Stanford University

Security

FSI scholars produce research aimed at creating a safer world and examing the consequences of security policies on institutions and society. They look at longstanding issues including nuclear nonproliferation and the conflicts between countries like North and South Korea. But their research also examines new and emerging areas that transcend traditional borders – the drug war in Mexico and expanding terrorism networks. FSI researchers look at the changing methods of warfare with a focus on biosecurity and nuclear risk. They tackle cybersecurity with an eye toward privacy concerns and explore the implications of new actors like hackers.

Along with the changing face of conflict, terrorism and crime, FSI researchers study food security. They tackle the global problems of hunger, poverty and environmental degradation by generating knowledge and policy-relevant solutions. 

The Provenance Problem: Research Methods and Ethics in the Age of WikiLeaks

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* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

 

Register in advance for this webinar: https://stanford.zoom.us/webinar/register/8416226562432/WN_WLYcdRa6T5Cs1MMdmM0Mug

 

About the Event: Is there a place for illegal or nonconsensual evidence in security studies research, such as leaked classified documents? What is at stake, and who bears the responsibility, for determining source legitimacy? Although massive unauthorized disclosures by WikiLeaks and its kindred may excite qualitative scholars with policy revelations, and quantitative researchers with big-data suitability, they are fraught with methodological and ethical dilemmas that the discipline has yet to resolve. I argue that the hazards from this research—from national security harms, to eroding human-subjects protections, to scholarly complicity with rogue actors—generally outweigh the benefits, and that exceptions and justifications need to be articulated much more explicitly and forcefully than is customary in existing work. This paper demonstrates that the use of apparently leaked documents has proliferated over the past decade, and appeared in every leading journal, without being explicitly disclosed and defended in research design and citation practices. The paper critiques incomplete and inconsistent guidance from leading political science and international relations journals and associations; considers how other disciplines from journalism to statistics to paleontology address the origins of their sources; and elaborates a set of normative and evidentiary criteria for researchers and readers to assess documentary source legitimacy and utility. Fundamentally, it contends that the scholarly community (researchers, peer reviewers, editors, thesis advisors, professional associations, and institutions) needs to practice deeper reflection on sources’ provenance, greater humility about whether to access leaked materials and what inferences to draw from them, and more transparency in citation and research strategies.

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About the Speaker: Christopher Darnton is a CISAC affiliate and an associate professor of national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School. He previously taught at Reed College and the Catholic University of America, and holds a Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University. He is the author of Rivalry and Alliance Politics in Cold War Latin America (Johns Hopkins, 2014) and of journal articles on US foreign policy, Latin American security, and qualitative research methods. His International Security article, “Archives and Inference: Documentary Evidence in Case Study Research and the Debate over U.S. Entry into World War II,” won the 2019 APSA International History and Politics Section Outstanding Article Award. He is writing a book on the history of US security cooperation in Latin America, based on declassified military documents.

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Christopher Darnton Associate Professor of National Security Affairs Naval Postgraduate School
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Some Humility About Transparency

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Daphne Keller
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I am a huge fan of transparency about platform content moderation. I’ve considered it a top policy priority for years, and written about it in detail (with Paddy Leerssen, who also wrote this great piece about recommendation algorithms and transparency). I sincerely believe that without it, we are unlikely to correctly diagnose current problems or arrive at wise legal solutions.

So it pains me to admit that I don’t really know what “transparency” I’m asking for. I don’t think many other people do, either. Researchers and public interest advocates around the world can agree that more transparency is better. But, aside from people with very particular areas of interest (like political advertising), almost no one has a clear wish list. What information is really important? What information is merely nice to have? What are the trade-offs involved?

That imprecision is about to become a problem, though it’s a good kind of problem to have. A moment of real political opportunity is at hand. Lawmakers in the US, Europe, and elsewhere are ready to make some form of transparency mandatory. Whatever specific legal requirements they create will have huge consequences. The data, content, or explanations they require platforms to produce will shape our future understanding of platform operations, and our ability to respond — as consumers, as advocates, or as democracies. Whatever disclosures the laws don’t require, may never happen.

It’s easy to respond to this by saying “platforms should track all the possible data, we’ll see what’s useful later!” Some version of this approach might be justified for the very biggest “gatekeeper” or “systemically important” platforms. Of course, making Facebook or Google save all that data would be somewhat ironic, given the trouble they’ve landed in by storing similar not-clearly-needed data about their users in the past. (And the more detailed data we store about particular takedowns, the likelier it is to be personally identifiable.)

