The 2007 Nigerian Elections: Implications for the Future of Democracy
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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.
Debt for Democracy
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From a humanitarian perspective, few international policy proposals appear more compelling than debt relief for the world's poor. The poorest countries have seen their external debts spiral to the point where interest payments are crowding out desperately needed investments in roads, schools, sanitation, health care, and other social services. The majority of their people live below the poverty line, struggling to survive on a dollar or two a day. Average life expectancy is well below 60 years and declining in many countries because of AIDS. Lacking access to safe drinking water, preventive medicine, and basic education, as well as to markets, credit, and justice, people live needlessly short and degrading lives.
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Foreign Aid and the National Interest
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Since Saddam Hussein's fall from power last April, the world has learned a great deal about the consequences of his abhorrent rule: mass killings, a brutalized population, staggering corruption, an impoverished population, a devastated environment, neglected educational institutions, a miscarried justice system, and other failing governmental functions. This legacy of Saddam's horrific misrule is the most dramatic demonstration of the vital connection between the vibrancy and economic development of a people and the nature of their governing institutions. The mounting evidence of this linkage around the world must drive a revolution in the way that we administer foreign assistance.
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Russia's Foreign Policy: The Substance behind the Tough Talk
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Dmitri Trenin is a senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment, the deputy director of the Carnegie Moscow Center and chair of its Foreign and Security Policy Program. He has been with the Center since its inception in 1993.
From 1993-1997, Trenin held posts as a senior research fellow at the NATO Defense College in Rome, a visiting professor at the Free University of Brussels and a senior research fellow at the Institute of Europe in Moscow. He served in the Soviet and Russian armed forces from 1972 to 1993, including experience working as a liaison officer in the External Relations Branch of the Group of Soviet Forces Germany and as a staff member of the delegation to the U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms talks in Geneva from 1985 to 1991. He also taught at the Defense University in Moscow.
Among the books Trenin authored are Getting Russia Right (2007, forthcoming); Russia's Restless Frontier: The Chechnya Factor in Post-Soviet Russia (2004; with Aleksei V. Malashenko) and The End of Eurasia: Russia on the Border Between Geopolitics and Globalization, (2001). He edited, with Steven Miller, The Russian Military: Power and Policy (2006).
This event is co-sponsored by the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies (CREEES).
Philippines Conference Room
Dmitri Trenin
Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment and Deputy Director of the Carnegie Endowment Moscow Center
Speaker
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Russia: Rebuilding the Iron Curtain
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As an eternal optimist, I have for decades been one of those who believed that Russia could make the transition from communism to democracy, a development which in turn would help to integrate Russia into to the West. In the long run, I am still certain of this eventual outcome. In the short run, however, it is obvious that President Putin is building a more autocratic regime, an internal process that in turn has strained Russia's relations with the West.
The appropriate policy response to these new developments is not a return to containment or isolation of Russia. Rather, a more substantial agenda between the Russian and American governments would create more permissive conditions for democratic renewal inside Russia. A new American policy towards Russia must pursue both a more ambitious bilateral relationship and in parallel a more long-term strategy for strengthening Russian civil, political, and economic societies, which ultimately will be critical forces that push Russia back onto a democratizing path. As the Bush and Putin administrations wind down, grand new initiatives in U.S.-Russia relations are unlikely to unfold in the next two years. New leadership in both countries in 2008 will open a new window of opportunity to reorient the bilateral relationship along a more constructive path, which in turn will provide a more conducive environment for fostering democratic development inside Russia.
To make the case for this dual track approach for dealing with Russia, my written testimony proceeds in four parts.
- Section one describes the erosion of democracy under Putin.
- Section two explains why this more autocratic regime in Russia has not caused economic growth, produced a more effective state, or made Russian citizens more content.
- Section three outlines three false assumptions made by the Bush Administration about Russia which have impeded the emergence of a more effective U.S. policy towards Russia.
- Section four offers several concrete policy recommendations for changing the troubled bilateral relationship.
