Stanford University

Elections

Leah R. Rosenzweig

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CDDRL Postdoctoral Scholar, 2020-21
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My research centers on topics in comparative politics and the political economy of development. I focus on the micro-foundations of political behavior to gain leverage on macro-political questions. How do autocrats survive? How can citizen-state relations be improved and government accountability strengthened? Can shared identities mitigate out-group animosity? Adopting a multi-method approach, I use lab-in-the-field and online experiments, surveys, and in-depth field research to examine these questions in sub-Saharan Africa and the US. My current book project reexamines the role of elections in authoritarian endurance and explains why citizens vote in elections with foregone conclusions in Tanzania and Uganda. Moving beyond conventional paradigms, my theory describes how a social norm of voting and accompanying social sanctions from peers contribute to high turnout in semi-authoritarian elections. In other ongoing projects, I study how national and pan-African identification stimulated through national sports games influence attitudes toward refugees, the relationship between identity, emotions, and belief in fake news, and how researchers can use Facebook as a tool for social science research.

A New Age of Reform

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 "For the first time in American history, a U.S. congressional election was determined by “instant runoff,” using the system of ranked-choice voting that Maine had adopted in a 2016 voter initiative, and then reinstated (over the resistance of the state legislature and much of the state’s professional political class) in a June 2018 “people’s veto” initiative," writes Larry Diamond in The American Interest. Read here.

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Parties, Representation, and Governance in the 21st Century

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Has the age of party democracy passed? Parties throughout advanced democracies face challenges of voter distrust, declining associational ties, and the rise of far-right and populist movements. This conference brings together scholars of American and comparative parties and party systems to understand how and why parties have evolved, and to ask what role parties play in twenty-first century governance. 
Browse the conference webpage to learn more. 
 
 
 
Conferences

Arab Barometer Wave IV

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This event is co-sponsored with The Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies.

ABSTRACT

The Arab Barometer is the first and largest project of its kind that gives voice to the opinions and concerns of ordinary citizens across the Middle East and North Africa. Beginning in 2006, it has conducted rigorous and representative public opinion surveys in 15 countries over four waves. To date, across these waves, more than 45,000 face-to-face interviews have been conducted in the respondent’s place of residence. Among the topics explored are attitudes and values pertaining to politics, economics, religion, democracy, quality of governance, women’s rights, and identity. Arab Barometer data, which are publicly accessible through the Barometer’s website, are a valuable resource for research that seeks not only to describe but also to explain public attitudes on important issues affecting the MENA region. The Arab Barometer is directed by a steering committee composed of team leaders from four institutions in the Arab world and researchers at Princeton University and the University of Michigan. In this workshop, Amaney Jamal, Mark Tessler and Michael Robbins will present results from the fourth wave of data and an overview of the upcoming fifth wave.

 

SPEAKERS BIO

Amaney A. Jamal is the Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Politics at Princeton University and director of the Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice. Jamal also directs the Workshop on Arab Political Development. She currently is President of the Association of Middle East Women’s Studies (AMEWS). The focus of her current research is democratization and the politics of civic engagement in the Arab world. Her interests also include the study of Muslim and Arab Americans and the pathways that structure their patterns of civic engagement in the United States. Jamal’s books include: Barriers to Democracy(2007), which explores the role of civic associations in promoting democratic effects in the Arab world (winner of the 2008 APSA Best Book Award in comparative democratization).

Mark Tessler is Samuel J. Eldersveld Collegiate Professor of Politics at the University of Michigan, where he also previously served as Vice-Provost for International Affairs. He has conducted research in Tunisia, Israel, Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, and Palestine and hasdirected or co-directed social science training and capacity-building programs in nine Arab countries. Tessler is also co-founder and a past president of the American Institution for Maghrib Studies. Among the fifteen books he has authored or coauthored are Public Opinion in the Middle East: Survey Research and the Political Orientations of Ordinary Citizens (2011); and Islam and Politics in the Middle East: Explaining the Views of Ordinary Citizens (2015). His current research examines the way that ordinary citizens in the MENA region think about women’s rights and status and the degree to which their attitudes are, or are not, shaped by religious attachments and understandings.

