Stanford University

Climate Resilience and Local Governmental Policy: Lessons from Los Angeles and Tel Aviv

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The Visiting Fellows in Israel Studies program at CDDRL and the Environmental Social Sciences department of the Doerr School of Sustainability

present a two-day conference

Climate Resilience and Local Governmental Policy: Lessons from Los Angeles and Tel Aviv
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Los Angeles and Tel Aviv-Yafo are vibrant cultural and cosmopolitan centers characterized by significant demographic diversity. They are also home to disparate ethnic, religious, and cultural groups and are marked by stark contrasts in wealth and poverty. Despite their differences in size and geography, both cities face similar challenges in fashioning their responses to the anticipated adverse impacts of rapid climate change. To enhance climate resilience and ensure the effective implementation of climate policies, it is essential to consider not only the technical integrity of adaptation programs but also the socio-economic and cultural diversity unique to each city.

Studying these two cities side by side can shed light on how climate strategies can be adapted across scales and contexts. It can provide insights into navigating the complex interactions between central and local governments in designing climate adaptation programs. It can aid in prioritizing resource utilization to achieve the greatest possible reduction in climate-related risks. And, it can foster creative thinking about how equity-focused climate actions can be tailored to the unique needs, capacities, and values of diverse communities within each city.

Day 1 — Evaluation of Past Environmental Cooperation Initiatives


8:15 - 9:00 am — Breakfast, Gathering, and Registration

 

9:00 - 9:15 am — Welcome: Global Contexts – Local Action
 

WELCOME

  • Chair: Alon Tal, Visiting Fellow in Israel Studies, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, Stanford University


 INTRODUCTION

  • Kathryn Stoner, Mosbacher Director, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, Stanford University

 

9:15 - 10:15 am — Opening Keynote: Los Angeles and Tel Aviv-Yafo: The Urgency of Climate Resilience


PRESENTERS

  • The Honorable Nancy Sutley, Los Angeles City Council's Deputy Mayor of Energy and Sustainability
  • Noah Efron, Tel Aviv City Council member; Chair, Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipal Environmental Protection Committee

 

10:15 - 11:30 am — Panel 1: Water Management in Water Scarce Cities: Combatting Droughts and Ensuring Supply
 

  • Chair: Bruce Cain, Professor of Political Science, Director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West, Stanford University


PRESENTER

  • Felica Marcus, William C. Landreth Visiting Fellow, Water in the West Program, Stanford University


PANELISTS

  • Dror Avisar, Head of the Water Research Center, Tel Aviv University
  • Maya Crabtree, Director of the Environment, Forum of 15, Israel
  • Gregory Pierce, Co-Executive Director, Luskin Center for Innovation, UCLA
     

11:30 - 11:45 am — Break

 

11:45 am – 1:00 pm — Panel 2: Health, Trees, and Thermal Comfort: Urban Strategies
 

  • Chair: Neta Lipman, Professional Director, The New Environmental School, Tel Aviv University; Former Deputy Director, Natural Resources and Climate Resilience, Israel Ministry for Environmental Protection


PANELISTS

  • Eitan Ben Ami, Director, Environment & Sustainability Authority, Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality
  • Rachel Malarich, City Forest Officer, Los Angeles Public Works
  • David Pearlmutter, Professor, Ben Gurion University
  • Marta Segura, Chief Heat Officer & Director, Climate Emergency Mobilization Office, City of Los Angeles
     

1:00 - 2:00 pm — Lunch

 

2:00 - 3:30 pm — PARRALEL SESSIONS

Panel 3a: Financing Climate Resilience in Local Government
 

  • Chair: Blas L. Pérez Henríquez, Founding Director, The California Global Energy, Water & Infrastructure Innovation Initiative, Stanford University


PANELISTS

  • Tamar Zandberg, Director of Climate Policy Center, Ben Gurion University, Past Minister of Environmental Protection, Israel
  • Frank Benest, Lecturer in Public Policy, Stanford University; Past City Manager, Palo Alto, California (Invited)
  • Hanad Halabi, Israel Ministry of Environmental Protection, Climate Adaptation Division

 

Panel 3b: Preparing for Sea Level Rise – Local Strategies
 

  • Chair: Jeff Koseff, William Alden Campbell and Martha Campbell Professor in the School of Engineering and Professor of Oceans, Emeritus, Stanford University


