Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Special Guest United States Department of State

Michael A. McFaul

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

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Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies, Department of Political Science
Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
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Michael McFaul is the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in Political Science, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, all at Stanford University. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995 and served as FSI Director from 2015 to 2025. He is also an international affairs analyst for MSNOW.

McFaul served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014).

McFaul has authored ten books and edited several others, including, most recently, Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder, as well as From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia, (a New York Times bestseller) Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should, How We Can; and Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin.

He is a recipient of numerous awards, including an honorary PhD from Montana State University; the Order for Merits to Lithuania from President Gitanas Nausea of Lithuania; Order of Merit of Third Degree from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, and the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Stanford University. In 2015, he was the Distinguished Mingde Faculty Fellow at the Stanford Center at Peking University.

McFaul was born and raised in Montana. He received his B.A. in International Relations and Slavic Languages and his M.A. in Soviet and East European Studies from Stanford University in 1986. As a Rhodes Scholar, he completed his D. Phil. in International Relations at Oxford University in 1991. 

International Working Group on Russian Sanctions

The International Working Group on Russian Sanctions aims to provide expertise and experience to governments and companies around the world by assisting with the formulation of sanctions proposals that will increase the cost to Russia of invading Ukraine, and support democratic Ukraine in the defense of its territorial integrity and national sovereignty.
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Global Populisms

A new project examining the global surge in populist movements and what it means for established democratic rules and institutions.
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Katherine Casey — Candidate Entry into Local Government

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The competence of elected officials affects state performance and economic growth, yet it is often difficult to find high human capital, representative citizens willing to put themselves forward as political candidates. We analyze an intervention designed to address this challenge that combines structured community nominations, private screening of technocratic skills, and information provision to political parties in advance of local elections in Sierra Leone.  Estimates show that this successfully identifies individuals who are higher quality and enjoy broader local support than incumbents and status quo candidates.  While new to elected politics, these individuals remain elite, drawn from traditional chiefly families. One quarter of top nominees formally enter politics, positively self-selected on quality and boosted by an encouragement nudge.  Their entry improves the maximum quality observed in the potential candidate pool and among those selected onto the parties’ lists. These results provide proof of concept that there are better people out there willing to run.  

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Katherine Casey is a professor of political economy at Stanford Graduate School of Business and the faculty director of the King Center on Global Development. Her research explores the interactions between economic and political forces in lower-income countries, with particular interest in the role of information in enhancing political accountability, the influence of foreign aid on economic development, and the provision of local public infrastructure. Her regional focus is Sub-Saharan Africa.

Hesham Sallam
Hesham Sallam

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Katherine Casey

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Professor of Political Economy, Stanford GSB
Faculty Director, Stanford King Center on Global Development
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Katherine Casey is Professor of Political Economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Faculty Director of the King Center on Global Development. Her research explores the interactions between economic and political forces in developing countries, with particular interest in the role of information in enhancing political accountability and the influence of foreign aid on economic development. Her work has appeared in the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, and Quarterly Journal of Economics, among others. 

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Konstantin Sonin REDS Seminar | The Reverse Cargo Cult: Why Authoritarian Governments Lie to Their People

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Why did the Soviet Union organize regular elections, national and local, with one candidate and reported 99.9% support with 99.9% turnout? Were the Soviet citizens so stupid that they did not understand that they have no say in choosing their government? The Reverse Cargo Cult metaphor explains why dictators tell their citizens lies that citizens know to be lies: a verifiable lie told by a politician changes citizens' perceptions of politicians and reduces their willingness to replace them. The model explains the mechanics of authoritarian propaganda that puts much emphasis on persuading citizens about foreign politicians.

 

Konstantin Sonin is the John Dewey Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. His research interests include political economics, economic theory, and conflict. 

Sonin earned MSc and PhD in mathematics from Moscow State University and MA in economics from Moscow’s New Economic School (NES). Before joining the University of Chicago, he served on the faculty and as a vice-president of the New Economic School and HSE University in Moscow. Over two decades, he has guest-lectured in dozens of universities, summer schools, and high schools across Russia and worked part-time as a teacher of economics in a high school.

His research has been published in leading academic outlets in economics and political science. In addition to academic work, Sonin blogs, tweets, and op-eds on Russian political and economic issues. In May 2024, Russian authorities sentenced him to 8.5 years in prison (in absentia) for posting information about the atrocities committed by Russian occupying forces in the town of Bucha in Ukraine.


