Environment

FSI scholars approach their research on the environment from regulatory, economic and societal angles. The Center on Food Security and the Environment weighs the connection between climate change and agriculture; the impact of biofuel expansion on land and food supply; how to increase crop yields without expanding agricultural lands; and the trends in aquaculture. FSE’s research spans the globe – from the potential of smallholder irrigation to reduce hunger and improve development in sub-Saharan Africa to the devastation of drought on Iowa farms. David Lobell, a senior fellow at FSI and a recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant, has looked at the impacts of increasing wheat and corn crops in Africa, South Asia, Mexico and the United States; and has studied the effects of extreme heat on the world’s staple crops.

Information Session - Fisher Family CDDRL Honors Program

Friday, January 24, 2020 | 12:00 PM -Friday, January 24, 2020 | 1:30 PM

This event is open to Stanford undergraduate students only.

The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) will be accepting applications from eligible juniors on who are interested in writing their senior thesis on a subject touching upon democracy, economic development, and rule of law (DDRL) from any university department. The application period opens on January 13, 2020 and runs through February 14, 2020. CDDRL faculty and current honors students will be present to discuss the program and answer any questions.

For more information on the Fisher Family CDDRL Honors Program, please click here.

Stephen J. Stedman

CDDRL
Encina Hall, C152
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 725-2705 (650) 724-2996

sstedman@stanford.edu

Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science

Stedman_Steve.jpg PhD

Stephen Stedman is a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), an affiliated faculty member at CISAC, and professor of political science (by courtesy) at Stanford University. He is director of CDDRL's Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development and Rule of Law, and will be faculty director of the Program on International Relations in the School of Humanities and Sciences effective Fall 2025.

In 2011-12 Professor Stedman served as the Director for the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy, and Security, a body of eminent persons tasked with developing recommendations on promoting and protecting the integrity of elections and international electoral assistance. The Commission is a joint project of the Kofi Annan Foundation and International IDEA, an intergovernmental organization that works on international democracy and electoral assistance.

In 2003-04 Professor Stedman was Research Director of the United Nations High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change and was a principal drafter of the Panel’s report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility.

In 2005 he served as Assistant Secretary-General and Special Advisor to the Secretary- General of the United Nations, with responsibility for working with governments to adopt the Panel’s recommendations for strengthening collective security and for implementing changes within the United Nations Secretariat, including the creation of a Peacebuilding Support Office, a Counter Terrorism Task Force, and a Policy Committee to act as a cabinet to the Secretary-General.

His most recent book, with Bruce Jones and Carlos Pascual, is Power and Responsibility: Creating International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats (Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 2009).

Director, Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development and Rule of Law

Director, Program in International Relations

Affiliated faculty at the Center for International Security and Cooperation

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Tue, 09/17/2024 - 09:44

Didi Kuo

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

jdkuo@stanford.edu

Center Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

didi_kuo_2023.jpg

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) 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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The Struggle for Political Change in the Arab World

Friday, October 11, 2019 | 8:30 AM -Saturday, October 12, 2019 | 1:15 PM

DAY 1: Friday October 11

8:30 – 9:00am Breakfast

9:00 – 9:15am Introductory Remarks

9:15 – 11:15am Panel 1: The Boundaries of Authoritarianism post-Arab Uprisings

Amr Hamzawy, Stanford University

“The Discourse of Authoritarianism in Egypt”

Sean Yom, Temple University

“Mobilization without Movement: The Curse of the Arab Spring in Jordan”

Samia Errazzouki, University of California, Davis

“Political and Economic Stagnation in Morocco: Twenty Years into King Mohamed VI’s Reign”

Chair: Lisa Blaydes, Stanford University

11:15-11:30am Coffee Break

11:30-1:30pm Panel 2: Popular Uprisings and Uncertain Transitions

Thomas Serres, University of California, Santa Cruz

“Beyond the ‘Isaba: A Political Economy of the Algerian Hirak”

Lindsay Benstead, Portland State University

“Religious Ideology or Clientelism? Explaining Voter Preferences in Tunisia’s Transitional Elections”

Khalid Medani, McGill University

"The Prospects and Challenges of Democratic Consolidation in Sudan: Understanding the Roots, Dynamics and Potential of an “Impossible” Revolution""

Chair: Hicham Alaoui, Harvard University

1:30-2:30pm Lunch

2:30-4:30pm Panel 3: Politics, Succession and Sectarianism in the GCC States

Toby Matthiesen, Oxford University

“Saudi Arabia and the Arab Counter-Revolution”

Michael Herb, Georgia State University

“Monarchical Institutions and the Decay of Family Rule in the Gulf”

Farah Al-Nakib, California Polytechnic State University

“Kuwait's New Urbanism: Palace Projects and the Erosion of the Public”

Chair: Hesham Sallam, Stanford University

DAY 2: Saturday October 12

8:30 – 9:00am Breakfast

9:00 – 11:00am Panel 4: Social Strife and Proxy Conflict in the Middle East

Lina Khatib, Chatham House

“Syria’s Conflict: The Intersections of the International and the Domestic”

Stacey Philbrick Yadav, Hobart and William Smith Colleges,

“Can Allies in War Become Partners in Peace?
Foreign Agendas, Foreign Investment, and Peacebuilding in Yemen”

David Patel, Brandeis University

“Institutions and Competition in Post-Occupation Iraq”

Chair: Amr Hamzawy, Stanford University

11:00-11:15am Coffee Break

11:15-1:15pm Panel 5: International Forces in the Arab Political Arena

Lisa Blaydes, Stanford University

“Will China's 'Belt and Road' Initiative Steady or Destabilize Arab Authoritarians?”

Abbas Milani, Stanford University,

“Iran and its Role in the Prospects of Democracy in the Arab World”

Colin Kahl, FSI, Stanford University

“US Policy Toward a Changing Middle East”

Ayca Alemdaroglu, FSI, Stanford University

“The Rise and Fall of ‘neo-Ottomanism’”

Chair: Larry Diamond, Stanford University

SPEAKER BIOS

Hicham Alaoui is an established voice calling for political reform in the Arab world. He is currently a research fellow based at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, and is pursuing a D.Phil. at the University of Oxford. Previously at Stanford, he was a Consulting Professor at the Center for Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law, and advisory board member at the Freeman Spogli Institute. He has published on democratic reforms in the Middle East for journals such as Politique Internationale, Le Debat, Pouvoirs, Le Monde Diplomatique, and Journal of Democracy. He has contributed to The New York Times, Le Monde, La Nouvelle Observateur, El Pais, and Al-Quds. He also served on the MENA Advisory Committee for Human Rights Watch. He holds degrees from Princeton and Stanford. [Back to top]

Ayça Alemdaroğlu (Ph. D. Cambridge, 2011) (Ph. D. Cambridge, 2011) is the associate director of the Keyman Modern Turkish Studies Program and research assistant professor of sociology at Northwestern University. Her research has engaged with a broad range of theoretical and ethnographic issues, including youth culture and politics, gender and sexuality, experiences of modernity, nationalism, eugenics and higher education. Between 2011-2015, Alemdaroğlu taught in the Anthropology Department and Introductory Studies at Stanford University. Her most publications include "Spatial Segregation and Class Subjectivity in Turkey” published in Social and Cultural Geography; and “Dialectics of Reform and Repression: Unpacking Turkey’s Authoritarian Turn” (with Sinan Erensu) in ROMES. [Back to top]

