Authors
Noa Ronkin
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

In 2008, the U.S. National Intelligence Council (NIC) published the fourth installment in its effort to identify “megatrends” likely to shape world events a decade or more into the future. Shorenstein APARC Fellow and China expert Thomas Fingar, the then chairman of the NIC, oversaw that report, Global Trends 2025. The unclassified report uses scenarios to illustrate some of the ways in which the factors driving world events – from climate change to demographic decline to changing geopolitical powers – may interact to generate challenges and opportunities for future decisionmakers. One of these scenarios is the emergence of a global pandemic that bears a chilling resemblance to COVID-19.

We sat down with Fingar for an online conversation about the NIC report and its pandemic scenario, the government action it spurred, the United States’ failed initial response to the COVID-19 outbreak, and the implications of the current crisis for U.S.-China relations. Watch:

Twelve years after its publication, the NIC’s "Potential Emergence of a Global Pandemic" scenario (p. 75) has proven to be woefully accurate:

“The emergence of a novel, highly transmissible, and virulent human respiratory illness for which there are no adequate countermeasures could initiate a global pandemic. If a pandemic disease emerges by 2025, […] it probably will first occur in an area marked by high population density and close association between humans and animals, such as many areas of China and Southeast Asia […] Slow public health response would delay the realization that a highly transmissible pathogen had emerged […] Despite limits imposed on international travel, travelers with mild symptoms or who were asymptomatic could carry the disease to other continents. Waves of new cases would occur every few months. The absence of an effective vaccine and near-universal lack of immunity would render populations vulnerable to infection.”

[To get more stories like this delivered to your inbox sign up for our newsletters]

It was not a prediction, recalls Fingar, but rather an attempt to urge policymakers to think “beyond tomorrow,” past the end of their administration, and to stimulate strategic thinking about how to reinforce positive trends and change or ameliorate negative ones. If the report and its global pandemic scenario are precise, he notes, it is because the NIC’s effort involved the best specialists within the U.S. intelligence community and engaged numerous and varied groups of non-U.S. Government experts.

Yet the United States has been unprepared for the COVID-19 pandemic and the crisis is now worsening U.S.-China tensions. To address the crisis, however, argues Fingar, both countries must cooperate in the international fora. “Let that be the way that builds towards a better bilateral relationship.”

Headshot of Thomas Fingar
Thomas Fingar is a Shorenstein APARC Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. From 2005 through 2008, he served as the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and, concurrently, as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. His forthcoming edited volume is 'Fateful Decisions: Choices That Will Shape China's Future' (Stanford University Press, May 2020).
Full Biography

Read More

BEIJING, CHINA - Workers sit near a CRH (China Railway High-speed) "bullet train" at the Beijing South Railway Station under reconstruction.
News

High-Speed Rail Holds Promise and Problems for China, Explains David M. Lampton

In a new audio interview, Lampton discusses some of the challenges, uncertainties, and decisions that loom ahead of China's Belt and Road Initiative.
High-Speed Rail Holds Promise and Problems for China, Explains David M. Lampton
Quote from Thomas Fingar and Jean Oi from, "China's Challeges: Now It Gets Much Harder"
Commentary

Now It Gets Much Harder: Thomas Fingar and Jean Oi Discuss China’s Challenges in The Washington Quarterly

Now It Gets Much Harder: Thomas Fingar and Jean Oi Discuss China’s Challenges in The Washington Quarterly
Adam Segal lectures at APARC
News

Technology Tensions Redefining U.S.-China Relations, Says Security Expert Adam Segal

Technology Tensions Redefining U.S.-China Relations, Says Security Expert Adam Segal
Hero Image
An empty Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. seen with the United States Capitol  in the background.
Vehicle traffic is almost non-existent on Pennsylvania Avenue as the United States Capitol is reflected in a rainwater puddle during the novel coronavirus pandemic April 13, 2020 in Washington, DC. COVID-19 has sent lawmakers home and brought the business of the nation’s capital to a near-total halt. | Chip Somodevilla/ Getty Images
All News button
1
Subtitle

In our online conversation, Fingar discusses the 2008 National Intelligence Council report he oversaw and that urged action on coronavirus pandemic preparedness, explains the U.S. initial failed response to the COVID-19 outbreak, and considers the implications of the current crisis for U.S.-China relations.