REDS: RETHINKING EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENT AND SECURITY


The REDS Seminar Series aims to deepen the research agenda on the new challenges facing Europe, especially on its eastern flank, and to build intellectual and institutional bridges across Stanford University, fostering interdisciplinary approaches to current global challenges.

REDS is organized by The Europe Center and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and co-sponsored by the Hoover Institution and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.

Learn more about REDS and view past seminars here.

 

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Anna Grzymała-Busse
Anna Grzymała-Busse, Kathryn Stoner
Konstantin Sonin John Dewey Distinguished Service Professor Presenter University of Chicago
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Anna Grzymala-Busse — What Counts as a State? State Development and Fragmentation in Europe

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European state development is often used as a model for the emergence of modern nation-states and the international state system. Yet despite many accounts seeking to explain how the European state developed, there is disagreement about fundamental concepts, including what counts as “Europe” and which polities qualify as “states.” This paper examines the implications of different definitions of the European state for our understanding of political development. We give special consideration to political fragmentation, long viewed as a critical prerequisite for Europe’s development of pro-democratic and growth-promoting political institutions. We find that the distinct measures lead to very different conclusions, undermining the idea of European state formation as a uniform process.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Anna Grzymała-Busse is a professor in the Department of Political Science, the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor of International Studies, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the director of The Europe Center. Her research interests include political parties, state development and transformation, informal political institutions, religion and politics, and post-communist politics.

In her first book, Redeeming the Communist Past, she examined the paradox of the communist successor parties in East Central Europe: incompetent as authoritarian rulers of the communist party-state, several then succeeded as democratic competitors after the collapse of these communist regimes in 1989.

Rebuilding Leviathan, her second book project, investigated the role of political parties and party competition in the reconstruction of the post-communist state. Unless checked by a robust competition, democratic governing parties simultaneously rebuilt the state and ensured their own survival by building in enormous discretion into new state institutions.

Anna's third book, Nations Under God, examines why some churches have been able to wield enormous policy influence. Others have failed to do so, even in very religious countries. Where religious and national identities have historically fused, churches gained great moral authority, and subsequently covert and direct access to state institutions. It was this institutional access, rather than either partisan coalitions or electoral mobilization, that allowed some churches to become so powerful.

Hesham Sallam
Hesham Sallam

Virtual to Public. If prompted for a password, use: 123456

Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to William J. Perry Conference Room in Encina Hall may attend in person.

Anna Grzymała-Busse

Encina Hall
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA  94305

 

(650) 723-4270
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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor of International Studies
Professor of Political Science
Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
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Anna Grzymała-Busse is a professor in the Department of Political Science, the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor of International Studies, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the director of The Europe Center. Her research interests include political parties, state development and transformation, informal political institutions, religion and politics, and post-communist politics.

In her first book, Redeeming the Communist Past, she examined the paradox of the communist successor parties in East Central Europe: incompetent as authoritarian rulers of the communist party-state, several then succeeded as democratic competitors after the collapse of these communist regimes in 1989.

Rebuilding Leviathan, her second book project, investigated the role of political parties and party competition in the reconstruction of the post-communist state. Unless checked by a robust competition, democratic governing parties simultaneously rebuilt the state and ensured their own survival by building in enormous discretion into new state institutions.

Anna's third book, Nations Under God, examines why some churches have been able to wield enormous policy influence. Others have failed to do so, even in very religious countries. Where religious and national identities have historically fused, churches gained great moral authority, and subsequently covert and direct access to state institutions. It was this institutional access, rather than either partisan coalitions or electoral mobilization, that allowed some churches to become so powerful.

Anna's most recent book, Sacred Foundations: The Religious and Medieval Roots of the European State argues that the medieval church was a fundamental force in European state formation.

Other areas of interest include informal institutions, the impact of European Union membership on politics in newer member countries, and the role of temporality and causal mechanisms in social science explanations.

