Stanford University

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Michael Albertus

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CDDRL Visiting Scholar, Winter-Spring 2026
CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow, 2011-2012
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Michael Albertus is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and the author of five books. His newest book, Land Power: Who Has It, Who Doesn't, and How That Determines the Fate of Societies, was published by Basic Books in January 2025. It tells the story of how land came to be power within human societies, how it shapes power, and how its allocation determines the major social ills that societies grapple with.

Albertus studied math, electrical engineering, and political science at the University of Michigan and earned degrees in all three in 2005. He then did a PhD in political science at Stanford University, completing in 2011. After a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, Albertus joined the University of Chicago faculty in 2012 and has since been on sabbatical twice back at Stanford, including as a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavior Sciences. In addition to his books, Albertus is also the author of over 30 peer-reviewed journal articles, including at flagship journals like the American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, and World Politics. He has taught courses to undergraduate, Masters, and PhD students on topics including inequality and redistribution, democracy and dictatorship, comparative politics, and political and economic development and policy in Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula.

The defining features of Albertus' work are his engagement with big questions and puzzles and the ability to join big data and cutting-edge research methods with original, deep on-the-ground fieldwork everywhere from government offices to archives and farm fields. He has conducted fieldwork throughout the Americas, southern Europe, South Africa, and elsewhere. His books and articles have won numerous awards and shifted conventional understandings of democracy, authoritarianism, and the consequences of how humans occupy and relate to the land.

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How Does Democracy Lead to Transparency?: Enacting Freedom of Information Laws around the World

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Abstract

That democratic governments tend to be more transparent than autocracies is a relatively well-established fact. Yet, we know relatively little about how they become so. Yuko Kasuya will explore this mechanism by focusing on the policy-making processes of the freedom of information acts (FOIAs) around the world. The current majority view holds that under democracies, self-interested politicians embark on transparency reforms because doing so brings them political benefits, especially in terms of winning elections. In contrast, Kasuya will argue that while electoral competition may influence the timing of transparency reform, the degree of reform (FOIA strength) depends on the extent to which the civil society advocacy groups are active in the legislative process. Kasuya will examine this claim through the cross-national statistical analyses (as of 2011, about 75 democracies have enacted a FOIA) as well as the comparative case study of India, Spain, and the United Kingdom. 

Yuko Kasuya is a visiting scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University and an associate professor at the Faculty of Law, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan (on leave). Her current research explores conditions for transparency reform, with the focus on the recent global spread of Freedom of Information Acts (FOIAs). She examines how partisan politics influence the policy-making processes as well as the robustness of FOIAs using both quantitative and qualitative analyses.

She is the author of Presidential Bandwagon: Parties and Party Systems in the Philippines (Keio University Press, 2008), co-editor and contributor of Comparative Politics of Civil Society (Keio University Press, 2007, in Japanese), Politics of Change in the Philippines (Anvil, 2010), Comparative Politics of Asian Presidentialism (Minerva, 2010, in Japanese). She has also published articles in Electoral Studies, The Pacific Affairs, and Party Politics.

Kasuya holds a PhD in International Affairs from UC San Diego, an MA in Development Studies from Institute of Social Studies (Netherlands), and a BA in Political Science from Keio University (Japan). Her research has been funded by the Abe fellowship, Fullbright scholarship, Rotary scholarship, and other sources.

Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Yuko Kasuya

616 Serra St.
Encina Hall
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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Visiting Scholar
YukoWeb.JPG MA, PhD

Yuko Kasuya is a Visiting Scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University and an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan (on leave). Her current research explores conditions for transparency reform, with the focus on the recent global spread of Freedom of Information Acts (FOIAs). She examines how partisan politics influence the policy-making processes as well as the robustness of FOIAs using both quantitative and qualitative analyses.

