Larry Diamond looks at the global and domestic threats to the principles of liberal democracy for The Brian Lehrer Show. Listen here.
In early May, CISAC convened the fifth Young Professional Nuclear Forum (YPNF), a program sponsored by the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University and the Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute (MEPhI). The program brought together a lively group of young Russians and Americans working on nuclear issues over three days.
Since 2016, the forum has alternated between Moscow and Stanford.
By 2016, US and Russian governments closed almost every door on opportunities that previously allowed experienced nuclear professionals on both sides to cooperate with each other. Stanford Professor Siegfried Hecker saw that at least one door - that of cooperation on the university level - was still open. He started the YPNF to foster interaction between the younger generation of Russians and Americans who study, do research, or start a career in the nuclear power or nonproliferation fields.
This year’s agenda focused on two major areas: US-Russian arms control and the future of nuclear power.
The American group included a new cohort of six incoming young professionals from Los Alamos National Laboratory, UC Berkeley, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, and Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non‑Proliferation. They were joined by CISAC research staff members Gaby Levikow and Elliot Serbin and current and former fellows Chantell Murphy, Kristin Ven Bruusgaard, and Cameron Tracy. The Russian group from MEPhI brought a team of 12 young professionals most of whom are pursuing their graduate degrees in nuclear physics and engineering and software engineering, along with junior professionals in international relations and nuclear fields. The team of experts included Professor Hecker, Dr. James Toevs, Dr. Ning Li, Ambassador Steven Pifer, Professor David Holloway, Dr. Larry Brandt, Dr. Chaim Braun, Dr. Pavel Podvig, and Dr. Mona Dreicer, —all of whom provided advice and feedback during the exercise.
Participants come from loosely defined “technical” and “policy” fields, and the forum agenda has traditionally included one nuclear-power related and one policy-focused subject. Forum activities vary between lectures, expert briefings, discussions, and table-top exercises, but the small-group work during the exercises is the core form of interaction.
By design, this agenda exposes each participant to new fields, new counterparts, some fun interactive time off - and encourages a lot of cultural learning. Forum after forum, we hear back that the group work and social time are the most exciting aspects of the forum experience. Participants noted they learned, among other things, “general ideas and thoughts of American participants and their attitudes to the present American policy, new words and abbreviations … [and] a great deal about new reactor designs and their implications for nuclear energy and security policy.” Still more participants enjoyed “learning to collaborate in groups of Americans and Russians but also between policy and technical experts on topics of both camps,” and some “got new friends.”
Encouragingly, participants requested more interaction between the bi-annual meetings and a variety of topics in yet untapped – or suspended - areas of cooperation between Russia and the US.
New work continues to emerge from the forum. Eight short articles written by the young professionals to showcase the results of the projects from the Moscow meeting in November 2017 was published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in June 2019. The next meeting will be held in Moscow this November.
Did the Russian-affiliated groups that interfered with the 2016 U.S. presidential election want to be caught?
“There’s a reason why they paid for Facebook ads in rubles,” Nathaniel Persily, who is a senior fellow at FSI and co-director of the Cyber Policy Center, told FSI Director Michael McFaul on the World Class podcast. “They wanted to be open and notorious.”
Since the election, Americans have become more suspicious of fake news, but they have also become suspicious of real news and journalists in general. Another problem with the Russians’ success in influencing the 2016 election, said Persily, is that Americans will automatically assume that the Russians will do the same thing during the 2020 race.
“Everyone is going to be looking for nefarious influences and shouting them from the rooftops, and that actually serves the [bad actors’] purposes just as much,” Persily said. “Many of the attempts in 2016 were about fostering division and doubt, and I think there’s a lot of appetite for doubt right now in America.”
Since 2016, Facebook, Twitter and Google have made some important changes to the way they handle advertising, including adding a requirement that all candidate ads and other ads of “national legislative importance” be identified as advertisements on users’ feeds.
