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New use for nuclear missiles could cause accidental launch, CISAC expert warns

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A Defense Department proposal to modify Trident D-5 nuclear missiles for delivering conventional warheads is dangerous, Pavel Podvig, CISAC research scientist, warned congressional staff and reporters. Firing a conventional weapon from a Trident nuclear-armed submarine could cause an accidental nuclear launch, Podvig said, because the Russian early warning system cannot distinguish between the two types of warheads once they are fired. Podvig and Ted Postol, a physicist and professor of science, technology and national security policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, spoke Oct. 5 and 6 in Washington on the proposed Trident D-5 missile conversion and the status of the Russian early warning system, in briefings arranged by the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Center for Science, Technology and Security Policy. Several news organizations, including the San Francisco Chronicle, reported on the briefings.
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Insurgency and Credible Commitment in Autocracies and Democracies

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This talk will discuss the study of a new factor that makes civil war more likely: the inability of political actors to make credible promises to broad segments of society. Lacking this ability, both elected and unelected governments pursue public policies that leave citizens less well-off and more prone to revolt. At the same time, these actors have a reduced ability to build an anti-insurgency capacity in the first place, since they are less able to prevent anti-insurgents from themselves mounting coups. However, while reducing the risk of conflict overall, increasing credibility can, over some range, worsen the effects of natural resources and ethnic fragmentation on civil war. Empirical tests using various measures of political credibility support these conclusions.

About the speaker:

Philip Keeferis a Lead Research Economist in the Development Research Group of the World Bank. Since receiving his PhD in Economics from Washington University at St. Louis in 1991, he has worked continuously on the interaction of institutions, political economy and economic development on issues ranging from the impact of insecure property rights on economic growth to the effect of political credibility on the fiscal and monetary policy choices of governments. His work has appeared in journals ranging from the Quarterly Journal of Economics to the American Review of Political Science.

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CISAC Conference Room

Philip Keefer Lead Research Economist, Development Research Group Speaker the World Bank
Seminars

Democracy's True Cost

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About the Speaker:

Sheri Berman is Associate Professor of Political Science at Barnard College, Columbia University. Her research interests focus on issues of comparative political development, European politics and history, globalization, social theory, and history of the Left. Some of her recent publications include: "The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Ideological Dynamics of the Twentieth Century" (2006, Cambridge University Press); "Violence, Conflict, and Civil Society," Mittelweg, Spring 2006 (academic paper); "Islamism, Revolution, and Civil Society," Perspectives on Politics, 1, 2, June 2003 (academic paper). Berman received her B.A. (1987) from Yale, and M.A. (1990) and PhD. (1994) from Harvard.

About the Event:

The best way to understand how stable, well-functioning democracies develop is to analyze the political trajectories such countries have actually taken. For the most part, this means looking at Western Europe and North America. When we look carefully at these cases we see that the political backstory of most democracies is one of struggle, conflict and even violence. Problems and even failures did not mean that democracy would be impossible to achieve some day; in fact, they can in retrospect often be seen to be integral parts of the long-term processes through which non-democratic institutions, elites, and cultures were delegitimized and eventually eliminated, and their democratic successors forged. An important reason many do not seem to realize this is because of a lack of historical perspective: contemporary analysts often ignore or misread the often messy and unattractive manner in which the current crop of stable democracies actually developed. Understanding past cases better is thus a crucial step toward putting today's democratization and democracy promotion discussions into proper intellectual and historical context.

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CISAC Conference Room

Sheri Berman Associate Professor of Political Science Speaker Barnard College, Columbia University
Seminars

International Election Observation and Its Consequences

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Nikolay Marinov is Assistant Professor in the Political Science department at Yale University. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University in 2004. He spent 2004-2005 as a Global Fellow at UCLA. His current research looks at the effectiveness of economic sanctions, at the role of the international community in the spread of democracy around the world, and at the effects of international institutions.

Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Nikolay Marinov Assistant Professor of Political Science Speaker Yale University
Seminars

Karaula (Border Post) - Lunch seminar

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Rajko Grlic was born 1947 in Zagreb, Croatia. He graduated a feature film directing from the FAMU Film Academy in Prague, Czech Republic. He has directed and cowritten ten theatrical feature films, including Border Post in 2006 and Josephine in 2002.

His films have been distributed all around the world and shown in competition at many major film festivals. They have received more than fifty international awards, including the Tokyo International Film Festival Grand Prix and Best Director.

He has written nine produced feature screenplays and two television serials. He has received numerous awards for writing, including a UNESCO award, FIPRESCI award, and Peter Kastner award. He has produced four theatrical feature films and five short films. He has also directed three television documentary serials and a dozen short films.

Grlic is Ohio Eminent Scholar in Film at Ohio University, Athens, OH and Artistic Director of Motovun Film Festival, Croatia.

Sponsored by the Mediterranean Forum, the Film and Media Studies Program, the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, CREES, and the Forum on Contemporary Europe.

Film Studies Department
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305

Rajko Grlic Filmmaker Speaker
Seminars

Karaula (Border Post) - Film screening

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Rajko Grlic was born 1947 in Zagreb, Croatia. He graduated a feature film directing from the FAMU Film Academy in Prague, Czech Republic. He has directed and cowritten ten theatrical feature films, including Border Post in 2006 and Josephine in 2002.

