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CDDRL-CISAC Special Seminar: The Logic of Violence in Drug Wars: Cartel-State Conflict in Mexico, Brazil and Colombia

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Abstract:

Why have militarized crackdowns on drug cartels had wildly divergent outcomes, sometimes exacerbating cartel-state conflict, as in Mexico and, for decades, in Brazil, but sometimes reducing violence, as with Rio de Janeiro's new 'Pacification' (UPP) strategy?  CDDRL-CISAC Post Doctoral Fellow Benjamin Lessing will distinguish key logics of violence, focusing on violent corruption--cartels' use of coercive force in the negotiation of bribes. Through this channel, crackdowns can lead to increased fighting unless the intensity of state repression is made conditional on cartels' use of violence--a key difference between Mexico and Brazil.

Speaker Bio:

Benjamin Lessing is a recent Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. He is a joint postdoctoral fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Center on International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), and will join the Political Science faculty at University of Chicago as assistant professor in 2013.

Lessing studies 'criminal conflict'—organized armed violence involving non-state actors who, unlike revolutionary insurgents, are not trying to topple the state. His doctoral dissertation examines armed conflict between drug trafficking organizations and the state in Colombia, Mexico and Brazil. Additionally, he has studied prison gangs’ pernicious effect on state authority, and the effect of paramilitary groups’ territorial control on electoral outcomes. 

Prior to his graduate work, he conducted field research on the licit and illicit small arms trade in Latin America and the Caribbean for international organizations like Amnesty International, Oxfam, and the Small Arms Survey, as well as Viva Rio, Brazil’s largest NGO, and was a Fulbright Student Grantee in Argentina and Uruguay.

 

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Benjamin Lessing Post-doctoral Fellow Speaker CDDRL and CISAC

Beatriz Magaloni

Dept. of Political Science
Encina Hall, Room 436
Stanford University,
Stanford, CA

(650) 724-5949
0
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations
Professor of Political Science
bmkhigh.jpg
MA, PhD

Beatriz Magaloni Magaloni is the Graham Stuart Professor of International Relations at the Department of Political Science. Magaloni is also a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute, where she holds affiliations with the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). She is also a Stanford’s King Center for Global Development faculty affiliate. Magaloni has taught at Stanford University for over two decades.

She leads the Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab (Povgov). Founded by Magaloni in 2010, Povgov is one of Stanford University’s leading impact-driven knowledge production laboratories in the social sciences. Under her leadership, Povgov has innovated and advanced a host of cutting-edge research agendas to reduce violence and poverty and promote peace, security, and human rights.

Magaloni’s work has contributed to the study of authoritarian politics, poverty alleviation, indigenous governance, and, more recently, violence, crime, security institutions, and human rights. Her first book, Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and its Demise in Mexico (Cambridge University Press, 2006) is widely recognized as a seminal study in the field of comparative politics. It received the 2007 Leon Epstein Award for the Best Book published in the previous two years in the area of political parties and organizations, as well as the Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association’s Comparative Democratization Section. Her second book The Politics of Poverty Relief: Strategies of Vote Buying and Social Policies in Mexico (with Alberto Diaz-Cayeros and Federico Estevez) (Cambridge University Press, 2016) explores how politics shapes poverty alleviation.

Magaloni’s work was published in leading journals, including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Criminology & Public Policy, World Development, Comparative Political Studies, Annual Review of Political Science, Cambridge Journal of Evidence-Based Policing, Latin American Research Review, and others.

Magaloni received wide international acclaim for identifying innovative solutions for salient societal problems through impact-driven research. In 2023, she was named winner of the world-renowned Stockholm Prize in Criminology, considered an equivalent of the Nobel Prize in the field of criminology. The award recognized her extensive research on crime, policing, and human rights in Mexico and Brazil. Magaloni’s research production in this area was also recognized by the American Political Science Association, which named her recipient of the 2021 Heinz I. Eulau Award for the best article published in the American Political Science Review, the leading journal in the discipline.

She received her Ph.D. in political science from Duke University and holds a law degree from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México.

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Beatriz Magaloni Associate Professor of Political Science Commentator Stanford
Seminars

Illicit Transnational Actors and Security: Myths, Misconceptions, and Historical Lessons

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About the Topic: Conventional accounts of the proliferation of illicit transnational actors--ranging from migrant smugglers to drug traffickers to black market arms dealers--describe them as increasingly agile, sophisticated, and technologically savvy. Governments, in sharp contrast, are often depicted as increasingly besieged, outsmarted, poorly equipped, and clumsy in dealing with them. While there is much truth in these common claims, Andreas argues that they are overly alarmist and misleading and suffer from historical amnesia. Drawing especially from the U.S. historical and contemporary experience, he offers a corrective that challenges common myths and misconceptions about the illicit side of globalization. 
 
