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.

The Legacy of Liberalism in Mexico: Some tension with North American (Rawlsian) liberalism

-

According to a common view in Mexico today, the attempt to transform Mexican political institutions according to liberal values since the nineteenth century has been a complete failure. On this view, the reasons for this failure are, primarily, that liberal values and ideas were “foreign” and “imported”, such that they could hardly have taken root in a society that had recently emerged from three centuries of colonial rule and was, therefore, backwards and “traditional”. Scholars often complain that liberals failed to realize the values of freedom and equality, that there is no rule of law, no public culture of toleration, and no effective enforcement of fundamental individual rights either civil or political.

Download pdf

Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Faviola Rivera Castro Visiting Fellow, Stanford Humanities Center and Philosophy Speaker Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
Workshops
Linda Randall Meier Research Workshop on Global Justice

Athens, a Democracy of Virtue

-
Professor Balot specializes in the history of political thought.

Balot is the author of Greed and Injustice in Classical Athens (Princeton, 2001) and of Greek Political Thought (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006). He is currently at work on Courage and Its Critics in Democratic Athens, from which he has published articles in the American Journal of Philology, Classical Quarterly, and Social Research. Balot is also editor of the forthcoming Companion to Greek and Roman Political Thought (Oxford: Blackwell, forthcoming 2007).

Balot received his doctorate in Classics at Princeton University and his B.A. degrees in Classics from UNC-Chapel Hill and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar.

Download pdf

Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Ryan Balot Associate Professor of Political Science Speaker University of Toronto
Workshops

The Laws of Others: Three Constitutionalist Responses to Interdependence

-
Jan-Werner Mueller's research interests include the history of modern political thought, liberalism and its critics, nationalism, and the normative dimensions of European integration.

He is the author of A Dangerous Mind: Carl Schmitt in Post-War European Thought (Yale University Press, 2003; German, French, Japanese, and Chinese translations) and Another Country: German Intellectuals, Unification and National Identity (Yale University Press, 2000). In addition, he has edited German Ideologies since 1945: Studies in the Political Thought and Culture of the Bonn Republic (Palgrave, 2003) and Memory and Power in Post-War Europe: Studies in the Presence of the Past (Cambridge UP, 2002). His book Constitutional Patriotism is published by Princeton UP in 2007.

He has been a fellow at the Collegium Budapest Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, the Remarque Institute, NYU. and the Robert Schuman Centre, European University Institute, Florence; he has also taught as a visiting professor at the EHESS, Paris.  He serves on the editorial boards of the European Journal of Political Theory, the Journal of Contemporary History, and Raison Publique: Revue Internationale de Philosophie Pratique et Appliquée.

Co-sponsored with the Linda Randall Meier Research Workshop in Global Justice and the Forum on Contemporary Europe at Stanford

Download pdf

Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Jan-Werner Mueller Speaker Dept of Politics, Princeton University
Workshops
Linda Randall Meier Research Workshop on Global Justice

The Fear Factor: Putin's Political Legacy

Paragraphs

Yes, the Putin era was good for most Russians. But it could have been better. Russia's presidential vote on March 2 will be the least competitive election in Russia's post-Soviet history. The tragedy of the Putin era is that none of these autocratic reforms were needed to sustain economic growth, political stability or the president's popularity. In fact, more democracy - that is, an independent court system, real opposition parties and a robust independent media - would have helped to fight corruption, protect property and spur more growth

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Commentary
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Newsweek
Authors
Michael A. McFaul
External URL

Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the New Middle East

-
Robin Wright is an American journalist currently covering U.S. foreign policy for The Washington Post. She has reported for The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Sunday Times (of London), CBS News and The Christian Science Monitor, and has served as a foreign correspondent in the Middle East, Europe, and Africa. She has also written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, and The International Herald Tribune.

Awards and Honors
Wright received the U.N. Correspondents Association Gold Medal for coverage of international affairs, the National Magazine Award for reportage from Iran in The New Yorker, and the Overseas Press Club Award for "best reporting in any medium requiring exceptional courage and initiative" for coverage of African wars. For coverage of U.S. foreign policy, she was named journalist of the year by the American Academy of Diplomacy for “distinguished reporting and analysis of international affairs ” and won the National Press Club Award and the Weintal Prize for diplomatic reporting. Wright has also been the recipient of a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation grant.

Wright has been a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Brookings Institution, Yale University, Duke University, Stanford University, the University of California at Santa Barbara and the University of Southern California. She also lectures extensively around the United States and has been a television commentator on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and MSNBC programs, including "Meet the Press," "Face the Nation," "This Week," “Nightline," the PBS Newshour, "Frontline," and "Larry King Live."