His films have been distributed all around the world and shown in competition at many major film festivals. They have received more than fifty international awards, including the Tokyo International Film Festival Grand Prix and Best Director.

He has written nine produced feature screenplays and two television serials. He has received numerous awards for writing, including a UNESCO award, FIPRESCI award, and Peter Kastner award. He has produced four theatrical feature films and five short films. He has also directed three television documentary serials and a dozen short films.

Grlic is Ohio Eminent Scholar in Film at Ohio University, Athens, OH and Artistic Director of Motovun Film Festival, Croatia.

Sponsored by the Mediterranean Forum, the Film and Media Studies Program, the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, CREES, and the Forum on Contemporary Europe.

Cubberley Auditorium
485 Lasuen Mall
Stanford, CA 94305

Rajko Grlic Filmmaker Speaker
Conferences

Kristin C. Burke

Shorenstein APARC
Encina Hall, Room E301
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 726-0756 (650) 723-6530
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Research Associate
Burke.jpg MA

Kristin Burke is currently assisting Dr. Gi-Wook Shin, program director, in work on the American and Korean media project, an ongoing research endeavor that examines Korean and American media coverage of the U.S.-ROK alliance and North Korea. The media project will culminate in the publication of a volume and the convening of a conference in spring, 2007.

Prior to joining the Korean Studies Program at Shorenstein APARC, Ms. Burke was an associate at AALC, Limited Company (formerly Armitage Associates) in the Washington, DC area, where she focused on US foreign policy and security policy in East Asia. Ms. Burke holds a BA in International Relations and MA in Sociology from Stanford University.

Global Institutions and the Challenge of Globalization: the UN and the World Bank

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This event is sponsored by the Ford Dorsey International Policy Studies Program and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

History Corner, Building 200, Room 2
Stanford University

Ashraf Ghani Chancellor of Kabul University and former Finance Minister of Afghanistan Speaker
Lectures

Nested Security Dilemmas and U.S. Policy in Asia

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Eric Heginbotham, a political scientist at the RAND Corporation, has joined the Pacific Council on International Policy, as a non-resident fellow focused on East Asian political and security issues. Among the projects he will carry out is a monograph on the triangular relationship among the United States, China and Japan. Heginbotham earlier served as a senior fellow of Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and has also been a visiting faculty member of Boston College's political science department. He speaks Japanese and Chinese and lived in Asia for more than 10 years. Heginbotham received a BA from Swarthmore College and a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He recently completed a book manuscript on civil-military relations in East Asia, Crossed Swords: Divided Militaries and Politics in East Asia, and has published articles on Japanese and Chinese foreign policy in Foreign Affairs, International Security, and the National Interest, as well as chapters in several edited books.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Eric Heginbotham Political Scientist, Center for Asia Pacific Policy at RAND Corporation;Non-Resident Fellow, Pacific Council on International Policy Speaker
Seminars

International Law, Human Rights, and the International Criminal Court

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Luis Moreno-Ocampo was unanimously elected by the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court on April 21, 2003. Between 1984 and 1992, as a prosecutor in Argentina, Mr. Moreno-Ocampo was involved in precedent-setting prosecutions of top military commanders for mass killings and other large scale human rights abuses.

He was assistant prosecutor in the "Military Junta" trial against Army commanders accused of masterminding the "dirty war," and other cases of human rights violations by the Argentine military. Mr. Moreno-Ocampo was the prosecutor in charge of the extradition from investigation and prosecution of guerrilla leaders and of those responsible for two military rebellions in Argentina. He also took part in the case against Army commanders accused of malpractice during the Malvinas/Falklands war, as well as in dozens of major cases of corruption.

In 1992, Mr. Moreno-Ocampo resigned as Chief Prosecutor of the Federal Criminal Court of Buenos Aires, and established a private law firm, Moreno-Ocampo & Wortman Jofre, which specializes in corruption control programs for large firms and organizations, criminal and human rights law. Until his election as Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Mr. Moreno-Ocampo worked as lawyer and as Private Inspector General for large companies. He also took on a number of pro bono activities, among others as legal representative for the victims in the extradition of former Nazi officer Erich Priebke to Italy, the trial of the chief of the Chilean secret police for the murder of General Carlos Prats, and several cases concerning political bribery, journalists' protection and freedom of expression.

Mr. Moreno-Ocampo also worked with various local, regional, and international NGO's. He was the president of Transparency International for Latin America and the Caribbean. The founder and president of Poder Ciudadano, Mr. Moreno-Ocampo also served as member of the Advisory Board of the "Project on Justice in Times of Transition" and "New Tactics on Human Rights."

Mr. Moreno-Ocampo has been a visiting professor at both Stanford University and Harvard University.

Sponsored by the Stanford Law School, the Program on Global Justice, the Forum on Contemporary Europe, the Stanford Film Lab, VPUE, and the Introduction to the Humanities Program.

Faculty Lounge
Stanford Law School
Stanford University
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Stanford, CA 94305

Luis Moreno-Ocampo Chief Prosecutor Speaker the International Criminal Court, the Hague
Lectures
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