PANELISTS

  • Udi Carmely, Architect & Urban Planner, Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality
  • Galit Cohen, Senior Researcher, Israel Institute for National Security Studies; Director, Jewish Climate Trust
  • Daniella Hirschfeld, Assistant Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, Utah State University
  • Eric Klinenberg, Helen Gould Shepard Professor in the Social Sciences, New York University
     

3:30 - 3:45 pm — Break

 

3:45 - 5:00 pm — Panel 4: Forest Fire Prevention, Cities and the Climate Crisis
 

  • Chair: Chris Field, Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies; Perry L. McCarty Director, Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University


PRESENTERS

  • Doron Merkel, Chief Scientist, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund (Israel’s National Forestry Agency)
  • TBA, Cal Fire
  • Stephanie Pincetl, Chair, UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability; Founding Director, California Center for Sustainable Communities, UCLA
  • Colin Price, Professor, Department of Geophysics, Tel Aviv University; Chair, Planet Zero Initiative

 

5:00 - 7:00 pm — Optional Tour: Stanford Campus Climate Resilience Strategy
 

  • Dr. Lincoln Bleavans, Executive Director, Sustainability Utilities & Infrastructure, Stanford University
  • Dr. Alan Launer, Director, Conservation Planning, Stanford University
  • Kristen Parineh, Director, Sustainability, Stanford University

 

7:00 - 9:00 pm — Dinner and Keynote
 

  • Moderator: Larry Diamond, Mosbacher Senior Fellow of Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and Professor, by courtesy, of Sociology and of Political Science


KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Return to top, click FRIDAY, MAY 30 for Day 2 agenda 

FAQ
 

  • Can I attend only one day of the conference?
    Yes. Please note this in your registration.
  • Will meals be served? What if I have allergies or dietary needs?
    Yes, we will provide all meals listed on the schedule. Please indicate in your registration what your dietary restrictions are.
  • Where should I park?
    The closest parking to Paul Brest Hall is the Wilbur Field Garage (560 Wilbur Dr, Stanford). Permits are required and enforced Monday through Friday from 6:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Please visit the Stanford Transportation website for information about parking at Stanford and how to pay for parking.
  • Can I bike to and from the conference?
    Yes! Stanford is a bike-friendly campus. Moreover, there are plenty of spots to park bikes all over campus.
  • Is there a cost to attend the conference?
    No. However, once you sign up, we expect you to attend.
  • I am coming from out of town. Where can I stay?
    Our top recommendations are the Sheraton and Westin, both on El Comino Real in Palo Alto.
  • I have other questions. Who should I ask?
    Email Aleeza Schoenberg, Israel Program Manager at CDDRL.
  • I am a member of the media interested in covering this event. Who should I reach out to?
    Please send an email to CDDRL Communications and provide your name, outlet, number of people you will be traveling with, and what equipment you plan to bring.
     

We are grateful to Tel Aviv University, The Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation, and the Jewish Climate Trust for their support in making this conference possible.

Paul Brest Hall
555 Salvatierra Walk, Stanford

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Developments in China and Japan-China-U.S. Relations

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15Jan2025 "Developments in China and Japan-China-U.S. Relations" Webinar event graphic featuring headshot photos of Akio Takahara, Thomas Fingar, and Kiyoteru Tsutsui

 

How stable is politics in today's China? Many observers inside and outside the country were stunned by the sudden dismissal in December of Miao Hua, the head of the powerful political work department of the PLA and a member of the Central Military Commission. Takahara will discuss the state of Chinese politics and look into what we can expect of China's response to the 2nd Trump Administration.

This webinar event is co-hosted by the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center Japan Program and the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco

 

Speaker:

square headshot photo of Akio Takahara

Akio Takahara is Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Tokyo Woman’s Christian University and former Professor of Contemporary Chinese Politics at the Graduate School of Law and Politics at The University of Tokyo. From April to July 2024, he is also serving as Senior Fellow of the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS). He received his DPhil in 1988 from Sussex University, and later spent several years as Visiting Scholar at the Consulate-General of Japan in Hong Kong, the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, Harvard University, Peking University, the Mercator Institute for China Studies, and the Australian National University. Before joining The University of Tokyo, he taught at J. F. Oberlin University and Rikkyo University. He served as President of the Japan Association for Asian Studies, and as Secretary General of the New Japan-China Friendship 21st Century Committee. Akio was Dean of the Graduate School of Public Policy at The University of Tokyo from 2018 to 2020, and Director of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development from 2020 to 2023. He currently serves as Senior Adjunct Fellow of the Japan Institute of International Affairs, Distinguished Research Fellow of the Japan Forum on International Relations, Senior Research Adviser of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development, and Trustee of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation. His publications in English include The Politics of Wage Policy in Post-Revolutionary China, (Macmillan, 1992), Japan-China Relations in the Modern Era, (co-authored, Routledge, 2017), and “How do smaller countries in the Indo-Pacific region proactively interact with China? An introduction”, Journal of Contemporary East Asia Studies, DOI: 10.1080/24761028.2024.2309439, 26 January 2024.

