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The Crumbling Edifice of Prohibition and Proposals for Reform: The case of Guatemala
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The purpose of this text is to present the proposals of drug policy reform elaborated by the Beckley Foundation for the Government of Guatemala, as part of the agreement set between these two bodies. Amanda Feilding was invited by President Otto Pérez Molina to establish a Beckley Foundation Latin American Chapter in Guatemala in July 2012, and was requested to produce a rigorous, evidence-based analysis of the impact of current prohibitionist drug policies on Guatemala and the wider region. The Beckley Foundation was also asked to develop and suggest a series of alternative drug policy options. The proposals were submitted in January 2013 as a contribution to the development of drug policies focused on public health, crime prevention, and social harm-reduction. While the Foundation’s proposals have been specifically tailored for Guatemala, elements of our research can serve as a model for other countries in the region and the hemisphere, and may nurture fruitful discussion and negotiation.
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The Economic Consequences of Drug Trafficking Violence in Mexico
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The levels of violence in Mexico have dramatically increased in the last few years due to structural changes in the drug trafficking business. The increase in the number of drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) fighting over the control of territory and trafficking routes has resulted in a substantial increase in the rates of homicides and other crimes. This study evaluates the economic costs of drug-related violence. We propose electricity consumption as an indicator of the level of municipal economic activity and use two different empirical strategies to test this. We utilize an instrumental variable regression using as exogenous variation the instrument proposed by Castillo, Mejía, and Restrepo (2013) based on historical seizures of cocaine in Colombia interacted with the distance of the Mexican border towns to the United States. We find that marginal increases of violence have negative effects on labor participation and the proportion of unemployed in an area. The marginal effect of the increase in homicides is substantive for earned income and the proportion of business owners, but not for energy consumption. We also employ the methodology of synthetic controls to evaluate the effect that inter-narco wars have on local economies. These wars in general begin with a wave of executions between rival criminal organizations and are accompanied by the deterioration of order and a significant increase in extortion, kidnappings, robberies, murders, and threats affecting the general population. To evaluate the effect that these wars between different drug trafficking organizations have on economic performance, we define the beginning of a conflict as the moment when we observe an increase from historical violence rates at the municipal level beyond a certain threshold, and construct counterfactual scenarios as an optimal weighted average from potential control units. The analysis indicates that the drug wars in those municipalities that saw dramatic increases in violence between 2006 and 2010 significantly reduced their energy consumption in the years after the change occurred.
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Maria Sjöholm
Encina Hall
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6165
0
Anna Lindh Visiting Scholar at The Europe Center, 2014-2015
Maria Sjöholm currently holds the position as a post-doc researcher at the Faculty of Law of Stockholm University, Sweden. She is in the process of writing a monograph reviewing the integration of women’s human rights law into regional human rights treaties, analysing the methodological and theoretical frameworks with which such rights have been incorporated into these treaties. Her previous research includes the book “Defining Rape: Emerging Obligations for States under International Law?” (Brill) and an article on the approach by the European Court of Human Rights to human trafficking. She is a member of the Committee on Feminism and International Law of the International Law Association and has taught courses on international human rights law and international criminal law at various universities in Sweden.
Manfred Nowak
Stanford Law School
Neukom Building
Room N255
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manfred.nowak@univie.ac.at
Distinguished Austrian Chair Professor (2013-2014)
Visiting Professor, Stanford Law School
Professor of Law, University of Vienna, Austria
Manfred Nowak graduated from the Vienna Law School (Dr. iur. 1973) and from Columbia University New York (LL.M. 1975). He has been professor at the Institute of Constitutional and Administrative Law at the University of Vienna since 1986. He was member of the Austrian Delegation to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights (1986 and 1993) as well as director of the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM) at the University of Utrecht (1987-1989). In 1989, he founded the Austrian Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights in Vienna and coordinated NGO-parallel events during the 1993 UN Conference for Human Rights in Vienna while he also was Professor of Law at the Austrian Federal Academy of Public Administration in Vienna until 2002.
As U.N. expert on missing persons in the former Yugoslavia he started a process aiming at the identification of missing persons through exhumation of mortal remains between 1994 and 1997.
From 1996-2003, Manfred Nowak was a judge at the Human Rights Chamber in Bosnia. Since 2000, he is head of an independent human rights commission at the Austrian Interior Ministry. From 2002 to 2003 he was visiting professor at the Raoul Wallenberg of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at the University of Lund. He has been a UN expert on legal questions on enforced disappearances since 2002 and was appointed UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment in 2004 with a mandate until 2010.
