Stanford University

Policy Analysis

January 2009 Dispatch - Are Global Protest Movements Becoming Regionalized? The Case Study of the 2008 G8 Summit

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Daishiro Nomiya
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In activist communities worldwide, globalization has had an enormous impact, both in the composition of activist groups and the content of their messages. At the same time, regional concerns are playing a significant role in the ways protests are organized, managed, and deployed.

Regardless of their location or their target, it is clear that protest campaigns have, on the one hand, become increasingly globalized. The protests that took place during the July 2008 G8 Toyako Summit in Japan offer a case in point. Approximately one hundred transnational activists flew into Sapporo, a city located near the summit site, and joined various civil and protest activities. Over a loudspeaker, they broadcast statements denouncing the summit meeting as “antidemocratic” and “discriminatory against the poor.” These activists were drawn from East, Southeast, and Central Asia, as well as Europe and North America, and they voiced correspondingly global concerns—for human rights, global peace, and democracy, and against inequality and poverty. These themes echoed those of other major global protests, including demonstrations that took place against the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization, the latter most notably in 1999 in Seattle. Indeed, protests of this kind represent what might be called an antiglobalization movement

On the other hand, global movements of this kind also appear to be organized on an increasingly regional basis. Though the activists who protested the Toyako Summit came from all over the world, and addressed topics of global importance, most of the participants came mainly from South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Given this apparent dichotomy, the question arises: Will global social movements become regional?

One could argue that global social movements are and will remain regional, at least for the time being, for two practical reasons. First, the costs associated with flight to activist hubs near protest sites can be expensive. Second, the amount of time spent in transition to the protest site becomes a burden. The time doubles when taking into consideration the time spent to return to the originating country. These factors can be prohibitive especially to those based far away, but are less burdensome to regional activists, thus making it easier for nearby protesters to participate.

While time and cost are no doubt a concern, they may not be as important when compared with the other factors. Language is among these factors. Cooperative activities beyond the national borders are on the rise, yet many foreign activists do not speak the languages spoken in the countries where they protest. They invariably rely on English, widely accepted as the “global” language. Yet the levels of English fluency differ among participating activists, and this is a key factor. With their English ability, activists from Europe and North America tend to communicate with others on an individual basis, while those from nearby countries often rely on interpreters, especially when discussions delve into the details of the planned activity and necessary arrangements associated with it. Typically, interpreters are group leaders, well educated and knowledgeable about regional and global issues—and these individuals facilitate most intergroup communication.

Preestablished ties and preexisting communication can influence negotiation and cooperation processes among activists. Global social movements tend to enhance crossnational cooperation among participating activists—that is, activists who come together from different countries often regroup elsewhere, building on their previous cooperative activities. In the case of the 2008 G8 summit protests, regionalization was very much at work. Several months prior to the summit, Japanese media activists planned a temporary umbrella organization called the G8 Media Network, which helped to accommodate incoming foreign media activists and arranged international cooperative activities during the summit. As it happened, the foreign activists and groups that interacted with the G8 Media Network were actually regional, originating mainly from South Korea and Hong Kong. Under the auspices of the G8 Media Network, these groups of activists arrived prior to the summit and stayed until it concluded. Afterward, the same media groups discussed the continuation of crossnational cooperation. Though technically foreign, the dominant actors and groups who sought to continue cooperative activities were, in fact, only from neighboring countries.

Looking more closely at participants in the global protest activities provides further insight into contemporary global protest movements. At the 2008 G8 Summit protests, two different types of foreign participants were on display—those who had prior ties to host activist groups in Japan, and those who did not. The former group could be described as professional activists, whose preestablished ties ensure that they have good knowledge of a given protest’s scheduled activities. The professional group also organizes its own plans of action, precoordinated with domestic groups. The latter group tends to be traveling activists, a more or less independent and unorganized collection of individuals who enjoy traveling the globe and joining the activities offered at protest sites worldwide. The professional activist group is often drawn largely from neighboring countries in the region.

Most global social movements feature participants from around the world. At the same time, signs of regionalization also exist, making most protests both global and regional in nature. One could claim that the future of global social movements is regional. But whether global or regional, it is vital that we continue to study the composition of global protest movements and their abiding impact on civil society.

