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.

Why the United States Spends So Much More on Health Care than Other Countries: Economic, Institutional and Political Perspectives

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Abstract:

The United States spends over 17 percent of GDP on health care; the next six highest countries spend over 11 percent. This six percent differential indicates an excess spending of approximately one trillion dollars per year. Depending on the benefit from the extra spending, this suggests the possibility of a huge misallocation of resources. Also, because the federal government funds almost half of total health care spending, there are significant effects on the deficit and the debt. The main reasons for the excess are (1) the U.S. pays higher prices for drugs, devices, and equipment and higher fees to specialists and sub-specialists; (2) higher administrative costs; and (3) a more expensive mix of medical care. The seminar will focus on institutional and political explanations for the three proximate reasons.

 

Speaker Bio:

Victor R. Fuchs is the Henry J. Kaiser Jr Professor Emeritus at Stanford University, in the Departments of Economics and Health Research and Policy.  He is also a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Senior Fellow at SIEPR.  He applies economic analysis to social problems of national concern, with special emphasis on health and medical care.  He is author of nine books, the editor of six others, and has published over two hundred papers and shorter pieces.  His current research focuses on male-female differences in mortality, reform of medical education, and the future of U.S. health care.

His best known work, Who Shall Live?  Health, Economics, and Social Choice (1974; expanded edition 1998, 2nd expanded edition 2011), helps health professionals and policy makers to understand the economic and policy problems in health that have emerged in recent decades.  Other books include The Service Economy (1968), How We Live (1983), The Health Economy (1986), Women’s Quest For Economic Equality (1988), and The Future of Health Policy (1993).  He is the editor of Individual and Social Responsibility: Child Care, Education, Medical Care, and Long-term Care in America (1996).

Professor Fuchs was elected president of the American Economic Association in 1995.  He has also been elected to the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and is an Honorary Member of Alpha Omega Alpha.  He has received the John R. Commons Award, Emily Mumford Medal for Distinguished Contributions to Social Science in Medicine, Distinguished Investigator Award (Association for Health Services Research), Baxter Foundation Health Services Research Prize, and Madden Distinguished Alumni Award (New York University).  ASHE’s (American Society of Health Economists) Career Award for Lifetime Contributions to the Field of Health Economics and the RAND Corporation prize for the Best Paper published in the Forum for Health Economics and Policy are named and awarded in honor of Professor Fuchs.

This event is sponsored by the Stanford Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and the Center for Health Policy/Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research.

 

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Victor Fuchs the Henry J. Kaiser Jr Professor Emeritus Speaker Stanford University
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Diamond on deepening democratic recession

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CDDRL Director Larry Diamond addresses concerns of an intensifying democratic recession in a piece in The Atlantic. Despite recent turmoil in Ukraine and democratic breakdowns in Thailand and Turkey, among others, Diamond emphasizes the critical role economic development, globalization and the growth of civil society will play in the long-run inducement of democratic change worldwide.
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Protesters carry a large banner reading: ''Democracy'' as they participate in an anti-government protests organized by Bahrain's leading opposition Al Wefaq. Sept. 14, 2012.
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Stanford scholar examines entrepreneurship in North Africa

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In a recent report, CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow Amr Adly, with the support of the Center for International Private Enterprise, provides insight on post-revolution entrepreneurship in Egypt and Tunisia. He suggests that in order to advance their economies, governments must carry out comprehensive reforms that provide greater accessibility to formal institutional structures for the broadest base of private sector enterprises, namely, small business owners, rural enterprises, and female entrepreneurs.
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Cairo Nile city towers from Al Zamalek area just a few minutes after sunset.
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Reforming the Entrepreneurship Ecosystem in Post-Revolutionary Egypt and Tunisia

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Ongoing upheaval in Egypt and Tunisia since the 2011 revolutions indicates high levels of dissatisfaction with the political order, and expresses a deep desire for a drastic remodeling of the economic system. Well-educated young men and women still find themselves marginalized and excluded from the political and economic order in their countries. Their initial demands for freedom and social justice have hitherto gone unheeded. At the heart of the ongoing political turmoil lies the demand for a sweeping socio-economic reform that may eventually create an economy that offers inclusive-growth, higher levels of productivity and competitiveness, and more job creation. However, unless certain complex and long-term questions are tackled, it is unlikely that political reform will lead to the creation of stable democracies.

Entrepreneurship is one of the most dynamic approaches to socio-economic transformation and development. It is intimately related to private sector development, micro, small, and medium-sized enterprise policies, job creation, innovation, and competitiveness. However, unlike the study of static policy and of regulatory areas or institutions and structures, analyzing the entrepreneurship ecosystem captures a picture in motion. Tackling the question of entrepreneurship links micro-level analysis that touches upon direct barriers to entry and growth with macro-level analysis that attempts to explain the lack of dynamism, low productivity, undercapitalization and the weak prospects of growth of the broadest base of the private sector in the region. Moreover, it may provide a way out of the spiral of failed development in which Egypt and Tunisia have been caught for decades.