In addition, Manfred Nowak is also Chairperson of the European Masters Degree in Human Rights and Democratisation (since 2000). Manfred Nowak has published more than 400 books and articles on international, constitutional, administrative, and human rights law, including the standard commentary on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. He was awarded the UNESCO Prize for the Teaching of Human Rights in 1994 and the Bruno Kreisky Prize for Human Rights in 2007.
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The Europe Center June 2014 Newsletter
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2014 Undergraduate Internship Program Winners Announced
A key priority of The Europe Center is to provide Stanford’s undergraduate student community with opportunities to develop a deep understanding of contemporary European society and affairs. By promoting knowledge about the opportunities and challenges facing one of the world’s most economically and politically integrated regions, the Center strives to equip our future leaders with the tools necessary to tackle complex problems related to governance and economic interdependence both in Europe and in the world more broadly.
To this end, the Center recently spearheaded a new initiative, The Europe Center Undergraduate Internship Program in Europe. The Center is sponsoring four undergraduate student internships with leading think tanks and international organizations in Europe in Summer 2014. Laura Conigliaro (International Relations, 2015) will join the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), where she will work on a policy-related research project. Additionally, Elsa Brown (Political Science, 2015), Noah Garcia (BA International Relations and MA Public Policy, 2015), and Jana Persky (Public Policy, 2016) will be joining Bruegel, a leading European think tank, where they will work on public policy briefs for the new European Union Commission that will take office in Fall 2014. The Center is actively seeking to develop ties with business, governmental, and non-governmental organizations in Europe that can participate in The Europe Center Undergraduate Internship Program in future years.
Workshop Recap: Comparative Approaches to the Study of Immigration, Ethnicity, and Religion
On May 9, 2014 and May 10, 2014, The Europe Center hosted the Fourth Annual Workshop on Comparative Approaches to the Study of Immigration, Ethnicity, and Religion. Speakers drew from a range of national and international universities. Some of the papers presented included:
“Does Naturalization Foster the Political Integration of Immigrants? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design in Switzerland,” Jens Hainmueller (Stanford) & Dominik Hangartner (LSE).
“The Rhetoric of Closed Borders: Quotas, Lax Enforcement and Illegal Migration,” Giovanni Facchini (Nottingham) & Cecilia Testa (Royal Holloway).
“How State Support of Religion Shapes Religious Attitudes Toward Muslims,” Mark Helbling (WZB Berlin).
“Opposition to Race Targeted Policies -- Ideology or Racism? Particular or Universal? Experimental Evidence from Britain,” Robert Ford (Manchester).
“Nature over Nurture: Explaining Muslim Integration Discrepancies in Britain, France, and the United States,” Justin Gest (Harvard).
Other speakers included: Efrén Pérez (Vanderbilt), Lauren Prather (Stanford), Jorge Bravo (Rutgers), Harris Mylonas (George Washington), Harris Mylonas (George Washington), Rahsaan Maxwell (UNC-Chapel Hill), and Matthew Wright (American).
We welcome you to visit our website for additional details about this event.
Recordings of The Europe Center Special Events Available Online
On May 29, 2014, Josef Joffe, FSI Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution Research Fellow, and publisher/editor of the German weekly Die Zeit, talked about his latest book, The Myth of America’s Decline: Politics, Economics, and a Half Century of False Prophesies. Stephen Krasner and Kathyrn Stoner served as discussants. We welcome you to visit our website for an audio recording of the event.
On April 30, May 1, and May 2, 2014, Adam Tooze, Barton M. Briggs Professor of History at Yale University, delivered The Europe Center Lectureship on Europe and the World. This series of three lectures focused successively on diplomatic, economic, and social aspects of the troubled interwar history of Europe and its relationship with the wider world. Video recordings of the lectures are available for viewing on our website.
Student Scholar Profile: Jessie Marino
The Europe Center regularly sponsors the research of undergraduate and graduate students through our research grant, internship, and scholarly exchange programs. We would like to introduce you to some of the students that we support and the projects on which they are working. Our featured student this month has been sponsored by the Center’s Program on Sweden, Scandinavia, and the Baltic Region.
Jessie Marino, a DMA candidate in Composition at Stanford, recently returned from Copenhagen’s SPOR festival, where she was selected as one of five artists from a field of 140 (representing 34 nationalities) to perform her original work, titled “Heartfelt bird, vivid and great in style.” “I was commissioned by the SPOR Festival to compose a new piece featuring percussionist Serge Vuille and pianist Mark Knoop (photo inset) which was featured in a concert of all world premiere works,” writes Marino. “This event allowed me to meet new musicians, artists, curators, and composers who are working under similar guises and to exchange ideas about how our art can expand and develop in the 21st century.” 
