The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) is pleased to announce that undergraduate senior honors student Yihana von Ritter was awarded The Firestone Medal for Excellence in Undergraduate Research for her outstanding thesis examining HIV/AIDS policy in Papua New Guinea. Von Ritter was presented with the award at a ceremony held on June 11 during commencement weekend at Stanford University.

Von Ritter, a political science major, spent the summer of 2010 on the Papua New Guinea island of Karkar, where she performed extensive field research. She interviewed over 40 government officials, medical personnel, religious and civic leaders, youth, and HIV positive individuals. Her thesis entitled "Between Hope and Despair: An Assessment of HIV/AIDS Policy in Papua New Guinea," underscored the fact that while only 1% of Papua New Guinea's adult population is AIDS-infected, a public health crisis is looming if preventative policies are not swiftly adopted.

According to her thesis co-advisor Professor Emeritus David Abernethy, Von Ritter's thesis received the Firestone Medal­--awarded to the top ten percent of honors theses in social science, science, and engineering--for its remarkable combination of social science analysis and informed policy advocacy.

"Von Ritter provides policy-relevant recommendations in her thesis to enhance interagency communication and encourage active government leadership (in Papua New Guinea)," said Abernethy. Von Ritter also worked closely with Francis Fukuyama, FSI senior fellow and CDDRL faculty member, who provided guidance and support during the thesis writing process.

Purun Cheong and Kamil Dada were both recipients of the CDDRL Undergraduate Honors Program "Best Thesis Award" for their outstanding research and policy-relevant scholarship. Cheong, an international relations major, critically evaluated the failed United Nations state-building efforts in East Timor in his thesis, "When the Blind lead: The United Nations in East Timor-Lessons in State Building."

After spending a summer conducting research in Pakistan, Dada, a political science major, wrote "Understanding International Democracy Assistance: A Case Study of Pakistan," a sobering account of democracy assistance to Pakistan. Cheong and Dada were both advised by CDDRL director Larry Diamond.

CDDRL congratulates the 2011 graduating class of CDDRL Undergraduate Honors

Students:

Purun Cheong

International Relations

"When the Blind Lead: The United Nations in East Timor- Lessons in State Building"

Kamil Dada

Political Science

"Understanding International Democracy Assistance: A Case study of Pakistan"

Sarah Guerrero

International Relations

"Automation Nation: Electronic Elections, Electoral Governance and Democratic Consolidation in the Philippines"

Ayesha Lalji

International Relations

"Unleashing the Cheetah Generation: How Mobile Banking Enables Access to Capital for the Poor in Developing Countries"

Lauren Swartz

International Relations

"Agribusiness as a Means of Economic Development: Case Studies of Chile and Mexico"

Ann Thompson

History

"The Other Side of the Coin: The US Military and Afghan Women in Contemporary Counterinsurgurgency Operations"

Yihana von Ritter

Political Science

"Between Hope and Despair: An Assessment of HIV/AIDS Policy in Papua New Guinea"

Ari Weiss

International Relations

"Israel: Managing Diversity with Democracy"

 Check out more photos of this event on our Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/StanfordCDDRL

The Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) hosted a conference on the democratic transition in Egypt on Friday as part of its Program on Arab Reform and Democracy.

A series of four panels explored a number of issues surrounding the transition to democracy following the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak. Prominent scholars from Stanford and other institutions participated in the conference.

Twelve Egypt scholars from American, Egyptian and European universities and think tanks convened in four panels throughout the day to discuss the revolution, the transition process, the changing political landscape and Egypt's future. The conference was co-sponsored by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies.

Panelists included Hoover Institution senior fellow Larry Diamond, history professor Joel Beinin, political science assistant professor Lisa Blaydes, CDDRL visiting scholar Ben Rowswell and CDDRL Program Manager Lina Khatib. They were joined by academics from Kent State University, Harvard University, Georgetown University, the University of Texas, Notre Dame University, the University of Exeter, the American University in Cairo and the Brookings Doha Center.

Each panel featured an introduction by the chair, followed by two or three 30-minute talks by panelists and a 30-minute Q&A session.

Emad Shahin, an associate professor of religion, conflict and peacebuilding at Notre Dame, opened the first panel with a talk that emphasized the role of the youth in charging the 18 days of protest that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak.

"In 18 days, this movement dismantled three pillars of Mubarak's regime-the security apparatus, NDP [National Democratic Party] and...the military," he said.

Samer Shehata, an assistant professor of Arab politics at Georgetown University, discussed the response of the regime to the protests and the reasons for its failure.

