Stanford University

Do Parliaments Help or Hurt Economic Progress in Democratizing Countries? The Case of Myanmar, with Notes on Indonesia

-

Political life in most democratic systems centers on the presidency or the parliament.  In countries that have begun to shift from authoritarian to democratic rule, American and Western aid programs typically place a high priority on strengthening the capacities of parliaments.  Superficial evidence in Myanmar and Indonesia suggests that these efforts by democratic donors have contributed to the emergence of legislatures that are more of an obstacle to economic progress than a driver of it.  Lex Rieffel will offer his perspective on this phenomenon in Myanmar and Indonesia with particular attention to Myanmar in the run-up to its November 8 election.  The two countries will also be compared with regard to geography, ethnic conflict, and communal tension, and their implications for the political process.

rieffell full protrait 1x1
Lex Rieffel has written widely on the political economies of Myanmar and Indonesia.  His latest publication is "Improving the Performance of the State Economic Enterprise Sector in Myanmar" (ISEAS Perspective #36, 2015).  Notable among his many other writings are:  Too Much Too Soon? The Dilemma of Foreign Aid to Myanmar/Burma (co-authored, 2013); Myanmar/Burma: Inside Challenges, Outside Interests (edited, 2010); and Out of Business and On Budget: The Challenge of Military Financing in Indonesia (co-authored, 2007).  His career prior to joining Brookings in 2002 included positions with the Institute of International Finance, the U.S. Treasury Department, and USAID.  Universities where he has taught courses in economics and finance include Johns Hopkins (SAIS), George Washington (Elliott School), and the University of Yangon.  His MA in law and diplomacy and his BA in economics are respectively from Tufts (Fletcher School) and Princeton.

Do Parliaments Help or Hurt Economic Progress in Democratizing Countries? The Case of Myanmar, with Notes on Indonesia Primary tabs View Edit(active tab) Revisions Nodequeue
Download pdf
Lex Rieffel Nonresident Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution
Seminars

Watching Human Rights in Indonesia: A Verdict on President Jokowi’s First Year

-

Indonesian President Joko (“Jokowi”) Widodo was inaugurated in October 2014.  He is the country’s seventh president, but only its second to be directly elected and its first from both a non-elite and non-military background.  He won the election by a narrow margin over a hard-line ex-general accused of violating human rights.

Human rights abuses have long marred Indonesian rule in western Papua.  Candidate Jokowi promised to improve conditions there.  He traveled to the area twice during the election campaign.  His predecessor visited Papua only three times during his entire ten-year presidency.  Jokowi also promised to protect religious minorities from violence, intolerance, and discrimination, and to help reconcile survivors of the mass bloodletting in 1965-66.  Has he kept these and other commitments to improve human rights conditions in Indonesia?  Or not?  And why?

andreas harsono
Andreas Harsono has covered Indonesia for Human Rights Watch since 2008. Organizations that he has helped to establish include a journalist-training organization, the Pantau Foundation (Jakarta, 2003); the South East Asia Press Alliance (Bangkok, 1998); and the Alliance of Independent Journalists (Jakarta, 1994).  He began his career as a reporter for The Nation (Bangkok) and the Star newspapers (Kuala Lumpur), and has edited a monthly magazine on media and journalism, Pantau (Jakarta).  He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2000.

Andreas Harsono Indonesia Researcher, Human Rights Watch
Seminars

People Power - the Phenomenon that Shakes and Shapes the World in the 21st Century

-

Please note that the room has been changed from E008 to CISAC Central Conference Room on the 2nd floor of Encina Hall. 

 

ABSTRACT

Why were Arab Spring revolutionaries able to topple deep-seated autocrats while the American Occupy movement failed to achieve its stated goals?

Examples of successful nonviolent struggle like in India, Serbia 2000 or Georgia in 2003, show that it takes far more than bringing a demonstrating crowd to the streets to achieve a social change. There are certain principles of success, like unity, planning, nonviolent discipline, the influence of new media and choosing proper strategies and tactics that must be considered.

The use of nonviolence is not only morally more favourable, but also proofs to be more succesfull if we look at some empirical facts.

  1. Major nonviolent campaigns have achieved success 53 percent of the time, compared with 26 percent for violent resistance campaigns
  2. Nonviolent campaigns are not only twice more likely to success but that range increases in last decades after cold war.
  3. Nonviolent campaigns are 10 times more likely to end in durable democracy.

As contrast, violence not only breeds more violence and causes long-term instability like in Iraq, Afghanistan or Kyrgistan, but it also provides an excuse for each subsequent violent action, which puts every nonviolent protest movement in danger.

 

SPEAKER BIO

srdja popovic photo2015
Srdja Popovic was one of the founders of the Serbian nonviolent resistance group Otpor! Otpor!’s campaign against Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic was successful in October 2000 when thousands of protestors took over the Serbian Parliament. After the revolution, Popovic served a term as a member of the Serbian National Assembly. In 2003, Popovic and others started the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS). CANVAS has worked with activists from 46 different countries, including Zimbabwe, Burma, Iran, and Venezuela, spreading knowledge of the nonviolent strategies and tactics used by Otpor! In November 2011, Foreign Policy Magazine listed Srdja Popovic as one of the "Top 100 Global Thinkers" of 2011 for inspiring the Arab Spring protesters.  In 2012 he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. In 2014 he was listed as a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum in Davos. "Srdja is also the author of the recent book Blueprint for Revolution, a fun and humorous look at nonviolent activism worldwide."

 

[[{"fid":"221128","view_mode":"crop_870xauto","fields":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_credit[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_related_image_aspect[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto"},"type":"media","attributes":{"width":"870","class":"media-element file-crop-870xauto"}}]]

Srdja Popovic Serbian Political Activist, Founder of Nonviolent Resistance Group Otpor! Serbian Political Activist, Founder of Nonviolent Resistance Group Otpor!
Seminars

From Contracting to Collaborative Governance for Elderly Care and Beyond: Dynamic Evolution of Government-Nonprofit Relations in Shanghai

-

This event has moved from the 4:30pm talk to a noon talk.

Nonprofit organizations are engaged in public sector management as service deliverers, and more recently, as governance partners. Such a role shift of nonprofits can be explained by a couple of spontaneous mechanisms that link service contracting to collaborative governance. The evolving elderly service contracting in Shanghai discloses that contracting may induce power sharing, consolidate mutual trust, reshape community governance networks, and spur nonprofit development. Contracting nonprofits thus may make decisions, enforce regulatory functions, set rules, and influence community governance. An evolutionary perspective provides a new angle on the changing government-nonprofit relations in China.

dr jing yijia4x6
Dr. Yijia Jing is a professor in Public Administration and associate director of foreign affairs at Fudan University. He is the editor-in-chief of Fudan Public Administration Review, and serves as the vice president of International Research Society for Public Management. He is associate editor of Public Administration Review and Co-editor of International Public Management Journal. He is also the founding co-editor of a Palgrave book series---Governing China in the 21 Century.

Download pdf
Yijia Jing Professor in Public Administration and Associate Director of Foreign Affairs, Fudan University
Seminars

The Prague Agenda after the Iran Deal

-

Abstract: President Obama’s Prague Agenda – moving toward a world without nuclear weapons – has been stalled for several years, due to the downturn in U.S.-Russian relations, Congressional opposition to arms control, and stalemate and division within the multilateral disarmament community. Will the Iran nuclear agreement provide an impetus for reviving elements of the Prague Agenda, such as efforts to advance regional arms control in the Middle East and strengthen the non-proliferation regime, or – as some critics contend - will the Iran deal increase long term pressures for further nuclear proliferation in the Middle East? Dr. Samore will address these and other questions concerning the implications of the Iran nuclear agreement for broader nonproliferation and disarmament efforts. 

About the Speaker: As of February 2013, Dr. Gary Samore is the Executive Director for Research at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.  He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and member of the advisory board for United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), a non-profit organization that seeks to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.  He served for four years as President Obama’s White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), including as U.S. Sherpa for the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, D.C. and the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul, Korea.  As WMD Coordinator, he served as the principal advisor to the President on all matters relating to arms control and the prevention of weapons of mass destruction proliferation and WMD terrorism, and coordinated United States government activities, initiatives, and programs to prevent proliferation and WMD terrorism and promote international arms control efforts.

Dr. Samore was a National Science Foundation Fellow at Harvard University, where he received his MA and PhD in government in 1984.  While at Harvard, he was a pre-doctoral fellow at what was then the Harvard Center for Science and International Affairs, later to become the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

Gary Samore Executive Director for Research, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs Harvard University
Seminars

Resurrected? The Domestic Determinants of Russia’s Conduct Abroad

-

Abstract

 

"Russia is never so strong as it wants to be, nor as weak as it is thought to be," Winston Churchill once observed. In the last decade, Russia has invaded two neighbors, seizing territory from both, re-established a Soviet air base in Syria and intervened in a conflict outside post-Soviet borders for the first time in 25 years. Under Vladimir Putin, has Russia been resurrected as a major power barely a quarter century after the collapse of the Soviet empire?  What is a great power in the 21st century? In reviving Russia’s international political aspirations, Mr. Putin implicitly has in mind metrics of power, as do international relations theorists, and foreign policy makers trying to understand Russia’s contemporary role in international relations.  But what are they, exactly? Is Russia’s resurrection real or merely imagined? How can we tell and why does it matter? How are Russia’s global ambitions related to its domestic conditions? This presentation, based on a  book project in process, will discuss some of the domestic determinants – both resources and constraints -- of Russia’s increasingly assertive conduct abroad. 

 

Speaker Bio

kswSFDD08pic
Kathryn Stoner is a Senior Fellow at FSI and CDDRL, and (as of Sep 1, 2010) Faculty Director of the Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies at Stanford University. Prior to coming to Stanford in 2004, she was on the faculty at Princeton University for nine years, jointly appointed to the Department of Politics and the Woodrow Wilson School for International and Public Affairs. At Princeton she received the Ralph O. Glendinning Preceptorship awarded to outstanding junior faculty. She also served as a Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at McGill University. She has held fellowships at Harvard University as well as the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC.

In addition to many articles and book chapters on contemporary Russia, she is the author of two single authored books:Resisting the State: Reform and Retrenchment in Post-Soviet Russia (Cambridge, 2006), and Local Heroes: The Political Economy of Russian Regional Governance (Princeton, 1997). She is also co-editor (along with Michael McFaul) of After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transitions (Cambridge, 2004).

She received a BA and MA in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and a PhD in Government from Harvard University.


Kathryn Stoner

FSI
Stanford University
Encina Hall C140
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 736-1820 (650) 724-2996
0
Satre Family Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
kathryn_stoner_1_2022_v2.jpg MA, PhD

Kathryn Stoner is the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Satre Family Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). From 2017 to 2021, she served as FSI's Deputy Director. She is Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford and teaches in the Department of Political Science, the Program on International Relations, and the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Program. She is also a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution.

Prior to coming to Stanford in 2004, she was on the faculty at Princeton University for nine years, jointly appointed to the Department of Politics and the Princeton School for International and Public Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School). At Princeton, she received the Ralph O. Glendinning Preceptorship, awarded to outstanding junior faculty. She also served as a Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science at Columbia University and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at McGill University. She has held fellowships at Harvard University as well as the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. 