Marino (inset) is also a recipient of a summer travel grant from the Center’s Graduate Student Grant Program. She will be traveling to Germany to attend the 2014 Darmstadt International Summer Course for New Music. Marino writes that the opportunity will give her the chance to “practice and perform my own compositions,” to “work and develop new ideas with composers and academics,” and to “attend lectures on current research, developments and discoveries in sound production and music technology.”Featured Faculty Research: David Laitin
The Europe Center serves as a research hub bringing together Stanford faculty members, students, and researchers conducting cutting-edge research on topics related to Europe. Our faculty affiliates draw from the humanities, social sciences, and business and legal traditions, and are at the forefront of scholarly debates on Europe-focused themes. The Center regularly highlights new research by faculty affiliates that is of interest to the broader community.
David Laitin and his co-author Rafaela Dancygier’s article in the Annual Review of Political Science, “Immigration into Europe: Economic Discrimination, Violence, and Public Policy,” investigates and reviews recent research on changing Western European demographic patterns, and its implications for labor-market discrimination, immigrant-state relations, and immigrant-native violence. The authors “discuss some of the methodological challenges that scholars have not fully confronted in trying to identify the causes and consequences of discrimination and violence,” and propose pathways to resolve contradictory results in existing studies regarding the economic consequences of immigration policymaking. Laitin is the James T. Watkins IV and Elise V. Watkins Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. Additional information about The Europe Center’s research program on migration can be found here, and a copy of the research article can be found here.
Events
The regular seminar series sponsored by The Europe Center will be on break during the summer months. We invite you to attend the following event of interest:
August 20, 2014
7:00 pm -- 9:00 pm
Film Screening
Forasters (Outsiders), dir. Ventura Pona
Joan Ramon Resina, Director of The Europe Center’s Iberian Studies Program, will lead a Q&A session after the film. The screening is part of the summer film series, “Beyond Boundaries: Race, Gender and Culture Across the Globe,” organized by the Stanford Global Studies Division.
Braun Corner (Building 320), Room 105
We welcome you to visit our website for additional details. Here is wishing you a pleasant and productive summer.
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Aid Under Fire: Development Projects and Civil Conflict
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Governments and multi-lateral donor organizations are increasingly targeting development aid to conflict affected areas with the hope that this aid will help government efforts to reduce conflict and stabilize these areas.
The expectation is that implementing development projects such as roads, schools, and hospitals will increase popular support for the government – effectively “winning hearts and minds” of the people- and reduce popular support for insurgents making it more difficult for them to recruit rebels and carry out attacks.
Joe Felter, a Senior Research Scholar at CISAC, with Benjamin Crost at the University of Illinois and Patrick Johnston from the RAND Corporation published Aid Under Fire: Development Projects and Civil Conflict in the June edition of the American Economic Review that challenges this conventional wisdom.
In this article, Felter and his coauthors provide evidence that a “winning hearts and minds” strategy can backfire in some cases. When insurgents believe that that the successful implementation of government sponsored development projects will lead to an increase in support for the government and undermine their position they have incentives to attack or otherwise sabotage them thus exacerbating conflict in the near term.
Ironically, increases in violence associated with government sponsored development efforts can in some cases be interpreted as an indicator that these efforts are targeting insurgent vulnerabilities effectively.
This article adds to Felter’s previously published research on the challenges of stabilizing conflict areas through development aid and economic assistance. See
Modest, Secure and Informed: Successful Development in Conflict Zones with Eli Berman, Jacob Shapiro and Erin Troland in American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 2013
Can Hearts and Minds be Bought? The Economics of Counterinsurgency in Iraq with Eli Berman and Jacob Shapiro in the Journal of Political Economy 2011
Do Working Men Rebel? Insurgency and Unemployment in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Philippines with Eli Berman, Jacob Shapiro and Michael Callen Journal of Conflict Resolution 2011.
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American Economic Review
From Saffron to Development? Causes and Consequences of the Indian Elections
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The recently concluded 16th Lok Sabha elections in India was the biggest democratic election in history. It produced the first absolute majority in Indian national elections in thirty years and catapulted BJP and its leader Narendra Modi to power after a sustained presidential style campaign. The election decisively changed the political landscape in India and seemed to reverse a longstanding trend towards fragmentation of Indian politics along lines of region and caste.
What are the underlying dynamics that made this historic vote possible? Can BJP and Modi deliver the economic growth and employment that they promise? What are the necessary reforms and challenges that confront the new government? Will BJP remain focused on development, or will the older cultural and majoritarian agenda of the RSS and its associated organizations re-appear? What is the prospects for India’s multiple minorities in this new dispensation?
These and other questions will be debated by a panel of three Stanford based academics.
