Do political parties serve the interests of representative democracy today?

Distrust in parties is at historic highs, and many reform efforts attempt to weaken party influence in politics. The erosion of intermediary institutions lies at the heart of the broader crisis of liberal democracy. While there is ample evidence that party success or failure impacts democratic outcomes in emerging democracies, we know less about how parties (and their strength or weakness) contribute to problems in established democracies. This talk lays out a concept of party intermediary capacity, which helps to assess how parties mobilize and represent voters. It then traces how party intermediary capacity has changed over time, with particular attention to the political economy of representation in the neoliberal era.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Didi Kuo is a Senior Research Scholar and Associate Director for Research at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. Her research interests include democratization, political parties, and political reform. She oversees the Program on American Democracy in Comparative Perspective, which seeks to bridge academic and policy research on American democracy. She was an Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fellow at New America and is the author of Clientelism, Capitalism, and Democracy: the Rise of Programmatic Politics in the United States and Britain (Cambridge University Press 2018). 

 

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to E008 in Encina Hall may attend in person.

Norman Farrell will deliver this year's Annual Lecture on International Justice in a talk titled, "International Criminal Law, its Legal Framework and its Application in Ukraine."

The Center for Human Rights and International Justice's Annual Lecture on International Justice provides a space for highly accomplished figures in the international justice sphere to discuss meta-level topics, trends and techniques. These events are generously supported by Mr. John Rough.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Norman Farrell is an international Prosecutor with extensive experience in leading and managing large-scale criminal investigations or prosecutions of war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and terrorist acts.  He has prosecuted cases arising from serious international crimes in the Former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Lebanon. Mr. Farrell’s areas of expertise include international humanitarian law, international criminal law and advocacy before international criminal tribunals.

Mr. Farrell was appointed the Prosecutor of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in March 2012.  Prior to this appointment, Mr Farrell was Deputy Prosecutor since 2008 at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).  Mr. Farrell held positions in the Office of the Prosecutor at the ICTY from 1999-2008 that include the Prosecutor’s Legal Director, Senior Appeals Counsel and Head of the Appeals Section. He represented, on appeal, the Office of the Prosecutor in a number of cases before the ICTY Appeals Chamber including the first prosecution for genocide in Prosecutor vs. Kristic.

From 1999-2003 he was, simultaneously, Prosecution Appeals Counsel on cases before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on genocide and violations of international humanitarian law in Rwanda. From 2002-2003 he was the Head of the Appeals Section of the Office of the Prosecutor at the ICTR.

From 1996-1999, Mr. Farrell worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Bosnia as a delegate, subsequently in Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania as the Regional Legal Advisor.  In 1998, he was Legal Advisor on international humanitarian law and international criminal law for the ICRC in Geneva, Switzerland.

Before his involvement in international law, Mr Farrell was Crown Counsel at the Crown Law Office - Criminal in Toronto, Canada and has appeared as Counsel before the Ontario Court of Appeal and Supreme Court of Canada.

Mr. Farrell holds a Master of Laws (LLM) from Columbia University in New York, and a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) as well as B.A (Hons) from Queens University, Kingston, Ontario. He was admitted to the Law Society of Ontario in 1988.

This event is co-sponsored by the Center for Human Rights and International Justice, CREEES Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies, and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.

Corruption is rampant in many authoritarian regimes, leading to the widespread perception that autocrats have little incentive or ability to curb government wrongdoing. Yet meaningful anti-corruption efforts by nondemocratic governments are more common and more often successful than is widely assumed.

In this talk, Christopher Carothers draws on extensive documentary research to argue that Xi Jinping’s sweeping anti-corruption campaign in China, despite its limitations, has been effective at curbing bribery, embezzlement, and other illicit practices since 2012. Moreover, although corruption control is often thought to rely on democratic or quasi-democratic institutions constraining power, Xi’s campaign has succeeded through a top-down, authoritarian approach. The outcomes of this signature Xi policy, Carothers explains, hold broader implications for our thinking about China’s future direction.

This talk is based on Carothers’ first book, Corruption Control in Authoritarian Regimes: Lessons From East Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Christopher Carothers is a political scientist conducting research on authoritarian politics with a regional focus on China and East Asia. His research has been published in Perspectives on Politics, the Journal of Democracy, the Journal of East Asian Studies, the Journal of Contemporary China, Politics and Society, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and other leading publications. Dr. Carothers received his PhD in Government from Harvard University in 2019 and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for the Study of Contemporary China.