In addition to many articles and book chapters on contemporary Russia, she is the author or co-editor of six books: Transitions to Democracy: A Comparative Perspective, written and edited with Michael A. McFaul (Johns Hopkins 2013);  Autocracy and Democracy in the Post-Communist World, co-edited with Valerie Bunce and Michael A. McFaul (Cambridge, 2010);  Resisting the State: Reform and Retrenchment in Post-Soviet Russia (Cambridge, 2006); After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transitions (Cambridge, 2004), coedited with Michael McFaul; and Local Heroes: The Political Economy of Russian Regional Governance (Princeton, 1997); and Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2021).

She received a BA (1988) and MA (1989) in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and a PhD in Government from Harvard University (1995). In 2016, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Ilia State University in Tbilisi, the Republic of Georgia.

Download full-resolution headshot; photo credit: Rod Searcey.

Mosbacher Director, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Professor of Political Science (by courtesy), Stanford University
Senior Fellow (by courtesy), Hoover Institution
CV
Hide publication sections
Off
Date Label
Senior Fellow at FSI and CDDRL
Seminars

Reflections on Obama's Foreign Policy: Two Years of Crisis and Opportunity

-

Due to overwhelming demand, the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law has closed registration for this event. If you are still interested in attending this talk, please register on our wait list available here. 

 

Join us for a moderated conversation with Jeremy Weinstein, who recently returned to Stanford after serving as Deputy to the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

 

Speaker Bio

weinstein1 Jeremy Weinstein
Jeremy M. Weinstein is a Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He is also a non-resident fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C.

His research focuses on civil wars and political violence; ethnic politics and the political economy of development; and democracy, accountability, and political change. He is the author of Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence (Cambridge University Press), which received the William Riker Prize for the best book on political economy. He is also the co-author of Coethnicity: Diversity and the Dilemmas of Collective Action (Russell Sage Foundation), which received the Gregory Luebbert Award for the best book in comparative politics. He has published articles in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Annual Review of Political Science, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Journal of Democracy, World Policy Journal, and the SAIS Review.

Weinstein received the International Studies Association’s Karl Deutsch Award in 2013. The award is given to a scholar younger than 40 or within 10 years of earning a Ph.D. who has made the most significant contribution to the study of international relations. He also received the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Stanford in 2007.

He has also worked at the highest levels of government on major foreign policy and national security challenges, engaging in both global diplomacy and national policy-making. Between 2013 and 2015, Weinstein served as the Deputy to the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and before that as the Chief of Staff at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. As Deputy, Weinstein was a standing member of the National Security Council Deputies’ Committee – the sub-cabinet policy committee with primary responsibility for advising the National Security Council, the Cabinet, and the President on the full range of foreign policy issues, including global counterterrorism, nonproliferation, U.S. policy in the Middle East, the strategic rebalance to Asia, cyber threats, among a wide variety of other issues.

During President Obama’s first term, he served as Director for Development and Democracy on the National Security Council staff at the White House between 2009 and 2011. In this capacity, he played a key role in the National Security Council’s work on global development, democracy and human rights, and anti-corruption, with a global portfolio. Before joining the White House staff, Weinstein served as an advisor to the Obama campaign and, during the transition, as a member of the National Security Policy Working Group and the Foreign Assistance Agency Review Team.

Weinstein obtained a BA with high honors from Swarthmore College, and an MA and PhD in political economy and government from Harvard University. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on a number of non-profit boards and advisory groups.

 

 

Download pdf
Seminars

Narendra Modi, Twitter, and the Selfie State

-

Abstract:

With the proliferation of online social media, political actors have a new means of reaching their constituents directly, circumventing the mainstream news media. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has had a very significant presence on social media with almost 30 million “likes” on Facebook and 15 million followers on Twitter. Modi's rise on Twitter offers an important example on political brand management, in this talk we examine specific outreach strategies and how these have evolved over time. We examine the frequency, tenor, and popularity of messages, the evolution of thematic discussions, and the use of political metaphor in Modi's sharpening of a new populist discourse as leader of an aspirational, global India.

