Society

FSI researchers work to understand continuity and change in societies as they confront their problems and opportunities. This includes the implications of migration and human trafficking. What happens to a society when young girls exit the sex trade? How do groups moving between locations impact societies, economies, self-identity and citizenship? What are the ethnic challenges faced by an increasingly diverse European Union? From a policy perspective, scholars also work to investigate the consequences of security-related measures for society and its values.

The Europe Center reflects much of FSI’s agenda of investigating societies, serving as a forum for experts to research the cultures, religions and people of Europe. The Center sponsors several seminars and lectures, as well as visiting scholars.

Societal research also addresses issues of demography and aging, such as the social and economic challenges of providing health care for an aging population. How do older adults make decisions, and what societal tools need to be in place to ensure the resulting decisions are well-informed? FSI regularly brings in international scholars to look at these issues. They discuss how adults care for their older parents in rural China as well as the economic aspects of aging populations in China and India.

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South Asia scholar Anja Manuel discusses how the United States can improve its image with Muslim communities worldwide, going beyond just "winning hearts and minds." Farah Pandith, the State Department's new Special Representative to Muslim Communities, must navigate difficult policy paths to create a message of peace, stability, and economic opportunity. 

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The Washington Post
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Anja Manuel

Herbert Hoover Memorial Building room 234
434 Galvez Mall, Stanford, CA 94035

650.724.5484
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dscf2058_-_sumit_ganguly.jpg PhD

Šumit Ganguly is a Senior Fellow and directs the Huntington Program on Strengthening US-India Relations at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is Distinguished Professor of Political Science Emeritus and the Rabindranath Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations Emeritus at Indiana University, Bloomington. He has previously taught at James Madison College of Michigan State University, Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and the University of Texas at Austin.

Professor Ganguly has been a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC, a Visiting Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University, a Guest Scholar at the Center for Cooperative Monitoring in Albuquerque and a Visiting Scholar at the German Institute for International and Area Studies in Hamburg. He was also the holder of the Ngee Ann Chair in International Politics at the Rajaratnam School for International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore in the spring term of 2010. In 2018 and 2019 he was an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the University of Heidelberg, Germany.

Professor Ganguly is member of the Council on Foreign Relations (New York) and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He serves on the editorial boards of Asian Security, Current History, Journal of Democracy, Foreign Policy Analysis, The Nonproliferation Review, Pacific Affairs, International Security and Small Wars and Insurgencies. A specialist on the contemporary politics of South Asia is the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of 20 books on the region. His most recent book (edited with Eswaran Sridharan) is the Oxford Handbook of Indian Politics.

Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
CDDRL Affiliated Faculty
CDDRL Visiting Scholar, 2009
Affiliate at CISAC
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More than 75 people connected to CISAC's past and present gathered in Encina Hall on Friday, May 29, to reminisce and look toward the center's next quarter century. The CISAC String Quartet led by Paul Stockton, who has just left CISAC to work as an assistant defense secretary, welcomed guests with concertos by Bach and Beethoven. Meanwhile, a slide show depicting CISAC's history through the decades brought back memories of potluck meals, receptions and group clean-up parties at Galvez House.
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More than 75 people connected to CISAC's past and present gathered in Encina Hall on Friday, May 29, to reminisce and look toward the center's next quarter century. The CISAC String Quartet led by Paul Stockton, who has just left CISAC to work as an assistant defense secretary, welcomed guests with concertos by Bach and Beethoven. Meanwhile, a slide show depicting CISAC's history through the decades brought back memories of potluck meals, receptions and group clean-up parties at Galvez House.

