Stanford University

Elections

America Votes 2024: Part 1

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America Votes 2024: Stanford Scholars on the Election's Most Critical Questions

The 2024 presidential and congressional elections are a pivotal moment for American democracy. Their outcomes will shape policy directions, test democratic institutions, influence Supreme Court appointments, and determine legislative power, impacting both domestic and global affairs.

This is the first in a series of four panel discussions in which Stanford’s leading social scientists will draw on their cutting-edge research to examine the multifaceted issues at play in this especially consequential election. We will explore the historical context of the presidential elections, the sources and degree of social polarization, the role of race and socio-economic status in voting, public opinion, vote and voter manipulation, electoral integrity, and the comparative dimensions of the elections in the United States.

PANELISTS:

  • Beatriz Magaloni, Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations at the Department of Political Science; Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
    • "The US Elections in a Year of Voting Across the Globe" 
  • Shanto Iyengar, William Robertson Coe Professor and Professor of Political Science and of Communication
    • "Campaign Strategy in an Era of Polarization"
  • Nathaniel Persily, James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School; Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
    • "Administering the 2024 Election" 


Co-sponsored and co-organized by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University; the Center for Revitalizing American Institutions, at the Hoover Institution; and the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences.

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About the Speakers

Beatriz Magaloni

Beatriz Magaloni

Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations at the Department of Political Science; Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
full bio

Beatriz Magaloni is the Graham Stuart Professor of International Relations at the Department of Political Science. Magaloni is also a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute, where she holds affiliations with the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). She is also a Stanford’s King Center for Global Development faculty affiliate. Magaloni has taught at Stanford University for over two decades.

She leads the Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab (Povgov). Founded by Magaloni in 2010, Povgov is one of Stanford University’s leading impact-driven knowledge production laboratories in the social sciences. Under her leadership, Povgov has innovated and advanced a host of cutting-edge research agendas to reduce violence and poverty and promote peace, security, and human rights.

Magaloni’s work has contributed to the study of authoritarian politics, poverty alleviation, indigenous governance, and, more recently, violence, crime, security institutions, and human rights. Her first book, Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and its Demise in Mexico (Cambridge University Press, 2006) is widely recognized as a seminal study in the field of comparative politics. It received the 2007 Leon Epstein Award for the Best Book published in the previous two years in the area of political parties and organizations, as well as the Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association’s Comparative Democratization Section. Her second book The Politics of Poverty Relief: Strategies of Vote Buying and Social Policies in Mexico (with Alberto Diaz-Cayeros and Federico Estevez) (Cambridge University Press, 2016) explores how politics shapes poverty alleviation.

Magaloni’s work was published in leading journals, including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Criminology & Public Policy, World Development, Comparative Political Studies, Annual Review of Political Science, Cambridge Journal of Evidence-Based Policing, Latin American Research Review, and others.

Magaloni received wide international acclaim for identifying innovative solutions for salient societal problems through impact-driven research. In 2023, she was named winner of the world-renowned Stockholm Prize in Criminology, considered an equivalent of the Nobel Prize in the field of criminology. The award recognized her extensive research on crime, policing, and human rights in Mexico and Brazil. Magaloni’s research production in this area was also recognized by the American Political Science Association, which named her recipient of the 2021 Heinz I. Eulau Award for the best article published in the American Political Science Review, the leading journal in the discipline.

She received her Ph.D. in political science from Duke University and holds a law degree from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México.

Shanto Iyengar

Shanto Iyengar

William Robertson Coe Professor and Professor of Political Science and of Communication
full bio

Shanto Iyengar is a Professor of Political Science and Director of the Political Communication Laboratory. Iyengar’s areas of expertise include the role of mass media in democratic societies, public opinion, and political psychology. Iyengar’s research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Ford Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the Hewlett Foundation. He is the recipient of several professional awards including the Philip Converse Award of the American Political Science Association for the best book in the field of public opinion, the Murray Edelman Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Goldsmith Book Prize from Harvard University.

Iyengar is author or co-author of several books, including News That Matters (University of Chicago Press, 1987), Is Anyone Responsible? (University of Chicago Press, 1991), Explorations in Political Psychology (Duke University Press, 1995), Going Negative (Free Press, 1995), and Media Politics: A Citizen’s Guide (Norton, 2011).

Nate Persily

Nathaniel Persily

James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School; Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
full bio

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 co-director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, 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.   

Kathryn Stoner
Kathryn Stoner

In-person: William J. Perry Conference Room (Encina Hall, 2nd floor, 616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford)

Due to limited seating, the in-person portion of this event is limited to Stanford affiliates only.