-

This event is via Zoom Webinar. Please register in advance for the webinar by using the link below.

REGISTRATION LINKhttps://bit.ly/2Kpjiww

A Discussion between Matthew Kohrman and Gan Quan, co-editors of Poisonous Pandas: Chinese Cigarette Manufacturing in Critical Historical Perspectives (Stanford University Press, 2018).

Image
gan quan

 

 

 

Gan Quan (PhD, Berkeley) is the director of Tobacco Control of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease. His research tackles various topics pertaining to tobacco control in China.

 

 

 

 

 

Image
mathew kohrman

 

 

 

Matthew Kohrman (PhD, Harvard) is an associate professor in Stanford’s Department of Anthropology and senior fellow by courtesy at APARC/FSI. His research brings anthropological methods to bear on the ways health, culture, and politics are interrelated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Via Zoom Webinar.

Register at https://bit.ly/2Kpjiww

Gan Quan Director of Tobacco Control of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease
Matthew Kohrman Associate Professor of Anthropology, Stanford University
Panel Discussions
Authors
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who signed the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with Barack Obama on April 8, 2010, called last week for the United States to agree to extend the treaty. On Friday, a Department of State spokesperson told the Russian news agency TASS in response:  “The President has directed us to think more broadly than New START…  We stand ready to engage with both Russia and China on arms control negotiations that meet our criteria.”

Unfortunately, nothing suggests President Trump will achieve anything on nuclear arms control.

 

Read full article at The Hill.

Hero Image
trumpdonald putinvladimir 020720getty split arms
All News button
1
Authors
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

The coronavirus — officially known as COVID-19 — has infected more than 75,000 people and killed more than 2,000 since it was first identified in Wuhan, China, in late December. Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) experts Karen Eggleston and David Relman joined host Michael McFaul on the World Class podcast to discuss what you should know about the virus, its impact on China and the world, and whether there is any truth to the rumors about its origins. 

What is COVID-19? 
COVID-19 comes from the same family as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), a respiratory illness first identified in southern China in 2003 that killed more than 700 people; and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), which emerged in Saudi Arabia in 2012. Scientists still aren’t sure how humans first became infected with COVID-19, but suspect that the virus arose from bats, Relman said.

“That’s the best guess, simply because all of the most closely related viruses we know of in the world are ‘bat viruses,’” said Relman, who is a senior fellow at FSI and an expert on emerging infectious diseases.

Where Did the Virus Come From?
While many of the first cases of COVID-19 have been linked to the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, recent data suggests that about half of the earliest cases appear to have no obvious connection to the market.

“Could they have been indirectly connected somehow, or could they too have been exposed through the movement of animals that ended up in the market? These are things that are unknown,” Relman said. 

Meanwhile, there has been speculation that the virus did not originate at the market and was instead created in a laboratory. Relman acknowledged that while he thinks it’s possible that scientists in China could have been studying the virus and let it out by mistake, he doesn’t think that’s what happened in this case.

I personally still believe that it most likely came out of bats and got into people, and then because it was either pre-positioned to spread in people right away or evolved quickly, it did so. And it got out of control before people were willing to admit they had a problem.
David Relman

Why Has COVID-19 Spread So Quickly?
The rapid transmission of the virus likely has to do with how it interacts with the human host. Most likely, it is growing to large numbers in the upper parts of the respiratory tract, and is therefore primed to be transmitted more easily, Relman noted.

“One of the biggest questions is whether people are contagious before they have symptoms,” Relman said. “And that is perhaps the most critical question as to whether this is going to be contained in the very near term or not.” 

What’s Been the Effect on China?
China was much better prepared for this epidemic than it was 17 years ago for SARS, said Eggleston, who is also a senior fellow at FSI and director of the Stanford Asia Health Policy Program. Still, China’s economy and connectivity within the global economy mean that this time around, it’s even more of a crisis, Eggleston said.

