The Fisher Family Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development Program at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is now accepting applications for our summer 2025 program. The deadline to apply is 5:00 pm PST on Thursday, January 16, 2025.

The program brings together an annual cohort of approximately 30 mid-career practitioners from countries in political transition who are working to advance democratic practices and enact economic and legal reform to promote human development. Launched by CDDRL in 2005, the program was previously known as the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program. The new name reflects an endowment gift from the Fisher family — Sakurako (Sako), ‘82, and William (Bill), MBA ‘84 — that secures the future of this important and impactful program.

From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, our program participants are selected from among hundreds of applicants every year for the significant contributions they have already made to their societies and their potential to make an even greater impact with some help from Stanford. We aim to give them the opportunity to join a global network of over 500 alumni from 103 countries who have all faced similar sets of challenges in bringing change to their countries.

The Fisher Family Summer Fellows Program provides an intensive 3-week on-campus forum for civil society leaders to exchange experiences and receive academic and policy training to enrich their knowledge and advance their work. Delivered by a leading Stanford faculty team composed of Michael McFaul, Kathryn Stoner, Francis Fukuyama, Larry Diamond, Erik Jensen, and more, the program allows emerging and established global leaders to explore new institutional models and frameworks to enhance their ability to promote good governance, accountable politics, and find new ways to achieve economic development in their home countries.

Prospective fellows from Ukraine are also invited to apply for our Strengthening Ukrainian Democracy and Development (SU-DD) Program, which runs concurrently with the Fisher Family Summer Fellows Program. The SU-DD program provides a unique opportunity for mid-career practitioners working on well-defined projects aimed at strengthening Ukrainian democracy, enhancing human development, and promoting good governance. Applicants to the SU-DD program will use the Fisher Family Summer Fellows Program application portal to apply and indicate their interest there. You will then be directed to a series of supplemental questions specific to the SU-DD program, including requiring a detailed description of your proposed project.

Why do authoritarian regimes charge political opponents with non-political crimes when they can levy charges directly related to opponents' political activism?

On October 3, 2024, Stanford Professor of Communication, Jennifer Pan, presented her recent research answering this question. Professor Pan and her research collaborators used experimental and observational data from China and found that, “disguising repression by charging opponents with non-political crimes undermines the moral authority of opponents, minimizing backlash and mobilization while increasing public support for repression.”

Yesterday, the National Academy of Public Administration — an independent nonprofit organization established in 1967 to assist government leaders in building more effective, efficient, accountable, and transparent organizations — announced that Francis Fukuyama, Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, was among the leaders selected for the 2024 Class of Academy Fellows. This prestigious honor places Dr. Fukuyama among an elite group of leaders in the field of public administration who collectively provide expert insights on governance and policy challenges.

In a press release, Terry Gerton, President and CEO of the Academy, shared, “The 2024 class of Academy Fellows reflects a wide range of professional experience, including dedicated civil servants and accomplished academics. These 42 leaders will be an enormous asset to the Academy in the years ahead, and we look forward to working with all of them to help create a bright future for our country.”

The 2024 Class of Academy Fellows consists of 42 distinguished individuals, including public administrators, scholars, business leaders, and former government officials. The rigorous selection process involves nominations by current Fellows, followed by a comprehensive review of each nominee’s professional achievements and contributions to public administration. Dr. Fukuyama and his fellow inductees will be officially welcomed during the Academy’s annual Fall Meeting, which will be held November 13-15, 2024, in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Fukuyama is a political scientist internationally known for his influential work on the development of political order and the concept of liberal democracy. His selection as a Fellow reflects not only his scholarly achievements but also his ongoing efforts to address some of the most pressing governance challenges facing democracies around the world.

In a statement to the Academy, he shared, “I am very interested in civil service reform, and the question dealt with by the Academy concerning agility in government. Regardless of the outcome of the upcoming election, this is an issue that needs to be addressed; it is particularly critical given the changing technological environment within which the government works.”

One of Dr. Fukuyama’s current projects is a working group to protect and reform the U.S. civil service, formed in response to plans elaborated in the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 to strip civil service protections from all federal workers and replace them with political loyalists in a future administration. “I believe that the revival of Schedule F proposed in the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 constitutes a severe threat to the future of a merit-based public service and needs to be engaged directly by the Academy and other bodies concerned with good governance.”

The Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is pleased to invite applications from pre-doctoral students at the write-up stage and from post-doctoral scholars working in any of the four program areas of democracy, development, evaluating the efficacy of democracy promotion, and rule of law. The application cycle for the 2025-2026 academic year will be open from Monday, September 23, 2024, through Sunday, December 1, 2024.

Our goal is to provide an intellectually dynamic environment that fosters lively exchange among Center members and helps everyone to do excellent scholarship. Fellows will spend the academic year at Stanford University focusing on research and data analysis as they work to finalize and publish their dissertation research while connecting with resident faculty and research staff at CDDRL.

Pre-doctoral fellows must be enrolled currently in a doctoral program or equivalent through the time of intended residency at Stanford and must be at the dissertation write-up (post course work) phase of their doctoral program. Post-doctoral fellows must have earned their Ph.D. within 3 years of the start of the fellowship, or plan to have successfully defended their Ph.D. dissertations by July 31, 2025.

In addition to our regular call for applications, CDDRL invites applications for the Gerhard Casper Fellow in Rule of Law for 2025-26. We welcome research on any aspect of rule of law, including judicial politics, criminal justice, and the politicization of judicial institutions. We are an interdisciplinary center; candidates from any relevant field (i.e. the social sciences, law) are welcome to apply. The Gerhard Casper Fellow will be part of CDDRL’s larger cohort of pre- and postdoctoral fellows. Please apply through the CDDRL fellowship application process and indicate that you would like to be considered for the Gerhard Casper Rule of Law Fellowship.

Data is necessary to study any particular place. But, in development economics, research inquiries have historically focused more on rural areas. Nearly a decade ago King Center faculty affiliate and economics professor Marcel Fafchamps and former King Center faculty director Pascaline Dupas (now at Princeton), set out to change that by launching the King Center’s African Urbanization and Development Research Initiative (AUDRI). The initiative conducts wide-ranging, multi-year panel surveys on the changing economic, social, and political conditions in two of Africa’s largest cities, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.

Read the full article from the King Center on Urban Development.