Online: Via Zoom — open to the public

Beatriz Magaloni

Dept. of Political Science
Encina Hall, Room 436
Stanford University,
Stanford, CA

(650) 724-5949
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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations
Professor of Political Science
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MA, PhD

Beatriz Magaloni Magaloni is the Graham Stuart Professor of International Relations at the Department of Political Science. Magaloni is also a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute, where she holds affiliations with the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). She is also a Stanford’s King Center for Global Development faculty affiliate. Magaloni has taught at Stanford University for over two decades.

She leads the Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab (Povgov). Founded by Magaloni in 2010, Povgov is one of Stanford University’s leading impact-driven knowledge production laboratories in the social sciences. Under her leadership, Povgov has innovated and advanced a host of cutting-edge research agendas to reduce violence and poverty and promote peace, security, and human rights.

Magaloni’s work has contributed to the study of authoritarian politics, poverty alleviation, indigenous governance, and, more recently, violence, crime, security institutions, and human rights. Her first book, Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and its Demise in Mexico (Cambridge University Press, 2006) is widely recognized as a seminal study in the field of comparative politics. It received the 2007 Leon Epstein Award for the Best Book published in the previous two years in the area of political parties and organizations, as well as the Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association’s Comparative Democratization Section. Her second book The Politics of Poverty Relief: Strategies of Vote Buying and Social Policies in Mexico (with Alberto Diaz-Cayeros and Federico Estevez) (Cambridge University Press, 2016) explores how politics shapes poverty alleviation.

Magaloni’s work was published in leading journals, including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Criminology & Public Policy, World Development, Comparative Political Studies, Annual Review of Political Science, Cambridge Journal of Evidence-Based Policing, Latin American Research Review, and others.

Magaloni received wide international acclaim for identifying innovative solutions for salient societal problems through impact-driven research. In 2023, she was named winner of the world-renowned Stockholm Prize in Criminology, considered an equivalent of the Nobel Prize in the field of criminology. The award recognized her extensive research on crime, policing, and human rights in Mexico and Brazil. Magaloni’s research production in this area was also recognized by the American Political Science Association, which named her recipient of the 2021 Heinz I. Eulau Award for the best article published in the American Political Science Review, the leading journal in the discipline.

She received her Ph.D. in political science from Duke University and holds a law degree from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México.

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Shanto Iyengar

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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Democracy in the US and South Africa: Two Elections in Comparative Context

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Democracy in the US and South Africa

In May 2024, South Africa went to elections in a plebiscite that saw the African National Congress (ANC) losing the absolute majority it had garnered since 1994. In November 2024, the United States goes to the polls in what will determine whether former President Donald Trump returns to the White House or Vice President Kamala Harris succeeds outgoing President Joe Biden.

There are distinct electoral politics differences between the two democracies. For instance, the U.S. elections are based on a direct presidential, gubernatorial, and senatorial voting system. South Africa, on the other hand, operates a proportional representation voting system where citizens vote for parties, and each party chooses its cabinet, parliamentary, and municipal representatives from party lists. Whereas South Africa is evolving into a multiparty democracy with tens of political parties gunning for political power, the U.S. has two dominant parties, the Democratic and Republican parties.

Yet, there are a couple of similarities between the two democracies. For instance, race and race relations are hot-button issues. Migration and migrant populations are equally contentious electoral issues, as are issues of economic inequalities, matters of social justice, unemployment, and variances in the economic wherewithal of various regions. Equally important is that the apex leadership in both countries determines the ebb and flow of the relations between them. In the recent past, geopolitical tensions have sparked contestations on the current and future nature of South Africa-US relations.

Jonathan Jansen (Stellenbosch University) will moderate the virtual discussion, where panelists from Stanford University and the University of the Witwatersrand will weigh in on these and more issues, fleshing out similarities and debating differences. By the time of the discussion, the president of the United States would have been declared. This will permit moving the analysis away from speculation and toward a measure of certainty on what to expect in the US-South Africa relations in the next four years.  

This event is co-sponsored by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), the Center for African Studies (CAS), and the African Center for the Study of the United States, University of the Witwatersrand.

panelists

Professor Larry Diamond

Larry Diamond

Larry Diamond is William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. His research focuses on global trends affecting freedom and democracy, and U.S. and international policies to advance democracy and counter authoritarian influence. He was the founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy and he remains a consultant to the National Endowment for Democracy. Among his books is Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency.

Didi Kuo

Didi Kuo

Didi Kuo is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. At Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), she oversees the Program on American Democracy in Comparative Perspective. She is the author of The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave - and Why They Don't (forthcoming, Oxford University Press) and Clientelism, Capitalism, and Democracy: the Rise of Programmatic Politics in the United States and Britain (Cambridge University Press 2018). She is a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and was a 2018 National Fellow at New America. She received a PhD from Harvard University, an MSc from Oxford University, where she studied as a Marshall Scholar, and a BA from Emory University.