For any platform, though, we should recognize that the new practices required for transparency reporting comes at a cost. That cost might include driving platforms to adopt simpler, blunter content rules in their Terms of Service. That would reduce their expenses in classifying or explaining decisions, but presumably lead to overly broad or narrow content prohibitions. It might raise the cost of adding “social features” like user comments enough that some online businesses, like retailers or news sites, just give up on them. That would reduce some forms of innovation, and eliminate useful information for Internet users. For small and midsized platforms, transparency obligations (like other expenses related to content moderation) might add yet another reason to give up on competing with today’s giants, and accept an acquisition offer from an incumbent that already has moderation and transparency tools. Highly prescriptive transparency obligations might also drive de facto standardization and homogeneity in platform rules, moderation practices, and features.

None of these costs provides a reason to give up on transparency — or even to greatly reduce our expectations. But all of them are reasons to be thoughtful about what we ask for. It would be helpful if we could better quantify these costs, or get a handle on what transparency reporting is easier and harder to do in practice.

I’ve made a (very in the weeds) list of operational questions about transparency reporting, to illustrate some issues that are likely to arise in practice. I think detailed examples like these are helpful in thinking through both which kinds of data matter most, and how much precision we need within particular categories. For example, I personally want to know with great precision how many government orders a platform received, how it responded, and whether any orders led to later judicial review. But to me it seems OK to allow some margin of error for platforms that don’t have standardized tracking and queuing tools, and that as a result might modestly mis-count TOS takedowns (either by absolute numbers or percent).

I’ll list that and some other recommendations below. But these “recommendations” are very tentative. I don’t know enough to have a really clear set of preferences yet. There are things I wish I could learn from technologists, activists, and researchers first. The venues where those conversations would ordinarily happen — and, importantly, where observers from very different backgrounds and perspectives could have compared the issues they see, and the data they most want — have been sadly reduced for the past year.

So here is my very preliminary list:

  • Transparency mandates should be flexible enough to accommodate widely varying platform practices and policies. Any de facto push toward standardization should be limited to the very most essential data.
  • The most important categories of data are probably the main ones listed in the DSA: number of takedowns, number of appeals, number of successful appeals. But as my list demonstrates, those all can become complicated in practice.
  • It’s worth taking the time to get legal transparency mandates right. That may mean delegating exact transparency rules to regulatory agencies in some countries, or conducting studies prior to lawmaking in others.
  • Once rules are set, lawmakers should be very reluctant to move the goalposts. If a platform (especially a smaller one) invests in rebuilding its content moderation tools to track certain categories of data, it should not have to overhaul those tools soon because of changed legal requirements.
  • We should insist on precise data in some cases, and tolerate more imprecision in others (based on the importance of the issue, platform capacity, etc.). And we should take the time to figure out which is which.
  • Numbers aren’t everything. Aggregate data in transparency reports ultimately just tell us what platforms themselves think is going on. To understand what mistakes they make, or what biases they may exhibit, independent researchers need to see the actual content involved in takedown decisions. (This in turn raises a slough of issues about storing potentially unlawful content, user privacy and data protection, and more.)

It’s time to prioritize. Researchers and civil society should assume we are operating with a limited transparency “budget,” which we must spend wisely — asking for the information we can best put to use, and factoring in the cost. We need better understanding of both research needs and platform capabilities to do this cost-benefit analysis well. I hope that the window of political opportunity does not close before we manage to do that.

Daphne Keller

Daphne Keller

Director of the Program on Platform Regulation
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Q&A with Daphne Keller of the Program on Platform Regulation

Keller explains some of the issues currently surrounding platform regulation
Q&A with Daphne Keller of the Program on Platform Regulation
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In a new blog post, Daphne Keller, Director of the Program on Platform Regulation at the Cyber Policy Center, looks at the need for transparency when it comes to content moderation and asks, what kind of transparency do we really want?

CISAC Scientists Join Open Letter to Obama on Iran

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Three CISAC scientists have joined 26 of the nation’s top nuclear experts to send an open letter to President Obama in support of the Iran deal struck in July.

“The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) the United States and its partners negotiated with Iran will advance the cause of peace and security in the Middle East and can serve as a guidepost for future non-proliferation agreements,” the group of renowned scientists, academics and former government officials wrote in the letter dated August 8, 2015.

“This is an innovative agreement, with much more stringent constraints than any previously negotiated non-proliferation framework.”

CISAC senior fellow and former Los Alamos National Laboratory director Sig Hecker is a signatory to the letter, along with CISAC co-founder Sid Drell, and cybersecurity expert and CISAC affiliate Martin Hellman.

