http://cddrl.stanford.edu/Recent news, events + publications from CDDRLen-usPublic domainhttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/images/feed-icon-48x48.jpghttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/60http://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1752Michael McFaul, Director of CDDRL, and Larry Diamond, Coordinator for the Democracy Program at CDDRL, as part of a bipartisan coalition of foreign policy and development leaders, writes to President-elect Barack Obama to recommend early critical steps toward strengthening development and diplomacy. The coalition, Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network (MFAN), also urges the President-elect to put forth a robust International Affairs Budget request for FY10.]]>Thu, 13 Nov 2008 00:00:00 PSThttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1752http://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1729In video taken October 14, during a debate with former CIA Director James Woolsey, CDDRL Director Michael McFaul attacks the idea that America invaded Iraq solely to promote democracy. McFaul argues that, except in a few rare instances, the United States has never invaded a country unless there was a national security concern.]]>Thu, 23 Oct 2008 00:00:00 PSThttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1729http://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1715On October 14, at a special Commonwealth Club of California event in San Francisco, CDDRL Director Michael McFaul will debate former CIA Director James Woolsey on international security and how it factors into each presidential campaign's plans for the country. McFaul is a foreign policy advisor to Sen. Barack Obama; Woolsey is an advisor to Sen. John McCain.]]>Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:00:00 PSThttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1715http://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1707Stephen Krasner, senior fellow at Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and professor of international relations, moderated at an event last week discussing foreign affairs form the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to the 2001 September 11th attacks of the WTC.]]>Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00:00 PSThttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1707http://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1709CDDRL Director Michael McFaul is quoted in the Moscow Times in reference to his advisory role on Barack Obama's presidential campaign.]]>Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00:00 PSThttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1709http://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1570The conventional explanation for Vladimir Putin's popularity is straightforward. In the 1990s, under post-Soviet Russia's first president, Boris Yeltsin, the state did not govern, the economy shrank, and the population suffered. Since 2000, under Putin, order has returned, the economy has flourished, and the average Russian is living better than ever before. As political freedom has decreased, economic growth has increased. Putin may have rolled back democratic gains, the story goes, but these were necessary sacrifices on the altar of stability and growth.]]>Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 PSThttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1570http://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1655Since the first gulf war, most authoritarian regimes In the Arab world have been able to maintain structures of governance that have endured since the post-World War II process of decolonization. We have not seen the emergence of agents of change capable of mounting effective political challenges. Regimes that often seemed to be losing international and domestic credibility have been able to remake themselves in ways that worked to maintain power and control.]]>Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:00:00 PSThttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1655http://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1646Dr. Alejandro Toledo, former president of Peru, describes his vision as "democracy that delivers." "My colleagues and I who have taken that challenge of public life as a vocation and life commitment," Toledo says, "cannot but feel concerned about the great challenges faced by our continent where half its population lives between poverty and misery and where inequalities and social exclusion are at their highest."]]>Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:00:00 PSThttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1646http://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1653If the big global story of the 1980s and 1990s was the remarkable expansion of democracy, the bad news of this decade is that democracy is slipping into recession. In the two decades following the Portuguese revolution in 1974, the number of democracies tripled (from 40 to 120) and the percentage of the world's states that are at least electoral democracies more than doubled (to about 60 percent). Since the late 1990s however, there has been little if any net progress in democracy.]]>Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:00:00 PSThttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1653http://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1697Russia's invasion of Georgia last month seriously undermined peace and security in Europe for the first time in years, CDDRL Director Michael McFaul told the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on September 9. Russia's military actions and subsequent decision to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states, McFaul said, represent a fundamental challenge to the norms and rules that help to promote order in the international system.]]>Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:00:00 PSThttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1697http://cddrl.stanford.edu/events/5428Open to the public (RSVP required)
Haggay Etkes, CDDRL Hewlett Fellow 2008-09]]>Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:18:06 PSThttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/events/5428http://cddrl.stanford.edu/events/5487Open to the public (RSVP required)
Manana Aslamazyan, Executive Director, Internews Europe]]>Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:36:12 PSThttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/events/5487http://cddrl.stanford.edu/events/5427Open to the public