Many of the people who have died from the virus were healthcare workers who weren’t properly protected, due to a combination of strained resources and a shortage of testing kits and protective gear, she added. 

Excellent performance under pressure takes preparation and investment in the days and months and years ahead of time. And that can put pressure on a system that’s already strained in some respects.
Karen Eggleston
Director of the Asia Health Policy Program, FSI

How Damaging is COVID-19 Going to Be?
If COVID-19 can be transmitted before people are exhibiting symptoms, it’s much more likely that the virus will spread broadly within China and be passed on to more people in other countries, said Eggleston.

Relman predicted that the number of new cases of the virus will decline over the next few months into the summer, but that it will continue to pop up in certain parts — or “hotspots” — around the world.

“We’re probably looking at a future that now includes the persistence of this virus periodically, especially in winters for the next several years,” he warned.  

michael mcfaul 2

Michael A. McFaul, PhD

Director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Professor of International Studies in Political Science at FSI.
Full Profile
karen 0320 cropprd

Karen Eggleston, PhD

Director of the Asia Health Policy Program, APARC
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Full Profile
Hero Image
coronavirus cropped
FSI Senior Fellows Karen Eggleston and David Relman joined host Michael McFaul on the World Class podcast to discuss all things COVID-19 — also known as the coronavirus. Photo: Alice Wenner
All News button
1
Subtitle

FSI Senior Fellows Karen Eggleston and David Relman joined host Michael McFaul on the World Class podcast to discuss all things COVID-19 — also known as the coronavirus.

Date Label
Display Hero Image Wide (1320px)
No
-

This is a virtual event. Please click here to register and generate a link to the talk. 
The link will be unique to you; please save it and do not share with others.

Much recent commentary on US relations with China claims that the policy of “Engagement” was a foolish and failed attempt to transform the People’s Republic into an American style democracy that instead created an authoritarian rival. This narrative mocks the policies of eight US administrations to justify calls for “Decoupling” and “Containment 2.0.” Fingar’s talk will challenge this narrative by examining the origins, logic, and achievements of Engagement and explain why Decoupling is neither wise nor attainable.

Image
Dr. Thomas Fingar
Thomas Fingar is a Shorenstein APARC Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He was the inaugural Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow from 2010 through 2015 and the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford in 2009. From 2005 through 2008, he served as the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and, concurrently, as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. Fingar served previously as assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (2000-01 and 2004-05), principal deputy assistant secretary (2001-03), deputy assistant secretary for analysis (1994-2000), director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific (1989-94), and chief of the China Division (1986-89). Between 1975 and 1986 he held a number of positions at Stanford University, including senior research associate in the Center for International Security and Arms Control.

Fingar is a graduate of Cornell University (A.B. in Government and History, 1968), and Stanford University (M.A., 1969 and Ph.D., 1977 both in political science). His most recent books are The New Great Game: China and South and Central Asia in the Era of Reform, editor (Stanford, 2016), Uneasy Partnerships: China and Japan, the Koreas, and Russia in the Era of Reform (Stanford, 2017), and Fateful Decisions: Choices that will Shape China’s Future, co-edited with Jean Oi (Stanford, 2020).

Via Zoom Webinar. Register at: https://bit.ly/3ecduEe

Thomas Fingar Shorenstein APARC Fellow, Stanford University
Seminars
Authors
Noa Ronkin
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

STANFORD, CA, April 8, 2020  — Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) is pleased to announce that journalist and author Tom Wright is the recipient of the 2020 Shorenstein Journalism Award for excellence in coverage of the Asia-Pacific region. Wright, who over the past twenty-five years has worked mainly in South and Southeast Asia, is the coauthor of the New York Times bestseller Billion Dollar Whale, which unravels the story of one of the world's greatest financial scandals involving the multibillion-dollar looting of the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB). The book builds on Wright’s multiyear investigative reporting for the Wall Street Journal, where he most recently served as Asia economics editor. In the coming fall quarter, Wright will receive the award at a ceremony and headline a panel discussion at Stanford.