Speaker Bios:
Thomas Blom Hansen (Moderator/Speaker) is the Reliance-Dhirubhai Ambani Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University. He is also the director of the Center for South Asia at Stanford. He has worked extensively on Hindu-Muslim relations, communal violence and the rise of Hindu nationalism in India. His books include The Saffron Wave. Hindu Nationalism and Democracy in Modern India (Princeton University Press 1999) and Wages of Violence, Naming and identity in postcolonial Bombay (Princeton University Press 2001).
Harish S. Wankhede (Speaker) research interest is to imagine theoretical spaces by interconnecting certain approaches and themes of social science mainly, Justice, politics of recognition and redistribution, secularism, nationalism and the Caste identity. The emphasis of his work is on the marginalized communities in India especially the Muslims, Dalits and the Tribals.
Currently, he is a visiting scholar at the Center for South Asia, Stanford University and working on a research project on the Dalit Panthers’ Movement in Maharashtra. He teaches at the Department of Political Science, University of Delhi.
Alexander Lee (Speaker) is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. In the fall of 2014 he will be an assistant professor of political science at the University of Rochester. His research focuses on the historical factors governing the success or failure of political institutions, particularly in South Asia and other areas of the developing world. His work has been published in World Politics and the Quarterly Journal of Political Science. Alex earned his PhD from Stanford in 2013. More information on his work can be found on his website.
This event is hosted by the Center for South Asia and the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.
CISAC Conference Room
Thomas Blom Hansen
Director
Moderator
Center for South Asia
Harish S. Wankhede
Visiting Scholar
Speaker
Center for South Asia
Alexander Lee
Encina Hall
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
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amlee@stanford.edu
CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow, 2013-14
Alexander Lee's research focuses on the historical factors governing the success or failure of political institutions, particularly in South Asia and other areas of the developing world. His dissertation examined the ways in which colonialism changed the distribution of wealth in Indian society, and the ways in which these changes affected the development of caste identities. Additional research areas include the study of colonialism and European expansion in a cross- national perspective, and the causes of political violence, especially terrorism. His work has been published in World Politics and the Quarterly Journal of Political Science. Alex earned his PhD from Stanford in 2013. More information on his work can be found on his website: https://people.stanford.edu/amlee/
Seminars
Does Terrorism Work? The Case of the Provisional IRA
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About the Speaker: Richard English is the Wardlaw Professor of Politics in the School of International Relations, and Director of the Handa Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV), at the University of St Andrews. His research focuses on political violence and terrorism, Irish and British politics and history, and the history and politics of nationalism and the state. His books include Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA (which won the 2003 UK Political Studies Association Politics Book of the Year Award),Irish Freedom: The History of Nationalism in Ireland (which won the 2007 Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize, and the 2007 Political Studies Association of Ireland Book Prize), and Terrorism: How to Respond (OUP, 2009). His latest book, Modern War: A Very Short Introduction, is published by Oxford University Press. Professor English's current research project is for another OUP book, Does Terrorism Work? A History. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and a Member of the Royal Irish Academy. Richard English is in residence as an International Visitor at the Stanford Humanities Center this April and was nominated by the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI)
About the Topic: Debates on the effectiveness of terrorism have become prominent in recent years, across a spectrum running from declarations that terrorism represents a deeply ineffective means of pursuing political change, to equally assertive arguments that terrorism works all too frequently. In this talk, Richard English reflects on why the question is important, why it has so far proved extremely difficult to answer in persuasive fashion, how we might better frame our reflections on the subject in future, and on what might be gleaned from deep consideration of the emergence, armed struggle, and eventual departure from the stage of one of the world's most sustainedly serious terrorist organizations - the Provisional Irish Republican Army. |
CISAC Conference Room
Richard English
Wardlaw Professor of Politics in the School of International Relations
Speaker
University of St Andrews
Seminars
Poverty and Violence: The Hidden Plague the World Has Missed
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We invite you to join Gary Haugen, former director of the UN investigation of the Rwanda Genocide and President and CEO of the International Justice Mission, to discuss his latest book The Locust Effect: Why the End of Poverty Requires the End of Violence. Haugen will discuss the devastating impact that everyday violence is having on the global fight to reduce poverty and how we can help make the poor safe enough to thrive. Haugen has been recognized by the U.S. State Department as a Trafficking in Persons “Hero” – the highest honor given by the U.S. government for anti-slavery leadership. Book purchase and signing available.
Book purchase and signing available.
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This event is sponsored by: IJM, Bay Area Anti-Trafficking Coalition & the Stanford Program on Human Rights.
For more Information please contact:
Betty Ann Boeving bettyann@baatc.org
Bechtel Conference Center
Gary Haugen
President and CEO of International Justice Mission
Speaker
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