The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University invites emerging political, civil society, and business leaders from transitional countries to apply to participate in its ninth annual Draper Hills Summer Fellowship held from July 21- August 9, 2013 at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.

The Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program is a three-week executive education program that is run annually on the Stanford campus by an interdisciplinary team of leading Stanford faculty. The program brings together a group of 25 to 30 mid-career practitioners in law, politics, government, private enterprise, civil society, and international development from transitioning countries where democracy is not well established. This training program provides a unique forum for emerging leaders to connect, exchange experiences, and receive academic training to enrich their knowledge and advance their work.

Previous Stanford Summer Fellows have served as presidential advisers, senators, attorneys general, lawyers, journalists, civic activists, entrepreneurs, academic researchers, think tank managers, members of the international development community and even a former prime minister. The program is highly selective, receiving several hundred applications each year.

Successful applicants must be at least 27 years of age and possess a minimum of six years of experience - ideally ten - actively working in the fields of democracy, development, or the rule of law. Candidates should reside from and be currently working in a country where democracy is not entrenched and will not be accepted from countries, including: the U.S., Canada, Australia, Japan and member states of the European Union. A working knowledge of English is an essential prerequisite for participation in the program. This is not an academic fellowship program but meant for practitioners who play important and influential roles in their country's political, economic and social development.

All applicants must submit a short intake questionnaire to ensure they meet the selection criteria. The questionnaire is due by November 23, 2012. If applicants meet the necessary criteria in the pre-screening process they will be invited to complete the longer application, which will be due along with two letters of recommendation by December 14, 2012. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis so we encourage applicants to apply as early as possible.

To learn more about the program and to apply, please visit:

http://draperhills.stanford.edu/docs/apply_dhsfp

 

With political upheaval sweeping the Arab world and the presidential campaign entering the home stretch in the United States, democracy and elections are hot topics. But a bigger story about those bedrocks of fair and open governments has unfolded all over the world in the past two decades, as more than 50 authoritarian regimes have converted to democratic societies.

The change hasn’t always been ideal. Corruption and violence continue to mar some budding democracies, while restrictive voter ID laws and big money have tainted the political process in the world’s most established democratic systems.

Stanford political scientist Stephen J. Stedman just wrapped up his work as director of the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy and Security – a group that spent almost two years reviewing the integrity of elections worldwide. The panel was convened by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance and the Kofi Annan Foundation, an organization founded by the former U.N. secretary general.

The panel’s report lists 13 steps that individual countries, civil society leaders and the international community can take to make sure elections and democracies are fair, open and honest.

“The first is the most basic,” said Stedman, a Freeman Spogli Senior Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. “You have to have a society where citizens feel everyone is equal under the law.”

Stedman discusses the panel’s work in the following Q&A.

What was the need and motivation to analyze how free elections are faring around the world?

Each of the commissioners came to this with different concerns. Kofi Annan, who chaired the commission, was very much driven by his experience of having to deal with several elections in Africa that had become violent and had gone off the rails. And there’s a frustration he feels about how little attention had been paid to those places before they blew up.

Ernesto Zedillo, (a former Mexican president and vice chair of the panel), was motivated to join the commission by a real alarm at the nefarious influence of huge sums of money in political finance – not just in America, but in parts of the world where transnational organized crime is getting involved in the political process. We’re finding that political finance and campaign finance might be ways for those groups to buy legitimacy or protection through democratic political systems.

Others were concerned that despite the incredible growth of democracy during the last 20 years, there isn’t a guarantee that you’re getting good government out of it – especially in poorer, developing countries.

Has the global economic slump stressed democracies?

A fundamental pillar of democracy is political equality; that every citizen has an equal opportunity to influence politics.. But in a world where the gap between the rich and poor is growing, its more challenging to make sure everyone has that opportunity.

For developing countries, there’s a real challenge in building democracy under scarcity. The biggest danger for poor countries is that all the resources tend to be centered in the state, and elections are about getting those resources. So if you lose, you have nowhere to go. In wealthy democracies, that’s not the case. Whoever loses the U.S. election this year will still have a comfortable life. That’s not true in many parts of the world. If you lose in Asia or Africa, for instance, you’re just out of the game. But that winner-takes-all system has to change in order to have a strong democracy.

The report concludes that the “rise of uncontrolled political finance threatens to hollow out democracy everywhere in the world.” How is that playing out?

Political finance is absolutely necessary for democracy. It’s good that citizens feel so strongly that they’re willing to make donations and express their preferences by contributing to campaigns and candidates. And candidates and parties need money to get their messages out. But you just have to look around the world over the last 15 years and see all the countries that have had political finance scandals. It’s a long list, and it includes some of the best-known democracies in the world. Even in the best conditions, it’s a problem that can corrupt your democracy.

And the problem is becoming more urgent. With growing economic disparity, it’s become easier for certain groups to buy and influence elections and governments.

The commission specifically criticizes the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which says the government cannot restrict independent political spending by a corporation or union. Does the ruling delegitimize America’s efforts to push for solid democracies and fair elections in developing countries?