But there are no standardized rules or regulations that dictate how tech companies should handle advertisements or posts that contain disinformation, Persily said, and because of this, it is up to those respective companies to make those decisions themselves — and they aren’t always in agreement. For example, when a video of Nancy Pelosi that was slowed down to make her seem drunk was posted in late May on YouTube and Facebook, YouTube took the video down, but Facebook decided to leave it up.
“The standards that are going to be developed in test cases like these — under conditions which are not as politically incendiary as an election — are going to be the ones that will be rolled out and applied in elections in the U.S. and around the world,” Persily said.
When it comes to election security, the 2020 presidential race will be the next big test for the U.S. government and private-sector companies. But other countries should also be on the lookout for activity from foreign agents and actors in their elections.
“The 2016 election was not just an event, it was a playbook that was written by the Russians,” warned Persily. “That playbook is usable for future elections in the United States as well as around the world, whether it’s between India and Pakistan or China and Taiwan.”
In the honor of publication of Larry Diamond's "Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency" Foreign Affairs are providing past the paywall article "Democracy Demotion: How the Freedom Agenda Fell Apart" by Larry Diamond. Read here.
Since joining SPICE in 2005, my annual calendar has revolved around not spring flowers, caterpillars dangling from trees, and falling leaves around the beautiful Stanford campus, but the schedule of the Reischauer Scholars Program (RSP), Stanford’s online course on Japan and U.S.–Japan relations for U.S. high school students. As the manager and instructor of the RSP, I have had the pleasure (and truly, the honor) of teaching this online course for 14 years. We accept applications beginning in August, outreach efforts ramp up in September and October, and new cohorts of talented U.S. high school students are selected every November. With January comes the updating of the syllabus with new readings, topics, and video lectures, and identifying and inviting guest speakers for the virtual classes. And the highlight of my year—every year—is on February 1, when the new cohort signs into our online learning platform ready to engage in this new community, connect over shared interests, learn from their differences, and to embark upon the RSP journey together.
It is now early June, and the 2019 Reischauer Scholars Program is, unbelievably, soon coming to an end. This year’s RSP journey has led us through explorations of tales of samurai, the modernization of Meiji Japan through the lens of filmmaker Ozu Yasujiro, comparative perspectives on colonial and wartime legacies through textbooks, and lessons on civil liberties as told by someone who was sent to a Japanese American internment camp with his family as a 9-year-old boy.
While this online course has always approached the study of Japan and U.S.–Japan relations with an intense academic rigor befitting Stanford University, I also wanted to offer students access to the personal stories of practitioners who play an active role in Japanese society and the U.S.–Japan relationship that we study. One of the wonderful aspects of teaching online is that for our weekly virtual classroom sessions—where all students meet synchronously using Zoom video conferencing software—we are able to welcome guest speakers to join us from anywhere in the world.
As we explored the U.S.–Japan security relationship this year and the controversies surrounding the presence of U.S. military bases in Okinawa, for example, students met with an Okinawan native who works on the U.S. Air Force Base in Kadena. Learning about how her experiences and perspectives inform her own efforts to enhance U.S.–Japan relations gave the students new insight into the impact of international policy upon individuals and the communities in which they live.
For our module on U.S.–Japan diplomacy we were joined by the Principal Officer of the U.S. Consulate in Sapporo, Rachel Brunette-Chen, who talked about how her interests in connecting the U.S. and Japan have informed her career in the U.S. State Department. RSP students often cite international relations and diplomacy as two high-interest fields for their future undergraduate studies and career aspirations, so they made the most of this opportunity to ask thoughtful questions about careers in Foreign Service. Given the diverse career tracks available in the State Department, students were inspired to learn that they could take their multidisciplinary interests and apply them in an international context for years to come.
As we grappled with the various challenges facing modern Japanese society during the last few weeks of class—including students mired in a test-centric system, the demographic realities of an aging population and declining birth rates, pervasive issues of gender inequality, and minority rights, among others—it was important to gain an understanding of how these issues are being addressed and experienced by real people. Our final guest speaker for the 2019 RSP, a Japanese American entrepreneur and educator living and working in Tokyo, shared his first-hand perspectives on the state of entrepreneurship and innovation in contemporary Japan.
