Governance

FSI's research on the origins, character and consequences of government institutions spans continents and academic disciplines. The institute’s senior fellows and their colleagues across Stanford examine the principles of public administration and implementation. Their work focuses on how maternal health care is delivered in rural China, how public action can create wealth and eliminate poverty, and why U.S. immigration reform keeps stalling. 

FSI’s work includes comparative studies of how institutions help resolve policy and societal issues. Scholars aim to clearly define and make sense of the rule of law, examining how it is invoked and applied around the world. 

FSI researchers also investigate government services – trying to understand and measure how they work, whom they serve and how good they are. They assess energy services aimed at helping the poorest people around the world and explore public opinion on torture policies. The Children in Crisis project addresses how child health interventions interact with political reform. Specific research on governance, organizations and security capitalizes on FSI's longstanding interests and looks at how governance and organizational issues affect a nation’s ability to address security and international cooperation.

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Abstract:

By design, policing in China is a centralized affair in which local bureaus are ultimately held accountable to the Ministry of Public Security in Beijing. In reality, policing practices vary dramatically across region and issue area, even within provinces. This fragmentation is deeply entrenched in the bureaucracy, creating enforcement problems that vex upper level officials and aggravate public dissatisfaction while simultaneously opening up opportunities for lower level innovation. Drawing from over 100 interviews with 51 police officers at the central, provincial, and local levels, I examine fragmentation of the police bureaucracy by parsing out observable patterns of control over the local level and analyzing the ways in which the central government's exercise of power both helps and hinders policing on the ground.

 

Speaker Bio:

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Suzanne is a pre-doctoral fellow at CDDRL and a PhD candidate in political science at the University of California, Berkeley. A scholar of reform era China, her research is driven by interests in ground-level governance and authoritarian power structures. Her dissertation, "Policing China: Struggles of Law, Order, and Organization for Ground-Level Officers," maps the everyday challenges faced by local officers and their supervising authorities. Exploring the tensions between central government planning and the officers who enforce law on the ground provides insight into China's political reform and local state stability. Her work has appeared in PS: Political Science and Politics and China Quarterly (forthcoming).

Seminars
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******* LOCATION CHANGE******* New Location - Philippines Conference Room , 3rd Floor, Encina Hall

 

ABSTRACT

After China’s new leadership took office in 2012, rule of law, as a powerful tool to re-shape state governance, was back to the stage as a focus of the ruling Party of China. There are a number of reform steps taken, and the political implication behind the veil is significant. This presentation will analyze the major reform steps to strengthen the rule of law and the debates in recent two years, especially judicial reform and anti-corruption. In addition, it will interpret the reform blueprint on rule of law issued by both the 3rd and 4th plenary sessions of the 18th CPC Congresses.

SPEAKER BIO

Qing Gu is the Team Leader of the Poverty, Equity and Governance Team of the United Nations Development Programme in China. She manages the governance, poverty reduction and equity portfolio of UNDP’s development assistance to China. She ensures that the portfolio brings transformational change at the request of China in democratic governance, civil society development, rule of law, public administration reform as well as poverty reduction and equity. She bridges the government, think tanks, civil society and the private sector in absorbing the best international expertise, knowledge and policy advice, to fulfill UNDP’s mission to make the Chinese people live better lives in a strengthened governance system, and enjoy democratic, equitable and sustainable development. Qing was previously a division director responsible for international cooperation at the Ministry of Justice of China. She was a Chevening scholar and received her Master Degree with overall distinction at the Faculty of Law of Oxford University in 2006. She assisted the research on organized crime at the Center for Criminology of Oxford University in 2007 and 2008. Qing was a Draper Hills Fellow at the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law in 2013.

Philippines Conference Room

3rd Floor , Encina Hall Central

 

Gu Qing Team Leader in Poverty, Equity and Governance, United Nations Development Programme
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Stanford’s Program on Human Rights in the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is collaborating with U.S. Fund for UNICEF and the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health to present the Children’s Human Rights Seminar Series for 2014-2015.

