As prime minister, Mr. Honcharuk introduced important policy initiatives in Ukraine including the institution of business privatization processes, efforts to combat black markets, and the launch of the Anti-Raider Office to respond to cases of illegal property seizures.

“I want to thank Ambassador McFaul for the invitation to be a Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute, as well as my other colleagues – Kathryn Stoner, Larry Diamond, and Francis Fukuyama – for a very warm welcome.

“Stanford is the best place to rethink Ukraine's past and plan the future, and that's why I am especially happy to be here and add my expertise and experience to this important process.”

Prior to serving as prime minister, Honcharuk was deputy head of the Presidential Office of Ukraine and was a member of the National Reforms Council under the President of Ukraine.

As a visiting fellow at FSI, Honcharuk will also work closely with scholars in the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), which runs practitioner training programs for democracy activists in Ukraine, such as the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program.

"I am delighted to welcome Mr. Honcharuk to Stanford,” shared Kathryn Stoner, Mosbacher Director of CDDRL. “His appointment as the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Visiting Fellow continues a long tradition of FSI's and CDDRL's engagement in Ukraine. We are fortunate to have a visiting fellow who brings such a breadth of experience and expertise to our campus community and our growing network of Ukrainian leaders."

Please join us on Tuesday, November 16, at 4:00 pm for a lecture given by former Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk, Bernard and Susan Liautaud Visiting Fellow at FSI. Learn More & Register

Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) is proud to announce the incoming fellows who will be joining us in the 2021-2022 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.

Learn more about each of our fellows below.

Alejandra Aldridge

CDDRL Predoctoral Scholar, 2021-22

Image

Hometown: Southington, CT

Academic Institution: Stanford University

Discipline and degree conferral date: PhD in Political Science, expected June 2022

Shortlist of Research Interests: Presidential influence, executive politics, public opinion, democratic norms, experimental methods

Dissertation Title: Presidential Influence on Democratic Norms

What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/post-doctoral program? I admire the center's commitment to studying foundational ideas from a wide variety of perspectives, and I knew that my work could benefit greatly in that environment.

What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at the CDDRL? I look forward to finishing my dissertation that studies democratic norms in the United States, as well as developing the project further into a book project.

Fun fact: I am a CrossFitter and burpees are my favorite movement.

Aytuğ Şaşmaz

CDDRL Post-doctoral Fellow 2021-22

Image

Hometown: Istanbul, Turkey

Academic Institution: Harvard University

Discipline and degree conferral date (or expected): Government, July 2021 (expected)

Shortlist of Research Interests: Political parties, social welfare policies, local governance

Dissertation Title: Explaining the Weakness of Secular Parties in the MENA Region: The Role of Political Selection and Organizational Cohesion

What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/post-doctoral program? Certainly the people in and affiliated with the center. Looking forward to interacting with top minds on Arab democratization, Turkish politics, and political parties.

What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at the CDDRL? I am hoping to turn my dissertation chapters into two good journal publications, coming closer to turning it into a finished book manuscript, and taking the first steps into the new big project.

Fun fact: In the last 2-3 years I have become obsessed with volleyball! Both playing it and following the most important international competitions. If you see me tweeting in Turkish, I probably say something about the Turkish league (one of the best leagues in the world – especially the women's league).

Carlos Schmidt-Padilla

Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford Impact Labs (SIL), affiliated with PovGov at CDDRL, 2021-22

Image

Hometown: San Salvador, El Salvador

Academic Institution: University of California, Berkeley

Discipline and degree conferral date: Political Science (Summer 2021)

Shortlist of Research Interests: crime, human capital, migration, policing

Dissertation Title: Essays on Gangs and Development

What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/post-doctoral program? CDDRL’s interdisciplinary approach to the study of the challenges facing democratic governance and development.

What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at the CDDRL? I hope to conclude various projects on citizen security and policing in Central America and the Caribbean, as well as commence new field experiments on reducing gender-based violence in the region.

Hans Lueders

CDDRL Postdoctoral Scholar, 2021-22

Image

Hometown: Tangermuende, Germany

Academic Institution: Stanford University

Discipline and degree conferral date: Political Science (June 2021)

Shortlist of Research Interests: Migration, political representation, authoritarian regimes, democratic backsliding, European politics

Dissertation Title: Political Representation in Democratic and Autocratic Regimes

What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/post-doctoral program? The great community of scholars who work on some of the most pressing challenges that democratic governance is facing today.

What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at the CDDRL? I hope to work on a book manuscript on the political consequences of domestic migration. The book argues that domestic migration is a little-acknowledged cause of political polarization and inequality in representation. In addition, I hope to publish the three papers that are part of my dissertation.

Fun fact: I have run several half marathons in the past. One of my life goals is to run a full marathon soon.