Lindsay J. Benstead is Associate Professor of Political Science in the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government and Director of the Middle East Studies Center (MESC) at Portland State University. Previously, she served as Fellow in the Middle East Program and the Women’s Global Leadership Initiative at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC (2018-2019) and Kuwait Visiting Professor at SciencesPo in Paris (fall 2016). She is an Affiliated Scholar in the Program on Governance and Local Development (GLD) at the University of Gothenburg and Yale University. Benstead has conducted surveys in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Jordan and contributes to the Transitional Governance Project. Her research on women and politics, public opinion, and survey methodology has appeared in Perspectives on Politics, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Governance, and Foreign Affairs. She holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy and Political Science from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and served as a doctoral fellow at Yale University and a post-doctoral fellow at Princeton University. [Back to top]

Lisa Blaydes is a Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. She is the author of Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 2011). Her articles have appeared in the American Political Science Review, International Studies Quarterly, International Organization, Journal of Theoretical Politics, Middle East Journal, and World Politics. She holds degrees in Political Science (PhD) from the University of California, Los Angeles and International Relations (BA, MA) from Johns Hopkins University. [Back to top]

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. For more than six years, he directed FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, where he now leads its Program on Arab Reform and Democracy and its Global Digital Policy Incubator. He is the founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy and also serves as Senior Consultant at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy. His research focuses on democratic trends and conditions around in the world, and on policies and reforms to defend and advance democracy. His 2016 book, In Search of Democracy, explores the challenges confronting democracy and democracy promotion, gathering together three decades of his writing and research, particularly on Africa and Asia. He is author of Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency, published in 2019 by Penguin Press. He is now writing a textbook on democratic development. [Back to top]

Samia Errazzouki is a PhD student focusing on early modern Northwest African history. Prior to UC Davis, she worked as a journalist based in Morocco reporting for the Associated Press, and later, with Reuters. Samia also worked as a research associate in Morocco with the University of Cambridge, researching the dynamics of surveillance and citizen media in light of the "Arab Spring." She is currently a co-editor with Jadaliyya. Her work and commentary has appeared in various platforms including The Washington Post, BBC, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, the Carnegie Endowment's Sada Journal, the Journal of North African Studies, and the Middle East Institute, among others. Samia holds an MA in Arab Studies from Georgetown University and a BA in Global Affairs from George Mason University. [Back to top]

Amr Hamzawy is a Senior Research Scholar at CDDRL. He studied political science and developmental studies in Cairo, The Hague, and Berlin. He was previously an associate professor of political science at Cairo University and a professor of public policy at the American University in Cairo. Between 2016 and 2017, he served as a senior fellow in the Middle East program and the Democracy and Rule of Law program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC. His research and teaching interests as well as his academic publications focus on democratization processes in Egypt, tensions between freedom and repression in the Egyptian public space, political movements and civil society in Egypt, contemporary debates in Arab political thought, and human rights and governance in the Arab world. He is currently writing a new book on contemporary Egyptian politics, titled Egypt’s New Authoritarianism. Hamzawy is a former member of the People’s Assembly after being elected in the first Parliamentary elections in Egypt after the January 25, 2011 revolution. He is also a former member of the Egyptian National Council for Human Rights. Hamzawy contributes a weekly op-ed to the Egyptian independent newspaper al-Shorouk and a weekly op-ed to the London based newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi. [Back to top]

Michael Herb is professor and chair of political science at Georgia State University. His work focuses on Gulf politics, monarchism and the resource curse. He is the author of The Wages of Oil: Parliaments ‎and Economic Development in Kuwait and the UAE (Cornell University Press, 2014) and All in the Family: Absolutism, Revolution, and Democracy in the Middle Eastern Monarchies (SUNY ‎‎1999), in addition to numerous articles. He maintains the Kuwait Politics Database, a comprehensive and authoritative source of information on Kuwaiti elections. He has twice won Fulbright awards to study in Kuwait. [Back to top]

Colin H. Kahl is co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation, the inaugural Steven C. Házy Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and a Professor, by courtesy, in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University. He is also a Strategic Consultant to the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. From October 2014 to January 2017, he was Deputy Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor to the Vice President. In that position, he served as a senior advisor to President Obama and Vice President Biden on all matters related to U.S. foreign policy and national security affairs, and represented the Office of the Vice President as a standing member of the National Security Council Deputies’ Committee. From February 2009 to December 2011, Dr. Kahl was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East at the Pentagon. In this capacity, he served as the senior policy advisor to the Secretary of Defense for Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel and the Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, and six other countries in the Levant and Persian Gulf region. In June 2011, he was awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service by Secretary Robert Gates. From 2007 to 2017 (when not serving in the U.S. government), Dr. Kahl was an assistant and associate professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. From 2007 to 2009 and 2012 to 2014, he was also a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a nonpartisan Washington, DC-based think tank. From 2000 to 2007, he was an assistant professor of political science at the University of Minnesota. In 2005-2006, Dr. Kahl took leave from the University of Minnesota to serve as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where he worked on issues related to counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, and responses to failed states. In 1997-1998, he was a National Security Fellow at the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. Current research projects include a book analyzing American grand strategy in the Middle East in the post-9/11 era. A second research project focuses on the implications of emerging technologies on strategic stability. He has published numerous articles on international security and U.S. foreign and defense policy in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, International Security, the Los Angeles Times, Middle East Policy, the National Interest, the New Republic, the New York Times, Politico, the Washington Post, and the Washington Quarterly, as well as several reports for CNAS. His previous research analyzed the causes and consequences of violent civil and ethnic conflict in developing countries, focusing particular attention on the demographic and natural resource dimensions of these conflicts. His book on the subject, States, Scarcity, and Civil Strife in the Developing World, was published by Princeton University Press in 2006, and related articles and chapters have appeared in International Security, the Journal of International Affairs, and various edited volumes. Dr. Kahl received his B.A. in political science from the University of Michigan (1993) and his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University (2000). [Back to top]

Lina Khatib is Head of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House. She was formerly director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut and co-founding Head of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. Her research focuses on the international relations of the Middle East, Islamist groups and security, political transitions and foreign policy, with special attention to the Syrian conflict. She is a research associate at SOAS, was a senior research associate at the Arab Reform Initiative and lectured at Royal Holloway, University of London. She has published seven books and also written widely on public diplomacy, political communication and political participation in the Middle East. She is a frequent commentator on politics and security in the Middle East and North Africa at events around the world and in the media. [Back to top]

Toby Matthiesen is a Senior Research Fellow in the International Relations of the Middle East at the Middle East Centre, St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford. He was previously a Research Fellow at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and at the London School of Economics and Political Science and gained his doctorate from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). He is the author of Sectarian Gulf: Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the Arab Spring That Wasn't (Stanford University Press, 2013), and The Other Saudis: Shiism, Dissent and Sectarianism (Cambridge University Press, 2015). His current research focuses on Sunni-Shii relations and the legacies of the Cold War in the Middle East. [Back to top]

Khalid Medani is currently associate professor of political science and Islamic studies at McGill University, and has also taught at Oberlin College and Stanford University. Dr. Medani received an A.B. in development studies from Brown University (1987), an MA in development studies from the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University (1994), and a PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley (2003). His research focuses on the political economy of Islamic and ethnic politics in Egypt, Sudan and Somalia. He has published widely on the roots of civil conflict and the funding of the Islamic movement in Sudan, the question of informal finance and terrorism in Somalia, the obstacles to state building in Iraq, and the role of informal networks in the rise of Islamic militancy. Dr. Medani has worked as a researcher at the Brookings Institution and at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). He also served as a Homeland Security Fellow at Stanford University from 2006-2007, and has worked with a variety of international organizations including the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and the UN Office of the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs. Dr. Medani has also served as a senior consultant for a variety of governments on issues such as the roots of Islamic militancy, the Darfur crisis, youth politics in Sudan, and electoral reforms in Morocco including the governments of the United States, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Norway. He is a previous recipient of a Carnegie Scholar on Islam award from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. [Back to top]