Citizens United has essentially created a system of “anything goes.” In the eyes of many Americans, political finance is corrupting our democracy. And America’s reputation has taken a large hit internationally. In doing this report and talking to democratic activists around the world, so many of the conversations immediately go to the decision and the amount of money allowed to influence the system. It has diminished our reputation.

Both Western Europe and the United States are often better at professing the best practices of elections and democracy than following them. It definitely hurts when people overseas say: “Wait. You’re telling us to do this. But what do you do, exactly?”

Other than money, what are some of the barriers to political participation that hurt the growth of democracy?

It varies around the world. But across the board, women are still vastly underrepresented in voting and in political office in most democracies. That speaks to a slew of cultural, social and economic barriers.

In the United States, the problems tend to manifest themselves as barriers to the participation of minorities – especially African-Americans and Hispanics. It goes to the heart of many debates over the use of legal restrictions to register voters. And the restrictions are usually couched in language about protecting the integrity of elections. But the policies have the net effect of restricting participation by minority poor voters. And that’s what actually hurts the integrity of elections. The amount of out-and-out electoral fraud in the U.S. is miniscule. The amount of voters who are marginalized and dispossessed because of these voter ID laws is much greater.

CDDRL's Program on Poverty and Governance posted a research project update for the project The Incidence of Criminal Activity Near Schools in Mexico. Currently this project is studying the interaction between education and violence in the context of Mexico's war on drugs. The initial results shed light on falling secondary educational attainment in Mexico, and its relationship to gang activity and school dropout rates. The project is working to systematically analyze several Mexican governmental programs including Escuela Segura and Espacios Recuperados that seek to rebuild disintegrating communities in order to improve educational attainment. You can read the update here. 

 

Increase in Drug Related Deaths, 2007-2010

In a piece for the The Stanford Daily, Nadejda Marques, manager of the Program on Human Rights at the CDDRL, writes about Proposition 35 (the CASE Act), slated for the November 2012 California Ballot. Californians Against Sexual Exploitation (CASE) hopes to raise awareness of human trafficking and deter traffickers with higher penalties and fines. Critics of Proposition 35 argue that stiffer sentencing is not the core of this complex problem. They defend that efforts should be directed to training police and prosecutors, and funding victim-services providers to protect and enable court proceedings.

If you vote in California, chances are that in November, in addition to national, state and local elective races, you will encounter a host of propositions on the ballot.

Among these is Proposition 35, or the Californians Against Sexual Exploitation Act (known as the CASE Act). Proposition 35 hopes to raise awareness of human trafficking and deter traffickers with higher penalties and fines. Human trafficking is a horrific and growing problem nationally and globally. It constitutes a violation of the most basic human rights to which between four and 27 million people (according to the U.S. Department of State’s 2007 Trafficking in Persons Report), are subjected every year. So an effort to increase penalties for offenders should be viewed as a universal good.

But there is not a consensus on Proposition 35, even among organizations and institutions fighting human trafficking in California. Critics of Proposition 35 argue that stiffer sentencing will not address the core of this complex problem. Civil libertarians raise concerns over provisions that require offenders to register with law enforcement officials long after they have served their sentences. Of course, penalties should reflect the severity of any crime. And when penalties are patently incommensurate with the severity of the offense, they signal a lack of commitment by the state and may fail to deter potential violators. However, focus on increased sentencing can often mask the lack of meaningful effort to address a problem. In the case of human trafficking, this may well be what is happening with Proposition 35.

One of our main challenges is the identification of instances of human trafficking. For example, not all prostitution involves human trafficking, and not all human trafficking involves prostitution. Police and prosecutors are not adequately trained to identify cases of human trafficking, nor are they generally able to investigate potential situations of trafficking proactively. Poor identification of trafficking and victims leads to a weak or no case against perpetrators.

Often, those brought to court are not prosecuted under the existing trafficking laws, but under some other crime or some minor offence. Many times, cases of human trafficking are dismissed because of lack of evidence (which is based almost exclusively on the testimony of the victims). In addition, some judges and prosecutors seem to fail to understand the phenomenon of human trafficking and the psychological effects it causes on victims. Prosecutors rely too often on the testimony of victims, which, given their extreme vulnerability, is difficult, at best, to obtain. Authorities also fail to enable post-trafficking assistance, long-term protection and support. Worse still, some authorities direct prosecutorial efforts at the victims-trafficked persons. Efforts to reorient the work of authorities are more likely to produce the kind of changes needed than stronger penalties.

By initiative of the Program on Human Rights (PHR) and its Student Advisory Board, on Oct. 17, the Stanford Police will offer training for its law enforcement agents on a victims-based approach to human trafficking. The training will include the Human Trafficking Task Forces from the San Francisco and San Jose Police Departments. On Oct. 23, PHR is organizing a discussion panel on Proposition 35 bringing together prosecutors, police officers, service providers and activists to help move the debate toward the needs of victims. Disputes and debates about tangential issues should not be a distraction, nor should they divert the efforts of those who fight human trafficking. We risk undermining the progress and achievements of anti-trafficking legislation and policy while traffickers continue to pursue their criminal trade, very often with impunity.

Nadejda Marques is the manager of the Program on Human Rights at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University. She coordinates the program’s research and activities on human trafficking that focus on policy recommendations to address the multiple dimensions of human trafficking.