Six Nobel laureates also signed, including FSI senior fellow by courtesy and former Stanford Linear Accelerator director Burton Richter.

The letter arrives at a crucial time for the Obama administration as it rallies public opinion and lobbies Congress to support the Iran agreement.

You can read the full letter along with analysis from the New York Times at this link.

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Alice Evans — CDDRL Research Seminar

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Seminar details coming soon.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Dr. Alice Evans is a Senior Lecturer in the Social Science of Development at King's College London. She has also been a Faculty Associate at Harvard Center for International Development and has held previous appointments at Cambridge University and the London School of Economics. Her research focuses on social norms and why they change; the drivers of support for gender equality; and workers' rights in global supply chains.

Dr. Evans is writing a book, The Great Gender Divergence (forthcoming with Princeton University Press). It will explain why the world has become more gender equal, and why some countries are more gender equal than others.

Hesham Sallam
Hesham Sallam

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Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to Conference Room E-008 in Encina Hall, East, may attend in person.

Alice Evans
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Stephen J. Stedman — Everything's Security and No One is Secure: A Short History of a Vague Concept

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Democracy and security coexist uneasily. Security asserts priority over democracy during emergencies, when democratic processes seem luxuries. Yet deference paid to security can sow the seeds of democracy’s destruction. This prospect is magnified now, as both popular and elite usages of security in the United States have reached their highest levels in history. A short list of recent threats to national security alleged by our leaders includes unions of government workers, wind turbines, Chinese automobiles, Chinese garlic, America’s lack of sovereignty over Greenland, and America’s declining birth rate.

Why is security discourse so pervasive now, and what does this mean for democracy? This talk addresses these questions through examining security's history, focusing on three problematic features — ambiguity, immeasurability, and amorality — and their implications for contemporary democracy.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Stephen Stedman is a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), Professor by Courtesy of Political Science, and Director of Stanford's Program in International Relations. He joined Stanford in 1997, initially at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, before moving to the Center for Democracy, Development and Rule of Law (CDDRL) in 2010. Previously, he taught at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and Washington University in St. Louis.

Professor Stedman has led three major global commissions examining critical aspects of international security and democracy. From 2003-2004, he served as Research Director for the UN High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, and in 2005 as Assistant Secretary-General and Special Advisor to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. This work produced the landmark report A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility (2004) and led to significant institutional innovations, including the UN peacebuilding architecture (commission, support office, and fund), the mediation support office, a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy, adoption of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, and streamlined decision-making processes for the Secretary General. From 2010 to 2012, he directed the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy, and Security, which published Deepening Democracy: A Strategy for Improving the Integrity of Elections Worldwide (2012). From 2018 to 2020, he served as Secretary General of the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age, which examined how social media and the internet affect democratic processes, resulting in Protecting Electoral Integrity in the Digital Age (2020).

Professor Stedman's research spans mediation, civil war termination, international institutions, American foreign policy, and democracy. His work has appeared in leading journals, including The Lancet, International Security, Foreign Affairs, Journal of Democracy, International Affairs, International Studies Review, and Boston Review. His co-authored book Power and Responsibility (Brookings, 2009) drew praise from Brent Scowcroft, who wrote that "the vision, ideas, and solutions the authors put forward…have the potential to redeem American foreign policy."

A dedicated teacher, Professor Stedman has directed the Fisher Family Honors Program at CDDRL since 2015 and received Stanford's Dinkelspiel Award in 2018 for outstanding contributions to undergraduate education. 

Hesham Sallam
Hesham Sallam

Virtual to Public. If prompted for a password, use: 123456

Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to Conference Room E-008 in Encina Hall, East, may attend in person.

Stephen J. Stedman

CDDRL
Encina Hall, C152
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 725-2705 (650) 724-2996
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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science
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Stephen Stedman is a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), an affiliated faculty member at CISAC, and professor of political science (by courtesy) at Stanford University. He is director of CDDRL's Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development and Rule of Law, and will be faculty director of the Program on International Relations in the School of Humanities and Sciences effective Fall 2025.

In 2011-12 Professor Stedman served as the Director for the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy, and Security, a body of eminent persons tasked with developing recommendations on promoting and protecting the integrity of elections and international electoral assistance. The Commission is a joint project of the Kofi Annan Foundation and International IDEA, an intergovernmental organization that works on international democracy and electoral assistance.

In 2003-04 Professor Stedman was Research Director of the United Nations High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change and was a principal drafter of the Panel’s report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility.

