Stanford University

Violence

“Burned Bridge: How East and West Germans Made the Iron Curtain”

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Co-sponsored by the Center for Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies (CREEES), the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), The Europe Center and the German Studies department

About the topic:  This talk presents an unconventional look at the creation of a deadly barrier between East and West Germany.  It reveals how the Iron Curtain was not simply imposed by communism, but had been emerging haphazardly in both East and West long before the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961.  From the end of the Third Reich, ad hoc enforcement of the tenuous border between the two Germanys led to the creation of difference where there was no difference, institutionalization of violence among neighbors, popular participation in a system that was deeply unpopular--and people normalizing a monstrosity in their midst.

About the Speaker: Edith Sheffer is assistant professor of Modern European History at Stanford. Edith Sheffer came to Stanford as an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in the Humanities in 2008 and joined the History Department faculty in 2010.  She recently completed Burned Bridge: How East and West Germans Made the Iron Curtain, and was the winner of the 2011 Fraenkel Prize, awarded by the Wiener Library Institute of Contemporary History, London. 

Her future research will also examine the intersection of public events and private choices, from Germans’ “zero Hour” diaries in 1945 to the development and dissemination of corporate cultures.  Research and teaching interests span modern Europe and Germany, especially the social and cultural history of the twentieth century.

CISAC Conference Room

Edith Sheffer Assistant Professor of Modern European History, The Europe Center Research Affiliate Speaker
Seminars

Testing the Surge: Why Did Violence Decline in Iraq in 2007?

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Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Jacob Shapiro Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University; Co-director, Empirical Studies of Conflict Project Speaker
David Blum Predoctoral Fellow, CISAC Commentator
Seminars

Mexico’s Fight for Security

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Since 2006, more than 40,000 people in Mexico have died in drug-related homicides, and recent figures indicate that the pace and severity of drug-related violence is increasing. Experiencing a significant breakdown of its rule of law, the population of Ciudad Juárez alone suffered more than 3,000 homicides in 2010, making it the most dangerous city anywhere in the world. Dr. Poiré Romero will address the characteristics of the security situation in Mexico, the historical events and situations that made it what it is now, and the current strategy that the Federal Government is implementing to achieve security. Dr. Poiré’s talk will be completely off-the-record, and is by invitation only.

Speaker biography:

On September 9, 2011, Dr. Alejandro Poiré Romero was appointed as Director of Mexico´s National Security Agency by President Felipe Calderón. Prior to that, Dr. Poiré served as Secretary of the National Security Council and Cabinet, and has held a variety of cabinet-level positions since 2007. He also worked as an adviser to the National Institute of Statistics on the creation of the first National Survey on Political Culture and Citizenship Practices. He has published several academic pieces analyzing public opinion, campaign dynamics and voting behavior in Mexico, in addition to two books on Mexico’s democratic process, Towards Mexico’s Democratization: Parties, Campaigns, Elections, and Public Opinion and Mexico's Pivotal Democratic Election.

Dr. Poiré holds a PhD in Political Science from Harvard University, and a Bachelor’s degree in the same field from Mexico’s Autonomous Technological Institute (ITAM), where he has been a professor and the Political Science Department Chair. He has also been a visiting researcher and lecturer at several institutions in the USA, including MIT, and Latin America. 

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CISAC Conference Room

Alejandro Poiré Romero Director of Mexico’s National Security Agency Speaker
Seminars

Can Hearts and Minds Be Bought? The Economics of Counterinsurgency in Iraq

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Abstract:

We develop and test an economic theory of insurgency motivated by the informal literature and by recent military doctrine. We model a three-way contest between violent rebels, a government seeking to minimize violence by mixing service provision and coercion, and civilians deciding whether to share information about insurgents. We test the model using panel data from Iraq on violence against Coalition and Iraqi forces, reconstruction spending, and community characteristics (sectarian status, socioeconomic grievances, and natural resource endowments). Our results support the theory’s predictions: improved service provision reduces insurgent violence, particularly for smaller projects and since the “surge” began in 2007.