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House Committee on Foreign Relations
New Efforts to Promote Democracy
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The symposium is being organized by the Center's "Taiwan Democracy Project." It will feature participation from the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, the National Endowment for Democracy, and other publicly funded as well as civil society efforts to assist democratic development internationally.
The symposium, which will be limited in size to facilitate extensive dialogue and exchange, has several purposes. One set of purposes is informational and analytical. We want to delineate and assess what new and smaller democracy promotion organizations are doing-and what they can do effectively-to support and advance democratic development around the world. To answer the latter question, we want to distill some of what the more established democracy assistance organizations have learned over the last two decades that can be of value in guiding the strategic thinking and organizational development of these new initiatives. How should such new and emerging foundations define their priorities, and what types of grants and activities are most likely to add value to existing efforts? What countries, sectors, and problems may provide, within each region, opportunities for new democracy assistance initiatives to leverage their limited resources into a higher impact?
Second, we would like to promote, in a modest and limited way, some interaction between academic studies of democratic development and the practical efforts to assist it. The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law has embarked upon a very ambitious study of how international influences affect democratic transitions and consolidation, and we would hope to inject some of what we are learning into the discussions-and most of all, to benefit from them.
Third, we want the workshop to be practically useful to the participants. We want to explore the possibilities for cooperation and joint effort among democracy promotion efforts, small and large, new and old. How can such newer and smaller initiatives acquire the information necessary to identify and evaluate potential projects and grantees? What opportunities may exist for sharing information about potential recipients of assistance? What other forms of exchange and interaction could help new and small assistance efforts to leverage their limited resources? How can the established democracy promotion organizations benefit from some of the "ground truth" that new initiatives may accumulate and the new methods that they may develop in their work?
DAY I: Thursday May 31
Morning Session (8:30 am - 12:30 am):
Introduction
Panel 1: Established Efforts to Promote Democracy: Evolution of Strategy, Priorities, and Programs
Panel 2: New Efforts to Promote Democracy--Asia
Afternoon Session (1:30 pm - 4:45 pm):
Panel 3: New Efforts to Promote Democracy--Eastern Europe
Panel 4: New Efforts to Promote Democracy--Africa
DAY II: Friday June 1
Morning Session (9:00 am - 12:15 pm):
Panel 5: Starting New Democracy Foundations
Panel 6: What Kind of Assistance Do New and Struggling Democracies Need?
Afternoon Session (1:15 pm - 3:00 pm):
Round Table Discussion: How to Measure Success?
Closing Comments
Oksenberg Conference Room
Symposiums
DNA for Peace: The Balance Between Biosciences for Development and Security
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One of the world's greatest ethical challenges is the inequities in global health. Life expectancy in the United States is about 80 years and rising, while in many parts of the developing world, particularly in Africa as a result of HIV/AIDS, it is 40 years and falling. On the "bright side," the globalization of life sciences is key force to improve health in the developing world. For example, the rise of the Indian biotechnology industry has improved availability of vaccines and programs like the Grand Challenges in Global Health Initiative funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provide hope for upstream discovery science against global health problems. However, on the "dark side," the globalization of life sciences poses risks to global biosecurity including bioterrorism by non-state actors.
This lecture will explore how to optimize the benefits of the "bright side," and mitigate the risks of the "dark side," of the globalization of life sciences. Dr. Singer will argue that the biological case is different from the nuclear case and demands a different approach, and explore the potential role of the United Nations in enhancing global biosecurity.
Peter A. Singer is senior scientist at the McLaughlin Rotman Centre, University Health Network; professor of medicine, University of Toronto; co-director of the Canadian Program in Genomics and Global Health; and a distinguished investigator of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. He studied internal medicine at the University of Toronto, medical ethics at the University of Chicago, public health at Yale University, and management at Harvard Business School. Between 1995 and 2006, Singer was Sun Life Financial Chair in Bioethics, director of the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics, and director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Bioethics at the University of Toronto.
History Corner, Building 200, Room 002
Peter A. Singer
Senior Scientist, McLaughlin Rotman Centre, University Health Network, and Professor of Medicine
Speaker
University of Toronto
Lectures
Taiwan's China Policy and Cross-Strait Relations
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This is a CDDRL's Special Event within our Democracy in Taiwan Program.