About the Speaker: Peter Andreas is a professor of political science and international studies in the Department of Political Science and the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University. Andreas has published nine books, including Blue Helmets and Black Markets: The Business of Survival in the Siege of Sarajevo (Cornell University Press, 2008) and Border Games: Policing the U.S.-Mexico Divide (Cornell University Press, 2nd edition 2009). Other writings include articles for publications such as International Security, International Studies Quarterly, Political Science Quarterly, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New Republic, and The Nation. His latest book is on the politics of smuggling in American history, titled, Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America (Oxford University Press, 2013).
 

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Peter Andreas Professor of Political Science and International Studies, Brown University Speaker
Seminars

The Threat that Leaves Nothing to Chance: A Narrative Approach to Nuclear War

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Lynn Eden is Associate Director for Research at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University. Eden received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan, held several pre- and post-doctoral fellowships, and taught in the history department at Carnegie Mellon before coming to Stanford.

In the area of international security, Eden has focused on U.S. foreign and military policy, arms control, the social construction of science and technology, and organizational issues regarding nuclear policy and homeland security. She co-edited, with Steven E. Miller, Nuclear Arguments: Understanding the Strategic Nuclear Arms and Arms Control Debates (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989). She was an editor of The Oxford Companion to American Military History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), which takes a social and cultural perspective on war and peace in U.S. history. That volume was chosen as a Main Selection of the History Book Club.

Eden's book Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004; New Delhi: Manas Publications, 2004) explores how and why the U.S. government--from World War II to the present--has greatly underestimated the damage caused by nuclear weapons by failing to predict damage from firestorms. It shows how well-funded and highly professional organizations, by focusing on what they do well and systematically excluding what they don't, may build a poor representation of the world--a self-reinforcing fallacy that can have serious consequences, from the sinking of the Titanic to not predicting the vulnerability of the World Trade Center to burning jet fuel. Whole World on Fire won the American Sociological Association's 2004 Robert K. Merton Award for best book in science, knowledge, and technology.

Eden has also written on life in small-town America. Her first book, Crisis in Watertown (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1972), was her college senior thesis; it was a finalist for a National Book Award in 1973. Her second book, Witness in Philadelphia, with Florence Mars (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977), about the murders of civil rights workers Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman in the summer of 1964, was a Book of the Month Club Alternate Selection.

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Lynn Eden

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Affiliate
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PhD

Lynn Eden is a Senior Research Scholar Emeritus. She was a Senior Research Scholar at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation until January 2016, as well as was Associate Director for Research. Eden received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan, held several pre- and post-doctoral fellowships, and taught in the history department at Carnegie Mellon before coming to Stanford.

In the area of international security, Eden has focused on U.S. foreign and military policy, arms control, the social construction of science and technology, and organizational issues regarding nuclear policy and homeland security. She co-edited, with Steven E. Miller, Nuclear Arguments: Understanding the Strategic Nuclear Arms and Arms Control Debates (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989). She was an editor of The Oxford Companion to American Military History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), which takes a social and cultural perspective on war and peace in U.S. history. That volume was chosen as a Main Selection of the History Book Club.

Eden's book Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004; New Delhi: Manas Publications, 2004) explores how and why the U.S. government--from World War II to the present--has greatly underestimated the damage caused by nuclear weapons by failing to predict damage from firestorms. It shows how well-funded and highly professional organizations, by focusing on what they do well and systematically excluding what they don't, may build a poor representation of the world--a self-reinforcing fallacy that can have serious consequences, from the sinking of the Titanic to not predicting the vulnerability of the World Trade Center to burning jet fuel. Whole World on Fire won the American Sociological Association's 2004 Robert K. Merton Award for best book in science, knowledge, and technology.

Eden has also written on life in small-town America. Her first book, Crisis in Watertown (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1972), was her college senior thesis; it was a finalist for a National Book Award in 1973. Her second book, Witness in Philadelphia, with Florence Mars (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977), about the murders of civil rights workers Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman in the summer of 1964, was a Book of the Month Club Alternate Selection.

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Lynn Eden Senior Scholar and Associate Director for Research Speaker CISAC
Marc Ventresca University Lecturer in Management Studies Commentator Oxford
Seminars

The Uses and Limitations of Forensic DNA Typing

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The tools of molecular biology have augmented forensic biological analyses and contributed to solving crimes, developing investigative leads, and exonerating the innocent. The methods are exquisitely sensitive and highly resolving. Success stories abound and are reported almost daily in the media. Indeed, forensic DNA typing is the gold standard of the forensic science disciplines. Although the methods and interpretations generally are reliable, there are some limitations that scientists, stakeholders, decision makers, and the public may not appreciate. This presentation will provide insight into the applications extolling their value and discussing the problems that need to be overcome or avoided.