Abbas Milani is the Hamid & Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies and Adjunct Professor at the Center on Democracy, Development and Rule of Law at the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University. He has been one of the founding co-directors of the Iran Democracy Project and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. His expertise is U.S.-Iran relations as well as Iranian cultural, political, and security issues. Until 1986, he taught at Tehran University’s Faculty of Law and Political Science, where he was also a member of the Board of Directors of the university’s Center for International Relations. After moving to the United States, he was for fourteen years the Chair of the Political Science Department at the Notre Dame de Namur University. For eight years, he was a visiting Research Fellow in University of California, Berkeley’s Middle East Center. [Back to top]

Farah Al-Nakib is Assistant Professor of History at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. She received her PhD (2011) and MA (2006) in History from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Her book Kuwait Transformed: A History of Oil and Urban Life (Stanford University Press, 2016) analyzes the relationship between the urban landscape, the patterns and practices of everyday life, and social behaviors and relations in Kuwait, and traces the historical transformation of these three interrelated realms in the shift from the pre-oil to oil eras. Her current research focuses on collective memory and forgetting in Kuwait, and on the Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait in 1990-91. Her articles have been published in numerous peer reviewed journals and various edited volumes. Until 2018 Al-Nakib was Associate Professor of History and Director of the Center for Gulf Studies at the American University of Kuwait. [Back to top]

David Siddhartha Patel is the Associate Director for Research at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. His research focuses on religious authority, social order, and identity in the contemporary Arab world. He conducted independent field research in Iraq on the role of mosques and clerical networks in generating order after state collapse, and his book, Order Out of Chaos: Islam, Information, and Social Order in Iraq, is being prepared for publication by Cornell University Press. Patel has also recently written about the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood; ISIS in Iraq; and dead states in the Middle East. He teaches courses on Middle Eastern politics, research design, and GIS and spatial aspects of politics. Before joining the Crown Center, Patel was an assistant professor of government at Cornell University. Patel received his B.A. from Duke University in Economics and Political Science and his Ph.D. from Stanford University in Political Science, where he also was a fellow at CDDRL and CISAC. He studied Arabic in Lebanon, Yemen, Morocco, and Jordan. [Back to top]

Hesham Sallam is a Research Associate at CDDRL and serves as the Associate-Director of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy. He is also a co-editor of Jadaliyya ezine and a former program specialist at the U.S. Institute of Peace. His research focuses on Islamist movements and the politics of economic reform in the Arab World. Sallam’s research has previously received the support of the Social Science Research Council and the U.S. Institute of Peace. Past institutional affiliations include Middle East Institute, Asharq Al-Awsat, and the World Security Institute. He is editor of Egypt's Parliamentary Elections 2011-2012: A Critical Guide to a Changing Political Arena (Tadween Publishing, 2013). Sallam received a Ph.D. in Government (2015) and an M.A. in Arab Studies (2006) from Georgetown University, and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh (2003). [Back to top]

Thomas Serres is a lecturer in the Politics Department at UC Santa Cruz and a specialist of North African and Mediterranean politics and his scholarship focuses on questions of crisis, economic restructuring and authoritarian upgrading. His first book was published in French by Karthala in 2019. It studies the politics of catastrophization in post-civil war Algeria and is entitled Algeria and the Suspended Disaster: Managing the Crisis and Blaming the People under Bouteflika. He has also recently co-edited the volume North Africa and the Making of Europe: Governance, Institutions, Culture, which was published by Bloomsbury Academic Press in 2018. [Back to top]

Stacey Philbrick Yadav is Associate Professor and chair of the Department of Political Science at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. She has written extensively about Islamist-Leftist and intra-Islamist dynamics in Yemen, including Islamists and the State: Legitimacy and Institutions in Yemen and Lebanon, and was a contributor to the “Rethinking Political Islam” project at the Brookings Institution. Focusing increasingly on Yemen’s evolving war dynamics, she co-edited Politics, Governance, and Reconstruction in Yemen’s War for the Project on Middle East Political Science and the spring 2019 issue of Middle East Report devoted to the conflict. Philbrick Yadav serves on the executive committee of the American Institute for Yemeni Studies, and is currently a non-resident fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. [Back to top]

Sean Yom is Associate Professor of Political Science at Temple University and Senior Fellow in the Middle East Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. His research explores authoritarian politics, institutional stability, and historical identity in these countries, as well as their implications for US foreign policy. His publications include From Resilience to Revolution: How Foreign Interventions Destabilize the Middle East (Columbia University Press, 2016); the Routledge textbooks Societies of the Middle East and North Africa (2019) and Government and Politics of the Middle East and North Africa (2019); and numerous articles in academic journals and popular media. He is currently writing a new book, under contract, on the history and politics of Jordan. [Back to top]

Conferences

Draper Hills 2019 Summer Fellows Reflect on Activism, Democracy and the Importance of Collaboration

Read more about Draper Hills 2019 Summer Fellows Reflect on Activism, Democracy and the Importance of Collaboration

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Mon, 08/05/2019 - 12:00

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Every summer, the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program brings together international leaders who are pioneering new approaches to advance social and political change in some of the most challenging global contexts. The fellows spend three weeks living and taking classes on the Stanford campus, visiting Silicon Valley tech companies and building a network.

Representing business, government and the nonprofit sector, fellows are working on the frontlines of democratic change to combat the global rise of authoritarianism and populism. The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies spoke to five of the fellows about the impact of the Draper Hills program on their work and activism. These are their stories.

Shaili Chopra, India

“I run a platform called SheThePeopleTv. It's a platform for women, and it aims to share news, opinions, data and statistics through a gendered lens. Women are a critical part of democracy — from where I come, in India, we have 600 million women. That's half of the country's population. I think they must also have half of the country’s voice, which they don't.

“I think a big plus of a program like Draper Hills is that when we are all working in the general construct of democracy, we have shared problems, and we also look for shared solutions. It's very empowering to be around people who understand these situations, or have found solutions or overcame them in their countries, or are going through similar problems. You can discuss them and get a sense of solidarity and a sense of empathy.”

Wiem Zarrouk, Tunisia

Wiem Zarrouk, senior advisor to the Minister of Development, Investment and International Cooperation in Tunisia. Photo: Alice Wenner

“I’ve been working for the Tunisian government for three years as an advisor to the Minister of Development, Investment and International Cooperation. I am leading the government reforms to improve Tunisia's ranking in the World Bank Competitiveness Report - Doing Business.

“In Tunisia, we’ve set up most of our democratic institutions, and now we want to improve the business environment to attract more investment in local businesses. Eight years ago, the people went into the streets demanding more jobs. The challenge in Tunisia right now is economic, that’s why economic reforms are important to our government.

“I think the impact of the Draper Hills program will be immediate. I’ve learned a lot here about the link between development and democracies, so it really covers the scope of my work. And it's been great to learn about the theoretical side — the professors are really speaking about things that impact our daily work.”