Philippines Conference Room

Robin Wright Diplomatic Correspondent Speaker The Washington Post
Seminars

Democratic Rollback: The Resurgence of the Predatory State

Paragraphs
After decades of historic gains, the world has slipped into a democratic recession. Predatory states are on the rise, threatening both nascent and established democracies throughout the world. But this trend can be reversed with the development of good governance and strict accountability and the help of conditional aid from the West.
All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Journal Articles
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Foreign Affairs
Authors
Larry Diamond
External URL

The Taiwan Elections: Implications for the Future

-

This is a CDDRL's Special Seminar within our Democracy in Taiwan Program. In this seminar, Alan Romberg will analyze the impacts of Taiwan’s recent elections on the three legs of the U.S.-PRC-Taiwan triangle.

Alan D. Romberg is Distinguished Fellow and Director of the East Asia Program at the Henry L. Stimson Center. He served in the U.S. government for over 25 years, including as Principal Deputy Director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff (1994-98) and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and Deputy Spokesman of the Department (1981-85). Romberg was C.V. Starr Senior Fellow for Asian Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (1985-1994). He has written extensively on U.S. policy toward the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan and is author of Rein In at the Brink of the Precipice: American Policy Toward Taiwan and U.S.-PRC Relations (Washington, D.C.: The Henry L. Stimson Center, 2003).

Romberg holds an MA from Harvard University and a BA from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

His post-election analysis of the cross-strait relations issue can be seen on Hoover's China Leadership Monitor, No.25.

Philippines Conference Room

Alan Romberg Distinguished Fellow and Director of the East Asia Program Speaker Henry L. Stimson Center
Seminars

Former president of Mexico to give public lecture March 5

Authors
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, will give a talk at Stanford titled "Economic Growth, Poverty and Democracy in Latin America—A President's Perspective" from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 5, in Bishop Auditorium.

The address is free and open to the public and is the 2008 Robert G. Wesson Lecture in International Relations Theory and Practice offered by the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). It is co-sponsored this year by the Graduate School of Business.

Fox ran for the presidency in 2000 as the candidate of the National Action Party (PAN) on a platform focused on ending corruption and improving the economy, and was the first to defeat the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which had governed Mexico for more than 70 years. A former rancher, businessman and chief executive of Coca-Cola in Mexico, Fox devoted his efforts as president to expanding trade with the United States, promoting economic growth and job creation, and reducing corruption, crime and drug trafficking.

Since leaving office, Fox has been involved with a sweeping initiative to construct a social agenda for democracy in Latin America for the next 20 years, launched by Alejandro Toledo, former president of Peru from 2001 to 2006. Toledo is a Payne Distinguished Visiting Lecturer at Stanford this year.

"It is a pleasure to welcome my friend, former President Vicente Fox, to Stanford, the Freeman Spogli Institute and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, where serious scholars and practitioners are committed to develop democracy that delivers concrete results for the poor and fosters social inclusion," said Toledo.

FSI Director Coit D. Blacker and Toledo will give opening remarks. Toledo will join Fox for the question-and-answer session at the conclusion of the lecture.

Hero Image
presidente fox[1]
All News button
1

What Do the Polls Say? Predicting the Winner of the 2008 Taiwan Presidential Election

-

This is a CDDRL's Special Seminar within our Democracy in Taiwan Program. In this seminar, Dr. Chia-hung Tsai will present up-to-date survey data regarding Taiwan’s 2008 presidential election. He will also discuss the dynamics of the presidential campaign and their implications for prospective voters.  

Chia-hung Tsai is Associate Research Fellow of the Election Study Center at the National Chengchi University. He received his PhD in political science from the Ohio State University, 2003, and he worked at the Election Study Center since then. Chia-hung Tsai’s research interest lies in voting behavior and methodology, especially Bayesian statistics. Winner of the “NCCU Outstanding Research Award,” he has published articles in various professional journals including Party Politics, International Political Science Review, Journal of Election Studies (Chinese), and so forth. Currently, he is conducting a multi-year project on voting behavior, public opinion, and public policies in Taiwan. The main focus of this project is to examine the quality of Taiwan’s young democracy. Specifically, this project investigates the extent to which public policies respond to public opinion.  

Philippines Conference Room

Chia-hung Tsai Associate Research Fellow Speaker Election Study Center, National Chengchi University
Seminars
Subscribe to Governance