Perhaps the most memorable of the online video conferencing sessions this year were the two joint virtual classes with the students of the Stanford e-Japan Program. Stanford e-Japan is an online course that engages Japanese high school students in the study of U.S. society and U.S.–Japan relations, and is comprised of students from across Japan. The rich, open discussions and friendly international camaraderie fostered during these joint sessions are always a delight to observe. I know that many of my RSP students—and many of the Stanford e-Japan students, as well—will treasure these experiences and relationships for years to come.
In our virtual class on diplomacy, one student asked, “How can we, as high school students, make a real impact on the U.S.–Japan relationship?” “By taking the initiative to be active participants in courses like the Reischauer Scholars Program,” replied Ms. Brunette-Chen, “you are already on your way. In sharing what you learn about Japan, you are also raising awareness about the importance of the U.S.–Japan relationship among your peers and school communities.” Indeed, these 2019 Reischauer Scholars are already on their way. As the spring flowers, dangling caterpillars, and fall leaves continue to come and go in the years ahead, I am eager to see the different ways in which their impact upon U.S.–Japan relations will continue to take shape. Who knows? Perhaps a few will return to the RSP years from now—this time not as students, but as guest speakers who coach and inspire the Reischauer Scholars of the future.
To be notified when the next Reischauer Scholars Program application period opens, join our email list or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
The Reischauer Scholars Program is one of several online courses for high school students offered by SPICE, Stanford University, including the China Scholars Program, the Sejong Scholars Program (on Korea), and the Stanford e-Japan Program.
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Thirty years ago this week, I watched the news from Beijing and started shredding my bedding. It was the night before my college graduation, I had been studying Chinese politics, and news had broken that college students just like us had been gunned down in Tiananmen Square after weeks of peaceful and exhilarating democracy protests—carried on international TV. In the iconic square where Mao Zedong had proclaimed the People’s Republic decades before, bespectacled students from China’s best universities had camped out, putting up posters with slogans of freedom in Chinese and English. A “goddess of democracy” figure modeled after the Statue of Liberty embodied their hopes—and ours—for political liberation in China.
On my campus back then were just a handful of students majoring in East Asian studies. Learning of the brutal crackdown in Beijing, we somehow found one another, gathered our friends, and stayed up making hundreds of white armbands for classmates to wear at commencement the next day. Grappling with the cold realities of the “real world” we were about to enter, we didn’t know what else to do. So we tore sheets and cried for what might have been.
The June 4, 1989, massacre was a horrifying spectacle that the Chinese government has sought to erase from national memory ever since. But, 30 years later, contemplating what might have been is more important than ever. In hindsight, Tiananmen Square serves as a continuing reminder about just how much China has defied, and continues to defy, the odds and predictions of experts. The fact is that generations of American policy makers, political scientists, and economists have gotten China wrong more often than they’ve gotten China right. In domestic politics, economic development, and foreign policy, China has charted a surprising path that flies in the face of professional prognostications, general theories about anything, and the experience of other nations.
Karl Eikenberry, director of the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative, spoke with "Bloomberg Markets: Asia" about the ongoing trade disputes between the U.S. and China. Video of his interview—conducted on the sidelines of the Morgan Stanley China Summit in Beijing—is posted below.
Venezuela is in the midst of an economic, social and political crisis, said Harold Trinkunas, the deputy director of FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and an expert on Latin American politics.
“Venezuela is a major oil-producing company, and it experienced a boom between 2000 and 2012,” Trinkunas told FSI Director Michael McFaul on the World Class podcast. “Up until then, Venezuela seemed to be doing pretty well.”
But things have changed since former President Hugo Chavez’s death in 2013. Once one of Latin America’s wealthiest nations, Venezuela’s economy has collapsed by more than 50 percent in recent years, Trinkunas said. Meanwhile, a large majority of its population is living in poverty, millions have fled the country, and the government — led by President Nicolás Maduro — has become increasingly authoritarian and unpopular among citizens.
