Stanford University

Will land reform sow peace in Latin America?

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Michael Albertus
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On the eve of the Sixth Summit of the Americas in Colombia, CDDRL Post-Doctoral Scholar Michael Albertus co-authored a piece on the Foreign Policy website suggesting that land reform could help end decades of conflict in Latin America. Both authors suggest that Colombia's Victims Law can serve as a model for good governance across the region, holding the potential to uproot drug problems and improve security for the lives of everyday citizens.
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Performance of "Reykjavik" and post-performance panel

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In October 1986, a historic summit meeting was held at Reykjavik, Iceland, between the United States, under the leadership of President Ronald Reagan, and the Soviet Union, under the leadership of President Mikhail Gorbachev. What began as a summit with an agenda of limited reduction of nuclear weapons and human rights quickly transformed into a discussion by the two leaders advocating for elimination of all nuclear weapons. The prospect of a world without nuclear weapons had never before been held at such a high level and has never been held since. These negotiations were truly historic and in many ways groundbreaking in helping to end the Cold War.

Reykjavik, a one-act play, written by Richard Rhodes, is a dialogue taken from the actual transcripts of the negotiations between the two presidents. Rhodes is the author or editor of twenty-four works of history, memoir, and fiction, including The Making of the Atomic Bomb, which won a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and a National Book Critics Circle Award. A past visiting scholar at MIT and Harvard University, he is presently an associate of the Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation. 

The play runs for seventy-five minutes and will be followed by a question-and-answer session on May 8 with Richard Rhodes and on May 9 with a panel of nuclear security experts led by Charles Ferguson, president of the Federation of American Scientists.

This program is co-sponsored by the Federation of American Scientists, the Fund for Peace Initiatives, the Center for International Security and Cooperation, the Bowen H. McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society, and Stanford Continuing Studies.

For additional information on the series, please visit the Stanford Ethics and War series website. 

CEMEX Auditorium, Zambrano Hall
Knight Management Center
Stanford, CA 94305, USA

Charles Ferguson President, Federation of American Scientists Host
Seminars
Stanford Ethics & War Series

Performance of "Reykjavik" and post-performance Q&A

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In October 1986, a historic summit meeting was held at Reykjavik, Iceland, between the United States, under the leadership of President Ronald Reagan, and the Soviet Union, under the leadership of President Mikhail Gorbachev. What began as a summit with an agenda of limited reduction of nuclear weapons and human rights quickly transformed into a discussion by the two leaders advocating for elimination of all nuclear weapons. The prospect of a world without nuclear weapons had never before been held at such a high level and has never been held since. These negotiations were truly historic and in many ways groundbreaking in helping to end the Cold War.

Reykjavik, a one-act play, written by Richard Rhodes, is a dialogue taken from the actual transcripts of the negotiations between the two presidents. Rhodes is the author or editor of twenty-four works of history, memoir, and fiction, including The Making of the Atomic Bomb, which won a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and a National Book Critics Circle Award. A past visiting scholar at MIT and Harvard University, he is presently an associate of the Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation. 

The play runs for seventy-five minutes and will be followed by a question-and-answer session on May 8 with Richard Rhodes and on May 9 with a panel of nuclear security experts led by Charles Ferguson, president of the Federation of American Scientists.

This program is co-sponsored by the Federation of American Scientists, the Fund for Peace Initiatives, the Center for International Security and Cooperation, the Bowen H. McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society, and Stanford Continuing Studies.

 

For additional information on the series, please visit the Stanford Ethics and War series website. 

 

CEMEX Auditorium, Zambrano Hall
Knight Management Center
Stanford, CA 94305, USA

Richard Rhodes Playwright, Author and Affiliate at CISAC Speaker
Seminars

International Scholars in Residence at the Humanities Center 2012-2013

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International Scholars in Residence at the Humanities Center 2012-2013

Distinguished scholars from Egypt, New Zealand, South Africa, and Turkey have been chosen as joint Stanford Humanities Center/FSI international visitors.

