Earlier this week, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University announced that Kathryn Stoner, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of the Institute, will assume the role of Mosbacher Director at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), effective September 15, 2021.

I am very pleased to welcome Kathryn Stoner as the new Mosbacher Director of CDDRL. Kathryn has been involved with the Center since its founding in 2003 and brings with her a superb record of scholarship as well as leadership at FSI, including a stint as CDDRL’s Deputy Director from 2010-2012 and as Associate Director for Research from 2004-2010. Kathryn helped to launch the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program in 2005 and has remained involved with the program over the years. She also helped launch our undergraduate Honors program (now the Fisher Family Honors Program) in 2005 and currently teaches our undergraduate class, Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. She has served most recently as FSI’s Deputy Director and has great familiarity with FSI and Stanford more broadly. I know you will join me in looking forward to working with her in this new capacity.

It has been my pleasure to serve as director for more than six years. During this time, CDDRL has shifted focus to meet the changing (and very challenging) conditions of global democracy. We have launched new research programs on American Democracy in Comparative Perspective, Arab Reform and Democracy, Global Populisms, Poverty and Governance, Turkey, Global Infrastructure, and World House, and training programs like the Leadership Academy for Development and the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders program. Additionally, initiatives that began at CDDRL like Taiwan Democracy, the Global Digital Policy Incubator, and the Project on Democracy and the Internet have since flourished in other parts of the university.

Our Center also continues to have one of the best faculties in the world for the study of democracy, development, and the rule of law and is internationally known for its work. It was a great honor to be Mosbacher Director in this particular period. Although I am stepping down from a leadership role, I am not leaving CDDRL and will continue my own related research activities there.

I want to pay special thanks to both the faculty and staff, students and alumni, and many donors who have made CDDRL into the institution it is today. The greater CDDRL community has been extraordinarily supportive of our agenda and has turned the Center into a sustainable and vibrant institution. I know that it is well-positioned to remain one of the country’s leading centers for the study of democracy in the years to come.