Ujwal Thapa, Nepal

“Bibeksheel Nepali is basically a political startup. It’s a youth-led movement, and we’re focused on changing the norms and mindsets of the culture in Nepal. We work a lot with citizens to instill the values of transparency, empathy and humility because we think democracy needs to be more emotional instead of just logical. I think liberal democracy needs to be understood more in the context of humanity. So it’s an experiment that we're doing in Nepal.

“When we started with the experiment, we decided not to focus only on the state, but thought about a few more components: one is our citizens, another is the society and the third is the government. Nepal recently came out of a violent civil war, and we just built a new constitution that is much more tolerant. Transparency is another value that we want to instill, because of the long isolationist and autocratic dictatorship that has existed in the past.

“Draper Hills is bringing all of these practitioners together who are experimental and innovative. And the world needs better collaboration from people who really believe in the ideals of the 21st century, which are liberal, democratic and more humanistic. That’s one of the strongest aspects of the Draper Hills program.”

N.S. Nappinai, India

“I'm a lawyer — I specialize in cyber laws. My work throughout my career has been focused on ensuring responsible technology and the use of technology to fight crime. Two years ago I was appointed by the Supreme Court of India as Amicus Curiae on a matter related to protecting against the uploading of videos and images of gang rape and child pornography online.

“Some of the social media platforms had very good reporting mechanisms, whereas it was more hidden on other platforms. So we ensured that this issue was brought to the forefront so that people know that these are things that can be reported and some action can be taken. The whole idea was that as long as you identify such content at the earliest possible time, then you help the victim that much more.

“For me, balancing victims' rights with free speech is very important. This was a big dilemma that I faced, in terms of ‘How much of what I am doing is likely to stifle free speech?’ A lot of discussions at Draper Hills have helped formulate and structure my thoughts, and it's very nice to get the perspective from people from 26 other countries.”

Hinda Bouddane, Morocco

“I'm involved in women's empowerment and education for girls in Morocco. And especially for women in rural areas — they are less privileged, and many of them don't know their rights. So my fight through JA Worldwide and my activism is to empower these women and to raise awareness about their rights and the importance of education for girls.

“Education for girls is really important in fighting discrimination against women. Education empowers women to become financially independent, say no to violence, and to get engaged in the public sphere. Through that, women can be a part of the democratic process not only by voting, but also by taking part from within and running for office.

At Draper Hills, we're deepening our knowledge about topics like the rule of law, democracy and human rights, and hearing many different perspectives. And importantly, we are building a great network to connect many intelligent people from around the world, and we will work together to foster democratic values.”

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The 2019 Draper Hills Class of 2019 at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Photo: Stanford Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law

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Cosmopolitanism and the Crisis of Social Identity

Thursday, May 9, 2019 | 12:00 PM -Thursday, May 9, 2019 | 1:30 PM

Abstract:

The recent surge in nationalism and tribalism brings renewed salience to questions of identity within and across borders. Notably, it exposes the tension between bounded social identities, on the one hand, and universalist yearnings and commitments, on the other. Liberal democracy—and the ostensible universalism on which it is based—is struggling to resolve this tension. I turn instead to the cosmopolitan tradition. I argue that cosmopolitanism—and a genuinely cosmopolitan (i.e., unbounded) social identity, in particular—represents not just an extension of scope from the national to the global, but a qualitative shift that permeates all identities, and serves to fundamentally protect and liberate particularist attachments from their otherwise inherent instabilities and contradictions. On this view, the promise of cosmopolitanism does not rest exclusively in what it can deliver beyond our borders, but also in its potential to fundamentally recast social identities within boundaries, resolving crises of identity at all levels of society.

Speaker Bio:

Shahrzad Sabet's research spans politics, economics, psychology, and philosophy. She is a Fellow at the University of Maryland’s Bahá’í Chair for World Peace Program. Previously, she was a Senior Research Fellow at Princeton University’s Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance and a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard, where she recently received her PhD in Government. Her work has been featured in outlets such as The Washington Post and The New York Times.

Shahrzad Sabet Fellow at the University of Maryland’s Bahá’í Chair for World Peace Program

Seminars

Information Session - Fisher Family CDDRL Honors Program

Friday, January 18, 2019 | 12:00 PM

This event is open to Stanford undergraduate students only.

The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) is currently accepting applications from eligible juniors due February 15, 2019 who are interested in writing their senior thesis on a subject touching upon democracy, economic development, and rule of law (DDRL) from any university department. CDDRL faculty and current honors students will be present to discuss the program and answer any questions.

For more information on the Fisher Family CDDRL Honors Program, please click here.

Ground Floor Conference Rm E008 Encina Hall616 Serra MallStanford, CA 94305-6055

Stephen J. Stedman

CDDRL
Encina Hall, C152
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 725-2705 (650) 724-2996

sstedman@stanford.edu

Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science

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His most recent book, with Bruce Jones and Carlos Pascual, is Power and Responsibility: Creating International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats (Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 2009).

Director, Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development and Rule of Law

Director, Program in International Relations

Affiliated faculty at the Center for International Security and Cooperation

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Tue, 09/17/2024 - 09:44

Didi Kuo

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

jdkuo@stanford.edu

Center Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

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Mon, 09/22/2025 - 10:08

Not Always Stand Divided: Islamists and Secular Rivals in Tunisia

Thursday, February 21, 2019 | 12:00 PM -Thursday, February 21, 2019 | 1:30 PM

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

Abstract:

Why were Islamists less polarizing in Tunisia than their counterparts in Egypt after the downfall of the autocratic regime in 2011? While the electoral processes that brought the Muslim Brotherhood to power in Egypt rapidly polarized society, the Muslim Brothers in Tunisia formed a coalition with secular groups to pry power from the old power centers immediately after the removal of Ben Ali. Different approaches focused on Tunisians’ liberal culture and their proximity to Europe. Scant attention paid to both the historical and political-strategic conditions that shaped boundaries of interactions between Islamists and non-Islamists. I argue that the historical relations between the state and Islamists affect the distribution of power between them on the one hand, and their secular opponents on the other. In Tunisia, Islamist and non-Islamist forces believed in the necessity of conciliation (or were forced to do so by political circumstances). They, therefore, reached across ideological lines and struck deals to hold democratic institutions.

Speaker Bio:

Shimaa Hatab is assistant professor of political science at the Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Essex University. She is a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the Abbasi Program, at Stanford. Her research interests include democratization, authoritarianism, political economy of development, with a focus on countries in the Middle East and Latin America.

Shimaa Hatab assistant professor of political science at the Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University

Seminars

The Midterm Elections

Thursday, November 8, 2018 | 12:00 PM -Thursday, November 8, 2018 | 1:30 PM

Two days after the midterm elections, join a panel of Stanford experts to discuss the election outcomes. What do they mean for Congress, for the Republican and Democratic parties, and for Trump? How many Americans voted, who were they, and what issues mattered to their votes? The panel will contextualize the election results within broader trends in American democracy. Watch here.

Traitel Bldg. Hauck Auditorium

Nathaniel Persily

Stanford Law School Neukom Building, Room N230 Stanford, CA 94305

650-725-9875

npersily@law.stanford.edu

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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Mon, 01/20/2025 - 13:43

Professor of Law at Stanford Law School

Doug Rivers Senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor of political science at Stanford University

Morris Fiorina Wendt Family Professor and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution

Francis Fukuyama

Encina Hall, C148
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305

f.fukuyama@stanford.edu

Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

Director of the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy

Research Affiliate at The Europe Center

Professor by Courtesy, Department of Political Science

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Francis Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a faculty member of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). He is also Director of Stanford's Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy, and a professor (by courtesy) of Political Science.

Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on issues in development and international politics. His 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. His book In the Realm of the Last Man: A Memoir will be published in fall 2026.

Francis Fukuyama received his B.A. from Cornell University in classics, and his Ph.D. from Harvard in Political Science. He was a member of the Political Science Department of the RAND Corporation, and of the Policy Planning Staff of the US Department of State. From 1996-2000 he was Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University, and from 2001-2010 he was Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. He served as a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics from 2001-2004. He is editor-in-chief of American Purpose, an online journal.

Dr. Fukuyama holds honorary doctorates from Connecticut College, Doane College, Doshisha University (Japan), Kansai University (Japan), Aarhus University (Denmark), the Pardee Rand Graduate School, and Adam Mickiewicz University (Poland). He is a non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Rand Corporation, the Board of Trustees of Freedom House, and the Board of the Volcker Alliance. He is a fellow of the National Academy for Public Administration, a member of the American Political Science Association, and of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is married to Laura Holmgren and has three children.

(October 2025)

Global Populisms

A new project examining the global surge in populist movements and what it means for established democratic rules and institutions.

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Thu, 10/10/2024 - 15:18

Moderator

Didi Kuo

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

jdkuo@stanford.edu

Center Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

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Academic Research & Program Manager, Program on American Democracy in Comparative Perspective

Panel Discussions

American Democracy and the Mid-Term Elections

Thursday, October 4, 2018 | 12:00 PM -Thursday, October 4, 2018 | 1:30 PM

What’s at stake in this year’s midterm elections? After months of contentious primary races, the 2018 midterms will determine which party controls Congress this January. Join us for a panel discussion featuring Bruce Cain, Director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University, and Mirya Holman, Associate Professor of Political Science at Tulane University. We will discuss the important campaign issues, the diversity of candidates running, and the role gender issues are playing across the House and Senate races.

Bruce E. Cain

Jerry Yang & Akiko Yamazaki
Environment & Energy Building
473 Via Ortega, First Floor
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-4225

bcain@stanford.edu

Charles Louis Ducommun Professor, Humanities and Sciences

Director, Bill Lane Center for the American West

Professor, Political Science

CDDRL Affiliated Faculty

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Bruce E. Cain is a Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and Director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West. He received a BA from Bowdoin College (1970), a B Phil. from Oxford University (1972) as a Rhodes Scholar, and a Ph D from Harvard University (1976). He taught at Caltech (1976-89) and UC Berkeley (1989-2012) before coming to Stanford. Professor Cain was Director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley from 1990-2007 and Executive Director of the UC Washington Center from 2005-2012. He was elected the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000 and has won awards for his research (Richard F. Fenno Prize, 1988), teaching (Caltech 1988 and UC Berkeley 2003) and public service (Zale Award for Outstanding Achievement in Policy Research and Public Service, 2000). His areas of expertise include political regulation, applied democratic theory, representation and state politics. Some of Professor Cain’s most recent publications include “Malleable Constitutions: Reflections on State Constitutional Design,” coauthored with Roger Noll in University of Texas Law Review, volume 2, 2009; “More or Less: Searching for Regulatory Balance,” in Race, Reform and the Political Process, edited by Heather Gerken, Guy Charles and Michael Kang, CUP, 2011; and “Redistricting Commissions: A Better Political Buffer?” in The Yale Law Journal, volume 121, 2012. He is currently working on a book about political reform in the US.

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Director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West at Stanford University

Mirya Holman Associate Professor of Political Science , Tulane University

Didi Kuo

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

jdkuo@stanford.edu

Center Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

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Mon, 09/22/2025 - 10:08

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Panel Discussions

Saving the world’s food and water supplies with Ertharin Cousin

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Mon, 08/13/2018 - 12:00

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The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University is pleased to announce that former U.S. Ambassador and World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director Ertharin Cousin will return for a second year at Stanford. Cousin will serve as the Frank E. and Arthur W. Payne Distinguished Lecturer at FSI and Distinguished Fellow at the Center on Food Security and the Environment and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.

Cousin brings over 30 years of experience addressing hunger and food security strategies on both a national and international scale. As U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture, she focused on advocating for longer-term solutions to food insecurity and hunger, and at WFP she addressed the challenges of food insecurity in conflict situations.

We caught up with Cousin to ask about her plans for this upcoming school year.

If you had to pick out one thing that most concerns you in the realm of food security, what would it be?

Water access, particularly in terms of smallholder farmer centered irrigation and water management. The development community spent much of the past 10 years working to improve farmers’ access to the right seeds and tools – recognizing the need to increase the quality and quantity of their yields. A significant amount of work has also been performed related to improving private sector investment and to the development of markets including access for smallholder farmers.

Today there are approximately 500 million smallholder farmers in the world. The most vulnerable live and work in places where climate change creates ever more erratic rainy seasons. Particularly, in sub-Saharan Africa where 97 percent of all agriculture remains rain-fed. Too often the short rains don’t come, and the long rains produce insufficient precipitation. Inadequate policy management of diminishing water resources represents a significant problem which we must overcome to make agriculture productive and sustainable for the most vulnerable.

And what work have you been doing to address this issue?

I am working on a number of policy research and development projects. For example, I am co-chairing the Chicago Council on Global Affairs (CCGA) 2019 Global Food Security Symposium’s report exploring the linkages between water management and food security particularly as it relates to nutrition security. The report release will occur March 21, 2019 at the CCGA Food Security Symposium.

Over the past year, you also have been working on a project to encourage the private sector to create sustainable food systems. How is that going?

My work identifying and addressing policy-related challenges impacting private sector partnership and investment in global food system solutions continues. Globally, there is growing recognition that we cannot fix the broken global food system if we do not work to create collaborative efforts between public and private sector, academia, government, non-profits and larger society.

Governments, particularly those in developing countries, often lack both the financial resources and technical capacity required to perform the work and the investment necessary to fix our global food system. Governments and civil society must include private sector as an equal and desired partner. Government policies at the global, state and local level should support and encourage private sector participation.

Using my role here at Stanford as a platform to broker research and information both to private sector as well as to government, has proven quite successful over the past year. In very simple terms, helping global governments understand generating profit does not make the private sector a bad partner.

What successes have you had so far?

I was just in Amsterdam to meet with Royal DSM, a nutrition products manufacturer, with whom I developed a relationship during my tenure at the World Food Programme. In Kigali in Rwanda, DSM and several other partners - including the national government - have developed and are now operating the Africa Improved Foods company, the first European-type baby food manufacturing facility. European-type baby food differs from American products in terms of their lack of sweeteners and conservative use of food preservatives, lack of detectable pesticides (due to farming practices), and their stage-approach: they produce different products for the various stages of baby growth (from birth to 4 years) that cater to the specific nutritional needs of the child. Several farming cooperatives, representing approximately 10,000 Rwandan small farmers, form the sole supply chain for this baby food factory.

WFP serves as a catalyst market for the plant, purchasing the supplemental nutrition product distributed through the region’s targeted nutrition improvement program. The sustainability of the factory is directly related to the partners ability to grow (in addition to WFP) an institutional and a commercial consumer market for this easy-access, nutrient-rich food that is specifically made for children. I am assisting DSM and the government of Rwanda by helping to identify the policy changes required to ensure the sustainability of this public-private partnership. As a proof-of-concept, the success of AIF, will result in new public-private development opportunities. This initiative offers a case study demonstrating how collaboration between the private sector and government actually provides positive benefits for both farmers and nutritious food for consumers.