Bob Wekesa

Bob Wekesa

Bob Wekesa is the Director of the African Centre for the Study of the United States at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), South Africa. He is the interim coordinator of the Africa-U.S. Universities Network. He teaches and supervises international media and communications projects focusing on Africa-China and Africa-United States topics. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Nairobi (1998) and master’s and doctoral degrees from the Communication University of China (2012 and 2015 respectively). He has published over the years across thought leadership, academic journal papers, chapters and books, and policy papers. 

Thokozani Chilenga-Butao

Thokozani Chilenga-Butao

Thokozani Chilenga-Butao is a lecturer in Political Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, where she also achieved her PhD. Her research interests are decentralization and federalism and their roles in state formation, governance, public administration, and public policy. She conducts empirical and applied research in a range of topics, including education, recentralization, and social grants such as the social relief of distress grant and the just energy transition. This involves research in some of South Africa’s largest government departments, including the Department of Basic Education, the National Treasury, and the former Department of Mineral Resources and Energy. In addition to teaching and research, Thokozani is an active member of university committees and research collaborations. She often comments on South African politics and the effects on governance, public administration, and public policy in local and international media.

Jonathan Jansen

Online via Zoom

Larry Diamond

CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C147
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 724-6448 (650) 723-1928
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Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science and Sociology
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MA, PhD

Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford, where he lectures and teaches courses on democracy (including an online course on EdX). At the Hoover Institution, he co-leads the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and participates in the Project on the U.S., China, and the World. At FSI, he is among the core faculty of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, which he directed for six and a half years. He leads FSI’s Israel Studies Program and is a member of the Program on Arab Reform and Development. He also co-leads the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He served for 32 years as founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy.

Diamond’s research focuses on global trends affecting freedom and democracy and on U.S. and international policies to defend and advance democracy. His book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency, analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the United States and around the world at this potential “hinge in history,” and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad.  A paperback edition with a new preface was released by Penguin in April 2020. His other books include: In Search of Democracy (2016), The Spirit of Democracy (2008), Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (1999), Promoting Democracy in the 1990s (1995), and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria (1989). He has edited or coedited more than fifty books, including China’s Influence and American Interests (2019, with Orville Schell), Silicon Triangle: The United States, China, Taiwan the Global Semiconductor Security (2023, with James O. Ellis Jr. and Orville Schell), and The Troubling State of India’s Democracy (2024, with Sumit Ganguly and Dinsha Mistree).

During 2002–03, Diamond served as a consultant to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and was a contributing author of its report, Foreign Aid in the National Interest. He has advised and lectured to universities and think tanks around the world, and to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other organizations dealing with governance and development. During the first three months of 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. His 2005 book, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, was one of the first books to critically analyze America's postwar engagement in Iraq.

Among Diamond’s other edited books are Democracy in Decline?; Democratization and Authoritarianism in the Arab World; Will China Democratize?; and Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy, all edited with Marc F. Plattner; and Politics and Culture in Contemporary Iran, with Abbas Milani. With Juan J. Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset, he edited the series, Democracy in Developing Countries, which helped to shape a new generation of comparative study of democratic development.

Download full-resolution headshot; photo credit: Rod Searcey.

Former Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
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Didi Kuo

Encina Hall, C150
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305

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Center Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
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Didi Kuo is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University. She is a scholar of comparative politics with a focus on democratization, corruption and clientelism, political parties and institutions, and political reform. She is the author of The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don’t (Oxford University Press, forthcoming) and Clientelism, Capitalism, and Democracy: the rise of programmatic politics in the United States and Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

She has been at Stanford since 2013 as the manager of the Program on American Democracy in Comparative Perspective and is co-director of the Fisher Family Honors Program at CDDRL. She was an Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fellow at New America and is a non-resident fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She received a PhD in political science from Harvard University, an MSc in Economic and Social History from Oxford University, where she studied as a Marshall Scholar, and a BA from Emory University.

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Thokozani Chilenga-Butao
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To Boycott or Participate? Explaining Women in Iran’s and Turkey’s Recent Elections

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In this essay, Mona Tajali, PhD compares women's participation in recent elections in Turkey and Iran, finding that women decided whether or not to vote based on the strength of the democratic institutions in their respective countries.

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Mona Tajali

Restoring Confidence in American Elections

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The institution of American elections, a foundation of the US system of governance, is under unprecedented assault, with one-third of the population questioning the reliability of election results. To better understand this situation, the authors of this paper explore the historical reasons and current myths that form the basis for the polarized views Americans hold today about voting. It also analyzes where common ground might be found bring them together.

