CISAC is announcing the selection of its 2004-2005 fellows. This group of 21 scholars, selected through a competition, will spend the fellowship year working on their research projects, participating in seminars, and exploring international security issues with resident faculty, research associates, and other fellows.

The incoming fellows come from a broad range of academic and professional backgrounds, and they will be focusing on an equally diverse set of research topics, including chemical and biological weapon detection, the future of nonproliferation regimes, and analysis of homeland security policies.

CISAC sponsors three fellowship programs: Pre/Postdoctoral Fellowships; Science Fellowships; and Organizational Learning for Homeland Security Fellowships. In addition, CISAC sponsors visiting scholars, providing opportunities for concentrated research and study within CISAC's multidisciplinary environment.

View the complete list of 2004-2005 fellows and their respective research topics.

CDDRL organized a conference on "Governance and Sovereignty in Failed and Failing States," held April 16-17, 2004 at Stanford University. The event drew participants from around the United States and abroad, including speakers from Georgetown University, Oxford University, Stanford, Free University of Berlin, the United Nations, the World Bank, the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Speakers from SIIS included Larry Diamond, Stephen J. Stedman and Michael A. McFaul.

The participants addressed a variety of topics including "Why States Fail," "UN Responses to State Failure," "Global Security and the United Nations," "Building Democracy in Iraq," and "Corruption and Misgovernance Lessons from U.S. Foreign Aid."

Although keeping score is difficult, the State Department's annual report on international terrorism, released last month, provides the best government data to answer this question. The short answer is "No," but that's not the spin the administration is putting on it.

"You will find in these pages clear evidence that we are prevailing in the fight," said Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. As evidence, the "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report says that worldwide terrorism dropped by 45 percent between 2001 and 2003. The report even boasts that the number of terrorist acts committed last year "represents the lowest annual total of international terrorist attacks since 1969."

Yet, a careful review of the report and underlying data supports the opposite conclusion: The number of significant terrorist acts increased from 124 in 2001 to 169 in 2003 -- 36 percent -- even using the State Department's official standards. The data that the report highlights are ill-defined and subject to manipulation -- and give disproportionate weight to the least important terrorist acts. The only verifiable information in the annual reports indicates that the number of terrorist events has risen each year since 2001, and in 2003 reached its highest level in more than 20 years.

To be sure, counting terrorist acts is not as straightforward as counting the number of SARS victims. Specialists have not agreed to any test that would unambiguously qualify an act as one of international terrorism. But in the words of the Congressional Research Service, the State Department's annual report is "the most authoritative unclassified U.S. government document that assesses terrorist attacks."

So how did the report conclude that international terrorism is declining?

It accomplishes this sleight of hand by combining significant and nonsignificant acts of terrorism. Significant acts are clearly defined and each event is listed in an appendix, so readers can verify the data. By contrast, no explanation is given for how nonsignificant acts are identified or whether a consistent process is used over time -- and no list is provided describing each event. The data cannot be verified.

International terrorism is defined in the report as "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets" involving citizens or property from multiple countries, "usually intended to influence an audience." An event "is judged significant if it results in loss of life or serious injury to persons" or "major property damage."

A panel determines whether an event meets this definition, but the State Department refused to tell us the members of the panel or the practices used to count nonsignificant terrorist acts.

We do know that the definition leaves much room for discretion. Because "significant events" include such things as destroying an ATM in Greece or throwing a molotov cocktail at a McDonald's in Norway without causing much damage, it is easy to imagine that nonsignificant events are counted with a squishy definition that can be manipulated to alter the trend.

The alleged decline in terrorism in 2003 was entirely a result of a decline in nonsignificant events.

Another curious feature of the latest report is that its catalogue of events does not list a single significant terrorist act occurring after Nov. 11, 2003, despite averaging 16 such acts a month in the rest of the year.

The representation that no terrorist events occurred after Nov. 11 is patently false. The bombings of the HSBC Bank, British Consulate, and Beth Israel and Neve Shalom synagogues in Istanbul by individuals associated with al Qaeda occurred on Nov. 20 and Nov. 15, respectively. Additionally, the report mentions the bombing of the Catholic Relief Services in Nasiriyah, Iraq, on Nov. 12 but somehow omits it from the official list of significant events.

So the record number of 169 significant international terrorist events for 2003 is undoubtedly an understatement. It is impossible to know if these and other terrorist events were left out of the State Department's total of events.

Despite the lack of transparency and the rose-colored graphs, the department's data reveal that administration policies in the past year have not turned the terrorist tide. Of course, it is impossible to know how many terrorist acts would have occurred absent the war on terrorism, but it is unambiguous that the number of significant international terrorist acts is on the rise.

The fact that the number of nonsignificant terrorist acts has headed down -- even if true -- is, well, nonsignificant. What matters for security is the number of significant acts. It is regrettable that one casualty in the war against terrorism has been the accurate reporting of statistics. This seems to be another fight we are losing.

On May 13, the Stanford Faculty Senate authorized the extension of the CISAC Undergraduate Honors Program through August 2010. The action allows CISAC to continue to nominate candidates for Honors through this period.

The program—its full name, the Interschool Honors Program in International Security Studies—provides an opportunity for eligible students focusing on international security subjects in any university department to earn Honors in International Security Studies.

Students selected for the Undergraduate Honors Program intern with a security-related organization, attend the program's honors college in Washington, D.C. in September, attend a year-long core seminar on international security research, and produce an honors thesis with policy implications.

For further information on the program, visit the CISAC Undergraduate Honors Program page.