This monthly series will bring together UNICEF representatives, academic experts, and global civil society leaders to discuss some of the most pressing issues facing children today. Each event will highlight one of UNICEF's main programmatic areas, in the following order: emergency response, HIV/AIDS, disabilities, child protection, nutrition, water and sanitation, health and immunizations, and education.

CISAC Central, 2nd Floor, Encina Hall

Erica Kochi UNICEF Innovation
Eric Talbert Director Emergency USA
Brad Adams Director Human Rights Watch Asia
Eric Weiss Emergency Medicine Moderator Stanford Medical Center
Seminars
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Please note that this CDDRL seminar will be held on Wednesday. 

 

Abstract:

Recent estimates place half of the world’s poorest people in fragile and conflict-affected states by 2015. As the world moves towards the next phase of global development goals, which includes a central emphasis on eradicating extreme poverty, it will be necessary to understand the challenges for countries in the most difficult contexts. Is addressing and resolving fragility a condition (or precondition) for successfully addressing poverty?  Or, are there ways to significantly and sustainably reduce poverty even while countries remain fragile?

USAID is seeking to answer these questions as it recommits to working with its partners to end extreme poverty by 2030. And while we acknowledge that ending extreme poverty will not be easy, progress and gains already achieved over the past couple of decades have made us certain that it is possible. As the global community coalesces around this goal, USAID seeks to increase shared understanding of the nature of extreme poverty, where there has been success and why, and what we are already doing and will need to do differently to catalyze and invest in global solutions.

 

Speaker Bio: 

Alex Thier
Alex Thier is USAID’s assistant to the Administrator for Policy, Planning, and Learning (PPL). The PPL Bureau is USAID’s center for policy development, strategic planning, learning and evaluation, and partner engagement. From June 2010‐ June 2013, Thier served as assistant to the administrator for Afghanistan and Pakistan affairs, overseeing USAID’s two largest missions in the world.
Before joining USAID, Thier served with the U.S. Institute of Peace as senior rule of law adviser and director for Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2005‐ 2010. While at the Institute, he co‐authored The Future of Afghanistan (2009) as well as The Next Chapter: The United States and Pakistan, the 2008 report of the Pakistan Working Group. Thier also served as director of the Institute’sConstitution Making, Peacebuilding, and National Reconciliation project, during which he advised numerous governments and civil society organizations engaged in ongoing constitutional drafting and national reconciliation exercises. Thier was also a principal staffer on the Institute’s Genocide Prevention Task Force, and a coauthor of its final report, Preventing Genocide: A Blueprint for U.S. Policymakers. The recommendations from this report formed the backbone of President Barack Obama’s 2011 Directive on Mass Atrocities.
Thier previously served as director of the Project on Failed States at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. From 2002 to 2004, he was legal adviser to Afghanistan’s Constitutional and Judicial Reform Commissions in Kabul, where he assisted in the development of a new constitution and judicial system. He has also worked as a senior analyst for the International Crisis Group, a legal and constitutional expert to the British Department for International Development, and as an adviser to the Constitutional Commission of Southern Sudan.
From 1993 to 1996, Thier worked as a U.N. and NGO official in Afghanistan and Pakistan during the Afghan civil war. He also served as coordination officer for the U.N. Iraq Program in New York.
An attorney, Thier was a Skadden fellow and a graduate fellow at the U.S. National Security Council’s Directorate for Near‐East and South Asia. He received the Richard S. Goldsmith award for outstanding work on dispute resolution from Stanford University in 2000.
Thier has a J.D. from Stanford Law School, a master’s degree in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and a Bachelor’s Degree from Brown University.
Discussion Paper: Ending extreme poverty in fragile contexts
Download pdf

Philippines Conference Room

Encina Hall, 3nd Floor
616 Serra St
Stanford, CA 94305

Alex Thier Assistant to the Administrator for Policy, Planning, and Learning Assistant to the Administrator for Policy, Planning, and Learning United States Agency for International Development
Seminars
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Co-sponsored by the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law and the Southeast Asia Program

