Abstract: For four years running now, the Director of National Intelligence’s Worldwide Threat Assessment to Congress has led with cyber threats to national and international security.  Under statute, the several National Intelligence Officers constitute the most senior advisors of the US Intelligence Community in their areas of expertise.  This discussion with the National Intelligence Officer for Cyber Issues will begin by highlighting the technology trends that are having a transformational change on cyber security and the future of intelligence.  It will then assess strategic developments in international relations and their implications for deterring malicious activity in cyberspace.  The analysis will focus on the (in)applicability of existing arms control mechanisms and deterrence principles to modern information and communication technologies.

About the Speaker: Sean Kanuck was appointed as the first National Intelligence Officer for Cyber Issues in May 2011.  Mr. Kanuck came to the National Intelligence Council after a decade of experience in the Central Intelligence Agency’s Information Operations Center, including both analytic and field assignments.  In his Senior Analytic Service role, he was a contributing author for the 2009 White House Cyberspace Policy Review, an Intelligence Fellow with the Directorates for Cybersecurity and Combating Terrorism at the National Security Council, and a member of the United States delegation to the United Nations Group of Governmental Experts on international information security.

Prior to government service, Mr. Kanuck practiced law with Skadden Arps et al. in New York, where he specialized in mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, and banking matters.  He is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and his academic publications focus on information warfare and international law.  Mr. Kanuck holds degrees from Harvard University (A.B., J.D.), the London School of Economics (M.Sc.), and the University of Oslo (LL.M.).

Lecture and Book Signing

Abstract:

ISIS behadings, AL Qaeda bombings, killing of cartoonists, flogging of bloggers, or stoning of women... Such disturbing news have shaped the image of Islam in the West in the past two decades. Buy what do they really tell us? Is Islam, the religion of 1.6 billion people, on a destructive mission against the West, as some claim? Or is there a battle, and a crisis, within the Islamic civilization itself? And are liberal Western values inherently incompatible with this youngest Abrahamic religion? Mustafa Akyol, Turkish writer and contributing columnist for the New York Times, will tackle these questions honestly, by granting the troubles in his own religious tradition, but also showing the reasons for hope. 

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This event is co-sponsored by CDDRL in partnership with Stanford's Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies. 

Abstract: What drives jihadi violence in Europe? Terrorists of today are seen as pursuing social rather than political revolt, motivated by failed integration, identity crisis and nihilism. Europe's segregated suburbs are regarded as incubators for violent radicalization, and some suggest online propaganda produces 'lone wolves' who act in unpredictable, volatile fashions.  An examination of jihadi terrorist plots in Europe between 1994 and 2015 contradicts such assumptions. Terrorist cells emerge through intricate interplay between jihadi groups in war zones and European extremists.  Most cells are traced to the same transnational network, which has evolved and expanded since the early 1990s. The plots are linked in time and space through people involved, and there are striking similarities between cases. This talk will reveal that lone wolves are largely a myth in Europe, as most perpetrators have network ties and interact with militants during radicalization. Terrorist cell formation is not confined to gritty suburbs and disenfranchised immigrants are not necessarily key actors. On the contrary, cells emerge in diverse settings where resourceful, well-connected and ideological entrepreneurs (cell builders) are present. Entrepreneurs recruit misfits and drifters as manpower, and embody the foremost driving force for the occurrence of plots and attacks.

About the Speaker: Petter Nesser (Cand. Polit, Dr. Philos) is a senior research fellow with the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI). Trained in social science, Middle East studies and Arabic at the University of Oslo and The American University in Cairo, Dr Nesser has conducted extensive research on jihadism in Europe for more than twelve years. His work focuses mainly on radicalization processes and terrorists’ modus operandi. Nesser communicates findings through conferences, speeches, and the media. He teaches at academic institutions and acts as advisor for Norwegian authorities on issues related to extremism. His most recent publication, Islamist Terrorism in Europe, A History (Hurst and Oxford University Press, 2015), provides a comprehensive account of the emergence and evolution of transnational militant Islamism in Western Europe.

Abstract:

There is a general consensus that institutions do matter in development. Rule of law, property rights enforcement and participatory political institutions are necessary conditions for implementing market-oriented policies such as financial liberalization, trade openness, and increasing private sector involvement. There is also an alternative argument suggesting that integration to the global market has an impact on domestic institutions. Yet there is still little attention given to how institutions are evolving in the developing world in the context of an integrated world market. Specifically, do institutions evolve as a given economy becomes more integrated in the global markets or do they remain unchanged? Also, how do they change and what are the key determinants of this change? In answering these questions, this talk examines the different experiences of liberalization in the Arab World. It investigates the impact of trade and capital flows on different types of institutions. It also addresses the role of existing institutions in the success or failure of these experiences of economic liberalization.  

Speaker Bio:

Samer Atallah is an Assistant Professor of economics at the School of Business of the American University in Cairo since 2011.He was a visiting scholar at the University of Chicago Center in Paris during the winter of 2014.

He has earned his PhD and Masters of Arts in economics from McGill University. The title of his PhD thesis is “Essays on resource-dependent economies: Political economy and strategic behavior”.  He also holds a Masters of Science from University of California at Berkeley.