This report wishes to answer two questions: Why has private entrepreneurship in Egypt and Tunisia remained that underdeveloped despite decades of economic liberalization and private sector-friendly incentives and reforms? And how can the entrepreneurship ecosystem in the two countries develop to meet the high expectations of the people of having a productive and just socio-economic order? 

See the following link to view the feature service article from the two sponsoring institutions: http://www.cipe.org/publications/detail/understanding-entrepreneurship-ecosystem-tunisia-and-egypt

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Amr Adly

Economies and Identities: The Politics of Taiwan's Globalization in the Age of China

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Abstract:

For several weeks in March and April, university students in Taiwan camped out in the legislative and cabinet offices to protest the Cross-Strait Agreement on Trade in Services between China and Taiwan. Joined by hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese, spilling out to the streets, the demonstrators claim President Ma Ying-jeou negotiated the agreement with China without seeking any public input and bypassing the legislative process entirely. Implications of this historical social movement include the functioning of Taiwan's democratic institutions, which have undergone regime change but democratic consolidation remains in question. Additionally, a potential cross-strait crisis can affect U.S. - China relations in the post-Cold War era. Two important forces are also at play: China's meteoric playing-by-its-own-rules economic rise, and the evolving Taiwanese national identity after its transition to democracy. This talk will center on the national specific consequences of liberal trade and democracy for Taiwan's economic globalization and political development.

 

Speaker Bio:

Roselyn Hsueh is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Temple University and currently, Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on the politics of market reform, comparative capitalism, development, and other areas of international and comparative political economy. (Her publications include China's Regulatory State: A New Strategy for Globalization (Cornell University Press, 2011) and "China and India in the Age of Gloablization: Sectoral Variation in Postliberalization Reregulation," Comparative Political Studies 45 (2012): 32-61. She received her Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley and has served as a Hayward on R. Alker Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Southern California and conducted research as a U.S. Fulbright Scholar at the Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

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Roselyn Hsueh Assistant Professor Speaker Department of Political Science, Temple University
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Contemporary Challenges in Global Public Health: A Discussion on How Health is an Integral Aspect of the Overall Development and Sustainability Landscape

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For nearly 70 years, CARE has been serving individuals and families in the world's poorest communities. Today, they work in 84 countries around the world, with projects addressing issues from education and healthcare to agriculture and climate change to education and women's empowerment. Helene Gayle, president and CEO of CARE USA, will discuss her work with CARE and her experiences in the field of international development. Dr. Gayle will discuss how access to global health is integral to CARE's effort in addressing the underlying causes of extreme global poverty.

Dr. Michele Barry, director of the Center for Innovation in Global Health, will moderate a conversation between CARE President and CEO, Dr. Helene Gayle and former Prime Minister of Norway and United Nations Special Envoy, Dr. Gro Brundtland. 

This event is sponsoredy by CARE USA, the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and the Haas Center for Public Service.

A reception will follow the event. 

Dr. Gro Brundtland Bio:

Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland is the former prime minister of Norway and the current deputy chair of The Elders, a group of world leaders convened by Nelson Mandela and others to tackle the world’s toughest issues. She was recently appointed as the Mimi and Peter E. Haas Distinguished Visitor for spring 2014 at the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford University. Dr. Brundtland has dedicated over 40 years to public service as a doctor, policymaker and international leader. She was the first woman and youngest person to serve as Norway’s prime minister, and has also served as the former director-general of the World Health Organization and a UN special envoy on climate change.

Her special interest is in promoting health as a basic human right, and her background as a stateswoman as well as a physician and scientist gives her a unique perspective on the impact of economic development, global interdependence, environmental issues and medicine on public health.

 Dr. Helene Gayle Bio:

Helene D. Gayle joined CARE USA as president and CEO in 2006. Born and raised in Buffalo, New York, she received her B.A. from Barnard College of Columbia University, her M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and her M.P.H. from Johns Hopkins University. After completing her residency in pediatric medicine at the Children's Hospital National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., she entered the Epidemic Intelligence Service at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, followed by a residency in preventive medicine, and then remained at CDC as a staff epidemiologist.