The recent reversal of democracy in Thailand has been rapid, dramatic, and increasingly thorough. Generals in civilian guise now manage the country. Their coup in May restored, in effect, a Cold War-era nexus of the military, the monarchy, and the bureaucracy. That trinity thwarted communism and enabled development but fell victim to its own success, as formerly marginalized Thais became vocal stakeholders seeking better lives. Democracy and growth spawned new wealth and new players, triggering sharp conflicts among elites competing for the first time for mass support. In the fading twilight of a gloried monarch, Thai politics before and since the 2014 coup amount to a long and no-longer latent endgame over the weighting and balancing of royalty, bureaucracy, and military, and the implications for democracy. Prof. Pongsudhirak will construe the contest and assess the stakes for Thailand, Southeast Asia, and the larger world.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak is an associate professor in Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Political Science. A prolific and prize-winning author, his latest writings include articles on Thai politics in the Journal of Democracy and on the Mekong region in Foreign Affairs. He taught at the University of Yangon earlier this year and has been a visiting scholar at, among other places, SAIS (2011) and Stanford (2010). His alma maters include the London School of Economics (PhD) and UC-Santa Barbara (BA).

Philippines Conference Room

Encina Hall Central, 3rd Floor.

Stanford, CA 94305

Director, Institute of Security and International Studies Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok
Seminars
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Over the past year and more, Taiwan’s political elite has been deadlocked over the question of deepening economic relations with the People’s Republic of China. This controversial issue has led to a standoff between the executive and legislative branches, sparked a frenzy of social activism and a student occupation of the legislature, and contributed to President Ma Ying-jeou’s deep unpopularity.

On October 17-18, the Taiwan Democracy Project at CDDRL, with the generous support of the Taipei Economic and Culture Office, will host its annual conference at Stanford University to examine the politics of polarization in Taiwan.

This conference will bring together specialists from Taiwan, the U.S., and elsewhere in Asia to examine the sources and implications of this political polarization in comparative perspective. It will include a special case study of the Trade in Services Agreement with China that triggered this past year’s protests, as well as a more general overview of the politics of trade liberalization in Taiwan, prospects for Taiwan’s integration into the Trans-Pacific Partnership and other regional trade agreements, and a consideration of the implications for Taiwan’s long-term democratic future.

Conference speakers will include: Chung-shu Wu, the president of the Chung-hwa Institute of Economic Research (CIER) in Taipei; Steve Chan of the University of Colorado; Roselyn Hsueh of Temple University; Yun-han Chu, the president of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation; and Thitinan Pongsudhirak of Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.


Panels will examine the following questions:

1. What are the sources and implications of political polarization in Taiwan, and how have these changed in recent years?

2. How does Taiwan’s recent experience compare to political polarization in other countries in Asia (e.g. South Korea, Thailand) and elsewhere (the US)?

3. To what extent does the latest political deadlock in Taiwan reflect concern over the specific issue of trade with the People’s Republic of China, versus a deeper, systemic set of problems with Taiwan’s democracy?

4. How are globalization and trade liberalization reshaping Taiwan’s domestic political economy, and what are the prospects for forging a stronger pro-trade coalition in Taiwan that transcends the current partisan divide?


The conference will take place October 17-18 in the Bechtel Conference Room in Encina Hall at Stanford University. It is free and open to the public. 

 

Conference Resources

 

Agenda

Speaker Bios

Presentations

Conference Report

Conference Flyer

 

Conference Papers

 

How Cross-Strait Trade and Investment Is Affecting Income and Wealth Inequality in Taiwan by Chien-Fu Lin, National Taiwan University

 

Generational Differences in Attitudes towards Cross-Straits Trade by Ping-Yin Kuan, Department of Sociology & International Program in Asia-Pacific Studies, National Chengchi University

 

Change and the Unchanged of Polarized Politics in Taiwan by Min-Hua Huang, National Taiwan University; Center for East Asia Policy Studies, The Brookings Institution

 

Social Media, Social Movements and the Challenge of Democratic Governability by Boyu Chen, National Sun Yat-sen University, Institute of Political Science 

 

Coping with the Challenge of Democratic Governance under Ma Ying-jeou by Yun-han Chu, National Taiwan University

 

Taiwan’s Bid for TPP Membership and the Potential Impact on Taiwan-U.S. Relations by Kwei-Bo Huang, National Chengchi University, Department of Diplomacy