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Stanford Scholars Discuss What’s at Stake in the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election

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Rachel Owens
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Last week, the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) hosted a panel discussion on the 2024 U.S. Presidential election as part of the programming for its Fisher Family Summer Fellows Program on Democracy and Development — a three-week program for mid-career practitioners from countries in political transition who are working to advance democratic practices and enact economic and legal reform to promote human development. Didi Kuo, a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), moderated the panel which consisted of Bruce Cain (Charles Louis Ducommun Professor in the School of Humanities & Sciences, Director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West, and CDDRL affiliated faculty), Hakeem Jefferson (Assistant Professor of Political Science and CDDRL affiliated faculty), and Brandice Canes-Wrone (Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution).

The panelists began their election analysis with a discussion of the structural features of American democracy and then addressed the issues, strategies, and stakes central to November’s race.

Cain began his remarks by highlighting a longstanding and escalating concern about the American democratic structure: tension between electability and governance. Rather, that the negative partisanship necessary during the election process has proven incompatible with the bipartisan negotiations required to govern. This, coupled with campaign finance — which, among other things, has complicated the incentive and power structures of political parties — has fueled inefficiency and political frustration.

Jefferson argued that a persistent feature of American democracy is the influence of race on political outcomes. While various identities may shape Americans' political attitudes and behaviors, race, he contended, is unparalleled in its impact. As one example, Black Americans have long been "steadfast Democrats," while no Democratic Party nominee has received a majority of the white vote since 1964.

Referring to comparative politics scholarship, Jefferson noted that, in some ways, the Republican Party functions as an "ethnic party." He pointed out that Trump’s success in generating and consolidating his base is directly tied to white identity politics. Trump has relied on grievance politics to gain power, speaking to white, middle-class American voters who feel left behind and resentful of what they believe is a changing racial order. Positioning himself as their spokesman and defender, Trump attempts to reassure these voters that, if he returns to power, he will defend their place in America's racial hierarchy.

While Cain and Jefferson touched on American democracy’s organizing features, Canes-Wrone brought the conversation back to the current election cycle, highlighting prediction models and key issues. The polls, Canes-Wrone believes, are accurate, yet with such slim confidence intervals, the election is still too close to call.

Contrary to popular portrayal in the media, historical evidence suggests that bounces from the convention and vice presidential picks are rarely pivotal, if impactful at all. However, qualifies Canes-Wrone, this cycle is unprecedented, leaving an opportunity for a break in the trend.

Moving to discuss the issues, Canes-Wrone underscores that the candidates are following traditional political strategy — placing emphasis on the issues that favor them and de-emphasis on those that don’t. The Harris campaign has focused its efforts on abortion rights and threats to democracy, whereas Trump remains fixated on immigration and the economy. Unfortunately for Harris, post-COVID inflation and immigration remain the top issues, and her position is further complicated by the inability to heavily criticize her own administration.

To conclude their remarks, the panelists turned to the issue of gender: is the United States really ready to have a woman in the presidency? Canes-Wrone remarked that while survey data indicates that gender bias on the issue has diminished, it is not yet zero. In other political offices, women now win at equal rates to men, but with one caveat — far more expertise is required. There also appears to be far more sexism attached to executive offices, a reality Trump is likely to exploit. Perhaps luckily for Harris, there is one traditional argument the Republican nominee may have difficulty leveraging against her: it's not so easy to argue that a former prosecutor isn't tough on crime.

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A person cast a vote during the presidential elections at Escuela Ecológica Bolivariana Simón Rodríguez on July 28, 2024 in Fuerte Tiuna, Caracas, Venezuela.
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Exploring the Implications of Venezuela’s 2024 Presidential Election with Héctor Fuentes

Fuentes, a lawyer, human rights advocate, and agent of social change in Venezuela, is a member of the 2024 class of Fisher Family Summer Fellows at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.
Exploring the Implications of Venezuela’s 2024 Presidential Election with Héctor Fuentes
Presidential candidate Claudia Sheinbaum of ''Sigamos Haciendo Historia'' coalition waves at supporters after the first results released by the election authorities show that she leads the polls by wide margin after the presidential election at Zocalo Square on June 03, 2024 in Mexico City, Mexico.
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6 Insights on Mexico’s Historic Election: Stanford Scholars Explain What This Means for the Future of its Democracy

The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law’s Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab, in collaboration with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, invited a panel of scholars to discuss the implications of Mexico’s elections and to analyze the political context in which they were held.
6 Insights on Mexico’s Historic Election: Stanford Scholars Explain What This Means for the Future of its Democracy
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How political parties have changed over time

A number of factors have led to political parties getting weaker. Stanford political scientist Didi Kuo explains why and what implications this could have for 2024 and beyond.
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In a panel moderated by Didi Kuo, Bruce Cain, Hakeem Jefferson, and Brandice Canes-Wrone discussed the structural features of American democracy and addressed the issues, strategies, and stakes central to November’s race.