At CDC, she studied problems of malnutrition in children in the United States and abroad, evaluating and implementing child survival programs in Africa and working on HIV/AIDS research, programs and policy. Dr. Gayle also served as the AIDS coordinator and chief of the HIV/AIDS division for the U.S. Agency for International Development; director for the National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention, CDC; director of CDC's Washington office; and health consultant to international agencies including the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank and UNAIDS. Prior to her current position, she was the director of the HIV, TB and reproductive health program for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Hewlett 201
Hewlett Teaching Center
370 Serra Mall
Stanford, CA 94305

Dr. Gro Brundtland Mimi and Peter E. Haas Distinguished Visitor Panelist Haas Center for Public Service, Stanford University
Dr. Helene Gayle President and CEO Panelist CARE USA
Michele Barry Director Moderator Center for Innovation in Global Health
Conferences

Is There an Emerging Crisis of Democracy?

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Abstract:

Political polarization has paralyzed the functioning of democracy in Thailand, Bangladesh, and Taiwan, where students have recently occupied the parliament building.  Civil liberties and political opposition are under intensified assault by an abusive prime minister in Turkey.  Indian democracy is increasingly diminished by brazen corruption and rent-seeking. Several African democracies have failed, and others are slipping.  The Arab Spring has largely imploded, and Egypt is in the grip of military authoritarian rule more repressive than anything the country has seen in decades.  After invading and swallowing a piece of Ukraine, Russia now poses a gathering threat to its democratic postcommunist neighbors.  For the eighth consecutive year, Freedom House finds that the number of countries declining in freedom have greatly exceeded the number improving.  And most of the advanced industrial democracies, including the United States, seem unable to address their long-term fiscal and other policy challenges.  Is there an emerging global crisis of democracy?  And if so, why?

Speaker Bio:

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, where he directs the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. Diamond also serves as the Peter E. Haas Faculty Co-Director of the Haas Center for Public Service at Stanford. He is the founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy and also serves as Senior Consultant (and previously was co-director) at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy. During 2002-3, he served as a consultant to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and was a contributing author of its report Foreign Aid in the National Interest. He has also advised and lectured to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other governmental and nongovernmental agencies dealing with governance and development. His latest book, The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World (Times Books, 2008), explores the sources of global democratic progress and stress and the prospects for future democratic expansion.

 

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Larry Diamond

CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C147
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 724-6448 (650) 723-1928
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Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science and Sociology
diamond_encina_hall.png MA, PhD

Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford, where he lectures and teaches courses on democracy (including an online course on EdX). At the Hoover Institution, he co-leads the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and participates in the Project on the U.S., China, and the World. At FSI, he is among the core faculty of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, which he directed for six and a half years. He leads FSI’s Israel Studies Program and is a member of the Program on Arab Reform and Development. He also co-leads the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He served for 32 years as founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy.

Diamond’s research focuses on global trends affecting freedom and democracy and on U.S. and international policies to defend and advance democracy. His book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency, analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the United States and around the world at this potential “hinge in history,” and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad.  A paperback edition with a new preface was released by Penguin in April 2020. His other books include: In Search of Democracy (2016), The Spirit of Democracy (2008), Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (1999), Promoting Democracy in the 1990s (1995), and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria (1989). He has edited or coedited more than fifty books, including China’s Influence and American Interests (2019, with Orville Schell), Silicon Triangle: The United States, China, Taiwan the Global Semiconductor Security (2023, with James O. Ellis Jr. and Orville Schell), and The Troubling State of India’s Democracy (2024, with Sumit Ganguly and Dinsha Mistree).

During 2002–03, Diamond served as a consultant to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and was a contributing author of its report, Foreign Aid in the National Interest. He has advised and lectured to universities and think tanks around the world, and to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other organizations dealing with governance and development. During the first three months of 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. His 2005 book, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, was one of the first books to critically analyze America's postwar engagement in Iraq.

Among Diamond’s other edited books are Democracy in Decline?; Democratization and Authoritarianism in the Arab World; Will China Democratize?; and Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy, all edited with Marc F. Plattner; and Politics and Culture in Contemporary Iran, with Abbas Milani. With Juan J. Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset, he edited the series, Democracy in Developing Countries, which helped to shape a new generation of comparative study of democratic development.

Download full-resolution headshot; photo credit: Rod Searcey.

Former Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Faculty Chair, Jan Koum Israel Studies Program
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Explaining Dominance: The Sources of Long-Lived One-Party Rule in Electorally Contested Regimes

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Abstract:

Why do some ruling parties last in power for decades despite facing regular, contested elections?  Well-known examples include the PRI in Mexico, the LDP in Japan, the PAP in Singapore, and the ANC in South Africa. The existence of these long-lived “dominant parties” raises normative concerns: can we really call these regimes democratic if there is never, or rarely, ruling party turnover? They also present a theoretical puzzle: if opposition parties are able to contest elections that decide who rules, why do they consistently fail to win? In this talk, I approach these questions by focusing on variation in ruling party duration.  Drawing on a combination of quantitative and qualitative evidence, I show that “dominant” parties are typically the first to hold office in a new regime, and often have played a central role in founding it.  As a consequence, these ruling parties frequently start out with enormous electoral advantages over their competitors in the party system, including a strong party “brand,” a disciplined and well-resourced party organization, and the ability to shape and manipulate the rules of competition. These advantages allow them to endure in power by winning consecutive elections for a generation or more.  Only with the erosion of these advantages do elections become more competitive, and the risk of ruling party defeat increases. Once dominant parties are defeated, subsequent partisan competition becomes much more even, and regular rotation in power becomes the norm.  Thus, one-party dominance is best thought of as a kind of temporary “adolescence” on the way to fully consolidated democracy.  