She is the author of Presidential Bandwagon: Parties and Party Systems in the Philippines (Keio University Press, 2008), co-editor and contributor of Comparative Politics of Civil Society (Keio University Press, 2007, in Japanese), Politics of Change in the Philippines (Anvil, 2010), Comparative Politics of Asian Presidentialism (Minerva, 2010, in Japanese). She has also published articles in Electoral Studies, The Pacific Affairs, and Party Politics.

Kasuya holds a PhD in International Affairs from UC San Diego, an MA in Development Studies from Institute of Social Studies (Netherlands), and a BA in Political Science from Keio University (Japan). Her research has been funded by the Abe fellowship, Fullbright scholarship, Rotary scholarship, and other sources.

Yuko Kasuya Visiting Scholar Speaker CDDRL
Seminars

State and Local Terrorism Deterrence Efforts

As part of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, counterterrorism and mental health experts discussed combating terrorism through deterrence and building strong, interconnected communities in a panel titled "State and Local Terrorism Deterrence Efforts". They also talked about strategies to improve public resilience, information gathering, and public perceptions of terrorism in the decade since September 11, 2001 and responded to questions from the audience. To view or purchase the event video, please visit: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/LocalTerr. 

Martha Crenshaw Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) and Senior Fellow at CISAC and FSI Panelist
Panel Discussions

TBD

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Michael McFaul is the former director of CDDRL and deputy director of FSI at Stanford University. He also is the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he co-directs the Iran Democracy Project, as well as Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. 

Dr. McFaul is also a non-resident Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Eurasia Foundation, the Firebird Fund, Freedom House, the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy, and the International Research and Exchange Board (IREX).

He is the author and editor of several monographs including, with Anders Aslund, Revolution in Orange: The Origins of Ukraine's Democratic Breakthrough (2006) with Nikolai Petrov and Andrei Ryabov, Between Dictatorship and Democracy: Russian Postcommunist Political Reform (2004); with Kathryn Stoner Weiss, After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transitions (2004); with Timothy Colton, Popular Choice and Managed Democracy: The Russian Elections of 1999 and 2000 (2003); Russia's Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin (2001); and with Tova Perlmutter, Privatization, Conversion and Enterprise Reform in Russia (1995). He serves on the editorial boards of Current History, Journal of Democracy, Demokratizatsiya, Perspectives on European Politics and Society, Post-Soviet Affairs, and The Washington Quarterly. He has served as a consultant for numerous companies and government agencies.

Professor McFaul comments frequently in the national media on American foreign policy and international politics. He has appeared on all major television and radio networks, while his opeds have appeared in The Chicago Tribune, The International Herald Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, The Moscow Times, The New Republic, The New York Times, The San Jose Mercury News, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Washington Times and The Weekly Standard.

Dr. McFaul was born and raised in Montana. He received his B.A. in International Relations and Slavic Languages and his M.A. in Slavic and East European Studies from Stanford University in 1986. He was awarded a Rhodes scholarship to Oxford where he completed his Ph.D. in International Relations in 1991.

Dr. McFaul is currently on leave serving as the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russia and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council, where he is considered to be one of the top five national security players in government (The Washington Independent).

CISAC Conference Room

Michael McFaul Former Director of CDDRL and Deputy Director Speaker FSI
Seminars

Joon-woo Park

Shorenstein APARC
Encina Hall C324
616 Serra Street
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 724-6404 (650) 723-6530
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2011-2012 Koret Fellow
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Joon-woo Park, a former senior diplomat from Korea, is the 2011–12 Koret Fellow with the Korean Studies Program (KSP).

Park brings over 30 years of foreign policy experience to Stanford, including a deep understanding of the U.S.-Korea relationship, bilateral relations, and major Northeast Asian regional issues. In view of Korea’s increasingly important presence as a global economic and political leader, Park will explore foreign policy strategies for furthering this presence. In addition, he will consider possibilities for increased U.S.-Korea collaboration in their relations with China, as well as prospects for East Asian regional integration based on the European Union (EU) model. He will also teach a course during the winter quarter, entitled Korea's Foreign Policy in Transition.