The Stanford Humanities Center and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) are pleased to announce that four international scholars have been chosen to come to Stanford in 2012-13 as part of a jointly sponsored international program entering its fourth year. Nominated by Stanford departments and research centers, the international scholars will be on campus for four-week residencies. They will have offices at the Humanities Center and will be affiliated with their nominating unit, the Humanities Center, and FSI.

A major purpose of the residencies is to bring high-profile international scholars into the intellectual life of the university, targeting scholars whose research and writing engage with the missions of both the Humanities Center and FSI.

The following scholars have been selected for the upcoming academic year:

Maha Abdel-Rahman (April 2013) is a Lecturer in Development Studies at the University of Cambridge, and an Egyptian academic and activist. She holds a PhD from the Dutch Institute of Social Studies. While at Stanford, she will research the relationship between social movements and civil society in Egypt, and will give seminars based on her book project, On Protest Movements and Uprisings: Egypt’s Permanent Revolution. She was nominated by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies.

Mohamed Adhikari (May 2013) is an Associate Professor in the Historical Studies Department at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Mohamed Adhikari (May 2013) is an Associate Professor in the Historical Studies Department at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He will explore the relationship between European settler colonialism and genocide in hunter-gatherer societies, and will bring to campus a comparative perspective on genocide, race, identity and language. His latest publication, The Anatomy of a South African Genocide: The Extermination of the Cape San Peoples (2010) was the first to deal with the topic of genocide in the South African context. He will also present from his edited book, Invariably Genocide?: When Hunter-gatherers and Commercial Stock Farmers Clash, due for publication in 2013. He was nominated by the Center for African Studies.

Nuray Mert (October 2012) is an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Istanbul University. She is a political observer and contributor to Turkey’s major newspapers (Milliyet and Hûrriyet Daily News), one of the few contemporary Turkish public intellectuals with an academic background and a journalist’s investigative mind. An outspoken critic on sensitive issues in the Turkish context such as rights of minorities (the Kurdish Question), freedom of religion and of press, she will lecture on the geopolitical implications of the Arab Spring for Turkey and the Middle East, and on Turkey’s accession to the European Union in light of the financial crisis of the Euro-zone. She was nominated by the Mediterranean Studies Forum.

Te Maire Tau (February 2013) is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.
Te Maire Tau (February 2013) is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. His work explores the role of myth in Maori culture, the resolution of boundaries between the Maori and the New Zealand government, and where tribal/indigenous knowledge systems fit within the wider philosophy of knowledge. During his residency, he will examine how Pacific peoples adapted western knowledge systems, not just with regard to western technology but in more theoretical areas such as the pre-Socratic philosophers and the 19th century scientists. He will also focus on the migration of traditions from the Tahitian-Marquesas Island group to the outer lying island of Polynesia (New Zealand, Hawaii). He was nominated by the Woods Institute for the Environment.

In addition to the jointly-sponsored program with FSI, the Humanities Center will also bring international visitors from France and India as part of the international programs at the Humanities Center.

Denis Lacorne (January 2013) is a prominent French public intellectual and Professor of Political Science at CERI (Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales) Sciences Po in Paris. Lacorne will give presentations on French and American notions of religious toleration, deriving from his latest book on US and French secularism which demonstrates that, despite some striking similarities between US secularism and French laïcité, the secularization of French society has followed a different path from that of American society. He was nominated by the French Culture Workshop, and the History Department.

Himanshu Prabha Ray (April 2013) is an historian of Ancient India at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, where she works in the fields of ancient India and maritime archaeology. During her residency, she will discuss and finalize her current book project, Return of the Buddha:  Ancient symbols for modern India, as well as her research on the creation of a public discourse around Buddhism in the colonial and post-colonial period in India. The Buddha, in her account, is not statically located in history, but rather contested within settings of colonialism, post-colonialism and nation-building. She was nominated by the Classics Department, with the support of the Department of Religious Studies, the Center for South Asia, the Ho Center for Buddhist Studies, and the Archaeology Center.