Michael Robbins is Director of the Arab Barometer. He has led or overseen more than 50 surveys in international contexts and is a leading expert in survey methods to prevent data fabrication. His work on Arab public opinion, political Islam and political parties has been published inComparative Political Studies, the Journal of Conflict Resolution and the Journal of Democracy. He received the American Political Science Association Aaron Wildavsky Award for the Best Dissertation in the field of Religion and Politics. Previously, he has served as a research fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and aresearch associate at the Pew Research Center.

Following this event, Stanford student presentations will take place in the Reuben Hills Conference Room (2nd Floor Encina East Wing, E207) from 1:30pm to 2:30pm.

Christiana Parreira 
Title: Modernization and the Politics of Contemporary Kinship in the Middle East 
Comments: Amaney Jamal

Scott Williamson 
Title: Electoral Legitimacy and Compliance in Authoritarian Regimes: Evidence from the Arab World 
Comments: Michael Robbins

Salma Mousa 
Title: The Casual Effect of Sectarian Violence: Terrorism, Political Preferences, and Religiosity in Iraq 
Comments: Mark Tessler

 

William J. Perry Conference Room,
Encina Hall (Central), 2nd Floor, 616 Serra St,
Stanford, CA 94305

Amaney A. Jamal Professor of Politics Princeton University
Mark Tessler Professor of Politics University of Michigan
Michael Robbins Director of the Arab Barometer Arab Barometer
Seminars
Arab Reform and Democracy Speaker Series

Political Contestation and New Social Forces in the Middle East and North Africa

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Please note: Registration for the conference is open only to Stanford University affiliates. A valid SUNet ID is required to register.

Click here to register. Please use your Stanford e-mail address to log in when prompted.

(For registration trouble shooting instructions, click here)

DAY 1: Friday, April 27

 

8:30-9:00 a.m.    Breakfast

 

9:00-9:15 a.m.    Introductory Remarks

 

9:15-11:00 a.m.  Panel 1: Youth, Culture, and Expressions of Resistance

Ayca Alemdaroglu, Stanford University

“Affective Pedagogies: Governing Youth in the Times of Dissent in Turkey”

Adel Iskandar, Simon Fraser University

“Uprisings Upended: Arab Youth Between Dissociation, Disenchantment, and Desecration”

Yasemin Ipek, Stanford University

“Imagining Social Change after the Syrian Civil War: Entrepreneurial Activism and Cross-Sectarian Political Mobilization in Lebanon”

Chair: Hicham Alaoui, Harvard University

 

11:00-11:15 a.m. Coffee Break

 

11:15-1:00 p.m.  Panel 2: Situating Gender in the Law and the Economy

Hanan Hammad, Texas Christian University 

“Democracy from the Gender Edge”

Alessandra Gonzalez, Stanford University

“Do Source or Host Country Practices Dominate in Female Executive Hiring? Evidence from Firms in the GCC Countries”

Ibtesam Al Atiyat, St. Olaf College

“Repealing Rape Article 308: The Missed Opportunity to Women’s Emancipation in Jordan”

Chair: Joel Beinin, Stanford University

 

1:00-2:00 p.m.    Lunch

 

2:00-3:45 p.m.    Panel 3: Social Movements and Visions for Change

Dina El-Sharnouby, Freie Universität Berlin 

“The 2011 Revolutionary Movement in Egypt and Youth’s Socio-Political Imaginaries of Transformation and Change”

Mohamed Daadaoui, Oklahoma City University 

“It’s Good to Be the King, or Is It? Protest Movements, the “refo-lutionary” promise of PJD Islamists and the King’s Dilemma in Morocco”

Nora Doaiji, Yale University

“After Saudi Women’s Driving: What Happens When A Marginal Movement Is Centered by the State”