The second panel looked to the future, focusing on the Egyptian presidential elections scheduled for later this year. Speeches addressed the process of negotiations between the regime and opposition groups, the agenda for constitutional and institutional reform and political repression.

Panelist Jason Brownlee, an associate professor in the Department of Government at University of Texas at Austin, drew a parallel between the current situation in Egypt and the one in Russia in 1991. He described the liberal movement as "electorally weak" and said it experienced difficulty in maintaining momentum.

The third panel addressed political parties in the post-revolution landscape, including the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood party. Panelist Hesham Sallam, a doctoral candidate at Georgetown University, spoke on how the timeline for the parliamentary elections, currently set for this September, disadvantages newly formed parties and favors parties such as the Muslim Brotherhood.

"The speed of transition in Egypt  gives advantage to existing political parties by not allowing time for newcomers to organize," he said.

"The Brotherhood knows how to play politics where liberals have absolutely no idea," added Shadi Hamid, the director of research at the Brookings Doha Center.

Diamond described parallels with the situation in Iraq in 2004 and 2005.

"The liberals weren't good at organizing, had no mass constituency and got electorally crushed...but they had a constructive influence on the constitution making process," he said.

"We should look at this as an iterative process of several elections to come," he added.

The final panel focused on looking forward. Rowswell presented a new "Open Source Democracy Promotion" project, designed to provide Egyptian activists with an option for crowd sourcing constitutional negotiations.

"The best approach is for informed and engaged citizens to support the Egyptian activists...inspired by the opportunity Egyptians have given themselves but also inspired by what Egyptians have given the world regarding democratic state building and ushering in a new age of democracy based on mutual collaboration and participation," Rowswell said.

Hamid delivered the final talk of the conference, presenting his forecast for the parliamentary elections. He singled out newly formed parties backed by wealthy individuals as key players in the upcoming vote.

"The established political parties will do quite well, but also individuals with name recognition in their districts and those with resources will do well," he said.

Hamid cautioned against overly idealistic projections, given the disorganization of the liberal parties in Egypt.

"We have to be realistic," he said. "We wanted to think for a long time that once there was democracy, Egyptians would become fluffy American-style liberals, and we don't know if that is true."

"From the perspective of international actors doing democracy promotion, I think there's a distinction between encouraging Egyptians to make one choice over another," Rowswell said. "I think it should be ensuring that there is a choice to make."

Each year, CDDRL awards fellowships to four outstanding pre and post-doctoral students who are in the write-up stage or recent graduates from doctoral programs examining the fields of democracy, development, and the rule of law. Fellows spend the academic year at the Center completing their projects, participating in seminars, and interacting with the resident faculty and research staff.

The selection process was extremely competitive this year, as the Center received 95 applications to the program and awarded four fellowships to scholars whose research demonstrated significant depth and alignment with the mission and research programming at the Center. The scholarly community at CDDRL will be enriched and enhanced by the addition of two pre-doctoral and two post-doctoral scholars hailing from leading graduate programs in the United States. Fellows will be arriving in September to begin the nine month fellowship.

Please join CDDRL in welcoming:

 

Michael Albertus

Post-doctoral Fellow
Stanford University
Ph.D. In Political Science, expected June 2011
Research Interests: Political Regimes, Democratization, Autocratic Survival, Wealth Redistribution, Economic Inequality, Clientelism 
Dissertation: "Political Regimes and Redistribution"

 

Eric Kramon

Pre-doctoral Fellow
University of California Los Angeles 
Ph.D. In Political Science, expected June 2012
Research Interests: Clientelism, Distributive Politics, Democratization, Politics and Health, Political Economy of Development, Natural Resource Politics, African Politics, Experimental Methods
Dissertation: "Clientelism, Vote Buying and Democracy in Africa"

 

Reo Matsuzaki

Post-doctoral Fellow
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ph.D. In Political Science, expected June 2011
Research Interests: Civil War and Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Ethnic and Identity Politics, Comparative-Historical Analysis of Governance Institutions, East Asia
Dissertation: "Institutions by Imposition: Colonial Lessons for Contemporary State- Building"

 

Alexander Ruiz Euler

Pre-doctoral Fellow
University of California San Diego
Ph.D. In Political Science, expected September 2013
Research Interests: Inequality, Poverty, Democratization, Public Goods
Dissertation: "The Effects of Income Inequality in the Provision of Public Goods: The Case of Mexico"

 

On February 25 and 26, the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University, in partnership with the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, hosted a symposium titled, "Addressing the Accountability Gap in Statebuilding: The Case of Afghanistan." This event brought together leading experts, government officials, diplomats, practitioners, and academics to examine the problems of accountability, corruption, and election fraud that have risen in the wake of international statebuilding efforts in Afghanistan.