While at Stanford, the scholars will offer informal seminars and public lectures and will also be available for consultations with interested faculty and students. For additional information, please contact Marie-Pierre Ulloa, mpulloa@stanford.edu.

Relevant URLs:

Stanford Humanities Center

http://shc.stanford.edu/

 

Contact:

Marie-Pierre Ulloa

Senior Executive Officer for International Programs

Stanford Humanities Center

(650) 724 8106, mpulloa@stanford.edu

 

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Looking at higher education in developing economies

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Engineering education in Brazil, Russia, India, and China -- the "BRIC countries" -- is the subject of a groundbreaking recent study and a forthcoming book co-authored by Rafiq Dossani. He has written a working paper focusing on India, and took part in a related conference at FSI on Apr. 28.
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Students listen to a lecture at the Engineering College of Bikaner in Rajasthan, India, Oct. 2009.
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What is the Contemporary?

As a critical category and an object of study, “the contemporary” is often taken for granted or entirely omitted from academic discussion. We often assume it is the purview of journalistic criticism, and wait for consensus to arise before considering it a viable subject of analysis. Higher learning favors the study of the past over the present, which adds institutional blindness to the inherent difficulty of considering a changing object “in real time.” This is all the more pervasive in the case of Latin American culture, which does not circulate in mainstream American humanistic discourse, and is thus relegated to an always-already past condition in our academic milieu.

The premise of the colloquium is simple and enormously thought-provoking: we seek answers –from world-class Latin American, U.S. and European intellectuals, writers, and scholars– to the question of what is the contemporary. Participants follow three main lines of inquiry, addressing questions of comparative modernities, emerging canonicity, and conceptual elucidation of contemporaneity.

Sponsored by the Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages; the Cultural Synchronization and Disjuncture Working Group; the Tangible Thoughts for Luso-Brazilian Culture Research Unit;  the Center for Latin American Studies, the Department of French and Italian, the Europe Center, and the Humanities Center at Stanford University

Levinthal Hall

Julio Premat Professor of Hispanic Literature Speaker Université Paris VIII
Lionel Ruffel Associate Professor of French and Comparative Literature Speaker Université Paris VIII
Diego Vecchio Argentine author based in Paris Speaker
Alejandro Zambra Chilean poet, fiction writer and literary critic Speaker
David William Foster Professor of Spanish Speaker Arizona State University
Idelber Avelar Professor of Spanish and Portugese Speaker Tulane University
Odile Cisneros Professor of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies Speaker University of Alberta
Paola Cortes-Rocca Professor Speaker San Francisco State University
Valeria de los Rios Assistant Professor Speaker Universidad Santiago de Chile
Conferences

Insider Activists: Personal Connections and Political Action in China

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Abstract:

"Insider Activists: Personal Connections and Political Action in China", co-authored by Lily Tsai and Yiqing Xu, PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at MIT.

This project finds that in both rural and urban China, political "insiders" are actually more likely to make complaints about the government to local officials, including complaints about public goods provision, than political outsiders. We argue that personal connections to government officials may constitute an important resource for political action in nondemocratic systems such as China by providing information about how to participate effectively and protection against reprisal for making complaints.

 

About the speaker:

Lily L. Tsai is an Associate Professor of Political Science at MIT. Her research focuses on issues of accountability, governance, and political participation in developing countries with a particular emphasis on Chinese politics. Her book, Accountability Without Democracy: Solidary Groups and Public Goods Provision in Rural China, was published in Cambridge University's Studies on Comparative Politics and received the 2007-08 Dogan Award from the Society of Comparative Research for the best book published in the field of comparative research. Tsai has also published articles in The American Political Science Review, Studies in Comparative International Development, The China Quarterly, and The China Journal. Tsai is a graduate of Stanford University, where she graduated with honors and distinction in English literature and international relations. She received a M.A. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in government from Harvard University in 2004. 