About the speaker: Bruce Budowle, PhD, director of the UNT Health Science Center's Institute of Investigative Genetics and vice chair of the Department of Forensic and Investigative Genetics, has been named a Health Care Hero by Dallas Business Journal. He joined the Health Science Center in 2009, bringing renowned expertise in the areas of counterterrorism, primarily in identification of victims from mass disasters and microbial forensics.

Prior to joining the Health Science Center, Budowle spent 40 years as a senior scientist for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Washington, D.C. He was a principal advisor in efforts to identify victims from the World Trade Center attack in 2001 and helped establish a mitochondrial DNA sequencing program to enable high-throughput sequencing of human remains.

Budowle's commitment to helping families resolve missing persons cases led him to Fort Worth after a lifetime in the Virginia/Washington, D.C., area in order to collaborate with Health Science Center researchers and advance the knowledge and use of forensics and DNA to improve health and safety of the world's population. Budowle has also been instrumental in establishing the DNA-ProKids initiative to identify missing children on an international scale.

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Bruce Budowle Director Speaker University of North Texas Health Science Center Institute of Investigative Genetics
Seminars

Public Goods Provision and the Efficacy of Governance

On May 18-19, the Program on Poverty and Governance will host a two-day conference on the provision of public goods and good governance throughout the world. This conference, co-sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies, will bring together an interdisciplinary group of economists, political scientists, policymakers, and public health researchers examining these questions. Public goods—goods and services such as education, healthcare, sanitation, potable water, and other benefits provided by the government—are intrinsically tied to issues of governance, which we broadly define as the exercise of political authority and the use of institutional resources to manage society’s problems and affairs. More specifically, factors such how political leaders get elected, the way in which government projects get funded, whether the community participates in decision-making, and the extent to which the distribution of government benefits is done through clientelistic networks, among others, play an important role in the quality and coverage of public goods that governments provide. Additionally, a critical question in large parts of the developing world relates to the role of international players and foreign aid in the provision of public goods –does external provision of public goods enable or hinder governmental capacity to deliver public services in poor communities? Through two days of presentations and panel discussions, the conference will explore how various facets of governance affect the provision of public goods and services throughout the world.

The conference will be held in Encina Hall at Stanford University May 18th and 19th, 2012. Guests are encouraged to RSVP by May 16th. Any questions may be addressed to the Program on Poverty and Governance program associate Elena Cryst.

Click Here for Papers

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CISAC Conference Room

Beatriz Magaloni

Dept. of Political Science
Encina Hall, Room 436
Stanford University,
Stanford, CA

(650) 724-5949
0
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations
Professor of Political Science
bmkhigh.jpg
MA, PhD

Beatriz Magaloni Magaloni is the Graham Stuart Professor of International Relations at the Department of Political Science. Magaloni is also a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute, where she holds affiliations with the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). She is also a Stanford’s King Center for Global Development faculty affiliate. Magaloni has taught at Stanford University for over two decades.

She leads the Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab (Povgov). Founded by Magaloni in 2010, Povgov is one of Stanford University’s leading impact-driven knowledge production laboratories in the social sciences. Under her leadership, Povgov has innovated and advanced a host of cutting-edge research agendas to reduce violence and poverty and promote peace, security, and human rights.

Magaloni’s work has contributed to the study of authoritarian politics, poverty alleviation, indigenous governance, and, more recently, violence, crime, security institutions, and human rights. Her first book, Voting for Autocracy: Hegemonic Party Survival and its Demise in Mexico (Cambridge University Press, 2006) is widely recognized as a seminal study in the field of comparative politics. It received the 2007 Leon Epstein Award for the Best Book published in the previous two years in the area of political parties and organizations, as well as the Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association’s Comparative Democratization Section. Her second book The Politics of Poverty Relief: Strategies of Vote Buying and Social Policies in Mexico (with Alberto Diaz-Cayeros and Federico Estevez) (Cambridge University Press, 2016) explores how politics shapes poverty alleviation.

Magaloni’s work was published in leading journals, including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Criminology & Public Policy, World Development, Comparative Political Studies, Annual Review of Political Science, Cambridge Journal of Evidence-Based Policing, Latin American Research Review, and others.