Nicholas Kuipers

CDDRL Predoctoral Scholar, 2021-22

Image

Hometown: Falls Church, VA

Academic Institution: University of California, Berkeley

Discipline and degree conferral date: Political Science, expected 2021-22

Shortlist of Research Interests: State-building, Nation-building, Ethnic politics, Bureaucracy, Meritocracy

Dissertation Title: Failing the Test: The Politics of Civil Service Recruitment in Asia

What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/post-doctoral program? I was drawn to the CDDRL both for the group of scholars working on topics related to my research, and for the access to the broader community of researchers at Stanford. At the moment, I’m particularly interested in exploring the tensions that arise from governments’ efforts at state-building on the one hand and nation-building on the other. This is a topic on which I can envision lots of productive conversations and collaborations with folks in the broader CDDRL community.

What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at the CDDRL? I hope to finish writing my dissertation as a book manuscript and work on several related article-length projects.

Fun fact: I once coincidentally met someone in Jakarta, Indonesia who had lived in my parents’ house before they bought it.

Samantha Bradshaw

CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow, 2021-22

Image

Hometown: Kitchener, Canada

Academic Institution: Oxford

Discipline and degree conferral date (or expected): Degree completed September 2020

Shortlist of Research Interests: Disinformation, Social Media, Democracy

Dissertation Title: The Social Media Challenge for Democracy: Propaganda and Disinformation in a Platform Society

What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/post-doctoral program? I am excited by the opportunity to work with the community of scholars at the CDDRL who are thinking through some of the most critical challenges facing contemporary democracies.

What do you hope to accomplish during your nine-month residency at the CDDRL? During my nine-month residency at CDDRL I will be working on a book project looking at digital suppression and disinformation targeting activists, journalists, and minority communities.

Fun fact: I am the proud owner of a newfie-poo puppy (aka a “newdle”) named Soba.

This week we launched the long-awaited 17th year of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law's Draper Hills Summer Fellowship Program. Founded in 2005 with generous support from Bill and Phyllis Draper and Ingrid von Mangoldt Hills, Draper Hills is an executive training program for world leaders striving to promote democracy. For the next two weeks, Fellows will participate in workshops led by an interdisciplinary team of faculty to study new theories and approaches to democratic development.

Fellows in the class of 2021 were selected from among thousands of applicants for their ground-breaking work to defend democracy. These 34 leaders drawn from 30 countries around the world are pioneering new approaches and models to advance social and political change in some of the most challenging global contexts. Representing business, government, and the nonprofit sector, our fellows are working on the frontlines of democratic change to combat the global rise of authoritarianism and populism. In countries moving towards democracy, our fellows are working to institutionalize new systems and practices to support democratic transitions.

An Unconventional Year

Traditionally, Fellows would travel from their home countries to the U.S. and spend three weeks on campus at Stanford learning together. However, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the program is currently taking place virtually for the first time (for the same reasons, the program did not run in 2020). The shift to online programming posed a number of logistical obstacles – from what time to run virtual sessions when participants span over a dozen time zones to how to foster the sense of belonging and personal connections that occur more naturally in in-person settings.

To begin addressing the latter, Fellows were sent welcome packages to build excitement and foster community both within the program and at Stanford. Upon receiving hers, Aisha Yesufu of Nigeria shared, "I am so excited at the different people I'll be meeting from all over the world, and also learning from different people, lecturers, professors... It's going to be quite interesting, and, for me, that is what I am most looking forward to."

"One of the most important things I have ever been involved with."

Opening against the backdrop of the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in Afghanistan, the importance of the Draper Hills program and the need to promote democratic change is now more evident than ever.

The inaugural session for the 2021 cohort began with Francis Fukuyama introducing the fellows to several of the esteemed faculty they will be learning from over the next two weeks, including Larry Diamond, Erik Jensen, and Michael McFaul. McFaul shared that not only did he found the program, but "it is one of the most important things I have ever been involved with." Jensen later added that "participating in this program is one of the great pleasures I have every year."

More to Come

Throughout the next two weeks, our Draper Hills Fellows will examine the political development, democratic transitions, and the relationship of law to economic development, public administration, administrative law, transitional justice, food security, and global health policy, among others. The group is eager to learn, and we look forward to seeing the many great things the training they receive here will enable them to do in their home countries and beyond.

On April 21, 2021, the APARC China Program hosted Professor Erin Baggott Carter, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Southern California, and Visiting Scholar at the Stanford Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. Her program, "When Beijing Goes to Washington: Autocratic Lobbying Influence in Democracies," explored how lobbying from China and China-based companies can affect policy in the United States. Professor Jean Oi, William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics and director of the APARC China Program, moderated the event.

Professor Baggot Carter based her talk on a dataset drawn from the public records of the US Foreign Agents Registration Act, which includes over 10,000 lobbying activities undertaken by the Chinese government between 2005 and 2019. According to Baggot Carter, the evidence suggests that Chinese government lobbying makes legislators at least twice as likely to sponsor legislation that is favorable to Chinese interests. Moreover, US media outlets that participated in Chinese-government sponsored trips subsequently covered China as less threatening. Coverage pivoted away from US-China military rivalry and the CCP’s persecution of religious minorities and toward US-China economic cooperation. These results suggest that autocratic lobbying poses an important challenge to democratic integrity. Watch now: