Stanford University

Zehra F. Kabasakal Arat — Backsliding Democracy in Class and Identity Politics: A Human Rights Theory of Democracy

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ZehraFKabasakalArat_Seminar

The instability of democracy, which used to be associated with developing countries, is now a global concern. Democratic principles and institutions are “backsliding” or under attack even in older, “established” democracies. In addition to trying to dismantle the institutional structure of democracy, elected authoritarian leaders and right-wing populist movements are employing discriminatory policies and rhetoric, targeting women, LGBT+ individuals, immigrants, and other marginalized groups. This seminar offers a comparative analysis of democratic decline during the Cold War and post-Cold War eras – periods characterized by class and identity politics, respectively. Noting the interconnection between human rights and democracy, it proposes a human rights theory of democracy that explains the decline of democratic systems by the gap between civil-political and social-economic rights. It highlights the pervasive influence of neo-classical and neoliberal economic paradigms as central factors driving this regression.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Dr. Zehra F. Kabasakal Arat studies human rights, with an emphasis on women’s rights, as well as processes of democratization, globalization, and development. She combines theoretical writings with empirical research – both qualitative and quantitative. Her publications include numerous journal articles and book chapters, as well as books: Democracy and Human Rights in Developing Countries (1991); Deconstructing Images of ‘The Turkish Woman’ (1998); Non-State Actors in the Human Rights Universe (2006); Human Rights Worldwide (2006); Human Rights in Turkey (2007, received Choice Award of Outstanding Academic Titles); The Uses and Misuses of Human Rights (2014). Her work in progress includes: human rights discourse and practices in Turkey since 1920s; women’s rights and neoliberalism; Intersectionality and Third World feminism; human rights norms; problems with tolerance as a human rights advocacy tool; the relationship between human rights scholars and NGOs; theorizing domestic politics of human rights. At UConn, she also contributes to the Human Rights program and the Women’s, Gender and Sexualities Studies.

She has served professional organizations in various capacities (e.g., Founding President, Human Rights Section of APSA, 2000-2001, and Chair, Human Rights Research Committee of IPSA, 2006-2012). Currently, she serves on the editorial boards of Human Rights Quarterly; International Feminist Journal of Politics, Journal of Human Rights, and Zeitschrift für Menschenrechte. She is also the editor of the book series “Power and Human Rights” by the Lynne Rienner Publishers. She is recognized by several awards, including the APSA Award of Distinguished Scholar in Human Rights (2010), SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities (2006), and the title of Juanita and Joseph Leff Distinguished Professor (Purchase College, 2006).

She has been engaged in human rights activism, as well, and is a founding member of the Women’s Platform for Equality (EŞİK) in Turkey.

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Hesham Sallam

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Zehra F. Kabasakal Arat Professor of Political Science Presenter University of Connecticut
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Emil Kamalov — Reversing Brain Drain from Autocracies: Autocratic Policies, Regime Change, and Return Migration

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EmilKamalovSeminar1.15.26

Autocratic regimes often view emigration as a safety valve to reduce dissent, yet this strategy creates costly brain drain. Can autocracies draw politically motivated emigrants back with selective incentives, or is regime change the only viable option? We develop a three-dimensional model of return decisions, integrating conditions in host, home, and potential third countries. We argue that return is unlikely unless the home country restores core conditions—especially political freedoms—whose erosion triggered emigration, making selective incentives or return-promotion policies largely ineffective. Even when political change occurs, return remains limited among those who already enjoy political liberties abroad or can re-emigrate elsewhere. We test our theory using a conjoint experiment with 7,500 war-induced Russian emigrants across 100 countries, supplemented by open-ended feedback and longitudinal data. Democratization emerges as the minimum threshold for return, giving autocracies little leverage to reverse brain drain; where return occurs, it may ultimately strengthen opposition rather than incumbents.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Emil Kamalov has focused his research at the intersection of autocratic control, political behavior, migration, and repression, utilizing advanced quantitative methods complemented by qualitative data.

In his PhD thesis and papers, Emil develops an integrated account of extraterritorial opposition politics, examining how geopolitical tensions and host-country conditions shape emigrant activism, diaspora resilience, and migrant well-being. His findings demonstrate that under certain conditions, transnational repression by autocratic regimes can strengthen rather than weaken diaspora activism.

In collaboration with Ivetta Sergeeva, Emil co-founded and co-leads the OutRush project, the only ongoing multi-wave panel survey focusing on Russian political emigrants following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The OutRush project includes over 18,000 survey observations across four waves, covering respondents from more than 100 countries. The project has garnered substantial international media coverage and has drawn attention from policymakers and experts. Emil received his PhD in Political and Social Sciences from the European University Institute.

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Hesham Sallam

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Emil Kamalov

Encina Hall, E110
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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SURF Postdoctoral Fellow, 2025-26
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Emil Kamalov's research interests lie at the intersection of autocratic control, political behavior, migration, and repression, utilizing advanced quantitative methods complemented by qualitative data.

In his PhD thesis and papers, Emil develops an integrated account of extraterritorial opposition politics, examining how geopolitical tensions and host-country conditions shape emigrant activism, diaspora resilience, and migrant well-being. His findings demonstrate that under certain conditions, transnational repression by autocratic regimes can strengthen rather than weaken diaspora activism.

In collaboration with Ivetta Sergeeva, Emil co-founded and co-leads the OutRush project, the only ongoing multi-wave panel survey focusing on Russian political emigrants following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The OutRush project includes over 18,000 survey observations across four waves, covering respondents from more than 100 countries. The project has garnered substantial international media coverage and has drawn attention from policymakers and experts.

Emil is expected to receive his PhD in Political and Social Sciences from the European University Institute in September 2025.

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Emil Kamalov SURF Postdoctoral Fellow, 2025-26 Presenter Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
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Neil Malhotra — Majority Opinions: The Political Consequences of an Out-of-Step Supreme Court

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NeilMalhotraSeminar1.8.26

The Supreme Court’s composition tends to remain stable over time, yet its docket and rulings change, affecting our understanding of the Court’s broader political ramifications. In Majority Opinions, Stephen Jessee, Neil Malhotra and Maya Sen examine how the Supreme Court’s alignment with public opinion shifts dramatically, shaping its legitimacy, approval, and vulnerability to reform. Introducing an empirical method and framework that systematically compares Americans’ preferences on case outcomes with the Court’s actual rulings, the authors uncover yawning gaps and unexpected alignments across issues and terms. They show how changes in court composition—Amy Coney Barrett replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg, for example—can shift the Court’s trajectory rightward, while docket choices can move rulings closer to public sentiment after unpopular rulings. Examining how the Supreme Court navigates a polarized political environment, the authors reveal how its choices have profoundly affect influence, legitimacy, and national policy.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Neil Malhotra is The Edith M. Cornell Professor of Political Economy at Stanford Graduate School of Business. He also holds a courtesy appointment in the Stanford University Department of Political Science. He serves as the Louise and Claude N. Rosenberg, Jr. Director of the Center for Social Innovation at Stanford GSB.

He has authored over 60 articles on numerous topics including American politics, political behavior, and survey methodology. His research has been published in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, Science, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, among other outlets. He currently serves as an associate editor of Public Opinion Quarterly and the Journal of Experimental Political Science.

He received his MA and PhD in political science from Stanford University, where he was the Melvin & Joan Lane Stanford Graduate Fellow. He received a BA in economics from Yale University.

Hesham Sallam
Hesham Sallam

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Neil Malhotra The Edith M. Cornell Professor of Political Economy Presenter Stanford Graduate School of Business
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Sanjeev Khagram — Innovating an AI-Powered Global Resilience Intelligence Platform and Partnership (GRIPP) for Good Governance, Human Security, and Sustainable Development

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Sanjeev Khagram seminar

This seminar will introduce the prototype of an innovative new AI-powered decision-making intelligence platform that forecasts country trajectories with scenario analysis, predictive analytics, hotspot detection, causal explanations through large language models, etc., for a range of outcomes central to CDDRL and FSI's missions — effective governance, human security, and sustainable development. The initial use case is for political resilience and its inverse, fragility, conflict, and violence.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Dr. Sanjeev Khagram is a world-renowned leader, entrepreneur, scholar, and professor across the academic, private, public, and civic sectors. His specialities include global leadership and management across sectors, entrepreneurship and innovation, the data revolution and 4th Industrial Revolution — including AI, sustainable development and human security, good governance and accountability, globalization and transnationalism, public-private partnerships and multi-stakeholder networks. Dr. Khagram holds all of his transdisciplinary bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees from Stanford University. He has lived and worked for extended periods in Australia, Brazil, China, Kenya, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, the GCC, Germany, South Africa, Thailand, and the United Kingdom.

Dr. Sanjeev Khagram is currently a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University’s Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and Department of Management Science and Engineering.  He is also a Distinguished Visiting Fellow with the Hoover Institution's Emerging Markets Working Group, where he leads the Global Reslience Intelligence Platform Partnership (GRIPP), and at the Center for Sustainable Development and Global Competitiveness, where he leads the AI and Sustainability Initiative at Stanford.

Khagram was most recently CEO, Director-General, and Dean of the Thunderbird School of Global Management, 2018-2024, which he took to #1 in International Trade with QS World University Rankings. He is on leave from his position as Foundation Professor of Global Leadership and Global Futures at the Thunderbird School of Global Management, Arizona State University.  Previously, he was the inaugural Young Professor of Global Political Economy at Occidental College, Wyss Scholar at the Harvard Business School, Founding Director of the Lindenberg Center for International Development, Professor at the University of Washington, and Associate Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Dr. Khagram is an award-winning scholar and teacher. Dr. Khagram has published widely including the award winning book Dams and Development with Cornell University Press; Restructuring World Politics with University of Minnesota Press; The Transnational Studies Reader with Routledge Press; Open Budgets: The Political Economy of Transparency, Participation and Accountability with Brookings Press; "Inequality and Corruption" in the American Journal of Sociology; "Future Architectures of Global Governance" in Global Governance, "Environment and Security" in the Annual Review of Environment and Resources, “Towards a Platinum Standard for Evidence-Based Assessment,” in Public Administration Review, “Social Balance Sheets” in Harvard Business Review, “Evidence for Development Effectiveness” in the Journal of Development Effectiveness, and “From Human Security and the Environment to Sustainable Security and Development,” in the Journal of Human Development.

Dr. Khagram has worked extensively in global leadership roles across international organizations, government, business, and civil society from the local to the international levels around the world. Dr. Khagram has established and led a range of global multi-stakeholder initiatives over the last three decades, including the Global Carbon Removal Partnership, Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, the Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency, and the World Commission on Dams, authoring its widely acclaimed final report.  

Dr. Khagram was selected as a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum, was a senior advisor to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, Dean of the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre, and Founder/CEO of Innovations for Scaling Impact – a global technology enterprise solutions network. He is currently Chair of the Board of United Platform Solutions (an African AI-IOT Pollution Monitoring Venture) and Vice Chair of Altos Bank (the first new bank in Silicon Valley since 2008).

Dr. Khagram was born in Uganda as a fourth-generation East African Indian.  He and his family were expelled by Idi Amin and spent several years in refugee camps before being provided asylum in the United States in the 1970s.  He has lived and worked across all regions of the world and travelled to over 140 countries.

Kathryn Stoner
Kathryn Stoner

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Sanjeev Khagram

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CDDRL Visiting Scholar, 2025-26
CISAC Visiting Scholar, 2024-25
dr.sanjeevkhagramphoto.jpg

Dr. Sanjeev Khagram is a world-renowned leader, entrepreneur, scholar, and professor across the academic, private, public, and civic sectors. His specialities include global leadership and management across sectors, entrepreneurship and innovation, the data revolution and 4th Industrial Revolution — including AI, sustainable development and human security, good governance and accountability, globalization and transnationalism, public-private partnerships and multi-stakeholder networks. Dr. Khagram holds all of his transdisciplinary bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees from Stanford University. He has lived and worked for extended periods in Australia, Brazil, China, Kenya, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, the GCC, Germany, South Africa, Thailand, and the United Kingdom.

Dr. Sanjeev Khagram is currently a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University’s Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and Department of Management Science and Engineering.  He is also a Distinguished Visiting Fellow with the Hoover Institution's Emerging Markets Working Group, where he leads the Global Reslience Intelligence Platform Partnership (GRIPP), and at the Center for Sustainable Development and Global Competitiveness, where he leads the AI and Sustainability Initiative at Stanford.

Khagram was most recently CEO, Director-General, and Dean of the Thunderbird School of Global Management, 2018-2024, which he took to #1 in International Trade with QS World University Rankings. He is on leave from his position as Foundation Professor of Global Leadership and Global Futures at the Thunderbird School of Global Management, Arizona State University.  Previously, he was the inaugural Young Professor of Global Political Economy at Occidental College, Wyss Scholar at the Harvard Business School, Founding Director of the Lindenberg Center for International Development, Professor at the University of Washington, and Associate Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Dr. Khagram is an award-winning scholar and teacher. Dr. Khagram has published widely including the award winning book Dams and Development with Cornell University Press; Restructuring World Politics with University of Minnesota Press; The Transnational Studies Reader with Routledge Press; Open Budgets: The Political Economy of Transparency, Participation and Accountability with Brookings Press; "Inequality and Corruption" in the American Journal of Sociology; "Future Architectures of Global Governance" in Global Governance, "Environment and Security" in the Annual Review of Environment and Resources, “Towards a Platinum Standard for Evidence-Based Assessment,” in Public Administration Review, “Social Balance Sheets” in Harvard Business Review, “Evidence for Development Effectiveness” in the Journal of Development Effectiveness, and “From Human Security and the Environment to Sustainable Security and Development,” in the Journal of Human Development.

Dr. Khagram has worked extensively in global leadership roles across international organizations, government, business, and civil society from the local to the international levels around the world. Dr. Khagram has established and led a range of global multi-stakeholder initiatives over the last three decades, including the Global Carbon Removal Partnership, Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, the Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency, and the World Commission on Dams, authoring its widely acclaimed final report.  

Dr. Khagram was selected as a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum, was a senior advisor to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, Dean of the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre, and Founder/CEO of Innovations for Scaling Impact – a global technology enterprise solutions network. He is currently Chair of the Board of United Platform Solutions (an African AI-IOT Pollution Monitoring Venture) and Vice Chair of Altos Bank (the first new bank in Silicon Valley since 2008).

Dr. Khagram was born in Uganda as a fourth-generation East African Indian.  He and his family were expelled by Idi Amin and spent several years in refugee camps before being provided asylum in the United States in the 1970s.  He has lived and worked across all regions of the world and travelled to over 140 countries.

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Sanjeev Khagram CDDRL Visiting Scholar FSI
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Melanie Meng Xue | Enlightenment Under Autocracy: The Origins of Liberalism in China

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SCCEI Seminar Series (Winter 2026)


Friday, March 6, 2026 | 12:00 pm -1:20 pm Pacific Time
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall, 616 Jane Stanford Way

Enlightenment Under Autocracy: The Origins of Liberalism in China


This paper studies how ideas emphasizing individual moral agency diffuse and shape political behavior under autocracy by tracing the spread of Wang Yangming’s School of Mind in late imperial China. Using a new dataset of over 24,000 historical texts from 1000 to 1900, we measure regional exposure with two indicators: the frequency of core concepts and the count of associated authors. We also introduce a semantic-similarity measure that compares local texts to Yangming’s writings. A difference-in-differences design shows a sharp post-1500 rise in exposure, concentrated in places with stronger lecture influence. Prefectures with higher exposure were more likely to produce reformist leaders in the Donglin Movement (1604–1627). Using contemporary survey data from 2010 and a matched-sample approach, we further document long-run persistence. Residents in historically exposed prefectures express stronger support for the right to discuss public affairs and for limiting government involvement in private affairs. Together, the results link the diffusion of Yangming learning to reformist mobilization among elites and to durable attitudes toward political voice and the appropriate scope of government.


About the Speaker 
 

Melanie Meng Xue profile.

Professor Melanie Meng Xue is Assistant Professor of Economic History at the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Research Affiliate at the Centre for Economic Policy Research. Her research lies at the intersection of political economy, gender, culture, and economic history, with a regional focus on early modern and modern China. Her work explores the rise of women, the persistence of authoritarian regimes, and the long-term impact of affirmative action and cultural values on economic and political inequality.

Her articles examine topics such as folklore and proverbs as sources of cultural transmission, and she is currently working on a book project analyzing cultural values across ethnic groups and regions in China. Professor Xue has published widely, and her research has influenced both academic and public discourse on the role of historical narratives and norms in shaping institutional development. She received her Ph.D. in Economics and has mentored research assistants who have gone on to top Ph.D. and pre-doctoral programs. During the 2025–26 academic year, she will be on sabbatical, spending the fall semester at Yale University.


Questions? Contact Xinmin Zhao at xinminzhao@stanford.edu
 

Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall

Melanie Meng Xue, Assistant Professor of Economic History, London School of Economics
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CANCELLED | Competitive Human Capital Investment: Evidence from Housing Prices and Educational Expenditures

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This event has been cancelled.

We hope to see you at another SCCEI event soon!


SCCEI Seminar Series (Winter 2026)


Friday, February 20, 2026 | 12:00 pm -1:20 pm Pacific Time
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall, 616 Jane Stanford Way

Competitive Human Capital Investment: Evidence from Housing Prices and Educational Expenditures


The hypothesis of competitive human capital investment posits that one important motivation for parents to invest in their children’s education is to help them to develop an advantage in their future dating and marriage market. If ownership of certain housing conveys a right to access to high-quality educational resources, a “good-school” premium is embedded in the prices of such home ownership. The size of the premium may reflect the degree of local marriage market competition. We investigate such an effect using housing prices and the location of top schools in 33 Chinese cities. We find robust evidence that the local sex ratio of the youth cohort is a strong predictor for the size of the local “good school” premium. We also find that the households from cities with a higher sex ratio are more willing to spend on children’s education, especially for sons.

Please register for the event to receive email reminders and add it to your calendar. Lunch will be provided.


About the Speaker 
 

Shang-Jin Wei headshot

Professor Shang-Jin Wei is the N.T. Wang Professor of Chinese Business and Economy at Columbia University, with joint appointments in the Graduate School of Business and the School of International and Public Affairs. A leading expert on international finance, trade, and macroeconomics, his research focuses on globalization and the Chinese economy. His work has been published in top journals, including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, and the Journal of Finance.

From 2014 to 2016, Professor Wei served as Chief Economist of the Asian Development Bank, where he led economic research and policy support for regional cooperation initiatives. He previously held positions at the International Monetary Fund, Harvard University, the Brookings Institution, and the World Bank. He is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the Sun Yefang Prize, the Zhang Peifang Prize, and the Gregory Chow Award. He received his Ph.D. in Economics and M.S. in Finance from the University of California, Berkeley.
 


Questions? Contact Xinmin Zhao at xinminzhao@stanford.edu
 

Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall

Shang-Jin Wei, Professor of Chinese Business and Economy, Columbia University
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Examining the Effect of Starlink on Ukrainian Battlefield Performance | Renard Sexton

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About the event: International relations scholars have long studied how technological shifts impact the course of wars, especially as armies are forced to innovate on the battlefield. From the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, SpaceX’s Starlink service (a private company) has played a vital infrastructure role for Ukraine’s military, something it was never envisioned or designed to do. In addition, in contrast with past conflicts, Starlink’s major policy choices are primarily controlled by a single individual – Elon Musk –  who has his own political preferences and agenda, distinct from the U.S. or other countries. We leverage a natural experiment to ascertain the effect of Starlink access for Ukrainian forces on battlefield outcomes. We leverage a geographic discontinuity to determine the overall effect of access to Starlink on Ukraine’s territorial control as well as overall volume of munitions and combat activities. The design relies on an idiosyncratic mismatch between SpaceX’s internal system (which uses fixed hexagon shapes) for allocating access and the actual boundaries of the frontline and Ukraine’s provinces. Second, we use a difference-in-differences approach to examine how Starlink access mattered before and after a late 2022 policy change at SpaceX decided personally by Elon Musk to limit Starlink access to Ukrainian forces in certain areas and for certain activities. Initial findings are that Starlink access significantly improves Ukraine’s ability to hold territory, though it appears not to greatly affect the volume of drones, artillery or other munitions. The results suggest Starlink mostly affects quality of strikes rather than quantity. 

Co-authored with Tatsuya Koyama and Yuri Zhukov.

About the speaker: Renard Sexton is a Visiting Scholar at CISAC and an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Emory University.

Sexton studies conflict and development with a focus on local level violence and interventions intended to curb violence. His research covers insurgency, terrorism, social conflict around natural resources, and police crackdowns; he has regional expertise in Afghanistan, Southeast Asia and Andean Latin America. His research has been published in top scholarly journals, including the American Political Science Review and American Journal of Political Science. His policy pieces and commentary have been published by The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian, International Crisis Group, Foreign Policy and other outlets. Before joining Emory, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University and Economics of Conflict fellow at the International Crisis Group.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

No filming or recording without express permission from speaker.

William J. Perry Conference Room

Renard Sexton
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A Transformational Political Order? An Early Appraisal of the Lee Jae-myung Administration in South Korea

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Portrait of Byong-jin Ahn

South Korea, long seen as a rare success in adopting the American presidential system, recently weathered a martial law crisis and secured a democratic government. President Lee Jae-myung now must reinforce liberal constitutional democracy and navigate growing global uncertainty. Many abroad still misunderstand how his administration will address these challenges. Professor Byong-jin Ahn, a former member of Lee’s National Policy Planning Committee, offers an insider view on the administration’s priorities, Lee’s leadership style, and the role of technology alliances in the geopolitics of South Korea, the United States, and Northeast Asia.

Speaker:

headshot of Byoung-jin Ahn

Byong-jin Ahn is a 2025-26 Visiting Scholar at APARC and he is a professor at Kyung Hee University's Global Academy for Future Civilizations. He has recently served at the State Affairs Planning Committee, Lee's presidential transition team. He has appeared on major Korean media and newspapers on the U.S. presidential election specials and has been often quoted by the New York Times. His recent publications include a chapter, “Why Is Korean Democracy Majoritarian but Not Liberal?“ in the edited volume South Korea's Democracy In Crisis: The Threats of Illiberalism, Populism, and Polarization (Gi-Wook Shin and Ho-Ki Kim, Stanford University Press, 2022). He earned his Ph.D. in American politics from the New School for Social Research.

 

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Philippines Conference Room (C330)
Encina Hall, 3rd Floor
616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305

Byong-jin Ahn, Visiting Scholar, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University; Professor, Kyung Hee University
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Valerie Karplus | Energy Management and Systems Change in Factories and Supply Chains in China

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SCCEI Seminar Series (Winter 2026)


Friday, January 30, 2026 | 12:00 pm -1:20 pm Pacific Time
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall, 616 Jane Stanford Way

Energy Management and Systems Change in Factories and Supply Chains in China


In China, manufacturing energy use and industrial processes are economically important but are also responsible for approximately 60% of the country's greenhouse gas emissions and cause local environmental harm. This paper develops a framework for studying the multifaceted impacts of production systems and possible interventions to reduce them, then examines the empirical evidence of effectiveness. We apply this framework to iron and steel production, downstream metal components manufacturing, and automotive assembly, relying whenever possible on observations of decision-making in factories. The talk will conclude by discussing how existing incentives interact to influence the pace and direction of progress in addressing sustainability impacts across the supply chain. 

Please register for the event to receive email reminders and add it to your calendar. Lunch will be provided.


About the Speaker 
 

Valerie Karplus headshot

Valerie Karplus is a professor in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy and associate director at the Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation at Carnegie Mellon University.

Karplus studies resource and environmental management in organizations operating in diverse national and industry contexts, with a focus on the role of institutions and management practices in explaining performance. Areas of expertise include innovation in global corporate and industrial supply chains, regional approaches to workforce and economic revitalization, and the integrated design and evaluation of public policies. Karplus has taught courses on public policy analysis, global business strategy and organization, entrepreneurship, and the political economy of energy transitions. At CMU, she runs the Laboratory for Energy and OrganizationsOpens in new window. Karplus is also a faculty affiliate of the MIT Energy InitiativeOpens in new window, the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy ResearchOpens in new window, and the MIT Center for Sustainability Science and Strategy.

She has previously worked in the development policy section of the German Federal Foreign Office in Berlin, Germany, as a Robert Bosch Foundation Fellow, and in the biotechnology industry in Beijing, China, as a Luce Scholar. From 2011 to 2016, she co-founded and directed the MIT-Tsinghua China Energy and Climate Project a five-year research effort focused on analyzing the design of energy and climate change policy in China, and its domestic and global impacts. Karplus previously served on the faculty at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Karplus holds a BS in biochemistry and political science from Yale University and a Ph.D. in engineering systems from MIT.


Questions? Contact Xinmin Zhao at xinminzhao@stanford.edu
 

Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall

Valerie Karplus, Professor, Carnegie Mellon University
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Peng Peng | From Empire to Nation-State: Aspirational Nation-Building in China

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SCCEI Seminar Series (Winter 2026)


Friday, February 13, 2026 | 12:00 pm -1:20 pm Pacific Time
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall, 616 Jane Stanford Way 

Due to room capacity limitations and high interest in this seminar, registration is now closed. 
 

From Empire to Nation-State: Aspirational Nation-Building in China


The rise of nation-states was one of the most transformative developments of the 20th century. What drives nation-building? Existing theories emphasize enmity: external threats provoke fear, humiliation, and hostility, hardening national identity through opposition. We propose an aspirational theory of nation-building, highlighting a parallel mechanism—emulation. Under threat, elites not only rally against foreign powers; they also look outward with admiration, comparing their nation to more successful states and seeking to close the gap. This forward-looking ambition can transform crisis into reform.

We test this theory by analyzing China’s transition from empire to nation-state (1872–1911), using two original datasets: a complete collection of newspaper titles and full-text articles from Shen Bao, the most influential publication of the period. We find that emulation—particularly of culturally proximate powers like Japan—consistently outweighed enmity. War sparked temporary surges in antagonism, but emulation quickly returned. This article contributes to scholarship on nation-building and state formation.

Please register for the event to receive email updates and add it to your calendar. Lunch will be provided.


About the Speaker 
 

Peng Peng headshot.

Peng Peng is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science and Global Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. Previously, she was a postdoctoral research associate at the Macmillan Center, Yale University (July 2022 - June 2024). She received her doctoral degree from the Department of Political Science at Duke University in December 2022. Before that, she completed a dual master's program in International Affairs from Paris School of International Affairs of Sciences Po Paris and School of International Relations of Peking University, and she earned her BA from Beijing Foreign Studies University.

Peng Peng studies state-building, nation-building, and political economy of development. Much of her work focuses on the role of political elites in shaping state development and national identity. Her work combines quantitative methods with extensive qualitative archival research. She teaches courses on state building and Chinese politics.


Questions? Contact Xinmin Zhao at xinminzhao@stanford.edu
 

Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall

Peng Peng, Assistant Professor, Washington University in St. Louis
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