In 2005 he served as Assistant Secretary-General and Special Advisor to the Secretary- General of the United Nations, with responsibility for working with governments to adopt the Panel’s recommendations for strengthening collective security and for implementing changes within the United Nations Secretariat, including the creation of a Peacebuilding Support Office, a Counter Terrorism Task Force, and a Policy Committee to act as a cabinet to the Secretary-General.

His most recent book, with Bruce Jones and Carlos Pascual, is Power and Responsibility: Creating International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats (Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 2009).

Director, Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development and Rule of Law
Director, Program in International Relations
Affiliated faculty at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
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Meet Our Researchers: James Goldgeier

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Nensi Hayotsyan
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The "Meet Our Researchers" series showcases the incredible scholars at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). Through engaging interviews conducted by our undergraduate research assistants, we explore the journeys, passions, and insights of CDDRL’s faculty and researchers.

Professor James Goldgeier is a Research Affiliate at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). He is also a Professor at the School of International Service at American University, where he served as Dean from 2011 to 2017. His research focuses primarily on U.S.-NATO-Russia relations since the end of the Cold War, examining how key foreign policy decisions were made and how they continue to influence relations between the United States, Europe, and Russia today.

What inspired you to pursue research in your current field? And how did your journey lead you to see your role? 


I got into this field because of my undergraduate thesis advisor, Joseph Nye, who inspired me to become a professor of international relations. When I was in college, I thought I wanted to work on political campaigns, and after graduating, my first job was managing a city council campaign in Boston. We lost by a very small margin, and afterward, I received offers to work on other campaigns. But that experience made me realize I wasn’t sure that was what I wanted to do long-term. 

I started thinking about people whose careers I admired, and Joseph Nye stood out. Before college, I had never traveled outside the United States, but he traveled extensively, wrote books, and clearly enjoyed teaching. That combination of research, writing, and teaching really appealed to me. I went to him and asked what I would need to do to pursue a similar path. He told me I would need to get a PhD. That conversation ultimately shaped my career. I went on to earn a PhD and become a professor, and I’ve always felt deeply indebted to him for helping me see that this was the path I wanted to pursue.

How did you get into the specific area of study that you ended up focusing on?


I went to U.C. Berkeley to do my PhD in international relations, and during my first year, Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union. I was taking a class on Soviet foreign policy at the time, and that really drew me in. Since the Cold War was central to U.S. foreign policy, it became clear to me that if I wanted to understand international relations, I needed to understand the Soviet Union.

I started studying Russian, taking history courses, and focusing more closely on Soviet and European security issues. Although the Soviet Union collapsed while I was finishing my dissertation, my broader interest in U.S. foreign policy remained constant. My undergraduate thesis had been on NATO nuclear policy, so over time I returned to NATO and became increasingly interested in its role in shaping the post–Cold War order. By the mid-1990s, that had become a central focus of my research.

Since the Cold War was central to U.S. foreign policy, it became clear to me that if I wanted to understand international relations, I needed to understand the Soviet Union.
James Goldgeier

What’s the most exciting finding from your research, and why does it matter for democracy and development?


In the mid-1990s, I worked in the U.S. government at the State Department and the National Security Council, focusing on Russia and European security. One of the major issues at the time was whether NATO should expand to include countries in Central and Eastern Europe. I later wrote a book on that decision, which was published in 1999.

One of the most important things I found was that NATO enlargement didn’t come from a single formal decision by the president and his cabinet. Instead, it developed gradually, driven by individuals who believed strongly in the policy and worked to move it forward over time. It was a much more incremental and contested process than people often assumed.

What was especially significant was that policymakers saw NATO enlargement as a way to promote democracy and strengthen the rule of law in Central and Eastern Europe. By offering countries the prospect of membership, they hoped to encourage democratic reforms and political stability. I think NATO enlargement had a profound impact on democratic development in the region, and my research helped explain how and why that policy came about.

What have been some of the most challenging aspects of conducting research in this field, and how did you overcome them?


Much of my work sits at the intersection of political science and history, and one of the biggest challenges is studying relatively recent events, where records are often incomplete. When you study earlier historical periods, you have access to archives and official records, but when you study more recent foreign policy decisions, much of that material is still classified.

Because of that, I’ve relied heavily on interviews with policymakers and officials. Interviews are incredibly valuable, but they also have limitations. People remember events differently, and often present events in a light that best reflects their own role or perspective, which is why it’s important to interview multiple people and compare their accounts to develop a more accurate understanding of what happened.