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Larry Diamond: How to save democracy

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Larry Diamond
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Bush gave democracy promotion a bad name, Larry Diamond writes in Newsweek. The new administration needs to get it right.

The new U.S. President will face more than one kind of global recession. In addition to the economic downturn, the world is suffering a democratic contraction. In Russia, awash with oil money, Vladimir Putin and his KGB cronies have sharply restricted freedom. In Latin America, authoritarian (and anti-American) populism is on the rise. In Nigeria, the Philippines and once again in Pakistan, democracy is foundering amid massive corruption, weak government and a loss of public faith. In Thailand, the government is paralyzed by mass protests. In Africa, more than a dozen fragile democracies must face the economic storm unprepared. And in the Middle East—the Bush administration's great democratic showcase—the push for freedom lies in ruins.

In the past decade, the breathtaking democratic wave that swept the world during the final quarter of the 20th century reversed course. Making democracy work proved harder than bringing down authoritarian rule. And receptive peoples everywhere were alienated by the arrogance and unilateralism of President George W. Bush's approach, which associated "democracy promotion" with the use of force and squandered America's soft power. Advancing democracy abroad remains vital to the U.S. national interest. But the next president will have to craft a more modest, realistic and sustainable strategy.

It's easy today to forget how far freedom has advanced in the past 30 years. When the wave of liberation began in 1974 in Portugal, barely a quarter of the world's states met the minimal test of democracy: a place where the people are able, through universal suffrage, to choose and replace their leaders in regular, free and fair elections. Over the course of the next two decades, dictatorships gave way to freely elected governments first in Southern Europe, then in Latin America, then in East Asia. Finally, an explosion of freedom in the early '90s liberated Eastern Europe and spread democracy from Moscow to Pretoria. Old assumptions—that democracy required Western values, high levels of education and a large middle class—crumbled. Half of sub-Saharan Africa's 48 states became democracies, and of the world's poorest countries, about two in every five are democracies today.

This great shift coincided with an unprecedented moment of U.S. military, economic and cultural dominance. Not only was America the world's last remaining superpower, but U.S. values—individual freedom, popular sovereignty, limited government and the rule of law—were embraced by progressive leaders around the world. Opinion surveys showed democracy to be the ideal of most people as well.

In recent years, however, this mighty tide has receded. This democratic recession has coincided with Bush's presidency, and can be traced in no small measure to his administration's imperial overreach. But it actually started in 1999, with the military coup in Pakistan, an upheaval welcomed by a public weary of endemic corruption, economic mismanagement and ethnic and political violence. Pakistan's woes exposed more than the growing frailty of a nuclear-weapon state. They were also the harbinger of a more widespread malaise. Many emerging democracies were experiencing similar crises. In Latin America and the post-communist world, and in parts of Asia and Africa, trust in political parties and parliaments was sinking dramatically, as scandals mounted and elected governments defaulted on their vows to control corruption and improve the welfare of ordinary people.

Thanks to bad governance and popular disaffection, democracy has lost ground. Since the start of the democratic wave, 24 states have reverted to authoritarian rule. Two thirds of these reversals have occurred in the past nine years—and included some big and important states such as Russia, Venezuela, Bangladesh, Thailand and (if one takes seriously the definition of democracy) Nigeria and the Philippines as well. Pakistan and Thailand have recently returned to rule by elected civilians, and Bangladesh is about to do so, but ongoing crises keep public confidence low. Democracy is also threatened in Bolivia and Ecuador, which confront rising levels of political polarization. And other strategically important democracies once thought to be doing well—Turkey, South Africa and Ukraine—face serious strains.

This isn't to say there haven't been a few heartening successes in recent years. Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, has become a robust democracy nearly a decade after its turbulent transition from authoritarian rule. Brazil, under the left-leaning Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has also strengthened its democratic institutions while maintaining fiscal discipline and a market orientation and reducing poverty. In Africa, Ghana has maintained a quite liberal democracy while generating significant economic growth, and several smaller African countries have moved in this direction.

But the combination of tough economic times, diminished U.S. power and the renewed energy of major authoritarian states will pose a stiff challenge to some 60 insecure democracies in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the former Soviet bloc. If they don't strengthen their political institutions, reduce corruption and figure out how to govern more effectively, many of these democracies could fail in the coming years.