In 2010, while serving as ambassador to the EU, Park signed the EU-South Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in Brussels. That same year he also completed the Framework Agreement, strengthening EU-South Korea collaboration on significant global issues, such as human rights, the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, and climate change. Park’s experience with such major bilateral agreements comes as the proposed Korea-U.S. FTA is nearing ratification.

Park holds a BA and an MA in law from Seoul National University.

The Koret Fellowship was established in 2008 through the generosity of the Koret Foundation to promote intellectual diversity and breadth in KSP, bringing leading professionals in Asia and the United States to Stanford to study U.S.-Korea relations. The fellows conduct their own research on the bilateral relationship, with an emphasis on contemporary relations, with the broad aim of fostering greater understanding and closer ties between the two countries.

Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar becomes CISAC co-director

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On September 1, 2011, Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, a lawyer, scholar, and former official in the Clinton and Obama administrations, assumed the position of co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI).

An expert in administrative law, international security, and public health and safety, Cuéllar is Professor and the Deane F. Johnson Faculty Scholar at Stanford Law School, and is also professor (by courtesy) of political science. He is a longtime affiliated faculty member at CISAC and CISAC executive committee member. He has collaborated with or served on the boards of several civil society organizations, including the Haas Center for Public Service, Asylum Access, and the American Constitution Society.

Cuéllar has had an extensive record of public service since joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 2001. Recently, he served in the Obama Administration as Special Assistant to the President for Justice and Regulatory Policy. In that role, he led the Domestic Policy Council’s work on criminal justice and drug policy, public health and food safety, regulatory reform, borders and immigration, civil rights, and rural and agricultural policy. Among other responsibilities, he represented the Domestic Policy Council in the development of the first-ever Quadrennial Homeland Security Review, and coordinated the President’s Food Safety Working Group.

Before joining the White House staff, Cuéllar co-chaired the Obama-Biden Transition’s Immigration Policy Working Group. Earlier in his career, during the second term of the Clinton Administration, Cuéllar worked at the U.S. Department of the Treasury as Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary for Enforcement, focusing on countering financial crime, improving border coordination, and enhancing anti-corruption measures.

In July 2010, when Cuéllar left the Obama administration to return to Stanford, he also accepted an appointment from the President to the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States, a non-partisan agency charged with recommending improvements in the efficiency and fairness of federal regulatory programs. In 2011, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan appointed Cuéllar to the Department of Education's Equity and Excellence Commission, which will examine the impact of school finance on educational opportunity and recommend ways school finance can be improved to increase equity and achievement.

Cuéllar graduated from Calexico High School in rural Southern California, going on to receive a BA magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1993, a JD from Yale Law School in 1997, and a PhD in political science from Stanford University in 2000. Cuéllar clerked for Chief Judge Mary M. Schroeder of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 2000 to 2001.

Cuéllar joins current CISAC co-director Siegfried S. Hecker, professor (research) of management science and engineering and FSI senior fellow, in leading one of the country’s preeminent university-based research centers on international security and cooperation.

He succeeds longtime co-director Scott D. Sagan, who has led the Center since 1998. Sagan, the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science and FSI senior fellow, will continue as an important presence at CISAC and FSI, with plans to focus on policy-related research for the American Academy of Arts and Science's Global Nuclear Future Initiative, where he serves as the co-chair with Harvard’s Steven Miller. Sagan has been instrumental in building CISAC’s capacity as an international leader in interdisciplinary university-based research and training aimed at tackling some of the world's most difficult security problems.

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CISAC welcomes its 2011-2012 fellows

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The Center for International Security and Cooperation is pleased to welcome the 14 fellows who will be joining us in residence during the 2011-2012 academic year.

Aila MatanockA1lvarez">C.J. Álvarez, Predoctoral Fellow from the University of Chicago, Department of History. Policing the US-Mexico Border, 1848-1993.