In this talk, prominent political activist Sanaa Seif and award-winning journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous will discuss the current political conditions in Egypt, the massive expansion of the carceral state under the rule of Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi and the country’s role within the geopolitical shifts reshaping the region. At the heart of the conversation will be the newly released book, You Have Not Yet Been Defeated, authored by Seif's brother Alaa Abdel-Fattah, one of the most high-profile political prisoners in Egypt. The book will be available for purchase at the event.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Sanaa Seif is an Egyptian filmmaker, producer, and political activist. She has been imprisoned three times under the Sisi regime for her activism, most recently from the summer of 2020 until December 2021, when she was abducted by security forces after trying to get a letter in to her brother in prison. Hundreds of cultural figures and dozens of institutions campaigned for her release.

Sharif Abdel Kouddous is an independent journalist based in Cairo. For eight years he worked as a producer and correspondent for the TV/radio news hour Democracy Now! In 2011, he returned to Egypt to cover the revolution. Since then, he has reported for a number of print and broadcast outlets from across the region. He received an Izzy Award for outstanding achievement in independent media for his coverage of the Egyptian revolution and an Emmy award for his coverage of the Donald Trump administration’s Muslim travel ban. He is currently an editor and reporter at Mada Masr, Egypt's leading independent media outlet.

This event is co-sponsored by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies at Stanford University.​

Once upon a time, there was a seductive story about twin revolutions, a political one in France and an industrial one in Britain, that supposedly ushered in our modern world. This narrative never sat well with empirical realities, yet it lives on in textbooks. What might be a more persuasive framework for a global history of the modern era? What are the implications for research and the teaching of history?

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Stephen Kotkin is the John P. Birkelund Professor of History and International Affairs in what used to be called the Woodrow Wilson School and in the History Department of Princeton University, as well as a Senior Fellow (adjunct) at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He directs the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies and co-directs its program in History and the Practice of Diplomacy, which he founded. He also founded Princeton’s Global History Initiative. His scholarship encompasses geopolitics and authoritarian regimes in history and in the present.

Kotkin has published two volumes of a three-volume history of the world as seen from Stalin’s desk: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928 (Penguin, November 2014) and Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 (Penguin, October 2017). The final installment, Totalitarian Superpower, 1941-1990s, is underway. He writes reviews and essays for Foreign Affairs, the Times Literary Supplement, and The Wall Street Journal, and served as the business book reviewer for The New York Times Sunday Business Section. He is an occasional consultant for governments and some private companies. PhD UC Berkeley (1988).

 

The Institute for Global Governance Research (GGR) at Hitotsubashi University cordially invites you to join the book launch event of the Japanese translation of Dr. Larry Diamond’s Ill Winds, a work by Dr. Maiko Ichihara (2019-20 CDDRL Visiting Scholar) and published by Keiso Shobo.

This publication is undoubtedly one of the most important books of our times, offering an overview of the different movements that undermine the international liberal order, their interactions, and the values of democracy. Dr. Larry Diamond, an eminent scholar of democracy from Stanford University, will discuss the book, including how it can be read in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The event will take place via Zoom in English, but Japanese interpretation will be provided as well.

A SCCEI Spotlight Speaker Event

---

Friday, April 22, 2022          6 - 7 PM Pacific Time 
Saturday, April 23, 2022    9 - 10 AM Beijing Time

---

U.S.-China Relations in the Age of Uncertainty

The US-China relations are entering into an uncertain era. More than any other bilateral relations in the world, the US-China relations are characterized by complexities. The two countries compete in multiple arenas, but the competition takes place in a broad context of mutual dependency and collaborations. The Russian invasion of Ukraine may further unravel US-China relations. This talk will discuss and examine these issues.

This event features Yasheng Huang, Professor of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is joined by Scott Rozelle, co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions, and Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), who will moderate a discussion about the major themes of the research. A question and answer session with the audience follows the discussion.

---

About the Speakers
 

Yasheng Huang is Epoch Foundation Professor of International Management, Professor of Global Economics and Management, and Faculty Director of Action Learning at Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is currently involved in research projects in three broad areas: 1) political economy of contemporary China, 2) historical technological and political developments in China, and 3) as a co-PI in “Food Safety in China: A Systematic Risk Management Approach” (supported by Walmart Foundation, 2016-). He has published numerous articles in academic journals and in media and 11 books in English and Chinese. His book, The Rise and the Fall of the EAST: Examination, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology in Chinese History and Today, will be published by Yale University Press in 2023.
 