Part of the tragedy is that Washington has made things worse, not better. The Bush administration was right that spreading democracy would advance the U.S. national interest—that truly democratic states would be more responsible, peaceful and law-abiding and so become better contributors to international security. But the administration's unilateral and self-righteous approach led it to overestimate U.S. power and rush the dynamics of change, while exposing itself to charges of hypocrisy with its use of torture and the abuse of due process in the war on terror. Instead of advancing freedom and democracy in the Middle East, 2005 and 2006 witnessed a series of embarrassing shocks: Hamas winning in the Palestinian territories and Islamist parties winning in Iraq; Hizbullah surging in Lebanon and the Muslim Brotherhood surging in Egypt. After a brief moment of optimism, the United States backed away and Middle Eastern democrats grew embittered.

The new American administration will have to fashion a fresh approach—and fast. That will mean setting clear priorities and bringing objectives into alignment with means. The United States does not have the power, resources or moral standing to quickly transform the world's entrenched dictatorships. Besides, isolating and confronting them never seems to work: in Cuba, for example, this policy has been a total failure. This does not mean that the United States should not support democratic change in places like Cuba, Burma, Iran and Syria. But it needs a more subtle and sophisticated approach.

The best strategy would be to open up such places to the freer flow of people, goods, ideas and information. The next administration should therefore start by immediately lifting the self-defeating embargo on Cuba. It should offer to establish full diplomatic ties with Havana and free flows of trade and investment in exchange for a Cuban commitment to improve human rights. Washington should also work with Tehran to hammer out a comprehensive deal that would lift economic sanctions, renounce the use of force to effect regime change and incorporate Iran into the WTO, in exchange for a verifiable halt to nuclear-weapons development, more responsible behavior on Iraq and terrorism, and improved human-rights protection and monitoring. Critics will charge that talking to such odious governments only legitimizes them. In fact, engaging closed societies is the best way to foster democratic change.

At the same time, the United States should continue to support diaspora groups that seek peaceful democratic change back home, and should expand international radio broadcasting, through the Voice of America and more specialized efforts, that transmits independent news and information as well as democratic values and ideas.

In the near term, however, Washington must focus on shoring up existing democracies. Fragile states need assistance to help them adjust to the shocks of the current economic crisis. But they also need deep reforms to strengthen their democratic institutions and improve governance. This will require coordinated help from America and its Western allies to do three things.

First, they must ramp up technical assistance and training programs to help the machinery of government—parliaments, local authorities, courts, executive agencies and regulatory institutions—work more transparently and deliver what people want: the rule of law, less corruption, fair elections and a government that responds to their economic and social needs. This also means strengthening democratic oversight.

Second, we know from experience that these kinds of assistance don't work unless the political leaders on the receiving end are willing to let them. So we need to generate strong incentives for rulers to opt for a different logic of governance, one that defines success as delivering development and reducing poverty rather than skimming public resources and buying support or rigging elections. This will mean setting clear conditions that will have to be met before economic and political aid is doled out to governments.

The third priority is to expand assistance to independent organizations, mass media and think tanks in these fragile states that will increase public demand for better governance and monitor what governments do. This means aiding democratic professional associations, trade unions, chambers of commerce, student groups and organizations devoted to human rights, women's rights, transparency, civic education, election monitoring and countless other democratic activities. Ordinary people must be educated to know their rights and responsibilities as citizens—and be ready to defend them.

While Western countries have provided this kind of aid for more than two decades, economic assistance handed out at the same time has often undermined democracy efforts by subsidizing corrupt, abusive governments. Aid donors should thus strike a new bargain with recipients, telling them: if you get serious about containing corruption, building a rule of law and improving people's lives, we will get serious about helping you. Those that show a real commitment should get significant new rewards of aid and freer trade. Those unwilling to reform should get little, though the West should continue to fight disease and directly help people in dire need wherever they are.

Finally, the new president should keep in mind the power of example. Washington can't promote democracy abroad if it erodes it at home. The contradictions between the rhetoric of Bush's "freedom agenda" and the realities of Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, torture, warrantless surveillance and boundless executive privilege have led even many of the United States' natural allies to dismiss U.S. efforts as hypocritical. Thus the new president must immediately shut down Guantánamo and unequivocally renounce the use of torture; few gestures would restore American credibility more quickly. The United States should also reduce the power of lobbyists, enhance executive and legislative transparency and reform campaign-finance rules—both for its own good and for the message it would send.