 

In the Wake of the Sunflower Movement: Exploring the Political Consequences of Cross-Strait Integration by Pei-shan Lee, National Chung Cheng University, Political Science Department 

 

The Roots of Thailand’s Political Polarization in Comparative Perspective by Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Chulalongkorn University; The Institute of Security and International Studies

 

The Role of the United States in Cross-Strait Economic Integration by Chen-Dong Tso, National Taiwan University

 

The China Factor and the Generational Shift over National Identity by Mark Weatherall, Taiwan Foundation for Democracy

 

Taiwan’s Strategy for Regional Economic Integration by Chung-Shu Wu, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research

 

Polarized Electorates in South Korea and Taiwan: The Role of Political Trust under Conservative Governments by Hyunji Lee, Institute of Asian Research, University of British Columbia

 

Polarization in Taiwan Politics by Steve Chan, University of Colorado, Boulder

 

Agenda
Conference Biographies
Taiwan Polarization Conference Flyer
Politics of Polarization in Taiwan: Conference Report
Conferences
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Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) is pleased to introduce the incoming 2014-15 class of pre and post-doctoral fellows. Selected from over 100 applicants, these six scholars will spend the academic year in residence at CDDRL to advance their research, work closely with faculty and connect to an innovative and multidisciplinary learning community.
 
Hailing from Harvard, U.C. Berkeley, Yale and Stanford the fellows bring diverse backgrounds and expertise to enrich the ranks at CDDRL - researching topics such as the economics of crime in Mexico and authoritarianism in Africa and the Middle East. Many of them will be actively working with CDDRL’s core research programs on a range of research initiatives that intersect with their own work. 
 
Since its launch in 2004, the fellowship program has welcomed over fifty pre and post-doctoral fellows from leading universities who are selected for their policy-relevant research that contributes to new knowledge in the field of democratic development.
 
You can read more about the fellows, their research and some fun facts below. 

Brett Carter

Hometown: Virginia Beach, Virginia

Academic Institution: Harvard University

Discipline and date of graduation: Ph.D. in Government, Summer 2014

Research Interests: Politics and economics in non-democracies, political economy of development, political violence, food security

Manuscript working title: Political Survival and the Modern Prince

What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/post-doctoral program? The opportunity to be surrounded by other scholars with similar substantive interests but diverse geographic expertise is extremely exciting to me. I think it's precisely what I need at the moment.

What do you hope to accomplish during your year-long residency at the Center? I will spend most of the year preparing the book manuscript for submission. The dissertation asked how modern African autocrats survive nominally democratic institutions. To focus on the elites who comprise the regime -- as well as their political parties and the elections in which they compete -- the dissertation focused exclusively on the Republic of Congo, ruled by President Denis Sassou Nguesso for all but five years since 1979. I expect to spend much of the year ascertaining to what extent the arguments are generalizable to other parts of autocratic Africa and beyond.

Please state a fun fact about yourself! I really enjoy cooking. A lot. I've cooked through most of The French Laundry Cookbook and am now cooking through the Eleven Madison Park Cookbook. Honestly, I spend way too much time cooking. It's sort of absurd.

 

Julia Choucair-Vizoso

Hometown: Beirut, Lebanon

Academic Institution: Yale University

Discipline and expected date of graduation: Ph.D. in Political Science, expected May 2015

Research Interests: Authoritarianism; Elite Networks; Coalitional Politics; Social Exclusion; Middle East Politics

Dissertation Topic/Title: The Ties that Bind: Making and Breaking Authoritarian Ruling Coalitions

What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/post-doctoral program? My research fits well with CDDRL’s substantive focus on democratization. Opening the black box of authoritarian coalitional formation and evolution is essential for understanding how ruling coalitions may come apart. I am also eager to collaborate with scholars in The Program on Arab Reform and Democracy, especially at a time when the Arab uprisings and coalitional breakdowns have unfortunately moved towards reconfigured authoritarian arrangements.

What do you hope to accomplish during your year-long residency at the Center? As a fellow at CDDRL, I plan to complete my dissertation and begin revising it for publication. I also plan to produce an article on the methodological and ethical challenges of conducting archival research and elite interviews in authoritarian settings.

