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*This event is at capacity and registration has closed*

Join the China Program at Stanford's Shorenstein APARC for a presentation by Hong Kong University of Science Technology Professor David Zweig covering his work on understanding the process of reverse migration of talent back to China. What he dubs “The Theory of Shortage.”

Drawing on surveys, interviews, and documentary searches, and employing both quantitative and qualitative methods, Dr. Zweig's presentation will show that a key to understanding the process of reverse migration of talent back to China was the returnees' ability to find a skill or a technology which was in short supply in China, thereby giving them a comparative advantage vis-a-vis locals who had not gone abroad in China's marketplace or in China's scientific or academic institutions.

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David Zweig

David Zweig (Ph.D., The University of Michigan, 1983) is Professor Emeritus, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Taipei School of Economics and Political Science, National Tsinghua University, Taiwan. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard in 1984-85. He lived in Hong Kong from 1996 to 2019 and now lives in New York with his family. Zweig studied in Beijing in 1974-1976 and did field research in rural China in 1980-1981 and 1986 and explored the internationalization of southern Jiangsu Province in 1991-1997. Since 1991, he has surveyed and interviewed returned academics, scientists, entrepreneurs, and employees all over China as well as those who have remained abroad. He has authored or edited ten books, including Internationalizing China (Cornell University Press). His most recent book, The War for Chinese Talent in America: The Politics of Technology and Knowledge in Sino-U.S. Relations was published in August  2024 in the Asia Shorts Series of the Association of Asian Studies, distributed by Columbia University Press.

Philippines Room, Encina Hall (3rd floor), Room C330
616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305

David Zweig, Professor Emeritus at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Taipei School of Economics and Political Science, National Tsinghua University, Taiwan
Lectures
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Headshot of Pascale Massot on a flyer for her talk, "China's Vulnerability Paradox: How the World’s Largest Consumer Transformed Global Commodity Markets"

"China’s Vulnerability Paradox,” recently published by Oxford University Press, presents an original framework to explain the uneven transformations in global commodity markets resulting from the dramatic expansion of China’s economy. At times, China displays vulnerabilities towards global commodity markets because of unequal positions of market power. Why is it that Chinese stakeholders are often unable to shape markets in their preferred direction? Why have some markets undergone fundamental changes while other similar ones did not, including uneven liberalization dynamics across markets? And what does this mean for current debates around critical minerals and economic security? At a time of deepening US-China economic tensions, this book provides an alternative, granular understanding of the interacting dynamics between the political economy of Chinese and global markets.

Join the China Program at Stanford's Shorenstein APARC for a presentation by the book's author on this critical topic for China and the world.

Pascale Massot, Associate Professor of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa

Pascale Massot is an associate professor in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. She is also non-resident Honorary Fellow, Political Economy at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis, and a Senior Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. In 2022, she was a member and adviser to the Co-Chairs of the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs’ Indo-Pacific Advisory Committee, which was tasked with providing recommendations to the Minister on the development of Canada’s Indo-Pacific strategy. She also served as the Senior Advisor for China and Asia in the offices of various Canadian Cabinet ministers, including the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of International Trade, between 2015 and 2017 and again between 2020 and 2021. She was a visiting scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing and at Peking University’s Center for International Political Economy. She received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

Philippines Room, Encina Hall (3rd floor), Room C330
616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305

Pascale Massot, Associate Professor of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa
Lectures
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Flyer for the seminar "Manipulating Authoritarian Citizenship: Security, Development, and Local Membership in China," with a portrait of speaker Samantha Vortherms.

Join Stanford's Shorenstein APARC China Program as we welcome Assistant Professor Samantha Vortherms from U.C. Irvine to discuss the findings from her new book, Manipulating Authoritarian Citizenship: Security, Development, and Local Membership in China (Stanford University Press, 2024).  In the book, Professor Vortherms examines the crucial case of China—where internal citizenship regimes control who can and cannot become a local citizen through the household registration system (hukou)—and uncovers how autocrats use such institutions to create particularistic membership in citizenship.