Global Populisms

A new project examining the global surge in populist movements and what it means for established democratic rules and institutions.
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Kingdom of Crossroads: Jordan’s Politics and the Future of Arab Democracy

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Kingdom of Crossroads: Jordan’s Politics and the Future of Arab Democracy with Sean Yom

Drawing from the author’s latest book, Jordan: Politics in an Accidental Crucible (Oxford University Press, 2025), this talk explores how the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan incubates the historical struggle for democracy in the Arab world. Here, the authoritarian monarchy has never suffered revolution or regime change. Yet the economy struggles, there is neither water nor oil, and perpetual protests punctuate the streets. An invention of British colonialism, the kingdom’s fragile borders are still buffeted by refugee crises and regional conflict, and its geopolitical fate has become encaged by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Through it all, Jordan’s past and present deliver astonishing narratives of democratic resilience. Opposition forces within society have long battled to transform their autocratic regime—only to be blunted by repression, statecraft, and Western interests. Yet these dreams and demands persist today, making Jordan a surprising fulcrum for the balance of democracy in the Middle East.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Sean Yom is Associate Professor of Political Science at Temple University and Senior Fellow at Democracy in the Arab World Now (DAWN). His research explores the dynamics of authoritarian institutions, economic development, and US foreign policy in the Middle East, with a particular focus on Jordan, Morocco, and the Gulf. His most recent books include Jordan: Politics in an Accidental Crucible (Oxford University Press, 2025) and The Political Science of the Middle East: Theory and Research since the Arab Uprisings (co-edited with Marc Lynch and Jillian Schwedler; Oxford University Press, 2022).; Oxford University Press, 2022). He sits on the editorial board of the International Journal of Middle East Studies and the editorial committee of Middle East Report. He is also a former Stanford CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow (2009-10). AB, Brown University (2003); PhD, Harvard University (2009).

Hesham Sallam
Hesham Sallam

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Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to William J. Perry Conference Room in Encina Hall may attend in person.

Sean Yom Associate Professor of Political Science Presenter Temple University
Seminars

Wednesday, March 4, 12:00 - 1:15 pm. Click here to register.

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Learning how business is done: Management styles and labour market inclusion

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Existing efforts to promote upward mobility in low-income countries focus on broadening access to education. However, evidence from Ethiopia shows that professional socialisation (learning professional norms) may be a key constraint to this mobility, even among highly educated people.

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Book Launch: Egypt's New Authoritarian Republic

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ARD Book Talk: Egypt's New Authoritarian Republic - 2.13.26

To mark the fifteen-year anniversary of Egypt's January 25 Uprising, CDDRL's Program on Arab Reform and Development (ARD) invites you to a panel discussing major findings from the recently released edited volume, Egypt's New Authoritarian Republic, edited by Robert Springborg and Abdel-Fattah Mady and published by Lynne Rienner Publishers (2025).

MODERATOR: Hesham Sallam

SPEAKERS:

  • Robert Springborg
  • Hossam el-Hamalawy
  • May Darwich

About the Speakers

Robert Springborg

Robert Springborg

Research Fellow at the Italian Insitute of International Affairs, Adjunct Professor at Simon Fraser University

Robert Springborg is a Research Fellow at the Italian Institute of International Affairs and an Adjunct Professor at Simon Fraser University. He has held various academic and consultancy positions focused on the Middle East, including the MBI Al Jaber Chair in Middle East Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and Director of the American Research Center in Egypt. He was a Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School and a Professor of Middle East Politics at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. He was a consultant on Middle East governance and politics for USAID, the U.S. State Department, the UNDP, and UK government departments, and is a member of the Rowaq Arabi Editorial Board. He is the author of Egypt (2018) and Political Economies of the Middle East and North Africa (2020). He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Egypt (2021) and co-editor of The Political Economy of Education in the Arab World (2021), The Egyptian Revolution of 1919: Legacies and Consequences of the Fight for Independence (2023), and Security Assistance in the Middle East (2023).  

Hossam El-Hamalawy

Hossam el-Hamalawy

Egyptian journalist, scholar, and activist

Hossam el-Hamalawy is an Egyptian journalist, scholar, and activist whose work focuses on the security sector, labor movements, and the political economy of militarized state power in Egypt. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the Freie Universität Berlin, where his research examined the restructuring of Egypt’s policing and military institutions following the 2013 coup.

His forthcoming book, Counterrevolution in Egypt: Sisi’s New Republic (Verso, May 2026), analyzes the consolidation of authoritarian rule through security-sector expansion and counterrevolutionary governance. El-Hamalawy has written extensively in Arabic and English on authoritarianism, social movements, and foreign policy, with work published in leading international media outlets and academic venues.