Please state a fun fact about yourself! I’m a catless cat lady.

 

Melissa Lee

Hometown: Thousand Oaks, CA

Academic Institution: Stanford University

Discipline and expected date of graduation: Ph.D. in Political Science, expected June 2015

Research Interests: statebuilding, state weakness, international security, conflict, political development

Dissertation Topic/Title: The International Sources of Sovereignty and State Weakness

What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/post-doctoral program? My research is broadly focused on the understanding the causes of incomplete governance and political underdevelopment. These are among the core themes in CDDRL's research programs, and CDDRL brings together both rigorous scholarship and a sensitive to policy-relevant research in these thematic areas. For that reason, I am excited about joining CDDRL's community of researchers, particularly those engaged in scholarship in the Governance Project and in the Program on Poverty and Governance. I look forward to productive conversations around the Center, and to helpful guidance and advice.

What do you hope to accomplish during your year-long residency at the Center? During my residency at CDDRL, I plan to complete my dissertation writing. I am also eager to begin a new project with another CDDRL pre-doctoral fellow in which we examine the relationship between statebuilding and democracy in developing countries.

Please state a fun fact about yourself! I make an excellent cheesecake!

 

Ken Opalo

Hometown: Nairobi, Kenya

Academic Institution: Stanford University 

Discipline and expected date of graduation: PhD in Political Science, expected June 2015

Research Interests: Institutions, Legislative Studies, Political Economy of Development, Elections and Governance, Natural Resource Management and Regional Cooperation

Dissertation Topic/Title: Institutions and Political Change: The Case of African Legislatures

What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/post-doctoral program? I was attracted to CDDRL because of the centers strong emphasis on the need to link academic research with policy. I am interested in the ways in which institutional change impact development outcomes through the evolution of better, accountable governance and public policies. My research on legislatures includes analyses of how levels legislative institutionalization impact public finance management in African states.

What do you hope to accomplish during your year-long residency at the Center? I hope to finish writing my dissertation, to publish at least two chapters of the dissertation as stand alone papers, and to continue contributing to the policy world through my writing and consultancies.

Please state a fun fact about yourself! I run half marathons. Because I am Kenyan.

 

Gustavo Robles

Hometown: Guadalajara, Mexico

Academic Institution: Stanford University

Discipline and expected date of graduation: PhD in Political Science, expected 2015 

Research Interests: Economics of Crime and Violence, Legislative Studies, Political Economy of Development.

Dissertation Topic/Title: Three Essays on the Political Economy Drug-Related Violence in Mexico

What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/post-doctoral program? CDDRL is a great place for students doing comparative work since it has a unique and vibrant community of faculty, visiting scholars, and policy makers from all over the world, including an important number of specialists in Latin American politics.

Moreover, the Center’s research agenda substantially aligns with my work on the relationship between democracy, partisanship, and governments’ efforts to contain and reduce crime and violence.

Finally, the work of the Program on Poverty and Governance at CDDRL on criminal violence and citizen security throughout Latin America has significantly shaped my PhD dissertation and research agenda.

What do you hope to accomplish during your year-long residency at the Center? I would like to complete the part of my dissertation that explores the relationship between Mexico’s democratization, criminal violence, and the government’s enforcement of the rule of law. In addition, the pre-doctoral fellowship will facilitate the completion of different ongoing research projects I am involved with at the Center. 

Please state a fun fact about yourself! I’m a good salsa dancer, jigsaw puzzle enthusiast, and amateur beach volleyball player.

 

Suzanne E. Scoggins

Hometown: Bremen, GA

Academic Institution: University of California, Berkeley

Discipline and expected date of graduation: Ph.D. in Political Science, expected May 2015

Research Interests: Comparative Politics, Policing, Governance, Rule of Law, and Chinese Politics 

Dissertation Topic/Title: Policing China: Struggles of Law, Order, and Organization for Ground-Level Officers

What attracted you to the CDDRL Pre/post-doctoral program? CDDRL's mission to understand how the rule of law and government institutions operate speaks directly to my work on the police bureaucracy. The Center's multidisciplinary approach brings together.scholars and intellectuals, making it an excellent forum for grappling with issues of institutional reform and local state security. As one of the newest additions to CDDRL, I look forward to engaging this community as I continue to investigate the weaknesses and strengths of the institutional apparatus China employs to carry out state priorities of reform and control.  