Speaker Bio:

Kharis Templeman received a BA (2002) from the University of Rochester and a Ph.D. in political science (2012) from the University of Michigan. A fluent Mandarin speaker, he has lived, worked, and traveled extensively in both Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China.  As a graduate student, he worked in Taipei at the Election Study Center, National Cheng Chi University, and later was a dissertation research fellow at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy.  His dissertation examined the development of Taiwan’s competitive party system from a comparative perspective, including a large study of the origins and decline of dominant party systems around the world over the last 60 years.

Current research interests include democratization, party system development in newly-contested regimes, and political institutions, with a regional focus on the new and transitioning democracies of Pacific Asia.  He is currently a regional manager for the Varieties of Democracy project.  Other ongoing collaborations include research on constitutional design for divided societies, on the arms-allies tradeoff in client states, and on intra-tribal voting coordination in elections in Jordan.

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Kharis Templeman Speaker
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State Building Outside-In

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There is no consensus in the policy or academic worlds about what kind of interventions are most effective in promoting governance in badly governed polities.   The three major approaches to understanding state development — modernization theory, institutional capacity, and rational choice institutionalism suggest very different approaches.   While modernization theory is most expansive about the possibilities for external action, its record over time is the most problematic.   Rational choice institutionalism, in contrast, suggests that in rent-seeking exclusive orders the opportunities for external actors are limited.  Rational choice institutionalism, however, does not provide a clear mapping of mixed order polities, ones in which the interests of political elites are torn between open access and rent-seeking.
 
Speaker Bio:
 
Stephen Krasner is the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations, the Senior Associate Dean for the Social Sciences, School of Humanities & Sciences, and the deputy director of FSI. 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.

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Stephen D. Krasner

CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 723-0676 (650) 724-2996
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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
krasner.jpg MA, PhD

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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Stephen Krasner Speaker
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Open Budgets: The Political Economy of Transparency, Participation and Accountability

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Abstract:

Decisions about “who gets what, when, and how” are perhaps the most important that any government must make. So it should not be remarkable that around the world, public officials responsible for public budgeting are facing demands—from their own citizenry, other government officials, economic actors, and increasingly from international sources—to make their public financial management more transparent and their decision-making around budgets more participatory. Surprisingly, rigorous analysis of the causes and consequences of fiscal openness is thin at best. Open Budgets seeks to fill this gap in existing knowledge by answering a set of key empirical questions: How and why do improvements in fiscal transparency and participation come about? How are they sustained over time? When and how do increased fiscal transparency and participation lead to improved government responsiveness and accountability? Theoretically, it seeks to examine the relationships between fiscal openness and democracy, development and the rule of law.

Speaker Bio:

Dr. Sanjeev Khagram is the holder of the $12million endowed John Parke Young Chair in Global Political Economy at Occidental College, and also currently a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. He was previously Professor and Director of the Center for International Development at the University of Washington, Visiting Professor at Stanford's Institute of International Studies, Wyss Visiting Professor at the Harvard Business School, and Assistant and Associate Professor at Harvard's JFK School of Government.  Khagram has published widely including authoring the award winning book, "Dams and Development," co-editing the volumes "Restructuring World Politics," and, "The Transnational Studies Reader," as well as writing numerous peer reviewed articles including, "Inequality and Corruption," in the American Sociological Review and, "Future Architectures of Global Governance," in Global Governance. In the world of practice, Khagram was Deputy Secretary General of the World Commission on Dams (where he authored the widely acclaimed Final Report of the Commission), Dean of the Desmond Tutu Peace Center, and Author of the UN Secretary General's Report on the Impacts of the Global Economic Crisis in 2009.  Most recently, Dr. Khagram was the Architect/Coordinator of the mullti-stakeholder Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency and Founder/Head of Innovations for Scaling Impact. He has worked with global networks, multi-stakeholder initiatives, international agencies, governments, corporations, civil society organizations, professional organizations and universities all over the world. Dr. Khagram received his BA, MA, PhD Minor and PhD all from Stanford University.

 

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Sanjeev Khagram John Parke Young Chair in Global Political Economy Speaker Occidental College
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