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Journal Articles
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Journal of Political Economy
Authors
Eli Berman
Jacob N. Shapiro
Joseph Felter
External URL

Mapping Militants: Causes and Consequences of Interactions among Militant Organizations

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Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Martha Crenshaw

Not in residence

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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Emerita
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science, Emerita
crenshaw_martha.jpg
PhD

Martha Crenshaw is a senior fellow emerita at CISAC and FSI. She taught at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, from 1974 to 2007.  She has published extensively on the subject of terrorism.  In 2011 Routledge published Explaining Terrorism, a collection of her previously published work.  A book co-authored with Gary LaFree titled Countering Terrorism was published by the Brookings Institution Press in 2017. She recently authored a report for the U.S. Institute of Peace, “Rethinking Transnational Terrorism:  An Integrated Approach”.

 

 She served on the Executive Board of Women in International Security and is a former President and Councilor of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP). In 2005-2006 she was a Guggenheim Fellow. She was a lead investigator with the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland from 2005 to 2017.  She is currently affiliated with the National Counterterrorism, Innovation, Technology, and Education (NCITE) Center, also a Center of Excellence for the Department of Homeland Security.  In 2009 the National Science Foundation/Department of Defense Minerva Initiative awarded her a grant for a research project on "mapping terrorist organizations," which is ongoing.  She has served on several committees of the National Academy of Sciences.  In 2015 she was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.  She is the recipient of the International Studies Association International Security Studies Section Distinguished Scholar Award for 2016. Also in 2016 Ghent University awarded her an honorary doctorate.  She serves on the editorial boards of the journals International Security, Security Studies, Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict, Orbis, and Terrorism and Political Violence.

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Martha Crenshaw Professor (by courtesy), Political Science, Stanford University; Senior Fellow at CISAC & FSI Speaker
Seminars

Experiences in Extremist Groups

As part of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, Martha Crenshaw moderated a discussion with former radicals who discussed lessons learned during their participation in, and emergence from, various extremist movements. They spoke about what led them to violence, why people are attracted to extremist groups, and programs for deradicalization. 

To view or purchase the event video, please visit: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Extremist.

Martha Crenshaw

Not in residence

0
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Emerita
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science, Emerita
crenshaw_martha.jpg
PhD

Martha Crenshaw is a senior fellow emerita at CISAC and FSI. She taught at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, from 1974 to 2007.  She has published extensively on the subject of terrorism.  In 2011 Routledge published Explaining Terrorism, a collection of her previously published work.  A book co-authored with Gary LaFree titled Countering Terrorism was published by the Brookings Institution Press in 2017. She recently authored a report for the U.S. Institute of Peace, “Rethinking Transnational Terrorism:  An Integrated Approach”.

 

 She served on the Executive Board of Women in International Security and is a former President and Councilor of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP). In 2005-2006 she was a Guggenheim Fellow. She was a lead investigator with the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland from 2005 to 2017.  She is currently affiliated with the National Counterterrorism, Innovation, Technology, and Education (NCITE) Center, also a Center of Excellence for the Department of Homeland Security.  In 2009 the National Science Foundation/Department of Defense Minerva Initiative awarded her a grant for a research project on "mapping terrorist organizations," which is ongoing.  She has served on several committees of the National Academy of Sciences.  In 2015 she was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.  She is the recipient of the International Studies Association International Security Studies Section Distinguished Scholar Award for 2016. Also in 2016 Ghent University awarded her an honorary doctorate.  She serves on the editorial boards of the journals International Security, Security Studies, Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict, Orbis, and Terrorism and Political Violence.

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Martha Crenshaw Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) and Senior Fellow at CISAC and FSI Moderator
Panel Discussions

The Terror War and the Ethics of Targeted Killing

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RSVP required. Please do not forward event information. Seating is limited.

In response to the 9/11 attacks, the Bush Administration adopted a policy of targeting the leadership of terror groups believed to be threatening America. The Obama Administration has vastly increased the use of this tactic, described by President Obama as “eliminating our enemies.”  Critics of the practice contend that it violates the law of armed conflict and international humanitarian law.  Supporters describe it as a variety of legal preemptive attack.  As a just war theorist, Professor Carter is interested in the morality rather than the legality of targeted killing.