Make no mistake: thanks to the global economic crisis and antidemocratic trends, things may get worse before they get better. But supporting democracy abroad advances U.S. national interests and engages universal human aspirations. A more consistent, realistic and multilateral approach will help to secure at-risk democracies and plant the seeds of freedom in oppressed countries. Patience, persistence and savvy diplomacy will serve the next president far better than moralistic rhetoric that divides the world into good and evil. We've seen where that got us.

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Proliferation of International Dispute Settlement Mechanisms: The Threat of Fragmentation vs. the Promise of a More Effective System? - Some Reflections from the Perspective of Investment Arbitration

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(From the introduction) For more than a decade, international lawyers and international relations scholars have been fascinated by an ever-increasing number of international courts and tribunals. These are producing more international case-law, thereby replacing the traditional scarcity of international law precedents embodied in a few celebrated ICJ and PCIJ cases. Today, there is a host of frequently highly specialized international dispute settlement mechanisms like the WTO Dispute Settlement Body, the International Tribunal for the Law of The Sea, the International Criminal Court, various investment tribunals acting under The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) Convention or other arbitration rules. All apply, interpret and probably ‘make’ international law. One question frequently raised in this context is whether these institutions contribute to the development of a single uniform body of international law or whether they make ‘their own’ ever more fragmented law. To the extent that they must apply specifically agreed upon rules, such as the WTO agreements, various bilateral investment protection treaties or the Law of the Sea Convention, etc., this is of course largely a false problem. In so far as they rely on common rules of international law, coherence vs. fragmentation does indeed arise and is a serious issue.

Scholars of international law have intensely debated these problems mostly under the heading ‘fragmentation’ of international law or ‘proliferation’ of international courts and tribunals. Gerhard Hafner has significantly contributed to this scholarly debate in a number of articles, and most importantly in a report prepared for the International Law Commission (ILC), which triggered the Commission’s work on fragmentation and was further pursued by Gerhard Hafner’s successor on the ILC, Martti Koskenniemi.

It thus appears appropriate to dedicate a few modest thoughts about these issues to a great international lawyer with whom I have had the privilege to work at the Department of International Law and International Relations at the University of Vienna during the last twenty years. Gerhard Hafner will understand that due to the space allotted in this liber amicorum, I must limit the scope of my remarks on fragmentation and proliferation to a specific subfield of international law. He will also appreciate that the chosen field is investment law and arbitration, which, in many respects, may be viewed as a test laboratorium of international law where many of the pertinent problems mentioned above have appeared in particularly visible form.

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Martinus Nijhoff Publishers in "International Law between Universalism and Fragmentation - Festschrift in Honour of Gerhard Hafner", J. Crawford/A. Pellet/I. Buffard/S. Wittich (eds.)
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December 2008 Dispatch - Democracy and Decentralization in Indonesia: Ten Years after Suharto

Authors
Christian von Luebke
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News
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At first sight, political turmoil in Thailand and the Philippines—repeated violent protests, impeachment battles, and military coups—gives the impression that democracy in Southeast Asia is on a downward spiral. One country in the region, however, has sustained a stable pluralistic democracy: the Republic of Indonesia.

In 1999, after thirty years of Suharto’s centralistic, authoritarian rule, Indonesia embraced far-reaching decentralization and election reforms. Within a brief period of two years, the Indonesian government reshaped its administrative architecture, including the devolution of local tax and service responsibilities to more than 400 district governments. In view of its deep-seated authoritarian traditions, beginning with Javanese kingdoms and sultanates, moving through Dutch colonialism (1619–1942), and ending with Suharto’s New Order (1965–98), Indonesia’s rapid shift toward democratic decentralization stands out as one of the most remarkable political transitions in recent history.

Particularly notable is the peaceful and competitive conduct of Indonesian elections. Over the last decade, local citizens have elected more than 30,000 local councilors and over 400 mayors, regents, and governors, with little violence or intimidation. High voter turnouts (around 70 percent) and high replacement rates of incumbent executives (roughly 40 percent) bear witness to rising electoral competition in local polities. While subnational elections display considerable flux, the upcoming presidential elections in July 2009 suggest continuity. The latest national polls, for example, predict a comfortable lead for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (49 percent) over his main competitor, Megawati Soekarnoputri (36 percent).