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Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Lily Tsai Associate Professor of Political Science Speaker MIT

Francis Fukuyama

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

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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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Francis Fukuyama Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow Moderator FSI
Seminars

Triumph of the BRICs? Higher Education Expansion in the Global Economy

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This day long conference is based on a major study of higher education expansion and quality in the world's four largest developing economies-Brazil, Russia, India, and China-known as the BRIC countries. These four economies are already important players globally, but by mid-century, they are likely to be economic powerhouses. Whether they reach that level of development will depend partly on how successfully they create quality higher education that puts their labor forces at the cutting edge of the information society. It is difficult to imagine large economies reaching advanced stages of development in the 21st century without high levels of innovative, well-trained, socially oriented professionals.

The study places particular emphasis on how the BRICs are expanding engineering higher education and the quality and equity of that expansion. Evaluating the potential success of the BRIC countries in developing highly skilled professionals is not the only reason to study their higher education systems. We want to learn how these governments go about organizing higher education because this can tell us a lot about their implicit economic, social, and political goals, and their capacity to reach them. Although the BRICs are acutely aware of their new role in the global economy, their governments must negotiate complex political demands at home, including ensuring domestic economic growth, social mobility, and political participation. Because more and better higher education is positively associated with all these elements, BRIC governments' focus on their university systems has become an important part of their domestic economic and social policy.

The conference involves all the authors of the study from China, India, Russia, and the United States, as well as expert discussants from Brazil and the United States. The various panels of the day-long discussion will focus on various aspects of change in the higher education systems in the BRICs.

 

 

TRIUMPH OF THE BRICS?

Higher Education Expansion in the Global Economy

Bechtel Conference Center--FSI

April 28, 2012

Co-Sponsored by

Freeman Spogli Institute, U.S. Department of Education, Office of Post-Secondary Education, Stanford School of Education Lemann Center for Educational Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Brazil, Center for Latin American Studies at Stanford, State Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, China Institute for Educational Finance Research at Peking University, and National University of Educational Policy and Administration, Delhi

 

8:00 am Bagels and coffee

8:30 am Welcome

8:45 am Introduction to the Study
Presenter: Martin Carnoy, School of Education, Stanford
Discussants: Francisco Ramirez, School of Education, Stanford Gustavo Fischman*, Arizona State University

9:30 am Panel I: The Expansion of and Payoffs to Higher Education in the BRICs
Presenters: Isak Froumin and Maria Dobryakova, State Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow
Prashant Loyalka, China Institute for Educational Finance Research, Peking University  Discussants: Eric Bettinger, School of Education, Stanford Rafiq Dossani, Freeman Spogli Institute, Stanford

10:45 am Coffee Break

11:00 am Panel II: Financing of Higher Education in the BRICs
Presenters: Jandhyala B.G. Tilak, National University of Educational Planning Administration (NUEPA)
Wang Rong, China Institute for Educational Finance Research, Peking University
Discussants: Nick Hope, Stanford Center for International Development
Robert Verhine*, Federal University of Bahia, Brazil

12:15 pm Lunch Break

1:00 pm: Panel III: Institutional Change In BRIC Universities
Presenters: Rafiq Dossani, Freeman Spogli Institute, Stanford
Katherine Kuhns, School of Education, Stanford
Discussants: Simon Schwartzman*, Instituto de Estudos do Trabalho e Sociedade, Rio de Janeiro
Wang Rong, China Institute for Educational Finance Research, Peking University

2:15 pm Panel IV: How Does the Quality of Engineering Education Compare?
Presenters: Prashant Loyalka, CIEFR, Peking University
Jandhyala B.G. Tilak, NUEPA, Delhi
Discussants: Sheri Sheppard, School of Engineering, Stanford
Anthony Antonio, School of Education, Stanford

3:30 pm Coffee break

3:45: pm Panel V: Implications for the Future
Presenters:  Martin Carnoy, School of Education, Stanford
Isak Froumin, Higher School of Economics, Moscow
Discussant: Philip Altbach*, Center for International Higher Education, Boston College

5:00 pm Closing Remarks

*Will give their remarks via Webinar connection

Bechtel Conference Center

Martin Carnoy Vida Jacks Professor of Education, School of Education, Stanford University Speaker
Fracisco Ramirez School of Education, Stanford University Speaker
Gustavo Fischman Arizona State University Speaker
Isak Froumin State Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow Speaker
Prashant Loyalka China Institute for Educational Finance Research, Peking UniversityChina Institute for Educational Finance Research, Peking University Speaker
Eric Bettinger School of Education, Stanford University Speaker

Rafiq Dossani

No longer in residence.