I’ve also used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain declassified documents, although that process can take many years. Some requests I filed for my 1999 book didn’t produce results until I was working on later books in 2003 and even 2008. But over time, those documents helped confirm and strengthen my understanding of how key decisions were made. Doing this kind of research requires patience, but it’s essential if you want to understand how foreign policy actually develops.

Research requires patience, but it’s essential if you want to understand how foreign policy actually develops.
James Goldgeier

How has the field changed since you started, and what gives you hope?


The field has changed quite a bit since I finished my PhD in 1990. One major shift was that after the Cold War ended, there was less emphasis on area studies and regional expertise. When I was trained, people were expected to combine theoretical work with deep knowledge of particular regions, which is now less common. 

What gives me hope is the current generation of students. Many students today are highly capable of integrating knowledge of politics and history with technological expertise. Especially at places like Stanford, students have the opportunity to combine social science knowledge with new technologies. I think that combination will shape the future of the field.

What gaps still exist in your research, and what projects are you currently working on?


I’m currently working on a project with Michael McFaul and Elizabeth Economy on great power competition, focusing on how major powers try to influence the foreign policy orientation of smaller states. It’s an important issue, especially given the current international environment.

I’ve also continued working on NATO enlargement and its long-term consequences. When I published my book on NATO expansion in 1999, I didn’t expect that these issues would still be so central decades later. But NATO enlargement continues to shape relations between Russia, Europe, and the United States, particularly in light of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Hence, understanding how those earlier decisions connect to current events remains a major focus of my work.

What advice would you give to students interested in this field?


Students should focus on topics that genuinely interest them. You can’t predict what will be important five or ten years from now. Choosing a topic solely because you think it will be important in the future isn’t a good strategy if you’re not truly interested in it. Instead, study subjects that motivate you and that you feel compelled to understand. Unexpected events can suddenly make your area of interest highly relevant. Passion and curiosity are essential for meaningful research.

Study subjects that motivate you and that you feel compelled to understand. Unexpected events can suddenly make your area of interest highly relevant. Passion and curiosity are essential for meaningful research.
James Goldgeier

What book would you recommend to students interested in international relations?


I recommend Robert Jervis’s Perception and Misperception in International Politics, published in 1976. Jervis was one of the most brilliant scholars in international relations and had a major influence on the field.

His book explores how leaders interpret and misinterpret the world, and how those perceptions shape international relations. It combines insights from politics, psychology, and history, and helps explain why cooperation between states is often difficult. It’s an excellent starting point for anyone who wants to understand the role of leadership and perception in international politics.

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NATO Did Not Cause Putin's Imperial War

Were the United States and NATO enlargement to blame for Russia’s invasions of Ukraine?
NATO Did Not Cause Putin's Imperial War
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Jim Goldgeier elected President of the International Studies Association

Goldgeier will serve as ISA President for the 2027–2028 term.
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Exploring U.S. foreign policy and the path to studying how major international decisions are made with Professor James Goldgeier.

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World Changing Technology in 2026

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Stanford faculty, students, and staff are welcome to join the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) for “World Changing Technology in 2026,” a forward-looking conversation on the technology shaping the world.

FSI Director Colin Kahl will moderate a panel of leading institute scholars as they examine the impact of AI and other emerging technologies on society, politics, and global security. The discussion will feature Jennifer Pan on China's use of technology to pursue its political interests; Drew Endy on biotechnology and security;  Andy Grotto on technology innovation and national security, and more to be announced soon. Kahl will also offer insights into U.S.-China competition for AI dominance.

Don't miss this timely conversation on emerging risks, opportunities, and policy implications as we navigate an increasingly complex technology landscape in 2026.

Drinks and hors d'oeuvres will be served following the panel discussion. 

Colin H. Kahl
Colin Kahl

Location available following valid registration

Jennifer Pan

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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Professor of Communication
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science and of Sociology
Stanford Affiliate at the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
Stanford Affiliate at the Tech Impact and Policy Center
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Jennifer Pan is a Professor of Communication and a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University. Her research focuses on political communication and authoritarian politics. Pan uses experimental and computational methods with large-scale datasets on political activity in China and other authoritarian regimes to answer questions about how autocrats perpetuate their rule. How political censorship, propaganda, and information manipulation work in the digital age. How preferences and behaviors are shaped as a result.

Her book, Welfare for Autocrats: How Social Assistance in China Cares for its Rulers (Oxford, 2020) shows how China's pursuit of political order transformed the country’s main social assistance program, Dibao, for repressive purposes. Her work has appeared in peer reviewed publications such as the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Politics, and Science.