Co-Director Siegfried Hecker's opening and closing remarks acted as bookends to speeches highlighting the center's different eras. Law School Professor John Barton, a member of the center's executive committee, was a founder of CISAC's predecessor organization, the Center for International Security and Arms Control. He spoke about how turbulence on campus in the 1970s surrounding the Vietnam War led to courses focusing on international security matters under the Stanford Arms Control Program and, eventually, the center's establishment. Gloria Duffy, president of the Commonwealth Club of California, was a CISAC fellow from 1980-82, and spoke about the 1980s as "a time of alarm in our field." Acting Co-Director Lynn Eden, who was affiliated with the center as a fellow from 1987 to 1990, spoke about the 1990s, followed by Jessica McLaughlin, a 2005 graduate from CISAC's honor's program, who explained how she continues to apply the skills she learned in the program to her job as a management consultant. Former U.S. Defense Secretary William J. Perry, a former CISAC co-director, looked to the future and what the center must do to remain as effective and relevant to international security as it has been in the past. John Lewis, Scott Sagan, Michael May and David Holloway, who have all held leadership positions at CISAC, also made remarks about the center.


CISAC 25th Anniversary

Program

 

Background Music by the CISAC Quartet:

Beethoven Opus 59 #1

Bach Brandenburg Concerto #3, first movement

 

Introductory Remarks

Siegfried Hecker

Dr. Siegfried Hecker is a professor (research) in the Department of Management Science and Engineering, a senior fellow at FSI, and co-director of CISAC. He is also an emeritus director of Los Alamos National Laboratory.

 

Guest speakers (in order of appearance)

John Barton '68: CISAC in the 1970s

Professor John Barton is one of the founders of CISAC's predecessor organization (the Center for International Security and Arms Control), a professor at the Law School, and a member of CISAC's Executive Committee.

 

Gloria Duffy: CISAC in the 1980s

Dr. Gloria Duffy was a CISAC fellow from 1980 to 1982.  She served as a deputy assistant secretary of defense during the Clinton Administration.  Dr. Duffy is currently president of the Commonwealth Club of California.

 

Lynn Eden: CISAC in the 1990s

Dr. Lynn Eden is acting co-director and a senior research scholar at the Center. She was a CISAC fellow from 1987-88 and 1989-1990.

Jessica McLaughlin '05: CISAC in the New Millennium

Ms. Jessica McLaughlin graduated from Stanford in 2005, majoring in management science and engineering, with a certificate in Honors in International Security Studies through CISAC's undergraduate honors program.  Her thesis, "A Bayesian Updating Model for Intelligence Analysis," won CISAC's William J. Perry Prize for excellence in policy-relevant research in international security studies.  She is a management consultant at Oliver Wyman.

 

William J. Perry BS'49, MS '50: The Future of CISAC

Professor William J. Perry holds several positions at Stanford and was previously a co-director of CISAC. He was the 19th secretary of defense of the United States, serving from February 1994 to January 1997.

 

Closing Remarks

Siegfried Hecker

 

Special thanks to the CISAC Quartet:

Beverly Jean Harlan, Anne Prescott, Nancy Solomon, Paul N. Stockton

CISAC Conference Room

Conferences
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Sarah Catanzaro is a senior undergraduate student at Stanford University majoring in international relations and minoring in Art History. Her interest in international security studies was provoked by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the Twin Towers. Living on Long Island in a community that was impacted by this tragedy, she experienced firsthand the acute anxiety and sense of vulnerability induced by terrorism and sought to understand this phenomenon through academic research. As a result, she, like Ms. Esberg worked as a research assistant for Jacob Shapiro, a former postgraduate fellow at CISAC, examining the inefficiencies and vulnerabilities of terrorist groups. Since her junior year, she has served as a research assistant for Professor Martha Crenshaw. Moreover, Sarah interned at the Center on Law and Security at New York University School of Law, where she created a database of released Guantanamo Bay detainees that now serves as a crucial research tool for the executive director of the Center, Karen Greenberg. She is also active in the Stanford community as the President of the Public Health Initiative and former Events Director of Stanford Women in Business. She looks forward to expand her knowledge and professional experiences in the field of international security in the near future.