Chair: Amr Hamzawy, Stanford University

 

DAY 2: Saturday April 28

 

8:30-9:00 a.m.    Breakfast

 

9:00-10:45 a.m.  Panel 4: The Economy, the State and New Social Actors

Mona Atia, The George Washington University 

“Territorial Restructuring and the Politics of Governing Poverty in Morocco”

Amr Adly, European University Institute

“Egypt's Shattered Oligarchy and Big Business Autonomy”

Mahmoud El-Gamal, Rice University 

“Egyptian Economic and De-Democratization Trends”

Chair: Lisa Blaydes, Stanford University

 

10:45-11:00 a.m. Coffee Break

 

11:00-12:30 p.m. Panel 5: Social Change and International and Regional Dynamics

Hicham Alaoui, Harvard University

"Geopolitical Myths and Realities under Neo-Authoritarianism"

Daniel Brumberg, Georgetown University 

“The Roots and Impact of Democracy Resistance and Autocracy Promotion in the Arab World”

Nancy Okail, The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy

"Political Reform, Security, and U.S. Middle East Policy"

Chair: Larry Diamond, Stanford University

 

 

To access the registration page:

1) Please sign out of all your google.com accounts

2) Visit accounts.google.com and log in using your Stanford e-mail address (e.g. john.smith@stanford.edu)

3) Click on the RSVP form

The event will be held at Stanford University. The exact location will be shared via e-mail with registered participants a week prior to the conference. Please read registration instructions below.

Conferences
Arab Reform and Democracy Speaker Series

Tunisia: An Arab Anomaly

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This event is co-sponsored with The Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies.

ABSTRACT

The Arab Spring began and ended with Tunisia. In a region beset by brutal repression, humanitarian disasters, and civil war, Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution alone gave way to a peaceful transition to a functioning democracy. Within four short years, Tunisians passed a progressive constitution, held fair parliamentary elections, and ushered in the country's first-ever democratically elected president. But did Tunisia simply avoid the misfortunes that befell its neighbors, or were there particular features that set the country apart and made it a special case? How does the country consolidate its democratic gains as civil society and government priorities clash over issues of security, transitional justice, and economic reform?

Drawing on his recent book, Tunisia: An Arab Anomaly (Columbia University Press, 2017), Professor Safwan Masri will examine the factors that contributed to Tunisia’s experience after the Arab Spring, focusing on the country’s history of reformism in the domains of education, religion, and women’s rights. Masri will argue that the seeds fortoday's relatively liberal and democratic society were planted as far back as the middle of the nineteenth century. These factors have not only been missing in other Arab counties, but an opposite, regressive trajectory has been followed in much of the rest of the region.

SPEAKER BIO

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Professor Safwan M. Masri is Executive Vice President for Global Centers and Global Development at Columbia University, and a Senior Research Scholar at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).

 

Copies of Tunisia: An Arab Anomaly will be available for purchase.

 

 

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William J. Perry Conference Room,
Encina Hall (Central), 2nd Floor, 616 Serra St,
Stanford, CA 94305

Safwan Masri Executive Vice President for Global Centers and Global Development Columbia University
Seminars
Arab Reform and Democracy Speaker Series

Do Fair Elections Increase the Responsiveness of Politicians?

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Abstract

I leverage novel experimental designs and 2, 160 months of Members of Parliaments’ (MPs’) Constituency Development Fund spending to test whether fair elections promote democratic responsiveness. I nd that MPs elected in constituencies that were randomly assigned to high levels of election monitoring dur- ing Ghana’s 2012 polls spend 19 percentage points more of their CDFs, on average, compared to those who were elected from districts that had fewer monitors. These legislators were equally absent from parliamentary meetings as their low-monitoring counterparts elected during their terms in o ce, which suggests that fair elections do not motivate politicians to substitute constituency service for parliamen- tary work. The results imply that higher-integrity elections incentivize incumbents to exert more e fort to satisfy citizens’ demand for constituency service. Regarding mechanisms, I provide tentative causal evidence that politicians substitute e fort for fraud when they expect that similar intense future election monitoring will limit their ability to rig their reelection and enable voters to sanction poor performance. The paper demonstrates the downstream e fect of election monitoring on elite behavior and provides causal evidence of the impact of election quality on democratic accountability. 

