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. 

Rule of Law in Pakistan and Afghanistan

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Stanford Law School, Room 190

Erik Jensen

CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C144
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 725-4287 (650) 725-0253
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Lecturer in Law, Stanford Law School
jensen-1.jpg JD

Erik Jensen holds joint appointments at Stanford Law School and Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. He is Lecturer in Law, Director of the Rule of Law Program at Stanford Law School, an Affiliated Core Faculty at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and Senior Advisor for Governance and Law at The Asia Foundation. Jensen began his international career as a Fulbright Scholar. He has taught and practiced in the field of law and development for 35 years and has carried out fieldwork in approximately 40 developing countries. He lived in Asia for 14 years. He has led or advised research teams on governance and the rule of law at the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the African Development Bank. Among his numerous publications, Jensen co-edited with Thomas Heller Beyond Common Knowledge: Empirical Approaches to the Rule of Law (Stanford University Press: 2003).

At Stanford, he teaches courses related to state building, development, global poverty and the rule of law. Jensen’s scholarship and fieldwork focuses on bridging theory and practice, and examines connections between law, economy, politics and society. Much of his teaching focuses on experiential learning. In recent years, he has committed considerable effort as faculty director to three student driven projects: the Afghanistan Legal Education Project (ALEP) which started and has developed a law degree-granting programs at the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF), an institution where he also sits on the Board of Trustees; the Iraq Legal Education Initiative at the American University of Iraq in Sulaimani (AUIS); and the Rwanda Law and Development Project at the University of Rwanda. He has also directed projects in Bhutan, Cambodia and Timor Leste. With Paul Brest, he is co-leading the Rule of Non-Law Project, a research project launched in 2015 and funded by the Global Development and Poverty Fund at the Stanford King Center on Global Development. The project examines the use of various work-arounds to the formal legal system by economic actors in developing countries. Eight law faculty members as well as scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute are participating in the Rule of Non-Law Project.

Director of the Rule of Law Program, Stanford Law School
CDDRL Affiliated Faculty
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Erik Jensen Co-Director Rule of Law Moderator Stanford Law School
Hamid Sharif Assistant General Counsel Panelist Asian Development Bank
Alex Their Consultant to Afghanistan's Constitutional and Judicial Commissions Panelist The Asia Foundation

The New Face of Corruption: Populism and the Political Economy of Thailand

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Elections in Thailand in January 2001 yielded a remarkable near-majority for the Thai Rak Thai ("Thai Love Thai") Party of computer and telecommunications billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra, who became prime minister despite serious legal charges of tax evasion. Although the Constitutional Court acquitted him (by a close 8-to-7 vote), his tenure in office has given rise to widespread impressions of populism on the one hand and corruption on the other.

In her talk, Dr. Phongpaichit will explore the background and implications of Thaksin's rise to power and his ongoing use of it. Pasuk Phongpaichit is Thailand's best known and most widely read economist. Books authored or coauthored by her include Corruption and Democracy in Thailand; Thailand: Economy and Politics; Thailand's Crisis; Thailand's Boom and Bust; The Thai Village Economy in the Past; Employment, Income and the Mobilization of Local Resources in Three Thai Villages; Challenging Social Exclusion: Rights and Livelihood in Thailand; Guns, Girls, Gambling, Ganja: Thailand's Illegal Economy and Public Policy; and From Peasant Girls to Bangkok Masseuses.

Her current research is on "The Structure and Dynamics of Capital in Post-Crisis Thailand." In fall 2002 she was a visiting professor at the School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. She received her Ph.D. in economics from Cambridge University.

Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room

Pasuk Phongpaichit Speaker
Seminars
Southeast Asia Program

Byron Bland

Stanford Law School
Stanford University
SCICN, Gould Center
Stanford, CA 94305-8610

(650) 725-2574 (650) 723-9421
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bland.jpg MA, M.Div

Byron Bland is associate director of the Stanford Center on Conflict and Negotiation and a research associate at CDDRL. An ordained Presbyterian minister and former Stanford campus chaplain, he has served as an ombudsman and conflict resolution consultant for various community and church groups. His more recent work concerns the politics of reconciliation in divided societies.

After serving the Stanford campus for 18 years as a chaplain, Bland left that post in 1994 to concentrate on peacemaking efforts in Northern Ireland. He is currently involved in a research project exploring the social and political dynamics of reconciliation with Community Dialogue, a grassroots dialogue organization in Northern Ireland. He is also working with community groups and civil leaders in the Israel and the West Bank.

Before coming to Stanford University in 1976, Bland was the pastor of a multiracial, urban church in San Francisco. While at Stanford, he was appointed an associate fellow at the Program for Interdisciplinary Studies during 1993-1994. He is a founding member of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion. For the past 20 years, he has taught an interdisciplinary course on peace at Stanford. He has also served as a lecturer in the Stanford Law School, the School of Education, and the International Relations program. He received an undergraduate degree in industrial engineering from Georgia Tech, an MA in social ethics and a master of divinity degree from the San Francisco Theological Seminary.

Associate Director of the Stanford Center on Conflict and Negotiation
CDDRL Affiliated Faculty

Program on Sovereignty

Work on the complex and evolving nature of sovereignty has been underway at Stanford IIS since the mid-1990s. The Center will build on this foundation of knowledge by taking up the issues of intervention, or efforts by external actors to alter domestic authority structures in other states. While influencing domestic authority structures of target states has been central to statecraft for centuries, it has been all but ignored by most international relations theorists.

Rule of Law Program

Today, it is widely recognized that the absence of the rule of law constitutes a critical barrier to economic growth and democractic political development. Increasingly, scholars and policy makers alike are turning their attention toward the concept of economic rights - ranging from broad affirmations of the importance of secure property rights to more particular descriptions of modes of corporate governance - to inform their thinking about growth and development.

Program on Economic Performance

Nearly half the world's population - some 2.8 billion people - lives on less than two dollars per day. The gap between the rich and the poor is vast. There are two overarching reasons for those fortunate enough to reside in the more affluent West to be concerned about poverty in the developing world. One is humanitarian. The other is self-interest. Poverty triggers violence. In the over one hundred large civil wars that have engulfed many parts of the world since the Second World War, the leading cause of insurgency is poverty - not ethnicity or religion.

Debris in Space

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Reuben W. Hills Conference Room, 2nd floor, Encina Hall East

Joel Primack Professor of Physics University of California, Santa Cruz
Seminars
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