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.
Human rights experts weigh in on Syria conflict
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On November 10, CDDRL and the WSD Handa Center for Human Rights and International Justice welcomed Human Rights Watch's Director of Emergencies Peter Bouckaert and Sareta Ashraph, senior analyst on the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, for a discussion on the ongoing human rights and refugee crises in Syria. The talk was moderated by Stanford Law School's Beth Van Schaack, Leah Kaplan Visiting Professor in Human Rights.
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Human Rights Watch's Peter Bouckaert (left) and Sareta Ashraph (right), senior analyst at the UN Commission of Inquiry for the Syria, with Stanford Law School's Beth Van Schaack.
Christian Ollano
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Advancing Human Rights through Tech and Data
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Abstract
Human rights groups have only two assets: people and information. Learn about Benetech’s decade of putting information technology tools into the hands of human rights activists, with the goal of making these two assets more effective in advancing the global cause of human rights.
Speaker bio
Jim Fruchterman is the founder and CEO of Benetech, a Silicon Valley nonprofit technology company that develops software applications to address unmet needs of users in the social sector. He is the recipient of numerous awards recognizing his work as a pioneering social entrepreneur, including the MacArthur Fellowship, Caltech’s Distinguished Alumni Award, the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, and the Migel Medal—the highest honor in the blindness field—from the American Foundation for the Blind. Since its founding in 1989, Benetech has touched the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Its tools and services have transformed the ways in which people with disabilities access printed information, at-risk human rights defenders safely document abuse, and environmental practitioners succeed in their efforts to protect species and ecosystems. Through his work with Benetech and as a trailblazer in the field of social entrepreneurship, Jim continues to advance his vision of a world in which the benefits of technology reach all of humanity, not just the wealthiest and most able five percent.
Wallenberg Hall
Bulding 160
Room 124
Jim Fruchterman
Founder and CEO
Benetech
Seminars
Raymond Levitt
Yang & Yamazaki Environment and Energy Buiding
Room 241
473 Via Ortega
Stanford, California 94305-4020
Room 241
473 Via Ortega
Stanford, California 94305-4020
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Professor Emeritus, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Dr. Levitt's research has developed theory, methods, and tools to design organization structures and governance regimes for project and matrix organization structures in construction and other project-based industries.
His work has addressed an unmet demand for civil infrastructure projects --roads, railroads, ports, airports, water and sanitation systems-- in both developing and developed countries. Projects to develop and operate civil infrastructure increasingly involve private, public and NGO participants from multiple countries, resulting in clashes between participants' values, cultural norms and laws that can create high institutional costs, and attendant delays.
Dr. Levitt's research, conducted through the Global Projects Center (GPC), which he founded, has been aimed at developing new financing, governance and organizational approaches to enhance the long-term financial, environmental and social sustainability of these critically needed, but institutionally challenging, projects. In recognition of this work, he was appointed by Governor Schwarzenegger as a Commissioner of the California Public Infrastructure Advisory Commission (PIAC) in 2008 and served as a Commissioner of PIAC from 2008-2013.
Dr. Levitt founded and serves as Academic Director of the Stanford Advanced Project Management (SAPM) executive education certificate program. SAPM has awarded more than 6,000 certificates to mid-career professionals in a wide variety of industry sectors since its inception in 1999.
Dr. Levitt was elected a Distinguished Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
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LAD Course: National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA)
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This four-and-a-half-day intensive program for a select group of mid- and high-level government officials and business leaders is desgined to address how government can encourage and enable the private sector to play a larger, more constructive role as a force for economic growth and development. A driving principle of this LAD-NIDA program is that policy reform is not like engineering or other technical fields that have discrete skills and clear, optimal solutions. Instead, successful reformers must be politically aware and weigh a broad range of factors that influence policy outcomes. For example, they must have a solid grasp of country-specific economic, financial, political and cultural realities. Most importantly, they must have a sense of how to set priorities, sequence actions and build coalitions. This program is designed to provide participants with an analytical framework to build these leadership abilities and operate effectively under adverse conditions.
More information and application form available to download at NIDA's website.