Scott Rozelle is the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and the co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University.  For the past 30 years, he has worked on the economics of poverty reduction. Currently, his work on poverty has its full focus on human capital, including issues of rural health, nutrition and education. For the past 20 year, Rozelle has been the chair of the International Advisory Board of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Most recently, Rozelle's research focuses on the economics of poverty and inequality, with an emphasis on rural education, health and nutrition in China. In recognition of this work, Dr. Rozelle has received numerous honors and awards. Among them, he became a Yangtse Scholar (Changjiang Xuezhe) in Renmin University of China in 2008. In 2008 he also was awarded the Friendship Award by Premiere Wen Jiabao, the highest honor that can be bestowed on a foreigner.

---

Questions? Contact Debbie Aube at debbie.aube@stanford.edu

---

Watch the recording:

What explains the turn towards more politically relevant Sunni and Shii identities in the modern period? How do we account for a shift from Sunni-Shii cooperation against colonialism, for example, or in defense of the Ottoman Caliphate, towards polarisation? This lecture will look especially at the role of the modern state in regulating religion more broadly, coopting certain cultural groups and alienating others, and fostering sharpened sectarian identities. It will also look at the impact of the 1979 revolution in Iran, and reactions towards it, and of foreign intervention, especially the Iraq war of 2003 in sectarianizing the Middle Eastern regional system.

This event is sponsored by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies in partnership with the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at CDDRL.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Toby Matthiesen is a scholar of Comparative Politics and International Relations with a focus on the Middle East. He is currently a Marie Curie Global Fellow at Stanford University and Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, leading a project on Sunni-Shii Relations in the Middle East.

Toby's aim in research and teaching is to study the Middle East in a global context. His research is characterized by the use of primary sources, archives, fieldwork, and engagement with social science and historiographical debates. He is the author of Sectarian Gulf: Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the Arab Spring That Wasn’t (Stanford University Press, 2013), a book on the impact of the Arab Spring on the Gulf States. His second book, The Other Saudis: Shiism, Dissent and Sectarianism (Cambridge University Press, 2015) dealt with the relationship between the Shii community in the Eastern Province and the Saudi state, and with transnational movements and Iran. It is based on fieldwork in Saudi Arabia and the wider region, and hitherto unused Arabic archives.

His forthcoming book, The Caliph and the Imam: The Making of Sunnism and Shiism, is a global history of Sunni-Shii relations and is published by Oxford University Press. Toby's work has also been translated into Arabic and Persian and apart from English, he publishes in German. His other research interests relate to the history of Leftist movements and the use of Islam as anti-Communism during the Cold War.

Erin A. Snider joins ARD to discuss her recently released book, Marketing Democracy: The Political Economy of Democracy Aid in the Middle East (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

For nearly two decades, the United States devoted more than $2 billion towards democracy promotion in the Middle East with seemingly little impact. To understand the limited impact of this aid and the decision of authoritarian regimes to allow democracy programs whose ultimate aim is to challenge the power of such regimes, Marketing Democracy examines the construction and practice of democracy aid in Washington DC and in Egypt and Morocco, two of the highest recipients of US democracy aid in the region.

Drawing on extensive fieldwork, novel new data on the professional histories of democracy promoters, archival research and recently declassified government documents, Erin A. Snider focuses on the voices and practices of those engaged in democracy work over the last three decades to offer a new framework for understanding the political economy of democracy aid. Her research shows how democracy aid can work to strengthen rather than challenge authoritarian regimes. Marketing Democracy fundamentally challenges scholars to rethink how we study democracy aid and how the ideas of democracy that underlie democracy programs come to reflect the views of donors and recipient regimes rather than indigenous demand. 

ABOUT THE SPEAKER 

Erin A. Snider is an assistant professor at Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service. Her research and teaching focus on the political economy of aid, democracy, and development in the Middle East. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University’s Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance, a Fulbright scholar in Egypt, a Gates Scholar at the University of Cambridge, and a Carnegie Fellow with the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C. Her first book, Marketing Democracy: The Political Economy of Democracy Aid in the Middle East was published with Cambridge University Press. Other research has been published in International Studies Quarterly, PS: Political Science and Politics, and Middle East Policy, among other outlets. She holds a PhD in politics from the University of Cambridge and an MSc in Middle East Politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.

This event is co-sponsored by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies and the Center for African Studies at Stanford University.​