Wright started his career with Reuters in Indonesia in the 1990s at a time when Gen. Suharto’s military dictatorship was crumbling. During the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, he joined Dow Jones Newswires in Bangkok, later moving to the Wall Street Journal. He has investigated corruption in Indian companies, the failure of the U.S.’s civilian aid program for Pakistan, and was one of the first journalists to arrive at the scene of the raid in which Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden. His 2013 award-winning series on the Rana Plaza factory disaster in Bangladesh, which killed over 1,000 people, exposed how international garment manufacturers turned a blind eye to safety violations to reduce costs.

In 2015, he began investigations into the 1MDB scandal, one of the largest financial frauds of all time in which bankers at Goldman Sachs helped a young Malaysian financier steal at least $4 billion from Malaysian state fund 1MDB. The three-year investigation revealed the degree to which Western institutions, from Wall Street banks, law firms, auditors, and even Hollywood film companies, ignore malfeasance in the pursuit of profits. Wright’s work sparked investigations by law enforcement and regulators in multiple countries and outrage in Malaysia, where the ruling coalition, after 61 years in power, suffered a landslide defeat in a shocking 2018 election.

“Throughout his career, Tom Wright’s consummate reporting and persistent investigations have repeatedly shone a light on major Asian affairs and the complicity of Western institutions in the affliction of corruption in Asia,” said Gi-Wook Shin, Shorenstein APARC director. “His work embodies an unwavering commitment to the pursuit of truth and to advancing a critical consideration of both Asian and Western societies. We are delighted to recognize him with the Shorenstein Journalism Award.”

Presented annually by APARC, the Shorenstein award, which carries a $10,000 cash prize, honors the legacy of APARC’s benefactor, Mr. Walter H. Shorenstein, and his twin passions for promoting excellence in journalism and understanding of Asia. “We are grateful to the Shorenstein family for its support of our Center and its mission and to the members of the award selection committee for their expertise and service,” noted Shin.

The selection committee for the Shorenstein Journalism Award, which unanimously chose Wright as the 2020 honoree, includes Wendy Cutler, vice president and managing director, Washington, D.C. Office, Asia Society Policy Institute; James Hamilton, Hearst Professor of Communication, chair of the Department of Communication, and director of the Stanford Journalism Program, Stanford University; Raju Narisetti, global publishing director-elect, McKinsey & Company; Philip Pan, weekend editor, former Asia editor, the New York Times; and Prashanth Parameswaran, senior editor, the Diplomat

Eighteen journalists have previously received the Shorenstein award, including most recently Maria Ressa, CEO and executive editor of Rappler; Anna Fifield, the Washington Post’s Beijing bureau chief and long-time North Korea watcher; Siddharth Varadarajan, founding editor of the Wire; Ian Johnson, a veteran journalist with a focus on Chinese society, religion, and history; and Yoichi Funabashi, former editor-in-chief of the Asahi Shimbun.

Information about the 2020 Shorenstein Journalism Award ceremony and panel discussion featuring Wright will be forthcoming in the fall quarter.

Find out more at aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/events/shorenstein-journalism-award.


Media Contact:

Noa Ronkin
Associate Director for Communications and External Relations
Shorenstein APARC
noa.ronkin@stanford.edu

 

Hero Image
Portrait of Tom Wright
All News button
1
-

On May 20th please join us for Perspectives on Science Communication, Misinformation, and the COVID-19 Infodemic, featuring University of Washington scholars Kate Starbird, Jevin West and Ryan Calo, in conversation with Cyber Policy Center Director Kelly Born, as they discuss a new project exploring how scientific findings and science credentials are mobilized in the spread of misinformation.

Kate Starbird and Jevin West will present emerging research into how scientific findings and science credentials are mobilized within the spread of false and misleading information about COVID-19. Ryan Calo will explore proposals to address COVID-19 through information technology—the subject of a recent Senate Commerce hearing at which he testified—with particular attention to the ways contact tracing apps could prove a vector for misinformation and disinformation. 