TThis four-and-a-half-day intensive program for a select group of mid- and high-level government officials and business leaders is designed to address how government can encourage and enable the private sector to play a larger, more constructive role as a force for economic growth and development. A driving principle of this LAD-NIDA program is that policy reform is not like engineering or other technical fields that have discrete skills and clear, optimal solutions. Instead, successful reformers must be politically aware and weigh a broad range of factors that influence policy outcomes. For example, they must have a solid grasp of country-specific economic, financial, political and cultural realities. Most importantly, they must have a sense of how to set priorities, sequence actions and build coalitions. This program is designed to provide participants with an analytical framework to build these leadership abilities and operate effectively under adverse conditions. This four-and-a-half-day intensive program for a select group of mid- and high-level government officials and business leaders is designed to address how government can encourage and enable the private sector to play a larger, more constructive role as a force for economic growth and development. A driving principle of this LAD-NIDA program is that policy reform is not like engineering or other technical fields that have discrete skills and clear, optimal solutions. Instead, successful reformers must be politically aware and weigh a broad range of factors that influence policy outcomes. For example, they must have a solid grasp of country-specific economic, financial, political and cultural realities. Most importantly, they must have a sense of how to set priorities, sequence actions and build coalitions. This program is designed to provide participants with an analytical framework to build these leadership abilities and operate effectively under adverse conditions. ThisTThis four-and-a-half-day intensive program for a select group of mid- and high-level government officials and business leaders is designed to address how government can encourage and enable the private sector to play a larger, more constructive role as a force for economic growth and development. A driving principle of this LAD-NIDA program is that policy reform is not like engineering or other technical fields that have discrete skills and clear, optimal solutions. Instead, successful reformers must be politically aware and weigh a broad range of factors that influence policy outcomes. For example, they must have a solid grasp of country-specific economic, financial, political and cultural realities. Most importantly, they must have a sense of how to set priorities, sequence actions and build coalitions. This program is designed to provide participants with an analytical framework to build these leadership abilities and operate effectively under adverse conditions. four-and-a-half-day intensive program for a select group of mid- and high-level government officials and business leaders is designed to address how government can encourage and enable the private sector to play a larger, more constructive role as a force for economic growth and development. A driving principle of this LAD-NIDA program is that policy reform is not like engineering or other technical fields that have discrete skills and clear, optimal solutions. Instead, successful reformers must be politically aware and weigh a broad range of factors that influence policy outcomes. For example, they must have a solid grasp of country-specific economic, financial, political and cultural realities. Most importantly, they must have a sense of how to set priorities, sequence actions and build coalitions. This program is designed to provide participants with an analytical framework to build these leadership abilities and operate effectively under adverse conditions. This four-and-a-half-day intensive program for a select group of mid-
This four-and-a-half-day intensive program for a select group of mid-
and high-level government officials
and business leaders is designed to address how government can encourage and enable the
private
sector to play a larger, more constructive role as a force for economic growth
and development. A
driving principle of th
is
LAD-NIDA program is that policy reform is not like engineering o
r other technical
fields that have discrete skills and clear, optimal solutions. Instead, suc
cessful reformers must be
politically aware and weigh a broad range of factors that influence policy
outcomes. For example, they
must have a solid grasp of country-specific economic, financial, poli
tical and cultural realities. Most
importantly, they must have a sense of how to set priorities, sequence actio
ns and build coalitions. This
program is designed to provide participants with an analytical framework to
build these leadership
abilities and operate effectively under adverse conditions.and high-level government officials
and business leaders is designed to address how government can encourage and enable the
private
sector to play a larger, more constructive role as a force for economic growth
and development. A
driving principle of th
is
LAD-NIDA program is that policy reform is not like engineering o
r other technical
fields that have discrete skills and clear, optimal solutions. Instead, suc
cessful reformers must be
politically aware and weigh a broad range of factors that influence policy
outcomes. For example, they
must have a solid grasp of country-specific economic, financial, poli
tical and cultural realities. Most
importantly, they must have a sense of how to set priorities, sequence actio
ns and build coalitions. This
program is designed to provide participants with an analytical framework to
build these leadership
abilities and operate effectively under adverse conditions.
Syllabus
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National Institute of Development Administration
Khlong Chan, Bang Kapi,
Bangkok, Thailand 10240
Workshops
Deservingness, Self-interest and the Welfare State
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ABSTRACT
A common assumption in political economy is that voters are self-regarding maximizers of material goods, choosing their preferred level of social spending accordingly. In contrast, students of American politics have emphasized the key role of an other-regarding motive that makes support for social transfers conditional on the perceived deservingness of recipients. The two motives often conflict as large portions of the poor (rich) find recipients undeserving (deserving). I argue that material self-interest overruns perceptions of deservingness when the share of income affected by social transfers is high. Using European data, I show that low (high) income individuals are less (more) likely to be driven by considerations of deservingness. Cross-nationally, the more working-age benefits are evenly spread across income groups, the less deservingness considerations permeate public debates on welfare state reform. This framework has important implications for understanding attitudinal change in two high inequality countries, the United States and Great Britain.
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Deservingness, Self-interest and the Welfare State
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Charlotte Cavaille
Research Fellow, Institute of Advanced Studies in Toulous
Research Fellow, Institute of Advanced Studies in Toulous
Seminars
The Aborigine Constituencies in the Taiwanese Legislature
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The Republic of China on Taiwan has long reserved legislative seats for its indigenous minority, the yuanzhumin. While most of Taiwan’s political institutions were transformed as the island democratized, the dual aborigine constituencies continue to be based on an archaic, Japanese-era distinction between “mountain” and “plains” aborigines that corresponds poorly to current conditions. The aborigine quota system has also served to buttress Kuomintang (KMT) control of the legislature: the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and “pan-indigenous” parties have been almost entirely shut out of these seats. Nevertheless, aborigine legislators have made a modest but meaningful difference for indigenous communities. The reserved seats were initially established during the martial law era as a purely symbolic form of representation, but during the democratic era they have acquired substantive force as well. Taiwan’s indigenous peoples have not always been well-served by their elected legislators, but they would be worse off without them.
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Threats, Alliances, and Electorates: Why Taiwan's Defense Spending Has Fallen as China's Has Risen
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Over the past 20 years, the military balance between the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan has rapidly shifted. As China’s defense budget has grown annually at double-digit rates, Taiwan’s has shrunk. These trends are puzzling, because China’s rise as a military power poses a serious threat to Taiwan’s security. Existing theories suggest that states will choose one of three strategies when faced with an external threat: bargaining, arming, or allying. Yet for most of this period, Taiwan’s leaders have done none of these things. We explain this apparent paradox as a consequence of Taiwan’s transition to democracy. Democracy has worked in three distinct ways to constrain rises in defense spending: by intensifying popular demands for non-defense spending, introducing additional veto players into the political system, and increasing the incentives of political elites to shift Taiwan’s security burden onto its primary ally, the United States. Together, these domestic political factors have driven a net decline in defense spending despite the rising threat posed by China’s rapid military modernization program. Put simply, in Taiwan the democratization effect has swamped the external threat effect.
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Taiwan's Democracy Challenged: The Chen Shui-bian Years
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Lynne Rienner Publishing
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