He also authors 3arabawy, a newsletter providing in-depth analysis of developments within Egypt’s military and police institutions, alongside book reviews and an accompanying audio podcast. Beyond academia and journalism, el-Hamalawy has documented labor strikes and grassroots activism for over two decades. His work bridges scholarship and activism, offering a grounded analysis of state repression and resistance in contemporary Egypt.

May Darwich

May Darwich

Associate Professor in International Relations of the Middle East at the University of Birmingham

May Darwich is Associate Professor in International Relations of the Middle East at the University of Birmingham. Her research engages Middle Eastern cases to advance debates in International Relations theory, focusing on themes such as threat perception, alliance politics, identity, and foreign policy. She is the author of Threats and Alliances in the Middle East: Saudi and Syrian Policies in a Turbulent Region (Cambridge, 2019).

Hesham Sallam
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Robert Springborg
Hossam el-Hamalawy
May Darwich
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Intertemporal risk pooling in village economies

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We propose an improved theoretically-grounded method to test for efficient risk pooling that allows for intertemporal smoothing, non-homothetic consumption, and heterogeneous risk and time preferences. Applying this method to recent panel data from Indian villages generates important new insights while confirming some earlier findings. Year-to-year smoothing of consumption takes place much more at the village level than at the individual level and occurs primarily through financial assets. While there is proportionally more smoothing of food than non-food consumption, accounting for differences in income elasticities between the two statistically eliminates this difference, indicating that risk pooling does not distort consumption choices in our study area. Finally, we find that consumption smoothing is affected jointly by income and liquid assets, and that there is no excess sensitivity to earned income.

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February 2026, 103685

Cash transfers and agency: What Nigerian couples reveal about household power

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In Nigeria, cash transfers to women increase their desire for agency but only when husbands can't see it — revealing the complex interplay between economic empowerment and social norms.

Women's empowerment remains a central development goal, with policymakers frequently using cash transfer programmes to improve women's status within households (Almås et al. 2018, Duflo 2012, Greco et al. 2025). But do these economic interventions actually change power dynamics, or do they merely shift material outcomes? Our study of married couples in rural Nigeria reveals a surprising answer: cash transfers increase women's desire for decision-making power, but this desire remains hidden.

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Meet Our Researchers: Dr. Marcel Fafchamps

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The "Meet Our Researchers" series showcases the incredible scholars at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). Through engaging interviews conducted by our undergraduate research assistants, we explore the journeys, passions, and insights of CDDRL’s faculty and researchers.

Marcel Fafchamps is a Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and a faculty member at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. Previously, he was the Satre Family Senior Fellow at FSI. He is also a Professor (by courtesy) in the Department of Economics, and his research focuses on economic development, market institutions, social networks, and behavioral economics, with a regional emphasis on Africa and South Asia. Before joining Stanford, Dr. Fafchamps served as a professor at Oxford University and spent several years in Ethiopia working with the International Labour Organization.

What inspired you to pursue research in your current field, and how did your journey lead you to CDDRL? 


My choice of research field was actually somewhat serendipitous. I wasn’t initially interested in development; I was drawn to human behavior, but not development specifically. After finishing my undergraduate studies, I went to Ethiopia for what was meant to be just one year and ended up staying nearly five. Being there completely changed my direction. As a young graduate, I suddenly had a lot of freedom. I carried out individual research, traveled on missions to several African countries, observed institutions, asked questions, and produced studies. That experience made me much more interested in international issues.

I spent the first ten years of my career at Stanford before moving to Oxford University, which had a strong research community in this field. Eventually, I decided to return, and by the time I came back in 2013, Stanford had developed a vibrant and dynamic community in this area.

What is the most exciting or impactful finding from your research, and why do you think it matters for democracy, development, or the rule of law? 


I haven’t pursued research with the aim of having a specific policy impact. I’ve always been more interested in understanding behavior — why people act the way they do — rather than focusing on whether a particular intervention changes outcomes. Without understanding the underlying mechanism, it’s hard to know whether a result will carry over to another context. 

My citations, about 33,500, are spread across a wide range of papers rather than concentrated in one or two major hits. If I had to choose the work I’m proudest of, it would be the book I wrote on market institutions in the early 2000s. Many of my papers have also been influential.
 