Jane Esberg is a CISAC Undergraduate Honors Student graduating this June with a B.A. in International Relations. She currently works as a research assistant for acting co-director of CISAC, Professor Lynn Eden, investigating US nuclear war planning. Previously, she has researched for Professor Kenneth A. Schultz, CISAC Homeland Security Fellow Jacob Shapiro, and PhD Candidate Luke Condra. In Summer 2008 Jane received a Stanford in Government Fellowship to work with the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London, in the Transnational Threats and Political Risks division. She studied abroad at Oxford University, where she completed a tutorial on "the Politics of Terrorism," and in Santiago, Chile, where she was awarded a Stanford Quarterly Research Grant to conduct independent research for use in her thesis. After graduation, she will be traveling as a Haas Center Fellow to the Tambopata region of the Peruvian Amazon to conduct a research and service project on the impact of national policy, urbanization, and immigration on agricultural sustainability.

CISAC Conference Room

Sarah Catanzaro CISAC Honors Student and winner of the William J. Perry Prize Speaker
Jane Esberg CISAC Honors Student and winner of the Firestone Medal Speaker
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Professor, Management Science and Engineering, Emeritus
FSI Senior Fellow
CISAC Faculty Member
Not in Residence
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Michael May is Professor Emeritus (Research) in the Stanford University School of Engineering and a senior fellow with the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He is the former co-director of Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, having served seven years in that capacity through January 2000.

May is a director emeritus of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he worked from 1952 to 1988, with some brief periods away from the Laboratory. While there, he held a variety of research and development positions, serving as director of the Laboratory from 1965 to 1971.

May was a technical adviser to the Threshold Test Ban Treaty negotiating team; a member of the U.S. delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks; and at various times has been a member of the Defense Science Board, the General Advisory Committee to the AEC, the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, the RAND Corporation Board of Trustees, and the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the International Institute on Strategic Studies, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

May received the Distinguished Public Service and Distinguished Civilian Service Medals from the Department of Defense, and the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award from the Atomic Energy Commission, as well as other awards.

His current research interests are nuclear weapons policy in the US and in other countries; nuclear terrorism; nuclear and other forms of energy and their impact on the environment, health and safety and security; the use of statistics and mathematical models in the public sphere.

May is continuing work on creating a secure future for civilian nuclear applications. In October 2007, May hosted an international workshop on how the nuclear weapon states can help rebuild the consensus underlying the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Proceedings and a summary report are available online or by email request. May also chaired a technical working group on nuclear forensics. The final report is available online.

In April 2007, May in cooperation with former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry and Professor Ashton Carter of Harvard hosted a workshop on what would have to be done to be ready for a terrorist nuclear detonation. The report is available online at the Preventive Defense Project. A summary, titled, "The Day After: Action Following a Nuclear Blast in a U.S. City," was published fall 2007 in Washington Quarterly and is available online.

Recent work also includes a study of nuclear postures in several countries (2007 - 2009); an article on nuclear disarmament and one on tactical nuclear weapons; and a report with Kate Marvel for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on possible game changers in the nuclear energy industry.

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Michael M. May CISAC Co-Director Moderator
Seminars
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David Holloway is the Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, a professor of political science, and an FSI senior fellow. He was co-director of CISAC from 1991 to 1997, and director of FSI from 1998 to 2003. His research focuses on the international history of nuclear weapons, on science and technology in the Soviet Union, and on the relationship between international history and international relations theory. His book Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956 (Yale University Press, 1994) was chosen by the New York Times Book Review as one of the 11 best books of 1994, and it won the Vucinich and Shulman prizes of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. It has been translated into six languages, most recently into Czech in 2008. Holloway also wrote The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (1983) and co-authored The Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative: Technical, Political and Arms Control Assessment (1984). He has contributed to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Foreign Affairs, and other scholarly journals.

Since joining the Stanford faculty in 1986 -- first as a professor of political science and later (in 1996) as a professor of history as well -- Holloway has served as chair and co-chair of the International Relations Program (1989-1991), and as associate dean in the School of Humanities and Sciences (1997-1998). Before coming to Stanford, he taught at the University of Lancaster (1967-1970) and the University of Edinburgh (1970-1986). Born in Dublin, Ireland, he received his undergraduate degree in modern languages and literature, and his PhD in social and political sciences, both from Cambridge University.