Samantha Vortherms, UC Irvine

Samantha Vortherms is an Assistant Professor at University of California, Irvine's Department of Political Science. She’s also a faculty affiliate at UCI’s Long U.S.-China Institute; Philosophy, Political Science, and Economic program; and a Non-resident Scholar at UC San Diego’s 21st Century China Center. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2017 and was a Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow in Contemporary Asia at Stanford University’s APARC. From 2014-2016, she was a Visiting Research Fellow at the National School of Development's China Center for Health Economics Research at Peking University. 

 

Philippines Room, Encina Hall (3rd floor), Room C330
616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305

Samantha A. Vortherms, Assistant Professor of Political Science at University of California, Irvine
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Andreas Wiedemann talk

Social housing has regained public attention amidst rising rent prices. In this paper, we examine how the partisan composition of city councils affects housing policies and permits for social housing. We construct a novel panel of all municipal housing construction permits in Denmark between 1981 and 2021 and combine it with information on local election outcomes. Using a close-elections regression discontinuity design, we find that social housing permits increase when Social Democrats win control of the city council. This effect was particularly strong until the early 1990s but has disappeared since. We then draw on data from administrative registries and electoral precincts to demonstrate that electoral realignment can explain this dynamic. We show that social housing residents have become economically marginalized and turned to far-right populist parties while social democratic voters have become more educated and likely to be homeowners. This maps onto the electoral losses the Social Democrats experienced in precincts with high shares of social housing. Our findings suggest that partisan considerations and electoral rewards help explain changes in social housing policies.

This event is co-sponsored by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and The Europe Center.

Speakers

Andreas Wiedemann

Andreas Wiedemann

Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University

Andreas Wiedemann is an Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. He studies economic inequality, redistributive politics, and political behavior in rich democracies.

His book, Indebted Societies: Credit and Welfare in Rich Democracies (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics), examines the political causes behind the rise of credit as a private alternative to the welfare state and the political consequences for economic insecurity and social solidarity. Indebted Societies won the William H. Riker Book Award and the Best Book on Class and Inequality Award, both from the American Political Science Association.

Wiedemann’s other work has been published in the American Journal of Political Science, the British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, and the Journal of Politics, among others.

He is currently working on the affordability crisis in housing markets and a new book project about spatial inequalities and democratic politics across rich democracies.

Soledad Artiz Prillaman

Soledad Artiz Prillaman

Assistant Professor of Political Science
Moderator

Soledad Artiz Prillaman is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. Her research lies at the intersections of comparative political economy, development, and gender, with a focus in South Asia. Specifically, her research addresses questions such as: What are the political consequences of development and development policies, particularly for women’s political behavior? How are minorities, specifically women, democratically represented and where do inequalities in political engagement persist and how are voter demands translated into policy and governance? In answering these questions, she utilizes mixed methods, including field experiments, surveys, and in-depth qualitative fieldwork. She received her Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University in 2017 and a B.A. in Political Science and Economics from Texas A&M University in 2011.

Alex Mierke-Zatwarnicki

Alex Mierke-Zatwarnicki

CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow, 2024-25
Discussant

Alex Mierke-Zatwarnicki is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University. She holds a Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University and was previously a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute.

Alex’s work focuses on political parties and group identity in Western Europe, in macro-historical perspective. A core theme of her research is understanding how different patterns of political and social organization combine to shape the ‘arena’ of electoral politics and the opportunity space for new competitors.

In her ongoing book project, Alex studies the different ways in which outsider parties articulate group identities and invoke narratives of social conflict in order to gain a foothold in electoral competition. Empirically, the project employs a mixed-methods approach — including qualitative case studies and quantitative text analysis — to compare processes of party-building and entry across five distinct ‘episodes’ of party formation in Western Europe: early twentieth-century socialists, interwar fascists, green and ethno-regionalist parties in the post-war period, and the contemporary far right.