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Exploring the Implications of Venezuela’s 2024 Presidential Election with Héctor Fuentes

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Sidney Suh
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After more than a decade of authoritarian rule under President Nicholás Maduro, the Venezuelan elections on July 28, 2024, were domestically and internationally regarded as a potential turning point in the country’s history. Within Venezuela’s borders, hyperinflation has gripped the economy due to poor governance, rampant corruption, and Venezuela’s excessive dependence on oil exports — descending the country into political and economic chaos. Since 2014, more than 7 million people have fled the country in a mass emigration crisis. Experts estimate that an additional 18-25% of the population is considering fleeing if Maduro remains president, putting neighboring Latin American countries and the United States at risk of destabilization as border pressures increase.

Héctor Fuentes

Héctor Fuentes, a member of the 2024 class of Fisher Family Summer Fellows at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), is a lawyer, human rights advocate, and agent of social change in Venezuela, dedicated to bottom-up national transformation. He serves as the executive director of EstadoLab, a think-and-do tank focused on state fragility and the reconstruction of democratic governance. In a conversation earlier this week with Michael McFaul, Director of Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), Fuentes explained, “People are not leaving because the situation is bad, they’re leaving because they don’t see a future for their children.”

Although opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was banned from the presidential ballot, her endorsed substitute, Edmundo González, ran and received popular support from the public. Fuentes posits that the Maduro administration needed to give its base the illusion of legitimacy through the most recent elections, although this did not preclude widespread electoral irregularities. From delaying voting in centers where the opposition was grouped to forcefully recollecting boxes containing paper voting records, evidence has emerged of falsified results. After counting 80% of the ballots, the National Electoral Council (CNE) declared Maduro the winner with 51.2% of the votes compared to González’s 44.2%. However, independent research polls conducted in Venezuela containing over 7,000 responses from 100 centers certify that González won by a landslide majority.

How can Venezuela move forward?


Going forward, Fuentes argues that the key to revitalizing the health of Venezuelan democracy is normalizing economic and political ties to global actors. From an international standpoint, measures such as international condemnation of Maduro’s falsification of election results, strategic and massive sanctions, extending a “golden bridge” to Maduro’s administration, vigilance regarding human rights violations, and providing humanitarian aid to Venezuela will be essential.

Despite the government-controlled election authority’s refusal to release detailed results from the election, Fuentes echoes a rousing call that Machado often shares with her followers that has fueled his fight for another day: “Believe in your people.”

Further Commentary


Fuentes also sat down for an interview with Francis Fukuyama, the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at FSI, to discuss why there is strong reason to believe this result was fraudulent. You can watch the interview below and read more in the Frankly Fukuyama column in Persuasion.

2022 Summer Fellow Jesús Armas, a Venezuelan activist and organizer of the María Corina Machado campaign in Caracas, also shared his reflections in this op-ed and with The Washington Post (here and here).

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Fisher Family Summer Fellows Class of 2024
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Announcing the 2024 Cohort of the Fisher Family Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development Program

In July 2024, the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law will welcome a diverse cohort of 26 experienced practitioners from 21 countries who are working to advance democratic practices and economic and legal reform in contexts where freedom, human development, and good governance are fragile or at risk.
Announcing the 2024 Cohort of the Fisher Family Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development Program
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Venezuelan opposition leader calls on students to fight for global freedom

Leopoldo López expressed fear about the global rise of a “network of autocracies." He encouraged Stanford students to champion democracy and freedom across the globe.
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Fuentes, a lawyer, human rights advocate, and agent of social change in Venezuela, is a member of the 2024 class of Fisher Family Summer Fellows at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.

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Alex Mierke-Zatwarnicki

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CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow, 2024-25
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Alex Mierke-Zatwarnicki is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University. She holds a Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University and was previously a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute.

Alex’s work focuses on political parties and group identity in Western Europe, in macro-historical perspective. A core theme of her research is understanding how different patterns of political and social organization combine to shape the ‘arena’ of electoral politics and the opportunity space for new competitors.

In her ongoing book project, Alex studies the different ways in which outsider parties articulate group identities and invoke narratives of social conflict in order to gain a foothold in electoral competition. Empirically, the project employs a mixed-methods approach — including qualitative case studies and quantitative text analysis — to compare processes of party-building and entry across five distinct ‘episodes’ of party formation in Western Europe: early twentieth-century socialists, interwar fascists, green and ethno-regionalist parties in the post-war period, and the contemporary far right.