Magaloni received wide international acclaim for identifying innovative solutions for salient societal problems through impact-driven research. In 2023, she was named winner of the world-renowned Stockholm Prize in Criminology, considered an equivalent of the Nobel Prize in the field of criminology. The award recognized her extensive research on crime, policing, and human rights in Mexico and Brazil. Magaloni’s research production in this area was also recognized by the American Political Science Association, which named her recipient of the 2021 Heinz I. Eulau Award for the best article published in the American Political Science Review, the leading journal in the discipline.

She received her Ph.D. in political science from Duke University and holds a law degree from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México.

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Beatriz Magaloni Host
Conferences

The Mysterious Flash of 9/22/79: The Case for an Israeli Nuclear Test

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This seminar is based on a recently published article that reviews the history of the September 22, 1979 double flash recorded by the VELA satellite and concludes that the flash was an Israeli nuclear test assisted by South Africa. The work of a government panel created at the time to determine the cause of the flash is discussed as is the author's own involvement in the issue.

About the speaker:

Leonard Weiss is an affiliated scholar at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). He is also a national advisory board member of the Center for Arms control and Non-Proliferation in Washington, DC. He began his professional career as a PhD researcher in mathematical system theory at the Research Institute for Advanced Studies in Baltimore. This was followed by tenured professorships in applied mathematics and electrical engineering at Brown University and the University of Maryland. During this period he published widely in the applied mathematics literature. In 1976 he received a Congressional Science Fellowship that resulted in a career change. For more than two decades he worked for Senator John Glenn as the staff director of both the Senate Subcommittee on Energy and Nuclear Proliferation and the Committee on Governmental Affairs. He was the chief architect of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978 and legislation that created the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. In addition, he led notable investigations of the nuclear programs of India and Pakistan. Since retiring from the Senate staff in 1999, he has published numerous articles on nonproliferation issues for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Arms Control Today, and the Nonproliferation Review. His current research interests include an assessment of the impact on the nonproliferation regime of nuclear trade with non-signers of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and more generally the relationship of energy security concerns with nonproliferation.

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Leonard Weiss

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Affiliate
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Leonard Weiss is a visiting scholar at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). He is also a national advisory board member of the Center for Arms control and Non-Proliferation in Washington, DC. He began his professional career as a PhD researcher in mathematical system theory at the Research Institute for Advanced Studies in Baltimore. This was followed by tenured professorships in applied mathematics and electrical engineering at Brown University and the University of Maryland. During this period he published widely in the applied mathematics literature. In 1976 he received a Congressional Science Fellowship that resulted in a career change. For more than two decades he worked for Senator John Glenn as the staff director of both the Senate Subcommittee on Energy and Nuclear Proliferation and the Committee on Governmental Affairs. He was the chief architect of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978 and legislation that created the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. In addition, he led notable investigations of the nuclear programs of India and Pakistan. Since retiring from the Senate staff in 1999, he has published numerous articles on nonproliferation issues for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Arms Control Today, and the Nonproliferation Review. His current research interests include an assessment of the impact on the nonproliferation regime of nuclear trade with non-signers of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and more generally the relationship of energy security concerns with nonproliferation.

For a comprehensive list of Dr. Weiss's publications, click here.

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Leonard Weiss CISAC Affiliate Speaker
Seminars
Regional Conflict and Cooperation

Global Nuclear Security Governance Building through the Nuclear Security Summit Meeting

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About the topic: Given the increased threat of nuclear terrorism by non-state actors, current global mechanisms addressing nuclear security have revealed serious limitations. As a result, after President Obama’s speech in 2009 at Prague, the first Nuclear Security Summit Meeting was successfully held in Washington D.C. Based on its success, the second Nuclear Security Summit Meeting is scheduled to be held in March 2012 in Seoul, Korea. In addition to the ongoing issues, the Seoul Meeting will deal with new issues such as nuclear safety in reflection of the recent Fukushima accident. The meeting may also take on other issues such as the framework agreement, further institutionalization of the Nuclear Security Summit Meeting and sustainable financing. Ultimately, this process should reinforce the effectiveness of global efforts to tackle nuclear terrorism and related issues.

About the Speaker: Professor Suh-Yong Chung is an international expert on international governance and institution building. His recent research interests include governance building in global climate change, Northeast Asian environmental cooperation institution building and nuclear security governance building. Dr. Chung has recently participated in various national and international conferences and seminars on nuclear security, such as the ROK-US Nuclear Security Experts Dialogue, and the WMD Study Group Meeting of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific (CSCAP).

Dr. Chung is the Associate Professor of Division of International Studies of Korea University, an Adjunct Professor of The Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security of Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the General Secretary of CSCAP Korea. Dr. Suh-Yong Chung holds degrees in law and international relations from Seoul National University, the London School of Economics and Stanford Law School.