Soledad Artiz Prillaman
Alex Mierke-Zatwarnicki
Alex Mierke-Zantwarnicki


In-person: Reuben Hills Conference Room (Encina Hall, Second Floor, East Wing, 616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford)

Online: Via Zoom

Andreas B. Wiedemann
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Join Stanford's Shorenstein APARC China Program as we welcome Professor Rory Truex from Princeton University to present his recent survey findings on the evolving perspectives of U.S. foreign policy professionals toward China. Based on a survey of nearly 500 professionals and over 50 in-depth interviews, the research reveals a spectrum of policy opinions, alongside a concerning trend of "groupthink" that often shifts discussions toward more hawkish stances. Professor Truex will explore how career and reputational pressures influence these dynamics, shedding light on the shaping of China-related discourse within Washington’s foreign policy circles.

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Rory Truex headshot

Rory Truex is an Associate Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. His research focuses on Chinese politics and authoritarian systems. In 2021 he received the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching, the highest teaching honor at Princeton. He currently resides in Philadelphia.

Philippines Room, Encina Hall (3rd floor), Room C330
616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305

Rory Truex, Associate Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University
Lectures
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Didi Kuo book launch

Once a centralizing force of the democratic process, political parties have eroded over the past fifty years. In her forthcoming book, The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don't, Didi Kuo explores the development of political parties as democracy expanded across the West in the nineteenth century. While parties have become professionalized and nationalized, they have lost the robust organizational density that made them effective representatives. After the Cold War, the combination of a neoliberal economic consensus, changes to campaign finance, and shifting party priorities weakened the party systems of Western democracies. In order for democracy to adapt to a new era of global capitalism, The Great Retreat makes the case for stronger parties in the form of socially embedded institutions with deep connections to communities and citizens.

Kuo will give a brief talk about the book before being joined by Jake Grumbach, Julia Azari, and Bruce Cain for a panel discussion.

speakers

Didi Kuo

Didi Kuo

Center Fellow, FSI
Full bio

Didi Kuo is a Center Fellow at the Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. Her research interests include democratization, political parties, state-building, and the political economy of representation. She is the author of The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave - and Why They Don't (Oxford University Press) and Clientelism, Capitalism, and Democracy: the Rise of Programmatic Politics in the United States and Britain (Cambridge University Press 2018). She was an Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fellow at New America, is a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and is an adjunct fellow at the Niskanen Center.
 

Jacob Grumbach stanfing in front of wall of leaves

Jake Grumbach

Associate Professor, Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley
Panelist

Jake Grumbach is an associate professor at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley. He was previously associate professor of political science at the University of Washington and a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton.

He studies the political economy of the United States, with interests in democratic institutions, labor, federalism, racial and economic inequality, and statistical methods. His book, Laboratories Against Democracy (Princeton University Press 2022), investigates the causes and consequences of the nationalization of state politics.

Before graduate school, he earned a B.A. from Columbia University and worked as a public health researcher. Outside of academia, he's a nerd for 70s funk/soul and 90s hip hop, as well as a Warriors fan.
 

Julia Azari

Julia Azari

Professor of Political Science, Marquette University
Panelist

Julia Azari is Professor of Political Science at Marquette University. An active public-facing scholar, she has published commentary on presidential and party politics in FiveThirtyEight, Politico, Vox, The New York Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC, and The Guardian.

Her scholarly work has appeared in journals such as The Forum, Perspectives on Politics, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Foreign Affairs, and Social Science History. She has contributed invited chapters to books published by the University Press of Kansas, University of Pennsylvania Press, Cambridge University Press, and University of Edinburgh Press. Azari is the author of Delivering the People’s Message: The Changing Politics of the Presidential Mandate (Cornell, 2014), coeditor of The Presidential Leadership Dilemma (SUNY, 2013), and co-editor of The Trump Legacy (under contract, University Press of Kansas).
 