 If I had to choose the work I’m proudest of, it would be the book I wrote on market institutions in the early 2000s.
Marcel Fafchamps


What have been some of the most challenging aspects of conducting research in this field, and how did you overcome these challenges? 


Early on, one of the major challenges was finding a place with the right kind of support: interested colleagues, staff who could assist with fieldwork, and, especially, a community of graduate students interested in similar questions. That kind of environment takes time to build. Oxford had a very strong community with a lot of support, funding, and students working in this area. When I later returned to Stanford, we hired younger development economists and were able to build a similarly vibrant student community working on different aspects of behavior and development.

How do you see your research influencing policy or contributing to real-world change? 


Mostly through understanding behavior and what lies behind different types of decisions. That’s what matters. In addition, the direct policy impact has largely come through my students. Many have gone into academia, but many others have joined organizations like the World Bank, the IMF, or private companies. One student, for example, helped set up a commodity exchange in Ethiopia, which certainly had policy impact. So my influence on policy has been felt primarily through the work that my students go on to do.
 

My influence on policy has been felt primarily through the work that my students go on to do.
Marcel Fafchamps


How have things changed in your field since you first began your research, and how has this influenced the way you approach your work? 


Research methodologies have evolved significantly over time. In the early days, researchers did not even use surveys. Later, surveys became more rigorous, and the field moved toward panel data to follow households over longer periods. With the introduction of GPS, it became possible to work with spatial data in new and more precise ways. The emergence of randomized controlled trials marked another major shift and shaped development economics for many years, although that influence is now starting to decline. Conceptually, the growing importance of behavioral economics has also been a major change and has become increasingly central to how we study issues in economic development.

What gaps do you feel need to be addressed in your research field, and what do you anticipate you will study more in the future? 


There are always gaps. It never is a finished business. The challenges also change over time. Recently, in a very short period, many things built over our lifetimes have been undone. The question is whether to try to rebuild them or conclude that they did not work and try something else. I do not think many of the solutions being proposed now will last; they are not effective. The erosion of the rule of law is especially disturbing. Even democracies struggle with it, but in this country, it has essentially gone out the window. The neglect of international law is also profoundly shocking.

Could you elaborate on the broader shifts you’ve observed in recent years, especially the weakening of institutions and systems that once supported development and international cooperation? 


Closing down USAID is a massive change. Development institutions could certainly be improved, but shutting them down entirely is something very different. These shifts have also affected research funding. Funding has dwindled, and academic positions in development have declined. The job market in development economics overall seems to be shrinking. There is also less interest in people who study democracy, because their work would necessarily be critical of what is happening. It has been a significant backward step.

In times of uncertainty, what gives you hope for the future of your field? 


My students! Their enthusiasm has not disappeared, and the enthusiasm among researchers remains strong as well. Our international contacts remain solid, and parts of the world, especially in Europe, such as Germany and Switzerland, have not given up on these ideals. For example, Esther Duflo recently moved from MIT to Zurich, and we may see more moves like that.

Lastly, what book would you recommend for students interested in a research career in your field? 


Development economics now covers everything; it’s essentially all economics for 80 percent of the world, so there isn’t one book that summarizes it. If someone wants to start a research career focused on market institutions, I would recommend the book I wrote on that topic: Market Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa: Theory and Evidence (MIT Press, 2003). But if I had to pick a book I personally enjoyed, it would be the historian Fernand Braudel's three-volume Civilization and Capitalism, which looks at market institutions across the world from 1400 to 1800. It was eye-opening and a lot more interesting than traditional, battle-focused history.
 


As he approaches retirement at the end of 2025, Dr. Fafchamps offers insights drawn from decades of research on behavior and institutions. His legacy endures through his students and the body of research that continues to shape scholarship worldwide.

On November 14, 2025, CDDRL and the King Center on Global Development hosted "Unfinished Business: A Tribute to Marcel Fafchamps" — a full-day academic symposium celebrating the career and contributions of economist Marcel Fafchamps on the occasion of his retirement. Featuring a keynote by Marcel himself, this tribute brought together colleagues, collaborators, and students to engage with the themes and ideas that have shaped his influential work in development economics, labor markets, and social networks.

Marcel's keynote on "Behavioral Markets" can be viewed below:

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Meet Our Researchers: Dr. Marcel Fafchamps
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A conversation with Marcel Fafchamps as he reflects on the insights, challenges, and evolving institutions that have shaped his decades in development research.

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