 

Discussant:

Thomas Fingar

Thomas Fingar is a Shorenstein APARC Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He was the inaugural Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow from 2010 through 2015 and the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford in 2009.

From 2005 through 2008, he served as the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and, concurrently, as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. Fingar served previously as assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (2000-01 and 2004-05), principal deputy assistant secretary (2001-03), deputy assistant secretary for analysis (1994-2000), director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific (1989-94), and chief of the China Division (1986-89). Between 1975 and 1986 he held a number of positions at Stanford University, including senior research associate in the Center for International Security and Arms Control.

Moderator:

Square portrait photo of Kiyoteru Tsutsui

Kiyoteru Tsutsui is the Henri H. and Tomoye Takahashi Professor and Senior Fellow in Japanese Studies at Shorenstein APARC, the Director of the Japan Program and Deputy Director at APARC, a senior fellow of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and Professor of Sociology, all at Stanford University. Tsutsui received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Kyoto University and earned an additional master’s degree and Ph.D. from Stanford’s sociology department in 2002. Tsutsui’s research interests lie in political/comparative sociology, social movements, globalization, human rights, and Japanese society. His most recent publication, Human Rights and the State: The Power of Ideas and the Realities of International Politics (Iwanami Shinsho, 2022), was awarded the 2022 Ishibashi Tanzan Award and the 44th Suntory Prize for Arts and Sciences.

 

 

Kiyoteru Tsutsui

Online via Zoom Webinar

Akio Takahara Distinguished and Visiting Professor Main Speaker Tokyo Woman's Christian University

Thomas Fingar

Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C-327
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 723-9149 (650) 723-6530
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Shorenstein APARC Fellow
Affiliated Scholar at the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
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PhD

Thomas Fingar is a Shorenstein APARC Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He was the inaugural Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow from 2010 through 2015 and the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford in 2009.

From 2005 through 2008, he served as the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and, concurrently, as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. Fingar served previously as assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (2000-01 and 2004-05), principal deputy assistant secretary (2001-03), deputy assistant secretary for analysis (1994-2000), director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific (1989-94), and chief of the China Division (1986-89). Between 1975 and 1986 he held a number of positions at Stanford University, including senior research associate in the Center for International Security and Arms Control.

Fingar is a graduate of Cornell University (A.B. in Government and History, 1968), and Stanford University (M.A., 1969 and Ph.D., 1977 both in political science). His most recent books are From Mandate to Blueprint: Lessons from Intelligence Reform (Stanford University Press, 2021), Reducing Uncertainty: Intelligence Analysis and National Security (Stanford University Press, 2011), The New Great Game: China and South and Central Asia in the Era of Reform, editor (Stanford University Press, 2016), Uneasy Partnerships: China and Japan, the Koreas, and Russia in the Era of Reform (Stanford, 2017), and Fateful Decisions: Choices that will Shape China’s Future, co-edited with Jean Oi (Stanford, 2020). His most recent article is, "The Role of Intelligence in Countering Illicit Nuclear-Related Procurement,” in Matthew Bunn, Martin B. Malin, William C. Potter, and Leonard S Spector, eds., Preventing Black Market Trade in Nuclear Technology (Cambridge, 2018)."

China and the World

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Julieta Casas

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Einstein Moos Postdoctoral Fellow, 2024-25
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Julieta Casas is the Einstein Moos Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University. She is a scholar of comparative political development, using original historical data to study state-building and democratization in Latin America and the United States.

Her research agenda examines how countries achieve effective democratic governance in competitive settings. In her book project, she traces the origins of bureaucratic reform to different types of patronage and identifies the conditions under which countries can significantly reduce the politicization of the bureaucracy. This research draws from an in-depth case study of the United States and Argentina in the nineteenth century and from the study of broad patterns in bureaucratic reform across the Americas. She will receive her Ph.D. in Political Science from the Department of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University in the Summer of 2024.