During his first five years in office, Maduro’s government politicized the military and the oil industry, Trinkunas said, noting that oil production in Venezuela has declined from 3 million barrels per day 20 years ago to fewer than 1 million barrels per day in recent years. After Maduro was re-elected in 2018 amongst reports of coercion, fraud and electoral rigging, about 50 countries — including the United States and many members of the European Union — denounced his election.
“The fact that there are 50 countries [that oppose Maduro] is really quite unusual,” Trinkunas said. “And this is the United States and many of its allies — many western democracies are in this camp.”
Less than a year after the election, opposition leader Juan Guaidó invoked the country’s constitution to declare himself interim president. About three months later, on April 30, 2019, Guaidó called for an uprising against Maduro, but the response wasn’t what Guaidó had hoped for, Trinkunas said.
“Apparently there had been a process of negotiation in the weeks leading up to April 30, in which the armed forces, the Supreme Court, and other significant regime figures agreed to a transition plan which would ease Maduro out and call for new elections,” Trinkunas said. “But it looks like Juan Guaidó pulled the trigger too quickly — he claims the plot was discovered.”
Trinkunas sees three possible scenarios for Venezuela going forward: one in which Maduro is able to retain his power and the state of country remains relatively unchanged; another in which the government collapses and the country is able to transition into a democracy; or the Venezuelan government may collapse and things could take a turn for the worse, he said.
“Venezuela has experienced prolonged electricity blackouts in the last couple of months, and food distribution is very uncertain — things are breaking down,” he said. “There’s a real [possibility] that some of the organized crime organizations could break down the social order. It might look like a much more complicated situation.”
Related: Read a Q&A with Harold Trinkunas about Juan Guaidó’s claim to the Venezuelan presidency.
A new study by Stanford economists shows that giving fathers flexibility to take time off work in the months after their children are born improves the postpartum health and mental well-being of mothers.
In the study, slated for release by the National Bureau of Economic Research on June 3, Petra Persson and Maya Rossin-Slater examined the effects of a reform in Sweden that introduced more flexibility into the parental leave system. The 2012 law removed a prior restriction preventing a child’s mother and father from taking paid leave at the same time. And it allowed fathers to use up to 30 days of paid leave on an intermittent basis within a year of their child’s birth while the mothers were still on leave.
The policy change resulted in some clear benefits toward the mother’s health, including reductions in childbirth-related complications and postpartum anxiety, according to their empirical analysis.
“A lot of the discussion around how to support mothers is about mothers being able to take leave, but we often don’t think about the other part of the equation — fathers,” says Rossin-Slater, an assistant professor of health research and policy.
“Our study underscores that the father’s presence in the household shortly after childbirth can have important consequences for the new mother's physical and mental health,” says Persson, an assistant professor of economics.
Rossin-Slater and Persson are both faculty fellows at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
Among their main findings of effects following the reform: Mothers are 14 percent less likely to need a specialist or be admitted to a hospital for childbirth-related complications — such as mastitis or other infections — within the first six months of childbirth. And they are 11 percent less likely to get an antibiotic prescription within that first half-year of their baby’s life.
There is also an overall 26 percent drop in the likelihood of any anti-anxiety prescriptions during that six-month postpartum period — with reductions in prescriptions being most pronounced during the first three months after childbirth.
What’s more, the study found that the average new father used paid leave for only a few days following the reform — far less than the maximum 30 days allowed — indicating how strong of a difference a couple of days of extra support for the mother could make.
“The key here is that families are granted the flexibility to decide, on a day-to-day basis, exactly when to have the dad stay home,” said Persson. “If, for example, the mom gets early symptoms of mastitis while breastfeeding, the dad can take one or two days off from work so that the mom can rest, which may avoid complications from the infection or the need for antibiotics.”
These indirect benefits from giving fathers workplace flexibility are not trivial matters when you consider the health issues mothers often face after childbirth and after they get home from the hospital, says Rossin-Slater, who is also a faculty member of Stanford Health Policy.
Infections and childbirth complications lead to one out of 100 women getting readmitted to the hospital within 30 days in the United States, according to the study.