She graduated from Princeton University, summa cum laude, and received her Ph.D. from Harvard University’s Department of Government.

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Andrew Grotto

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C428

Stanford, CA 94305-6165

(650) 723-9866
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Andrew Grotto

Andrew J. Grotto is a research scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.

Grotto’s research interests center on the national security and international economic dimensions of America’s global leadership in information technology innovation, and its growing reliance on this innovation for its economic and social life. He is particularly interested in the allocation of responsibility between the government and the private sector for defending against cyber threats, especially as it pertains to critical infrastructure; cyber-enabled information operations as both a threat to, and a tool of statecraft for, liberal democracies; opportunities and constraints facing offensive cyber operations as a tool of statecraft, especially those relating to norms of sovereignty in a digitally connected world; and governance of global trade in information technologies.

Before coming to Stanford, Grotto was the Senior Director for Cybersecurity Policy at the White House in both the Obama and Trump Administrations. His portfolio spanned a range of cyber policy issues, including defense of the financial services, energy, communications, transportation, health care, electoral infrastructure, and other vital critical infrastructure sectors; cybersecurity risk management policies for federal networks; consumer cybersecurity; and cyber incident response policy and incident management. He also coordinated development and execution of technology policy topics with a nexus to cyber policy, such as encryption, surveillance, privacy, and the national security dimensions of artificial intelligence and machine learning. 

At the White House, he played a key role in shaping President Obama’s Cybersecurity National Action Plan and driving its implementation. He was also the principal architect of President Trump’s cybersecurity executive order, “Strengthening the Cybersecurity of Federal Networks and Critical Infrastructure.”

Grotto joined the White House after serving as Senior Advisor for Technology Policy to Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, advising Pritzker on all aspects of technology policy, including Internet of Things, net neutrality, privacy, national security reviews of foreign investment in the U.S. technology sector, and international developments affecting the competitiveness of the U.S. technology sector.

Grotto worked on Capitol Hill prior to the Executive Branch, as a member of the professional staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He served as then-Chairman Dianne Feinstein’s lead staff overseeing cyber-related activities of the intelligence community and all aspects of NSA’s mission. He led the negotiation and drafting of the information sharing title of the Cybersecurity Act of 2012, which later served as the foundation for the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act that President Obama signed in 2015. He also served as committee designee first for Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and later for Senator Kent Conrad, advising the senators on oversight of the intelligence community, including of covert action programs, and was a contributing author of the “Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program.”

Before his time on Capitol Hill, Grotto was a Senior National Security Analyst at the Center for American Progress, where his research and writing focused on U.S. policy towards nuclear weapons - how to prevent their spread, and their role in U.S. national security strategy.

Grotto received his JD from the University of California at Berkeley, his MPA from Harvard University, and his BA from the University of Kentucky.

Research Scholar, Center for International Security and Cooperation
Director, Program on Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance
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R. Daniel Kelemen REDS Seminar | Europe in the Upside Down: Democratic Backsliding in the European Union

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Why has the EU - which professes to be a Union of democracies committed to rule of law values - allowed autocratic regimes to emerge in its midst? Can the EU escape the autocracy trap it has created for itself?

The European Union has long presented itself as a Union of democratic states based on the rule of law and other common democratic values. Recent EU initiatives designed to defend democracy in the Union - like the Democracy Shield - depict the threats as mostly external, stemming from dangers like foreign election interference. However, the greatest threats to democratic values in the EU - and indeed to the functioning of the Union itself - stem not from external threats, but from the rise of autocratic member state governments such as Hungary’s.  The EU’s failure to stem the rise of autocratic member governments poisons the European Union from within. Using the metaphor of the "Upside Down" from the Netflix series Stranger Things, this talk explores the phenomenon of democratic backsliding as a parasitic dimension growing within the very fabric of the Union. This parasitic, upside down dimension draws on the rightside-up, democratic EU’s resources in an effort to dismantle and supplant it.

R. Daniel Kelemen is McCourt Chair at the McCourt School of Public Policy. He is also Professor of Law (by courtesy) at Georgetown Law. Kelemen has published widely on the politics and law of the European Union, comparative politics and law, and comparative public policy. Prior to joining Georgetown University, Kelemen was Professor of Political Science and Law at Rutgers University. He also served as Chair of the Department of Political Science and Director of the Center for European Studies at Rutgers. Prior to Rutgers, Kelemen was Fellow in Politics at Lincoln College, University of Oxford. Kelemen is a Senior Associate (Non-Resident), in the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the Executive Committee of the European Union Studies Association. Kelemen comments regularly on EU affairs for European and American media. He was educated at UC Berkeley (A.B. in Sociology) and Stanford (M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science).