Why Stanford? How has being here helped your work?

Serving here at Stanford represents my first opportunity to work in academia on a full-time basis. I am a lawyer with over 30 years of experience of working on complicated domestic and global humanitarian and development issues; particularly, hunger related issues. I believe my experience adds value to any academic community. But in many institutions, the value of experience is not readily embraced, particularly because I don't have a PhD and haven’t spent 20 years in a classroom. At Stanford, I discovered collegial faculty, brilliant students and a recognition as well as a respect for my experience-based knowledge. I have received a welcoming response across the campus, collaborating with the law school, colleagues in the medical school, earth system sciences and the business school. The only limit to my participation and partnership with the amazing academic leaders here at Stanford has been time. I am quite looking forward to the opportunities for engagement provided by my additional time on campus.

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The Payne Distinguished Lectureship is awarded to scholars with international reputations as leaders, with an emphasis on visionary thinking, practical problem solving, and the capacity to clearly articulate an important perspective on the global political and social situation. Past Payne Lecturers include Bill Gates, Nobel Laureate Mohamed El Baradei, UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot, and novelist Ian McEwan.

The Center on Food Security and the Environment (FSE) addresses critical global issues of hunger, poverty and environmental degradation and is a joint effort of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.

The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is an interdisciplinary center for research on development in all of its dimensions: political, economic, social and legal, and the ways in which these different dimensions interact with one another.

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Welcoming the class of 2018 undergraduate honors students

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Fri, 05/12/2017 - 12:00

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The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University is pleased to announce the 2018 class of undergraduate senior honors students.

Honors students spend three quarters participating in research seminars to refine their theses, while working under the supervision of their thesis advisors. In September, the class travels to Washington, D.C. for a weeklong Honors College, where they visit leading government and development organizations to witness policymaking in practice and to consult with key decision-makers.

Please join CDDRL in congratulating the 2018 Fisher Family CDDRL Honors students and welcoming them to the Center.

Below are profiles of the 14 honors students highlighting their academic interests, why they applied to CDDRL, and some fun facts.

Suraj Bulchand

Major: Management Science and Engineering

Hometown: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Tentative Thesis Title: Technology and Political Influence: Exploring the Impact of Technology on Support for Singapore’s Government

Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? Singapore, among the world’s richest countries never to have changed its ruling party, is an anomaly. In recent times, the Little Red Dot has been forced to navigate the choppy waters of a new global political climate. Access to technology and increased globalization have prompted the proliferation of paradigm-shifting ideologies. The internet, for example, sometimes represents a challenge for Singapore’s government. Some question whether access to the internet in Singapore should be managed, and whether this will have cascading political effects. Others question whether the increased spread of individual political and social views online will lead to shifts in the way Singaporeans think about their government. Understanding technology’s role in shaping Singaporeans’ political stances and views on democracy is important in projecting the effects any variations in these can have on Singapore’s economic development and political atmosphere.

What attracted you to the CDDRL undergraduate honors program? The CDDRL honors program grants me the opportunity to effectively tackle fundamental questions about a shifting political landscape that has development implications for Singapore. The program would also enable me to expand my abilities as a researcher and garner diverse opinions on democracy, development and the rule of law from professors and peers in the honors cohort.

Future aspirations post-Stanford: After my undergraduate career, I plan to complete a coterminal Master's degree in Management Science and Engineering. In the future, I hope to work at the intersection of strategy, technology and policy.

What are you summer research plans? This summer, I will be interning with the Corporate Strategy and Development team of an asset management firm. Alongside this, I plan to break ground on research for my thesis by dissecting available online data, reading relevant literature, conducting interviews and testing my hypotheses.

A fun fact about yourself: I discovered a love for running while serving in the Singapore military and hope to complete an ultramarathon someday.

Marin Callaway

Major: International Relations; Spanish (minor)

Hometown: Encinitas, CA

Tentative Thesis Title: Land, Power, and Changing Borders: California After the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? My topic relates to rule of law and democracy by examining what happens to non-citizens who become incorporated into a new country through a changed border and how the country treats this minority. I plan on touching on this broader issue by studying in detail the case of the Mexican Land Cession in the 19th century. How were Mexican citizens and other non-citizens in California treated after the Treaty and specifically what happened to their land? What is the legacy of policies that stripped many of their land and power?

What attracted you to the CDDRL undergraduate honors program? I was drawn to the collaborative and interdisciplinary nature of the CDDRL program. I am excited to learn from my peers' different perspectives and work together.

Future aspirations post-Stanford: Post-Stanford, I hope to attend law school and possibly focus on international or immigration law. Ultimately, I would like to pursue a career in public service related to policy and government.

A fun fact about yourself: When I was a kid, I wanted to be an architect. I was constantly drawing floor plans and asked for a subscription to Architectural Digest for Hanukah when I was eight. I still love going to random open houses!

Qitong (Thomas) Cao

Major: Political Science; Computer Science (minor); MS&E (Computational Social Science) (coterm)

Hometown: Nanjing, China

Tentative Thesis Title: The Internet Maneuvers of the Chinese Government

Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? While there have been many studies on the internet and social media’s effects on promoting democratization, research on the internet maneuvers of a strong state has been a relatively recent development. In the case of China, in particular, the academic community have made tremendous progress in understanding what exactly the government has been doing, but so far, little research has focused on the strategic level in explaining why it is doing so from a governance perspective. In this sense, my research project seeks to provide a preliminary step toward filling this gap

What attracted you to the CDDRL undergraduate honors program? My talks with Professors Francis Fukuyama and Larry Diamond since I just got into Stanford.

Future aspirations post-Stanford: I would like to pursue a PhD in political science focusing on methods and the politics of internet/information.

What are you summer research plans? I will be interning at Google, using social network analysis, natural language processing, and unsurprised learning to analyze social media dynamics.

A fun fact about yourself: I learned English from reading Harry Potter!

Trey Hale

Major: International Relations; Music

Hometown: Forsyth, Missouri

Tentative Thesis Title: Post Apartheid South Africa's Restructured Health Care System and the Political Oversight of Community Health Workers

Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? In transitional states such as South Africa in the early 1990s, state health care systems are often in a state of flux. In 1994, the ANC-led coalition chose not to include community health workers as part of the government's primary health care system. My historical analysis will place this political decision by the ANC in conversation with current efforts by the South African government to employ the thousands of community health workers under the Department of Health's umbrella. This research project will hopefully shed light on the political factors present in transitional states as they attempt to restructure their health care systems. It will also highlight the importance of community health workers in settings with high burdens of infectious diseases (i.e. HIV/AIDS).

What attracted you to the CDDRL undergraduate honors program? I was first attracted to the CDDRL honors program because of the interdisciplinary nature of the cohort. Everyone in the program has a different academic background, and it is incredibly useful to have so many perspectives in the room when discussing our research topics. Additionally, I saw the CDDRL honors program as an opportunity to return to the work I had started with community health workers in Cape Town where I studied abroad for six months.

Future aspirations post-Stanford: After undergrad, I hope to pursue a Master of Public Health and spend some time working abroad before attending law school. At the moment, a career in health care law seems most exciting.

What are you summer research plans? I will be interning at the Center for Democratic Development in Accra, Ghana for most of the summer. In late August, I will be traveling to Cape Town to conduct field research for my honors thesis with support from the Freeman Spogli Institute.