Other projects explore the first surveys of bureaucrats in the United States, assess the possibility of situating American exceptionalism in comparative perspective, and analyze how personnel management institutions affect policy outcomes. 

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Can Indigenous Political Autonomy Reduce Organized Crime? Insights from Mexico

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Rachel Owens
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Can indigenous communities ruling through politically autonomous institutions better protect against cartel takeover? In a CDDRL seminar series talk, Beatriz Magaloni, the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations, a Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and Director of CDDRL’s Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab argued that in Mexico, indigenous communities ruled by traditional governance have proven more resilient against cartel takeovers than comparable municipalities relying on state-backed security provision. 

Existing literature typically frames violence in developing countries as a manifestation of state weakness. But, in many areas of the world, organized criminal groups infiltrate the state, buying off intelligence, protection, and impunity. 

In Mexico, cartels infiltrate local governments by funding political campaigns, killing those who refuse to be bought off. In this context, the selection of leaders through conventional Western multi-party elections is an effective vehicle through which cartels can extend their influence. 

The capture of municipal political bodies is advantageous to cartels as it allows them to diversify their revenue generation. Access to intelligence, resources, and territory makes demanding regular payments and extracting natural resources far easier. It also allows cartels to gain discretionary power in the decision of who the state grants protection to or not. This bleak reality in which the borders between the state, organized crime, rule of law, and impunity are blurred elevates the urgency of investigating to what extent “opting out” of the state represents a viable alternative in the provision of security. 

In Oaxaca and other regions across Mexico, indigenous communities have the right to govern autonomously. In their traditional form of governance, known as “usos y costumbres,” local elections and political parties are banned. Authorities are instead selected through community assemblies, in which decision-making is highly participatory. Based on this traditional governance, a growing number of indigenous communities have established community police groups, which are detached from the state and constituted by local community members with little or no professional police training. 

Importantly, autonomous indigenous municipalities still receive state transfers and cannot be punished for opting out of the party system. In conducting extensive qualitative fieldwork, Magaloni sought to understand whether this traditional governance structure prohibits cartel infiltration and keeps communities safer. 

The team hypothesized that higher levels of cartel presence would increase violence – which they proxied with homicide rates. They expected less cartel presence and less violence in Usos (autonomous indigenous communities) relative to party-controlled municipalities. Lower levels of police corruption and better deterrence against criminal cells were also expected for communities ruled by Usos. 

The initial exploratory analysis showed that following the autonomous governance reform, Usos communities experienced a sharp decrease in violence. When the drug war began in 2006, these communities continued to see low levels of violence, whereas comparable municipalities suffered a sharp increase. 

Magaloni employed a variety of difference in difference analyses to control for possible confounders. Usos communities were compared to similarly sized, similarly indigenous communities. Using a geographic discontinuity design, Usos were also compared to municipalities just 1 km from the border of Oaxaca – those ruled by multi-party elections. The analysis controlled for opium poppy suitability and history of ancestral governance practices. 

The analysis confirmed that the more cartel presence, the more violence a community experienced. Across all models, the team was able to conclude that Usos communities saw significantly less cartel presence, fewer homicides, and less violence. 

Magaloni’s work highlights the state's limitations in creating order in circumstances where criminal groups have compromised it. It also suggests that in the context of these predatory regimes, indigenous political autonomy can serve as a powerful rampart to the corrosive presence of organized crime.

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Alisha Holland
News

Infrastructure, Campaign Finance, and the Rise of the Contracting State

Harvard University Professor of Government Alisha Holland explains how the advent of public-private partnerships has shifted politicians’ orientation toward infrastructure projects.
Infrastructure, Campaign Finance, and the Rise of the Contracting State
Sophie Richardson
News

The Global Dimensions of the Chinese Government Human Rights Abuses

Why have democracies failed in curtailing Xi Jinping’s human rights abuses? And how can they better insulate themselves from Beijing's transnational threats? CDDRL Visiting Scholar and former China Director at Human Rights Watch Sophie Richardson presented her research on the Chinese government’s deteriorating human rights record.
The Global Dimensions of the Chinese Government Human Rights Abuses
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Beatriz Magaloni, the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations, presented her latest research during a CDDRL seminar talk.