Bruce Cain

Bruce Cain

Charles Louis Ducommun Professor, Humanities and Sciences; Director, Bill Lane Center for the American West; and Professor, Political Science
Moderator
full bio

Bruce E. Cain is a Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and Director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West. He received a BA from Bowdoin College (1970), a B Phil. from Oxford University (1972) as a Rhodes Scholar, and a Ph D from Harvard University (1976). He taught at Caltech (1976-89) and UC Berkeley (1989-2012) before coming to Stanford. Professor Cain was Director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley from 1990-2007 and Executive Director of the UC Washington Center from 2005-2012. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000 and has won awards for his research (Richard F. Fenno Prize, 1988), teaching (Caltech, 1988 and UC Berkeley, 2003), and public service (Zale Award for Outstanding Achievement in Policy Research and Public Service, 2000). His areas of expertise include political regulation, applied democratic theory, representation, and state politics. Some of Professor Cain’s most recent publications include “Malleable Constitutions: Reflections on State Constitutional Design,” coauthored with Roger Noll in University of Texas Law Review, volume 2, 2009; “More or Less: Searching for Regulatory Balance,” in Race, Reform and the Political Process, edited by Heather Gerken, Guy Charles and Michael Kang, CUP, 2011; and “Redistricting Commissions: A Better Political Buffer?” in The Yale Law Journal, volume 121, 2012. He is currently working on a book about political reform in the US.
 

Bruce E. Cain

In-person: William J. Perry Conference Room (Encina Hall, 2nd floor, 616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford)

Online: Via Zoom

Encina Hall, C150
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305

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Center Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
didi_kuo_2023.jpg

Didi Kuo is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University. She is a scholar of comparative politics with a focus on democratization, corruption and clientelism, political parties and institutions, and political reform. She is the author of The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don’t (Oxford University Press, forthcoming) and Clientelism, Capitalism, and Democracy: the rise of programmatic politics in the United States and Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

She has been at Stanford since 2013 as the manager of the Program on American Democracy in Comparative Perspective and is co-director of the Fisher Family Honors Program at CDDRL. She was an Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fellow at New America and is a non-resident fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She received a PhD in political science from Harvard University, an MSc in Economic and Social History from Oxford University, where she studied as a Marshall Scholar, and a BA from Emory University.

Didi Kuo
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Registration for this event is now closed.

A Conversation with Leopoldo López: How to Defend Democracy and Fight Autocracy

Join us for an inspiring conversation with Leopoldo López, General Secretary of the World Liberty Congress, Venezuelan opposition leader, and pro-democracy activist. In this talk, López will reflect on his recent TED Talk, where he passionately advocated for defending democracy worldwide and resisting the rise of autocratic regimes.

According to López, seventy-two percent of the world's population lives under some form of autocratic rule. Drawing from his harrowing personal experience of imprisonment, house arrest, and eventual exile for opposing Nicolás Maduro's regime in Venezuela, he will share his vision for uniting global efforts to champion freedom and push back against authoritarianism.

This event is co-sponsored by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), CDDRL's Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab, and the Stanford Society for Latin American Politics.

Speakers

Leopoldo Lopez

Leopoldo López

General Secretary of the World Liberty Congress, Venezuelan opposition leader, and pro-democracy activist

Leopoldo López is a Venezuelan opposition leader and pro-democracy activist. He was the 2018 Robert G. Wesson Lecturer in International Relations Theory and Practice at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He founded the Venezuelan opposition party Voluntad Popular and served as mayor of the Chacao municipality in Caracas. 

In 2014, Leopoldo was arrested on trumped-up charges for leading peaceful, nationwide protests denouncing Nicolás Maduro’s regime. After a 19-month show trial, he was sentenced to nearly 14 years in prison.

He spent the first four years in solitary confinement in a military prison. He was subsequently placed under house arrest as a result of international pressure and outrage within Venezuela. Amnesty International named him a prisoner of conscience in 2015. Leopoldo escaped house arrest and was hosted at the Spanish embassy in Caracas. After a daring escape from Venezuela in October 2020, Leopoldo was reunited with his family in Spain, where he now lives in exile.