His research interests are in development economics and political economy. His research work in development economics covers intergenerational mobility, education policy and quantitative analysis of household surveys. His research also covers game theory applications on the political economy of democratization and quantitative analysis of election results.

He is a research fellow at the Economic Research Forum and a member of the Canadian Economics Association and the Middle East Economic Association.

This event is co-sponosred by the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy. 

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Jennifer Pan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Assistant Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science at Stanford University. Her research focuses on the strategies authoritarian regimes employ to perpetuate their rule, including censorship, redistribution, and responsiveness, and how technology facilitates and hinders these strategies. Her work focuses primarily on China, and uses computational and experimental methods to measure and examine different components of these strategies.

Abstract:

Designing peace agreements that can be signed and sustained can be difficult in civil conflict. A recent transformation in successful settlement design has produced many cases that include electoral or other political participation provisions. In this paper, we examine popular support for the transformation from bullets to ballots, testing whether individuals object to providing former rebels with the protections and legitimacy of electoral participation. Using a survey experiment in the context of Colombia’s current peace process between the Government and the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), we find that the latter is a highly controversial actor in the country—indeed, invoking the specific group diminishes support for the peace process, particularly accords that would allow for increased representation in municipalities more affected by conflict. These findings are important to understanding how to design settlements, providing policy implications for the peace process with the FARC in Colombia but also in other civil conflicts that negotiators may seek to end through electoral participation by the former rebels, a proposal that has become common in many cases, including the Taliban in Afghanistan.

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Abstract:

Ongoing crises of urban insecurity in Central America have spurred novel forms of state engagement in high-risk neighbourhoods. In 2012, the Guatemalan government deployed new urban security task forces in some of the capital’s most notorious ‘red zones’, the poor neighbourhoods where gangs, violence, and delinquency are seen to be concentrated. While officials trumpeted their success in pacifying these sectors, their gangs (maras) continued to operate much as they previously had under the new military occupations.

Based on sixteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in one red zone neighbourhood, this paper examines both gang violence and state power from the perspective of residents struggling to secure a measure of order in a dangerous and volatile environment. I argue that situations of chronic urban insecurity can create opportunities for the state to tighten its relationship with marginal communities, but that they do so in a way that may raise further impediments to substantively improving democratic governance.

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About the Topic: Despite massive research and public policy efforts aimed at diversification, gender segregation of science, technology, engineering and mathematics remains extreme in affluent democracies. More surprising is evidence that women’s representation in many “STEM” fields is weaker in advanced industrial societies than in poorer, reputably gender traditional ones. The most obvious explanation is that broad-based existential security frees more women to realize aspirations for (less lucrative) non-STEM pursuits. I will discuss another piece of the puzzle by focusing on the aspirations themselves and how these vary with societal affluence. Over-time data on eighth-grade boys and girls in 32 countries provide strong evidence that the gender gap in aspirations for mathematically-related jobs increases with societal affluence, controlling for traits of individual students (parental education, affinity for school, mathematics test scores). This affluence effect is not attributable to cross-national differences in the gender-labeling of science, Internet access, or women’s educational or economic integration. Results are consistent with arguments suggesting that gender beliefs more strongly influence career aspirations in affluent, “postmaterialist” societies.

About the Speaker:  Maria Charles is Professor and Chair of Sociology, Area Director for Sex and Gender Research, and an Affiliate Professor of Feminist Studies at U.S. Santa Barbara. She specializes in the international comparative study of social inequalities, particularly cross-national differences in women's economic, educational, and family roles. She has published extensively on gender segregation, most recently on the ideological and organizational factors that contribute to woman's underrepresentation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics ("STEM") fields around the world. She has a Ph.D. in Sociology from Stanford University, and Bachelor’s degrees from UCSB in Environmental Studies and Political Science.

Abstract:

The recent rise in mass popular protests – many with regional spillover effects and some with far-reaching consequences for international peace and security –  has raised the question of how the international community should respond to these events, and to what end. For the United Nations, the question becomes acute in protest situations in which there is a tangible risk of large-scale violence and human rights violations. Yet mounting a rapid and effective response is a particular challenge in these contexts.  Drawing on case studies, practitioner interviews, and the author’s UN experience, this presentation will examine five variables that are critical to success: timing, access, leverage, the ability to propose solutions for non-violent change, and finding the right mix of principle and pragmatism. It will argue that these variables are not static, but dynamic and inter-independent. Getting them ‘right’ in an unfolding crisis is difficult, but it is possible to draw some preliminary lessons from the cases reviewed.

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Abstract:

Do cleaner elections lead to more responsive politicians? In many developing countries, domestic and international organizations take various initiatives to make elections cleaner. These efforts are anchored in the hope that cleaner elections will strengthen the control that citizens have over their elected representatives and ensure that politicians are responsive to their constituents’ desires. Scholars are, however, yet to show empirically that election quality positively affects the behavior of politicians. I provide a novel experimental approach to test the impact of cleaner elections on the responsiveness of Members of Parliament (MPs) in Ghana, a consolidating democracy in West Africa. Preliminary results show that MPs elected in cleaner elections provide more local public goods and constituency services but do not perform any better in their parliamentary attendance.

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