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Political Economy of the Financial Crises in Japan and the U.S. : 7 Lessons from Government Bailouts in the Heisei Financial Crisis & Lehman Brothers Collapse

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Banner image for October 12, 2023 APARC event Political Economy of the Financial Crisis in Japan and the U.S. featuring headshot of speaker Hirofumi Takinami

 

This spring, we saw the collapses of Silicon Valley Bank, Credit Suisse, etc., and now we are observing collapses of Chinese real estate giants: Evergrande, and Country Garden. Would be there another financial crisis? 
Now, it is highly worthy to review the ‘lessons' of historically recent financial crises with significant seriousness, which happened in the two largest economies, the United States and Japan.

During the 1990s-2000s, Japan and the United States each experienced the same type of financial crisis, notably triggered by the collapse of major financial institutions, stemming from the real estate bubble burst. Namely, the Heisei Financial Crisis and the Lehman Brothers Collapse.

Both were under the political-economic conditions of one of the largest economies in the world, as well as of an advanced democracy. Enormous shock happened politically, economically, and historically, due to these two financial crises.

Then, as the research question, what were the ‘lessons’ of the United States and Japan's financial crises, concerning crisis response through public money injection, from the viewpoint of political economy? Where is the ‘learning’ between Japan and the United States?
Also, as the related research ‘puzzle’, why the difference in speed between these countries to respond and recover?

Based on his Ph.D. thesis, Senator Takinami, an alumnus of Stanford APARC, will elaborate on these issues by covering up and amending Hoshi & Kashyap(2010), thus establishing ‘7 lessons’ throughout the Japan and the United States financial crises on government bailout from the political economy viewpoint.

 

Speaker

Square photo portrait of Hirofumi Takinami

Hirofumi Takinami (Ph.D.) is an Upper House Member of the Japanese Parliament, corresponding to a Senator in the U.S. He is a former Vice-Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry, and also a former Vising Scholar, APARC, Stanford University. 

Dr. Takinami covers a wide range of policies, including not only energy, environment, and finance, but also innovation, infrastructure, welfare for the disabled, etc. He has been the Director of the Fisheries Division of LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) from last year.

Before starting his political career 10 years ago, he was a Director of the Ministry of Finance. During his about 20 years of service as a Japanese government official, he held management positions including Public Relations Director, and Deputy Budget Examiner at the Ministry of Finance. He also worked internationally, in charge of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) etc. 

He graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1994, earning a Bachelor of Law. He received a Master of Public Policy (MPP) from the University of Chicago in 1998. While in office as an upper house member, he obtained a Ph.D. in 2021 from Waseda University for the study on financial crises, which he started when he held research positions at Stanford University as a Visiting Fellow in 2009-2011 and as a Visiting Scholar in 2016. 

Questions? Contact Kana Igarashi Limpanukorn
Hirofumi Takinami Upper House Member of Japanese Parliament, Ph.D. , Former Vising Scholar, APARC, Stanford University Upper House Member of Japanese Parliament
Seminars

In Defense of the deep state

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The term “deep state” originally referred to the hidden security bureaucracies in countries like Turkey and Egypt with sinister overtones. The term has been applied by American conservatives to the existing permanent US bureaucracy, which they argue is exerting tyrannical control over citizens and needs to be destroyed root and branch. The fact is that the US administrative state is highly transparent and plays a critical role in delivering services and outcomes that citizens demand. Modern government cannot function without a high degree of delegation to bureaucratic agents; as such the US “deep state” needs to be defended and not vilified. There are several critical mechanisms for democratic principals to exert control over bureaucratic agents. While there are instances of bureaucratic over-reach, the US system provides a number of checks on agency power that are under-utilised. A separate problem lies in under-delegation, where political principals write detailed rules constraining bureaucratic autonomy in ways that hinder effective and timely government action. Future efforts by conservatives to undermine the “deep state” will result in grave weakening of American government and return the country to the 19th century patronage system.

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Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration
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Francis Fukuyama

Lodewijk L. Gelauff

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Deliberative Democracy Lab Postdoctoral Fellow 2023-25
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Lodewijk Gelauff is a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Deliberative Democracy Lab in CDDRL. He is an interdisciplinary scholar and received his doctorate in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford in 2023 with his dissertation on "Design and Evaluation of Online Technologies for Societal Decision Making."

In his work, he works with societal decision-makers to use and improve tools to engage residents or stakeholders in their decisions. As part of this, he managed the development and use of a few tools, including a video chat platform to facilitate small-group discussions without a human moderator and a voting platform for participatory budgeting that is used by dozens of cities in the United States.