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6 Insights on Mexico’s Historic Election: Stanford Scholars Explain What This Means for the Future of its Democracy

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On Sunday, June 2, Mexico held its federal, state, and municipal elections. Sunday’s poll was historic in more than one sense. Mexico, a democracy in its mid-twenties, had never previously embarked on an election as large in scale, with more than 20,000 vacant public offices at all levels of government to be filled by an electorate of almost 100 million eligible voters. For the first time in the country’s history, a woman, Claudia Sheinbaum, was elected to spearhead the government of the world’s most populous Spanish-speaking nation. Finally, these events took place in the shadows of record-high, albeit stable, levels of drug-related violence.

In this Q&A roundtable organized by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law’s (CDDRL) Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab (PovGov) and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a panel of scholars discuss six main insights from Mexico’s elections and what they tell us about the state of Mexico’s democracy.*

Panelists:

  • Beatriz Magaloni, Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations and Professor of Political Science in the School of Humanities and Sciences and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University
  • Tesalia Rizzo, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Merced, Research Affiliate at MIT Governance Lab, Research Affiliate at CDDRL’s Governance Project
  • Larry Diamond, William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), Stanford University
  • Amrit Singh, Professor of the Practice of Law and founding Executive Director of the Rule of Law Impact Lab at Stanford Law School
  • Alberto Díaz-Cayeros, Senior Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University
  • Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar, Visiting Scholar at Stanford Law School, President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

 

Beatriz Magaloni, Tesalia Rizzo, Larry Diamond, Amrit Singh, Alberto Diaz-Cayeros, Tino Cuellar


*Responses have been edited for clarity and length.


1: Mexico has elected its first female president in a clean and fair election.


One of the big headlines from the elections is that Mexico elected its first female president. What explains why Mexico has accomplished this milestone, even before the United States?

Beatriz Magaloni: It is incredibly exciting, especially considering our history of machismo and a patriarchal society where women have traditionally been followers, not leaders. Mexico enacted a significant gender parity reform about two years ago, which mandates gender parity across all political parties and levels of government. This transformation to include women began then, and it is amazing that the next step is electing a woman president.

Were the elections in Mexico clean and fair by international standards?

Beatriz Magaloni: Mexico has a long history of institutional reform that created bodies like the National Electoral Institute (INE). These institutions have persisted, even though Andres Manuel López Obrador (whom everyone refers to as AMLO) tried to weaken them. Fortunately, they withstood these attacks, and we can see how essential they are for elections. I can confidently say that we had free and fair elections by international standards. Mexico has the capacity to orchestrate inspiring elections, and this should serve as a lesson to powerholders about the importance of sustaining these institutions.

What worries me about the election results is the supermajority the MORENA coalition won. Likely, Claudia has the majority necessary in both the Senate and Congress to modify the Constitution unilaterally and pass laws unilaterally. I worry that Mexico is going back to the era of hegemony we suffered from for 70 years under the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).


2: Sheinbaum’s landslide was a referendum on the legacy of the current President, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO).


Given the massive Movement of National Regeneration (MORENA) electoral landslide, are we witnessing the beginnings of a MORENA-dominant era in Mexican politics?

Tesalia Rizzo: MORENA, the party of the current president, has been said to draw inspiration from the PRI, which governed during those 70 years. MORENA has effectively used social policy to gain favor among Mexicans. This election demonstrated that the strategy of using social policy to gain voter favor was successful not only at the presidential level but also at the state level, gaining more states and seats in Congress. This indicates that MORENA has built a stable party and a stable electorate, suggesting a potentially dominant era for the party.

Why do you think the margin of victory was so large?  

Tesalia Rizzo: It doesn't necessarily come as a huge surprise. López Obrador's approval ratings have been off the charts and very stable for a long time. This approval is largely driven by his social policies, which have been carefully crafted and effectively implemented. This election has shown that MORENA is now a political party with strong structures across the country. People are joining MORENA not only because they see it as a party that can win elections but also because they sense stability in its structure. If we think of parties as institutionalized social movements, perhaps MORENA has followed a similar path. 


3: Mexico has cemented its position as a consolidated electoral democracy, with strong procedural safeguards and a vibrant civil society embracing democratic values.


As an observer of democracies throughout the world, does Mexico fulfill the requirements of an electoral democracy?

Larry Diamond: I think people chose the leader they wanted in Mexico. It's easier to declare this democratic when it isn't close — it was decisive, a landslide. There's no sign that I know of significant fraud in the election. There's no sign that it wasn't cleanly and efficiently administered. And there's always a question of "compared to what?" If you look at the controversies around the U.S. election, for example, it may look better or less disputed, more efficient than some of the elections we held in U.S. states. Many people in the United States might wish for a system of national electoral authority that has the technical efficiency and ability to standardize across the country, as the National Electoral Institute (INE) has.