Today, he continues to be a leading voice in calling for democracy not only in Venezuela but also across the globe. Leopoldo is a co-founder of the World Liberty Congress, which he strongly believes will be instrumental in unifying pro-democracy and human rights activists to combat the global trend toward authoritarianism.

Ismar Marte

Isamar Marte, '26

President, Stanford Society for Latin American Politics (SSLAP)
Moderator

Isamar Marte is the president of the Stanford Society for Latin American Politics (SSLAP). She is an undergraduate student majoring in Economics and double minoring in Data Science and Education. Inspired by her experience growing up in the Dominican Republic, her main interests stand in the intersection between policy, education, and development.

Isamar Marte, '26

William J. Perry Conference Room (Encina Hall, 2nd floor, 616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford)

Leopoldo López
Lectures
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Federico Fabbrini book talk

Professor Federico Fabbrini will discuss his new book, which examines the EU’s responses to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. From a legal perspective, Fabbrini evaluates how the EU has addressed the conflict and identifies options for improving the EU’s constitutional set-up amidst growing geopolitical challenges and risks.

In his book, Fabbrini analyses the EU’s response to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, particularly focusing on how the EU (a peacetime organization) has adapted to the challenges posed by war. From a legal perspective, it examines EU action across five policy areas: 

  • Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP)

  • Fiscal and Economic Policy Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ)

  • Energy and Industrial Policy

  • EU Enlargement and Reform 


The author argues that the EU’s constitutional framework proved flexible enough to enable unprecedented institutional responses to the conflict. However, the book also addresses how structural shortcomings in the EU’s constitution have, in some cases, hampered the EU’s response, while in others, they have occasionally failed to sufficiently constrain EU action. 

The book concludes by exploring potential reforms to the EU’s constitutional set-up, emphasizing the need for improvement in a time of ever-greater geopolitical risks.

This event is co-sponsored by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, the Stanford Program in International and Comparative Law, and the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation.

speakers

Federico Fabbrini

Federico Fabbrini

Full Professor of European Law at the School of Law & Government of DCU and Founding Director of the Brexit Institute and the Dublin European Law Institute (DELI)
full bio

Federico Fabbrini is Full Professor of European Law at the School of Law & Government of DCU, the Founding Director of the Brexit Institute and of the Dublin European Law Institute (DELI). He holds a PhD in Law from the European University Institute and previously held academic positions in the Netherlands and Denmark. He has been a Fellow in Law & Public Affairs at Princeton University and a Fernand Braudel Fellow at the European University Institute.

Portrait of Hesham Sallam

Hesham Sallam

Senior Research Scholar and Associate Director for Research, CDDRL
Moderator
Full bio

Hesham Sallam is a Senior Research Scholar at CDDRL, where he serves as Associate Director for Research. He is also Associate Director of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy. Sallam is co-editor of Jadaliyya ezine and a former program specialist at the U.S. Institute of Peace. His research focuses on political and social development in the Arab World. Sallam’s research has previously received the support of the Social Science Research Council and the U.S. Institute of Peace. He is author of Classless Politics: Islamist Movements, the Left, and Authoritarian Legacies in Egypt (Columbia University Press, 2022), co-editor of Struggles for Political Change in the Arab World (University of Michigan Press, 2022), and editor of Egypt's Parliamentary Elections 2011-2012: A Critical Guide to a Changing Political Arena (Tadween Publishing, 2013). Sallam received a Ph.D. in Government (2015) and an M.A. in Arab Studies (2006) from Georgetown University, and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Pittsburgh (2003).

Hesham Sallam
Hesham Sallam

In-person: William J. Perry Conference Room (Encina Hall, 2nd floor, 616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford)

Online: Via Zoom

Federico Fabbrini
Lectures
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Tiejun Yu Talk Poster Cropped

 

The Asia-Pacific is witnessing a rapid reconfiguration of alliances, with profound implications for China-U.S. relations and regional security and stability.