In a May 14 lecture hosted by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, Francis Fukuyama, PhD -- professor of international political economy at Johns Hopkins University and renowned author of The End of History and the Last Man -- discussed the problem of weak, underdeveloped nation-states; the effectiveness of various approaches to strengthening such states; and the importance of culture, context and history in the task of state-building. His lecture, titled "State-building: A Framework for Thinking about the Transfer of Institutions to Developing Countries," drew a full room of attendees to the Bechtel Conference Center in Encina Hall

A former member of the RAND Corp. and the U.S. Department of State who has written widely on issues of democratization and international political economy, Fukuyama first presented a framework with which nation-states can be evaluated according to two key criteria: the strength of the state, and the scope of its functions. The first refers to a state's ability to enforce its own laws and policies; the second refers to how involved the state becomes in carrying out various societal functions, ranging from basic functions such as maintaining law and order and protecting public health, to more "activist" functions such as running industries and redistributing wealth.

Fukuyama asserted that from a development standpoint, nation-states should be strong but should carry out only the minimum necessary functions. He said that only one country he has studied -- New Zealand -- has effectively moved toward this ideal in recent years. He noted that many struggling, developing nations, such as Brazil, Mexico, Pakistan and Turkey, are overly ambitious in their scope -- attempting to run vast industries, for example -- but are weak and unable to carry out their policies because of factors like corruption. Other states that Fukuyama identified as "failed states," such as Haiti and Sierra Leone, are both limited in scope and weak, attempting to carry out only the most basic governmental functions and not doing it very well.

Fukuyama then discussed and evaluated various approaches to strengthening developing nations. He noted that in recent years much emphasis has been placed on encouraging such nations to reduce the scope of their functions, through deregulation and privatization, but said the effectiveness of this approach is now in question. A more effective approach, he said, is helping weak nation-states build their own strong institutions, such as political parties, public health networks and central banking.

Unfortunately, Fukuyama said, sometimes the efforts of outside organizations to strengthen a country's institutions only make things worse, because solutions are imposed from outside rather than developed from within. "Ideally, we would want a country's own public health system to handle that country's problems with AIDS or malaria," he said. "But when you flood the country with your organization's own doctors and nurses and infrastructure, what do the local doctors do? They quit their government posts to get on the payroll of your NGO." In a few months or years, when the organization withdraws its support, Fukuyama noted, the system collapses, because it was not built to be self-sustaining.

At the end of his talk, Fukuyama emphasized the importance of understanding local culture, context and history in the task of state building. For example, he said, those who run programs aiming to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa should consider working with traditional faith healers, as they are an important part of the healthcare system in Africa.

Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, a senior research scholar with the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at the Stanford Institute for International Studies and a senior adviser to CISAC's Preventive Defense Project, has been selected as a 2004 Carnegie Scholar.

The 15 scholars chosen this year by the Carnegie Corporation of New York will each receive up to $100,000 for a period of two years to pursue research. They join 52 others awarded the fellowships since 2000.

"The Carnegie Corporation has a long history of supporting path-breaking work in international security, and I am truly honored to be included in such a distinguished group of scholars," said Sherwood-Randall. "Given the state of the world -- and the fact that there are few foreign and defense policy goals that we can successfully pursue unilaterally -- I intend to use this support to generate new ideas about the leadership of America's key alliances and partnerships."

Sherwood-Randall's research topic is "Transforming Transatlantic Relations: A New Agenda for a New Era." Her study will seek to understand the elements of continuity and change in the global security environment in order to determine whether and how America's most important alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, can remain relevant and effective. She intends to publish the results of her work in a journal-length article as well as produce policy memoranda and briefings for appropriate officials in the U.S. government and relevant international organizations.

Sherwood-Randall served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia during the first Clinton Administration (1994-1996). She played a key role in creating a cooperative context for denuclearization efforts in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan and in establishing security ties with the new states of Central Asia. Prior to her government service, Sherwood-Randall served as co-founder and associate director of the Harvard Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project, as chief foreign affairs and defense policy advisor to Sen. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., and as a guest scholar in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution.

Sherwood-Randall received her B.A. from Harvard-Radcliffe Colleges, magna cum laude. She received her doctorate in International Relations from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar.

Chosen in a highly competitive process -- from an initial group of 144 nominees, 54 were invited to provide complete proposals -- the 15 selected Carnegie Scholars will explore issues critical to economic growth and human development. These include the American electoral process; political theory of international law; school reform from an international perspective; a reconsideration of the Iran hostage crisis; the logic of suicide terrorism; local control and federal reform of education; how U.S. transatlantic relations can remain relevant and effective; Hispanic students' achievements in elementary education; justice in education; political obligations in World War I America; the rise of far-right extremist groups and the role masculinity plays in their resurgence; the role of the United States in the 21st century; and the rebirth of democracy in Iraq.

"The annual announcement of the Carnegie Scholars is an opportunity to celebrate original and creative thinking on a wide array of social issues important to the Corporation's strategies," said Vartan Gregorian, president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, who inaugurated the Scholars Program in 1999 to support innovative and path-breaking scholarship.

"Criteria for selection were based on stringent academic standards and the relevance of the project to Corporation program priorities," said Neil Grabois, Carnegie Corporation's vice president and director for strategic planning and program coordination, who facilitated the various levels of deliberations. "The program's definition of excellence incorporates demonstrating intellectual risk-taking, framing unusual questions, possessing the capacity to communicate clearly and effectively on complex themes, and advancing scholarship in the Corporation's programs."

The Carnegie Corporation of New York was created by Andrew Carnegie in 1911 to promote the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding. As a grant-making foundation, the Corporation seeks to carry out Carnegie's vision of philanthropy, which he said should aim to do real and permanent good in the world. The Corporation's capital fund, originally donated at a value of about $135 million, had a market value of $1.8 billion on Sept. 30, 2003. The Corporation awards grants totaling approximately $80 million a year in the areas of education, international peace and security, international development and strengthening U.S. democracy.