 

Speaker Bio:

joyojeet pal

Joyojeet Pal is an assistant professor at the University of Michigan's School of Information where his work focuses on user experience and accessibility in low- and middle-income countries. His recent research looks at the use of social media in political communication in India, specifically on the role of political branding online in India. He is one of the technical collaborators on the Unfinished Sentences project examining oral histories of the El Salvador civil war, and leads the Colombia Digital Culture project at the University of Michigan. He researched and produced the award-winning documentary, "For the Love of a Man" based on the fan following of South Indian film star Rajnikanth.

Assistant Professor, University of Michigan's School of Information
Seminars

Earthquake Alert: Warning before shaking using smartphones

-

Abstract: Today, 100 people get an alert before earthquakes in California.  Recent legislation says everyone should get a warning.  In the future, your phone will detect earthquakes.  In the era of big data and the Internet of Things, how can seismology harness new technologies both for the purpose of science, and to reduce the impact of future disasters around the world?  In this seminar, we will discuss the current status of real-time earthquake information using existing seismic and emerging geodetic networks.  We will also explore on what might be possible in the near future as the quality and number of sensors in consumer electronics increase by orders of magnitude.

About the Speaker: Richard Allen is the Director of the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory, a Professor and Chair of the Dept. of Earth and Planetary Science at UC Berkeley.  He is an expert in earthquake alerting systems, developing methodologies to detect earthquakes and issue warnings prior to shaking.  His group uses seismic and GPS sensing networks, and is experimenting with the use of smartphones.  Testing of a warning system for the US west coast is currently under way.  Allen’s group also uses geophysical sensing networks to image the internal 3D structure of the Earth and constrain the driving forces responsible for earthquakes, volcanoes and other deformation of the Earth’s surface.  His research has been featured in Science, Nature, Scientific American, the New York Times and dozens of other media outlets around the world.  He has a BA from Cambridge University, a PhD from Princeton University, and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Caltech.

Richard Allen Professor, Dept. Earth & Planetary Science Berkeley Seismological Laboratory, UC Berkeley
Seminars

From Bhumibol to Vajiralongkorn: Neo-Royalist Ideology and the Future of the Thai Monarchy

-

Prof. Pavin will explain the concept of “neo-royalism” that Thai royalists have promoted; relate it to the present twilight of King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s long reign; and use it to forecast the future of the royal institution in Thailand. Pavin will assess the prospects of the king-in-waiting, Vajiralongkorn, and imagine the position of a new monarch in a new political environment. He will portray “neo-royalism” as a dangerous entrapment for Bhumibol’s successor and for the monarchy itself. The undemocratic nature of royal power is incompatible with the country’s changing political landscape. If Vajiralongkorn inherits the throne, he may try to consolidate top-down power, risking failure and rejection. Alternatively, he could reform the monarchy by placing it clearly within constitutional bounds. Recent evidence suggests that he may play an activist role.

pavin4x6
Pavin Chachavalpongpun is an associate professor at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies in Kyoto University. His many publications include Reinventing Thailand: Thaksin and His Foreign Policy (2010) and A Plastic Nation: The Curse of Thainess in Thai-Burmese Relations (2005), and he is chief editor of the multilingual on-line Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia.  His PhD is from the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies.

Following Pavin’s fierce criticism of the May 2014 military coup in Thailand, the junta twice summoned him to Bangkok. He did not comply; instead, he reaffirmed his opposition to the coup. A warrant was eventually issued for his arrest, his Thai passport was revoked, and he was obliged to apply for refugee status in Japan.

Philippines Conference Room

Encina Hall, 3rd Floor central

616 Serra Street

Stanford, CA 94305

Pavin Chachavalpongpun 2015-16 Lee Kong Chian National University of Singapore-Stanford University Distinguished Fellow on Southeast Asia
Seminars
Subscribe to Seminars