In this seminar, he will discuss the ethical questions raised by attacks on the enemy leadership, whether the enemy is a state or a non-state actor.  He will contend that the word “assassination” is almost always the correct one when such a policy is implemented.  Although his hope is to shed light on the ethics of the Terror War, examples will be drawn mostly from other conflicts in history, including World War II, the Civil War, and others more remote in time.  Carter will argue that the Western tradition of just and unjust war is not entirely adequate for analyzing the morality of assassination, and that a degree of updating is therefore needed.

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CISAC Conference Room

Stephen L. Carter William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, Yale and Author of "The Violence of Peace: America’s Wars in the Age of Obama" Speaker
Seminars

The Global Religious Challenges to the Secular State

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Mark Juergensmeyer is director of the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, professor of sociology, and affiliate professor of religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is an expert on religious violence, conflict resolution and South Asian religion and politics, and has published more than two hundred articles and twenty books, including the recently-released Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State. His widely-read Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, is based on interviews with religious activists around the world--including individuals convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, leaders of Hamas, and abortion clinic bombers in the United States--and was listed by the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times as one of the best nonfiction books of the year. 

One of Juergensmeyer's earlier books, The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State, covers the rise of religious activism and its confrontation with secular modernity. It was named by the New York Times as one of the notable books of the year. 

For additional information on the series, please visit the Stanford Ethics and War series website.

Annenberg Auditorium
Stanford University

Mark Juergensmeyer Professor of Global and International Studies Speaker UC Santa Barbara
Seminars
Stanford Ethics & War Series

2011 Payne Distinguished Lecture: Improving Governance and Combating Drugs

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On October 3, Karl Eikenberry, the former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, will deliver this year's inaugural Payne Distinguished Lecture at Cemex Auditorium at the Knight Management Center.

The public address will be given in conjunction with a private, two-day conference that will bring to Stanford an international group of political scientists, economists, lawyers, policy-makers, and military experts to examine from a comparative perspective problems of violence, organized crime, and governance in Mexico. 

Cemex Auditorium
Zambrano Hall
Knight Management Center

641 Knight Way, Stanford, California 94305

Karl Eikenberry Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and Retired U.S. Army Lt. General Speaker
Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar Speaker Center for International Security and Cooperation

Beatriz Magaloni

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

(650) 724-5949
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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations
Professor of Political Science
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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 Speaker Center on Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law
Lectures

Violence, Drugs and Governance: Mexican Security in Comparative Perspective Conference

The conference will bring together a multidisciplinary group of political scientists, economists, and lawyers, together with policy makers and military experts in Mexico and the United States, seeking to provide better answers about how to confront drug-related violence and strengthen the rule of law and state capacity in Mexico.

While the focus is on Mexico, we believe that sharing research strategies and findings from other settings, notably Colombia, Brazil, and Afghanistan, will contribute to the debate on the current state and future trajectory of Mexico’s situation.

The conference seeks to foster an exchange of ideas based on the analysis of various actors in contentious environments, including, but not limited to, drug trafficking organizations. Examining the mechanisms behind the violence in Mexico from a comparative perspective will bring us closer to developing constructive policy recommendations to reduce violence in Mexico.

Mr. Karl Eikenberry will deliver a keynote address at the end of the day on Thurs., Oct. 3rd, and that part of the event will be open to the public.

Stanford University

Mr. Karl Eikenberry Former US Ambassador to Afghanistan Keynote Speaker
Mr. Arturo Sarukhán Ambassador of Mexico to the United States Keynote Speaker
Mr. Alejandro Poiré Secretario Técnico del Consejo de Seguridad Nacional and Government Spokesman for Security Issues Keynote Speaker Government of Mexico
Mr. José Mariano Beltrame Secretary of Security for the State of Rio de Janeiro Keynote Speaker
Mr. Alejandro Martí Mexican businessman Keynote Speaker
Conferences
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