Edward Blandford, Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow from CISAC. Safeguards and Security Strategies for Critical Nuclear Infrastructure.

David Blum, Predoctoral Fellow and Honors Program Teaching Assistant from Stanford University, Department of Management Science & Engineering. Probabilistic Early Warning Systems for National Security Crises.

Alexandre Debs, Stanton Nuclear Security Junior Faculty Fellow from Yale University, Department of Political Science. Strategic Determinants of Nuclear Proliferation and Preventive War.

John Downer, Stanton Nuclear Security postdoctoral Fellow from CISAC. Transferring Technologies: Exploring the Security Dimensions of Tacit Knowledge.

Ryan Ellis, Postdoctoral Fellow from the University of California, San Diego, Department of Communication and the University of California, Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. The Politics of Critical Infrastructure Protection.

Robert Forrest, Postdoctoral Fellow from the University of California, Davis, Department of Physics. The Role of Accelerators in Our Nuclear Powered Future.

Robert Glass, William J. Perry Fellow from Sandia National Laboratories. Understanding Global Interdependency to Promote International Security.

Lonjezo Hamisi, Predoctoral Fellow from Stanford University, Department of Political Science. The U.N. Secretary General’s Interventions in International Conflicts. 

Toshihiro Higuchi, Postdoctoral Fellow from Georgetown University, Department of History. Nuclear Fallout, the Politics of Risk, and the Making of a Global Environmental Crisis, 1945-1963.

Reyko Huang, Zukerman Predoctoral Fellow from Columbia University, Department of Political Science. The Wartime Origins of Postwar Democratization.

Aila Matanock, Predoctoral Fellow from Stanford University, Department of Political Science. International Insurance: Explaining Why Militant Groups Participate in Elections as Part of a Peace Agreement.

Aila MatanockAEtpelopidas/">Benoît Pelopidas, Postdoctoral Fellow from the Monterey Institute of International Studies, Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Renunciation of Nuclear Weapons as a Historical Possibility.

Ting Wang, Postdoctoral Fellow from Cornell University, Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies. Research on New Regime to Solve Space Debris Crisis.

 

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Jeremy Menchik

Walter H. Shorenstein
Asia-Pacific Research Center
616 Serra St C331
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 724-5656 (650) 723-9741
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Shorenstein Fellow (2011-2012)
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Jeremy Menchik joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) from the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research is in the area of comparative politics and international relations with a focus on religion and politics in the Muslim world, especially Indonesia. At Shorenstein APARC, he is preparing his dissertation for publication as a book titled, Tolerance Without Liberalism: Islamic Institutions in Twentieth Century Indonesia, and developing related projects on the origins of intolerance, the relationship between religion and nationalism, and political symbolism in democratic elections.

Menchik holds an MA and a PhD in political science from UW-Madison and a BA, also in political science, from the University of Michigan. He will be an assistant professor in international relations at Boston University beginning in 2013.

Adama Gaye

CDDRL
Encina Hall
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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Visiting Scholar 2011-12
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Adama Gaye, author, political commentator, and scholar, from Senegal, has joined Stanford University this Academic year as a Visiting Scholar both at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and at the African Studies Center...He is working on the increasing economic and political relations between China and Africa. China has recently become Africa's number one economic partner ahead of the traditional Western nations States of Europe and the United States of America.

Gaye, the first author to have published a book, in 2006, on this newly growing China-Africa connections under the title: Chine-Afrique -Le dragon et l'autruche (Ed. L'Harmattan, Paris), has been monitoring this relationship since then, notably as a Visiting Fellow at Johns Hopkins University (Washington Dc) and at China's premier University, Peiking University.

A well-known African journalist, Gaye has been a regular commentator on African Affairs for Cnn, AlJazeera, France 24, Radio France Internationale, NPR, The Bbc, CCTV. He has written extensively on African Affairs for Newsweek, Jeune Afrique, Beijing Review; he is a former Editor of the London-based newsweekly, West Africa Magazine, Africa's oldest magazine.