]]>Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:59:23 PSThttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/events/5427http://cddrl.stanford.edu/events/5425Open to the public (RSVP required)
Leonard Wantchekon, Professor of Politics and Economics, New York University]]>Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:03:40 PSThttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/events/5425http://cddrl.stanford.edu/publications/22316Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network (MFAN), Nov 10, 2008
MFAN's transition recommendations focused on immediate steps the Obama White House can take on modernizing foreign assistance]]>Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:53:03 PSThttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/publications/22316http://cddrl.stanford.edu/publications/22315Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network (MFAN, Nov 10, 2008
A letter announcing MFAN's recommendations for President-elect Obama's transition team.]]>Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:03:54 PSThttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/publications/22315http://cddrl.stanford.edu/publications/22239Palgrave McMillan Press, forthcoming
]]>Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:57:55 PSThttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/publications/22239http://cddrl.stanford.edu/publications/22236CDDRL, July 2008
]]>Wed, 22 Oct 2008 11:47:53 PSThttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/publications/22236http://cddrl.stanford.edu/publications/22231CDDRL Working Papers, July 2008
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The 2005 elections in Azerbaijan qualify as a failed transition from authoritarianism to democracy. The ability of the Aliyev regime to maintain its hold on power reflected both internal and external factors. Although there is no way to judge the level of actual support for the government, Aliyev retained control of the security apparatus. Through its control of oil and gas revenues and the tight links between most business endeavors and politics, and its control of the broadcast media in particular, the regime was also able to prevent the opposition, which was more united than in previous elections, from mounting effective campaigns to mobilize citizens as voters or protestors. Thus, although the Aliyev regime was vulnerable along certain dimensions (sizable groups living in poverty amidst high economic growth and rampant corruption in particular), in others, it was not. The lack of clear outside interest in seeing regime change in Azerbaijan was another factor that worked in the regimes favor. Numerous external players were active in Azerbaijan, but most, including the United States, had relatively little interest in seeing the Aliyev government replaced by another. Consequently, they put little pressure on the government to hold free and fair elections or refrain from oppressing the opposition. Arguing that Azerbaijan needed evolutionary rather than revolutionary change, they put other, higher priority interests above democratization in Azerbaijan.]]>Fri, 26 Sep 2008 20:13:11 PSThttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/publications/22230http://cddrl.stanford.edu/publications/22229CDDRL Working Papers, July 2008
What was the international impact on the Chilean transition to democracy? How much influence was there from international aid both from countries themselves as well as from organizations outside Chile? Where was this aid coming from, how was it manifesting itself, and what was its goal and to whom did it go? How significant was the organizational power of the opposition groups? Did they cooperate? Were they efficient? In the academic literature on the Chilean transition, we find that these questions have not been answered satisfactorily. The bias toward internal phenomena due to the influential lead roles played by local actors has caused interest to wane in regards to the international impact. Institutions from European countries, the United States, and Canada concentrated their efforts in conjoining the opposition to combat a regime that no longer had international legitimacy. Therefore, if we were to venture an explanation on this phenomenon we could see that there was a correlation between the internal and external events that assisted in inducing three elements that today are recognized as having been influential on the Chilean transition: a) the coordination between two sectors, which prior to the coup, were strongly antagonistic (the Socialist Party and Christian Democrats), b) the creation of a strong and functional organization of private research centers, which acted in parallel to the institutions that the regime interfered with (e.g.: universities), and c) the coordination between those who were exiled and those who were in the country, with the aim of preparing the transition to democracy.]]>Fri, 26 Sep 2008 20:13:39 PSThttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/publications/22229http://cddrl.stanford.edu/publications/22227Foreign Affairs, July/August 2008
Jeremy Weinstein, Ames Habyarimana, assistant professor at Georgetown, Macartan Humphreys, assistant professor at Columbia, Daniel Posner, associate professor at UCLA, Richard Rosecrance, adjunct professor at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government andsenior fellow at the Belfer Center, and Arthur Stein, professor of Political Science at UCLA collectively respond to an article titled, "Us and Them," by Jerry Muller, professor at the Catholic University of America in Foreign Affairs, March/April 2008. According to the authors, Muller's article "tells a disconcerting story about the potential for ethnic diversity to generate violent conflict. He argues that ethnic nationalism--which stems from a deeply felt need for each people to have its own state--"will continue to shape the world in the twenty-first century." In fact, Weinstein and his co-authors argue, ethnic differences are not inevitably, or even commonly, linked to violence on a grand scale]]>Fri, 19 Sep 2008 10:27:39 PSThttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/publications/22227http://cddrl.stanford.edu/publications/22223U.S. House of Representatives, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Sept 9, 2008
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In this paper, we argue that although international influences played a significant role in Indonesia's democratic transition, Soeharto's demise was not the consequence of diplomatic pressure or other democracy-promoting interventions.]]>Fri, 26 Sep 2008 20:14:04 PSThttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/publications/22220