The institutionalization of democracy and decentralization, however, has yet to translate into substantive public sector reforms. Indonesia continues to score low in global governance assessments. According to Transparency International and the World Bank, Indonesia’s government ranks 126th (out of 180) in terms of corruption, and 129th (out of 181) in terms of administrative efficiency for business start-ups. With the introduction of regional autonomy, these governance problems have, to a considerable extent, been decentralized to hundreds of districts. Yet, despite formally uniform institutional settings, local governments exhibit vast differences in regulatory quality, administrative efficiency, and anticorruption measures.

What motivates some local governments to perform better than others? Implicit in this question, which stands at the center of my research, is the idea that local democracy is not only an end in itself, but also a means for improving government outcomes. The pronounced policy differences that arise in Indonesia’s district polities provide a good opportunity to examine the workings of Indonesian local democracy or, to use a different terminology, the political economy of local decision-making.

The findings from controlled case comparisons and subnational datasets suggest that policy variations are best explained by differences in government leadership. Good policy environments emerge primarily in cases where local regents and mayors, whose career aspirations are tested by direct elections, skillfully use their office powers to forge reform coalitions and supervise bureaucratic practices. Societal reform pressures that arise from local parliaments, business chambers, and nongovernmental organizations, in comparison, tend to be less significant drivers of good governance. While broad-based interest groups continue to struggle with collective-action problems, district council members seem more concerned with provincial/national party elites (and their party list positions) than with representing local constituencies. Thus, in Indonesia’s early stage of democratic transition, where societal pressures are yet to fully unfold, much seems to depend on leadership efforts to initiate, facilitate, and oversee government improvements.

Under what conditions, then, are local leaders likely to act in the public interest, rather for private gain? While direct elections provide basic incentives, the direction and strength of these incentives also hinge upon existing socioeconomic structures. Government leaders need to accommodate interests of powerful economic groups in order to secure support for campaign funding and co-investments in public goods. Whether these interest alignments result in unproductive rent-seeking and corruption, or in constructive government reforms, depends on the constellation and transparency of economic powers.  The more economic powers become concentrated in specific sectors, groups, and firms, and the less public-private interactions are monitored by local media, the greater the likelihood that leaders will pursue self-preferential and collusive strategies.

As a result, it is plausible to assume that a moderate economic concentration and strong media presence are conducive to better governance. At this point, only some districts fall into this category. But as globalization and communication technologies progress, local polities are bound to become more economically diverse and politically informed. With growing political awareness and increased incentives for better leadership, it is likely that Indonesia, over time, will see more public-private symbioses for reform and, thus, bridge the gap between well-functioning elections on the one hand and poor governance
on the other.

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Making Sense of Domestic Intelligence

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Gregory Treverton is director of the RAND Corporation's Center for Global Risk and Security.  Earlier, he directed RAND's Intelligence Policy Center and its International Security and Defense Policy Center, and he was associate dean of the Pardee RAND Graduate School.    His recent work has examined at terrorism, intelligence and law enforcement, with a special interest in new forms of public-private partnership.  He has served in government for the first Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, handling Europe for the National Security Council and, most recently as vice chair of the National Intelligence Council, overseeing the writing of America's National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs).  He holds an A. B. summa cum laude from Princeton University and an M.P.P (Master's in Public Policy) and Ph.D. in economics and politics from Harvard.  His latest books are Intelligence for an Era of Terror, forthcoming; Reshaping National Intelligence for an Age of Information, Cambridge University Press, 2001; and New Challenges, New Tools for Defense Decisionmaking, (edited,), RAND, 2003.

Frank Foley, a 2008-09 Zukerman Fellow, is a postdoctoral student in international security at CISAC. His research concerns counterterrorist policy and operations, the reform of intelligence and police agencies and the increasing role of judicial and prosecutorial actors in the field of security. His PhD dissertation, currently under revision for publication, is a comparative analysis of British and French counterterrorist policies, which argues that western states' different institutional characteristics and norms in the field of security are shaping their responses to Islamist terrorism, leading to divergent approaches to a common problem. At CISAC, Frank is analyzing the co-ordination of counterterrorist agencies within the United States, France and Britain, drawing on organization theory to explain why some countries achieve higher levels of inter-agency co-operation than others. He has also written on European Union security policy and on terrorism and community conflict in Northern Ireland. Upcoming projects include a review of the terrorism and counterterrorism literature for the International Studies Association's Compendium Project and an analysis of the forces shaping international co-operation on counterterrorism at both the diplomatic and operational levels.