May 20, 10am-11am (PST)
Join via Zoom 

Kate StarbirdKate Starbird is an Associate Professor in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) and Director of the Emerging Capacities of Mass Participation (emCOMP) Laboratory. She is also adjunct faculty in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and the Information School and a data science fellow at the eScience Institute. 

Kate's research is situated within human-computer interaction (HCI) and the emerging field of crisis informatics — the study of how information-communication technologies (ICTs) are used during crisis events. Her research examines how people use social media to seek, share, and make sense of information after natural disasters (such as earthquakes and hurricanes) and man-made disasters (such as acts of terrorism and mass shooting events). More recently, her work has shifted to focus on the spread of disinformation in this context. 

Ryan Calo
Ryan Calo
 is the Lane Powell and D. Wayne Gittinger Associate Professor at the University of Washington School of Law. In addition to co-founding the UW Center for an Informed Public, he is a faculty co-director (with Batya Friedman and Tadayoshi Kohno) of the UW Tech Policy Lab---a unique, interdisciplinary research unit that spans the School of Law, Information School, and Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering where Calo also holds courtesy appointments. Calo is widely published in the area of law and emerging technology. 

 


Jevin WestJevin West is an Associate Professor in the Information School at the University of Washington. He is the co-founder of the DataLab and the new Center for an Informed Public at UW. He holds an Adjunct Faculty position in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering and Data Science Fellow at the eScience Institute. His research and teaching focus on misinformation in and about science. He develops methods for mining the scientific literature in order to study the origins of disciplines, the social and economic biases that drive these disciplines, and the impact the current publication system has on the health of science. 

 

Kelly Born
Kelly Born
 is the Executive Director of Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center. The center’s research and teaching focuses on the governance of digital technology at the intersection of security, geopolitics and democracy. Born collaborates with the center’s program leaders to pioneer new lines of research, policy-oriented curriculum, and outreach to key decision-makers globally. Prior to joining Stanford, Born helped to launch and lead The Madison Initiative at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic undertakings working to reduce polarization and improve U.S. democracy. There, she designed and implemented strategies focused on money in politics, electoral reform, civic engagement and digital disinformation. Kelly earned a master’s degree in international policy from Stanford University. 

Kate Starbird
Ryan Calo
Jevin West
Seminars
-

A recording of this event can be found here (YouTube recording)

National AI Strategies and Human Rights: New Urgency in the Era of COVID-19, takes place Wednesday, May 6th, at 10am PST with Eileen Donahoe, the Executive Director of the Global Digital Policy Incubator (GDPi) at Stanford's Cyber Policy Center and Megan Metzger, Associate Director for Research, also at GDPi. Joining them will be Mark Latonero, Senior Researcher at Data & Society, Richard Wingfield, from Global Partners Digital, and Gallit Dobner, Director of the Centre for International Digital Policy at Global Affairs Canada. The session will be moderated by Kelly Born, Executive Director of the Cyber Policy Center.   

The seminar will focus on the recently published report, National Artificial Intelligence Strategies and Human Rights: A Review, produced by the Global Digital Policy Incubator at Stanford and Global Partners Digital - and will also provide an opportunity to look at how the COVID-19 crisis is impacting human rights and digital technology work more generally.   

We will also be jointly hosting a webinar with the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies on May 8th at 1pm PST, with experts from around the center and institute discussing emerging research on Covid-19, and the implications to future cyber policies, as well as the upcoming elections. More information on the May 8th event, can be found here.   