Dr. Chen-yuan Tung is vice chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council, Republic of China (Taiwan) and associate professor at the Sun Yat-Sen Graduate Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities, National Chengchi University (Taiwan). He received his Ph.D. in international affairs from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University. His expertise focuses on economic relations between Taiwan and China, Chinese economic development, Taiwan-U.S.-China trilateral relations, and international economics.
Dr. Tung published book and book chapters including Challenges in the Era of Hu Jingtao (2002, in Chinese), The Globalization of the Chinese Economy (2002), Cross-Strait Economic Relations in the Era of Globalization (2003, in Chinese), Future China: Degenerative Totalitarianism (2004, in Chinese), Renminbi Exchange Rate: Economic and Strategic Analysis (2004, in Chinese), China Today (2005), and China as the World Factory (2006).
Philippines Conference Room
Chen-yuan Tung
Vice Chairman
Speaker
Mainland Affairs Council, ROC (Taiwan)
Seminars
Beyond Green and Blue? Reassessing and Forecasting the Dynamics of Taiwan's Politics
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Four Policy Planning Stories in Search of a Theory
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Stephen Krasner is a former director of CDDRL, former deputy director of FSI, an FSI senior fellow, and the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations at Stanford University.
Between 2004-2006, he served as the Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department. While at the State Department, Krasner was a driving force behind foreign assistance reform designed to more effectively target American foreign aid. He was also involved in activities related to the promotion of good governance and democratic institutions around the world.
At CDDRL, Krasner is the coordinator of the Program on Sovereignty. His work has dealt primarily with sovereignty, American foreign policy, and the political determinants of international economic relations. Before coming to Stanford in 1981 he taught at Harvard University and UCLA. At Stanford, he was chair of the political science department from 1984 to 1991, and he served as the editor of International Organization from 1986 to 1992.
He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (1987-88) and at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2000-2001). In 2002 he served as director for governance and development at the National Security Council. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
His major publications include Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investment and American Foreign Policy (1978), Structural Conflict: The Third World Against Global Liberalism (1985), and Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (1999). Publications he has edited include International Regimes (1983), Exploration and Contestation in the Study of World Politics (co-editor, 1999), and Problematic Sovereignty: Contested Rules and Political Possibilities (2001). He received a BA in history from Cornell University, an MA in international affairs from Columbia University and a PhD in political science from Harvard.
CISAC Conference Room
Stephen D. Krasner
CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
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skrasner@stanford.edu
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Emeritus
Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations
Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Emeritus
Stephen Krasner is the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations. A former director of CDDRL, Krasner is also an FSI senior fellow, and a fellow of the Hoover Institution.
From February 2005 to April 2007 he served as the Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department. While at the State Department, Krasner was a driving force behind foreign assistance reform designed to more effectively target American foreign aid. He was also involved in activities related to the promotion of good governance and democratic institutions around the world.
At CDDRL, Krasner was the coordinator of the Program on Sovereignty. His work has dealt primarily with sovereignty, American foreign policy, and the political determinants of international economic relations. Before coming to Stanford in 1981 he taught at Harvard University and UCLA. At Stanford, he was chair of the political science department from 1984 to 1991, and he served as the editor of International Organization from 1986 to 1992.
He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (1987-88) and at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2000-2001). In 2002 he served as director for governance and development at the National Security Council. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
His major publications include Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investment and American Foreign Policy (1978), Structural Conflict: The Third World Against Global Liberalism (1985), Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (1999), and How to Make Love to a Despot (2020). Publications he has edited include International Regimes (1983), Exploration and Contestation in the Study of World Politics (co-editor, 1999), Problematic Sovereignty: Contested Rules and Political Possibilities (2001), and Power, the State, and Sovereignty: Essays on International Relations (2009). He received a BA in history from Cornell University, an MA in international affairs from Columbia University and a PhD in political science from Harvard.
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krasner_bio_july_2021.doc
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Seminars