Frank received his PhD from the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, and is a graduate of the University of Cambridge (MPhil) and University College Cork (BA, MA). He worked as a journalist in Brussels and as a researcher in Northern Ireland between 2001 and 2004.

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Gregory Treverton Senior Policy Analyst, RAND Corporation; Professor, Pardee RAND Graduate School Speaker
Frank Foley CISAC Postdoctoral Zukerman Fellow; PhD, Political Science and Social Sciences, European University Institute Commentator
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Network Analysis for International Relations

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Alexander Montgomery, a visiting assistant professor in 2008-09, was a postdoctoral fellow at CISAC in 2005-2006 and is an assistant professor of political science at Reed College. He has published articles on dismantling proliferation networks and on the effects of social networks of international organizations on interstate conflict. His research interests include political organizations, social networks, weapons of mass disruption and destruction, social studies of technology, and interstate social relations. His current book project is on post-Cold War U.S. counterproliferation policy, evaluating the efficacy of policies towards North Korea, Iran, and proliferation networks.

He has been a joint International Security Program/Managing the Atom Project Research Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He has also worked as a research associate in high energy physics on the BaBar experiment at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and as a graduate research assistant at the Center for International Security Affairs at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He has a BA in physics from the University of Chicago, an MA in energy and resources from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MA in sociology and a PhD in political science from Stanford University.

Emilie Hafner-Burton is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Politics at Princeton University and an affiliate at CISAC, as well as a visiting fellow at Stanford Law School. Formerly she was a predoctoral fellow at CISAC and an associated fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. She was at Oxford University as a Postdoctoral Research Prize Fellow, Nuffield College, and Senior Associate, Global Economic Governance Programme. She writes and teaches on international organization, international political economy, the global governance of gender, social network analysis, design and selection of international regimes, international human rights law and policy, war and economic sanctions, non-proliferation policy, and quantitative and qualitative research design. Her dissertation, Globalizing Human Rights? How Preferential Trade Agreements Shape Government Repression, 1972-2000, won the American Political Science Association Helen Dwight Reid Award for Best Dissertation in International Relations, Law and Politics for 2004-2005, as well as the Best Dissertation in Human Rights Prize for 2003-2004. Her articles are published or forthcoming in International Organization, American Journal of Sociology, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Feminist Legal Studies, European Journal of International Relations, Journal of European Public Policy, and Journal of Peace Research. PhD. Wisconsin.

Walter W. Powell is Professor of Education and (by courtesy) Sociology, Organizational Behavior, Management Science and Engineering, and Communication at Stanford University. He is also an external faculty member at the Santa Fe Institute. He is co-director of the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. He joined the Stanford faculty in July 1999, after previously teaching at the University of Arizona, MIT, and Yale. He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences three times, and a visiting fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna twice. Powell has received honorary degrees from Uppsala University, the Helsinki School of Economics, and Copenhagen Business School, and is a foreign member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences. He is a U.S. editor for Research Policy, and has been a member of the board of directors of the Social Science Research Council since 2000.

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Emilie Hafner-Burton Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Politics at Princeton University; CISAC Affiliate; Visiting Fellow, Stanford Law School Speaker
Alexander Montgomery Visiting Assistant Professor, CISAC; Assistant Professor of Political Science, Reed College Speaker
Walter W. Powell Professor of Education and (by courtesy) Professor of Sociology, Organizational Behavior, Management Science, and Communication, Stanford University Commentator
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US Civil - Military Relations and the Implications of the Private Military Contractors

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Thomas Bruneau is a Distinguished Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School. He has researched and written extensively on Latin America, especially Brazil, and Portugal. Dr. Bruneau has published more than fifteen books in English and Portuguese as well as articles in journals including Latin American Research Review, Comparative Politics, Third World Quarterly, Encyclopedia of Democracy, South European Society and Politics, Journal of Democracy, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Democratization, and Military Affairs.