Adama Gaye holds various university degrees, including post-graduate degrees from University Paris 2 and The Pantheon-Sorbonne. He obtained the coveted Oxford Diplomatic Studies Certificate and holds the China Senior Executive Management Certificate jointly delivered by Tsinghua University, China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) and Harvard Business School.

Gaye studied journalism at the University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar (Bachelor), in Senegal.

He intends to publish a new book on China-Africa while pursuing his other research interests during his tenure at Stanford. In addition to Africa's international relations, mainly with China, these include the unsteady democratic evolution of Africa and the renewed interests generated by Oil and Gas resources in the continent.

2011 Payne Distinguished Lecture: Improving Governance and Combating Drugs

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On October 3, Karl Eikenberry, the former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, will deliver this year's inaugural Payne Distinguished Lecture at Cemex Auditorium at the Knight Management Center.

The public address will be given in conjunction with a private, two-day conference that will bring to Stanford an international group of political scientists, economists, lawyers, policy-makers, and military experts to examine from a comparative perspective problems of violence, organized crime, and governance in Mexico. 

Cemex Auditorium
Zambrano Hall
Knight Management Center

641 Knight Way, Stanford, California 94305

Karl Eikenberry Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and Retired U.S. Army Lt. General Speaker
Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar Speaker Center for International Security and Cooperation

Beatriz Magaloni

Dept. of Political Science
Encina Hall, Room 436
Stanford University,
Stanford, CA

(650) 724-5949
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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations
Professor of Political Science
beatriz_magaloni_2024.jpg MA, PhD

Beatriz Magaloni Magaloni is the Graham Stuart Professor of International Relations at the Department of Political Science. Magaloni is also a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute, where she holds affiliations with the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). She is also a Stanford’s King Center for Global Development faculty affiliate. Magaloni has taught at Stanford University for over two decades.

She leads the Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab (Povgov). Founded by Magaloni in 2010, Povgov is one of Stanford University’s leading impact-driven knowledge production laboratories in the social sciences. Under her leadership, Povgov has innovated and advanced a host of cutting-edge research agendas to reduce violence and poverty and promote peace, security, and human rights.

Magaloni’s work has contributed to the study of authoritarian politics, poverty alleviation, indigenous governance, and, more recently, violence, crime, security institutions, and human rights. Her first book, Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and its Demise in Mexico (Cambridge University Press, 2006) is widely recognized as a seminal study in the field of comparative politics. It received the 2007 Leon Epstein Award for the Best Book published in the previous two years in the area of political parties and organizations, as well as the Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association’s Comparative Democratization Section. Her second book The Politics of Poverty Relief: Strategies of Vote Buying and Social Policies in Mexico (with Alberto Diaz-Cayeros and Federico Estevez) (Cambridge University Press, 2016) explores how politics shapes poverty alleviation.

Magaloni’s work was published in leading journals, including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Criminology & Public Policy, World Development, Comparative Political Studies, Annual Review of Political Science, Cambridge Journal of Evidence-Based Policing, Latin American Research Review, and others.

Magaloni received wide international acclaim for identifying innovative solutions for salient societal problems through impact-driven research. In 2023, she was named winner of the world-renowned Stockholm Prize in Criminology, considered an equivalent of the Nobel Prize in the field of criminology. The award recognized her extensive research on crime, policing, and human rights in Mexico and Brazil. Magaloni’s research production in this area was also recognized by the American Political Science Association, which named her recipient of the 2021 Heinz I. Eulau Award for the best article published in the American Political Science Review, the leading journal in the discipline.

She received her Ph.D. in political science from Duke University and holds a law degree from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México.

Director, Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab
Co-director, Democracy Action Lab
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Beatriz Magaloni Speaker Center on Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law
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Frank E. and Arthur W. Payne Lecture Series
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