Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
Abstract
There will be a discussion of two different examples of liberation technology, one used to collect and protect human rights data, and the other used to analyze it. Martus is a software program that encrypts and remotely backs up data, designed for and used widely by human rights monitors and advocates to protect witness reports and other sensitive human rights data. the focus will be on the security design of Martus and how we addressed the inevitable tradeoffs with usability, as well as the reasons for and consequences of our choice to make Martus free and open source. The legitimacy of human rights advocates is based on their claim to speak truth about a human rights situation, but our ability to know the truth of what is happening on the ground is often severely limited. Founding conclusions on anecdotes or observable events alone can misinterpret both trends over time and the relative distribution of violence with respect to regions, ethnicity or perpetrators. Through the careful application of rigorous statistical methods, the limitations of incomplete data can sometimes be overcome, enabling scientifically-based claims about the total extent and patterns of human rights violations. Also discussed will be how this kind of analysis is enabled by technology, including computational statistical methods, and tools like R and version control to make the analysis auditable and replicable.
Jeff Klingner is a computer scientist with the Human Rights Data Analysis Group at Benetech, where he codes and runs data analysis addressing a variety of human rights questions, including command responsibility of high-level officials in Chad and Guatemala, and mortality estimation in several countries, including India, Sierra Leone, and Guatemala. His technical focus is on data deduplication, machine learning, data visualization, and analysis auditability and replicability. He earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University.
Wallenberg Theater
Stanford Health Policy, 615 Crothers way, Room 222, Stanford, CA 94305-6006
Dr. Babiarz’s research focuses on fertility and family planning programs, infant and maternal health, and the gender dynamics of global health. She has studied human trafficking in China and South East Asia, and currently works on quantitative approaches to issues of human trafficking and child labor in Brazil. Dr. Babiarz specializes in large-scale program evaluations and quasi-experimental study designs. She holds a PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California, Davis (2011).
As part of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, Martha Crenshaw moderated a discussion with former radicals who discussed lessons learned during their participation in, and emergence from, various extremist movements. They spoke about what led them to violence, why people are attracted to extremist groups, and programs for deradicalization.
To view or purchase the event video, please visit: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Extremist.
Jeremy M. Weinstein is Associate Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He serves as director of the Center for African Studies, and is an affiliated faculty member at CDDRL and CISAC. He is also a non-resident fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C.
Weinstein recently returned to Stanford after serving as Director for Development and Democracy on the National Security Council staff at the White House between 2009 and 2011. In this capacity, he played a key role in the National Security Council’s work on global development, democracy and human rights, and anti-corruption, with a global portfolio. Among other issues, Weinstein was centrally involved in the development of President Obama’s Policy Directive on Global Development and associated efforts to reform and strengthen USAID, promote economic growth, and increase the effectiveness of U.S. foreign assistance across the board; led efforts at the White House to develop a robust international anti-corruption agenda, which included the creation of the G-20 Action Plan on Anti-Corruption, the design and launch of the Open Government Partnership, and the successful legislative passage and subsequent internationalization of a ground-breaking extractive industries disclosure requirement; and played a significant role in developing the Administration’s policy in response to the Arab Spring, including focused work on Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Syria, Yemen, and others. Before joining the White House staff, Weinstein served as an advisor to the Obama campaign and, during the transition, served as a member of the National Security Policy Working Group and the Foreign Assistance Agency Review Team.
His research focuses on civil wars and political violence; ethnic politics and the political economy of development; and democracy, accountability, and political change. He is the author of Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence (Cambridge University Press), which received the William Riker Prize for the best book on political economy. He is also the co-author of Coethnicity: Diversity and the Dilemmas of Collective Action (Russell Sage Foundation), which received the Gregory Luebbert Award for the best book in comparative politics. He has published articles in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Annual Review of Political Science, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Journal of Democracy, World Policy Journal, and the SAIS Review. Selected publications include: “Handling and Manhandling Civilians in Civil War” (APSR 2006), which received the Sage Prize and Gregory Luebbert Award, and “Why Does Ethnic Diversity Undermine Public Goods Provision (APSR 2007), which received the Heinz Eulau Award and the Michael Wallerstein Award. He also received the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Stanford in 2007. Weinstein obtained a BA with high honors from Swarthmore College, and an MA and PhD in political economy and government from Harvard University.
CISAC Conference Room
RSVP required. Please do not forward event information. Seating is limited.
In response to the 9/11 attacks, the Bush Administration adopted a policy of targeting the leadership of terror groups believed to be threatening America. The Obama Administration has vastly increased the use of this tactic, described by President Obama as “eliminating our enemies.” Critics of the practice contend that it violates the law of armed conflict and international humanitarian law. Supporters describe it as a variety of legal preemptive attack. As a just war theorist, Professor Carter is interested in the morality rather than the legality of targeted killing.
In this seminar, he will discuss the ethical questions raised by attacks on the enemy leadership, whether the enemy is a state or a non-state actor. He will contend that the word “assassination” is almost always the correct one when such a policy is implemented. Although his hope is to shed light on the ethics of the Terror War, examples will be drawn mostly from other conflicts in history, including World War II, the Civil War, and others more remote in time. Carter will argue that the Western tradition of just and unjust war is not entirely adequate for analyzing the morality of assassination, and that a degree of updating is therefore needed.