What about the political violence that occurred before the election? Would those challenges qualify Mexico as a liberal democracy?

Larry Diamond: I think there are many things to be noted about the state of Mexican democracy before election day. Some relate to the nature of the campaign, and some to the broader character of political and civic space in Mexico. Regarding the campaign, when you have a significant number of candidates assassinated — 40 to 50 people, which is shocking and deeply distressing — this isn't necessarily a ruling party killing its opponents but indicates a state that lacks the capacity to rein in criminal and narco-trafficking violence. This kind of climate degrades the electoral environment, though I wouldn't say it alone makes Mexico a non-democracy.

The sitting president of Mexico, AMLO, has been highly critical of the autonomous body for electoral administration, the INE. From a legal standpoint, what are the risks to the institutional architecture of electoral politics in the coming years?

Amrit Singh: I think it's important to recognize that INE has been one of the crown jewels of Mexico's democracy. It is widely regarded as one of the most independent and professional election commissions in the world. Whether it continues to be as highly regarded will depend on what Claudia Sheinbaum decides to do — whether she chooses to break from President López Obrador's authoritarian agenda or to open a new chapter in Mexico in favor of democracy and the rule of law.

You described the potential consequences of MORENA moving ahead with constitutional amendments that could affect the autonomy of the electoral agency. Do you think the new government has any incentive to pursue an agenda that would debilitate INE? If so, can we still speak about an electoral democracy in Mexico?

Amrit Singh: That remains to be seen. Claudia Sheinbaum has an opportunity to open a new chapter in Mexico's democracy. She has indicated, for example, that she is in favor of voting for judges, a proposal submitted by President López Obrador to Mexico's Congress back in February 2024. Whether she sticks to that position still remains to be seen. It is worrying that the constitutional reform proposals by President López Obrador may become a reality because MORENA and its allies now have a qualified majority in Congress. Over the last few years under President López Obrador's administration, we have seen systematic attacks on the independent institutions necessary for safeguarding democracy in Mexico. These attacks targeted INE, INAI (the freedom of information agency), and the federal judiciary. If such attacks continue under the new administration, there will be nothing left to speak of in terms of electoral democracy in Mexico. These institutions are essential for maintaining the checks and balances and the separation of powers necessary to uphold the rule of law and individual rights and freedoms.


4: Mexico is still lacking some of the civil protections of liberal democracy, the most apparent being insecurity and drug violence, which remain top unresolved issues.


How is it possible for the incumbent party, MORENA, to be reelected despite the security conditions and maintenance of high levels of violence?

Beatriz Magaloni: The main issue in Mexico is the violence surrounding elections, not necessarily from political parties or the incumbent attacking opposition candidates, but from organized crime. These were the most violent elections we've had, with at least 30 candidates for municipal presidencies and other positions killed and more than 200 attacked. This is deeply concerning because it means that organized crime, not just voters, is influencing election outcomes. How do we explain AMLO's victory? Because, although it is Claudia's victory, it is essentially a referendum on AMLO’s performance. He is an incredibly intelligent politician who has been able to amass electoral support through various mechanisms, including delivering entitlements and public services to poor and middle-class voters.

Xóchitl Gálvez ran a campaign highlighting the violence and harshly criticizing AMLO’s "hugs, not bullets" slogan. Claudia has said she will increase the size of the National Guard. How do you think this will work out in a liberal democracy, having an even larger military presence in Mexico?

Beatriz Magaloni: Xóchitl didn't win for two main reasons. One, she was embraced by political parties like the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD), and the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), which have been discredited for their own roles in perpetuating violence. President Calderón started the war on drugs, and during President Peña Nieto’s administration, we saw events like the disappearance of the Ayotzinapa students, which increased corruption and impunity. This association with discredited parties hurt her campaign. Secondly, she was competing against an incumbent who was very popular. People don’t really know who Claudia is, and we are eager to learn what she brings to politics at this critical juncture, with high levels of violence and immigration issues.


5: Popular welfare programs glue together the MORENA coalition, but these might not be enough to reduce poverty and improve well-being.


What do you expect will happen with poverty alleviation and the provision of basic public services like health and education?  

Alberto Díaz-Cayeros: The government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) always claimed to prioritize the poor. "Primero los pobres" ("first the poor") was the slogan in his campaign, and Claudia Sheinbaum repeated it yesterday in her victory speech. It is paradoxical that a government claiming to support the poor removed the most crucial and effective poverty reduction program Mexico has had in two decades. Claudia Sheinbaum is not obligated to follow AMLO's exact policies. I expect she will likely listen to experts and policy advice from those working on poverty relief globally and in Mexico. Hopefully, she will incorporate elements of conditional cash transfer programs that have successfully alleviated poverty worldwide.