In his recent work, he focuses on designing experiments and developing data sets that allow more in-depth analysis of how stakeholders use these technologies in practice. Lodewijk is actively involved as a volunteer with the Wikimedia community and was named the Wikimedia Laureate (a career award) in 2021 for his volunteer activities. 

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EPIC Workshop for Community College and High School Instructors: Famine in the Modern World

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Webinar Description:
The Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) and Stanford Global Studies (SGS) are excited to offer a professional development workshop for community college instructors who wish to internationalize their curriculum. The workshop will feature a talk by Stanford historian Dr. Bertrand Patenaude on the major famines of modern history, the controversies surrounding them, and the reasons that famine persists in our increasingly globalized world. Workshop participants will receive a copy of Dr. Patenaude’s book Bread + Medicine: American Famine Relief in Soviet Russia, 1921–1923 (Hoover Institution Press, 2023). Published in June, the book recounts how medical intervention, including a large-scale vaccination drive, by the American Relief Administration saved millions of lives in Soviet Russia during the famine of 1921–23.

Register at https: http://bit.ly/474cpK2.

Featured Speaker:

Dr. Bertrand M. Patenaude

Dr. Bertrand M. Patenaude headshot

Dr. Bertrand M. Patenaude teaches history, international relations, and human rights at Stanford, where he is a Lecturer for the International Relations Program, a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a Faculty Fellow at the Center for Innovation in Global Health (CIGH). Patenaude teaches courses at the Stanford School of Medicine as a Lecturer at the Center for Biomedical Ethics (SCBE). His seminars range across topics such as United Nations peacekeeping, genocide, famine in the modern world, humanitarian aid, and global health.

 

Via Zoom Webinar. Registration Link: http://bit.ly/474cpK2

Dr. Bertrand Patenaude Lecturer for the International Relations Program, a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a Faculty Fellow at the Center for Innovation in Global Health (CIGH)
Workshops

The Future of Governance, Media, and Civil Society

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Governance in California
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Governance is the way that societies make decisions and solve problems. Good governance is difficult when a society is divided in its values, when trust in governing institutions is low, when political participation is biased along various social lines, and when there is not enough reliable information and structured debate in the media. Complicating matters further, governments may not be able to reach important decisions when there are too many veto points that enable small groups to delay or stop decisions, regardless of their merit or public support. Finally, even after a decision is made, governmental agencies may lack the personnel and capacity to implement and administer policies.

While California’s governance system has solved many problems, its governance system suffers from significant challenges in many areas. These include: hard problems (with large-scale challenges associated with climate change, housing, poverty, and more), multiple veto points in public decision-making, partisan division, and polarization, lack of trust in institutions, biased participation in public decisions, and the need to accelerate the modernization and strengthening of civil service in state and local government.

SCENARIOS FOR THE FUTURE


The following are presented as four possible scenarios for California’s governance, media, and civil society future.
 

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A California 100 Report on Policies and Future Scenarios

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California 100
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Francis Fukuyama
Michael Bennon
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Environmental Litigation on Large Energy and Transport Infrastructure Projects in the United States

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Despite five decades of administrative practice and judicial development, there is a considerable gap in legal and empirical study on the impacts of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 (NEPA). Proponents of NEPA reform often claim that environmental litigation is a major obstacle for important federal actions. Others have studied the same issue and concluded that NEPA litigation is not a major contributor of project cost escalation or delays. This study addresses this gap by supplementing a data set of the largest 355 transportation and energy infrastructure projects in the United States which completed a federal environmental study between 2010 and 2018.

We observe predevelopment litigation on 28% of the energy and transport projects requiring an Environmental Impact Statement, 89% of which involve a claim of a NEPA violation. Of the major sectors, the highest litigation rate is in solar energy projects, nearly two-thirds of which are litigated. Light Rail Transit projects are litigated at nearly twice the rate of new highway projects and 2.5x the rate of highway improvement projects. Other high-litigation sectors include pipelines (50%), transmission lines (31%), and wind energy projects (38%). Energy sectors with higher rates of private financing have shorter permit durations, higher rates of litigation, and higher rates of cancellation but also higher completion rates relative to transport sectors, which have higher rates of public financing and lower rates of litigation, but extremely long permit timelines. Our findings shed additional light on the ways that NEPA impacts large, environmentally impactful infrastructure projects in various sectors in the United States.

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Environmental Law Reporter
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Michael Bennon
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