http://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/Recent news from CDDRLen-usPublic domainhttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/images/feed-icon-48x48.jpghttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/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/1752?http://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/1729?http://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/1715?http://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/1707?http://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/1709?http://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/1570?http://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/1655?http://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/1646?http://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/1653?http://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/1697?http://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1651With more than a million dollars in committed new funding, CDDRL's Stanford Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development marches into its fifth year with a sustainable future and also a new name: the Draper Hills Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development. The program's new name recognizes the generous commitments of William Draper III and Ingrid von Mangoldt Hills to fund the program and enable it to continue its bold vision.]]>Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:00:00 PSThttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1651?http://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1692Even as Russia pulls back troops from Georgia after fighting erupted between the countries, tensions remain high in the region. Russia has stationed peacekeepers and checkpoints near the border of the separatist region of South Ossetia, and Western leaders say Russia is still failing to comply with the French-brokered cease-fire. Gail Lapidus, a senior fellow emerita at Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, has been tracking the events leading to the conflict in Georgia. A specialist on Soviet society, politics and foreign policy, she has written and edited a number of books on Soviet and post-Soviet affairs, including The New Russia: Troubled Transformation.]]>Mon, 25 Aug 2008 00:00:00 PSThttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1692?http://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1689CDDRL Director Michael McFaul is co-author of a new Center for a New American Security (CNAS) report, Strategic Leadership: Framework for a 21st Century National Security Strategy. In the report McFaul and other top foreign policy experts chart a new direction for America's global role.]]>Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:00:00 PSThttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1689?http://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1685CDDRL Director and Obama foreign policy advisor %people1% discusses the conflict in Georgia with the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Time magazine, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and National Public Radio. "Would kicking Russia out of the G-8 have stopped this invasion?" McFaul says. "I don't see how those two are related. That is the test of leadership: are you proposing things that can advance American interests?"]]>Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:00:00 PSThttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1685?http://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1687In "%publication1%," CDDRL visiting associate professor %people1% discusses Iranian leaders' statements calling for the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people and presents a comprehensive analysis of what Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad actually said. When Ahmadinejad punctuates his speech with "Death to Israel" m(arg bar Esraiil), Teitelbaum writes, this is no longer open to various interpretations.]]>Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:00:00 PSThttp://cddrl.stanford.edu/news/1687?