In the ever-changing landscape of modern democracy, CDDRL’s Deliberative Democracy Lab (DDL) stands at the forefront of a movement to promote greater civic engagement and foster meaningful dialogue among citizens. Alice Siu, the Lab’s Associate Director and a senior research scholar at CDDRL, recently took the stage at TEDxStanford to present a talk titled "Deliberative Polling®: Changing the Tides of Democracy."

This year's TEDxStanford event, centered around the theme "Changing Tides," focused on pivotal moments and ideas capable of altering the course of history. Alice was among the nine speakers, comprising a mix of students and faculty, invited to share their insights on transformative topics. Her contribution to the event was an outgrowth of the groundbreaking work she and her team have been doing with Deliberative Polling® and the America in One Room project.

Alice's talk was a call to action for society, presenting a compelling case for the power of deliberative democracy and Deliberative Polling®. As democratic backsliding continues to challenge democratic institutions worldwide, her talk offered a glimmer of hope, demonstrating how the practice of deliberation and engaging with diverse perspectives can alleviate some of our most pressing societal issues.

Deliberative Polling® is a unique approach to engage citizens in constructive dialogue and decision-making. It involves gathering a representative sample of citizens, providing them with access to expert information, and giving them the opportunity to deliberate on key issues. Deliberative Polls have been conducted all over the world, and the evidence Alice shared in her talk illustrates their effectiveness in reducing polarization and fostering consensus.

“What we are doing now at our Lab is trying to bring deliberation to scale,” Alice said in her talk. DDL seeks to bring people together and create opportunities for meaningful engagement through both in-person and virtual means. Their AI-assisted Stanford Online Deliberation Platform, a collaboration with Stanford Professor Ashish Goel and his Crowdsourced Democracy Team, is a pioneering tool in this endeavor. Through technology, they aim to build deliberative societies where people from all walks of life can come together to tackle pressing issues, leading to informed decision-making and collective action.

In a world where division and polarization seem to be the order of the day, Alice's talk offers hope for a new era of citizen engagement where informed, rational discourse supersedes partisan bickering.

As part of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law’s Fall 2023 Research Seminar series, University of Southern California Political Scientists, Hoover Fellows, and CDDRL affiliated scholars Erin Baggot Carter and Brett Carter presented findings from their latest book Propaganda in Autocracies: Institutions, Information, and the Politics of Belief (Cambridge University Press, 2023). The book offers unique insight into how and why autocratic regimes use propaganda.

Under authoritarian regimes with “non-binding electoral constraints,” the authors explained, the goal of propaganda is to intimidate citizens and convey the idea that the regime can survive without their support. Propaganda in this context also makes the consequences of dissent common knowledge, thereby saving the regime the cost of actual repression. 

As for regimes with binding electoral constraints, their use of propaganda is often aimed at creating a semblance of credibility with a view to enhancing the functioning of future messaging. This involves mixing fact and fiction by exploiting the infrequent provision of public goods and occasionally conceding policy failures. The latter can sometimes prove damaging to the regime since it may contribute to future protests and unrest. 

The data compiled and analyzed by the Carters in this book constitute the world’s largest dataset on propaganda in autocracies, comprising 80 newspapers from 70 countries. Based on extensive coding and computational linguistics techniques, the authors used the coverage of about 8 million articles to build several measures of pro-regime propaganda.

The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is pleased to invite applications from pre-doctoral students at the write-up stage and from post-doctoral scholars working in any of the four program areas of democracy, development, evaluating the efficacy of democracy promotion, and rule of law. The application cycle for the 2024-2025 academic year will be open from Tuesday, September 26, 2023, through Friday, December 15, 2023.

Our goal is to provide an intellectually dynamic environment that fosters lively exchange among Center members and helps everyone to do excellent scholarship. Fellows will spend the academic year at Stanford University focusing on research and data analysis as they work to finalize and publish their dissertation research while connecting with resident faculty and research staff at CDDRL.

Pre-doctoral fellows must be enrolled currently in a doctoral program or equivalent through the time of intended residency at Stanford and must be at the dissertation write-up (post course work) phase of their doctoral program. Post-doctoral fellows must have earned their Ph.D. within 3 years of the start of the fellowship, or plan to have successfully defended their Ph.D. dissertations by July 31, 2024.

In addition to our regular call for applications, CDDRL invites applications for the Gerhard Casper Fellow in Rule of Law for 2024-25. Named after Stanford University's ninth president, we welcome research on any aspect of rule of law, including judicial politics, criminal justice, and the politicization of judicial institutions. We are an interdisciplinary center and as such, candidates from any relevant field (i.e. the social sciences, law) are welcome to apply. The Gerhard Casper Fellow will be part of CDDRL’s larger cohort of pre- and postdoctoral fellows. Those interested should apply through the regular CDDRL fellowship application process and indicate that they would like to be considered for the Gerhard Casper Rule of Law Fellowship.

Every September, rising seniors in the Fisher Family Honors Program travel to the nation's capitol for CDRRL's Honors College. During this week-long program, students visit a wide variety of policy-related institutions in Washington, D.C., and gain firsthand exposure to how these organizations, the federal government, and think tanks work to advance democracy and development around the world.

Throughout the week, students will have the opportunity to learn about the government's vision for democracy at the National Security Council, explore an academic view of development from scholars at the World Bank, and dive into the challenges and advantages of empowering local democratic activists — particularly in countries hostile to democracy — with speakers at the National Endowment for Democracy, among other exciting site visits. They are also encouraged to use this time to connect with experts related to their thesis question. The culminating event of the trip will bring current honors students together with alumni from across the greater D.C. area for a networking happy hour.

CDDRL’s Fisher Family Honors Program brings together undergraduates from diverse fields and methodologies who are united by their passion for understanding democracy, development, and rule of law (DDRL). The aim of the program is for students to carry out original, policy-relevant research on DDRL and produce a coherent, eloquently argued, and well-written honors thesis.

This year's Honors College begins on Sunday, September 17, and will be led by Didi Kuo and Stephen Stedman, who jointly direct the honors program, alongside Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy Larry Diamond.