A fun fact about yourself: When I was ten years old, a vampire bat bit me on the back of the neck and I had to get the rabies vaccine.

Claire Howlett

Major: Symbolic Systems

Hometown: Stamford, Connecticut

Tentative Thesis Title: Predictors of Acute Malnutrition Incidence and Severity in Southern Malawi

Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? Nearly half of Malawian children under five are malnourished, and this condition has a huge impact on economic and social development nationwide. A better understanding of malnutrition could improve how NGOs and policymakers approach this issue and add to the global body of literature on malnutrition and food insecurity.

What attracted you to the CDDRL undergraduate honors program? I was drawn to the CDDRL honors program because of its interdisciplinary nature, which allows students to combine quantitative and qualitative analysis to explore issues in development. I was excited by the prospect of working closely with the cohort and awesome faculty associated with the program.

Future aspirations post-Stanford: I hope to explore social and environmental determinants of health disparities in resource-poor settings through work and (maybe eventually) graduate school.

What are you summer research plans? I will be interning at a NGO that facilitates women's political participation in post-conflict societies. I will also conduct preliminary research for my thesis.

A fun fact about yourself: I love to run and used to be on the Stanford cross country/track team -- now I sometimes do trail races!

Steven Jiang

Major: Mathematics

Hometown: Sugar Land, TX

Tentative Thesis Title: A Comparative Evaluation of Property Rights Indices

Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? This project evaluates different property rights indices by their correlation with measures of democracy, rule of law, and development.

What attracted you to the CDDRL undergraduate honors program? It's a great opportunity to do extended research.

What are you summer research plans? Some travel and some research work.

A fun fact about yourself: I biked from here to Monterey without knowing how to shift gears.

Alexis Kallen

Major: Political Science; Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; Human Rights (minor); Spanish (minor)

Hometown: Camarillo, CA

Tentative Thesis Title: Sexual Assault in the Face of Genocide: Exploring Burundian Refugee Journeys to Rwanda and Tanzania

Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? Currently, I think the general public is largely unaware of the use of sexual assault as a tool of war against Burundian women. I would like to shed light on this human rights issue and examine why international law is seemingly completely failing in Burundi. I think that this topic directly covers democracy, development, and the rule of Law, as I will examine the interaction between governmental, regional, and international legal systems to understand why these human rights abuses are permitted to occur.

What attracted you to the CDDRL undergraduate honors program? CDDRL was specialized in development and law with an international focus especially, which was of great interest to me. I liked that it is an interdisciplinary program, and offers great mentorship from FSI faculty as well as abundant resources to help me write my thesis, such as the preparation class my cohort is taking this spring.

Future aspirations post-Stanford: I would like to get a dual JD/ MPP degree and practice international human rights law in the future. I am especially interested in pursuing cases dealing with war crimes against women and girls.

What are you summer research plans? I will be doing research in refugee camps in Rwanda and Tanzania at the end of the summer.

A fun fact about yourself: I have a bit of an obsession with the Kennedy family and can be found analyzing Kennedy conspiracy theories in my spare time.

Jason Li

Major: Human Biology

Hometown: Hacienda Heights, CA

Tentative Thesis Title: Controlling Chronic Disease in China: Evaluating National Pilot Programs for Evidence-Based Policy Improvement

Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? As global health advances have greatly decreased mortality in the developing world, low and middle income countries are now tackling the largest emerging global health threat of this century—non-communicable diseases. Global health is now entering an unprecedented stage: for the first time in the world, child mortality will be lower than adult mortality and more people will be obese than malnourished. After rapid economic development and successfully and aggressively controlling infectious diseases, China has now been called the “microcosm” of this global health transition. Grappling with an aging population and—with it—a substantial and growing NCD burden, China’s strategies and health system response will serve as a representative research opportunity for how other countries should address these issues as they develop and go through similar epidemiological transitions

What attracted you to the CDDRL undergraduate honors program? Interested in global health issues, I’ve found myself craving different perspectives necessitated by such a multidisciplinary field. How do policy strategies, development principles, governance and community dynamics, and cultures and histories translate into public health advances? The CDDRL honors program brings such a variety of skills and stories to the table, which I know will complicate and enrich my research and personal and professional goals.

Future aspirations post-Stanford: After graduating, I hope to take a year to work on global health policy issues and eventually apply to medical school.

What are you summer research plans? I will first be working with the Stanford Rural Education Action Plan to conduct field research on rural children’s health and education in China. I will then come back to Stanford to work on my honors thesis research.

A fun fact about yourself: I used to be an avid fan fiction writer for trashy young adult novels.

Riya Mehta

Major: Earth Systems; Spanish (minor)

Hometown: Overland Park, Kansas

Tentative Thesis Title: The Power of Land Tenure: The Food Security Implications of Increasing Women’s Access to Land Rights

Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? In more than half of the countries on this planet, laws or customs challenge women’s ownership and access to land. Yet, more than 400 million women across the planet work in agriculture. The topic I have proposed is important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of the law because it expands on existing research focused on gender-sensitive land tenure reform. A number of studies have begun to link secure land rights for women to increased agricultural productivity and food security. Moreover, existing data suggest that strengthening women’s land rights also leads to more sustainable resource use. This project attempts to discover the ways in which the world’s most food insecure regions must reexamine and restructure their existing land tenure laws—both customary and statutory—so that they have a tangible and positive impact on women farmers, and by proxy, the well-being of their communities and the sustainability of the planet’s natural resources.

What attracted you to the CDDRL undergraduate honors program? As an Earth Systems major, I have benefitted from both my “breadth” requirements that span classes in chemistry, biology, environmental science, and economics, and my “depth” requirements, which have allowed me to specifically concentrate on the topic of global food security, through courses such as Food and Security, Feeding Nine Billion and World Food Economy. My academic career thus far has emphasized to me the importance of having both general and specialized knowledge, and I believe the nature of the CDDRL program will allow me to further develop both. Particularly, as I develop my own specific research question starting this spring in the CDDRL research seminar, I will be able to engage with and learn from the other students in my cohort, each of whom is pursuing a question that falls under the broad banner of “democracy, development, and the rule of the law.” Later, as I develop my own thesis and become an expert on my specific topic, I will be able to seek out mentors and fellow students within CDDRL to help me reflect on and assess my research and its broader implications.

Future aspirations post-Stanford: After graduating from Stanford, I hope to gain some work experience and then go on to graduate school. I am considering both law school and a number of PhD programs that would allow me to delve deeper into the emerging field of food security.

What are you summer research plans? This summer, I will be working at the Landesa Center for Women’s Land Rights in Seattle, Washington.

A fun fact about yourself: I am a certified yoga instructor, and I enjoy waking up very early in the morning to practice and/or teach yoga.

Lucienne Oyer

Major: Economics

Hometown: Menlo Park, CA

Tentative Thesis Title: Energy Infrastructure Outcomes in Ghana: Comparative Analysis of Chinese & Western Investments

Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? Infrastructure is a major bottleneck for development and countless sources have identified the large returns poor countries can generate by investing in major infrastructure projects. My topic explores a poorly understood trend in international infrastructure development: the rapid emergence of China as a development lender. Developing countries are increasingly choosing Chinese policy bank loans, as they offer attractive financing packages with few strings attached. The Chinese infrastructure building model differs significantly from the one used by traditional multi-lateral development banks, and thus it is pertinent to understand if the differing approaches effect the final productive outcomes of the infrastructure that is built. This knowledge can help inform the decisions of developing countries seeking finance for infrastructure development.