What do you hope to accomplish during your year-long residency at the Center? While at CDDRL I will finish my dissertation and prepare two chapters for publication. I also plan to lay the groundwork for my next project on the rapidly evolving relationship between police and media.  

Please state a fun fact about yourself! I'm a terrible gardener.

 

 

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ABSTRACT
The result of not preparing people and places to manipulate the productive function of network technology is ‘digital destitution’. As the ability to access the Internet becomes more crucial in daily life, those Americans who are not prepared to function with this technology are excluded and do find themselves in a state of disconnection from the vital economic, social, political, cultural and institutional processes that depend on broadband technology. In this presentation, Dr. Blanca Gordo will outline and ground her theoretical conceptual framework for understanding the impact of being offline.

SPEAKER BIO
Blanca Gordo, Ph.D., is a visiting scholar at the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues at the University of California at Berkeley where she is writing her book, Digital Destitution in the Digital Age. Most recently, she was the Academic Coordinator for the Center for Latino Policy Research at the University of California at Berkeley, where she directed public policy initiatives, program development, and the Technology and Development Research Group. Dr. Gordo holds a doctorate in City and Regional Planning from the University of California, Berkeley. She specializes in regional-local economic development, urban poverty, local technology development processes, organizational analysis and development, public policy, ethnic populations (African Americans and Latinos), demographics, and social inequality structures

Blanca Gordo International Computer Science Institute, UC Berkeley
Seminars
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ABSTRACT

Collective intelligence is channeled to journalism by crowdsourcing and co-creation. While the crowd contributes to the journalistic process with its knowledge, the crowd also challenges journalistic norms and ideals. In her talk, Dr. Aitamurto shows how collective intelligence impacts knowledge search in journalism, alters power structures in society, and functions as a basis for value creation.

SPEAKER BIO

Dr. Tanja Aitamurto is a Brown Fellow and the Deputy Director at the Brown Institute for Media Innovation at the School of Engineering at Stanford, as well as a Liberation Technology alumna. Her research focuses on the applications of collective intelligence in journalism, governance, and new product design in media innovations. She is the author of the book "Crowdsourcing for Democracy: New Era in Policy-Making", and she has published in New Media & Society, Digital Journalism and Design Issues.

Encina Hall
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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Visiting Researcher
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Tanja Aitamurto was a visiting researcher at the Program on Liberation Technology at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. In her PhD project she examined how collective intelligence, whether harvested by crowdsourcing, co-creation or open innovation, impacts incumbent processes in journalism, public policy making and design process. Her work has been published in several academic publications, such as the New Media and Society. Related to her studies, she advises the Government and the Parliament of Finland about Open Government principles, for example about how open data and crowdsourcing can serve democratic processes. Aitamurto now works as a postdoctoral fellow at the Brown Institute for Media Innovation at Stanford.

Aitamurto has previously studied at the Center for Design Research and at the Innovation Journalism Program at Stanford University. She is a PhD Student at the Center for Journalism, Media and Communication Research at Tampere University in Finland, and she holds a Master’s Degree in Public Policy, and a Master of Arts in Humanities. Prior to returning to academia, she made a career in journalism in Finland specializing in foreign affairs, reporting in countries such as Afghanistan, Angola and Uganda. She has also taught journalism at the University of Zambia, in Lusaka, and worked at the Namibia Press Agency, Windhoek.

She also actively participates in the developments she is studying; she crowdfunded a reporting and research trip to Egypt in 2011 to investigate crowdsourcing in public deliberation. She also practices social entrepreneurship in the Virtual SafeBox (http://designinglibtech.tumblr.com/), a project, which sprang from Designing Liberation Technologies class at Stanford. Tanja blogs on the Huffington Post and writes about her research at PBS MediaShift. More about Tanja’s work at www.tanjaaitamurto.com and on Twitter @tanjaaita.

 

 

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