On one side, the U.S. has been strengthening its hub-and-spoke alliance system in this region while creating new alliances like AUKUS. On another side, Russia and the DPRK have fundamentally improved their security cooperation during the Russia-Ukraine War. All this while China is caught between its deep worry about what it perceives as an Asia-Pacific version of NATO and its reluctant entanglement in the Russia-DPRK Pact.

How is China navigating this complex and evolving landscape?

The China Program at Stanford’s Shorenstein APARC welcomes Prof Yu Tiejun to cover these new developments and analyze the perils of alliance dilemma in the Asia-Pacific region.

Yu Tiejun is APARC's China Policy Fellow for the 2024 fall quarter. He currently serves as President of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies (IISS) and Professor at the School of International Studies (SIS), all at Peking University (PKU). Previously, he studied at the University of Tokyo in 1998-2000. He served as visiting fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University in 2005, and also as visiting scholar at the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University in 2005/6.

Philippines Room, Encina Hall (3rd floor), Room C330
616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305

Tiejun Yu, President of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies (IISS) at Peking University and Visiting Scholar at APARC
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Maria Machado event

This past summer, Venezuela's presidential election was overshadowed by Nicolás Maduro's attempt at large-scale electoral fraud. Despite these efforts, the Venezuelan democratic movement successfully provided evidence showing that their candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, had won with nearly 70% of the vote. In response, the Maduro regime has escalated its repression of opposition leaders and advocates of democratic reforms, deepening political tensions and raising serious concerns about the country's democratic future.

On Monday, November 18, the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is honored to host María Corina Machado, the leader of the Venezuelan pro-democracy movement and the main architect of the July 28 electoral victory, for a video address to the Stanford community sharing her experiences and perspectives on sustaining democratic resilience in the face of authoritarianism. The conversation will be moderated by Larry Diamond, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). Together, they will explore Venezuela’s current political challenges, the critical role of civic engagement, and strategies for fostering democratic transitions in restrictive environments.

The event will conclude with an interactive Q&A session, allowing students, faculty, and the greater Stanford community to engage directly with Ms. Machado and gain deeper insights into her experiences.

This event is co-sponsored by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Neukom Center for the Rule of Law.

speakers

María Carina Machado

María Corina Machado

Leader of the Democratic Movement in Venezuela

María Corina Machado is the leading figure of the Venezuelan democratic movement and was the central architect of the historic victory of Edmundo González in the July 28th, 2024, presidential election. Her leadership and vision unified Venezuela's pro-democracy forces during a pivotal moment in the country's history.

Machado won the Venezuelan opposition primaries on October 22nd, 2023, with an overwhelming 92.35% of the vote. Despite her landslide victory, she was illegally disqualified from running by the regime in a blatant move to undermine the democratic process. Undeterred, she continues to lead the fight for freedom and democracy in Venezuela, inspiring millions to stand up against authoritarianism.

Her tireless work in the face of adversity has made her a symbol of hope and resistance for Venezuelans and a crucial voice in the global conversation on democracy and human rights.

Machado holds a degree in Industrial Engineering from the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello (UCAB) and a specialization in Finance from the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración (IESA). She has also taught Human Resources Management in the Industrial Engineering Department at UCAB. In 2009, she participated in the prestigious World Fellows Program at Yale University. She is the recipient of the 2024 Sakharov Prize, presented by the European Parliament, and the 2024 Václav Havel Human Rights Prize, presented by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg.

Machado is also the founder and national coordinator of the political movement Vente Venezuela and co-founder of the Venezuelan civil association Súmate.

Professor Larry Diamond

Larry Diamond

Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI)

Larry Diamond is William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. His research focuses on global trends affecting freedom and democracy, and U.S. and international policies to advance democracy and counter authoritarian influence. He was the founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy and he remains a consultant to the National Endowment for Democracy. Among his books is Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency.

Larry Diamond
Larry Diamond

Hauck Auditorium
David and Joan Traitel Building, Hoover Institution (435 Lasuen Mall, Stanford)

María Corina Machado
Lectures
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