Stanford University

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.

Corrupt States: Reforming Indian Public Services in the Digital Era

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Why are some governments better able to reform public service delivery than others? The increased availability of information and communication technologies marks an important opportunity for politicians to improve the quality of public services. However, state-level experiences with eGovernment in India display significant variations in the ability of governments to successfully adopt these technologies to provide benefits to citizens. Based on her studies of one-stop, computerized public service centers in sixteen Indian states, Jennifer will discuss the characteristics of states associated with differences in policy outcomes and present original survey evidence on the effects of technology-based reforms on the quality of public services.

Jennifer Bussell is an Assistant Professor of Public Affairs at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin. She received a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research concerns the political economy of development and governance with an emphasis on the role of formal and informal institutions--such as federalism, coalition politics, and corruption--in shaping policy outcomes. She is particularly concerned with the politics of government technology adoption for the benefit of poor citizens in developing countries, with an emphasis on India.

Wallenberg Theater

Jennifer Bussell Assistant Professor of Public Affairs, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs Speaker University of Texas, Austin
Seminars
Liberation Technology Seminar Series
Program on Liberation Technology

Sanela Diana Jenkins HR Series: Decreasing Mugabe's Power by Increasing People Power in Zimbabwe

Sanela Diana Jenkins HR Series: Decreasing Mugabe's Power by Increasing People Power in Zimbabwe

Public Diplomacy 2.0: An Exploratory Case Study of the Digital Outreach Team

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The internet is enabling new approaches to public diplomacy. The Digital Outreach Team at the US Department of State is one such initiative, aiming to engage directly with citizens in the Middle East through posting messages about US foreign policy on popular Arabic, Urdu, and Persian language internet forums. This permits them to present the US administration's views on issues related to American foreign policy in a transparent manner. This case study assesses the process and reach of this new method of internet diplomacy. Does this method provide a promising new conception of public diplomacy for the USA and other nations to move from a more one-way information flow to a more interactive, and individualized, approach to connecting with the Middle East? Is this a useful complement to more traditional forms of public diplomacy? What are the strategic challenges faced by public diplomacy 2.0?

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CDDRL Working Papers
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Rousseau: A Free Community of Equals

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In famously beautiful and laconic prose, Jean- Jacques Rousseau presents us a forceful picture of a democratic society, in which we live together as free and equal, and our politics focuses on the common good. In Rousseau: Free Community of Equals Joshua Cohen explains how the values of freedom, equality, and community all work together as parts of the democratic ideal expressed in Rousseau's conception of the ‘society of the general will'. The book also explains Rousseau's anti-Augustinian and anti-Hobbesian idea that we are naturally good, shows why Rousseau thinks it is reasonable for us to endorse that idea, and discusses how our natural goodness might make a free community of equals possible for us. Cohen examines in detail Rousseau's picture of the institutions of a democratic society: why he emphasized the importance of political participation, how he argued against extreme inequalities, and what led him to embrace a civil religion as necessary for the society of the general will. This book provides an analytical and critical appraisal of Rousseau's political thought that, while frank about its limits, also explains its enduring power.

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Books
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Oxford University Press
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Joshua Cohen
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978-0-19-958150-4

New START Treaty wins Senate approval

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President Obama and members of his national security team — including Stanford's Michael A. McFaul, senior advisor on Russia and former Deputy Director of FSI and Director of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law — gather in the Oval Office to celebrate Senate approval of the new START Treaty. Signed in April by President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the treaty was ultimately approved 71/26 in the Senate. The treaty will reduce deployed warheads and missile launchers, and restore mutual verification procedures, and is regarded as one more step toward the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons.
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McFaul New START Pete Souza 2
FSI's Michael McFaul celebrates Senate approval of the START Treaty with President Obama
Pete Souza, White House
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Learning to Love Democracy: Electoral Accountability, Government Performance, and the Consolidation of Democracy

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Milan Svolik is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received his Ph.D. in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago in 2006.

His current research is in two main areas: i) the politics of authoritarian regimes and ii) the politics of democratic transitions and consolidation. His broader research interests are in comparative and international politics, particularly the political economy of institutions, formal political theory, and statistical methodology.

His research on the politics of authoritarian regimes consists of a series of papers that investigate power-sharing, institutions, leader survival, and accountability in authoritarian regimes. He has also collected original data on leadership change in authoritarian regimes and data on coups d'état across regime types. He is currently incorporating this research into a book manuscript, provisionally entitled The Politics of Authoritarian Rule.

CO-SPONSORED BY COMPARATIVE POLITICS

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Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Milan Svolik Assistant Professor, Political Science Speaker University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Seminars

The Pseudo-Democrat's Dilemma: Why Election Observation Became an International Norm

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Susan Hyde is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at Yale University, where she is affiliated with the MacMillian Center and the Institute for Social and Policy Studies. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego in 2006, and has held fellowships at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. and Princeton University's Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance. Her research interests include international influences on domestic politics, elections in developing countries, international norm creation, election manipulation, and the use of natural and field experimental research methods. Her current research explores the effects of international democracy promotion efforts, and her research has been published in World Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Perspectives on Politics, the Journal of Politics. She has recently completed a book entitled The Pseudo-Democrat's Dilemma: Why Election Monitoring Became an International Norm.  She has served as an international observer with several organizations for elections in Albania, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Pakistan and Venezuela, and has worked for the Democracy Program at The Carter Center. She teaches courses on international organizations, democracy promotion, the global spread of elections, and the role of non-state actors in world politics.

 

CO-SPONSORED BY COMPARATIVE POLITICS

Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Susan Hyde Assistant Professor Political Science and International Affairs Speaker Yale University
Seminars
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