Claudia Sheinbaum's proposals and the legacy of her predecessor, AMLO, suggest that she aims to build on the foundation laid by Mexico's fourth transformation. What do you expect her social policies to look like? Will she move Mexico closer to a universal welfare state?

Alberto Díaz-Cayeros: The current government has aimed to create programs that move Mexico towards a universal welfare state. AMLO's significant poverty reduction achievement was raising the minimum wage, which benefited moderately poor families but not the extremely poor. But the removal of the conditional cash transfer program and Seguro Popular led to a loss of access to public health for a significant portion of the population. Moving towards universalization will require substantial funding and a focus on labor market reforms.


6: This election matters to Americans and the world for the sake of global economic growth, hemispheric security, and multicultural diversity in the U.S.


Why does the Mexican election matter to the U.S.?

Tino Cuéllar: Mexico has become a particularly massive trading partner of the United States, the largest trading partner now that trade with China has declined due to trade tensions. Additionally, the law enforcement and rule of law interests of the United States and Mexico often converge. So, the well-being of the United States, its relationship to the larger world, and issues many Americans care deeply about — security, migration, and economic prosperity — are all interconnected with Mexico.

Compared to U.S. elections, how vibrant is Mexican democracy?

Tino Cuéllar: In both countries, democratic processes have withstood attacks and efforts to undermine institutions. However, the success of democracy depends not only on formal legal arrangements — such as electoral institutes, courts, and prosecutors — but also on norms, traditions, and habits of behavior. An important distinction in discussions about Mexican democracy is the risk of violence that candidates face. In the U.S., running for office generally does not expose one to great risk due to law enforcement and norms. In Mexico, improving democracy further will involve securing the well-being of candidates, even if their agendas might upset people who might target or threaten them. In principle, there are many common interests that Mexico and the United States share. They both have an interest in keeping borders secure, making economies vibrant, and allowing the peoples of both countries to share in a more prosperous hemispheric economy, which is good for both countries and the world.

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Q&As

Challenges and Opportunities in Turkey's 2023 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections

In this Q&A, Ayça Alemdaroğlu, Associate Director of the Program on Turkey at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, discusses the key issues and their implications for the country's future.
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‘Democracy is on the ballot’: Professors react to midterm election results

As the results of the 2022 Midterm Elections are coming in, Stanford Professors Larry Diamond, Hakeem Jefferson, and Bruce Cain provided their insights on Tuesday night to The Daily.
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The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law’s Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab, in collaboration with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, invited a panel of scholars to discuss the implications of Mexico’s elections and to analyze the political context in which they were held.

Authoritarianism & Possibilities of Democratic Revival in Post-Election Turkey | Yektan Turkyilmaz, Ali Yaycıoğlu, Ayça Alemdaroğlu

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Encina Commons, 123
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Ayça Alemdaroğlu

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Ayça Alemdaroğlu is the Associate Director of the Program on Turkey and a Research Scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. She is also a Global Fellow at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). As a political sociologist, Ayça explores social and political inequalities and changes in Turkey and the Middle East.

Previously, she was an Assistant Professor of Sociology and the Associate Director of the Keyman Modern Turkish Studies Program at Northwestern University. 

She received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Cambridge, her MA in political science from Bilkent University, and her BSc. degrees in political science and sociology from the Middle East Technical University. 

She serves on the editorial committee of the Middle East Report. 

Associate Director, Program on Turkey
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Ayça Alemdaroğlu
Yektan Turkyilmaz
Ali Yaycıoğlu
Panel Discussions

U.S. Democratic Backsliding and the Decline of Democratic Support Abroad

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A burgeoning literature considers the domestic causes and consequences of democratic backsliding for public perceptions of democracy but has yet to fully examine the role of international factors in explaining these perceptions. Specifically, the effect of democratic backsliding in one democracy on public support for democratic principles in other countries has, thus far, defied theoretical and empirical investigation. Addressing this gap, we propose and test a theory of the effects of backsliding on global opinion in which information about democratic decline in one country can lead to increased support for authoritarian governance in another country. To test this, we use an original survey experiment in Israel where we test the effect of two narratives regarding the 2020 U.S. elections—one signaling democratic decline and one signaling democratic resilience—on support for authoritarian governance. We find that respondents exposed to the narrative of U.S. democratic decline were more supportive of authoritarian governance compared to respondents exposed to the narrative of democratic resilience. We further find marginal evidence that the respondents’ ideological preferences condition the effect of narrative exposure. Our findings suggest that the democratic backsliding literature has insufficiently explored the global consequences of domestic events and processes on democratic decline worldwide.

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International Journal of Public Opinion Research
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Amnon Cavari
Amichai Magen
Benjamin Yoel
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