What attracted you to the CDDRL undergraduate honors program? The CDDRL undergraduate honors program offers a unique opportunity to work with students and faculty across disciplines, which I believe will help me view my research topic, approach, and analysis from a wide range of perspectives. I am also excited about the strong network of peer support that I will receive as a member of the honors cohort.

Future aspirations post-Stanford: I would like to work in the field of international development, though I am not yet sure in what capacity. I am particularly excited by infrastructure development, so I hope that I will be able to pursue this interest in my career and future education.

What are you summer research plans? I will travel to Ghana to conduct field research, funded through an FSI Large Research Grant. I will base my research in Accra, and also visit energy generation plants throughout the country to interview key stakeholders and gather data about the plants' operation and production patterns.

A fun fact about yourself: I love to ski and during winter quarter you can find me in Tahoe, studying Chinese vocabulary on the chair lift between runs.

Kelsey Page

Major: Political Science; Spanish (minor)

Hometown: Saratoga, CA

Tentative Thesis Title: Mercosur: Testing the trade union's potential for democratic and economic development amidst changing tides in the international system

Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? Examining and understanding the role of regional trade blocs, like Mercosur, in the South America region and beyond offers valuable insights into the role of international organizations in democratic and economic development on a larger scale. Looking at the practices and policies that have led to credible enforcement powers for the union and mutually beneficial policies for member states are key to analyzing its impact on democratic development in the region and its relations to other regions. Through my thesis, I plan to research more deeply how Mercosur is or is not promoting democracy, development, and the rule of Law and apply this research to answering specific questions about its capacity to do so in the future.

What attracted you to the CDDRL undergraduate honors program? The CDDRL Honors Thesis program not only offers a unique opportunity to develop a thesis as a undergraduate, but also to do so with an interdisciplinary approach that has an emphasis on mentorship, peer-to-peer feedback, and meaningful conversations with top policy makers and government officials. Through CDDRL, I could puruse a topic that combines my interests in South America, democratic development, and economics with the support of the CDDRL cohort and faculty as well.

Future aspirations post-Stanford: After Stanford, I hope to be able to continue to pursue my interest in international political economy and development in some manner, whether it be business, field work, or graduate school. I am looking forward to working on my thesis to give me more insight as to how I can best contribute to this field.

What are you summer research plans? Thanks to the FSI Summer Research Grants program, I will be traveling to Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil to interview relevant Mercosur stakeholders at the end of the summer. Then, I will head to DC a few days early before the CDDRL trip to meet other interviewees at embassies, government agencies, and think tanks.

A fun fact about yourself: I was a competitive Irish dancer growing up; I wore the wigs and dresses and everything!

Zoe Savellos

Major: Political Science; Creative Writing (Minor)

Hometown: Austin, TX

Tentative Thesis Title: Teaching Peace? : Education Policy’s Role in Post-Conflict Reconciliation in Cyprus

Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? School isn’t just a place for learning formulas and facts—this is the place where we guide new generations towards learning what citizenship is and what it means to them. Post-conflict reconciliation studies haven’t focused enough on the role of education policy in bringing together fractured communities. Hopefully my thesis will help illuminate how education policy can be better incorporated into post-conflict reconciliation efforts.

What attracted you to the CDDRL undergraduate honors program? The CDDRL program strength is in its interdisciplinary approach. I’ve been interested in international development for a long time, so I knew that I wanted to write a thesis with the CDDRL, but it’s commitment to promoting diverse perspective and opinions is what really drew me to the program

Future aspirations post-Stanford: After Stanford, I’m planning on teaching for a year or two abroad. I’d love to get an MPP and work in global development policy.

What are you summer research plans? This summer, I’ll be doing some background research while interning in the Bay Area. In August, I’ll be traveling to Cyprus to gather more data and conduct interviews!

A fun fact about yourself: I’ve broken both of my pinky toes multiple times and I’ve accidentally stepped on a sea urchin!

Benjamin Chang Sorensen

Major: Political Science; Statistics (minor); History (minor)

Hometown: Stanford, California

Tentative Thesis Title: Large-scale political leaks and American democratic institutions

Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? We live in an age of "leaktivism," where individual actors and organizations can release large amounts of sensitive or damaging information to the public in order to advance an agenda. Due to the recent prominence of cases like Edward Snowden's and Chelsea Manning's, the debate around the appropriateness of large-scale leaks has tended to center around issues of security. But during the 2016 U.S. election cycle, when leaks were central to the campaign narratives of both candidates, it became clear that leaks could have an impact on our democratic institutions, as well. My thesis will explore the ways in which politicians, members of the media, and the public interact with these leaks, which look to become a persistent feature of American democracy.

What attracted you to the CDDRL undergraduate honors program? I've known since I arrived at Stanford how helpful and kind the faculty and staff at CDDRL are, and while writing a thesis will certainly be challenging, I'm confident that I'll be supported at every step of the way. I'm also looking forward to working with my cohort, whose diversity of interests and expertise will certainly provide a powerful way to learn more about democracy, development, and the rule of law.

Future aspirations post-Stanford: I'd like to keep working on issues in democracy, both at home and abroad, either by working in politics, at an NGO, or as a writer. I'd also like to travel and spend time with my family before possibly heading off to graduate school.

What are you summer research plans? I'll be working for the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, D.C., and plan to take full-advantage of my environment by talking to experts in the fields of democratic theory. I also hope to interview people involved in American politics and the media who might help me hone my question.

A fun fact about yourself: After moving to California before the 5th grade, my wardrobe consisted entirely of 15 or 20 different Boston Red Sox shirts. I refused to wear anything else for two years, somehow without shame.

Katie Welgan

Major: Chemistry; Anthropology (minor)

Hometown: Portland, Oregon

Tentative Thesis Title: Health Insurance for Indigenous Oaxacans: Changes in Obstetric Care Provider Preference After Seguro Popular

Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? Prior to 2013, access to health insurance in Mexico remained largely limited to laborers within the formal economy, leaving low-income families with informal employment to choose between visiting Department of Health clinics of varying quality, paying large fractions of their income for private care, or forgoing formal medical treatment altogether. A specific goal of Seguro Popular was to increase visits to government clinics for pregnancy care services, particularly in low-income indigenous populations. However, in Latin America, government-sponsored public health programming may function differently in indigenous populations due to cultural barriers and the history of government- indigenous conflict. Because of this potential for discrepancy in function, an understanding of the influence of insurance programs on health decision-making specifically in indigenous populations is important for both the evaluation of program success and the development of future, universally effective health policy.

What attracted you to the CDDRL undergraduate honors program? My interest in in the program was primarily motivated by its interdisciplinary nature—I’m interested in the intersection between law, health, and development, and hope through my thesis to apply the quantitative analysis and analytical reasoning skills I’ve learned through work in chemistry to questions in global public health development. I also look forward to interacting with and learning from peers and professors from a variety of fields as I develop my project over the next year.

Future aspirations post-Stanford: I hope to go to medical school and eventually become a pediatric intensive care specialist. I'll be taking a gap year first, and plan to spend the time getting a masters in bioethics or working in community health in Latin America.

What are you summer research plans? I'll be spending a month living in Oaxaca conducting interviews with patients, visiting obstetric care providers, and taking classes in Zapotec, an indigenous language spoken in the state. For the rest of the summer, I'll be working in D.C. with the World Justice Project on an index evaluating rule of law in Mexico.

A fun fact about yourself: I work at a high altitude running camp in the mountains of Oregon when I'm home for the summer.

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