Meanwhile, postpartum depression occurs for about one out of nine women, and maternal mortality has also been a rising trend over the past 25 years in the U.S.
The study comes as a growing number of lawmakers in the United States vocalize support for paid family leave but have failed to pass federal legislation.
Washington, D.C., and six states have adopted various paid family leave laws, but the U.S. remains the only industrialized nation in the world that does not have a national mandate guaranteeing a certain amount of paid parental leave.
Some federal lawmakers are working on family leave measures and have proposed such legislation over the past few years — including The Family Act, The New Parents Act — but none of them have ever gained enough traction to proceed in Congress.
This new study can help broaden the policy discussions, the researchers say.
The larger context around paid family leave policies is often framed today as a way to help narrow the gender wage gap by giving women more workplace flexibility and fewer career setbacks.
This study, however, shines a light on maternal health costs and how a policy on paid family leave — that includes workplace flexibility for the father — offers more benefits than previously thought, Rossin-Slater says.
“It's important to think not only about giving families access to some leave, but also about letting them have agency over how they use it,” she says.
And when it comes to concerns that fathers might use paid parental leave to goof off instead of spending the time as intended, the researchers say their study should assuage those worries.
“It's not like fathers are going to end up using a whole month to just stay home and watch TV. We don't find any evidence of that,” Rossin-Slater says. “Instead they only use a limited number of days precisely when the timing for that seems most beneficial for the family.”
“For all these reasons,” Persson says, “giving households flexibility in how to use paternity leave makes a lot of sense.”
Two CDDRL honors students will present their theses at this week's CDDRL Research Seminar on Wednesday, June 5, from 12-1:30pm.
Sophia Pink's thesis, "Think like a Scientist: Interventions to Reduce Politically Motivated Reasoning" will receive the CDDRL Award for Outstanding Thesis 2019Image
About Sophia:
Hometown: Washington, DC
Major: Product Design
Thesis Advisor: Robb Willer
Thesis Title: Think like a Scientist: Interventions to Reduce Politically Motivated Reasoning
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? When we are faced with information about political issues, our ability to reason is easily hijacked by our biases. We often have a conclusion in mind and use the information to justify our pre-existing views. This is called “politically motivated reasoning.” If our society wants to continue to have the meaningful political discussions essential for a functioning democracy, we need tools to defend ourselves against these biases.
This thesis includes a thorough literature review of the research on motivated reasoning with hypotheses for interventions that may reduce motivated reasoning. It also tests an intervention to reduce politically motivated reasoning with a experimental study. Instead of blaming individuals, we need to design tools to equip people to analyze political information without biases getting in the way.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergraduate honors program? I was excited to learn from the cohort of amazing students. Working with students from different departments over the course of a year helped me produce stronger research and be a better colleague.
Future aspirations post-Stanford: I hope to use the tools of ethnographic research, behavioral science, and data science to design experiences that help people make better decisions and live more fulfilling lives.
Alex Trivella's Thesis,"Thwarting Electoral Revolution: The Communal State and Authoritarian Consolidation in Venezuela" will receive a Firestone Medal, given to the top 10% of all honors theses. Image
About Alex:
Hometown: Caracas, Venezuela
Major: History
Thesis Advisor: Beatriz Magaloni
Thesis Title: Thwarting Electoral Revolution: The Communal State and Authoritarian Consolidation in Venezuela
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? As Venezuela faces a new political era of single-party dictatorship, the future of the country remains uncertain. It is still unclear how the party will proceed in its consolidation of power and what institutions will remain relevant. Studying the evolution of Communal State structures exposes the political framework available to the Venezuelan government and may reveal a path to redemocratization.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergraduate honors program? The CDDRL honors program provided me the opportunity to engage with some of the complex questions I had about the socioeconomic collapse of my country. I was also excited for the new perspectives available through the program's multidisciplinary focus.
Future aspirations post-Stanford: I would like to pursue a Master's in International Policy and possibly work in something relating to democratization. I also hope to help rebuild Venezuela in the future.
Reuben Hills Conference room
Encina Hall, 2nd floor East