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R_Dossani_headshot.jpg PhD

Rafiq Dossani was a senior research scholar at Stanford University's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) and erstwhile director of the Stanford Center for South Asia. His research interests include South Asian security, government, higher education, technology, and business.  

Dossani’s most recent book is Knowledge Perspectives of New Product Development, co-edited with D. Assimakopoulos and E. Carayannis, published in 2011 by Springer. His earlier books include Does South Asia Exist?, published in 2010 by Shorenstein APARC; India Arriving, published in 2007 by AMACOM Books/American Management Association (reprinted in India in 2008 by McGraw-Hill, and in China in 2009 by Oriental Publishing House); Prospects for Peace in South Asia, co-edited with Henry Rowen, published in 2005 by Stanford University Press; and Telecommunications Reform in India, published in 2002 by Greenwood Press. One book is under preparation: Higher Education in the BRIC Countries, co-authored with Martin Carnoy and others, to be published in 2012.

Dossani currently chairs FOCUS USA, a non-profit organization that supports emergency relief in the developing world. Between 2004 and 2010, he was a trustee of Hidden Villa, a non-profit educational organization in the Bay Area. He also serves on the board of the Industry Studies Association, and is chair of the Industry Studies Association Annual Conference for 2010–12.

Earlier, Dossani worked for the Robert Fleming Investment Banking group, first as CEO of its India operations and later as head of its San Francisco operations. He also previously served as the chairman and CEO of a stockbroking firm on the OTCEI stock exchange in India, as the deputy editor of Business India Weekly, and as a professor of finance at Pennsylvania State University.

Dossani holds a BA in economics from St. Stephen's College, New Delhi, India; an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, India; and a PhD in finance from Northwestern University.

Senior Research Scholar
Executive Director, South Asia Initiative
Rafiq Dossani Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University Speaker
Jandhyala B.G. Tilak National University of Educational Planning Administration (NUEPA) Speaker
Wang Rong China Institute for Educational Finance Research, Peking University Speaker
Nick Hope Stanford Center for International Development Speaker
Robert Verhine Federal University of Bahia, Brazil Speaker
Katherine M. Kuhns School of Education, Stanford University Speaker
Simon Schwartzman Instituto de Estudos do Trabalho e Sociedade, Rio de Janeiro Speaker
Sheri Sheppard School of Engineering, Stanford University Speaker
Anthony Antonio School of Education, Stanford University Speaker
Philip Altbach Center for International Higher Education, Boston College Speaker
Maria Dobryakova State Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow Speaker
Conferences

Award offers researchers $100,000 for improving health care access

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Young Stanford researchers focusing on improving health care access in developing countries are eligible for the Dr. George Rosenkranz Prize.

The $100,000 award is given to a non-tenured professor, post-doctoral student or research associate during a two-year period. The deadline to apply is May 11. The recipient will be announced in early June

Rosenkranz, who helped first synthesize Cortisone in 1951 and went on to synthesize progestin  – the active ingredient for the first oral birth control – dedicated his career to improving health care access around the world. Born in Hungary in 1916, the chemist started his career in Mexico and helped establish the Mexican National Institute for Genomic Medicine. He lives with his wife in Menlo Park.

The award is being funded by the Rosenkranz family and administered by Stanford Health Policy, a center within the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research. It also is designed to give its recipients access to a network that will help them develop their careers.

Eran Bendavid, a SHP affiliate and Stanford Medical School instructor, received the first award in 2010 to support his analysis of whether money going to HIV and malaria programs in sub-Saharan Africa has improved the overall health of children and their mothers.

More application information is available at http://healthpolicy.stanford.edu/fellowships/rosenkranz_prize.

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