This unique forum allowed participants-both Afghan actors and members of the international community- who are heavily involved in building the institutions of the Afghan state, to participate in an honest exchange with their peers to surface challenges and generate recommendations to improve the practice of statebuilding moving forward. 

Panels were designed around the following questions: how to establish accountability in statebuilding, address electoral fraud evidenced in 2009 and 2010, manage powerbrokers who monopolize informal governance networks, coordinate anti-corruption efforts, and develop a political strategy for Afghanistan's future. What surfaced throughout these presentations and discussion was the issue of the "double compact" in Afghanistan-the failure of Afghans to self-govern and the failure of the international community to construct the institutions of a functioning state.

Participants proposed a new framework for governance that adopts a more participatory approach with the international community, Afghan government, and the public as equal partners in statebuilding endeavors. While challenges emerged there were also a number of key recommendations and strategies proposed  that can be pioneered by this influential group of policymakers and practitioners to ease the transition of responsibility to the Afghan government in 2014.  

The keynote address was delivered by former Afghan Minster of Finance and 2009 presidential candidate Dr. Ashraf Ghani, to an audience of more than 100 students and members of the local community. Dr. Ghani provided an honest and pragmatic account of the parallel and conflicting systems driven by the international community, which have given rise to systemic failure and corruption in Afghanistan.

"We are dealing with a crooked playing field," Dr. Ghani said recognizing that both the Afghan and international community were jointly responsible for this outcome. "When the field itself is crooked the nature of reform and change that we must initiate are very different. "

Dr. Ghani spent considerable time discussing the outsourcing of development to Washington-based firms that manage million dollar contracts and outsource technical work to foreign technocrats. This in Dr. Ghani's opinion does little to strengthen the internal capacities of the state, provide training opportunities to Afghans or allocate resources effectively to the general public.

Dr. Ghani stressed the importance of speaking honestly about these dysfunctions in the development system, "We need to start talking truth to each other if we are going to deal with this phenomenon. This double failure now is the genesis of the present."

Dr. Ghani channeled the sentiments of the Afghan public into the room by emphasizing the uncertainty that defines their lives. "Today it is the sense of injustice that drives conflict," Dr. Ghani said. "The level of conflict is driven by injustice. What Afghans yearn for is normalcy-the sense that the lives of our children and grandchildren will be better and what my generation endured will not be repeated."

The level of conflict is driven by injustice. What Afghans yearn for is normalcy-the sense that the lives of our children and grandchildren will be better and what my generation endured will  not be repeated.                    -Dr. Ashraf Ghani 

 Looking forward, Dr. Ghani advised that accountability mechanisms and feedback loops must be implemented to ensure that the necessary auditing and accounting mechanisms are in place to control corruption and ensure transparency. In addition, he called for one coherent system of rules that must be developed and agreed upon to govern development and prevent parallel systems from circumventing these rules. Finally, he advised adopting national programs that model the success of the National Solidarity Program, which reduced child mortality rates by 16%.

Dr. Ghani commented on the unique position that Afghanistan occupies at the crossroads of Asia, in the middle of "four huge hubs of change," China, India, Russia, and the Gulf. "A new regional era has to be created, if France and Germany could overcome hundreds of years of conflict we must create another sense of opportunity."

Dr. Ghani concluded by placing the hope and responsibility for Afghanistan's future in the hands of its younger generation, "We must talk about the generation compact in Afghanistan, our sons and daughters-both literal and figurative-are the source of growth and the source of dynamism...The women of Afghanistan, the youth of Afghanistan, and the poor of Afghanistan are the three numerical majorities that have been reduced to political and economic minority. Without investing in women, investing in youth and tackling the challenge of poverty, we are not going to have stability."

At the end of the two day symposium, participants collectively called for a comprehensive political strategy to facilitate the peaceful and legal transfer of power in 2014, which marks the end of President Karzai's term in office. With this important milestone in the near future, the international community remains committed to working with their Afghan counterparts to introduce political reform measures that will strengthen accountability mechanisms between the Afghan state and society. 

As Dr. Ghani eloquently stated at the end of his presentation, "We have to have an agenda of the future, we must engage in writing the history of the future."