CISAC Conference Room
Mark Juergensmeyer is director of the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, professor of sociology, and affiliate professor of religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is an expert on religious violence, conflict resolution and South Asian religion and politics, and has published more than two hundred articles and twenty books, including the recently-released Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State. His widely-read Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, is based on interviews with religious activists around the world--including individuals convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, leaders of Hamas, and abortion clinic bombers in the United States--and was listed by the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times as one of the best nonfiction books of the year.
One of Juergensmeyer's earlier books, The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State, covers the rise of religious activism and its confrontation with secular modernity. It was named by the New York Times as one of the notable books of the year.
For additional information on the series, please visit the Stanford Ethics and War series website.
Annenberg Auditorium
Stanford University
On October 3, Karl Eikenberry, the former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, will deliver this year's inaugural Payne Distinguished Lecture at Cemex Auditorium at the Knight Management Center.
The public address will be given in conjunction with a private, two-day conference that will bring to Stanford an international group of political scientists, economists, lawyers, policy-makers, and military experts to examine from a comparative perspective problems of violence, organized crime, and governance in Mexico.
Cemex Auditorium
Zambrano Hall
Knight Management Center
641 Knight Way, Stanford, California 94305
Dept. of Political Science
Encina Hall, Room 436
Stanford University,
Stanford, CA
Beatriz Magaloni Magaloni is the Graham Stuart Professor of International Relations at the Department of Political Science. Magaloni is also a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute, where she holds affiliations with the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). She is also a Stanford’s King Center for Global Development faculty affiliate. Magaloni has taught at Stanford University for over two decades.
She leads the Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab (Povgov). Founded by Magaloni in 2010, Povgov is one of Stanford University’s leading impact-driven knowledge production laboratories in the social sciences. Under her leadership, Povgov has innovated and advanced a host of cutting-edge research agendas to reduce violence and poverty and promote peace, security, and human rights.
Magaloni’s work has contributed to the study of authoritarian politics, poverty alleviation, indigenous governance, and, more recently, violence, crime, security institutions, and human rights. Her first book, Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and its Demise in Mexico (Cambridge University Press, 2006) is widely recognized as a seminal study in the field of comparative politics. It received the 2007 Leon Epstein Award for the Best Book published in the previous two years in the area of political parties and organizations, as well as the Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association’s Comparative Democratization Section. Her second book The Politics of Poverty Relief: Strategies of Vote Buying and Social Policies in Mexico (with Alberto Diaz-Cayeros and Federico Estevez) (Cambridge University Press, 2016) explores how politics shapes poverty alleviation.
Magaloni’s work was published in leading journals, including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Criminology & Public Policy, World Development, Comparative Political Studies, Annual Review of Political Science, Cambridge Journal of Evidence-Based Policing, Latin American Research Review, and others.
Magaloni received wide international acclaim for identifying innovative solutions for salient societal problems through impact-driven research. In 2023, she was named winner of the world-renowned Stockholm Prize in Criminology, considered an equivalent of the Nobel Prize in the field of criminology. The award recognized her extensive research on crime, policing, and human rights in Mexico and Brazil. Magaloni’s research production in this area was also recognized by the American Political Science Association, which named her recipient of the 2021 Heinz I. Eulau Award for the best article published in the American Political Science Review, the leading journal in the discipline.
She received her Ph.D. in political science from Duke University and holds a law degree from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México.
Encina Hall
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Vidal Romero is a 2012-2013 visiting associate professor at CDDRL. He holds a PhD in Political Science from Stanford University. Romero’s research is focused on drug-related crime and violence. Romero investigates into citizens’ perceptions of crime and violence and how a climate of insecurity affects individuals’ well-being, their support of crime fighting efforts and their assessment of authorities’ performance. His work also investigates into the determinants of violence and the type of relationship between the State, criminal organizations and citizens. Much of his work is based on econometric and experimental methods implemented in different surveys that he has co-designed. During his stay at CDDRL, he will work on exploring the determinants of crime and violence in Mexico and its effects on Unites States domestic security.
The conference will bring together a multidisciplinary group of political scientists, economists, and lawyers, together with policy makers and military experts in Mexico and the United States, seeking to provide better answers about how to confront drug-related violence and strengthen the rule of law and state capacity in Mexico.
While the focus is on Mexico, we believe that sharing research strategies and findings from other settings, notably Colombia, Brazil, and Afghanistan, will contribute to the debate on the current state and future trajectory of Mexico’s situation.
The conference seeks to foster an exchange of ideas based on the analysis of various actors in contentious environments, including, but not limited to, drug trafficking organizations. Examining the mechanisms behind the violence in Mexico from a comparative perspective will bring us closer to developing constructive policy recommendations to reduce violence in Mexico.
Mr. Karl Eikenberry will deliver a keynote address at the end of the day on Thurs., Oct. 3rd, and that part of the event will be open to the public.
Stanford University