May 6, 10am-11am (PST)  
Join via Zoom


eileen donahoe headshot  
Eileen Donahoe is the Executive Director of the Global Digital Policy Incubator (GDPI) at Stanford University, FSI/Cyber Policy Center. GDPI is a global multi-stakeholder collaboration hub for development of policies that reinforce human rights and democratic values in digitized society. Areas of current research: AI & human rights; combatting digital disinformation; governance of digital platforms. She served in the Obama administration as the first US Ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, at a time of significant institutional reform and innovation. After leaving government, she joined Human Rights Watch as Director of Global Affairs where she represented the organization worldwide on human rights foreign policy, with special emphasis on digital rights, cybersecurity and internet governance. Earlier in her career, she was a technology litigator at Fenwick & West in Silicon Valley. Eileen serves on the National Endowment for Democracy Board of Directors; the Transatlantic Commission on Election Integrity; the World Economic Forum Future Council on the Digital Economy; University of Essex Advisory Board on Human Rights, Big Data and Technology; NDI Designing for Democracy Advisory Board; Freedom Online Coalition Advisory Network; and Dartmouth College Board of Trustees. Degrees: BA, Dartmouth; J.D., Stanford Law School; MA East Asian Studies, Stanford; M.T.S., Harvard; and Ph.D., Ethics & Social Theory, GTU Cooperative Program with UC Berkeley. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.


Megan Metzger headshot   
Megan Metzger is a Research Scholar and Associate Director for Research at the Global Digital Policy Incubator (GDPi) Program. Megan’s research is focused on how changes in technology change how individuals and states use and have access to information, and how this affects protest and other forms of political behavior. Her dissertation was focused primarily on the role of social media during the EuroMaidan protests in Ukraine. She has also worked on projects about the Gezi Park protests in Turkey, and has ongoing projects exploring Russian state strategies of information online. In addition to her academic background, Megan has spent a number of years studying and working in the post-communist world. Her scholarly work has been published in The Journal of Comparative Economics and Slavic Review. Her analysis has also been published in the Monkey Cage Blog at The Washington Post, The Huffington Post and Al Jazeera English.


Mark Latonero  
Mark Latonero is a Senior Researcher at Data & Society focused on AI and human rights and a Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. Previously he was a research director and research professor at USC where he led the Technology and Human Trafficking Initiative. He has also served as innovation consultant for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Dr. Latonero works on the social and policy implications of emerging technology and examines the benefits, risks, and harms of digital technologies, particularly in human rights and humanitarian contexts. He has published a number of reports on the impact of data-centric and automated technologies in forced migration, refugee identity, and crisis response.  

Richard Wingfield  
Richard Wingfield provides legal and policy expertise across Global Partners Digital's portfolio of programs. As Head of Legal, he provides legal and policy advice internally at GPD and to its partner organizations on human rights as they relate to the internet and digital policy, and develops legal analyses, policy briefings and other resources for stakeholders. Before joining GPD, Richard led on policy development and advocacy at the Equal Rights Trust, an international human rights organization working to combat discrimination and inequality. He has also undertaken research for the Bar Human Rights Committee and Commonwealth Lawyers Association, the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights and provided support during the preparatory work for the Yogyakarta Principles.  
Gallit Dobner  
Gallit Dobner is Director of the Centre for International Digital Policy at Global Affairs Canada, with responsibility for the G7 Rapid Response Mechanism to counter foreign threats to democracy as well as broader issues at the intersection of foreign policy and technology. She formerly served as Political Counsellor in The Hague, where she was responsible for bilateral relations and the international courts and tribunals (2015-19), and in Algiers (2010-12). Gallit has also served as Deputy Director at Global Affairs Canada for various international security files, including Counter Terrorism, the Middle East, and Afghanistan. Prior to this, Gallit was a Middle East analyst at Canada’s Privy Council Office. Gallit has a Masters in Political Science from McGill University and Sciences PO. 

Kelly Born  
Kelly Born is the Executive Director of Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center. The center’s research and teaching focuses on the governance of digital technology at the intersection of security, geopolitics and democracy. Born collaborates with the center’s program leaders to pioneer new lines of research, policy-oriented curriculum, and outreach to key decision-makers globally. Prior to joining Stanford, Born helped to launch and lead The Madison Initiative at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic undertakings working to reduce polarization and improve U.S. democracy. There, she designed and implemented strategies focused on money in politics, electoral reform, civic engagement and digital disinformation. Kelly earned a master’s degree in international policy from Stanford University. 