 

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How to Reverse the Degradation of Our Politics

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"The United States and its liberal democratic allies must develop a new global strategy to counter the power projection of expansive autocracies and to reboot an international campaign to promote democratic values and ideas. But we also need to renew the core of what we are fighting for: the worth of our own democracy," writes Larry Diamond in "How to Reverse the Degradation of Our Politics."

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Saumitra Jha

Graduate School of Business 655 Knight Way Stanford, CA 94305
(650) 721 1298
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Associate Professor of Political Economy, GSB
Associate Professor, by courtesy, of Economics and of Political Science
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Along with being a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Saumitra Jha is an associate professor of political economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and convenes the Stanford Conflict and Polarization Lab. 

Jha’s research has been published in leading journals in economics and political science, including Econometrica, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the American Political Science Review and the Journal of Development Economics, and he serves on a number of editorial boards. His research on ethnic tolerance has been recognized with the Michael Wallerstein Award for best published article in Political Economy from the American Political Science Association in 2014 and his co-authored research on heroes with the Oliver Williamson Award for best paper by the Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics in 2020. Jha was honored to receive the Teacher of the Year Award, voted by the students of the Stanford MSx Program in 2020.

Saum holds a BA from Williams College, master’s degrees in economics and mathematics from the University of Cambridge, and a PhD in economics from Stanford University. Prior to rejoining Stanford as a faculty member, he was an Academy Scholar at Harvard University. He has been a fellow of the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance and the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton University, and at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. Jha has consulted on economic and political risk issues for the United Nations/WTO, the World Bank, government agencies, and for private firms.

 

Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Dan C. Chung Faculty Scholar at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
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Nathaniel Persily

Stanford Law School Neukom Building, Room N230 Stanford, CA 94305
650-725-9875
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James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School
Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute
Professor, by courtesy, Political Science
Professor, by courtesy, Communication
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Nathaniel Persily is the James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, with appointments in the departments of Political Science, Communication, and FSI.  Prior to joining Stanford, Professor Persily taught at Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and as a visiting professor at Harvard, NYU, Princeton, the University of Amsterdam, and the University of Melbourne. Professor Persily’s scholarship and legal practice focus on American election law or what is sometimes called the “law of democracy,” which addresses issues such as voting rights, political parties, campaign finance, redistricting, and election administration. He has served as a special master or court-appointed expert to craft congressional or legislative districting plans for Georgia, Maryland, Connecticut, New York, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.  He also served as the Senior Research Director for the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. In addition to dozens of articles (many of which have been cited by the Supreme Court) on the legal regulation of political parties, issues surrounding the census and redistricting process, voting rights, and campaign finance reform, Professor Persily is coauthor of the leading election law casebook, The Law of Democracy (Foundation Press, 5th ed., 2016), with Samuel Issacharoff, Pamela Karlan, and Richard Pildes. His current work, for which he has been honored as a Guggenheim Fellow, Andrew Carnegie Fellow, and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, examines the impact of changing technology on political communication, campaigns, and election administration.  He is codirector of the Stanford Program on Democracy and the Internet, and Social Science One, a project to make available to the world’s research community privacy-protected Facebook data to study the impact of social media on democracy.  He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a commissioner on the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age.  Along with Professor Charles Stewart III, he recently founded HealthyElections.Org (the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project) which aims to support local election officials in taking the necessary steps during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide safe voting options for the 2020 election. He received a B.A. and M.A. in political science from Yale (1992); a J.D. from Stanford (1998) where he was President of the Stanford Law Review, and a Ph.D. in political science from U.C. Berkeley in 2002.   

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