Abstract:

Aprajit Mahajan will describe findings from the first large-scale cluster randomized controlled trial in a developing country that evaluates the uptake of a health-protecting technology, insecticide-treated bednets (ITNs), through micro-consumer loans, as compared to free distribution and control conditions. Despite a relatively high price, 52% of sample households purchased ITNs, although coverage remained significantly lower than what is achieved with free distribution. Most strikingly, neither micro-loans nor free distribution led to improvements in malaria and anemia prevalence. Mahajan will examine several plausible explanations, and argue that insufficient ITN coverage was the most likely cause.

Speaker Bio:

Aprajit Mahajan is an assistant professor of economics at Stanford University with interests in development economics and econometrics. One focus of his work has been on the adoption of technologies in developing countries and he has worked on issues surrounding the adoption of health-improving technologies in rural India and the adoption of modern management practices by Indian textile firms. His methodological work has attempted to address common problems in empirical work. In particular, he has worked on problems of mismeasured data in social science settings as well as problems of model identification with limited data.

To view paper in advance of seminar, please reference: http://www.stanford.edu/~axl/RCT_short.pdf

Abstract
A global struggle for control of the Internet is now underway. At stake are no less than civil liberties, privacy and even the character of democracy in the 21^st century.

Many commentators have debated whether the Internet is ultimately a force for freedom of expression and political liberation, or for alienation, and repression. Rebecca MacKinnon moves the debate about the Internet’s political impact to a new level. It is time, she says, to stop arguing over whether the Internet empowers individuals and societies, and address the more fundamental and urgent question of how technology should be structured and governed to support the rights and liberties of all the world’s Internet users.

Rebecca MacKinnon is a Bernard L. Schwartz Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, where she conducts research, writing and advocacy on global Internet policy, free expression, and the impact of digital technologies on human rights. She is author of Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom (Basic Books, January 2012). MacKinnon is also cofounder of Global Voices, an international citizen media network. She also serves on the Boards of Directors of the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Global Network Initiative.

Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, MacKinnon worked as a journalist for CNN in Beijing for nine years and was Beijing Bureau Chief and Correspondent from 1998-2001, then served as CNN’s Tokyo Bureau Chief and Correspondent from 2001-03. From 2004-06 she was a Research Fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, where she began her ongoing research and writing about the Chinese Internet in addition to launching Global Voices with colleague Ethan Zuckerman. In 2007-08 she taught online journalism at the University of Hong Kong’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre. In 2009 she conducted research and writing as an Open Society Fellow, and in the Spring of 2010 she was a Visiting Fellow at Princeton’s Center or Information Technology Policy.

MacKinnon received her AB magna cum laude from Harvard University and was a Fullbright scholar in Taiwan in 1991-92.

Abstract:

Since the very beginning of the state formation, Angolan political elites of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) agreed that liberal democracy would be the form of government. However, in 1975 MPLA inaugurated a formal authoritarian regime that lasted until 1991. From 1991 to 2010, Angola had a democratic interim constitution and in 1992 had the first national multiparty elections as well as presidential ones of its history. In 2008, Angola held its second legislative elections and in 2010 a new and definite constitution was approved. Nevertheless, democratic development did not lead to the end of a successful democratic transition process started in 1991 or to the consolidation of democracy. The answer can probably be found in the politics of curbing democratic development, which constitutes the aim of this presentation by Professor Fernando Macedo of the Lusíada University of Angola.

Speaker Bio:

Fernando Macedo teaches political science and constitutional law at Law Faculty since 2007 and Angolan constitutional law and human rights in the department of international relations since 2006 at Lusíada University of Angola. He is currently the coordinator of the department of international relations of Lusíada University of Angola.

Fernando Macedo has co-authored with Pedro Franco Romão a book named Anotações à Lei da Prisão Preventiva em Angola, printed by Livraria Almedina of Portugal. He wrote three articles, the first one, Human Rights and Global Security, was published in Revista Brasileira de Estudos Constitucionais in 2008. The second, Civil Society and Political Power, in Sociedade Civil e Política em Angola, organized by Nuno Vidal and Justino Pinto de Andrade in 2008; and the third one, Advocacy and Citizenship, in Encontros, by the Angolan Bar Association in 2011.

Abstract:

Issues about “good governance” and anti-corruption have become central in the development and democracy agenda. While it’s clear that low-quality government institutions have negative effects on the health and wealth of societies, the criteria for what should count as good governance remain far from clear. In his new book “The Quality of Government: Corruption, Social Trust and Inequality in International Perspective”, Bo Rothstein argues that the dominant theories in this field represent serious mischaracterizations of the problem and that the standard definitions of the problem used in research as well as by many leading policy organizations are not helpful. This, he argues, has led to anti-corruption policies that are, at best, ineffective. 

Speaker Bio: 

Bo Rothstein holds the August Röhss Chair in Political Science at University of Gothenburg in Sweden where he is head of the Quality of Government (QoG) Institute. The QoG Institute consists of about twenty researchers studying the importance of trustworthy, reliable, competent and non-corrupt government institutions.

Rothstein took is PhD at Lund University in 1986 and served as assistant and associate professor at Uppsala University 1986 to 1994. He has been a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation in New York, Cornell University, Harvard University, Collegium Budapest Institute for Advanced Study, the Australian National University and the University of Washington in Seattle. In 2006, he served as Visiting Professor at Harvard University.

His latest book, The Quality of Government: Corruption, Inequality and Social Trust in International Perspective is published by University of Chicago Press in 2011. Among his earlier books in English are Social Traps and the Problem of Trust, and Just Institutions Matters: The Moral and Political Logic of the Universal Welfare State (both Cambridge University Press 1998) and The Social Democratic State (Univ. of Pittsburgh Press 1996). His articles have appeared in scholarly journals such as World Politics, Governance, Comparative Politics, Scandinavian Political Studies, American Behavioral Scientist, European Journal of Political Research and Comparative Political Studies. He is also a regular contributor to the Swedish debate about public policy and has published more than 100 op-ed articles in all major Swedish daily newspapers.

Beginning in January 2012, Rothstein will be in residence at Stanford and affilliated with the Scandinavian Consortium for Organizational Research (SCANOCOR) and the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences at Stanford. 

Abstract: 

Vote buying is widespread during multiparty elections in many African countries.  Despite its prevalence, vote buying's secretive and sensitive nature poses a challenge to empirical research on the subject.  In this talk, CDDRL Pre-Doctoral Fellow Eric Kramon will present evidence from experiments conducted in Kenya that shed light on the extent to which vote buying influences vote choice, why it is effective, how it relates to ethnic voting, and what its implications are for government responsiveness and accountability to poor voters.

Speaker Bio:

Eric Kramon is a 2011-12 pre-doctoral fellow at CDDRL and a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at UCLA. In his dissertation, he investigates vote buying during African elections. Using a set of field experiments and surveys conducted in Kenya, the project explains why vote buying persists and is effective, and examines its implications for democratic accountability and the political representation of the poor. Eric is also working on several projects about the impact of ethnic favoritism by politicians on public goods provision and general health and welfare in multiple African countries. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and published in the Journal of Democracy.