Online, via Zoom

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

(650) 721-5345 (650) 724-2996
0
eileen_head_shot_2024.jpeg

Eileen Donahoe is the co-founder and an affiliated scholar at the Global Digital Policy Incubator (GDPI) at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. (Previously, she served as GDPI’s executive director.) GDPI is a global multi-stakeholder collaboration hub for the development of policies that reinforce human rights and democratic values in a digitized society. Current research priorities include: international trends in AI governance, technical methods for aligning AI with democratic norms and standards, evolution of digital authoritarian policies and practices, and emerging blockchain and AI-enabled tools to support democracy.

Eileen served in the Biden administration as US Special Envoy for Digital Freedom at the Department of State. She also served in the Obama administration as the first US Ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva during a period of significant institutional reform and innovation. After the Obama administration, she joined Human Rights Watch as Director of Global Affairs, where she represented the organization worldwide on human rights foreign policy, with special emphasis on digital rights, cybersecurity, and internet governance. Earlier in her career, she was a technology litigator at Fenwick & West in Silicon Valley.

Eileen serves as Vice Chair of the National Endowment for Democracy Board of Directors; on the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Board of Directors; and on the Dartmouth College Board of Trustees. She is a member of the Global Network Initiative (GNI), the World Economic Forum AI Governance Alliance, and the Resilient Governance and Regulation working group. Previously, she served on the Transatlantic Commission on Election Integrity, the University of Essex Advisory Board on Human Rights, Big Data and Technology, the NDI Designing for Democracy Advisory Board, and the Freedom Online Coalition Advisory Network. Degrees: BA, Dartmouth; J.D., Stanford Law School; MA East Asian Studies, Stanford; M.T.S., Harvard; and Ph.D., Ethics & Social Theory, GTU Cooperative Program with UC Berkeley. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

CDDRL Affiliated Scholar
Date Label
Eileen Donahoe Stanford University
Megan Metzger Stanford University
-

The Stanford Cyber Policy Center continues its online Zoom series: Digital Technology and Democracy, Security & Geopolitics in an Age of Coronavirus. These webinars will take place every other Wednesday at 10am PST. 

The next event, Improving Journalistic Coverage in the Digital Age: From Covid-19 to the 2020 Elections, will take place Wednesday, April 22, at 10am PST with Andrew Grotto, from the Cyber Policy Center's Program on Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance, Janine Zacharia, from Stanford's Department of Communication and Joan Donovan, from Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government, in conversation with Kelly Born, Executive Director of the Cyber Policy Center. 

Grotto and Zacharia will be discussing their recent report How to Report Responsibly on Hacks and Disinformation. Recognizing that reporters are targeted adversaries of foreign and domestic actors, especially during an election year, the report provides recommendations and actionable guidance, including a playbook and a repeatable, enterprise-wide process for implementation. Donovan will discuss health misinformation, COVID-19, and how this relates to disinformation around the 2020 elections, the US census and beyond. 

Join us on April 22nd for the next talk in this enlightening series. You can also watch our April 8th seminar, Digital Disinformation and Health: From Vaccines to the Coronavirus.  

April 22, 10am-11am (PST) 
Join via Zoom link 
Janine Zacharia 
Janine Zacharia is the Carlos Kelly McClatchy Lecturer in Stanford’s Department of Communication. In addition to teaching journalism courses at Stanford, she researches and writes on the intersection between technology and national security, media trends and foreign policy. Earlier in her career, she reported extensively on the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy including stints as Jerusalem Bureau Chief for the Washington Post, State Department Correspondent for Bloomberg News, Washington Bureau Chief for the Jerusalem Post, and Jerusalem Correspondent for Reuters. 


Andrew Grotto 
Andrew Grotto is director of the Program on Geopolitics, Technology and Governance and William J. Perry International Security Fellow at Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center and teaches the gateway course for graduate students specializing in cyber policy in Stanford’s Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy program. He is also a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He served as Senior Director for Cyber Policy on the National Security Council in both the Obama and the Trump White House. 