In addition to his position as Professor in the NSA Department, Professor Bruneau was the Academic Associate for the curriculum in International Security and Civil-Military Relations from its founding in 1996 until 2002. Between 1998 and 2001 he served as rapporteur of the Defense Policy Board that provides the Secretary of Defense and his staff with independent and informed advice on questions of national security and defense policy.

He has three recently published books. He is co-editor, with Scott Tollefson, of Who Guards the Guardians and How: Democratic Civil - Military Relations (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006). His second book, also published by University of Texas Press, with CDR Steve Boraz, is Reforming Intelligence: Obstacles to Democratic Control and Effectiveness. His co-edited book with Harold Trinkunas, Global Politics of Defense Reform, was published by Palgrave-Macmillan in February 2008.

A native of California, Professor Bruneau received his BA from California State University at San Jose and his MA and PhD from the University of California at Berkeley

Stephen Krasner is a former director of CDDRL, former deputy director of FSI, an FSI senior fellow, and the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations at Stanford University.

From February 2005 to April 2007 he served as the Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department. While at the State Department, Krasner was a driving force behind foreign assistance reform designed to more effectively target American foreign aid. He was also involved in activities related to the promotion of good governance and democratic institutions around the world

At CDDRL, Krasner was the coordinator of the Program on Sovereignty. His work has dealt primarily with sovereignty, American foreign policy, and the political determinants of international economic relations. Before coming to Stanford in 1981 he taught at Harvard University and UCLA. At Stanford, he was chair of the political science department from 1984 to 1991, and he served as the editor of International Organization from 1986 to 1992.

He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (1987-88) and at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2000-2001). In 2002 he served as director for governance and development at the National Security Council. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.        

He received a BA in history from Cornell University, an MA in international affairs from Columbia University and a PhD in political science from Harvard.

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Thomas C. Bruneau CISAC Visiting Scholar; Distinguished Professor of National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School Speaker

Stephen D. Krasner

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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Emeritus
Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations
Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Emeritus
krasner.jpg MA, PhD

Stephen Krasner is the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations. A former director of CDDRL, Krasner is also an FSI senior fellow, and a fellow of the Hoover Institution.

From February 2005 to April 2007 he served as the Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department. While at the State Department, Krasner was a driving force behind foreign assistance reform designed to more effectively target American foreign aid. He was also involved in activities related to the promotion of good governance and democratic institutions around the world.

At CDDRL, Krasner was the coordinator of the Program on Sovereignty. His work has dealt primarily with sovereignty, American foreign policy, and the political determinants of international economic relations. Before coming to Stanford in 1981 he taught at Harvard University and UCLA. At Stanford, he was chair of the political science department from 1984 to 1991, and he served as the editor of International Organization from 1986 to 1992.

He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (1987-88) and at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2000-2001). In 2002 he served as director for governance and development at the National Security Council. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

His major publications include Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investment and American Foreign Policy (1978), Structural Conflict: The Third World Against Global Liberalism (1985), Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (1999), and How to Make Love to a Despot (2020). Publications he has edited include International Regimes (1983), Exploration and Contestation in the Study of World Politics (co-editor, 1999),  Problematic Sovereignty: Contested Rules and Political Possibilities (2001), and Power, the State, and Sovereignty: Essays on International Relations (2009). He received a BA in history from Cornell University, an MA in international affairs from Columbia University and a PhD in political science from Harvard.

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Stephen D. Krasner Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations and Former Director, CDDRL; Former Deputy Director, FSI; FSI Senior Fellow; Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Commentator
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Why Terrorism Still Does Not Work

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Max Abrahms is a PhD candidate at UCLA focusing on the interface of terrorism and international relations theory. Abrahms has published in International Security, Security Studies, Terrorism and Political Violence, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, and Middle East Policy. Prior to coming to Stanford, Abrahms was a research associate at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; a fellow at Tel Aviv University; a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy; and a commissioned op-ed writer on Palestinian terrorism for the Los Angeles Times. He has appeared as a terrorism analyst on ABC News, Al-Arabiyya, Al-Hurra, Al-Jazeera, BBC, CBS, CNN, CNN Financial, Fox News, National Public Radio, and PBS. Abrahms is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania (summa cum laude) and Oxford University, where he read his MPhil in International Relations.