Theodore Postol is Professor of Science, Technology and National Security Policy in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT. He did his undergraduate work in physics and his graduate work in nuclear engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After receiving his Ph.D., Dr. Postol joined the staff of Argonne National Laboratory, where he studied the microscopic dynamics and structure of liquids and disordered solids using neutron, x-ray and light scattering, along with computer molecular dynamics techniques. Subsequently he went to the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment to study methods of basing the MX Missile, and later worked as a scientific adviser to the Chief of Naval Operations. After leaving the Pentagon, Dr. Postol helped to build a program at Stanford University to train mid-career scientists to study developments in weapons technology of relevance to defense and arms control policy. In 1990 Dr. Postol was awarded the Leo Szilard Prize from the American Physical Society. In 1995 he received the Hilliard Roderick Prize from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and in 2001 he received the Norbert Wiener Award from Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility for uncovering numerous and important false claims about missile defenses.

Philip Taubman is a consulting professor at CISAC, where is working on a book project about nuclear threats and the joint effort of Sid Drell, Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn, Bill Perry and George Shultz to reduce nuclear dangers. Before joining CISAC this fall, Mr. Taubman worked at the New York Times as a reporter and editor for nearly 30 years, specializing in national security issues, including intelligence and defense policies and operations. At the Times, Taubman served as a Washington correspondent, Moscow bureau chief, deputy editorial page editor, Washington bureau chief and associate editor. Taubman also serves as Stanford associate vice president for university affairs, working on special projects for Stanford's president, John Hennessy.

Taubman was a history major at Stanford, Class of 1970, and served as editor-in-chief of the Stanford Daily in 1969. Before joining the New York Times, he worked as a correspondent for Time magazine and was sports editor of Esquire. He was a member of the Stanford Board of Trustees, 1978-1982. He is author of Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage. (Simon & Schuster, 2003.) Taubman is married to Felicity Barringer, the national environmental correspondent of the New York Times and a fellow Stanford graduate, Class of 1971.

CISAC Conference Room

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, E214
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

(650) 723-1737 (650) 723-0089
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Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies
Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History
0820stanford-davidholloway-238-edit.jpg PhD

David Holloway is the Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, a professor of political science, and an FSI senior fellow. He was co-director of CISAC from 1991 to 1997, and director of FSI from 1998 to 2003. His research focuses on the international history of nuclear weapons, on science and technology in the Soviet Union, and on the relationship between international history and international relations theory. His book Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956 (Yale University Press, 1994) was chosen by the New York Times Book Review as one of the 11 best books of 1994, and it won the Vucinich and Shulman prizes of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. It has been translated into seven languages, most recently into Chinese. The Chinese translation is due to be published later in 2018. Holloway also wrote The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (1983) and co-authored The Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative: Technical, Political and Arms Control Assessment (1984). He has contributed to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Foreign Affairs, and other scholarly journals.

Since joining the Stanford faculty in 1986 -- first as a professor of political science and later (in 1996) as a professor of history as well -- Holloway has served as chair and co-chair of the International Relations Program (1989-1991), and as associate dean in the School of Humanities and Sciences (1997-1998). Before coming to Stanford, he taught at the University of Lancaster (1967-1970) and the University of Edinburgh (1970-1986). Born in Dublin, Ireland, he received his undergraduate degree in modern languages and literature, and his PhD in social and political sciences, both from Cambridge University.

Faculty member at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Affiliated faculty at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
Affiliated faculty at The Europe Center
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David Holloway Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History Speaker Stanford University
Theodore Postol Professor of Science, Technology, and International Security Speaker MIT
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Taubman_Phil.jpg

Philip Taubman is affiliated with the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. Before joining CISAC in 2008, Mr. Taubman worked at the New York Times as a reporter and editor for nearly 30 years, specializing in national security issues, including United States diplomacy, and intelligence and defense policy and operations. He served as Moscow bureau chief and Washington bureau chief, among other posts. He is author of Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage (2003), The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban the Bomb (2012),  In the Nation's Service: The Life and Times of George P. Shultz (2023), as well as co-author (with his brother, William Taubman) of McNamara at War: A New History (2025).

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Philip Taubman Consulting Professor Speaker CISAC
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