Dr. Joan Donovan

Dr. Joan Donovan is Director of the Technology and Social Change (TaSC) Research Project at the Shorenstein Center. Dr. Donovan leads the field in examining internet and technology studies, online extremism, media manipulation, and disinformation campaigns. Dr. Donovan's research and teaching interests are focused on media manipulation, effects of disinformation campaigns, and adversarial media movements. This fall, she will be teaching a graduate-level course on Media Manipulation and Disinformation Campaigns (DPI-622) with a focus on how social movements, political parties, governments, corporations, and other networked groups engage in active efforts to shape media narratives and disrupt social institutions.

Kelly Born 
Kelly Born is the Executive Director of Stanford’s Cyber Policy Center, where she collaborates with the center’s program leaders to pioneer new lines of research, policy-oriented curriculum, policy workshops and executive education. Prior to joining Stanford, she helped to launch and lead The Madison Initiative at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic undertakings working to reduce polarization and improve U.S. democracy. There, she designed and implemented strategies focused on money in politics, electoral reform, civic engagement and digital disinformation. Kelly earned a master’s degree in international policy from Stanford University.

Andrew Grotto Director of the Program on Geopolitics, Technology and Governance Stanford University
Janine Zacharia Carlos Kelly McClatchy Lecturer in Stanford’s Department of Communication Stanford University
Joan Donovan Director of the Technology and Social Change (TaSC) Research Project Harvard University
Authors
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

As part of a Center on Food Security and the Environment event, World Bank Country Director for India Junaid Ahmad discussed the political economy of water and managing service delivery in the world’s second most populous country.

Ahmad began his talk with a story about how he first began to understand how people receive water in India. The year was 2000, and he was in Delhi with his friend, the city manager of Johannesburg. His friend noticed that water was being stored in tanks on top of houses and buildings, and was appalled.

Water was stored in tanks because cities in India typically only receive five to seven hours of intermittent water, rather than 24/7 water from constantly supplied pipes. So, to mimic 24/7 water, many Indians store water in tanks. Water storage tanks, however, are often problematic.

“What's wrong with intermittent water? First, intermittent supply has the worst health effects, number one. Number two, intermittent supply acts like a water hammer. And when that happens, pipes break,” Ahmad said.

Ahmad discovered that the reason for this intermittent water supply was so that the Delhi Water Agency could give out more contracts to fix broken pipes.

“Very simply [the problem is] that the water agency is run by the chief minister of a state who is the policymaker, the provider and the regulator. Judge and jury are the same,” Ahmad said. “This creates the type of incentives that no one really cares about whether water gets delivered or not.”

Ahmad concluded that the issue of intermittent water supply was far more about politics and economics than it is about water. “This has nothing to do with water. It's got everything to do with the political economy of how service delivery happens …  How do you create the separation of powers?” he asked.

Ahmad’s solution comes in three parts, oriented around creating markets for water delivery. Those who are both policymakers and providers must choose between their two positions. The state and the water company must be distanced. “Let the water company be run as a commercial entity. Don't run it as a department of government,” he said.

Finally, Ahmad said, water must be priced. “I often say that the most expensive water for poor people is free water. Because whenever you're delivering free water, it's the middle class that gets the water not the poor.” 

Ahmad also spoke briefly about the issues of groundwater depletion and water pollution in both India and China. To him, the solution to each of these problems, as with the solution to intermittent water supply, is capitalist markets and competition between the states of India. “You allow the natural resource endowment of these states to drive the economics of those states, that …  may well create competition towards more, better service delivery,” he said.

“Ultimately, if I were to define the water crisis of India, it is a political economic crisis of institutions. Unless India begins to truly create a separation of powers between who's the policymaker, who's the regulator and who's the provider, it will continue to face these problems that I'm talking about,” Ahmad said.

Watch the full talk here or below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW5zM58OAZM&feature=youtu.be

Hero Image
160850827 9d4100830d o 1
All News button
1
Subscribe to Asia-Pacific