REDS: RETHINKING EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENT AND SECURITY


The REDS Seminar Series aims to deepen the research agenda on the new challenges facing Europe, especially on its eastern flank, and to build intellectual and institutional bridges across Stanford University, fostering interdisciplinary approaches to current global challenges.

REDS is organized by The Europe Center and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and co-sponsored by the Hoover Institution and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.

Learn more about REDS and view past seminars here.

 

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Anna Grzymała-Busse, Kathryn Stoner
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“We will not give up”: Ukrainian leaders mark four years of resistance against Russian invasion

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Addressing the Bechtel Conference Center, leaders rejected the prospect of territorial concessions, saying that Ukrainians “will not give up” on their country.

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Four Years After the Invasion, Ukrainian Leaders Build Foundations for Recovery

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As Ukraine marks four years since Russia’s full-scale invasion, and more than a decade of war that began in 2014, the country is experiencing profound strain — millions are displaced, missile and drone strikes threaten energy infrastructure and cause frequent power outages, and there is a large-scale humanitarian crisis. As the country focuses on survival, defense, and endurance, an equal focus lies on laying the groundwork for long-term democratic recovery and postwar reconstruction.

Many of these efforts are being led by alumni of the Strengthening Ukrainian Democracy and Development Program (SU-DD) at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). Launched in 2022 following Russia’s attack on Ukraine on February 24, the program brings mid-career Ukrainian practitioners to Stanford to develop implementation plans for projects focused on governance, recovery, and local capacity building. Participants engage with CDDRL faculty, global peers in the center’s Fisher Family Summer Fellows Program, and Bay Area tech and business experts, politicians, and government officials while refining strategies designed for real-world application under wartime conditions. The SU-DD program builds on the strong foundation of the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program (UELP), which was housed at CDDRL from 2017 to 2021. Between the two, the center has hosted 25 Ukrainian fellows across 7 cohorts.

After four years of war, SU-DD alumni say their work has taken on added urgency. Their projects now operate not as future-oriented plans but as active components of Ukraine’s wartime governance and recovery strategy.
 

From the Farm to the Front Lines

For Oleksii Movchan, a member of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s Parliament) and deputy chair of the parliamentary committee on economic development, his focus is on expanding financing tools for reconstruction. As part of a project he began during his 2025 SU-DD fellowship, he is drafting legislation to reform municipal bond regulations, aimed at increasing the participation of local governments in securities and debt markets and attracting additional resources for rebuilding Ukraine. To accomplish this work, he has relied on the Problem-Solving Framework he learned at Stanford, and shares that his experience in the SU-DD program made him more confident in his values and encouraged him to “stand on [his] principles and values of integrity, openness, and respect to human rights and democracy.” By strengthening municipal access to capital, his work seeks to support infrastructure recovery while reinforcing transparent financial governance.

Oleksii Movchan
Oleksii Movchan while on campus in the summer of 2025. | Rod Searcey

Maria Golub, a senior political and policy advisor working on EU and NATO integration, is developing a national Coalition for Recovery — an inclusive, cross-sectoral platform designed to unify Ukraine’s defense, reconstruction, and reform agendas. With Ukraine balancing the demands of war and reconstruction, Golub’s 2025 SU-DD project aims to ensure that recovery planning connects security, governance, and innovation rather than treating them as separate tracks. Currently in a pilot, her proposals have already informed the government's 2026 recovery and resilience planning process.

Maria Golub
Maria Golub accepts her certificate of completion from Kathryn Stoner and Erik Jensen during the 2025 Fisher Family Summer Fellows Program, which SU-DD fellows participate in concurrently. | Rod Searcey

At the regional level, Mykhailo Pavliuk, vice-chairman of the Chernivtsi Oblast (state) legislature in Ukraine, is actively implementing reforms to advance self-government and deepen Ukraine’s decentralization process. His work, initiated during his time at Stanford in 2023, focuses on strengthening “consolidated, self-sufficient communities” by developing political, financial, infrastructure, and social strategies that can be carried out locally, including cross-border regional initiatives in Chernivtsi. He said the most important element is “supporting the potential of people at the local level through the activities of advisory bodies, consultations, and modeling of joint decisions,” bringing citizens closer to decision-making on community affairs. Pavliuk emphasized that decentralization has been critical to Ukraine’s resilience since 2022, while noting that “there would certainly be a greater outcome in peacetime,” without the constraints imposed by war.