Paul Stockton is a senior research scholar at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). He was formerly the associate provost at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, and was the founding director of its Center for Homeland Defense and Security. His research focuses on how U.S. security institutions respond to changes in the threat (including the rise of terrorism), and the interaction of Congress and the Executive branch in restructuring national security budgets, policies and institutional arrangements. Stockton also serves as co-teacher of the CISAC Honors Program, which assists Stanford seniors in writing theses on international security.

Stockton joined the faculty of the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in August 1990. From 1995 until 2000, he served as director of NPS' Center for Civil-Military Relations. From 2000-2001, he founded and served as the acting dean of NPS' School of International Graduate Studies. He was appointed associate provost in 2001.

Stockton is the editor of Homeland Security, a graduate text to be published by Oxford University Press in 2009. Stockton serves on the editorial review board of Homeland Security Affairs, the quarterly journal he helped establish in 2005. His research has appeared in Political Science Quarterly, International Security, and Strategic Survey. He is co-editor of Reconstituting America's Defense: America's New National Security Strategy (1992). He has also published an Adelphi Paper and has contributed chapters to a number of books, including James Lindsay and Randall Ripley, eds., U.S. Foreign Policy After the Cold War (1997).

From 1986-1989 Stockton served as legislative assistant to U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Stockton was Senator Moynihan's personal representative on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and was principal advisor to the senator on defense, intelligence, counter narcotics policy and foreign affairs. Stockton was awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship for 1989-1990 by CISAC. During his graduate studies at Harvard, he served as a research associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

Stockton received a bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College in 1976 and a doctorate in government from Harvard in 1986.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Max Abrahms Speaker
Paul Stockton CISAC Senior Research Scholar Commentator
Seminars

Foreign Investors in the World's Workshop: Legislative Battles and Factory Struggles in China

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This talk is an overview of the changing role of foreign investment in Chinese workplaces. Foreign investment inflows helped transform the Chinese industrial landscape in the 1990s. As ownership has become blurred and increasingly mixed between domestic-foreign and public-private in China, preferential policies and laws for foreign-invested firms have diminished. A more level playing field has raised the stakes for foreign business and led to their increased participation in national debates on labor legislation and legal protections for workers. This talk will focus on this new role for foreign investors and how it is changing Chinese laws and the Chinese workplace.

Professor Gallagher studies Chinese politics, law and society, and comparative politics. She is currently working on two projects. The first, funded by a Fulbright Research Award and the National Science Foundation, examines the development of rule of law in China by examining the dynamics of legal mobilization of Chinese workers. "The Rule of Law in China: If They Build It, Who Will Come?" focuses on the demand-side of rule of law through an exploration of legal aid plaintiffs in Shanghai, a four-city household survey on legal knowledge, attitude, and practice, and in-depth case analysis of labor disputes. The second project examines labor standards and practices in four Chinese regions. One goal is to find if there are diffusion effects in legislation, court behavior, and labor practices across different regions. Another goal is to look for evidence of a "race to the bottom" in labor standards and social welfare not between China and other competing economies, but within China's own domestic economy.

This talk is part of the Stanford China Program Winter 2009 China Seminar Series titled "30 Years of Reform and Opening in China: How Far from the Cage?"

Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room

Mary E. Gallagher Associate Professor of Political Science Speaker University of Michigan
Seminars

Exporting the Rule of Law: International Law and Development in Sudan

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Mark Fathi Massoud's research focuses on the development of law in volatile states rife with violent conflict. An attorney of the California Bar, he received his JD and PhD in Jurisprudence and Social Policy from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.

Massoud's current research examines tensions between international rule-of-law aid and local perceptions of rights in a divided society.

Massoud's dissertation, which he is revising into a book manuscript at Stanford, builds on the interdisciplinary tradition of law and society to examine the role of law in development. Taking Sudan as a case, it explores how government officials, civil society activists, and the international aid community all use law to construct and maintain their influence over society.

Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Mark F. Massoud

UC Santa Cruz

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CDDRL Hewlett Fellow 2008-09
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Mark Fathi Massoud was a CDDRL postdoctoral fellow in 2008-2009. He holds a JD and PhD (Jurisprudence & Social Policy) from the University of California, Berkeley, and he is currently Associate Professor of Politics and Legal Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Massoud's research focuses on law in conflict settings and authoritarian states, and on Islamic law and society. More information can be found at http://people.ucsc.edu/mmassoud.

 

Mark Massoud CDDRL Fellow Speaker
Seminars
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