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Suh-Yong Chung Associate Professor of Division of International Studies of Korea University Speaker
Seminars
Regional Conflict and Cooperation

Implementing Change: Organizational Challenges

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An excerpt from "Implementing Change: Organizational Challenges" (pp. 309-310):

Improving organizational performance is never easy. As sociologist Jim March has noted, success requires that organizations balance exploration the search for new ways of doing things with exploitation, the ability to harness new practices and jettison older, less effective ones (March, 1991). These challenges confront all organizations, but two factors make them more acute for intelligence agencies. The first is bounded rationality (Simon, 1976). In the theoretical world, individuals have the luxury of perfect rationality, seeing all of the relevant options, assessing trade-offs with clarity, and making the best decisions. The real world is not as nice. There, rationality is inherently limited or bounded by uncertainty, imperfect information, and cognitive constraints that lead individuals to make decisions that appear to be “good enough”—but may turn out to be nowhere close (Simon, 1976). Intelligence officials have the toughest time of all, confronting bounded rationality problems in spades. Their job is to give policy-making customers decision advantage amidst swirling uncertainty, missing information, enemy deception and denial, and fast-changing events that are often unforeseeable, even to the participants themselves.

The second acute intelligence challenge is secrecy. As I discuss below, the more specialized any organization becomes, the harder it is for any one part of the organization to understand or improve what another part is doing, a phenomenon that sociologists call “structural secrecy” (Vaughan, 1996). In the classified universe, of course, this structural secrecy is compounded by actual secrecy, which protects vital information from adversaries, but also compartmentalizes information, ideas, organizations, and practices to a much greater extent.

Despite the intelligence community’s (IC’s) unique challenges, the fields of organization theory and political science offer useful insights and cautionary warnings about the organizational side of improving intelligence analysis. The chapters in Part II (Analytic Methods) of this volume mine an array of relevant literature for the best analytic tools to improve intelligence analysis. Here, we turn to a different task: Examining a broad sweep of relevant social science research with an eye to identifying which organizational factors impede or facilitate effective analysis. Worth underscoring, though, is the fact that social science does not offer ready-made instructions about how to make intelligence analytic improvements stick. However, it does offer some useful generalizations that can illuminate the trade-offs and challenges involved to guide more effective implementation.

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The National Academies Press
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Amy Zegart
Amy Zegart
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Stanford's McFaul is next ambassador to Russia

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Judith Paulus
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News
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Michael A. McFaul, a Stanford political science professor and senior fellow at the university’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, was confirmed by the Senate to be the next ambassador to Russia. 

McFaul, President Barack Obama’s top advisor on Russia and a Bing Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, will succeed John Beyrle.

"Mike will bring to his new posting in Moscow the same intensity, clarity of vision and imagination that he demonstrated as President Obama's point person on Russia at the White House," said Coit D. Blacker, FSI’s director and the Olivier Nomellini Professor in International Studies. 

The Dec. 17 voice vote confirming McFaul came on the last day the Senate was in session before its winter break. Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., had held up McFaul's approval over issues with U.S. policies toward Russia.

During confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in October, McFaul discussed the overall status of U.S.-Russian relations, missile defense, arms reduction agreements and trade relations.

Since the beginning of the Obama administration, McFaul has been the special assistant to the president for national security affairs and senior director for Russia and Eurasia at the National Security Council.

He served as senior adviser on Russia and Eurasia to Obama during the presidential campaign and continued to advise on foreign policy issues during the transition.

The Obama administration has achieved new momentum in relations with Russia with McFaul's involvement.

The two countries have signed the New Start arms control treaty, which calls for significant cuts in nuclear arsenals; finalized a civilian nuclear cooperation pact; forged agreement on tougher sanctions on Iran; and expanded the supply route to Afghanistan through the territory of the former Soviet Union.

The two powers now turn to the efforts to forge cooperation on missile defense in Europe and to gain Russia's admission to the World Trade Organization, as well as the challenges posed by Iran and Libya.

"This is a complex and sensitive time in the ever-evolving relationship between the United States and the Russian Federation," Blacker said. "Having an ambassador in place who gets the relationship has never been more important. For this reason above all others, Mike is the perfect choice. We are all deeply proud of Mike and all that he has accomplished."

McFaul, who has served as FSI’s deputy director and director of the institute’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, received a bachelor’s degree in international relations and Slavic languages and an master’s in Slavic and East European studies from Stanford in 1986. He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, where he completed his PhD in international relations in 1991.

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