Mykhailo Pavliuk
Mykhailo Pavliuk delivers a "TED"-style talk while on campus in 2023. | Nora Sulots

In the media sector, Alyona Nevmerzhytska, CEO of the independent outlet hromadske, is actively implementing her 2025 SU-DD project to strengthen the organization’s long-term sustainability and resilience. Her work, she says, “addresses two interconnected challenges: financial vulnerability and the rapid emergence of AI in the media landscape.” By developing diversified revenue strategies and integrating responsible AI tools into newsroom workflows, she aims to “improve efficiency, counter disinformation, and expand audience reach.” Despite ongoing security risks, she shares that the newsroom has maintained consistent production, adapted its operations, and prioritized staff safety, demonstrating what she described as “strong institutional resilience.” During her time on campus, Nevmerzhytska met with Stanford journalism and technology experts, whose guidance enhanced her strategic thinking around AI integration and digital modernization, “providing practical insights and [the] confidence to adopt responsible AI tools for efficiency and multilingual production.” She reports that hromadske continues to serve as a platform for accountability and public debate, reinforcing its role within Ukraine’s civil society.

Alyona Nevmerzhytska
Alyona Nevmerzhytska participates in a discussion during the 2025 Fisher Family Summer Fellows Program. | Rod Searcey

Iaroslav Liubchenko, currently CEO of Ukraine’s national electronic public procurement system Prozorro, focused his 2023 Stanford project on strengthening transparency, efficiency, and institutional integrity in Ukraine’s defense procurement architecture. Today, that vision has become central to his leadership agenda. Prozorro is advancing three core priorities: deepening European integration through the approximation of EU public procurement directives into national legislation — in cooperation with Member of Parliament Oleksii Movchan — and sharing Prozorro’s digital governance model with EU partners; scaling up defense procurement within the system, including drones, unmanned and robotic systems, electronic warfare capabilities, non-lethal equipment for military infrastructure, and strengthened cooperation with the Defence Procurement Agency; and developing the broader Prozorro ecosystem through new coalitions and markets, advanced digital instruments, and AI integration. Prozorro seeks to ensure that Ukraine’s defense and rebuilding efforts are supported by transparent, technology-driven, and institutionally resilient procurement systems — not only fully aligned with EU standards, but capable of serving as a model for public procurement reform across Europe.

Iaroslav Liubchenko
Iaroslav Liubchenko participates in a discussion during the 2024 Fisher Family Summer Fellows Program. | Rod Searcey

Ukraine’s Path Forward


Together, the fellows describe a future shaped not only by physical rebuilding but by the strength of Ukraine’s institutions and civic life. When asked about the country’s priorities for the next several years, their responses aligned in three areas: securing victory and sustaining defense capacity, advancing EU integration, and rebuilding critical infrastructure. Each emphasized that reconstruction must be paired with governance reforms to ensure public trust and long-term resilience.

Amid the political, economic, and human toll of war, our fellows agreed that the “unbreakable spirit and will of Ukrainians” gives them hope. “I am inspired by the endurance of Ukrainian society,” said Nevmerzhytska. “Despite exhaustion and loss, people continue to volunteer, innovate, and support each other. That civic resilience gives me confidence that Ukraine’s democratic spirit remains strong.”

As we look to the beginning of the fifth year of Russia’s war, Ukraine’s future is still uncertain. But the projects these leaders developed during their time at Stanford have carried into their work in parliament, regional government, civil society, media, and the defense sector. What began as ideas for reform are now being tested and adapted under wartime conditions, as they work to keep institutions functioning and prepare for the country’s long-term recovery.

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(Clockwise from left) Oleksandra Matviichuk, Oleksandra Ustinova, Oleksiy Honcharuk, and Serhiy Leshchenko joined FSI Director Michael McFaul to discuss Ukraine's future on the three-year anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion.
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People arrive to pay tribute at Maidan Square, where thousands of memorial flags are on display as a reminder of the toll of the war on February 24, 2025, in Kyiv, Ukraine. Paula Bronstein / Stringer / Getty Images
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From parliament to regional government to independent media, alumni of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law’s Strengthening Ukrainian Democracy and Development Program are implementing reform initiatives under wartime conditions.

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  • Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) launched a fellowship in 2022 to support Ukrainian leaders in designing governance and recovery reforms.
  • Alumni of the Strengthening Ukrainian Democracy and Development Program (SU-DD) now implement those plans across parliament, regional government, media, and defense procurement.
  • Stanford-developed reform strategies now support Ukraine’s institutional resilience and transparent recovery during wartime.
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