FSI researchers strive to understand how countries relate to one another, and what policies are needed to achieve global stability and prosperity. International relations experts focus on the challenging U.S.-Russian relationship, the alliance between the U.S. and Japan and the limitations of America’s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.
Foreign aid is also examined by scholars trying to understand whether money earmarked for health improvements reaches those who need it most. And FSI’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center has published on the need for strong South Korean leadership in dealing with its northern neighbor.
FSI researchers also look at the citizens who drive international relations, studying the effects of migration and how borders shape people’s lives. Meanwhile FSI students are very much involved in this area, working with the United Nations in Ethiopia to rethink refugee communities.
Trade is also a key component of international relations, with FSI approaching the topic from a slew of angles and states. The economy of trade is rife for study, with an APARC event on the implications of more open trade policies in Japan, and FSI researchers making sense of who would benefit from a free trade zone between the European Union and the United States.
Task force hopes to curb misuse of digital tools to exploit children
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CISAC affiliate John Villasenor, a professor of electrical engineering and public policy at UCLA and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, presented a report by the Digital Economy Task Force at an event hosted by the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs.
The Task Force was convened in June 2013 by the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children and the international news agency Thomson Reuters in an effort to combat the use of digital technologies in ways that exploit children.
"As we state in the report, in terms of the methods used, technology-facilitated commercial sexual exploitation of children has some commonalities with other criminal uses of the digital economy, including money laundering and terrorism financing,” said Villasenor, vice chair of the task force. “As a result, some aspects of the problem can and should be addressed in a broader context."
Villasenor, whose research considers the broader impact of key technology trends, presented some key recommendations from the report on March 5, which include:
- Define the issue so that resources can be directed toward reducing the victimization of children;
- Develop enhanced law enforcement investigation protocols;
- Promote and facilitate international law enforcement coordination;
- Educate policymakers on rules and regulations applicable to digital economy money services;
- Develop reasonable regulatory definitions and limits to ensure that Internet anonymity does not became a safe harbor for criminal activity;
- Encourage law enforcement agencies, such as the FBI, Secret Service and other government agencies and human rights organizations with international reach to expand analysis and information gathering on the digital economy;
- Continue to for working groups among private stakeholders and academics to help inform, collaborate and brainstorm with government and law enforcement officials.
The office of Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, issued this statement and Villasenor wrote this blog post for Brookings.
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A Foreign Policy for the Future
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In the post-9/11 world, the days of an American “grand strategy” are over.
Grand strategy has always been seductive because it promises policy coherence in the face of complexity. Yet the sorry truth is that American grand strategies are usually alluring but elusive. Containment during the Cold War, the most often cited example of grand strategy success, is a recent lonely exception that has driven political scientists and policy makers to keep hope alive. That hope is misguided. In the post-9/11 world, forging a successful grand strategy is unlikely and dangerous.
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Defining Ideas
Our Red Lines and Theirs
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If the Syrian civil war and, in particular, the horrific Ghouta attack this August have reminded the world of the persistent danger of chemical weapons, it is worth remembering that this is not the first time the United States has confronted a Middle Eastern dictator armed with weapons of mass destruction. During the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam Hussein possessed large stockpiles of chemical weapons, which he had used frequently in his 8-year war with Iran during the 1980s. And yet Iraq did not use these weapons against the U.S.-led coalition forces, even as they soundly defeated the Iraqi army, pushing it from Kuwait. For two decades, the question has been, why no
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Foreign Policy
The Shortsighted Presidency
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CISAC Co-Director Amy Zegart argues in this Foreign Policy commentary that, like all presidents, President Obama is relatively unconstrained in the near term to pursue the foreign policies he desires. She notes that despite economic woes, a polarized Congress and skyrocketing national debt, Obama has been "strangely unconstrained in executing his major foreign policy priorities."
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International Law and Social Facts: Some Experimental Data on War Crimes Investigations, Attitudes, and Perceived Credibility of Facts
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ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Shiri Krebs is a JSD Candidate at Stanford Law School, specializing in international criminal and humanitarian law. She was recently awarded the Christiana Shi Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellowship in International Studies, and was also named the Zukerman Fellow, and Law and International Security Predoctoral Fellow at Stanford Center on International Security and Cooperation (CISAC).
Her doctoral dissertation focuses on war crimes investigations and fact-finding during armed conflicts. This interdisciplinary research project combines theories and methods from law, psychology, sociology and political science, including online survey experiments.
From 2005 to 2010 Shiri served as legal advisor on international law matters in the Chief-Justice's chambers, the Israeli Supreme Court. During that time she has taught public international law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, a teaching assistantship which granted her the Dean's award for excellent junior faculty members, as well as 'best teacher' award. After leaving the Supreme Court, Shiri joined the Israeli Democracy Institute as a researcher, working on 'Terrorism and Democracy' projects, and publishing frequent op-eds in various newspapers and blogs.
In September 2010 Shiri started her graduate studies at Stanford Law School. Her Masters thesis - an empirical analysis of preventive detention cases - was presented in several international conferences and has won the Steven M. Block Civil Liberties Award.
In 2012, while working on her dissertation, Shiri was appointed as a Teaching Scholar at Santa Clara University School of Law, teaching international criminal law and international humanitarian law. She is currently serving as a Teaching Assistant for CISAC's Interschool Honors Program in International Security Studies.
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Shiri Krebs
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s.krebs@deakin.edu.au
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Shiri Krebs is a Professor of Law at Deakin University and Director of the Centre for Law as Protection. She is also the Chair of the Lieber Society on the Law of Armed Conflict, an affiliate scholar at Stanford University Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), and co-lead of the Australian Government Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre (CSCRC) Law and Policy Theme. In 2024, she was appointed as a Visiting Legal Fellow at the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). Her research on drone warfare and predictive technologies in counterterrorism and armed conflict is currently funded by a 3-year Australian Research Council (ARC) DECRA fellowship and an Alexander von Humboldt Experienced Researcher Fellowship at the University of Hamburg.
Prof Krebs’ research projects on international fact-finding, biases in counterterrorism decision-making, and human-machine interaction in drone warfare, have influenced decision-making processes through invitations to brief high-level decision-makers, including at the United Nations (CTED, Office of the Secretary-General), the United States Department of Defense, and the Australian Defence Force.
Her recent research awards include the David Caron Prize (American Society of International Law, 2021), the ‘Researcher of the Year’ Award (Australian Women in Law Awards, 2022), the Australian Legal Research Awards (finalist, Article/Chapter (ECR), 2022), and the Vice-Chancellor’s Researcher Award for Career Excellence (Deakin, 2022).
Before joining Deakin University, Prof Krebs has taught in several law schools, including at Stanford University, University of Santa Clara, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she won the Dean’s award recognizing exceptional junior faculty members.
She earned her Doctorate and Master Degrees from Stanford Law School, as well as LL.B. and M.A., both magna cum laude, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
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Mark Kelman
James C. Gaither Professor of Law and Vice Dean, Stanford Law School
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Joint CISAC-SCICN Event -- The Face of the Enemy: Gender, Threat, Dehuamnization, and Support for Peace in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - Experimental and Polling Data
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This event is co-sponsored by the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation (SCICN).
Ifat Maoz is a Full Professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism, former Head of the Smart Family Institute of Communications at the Hebrew University (2008-2013), Director of the Swiss Center and Graduate Program of Conflict Studies (on Sabbatical leave 2013-14) and holds the Danny Arnold Chair in Communication. Prof. Maoz is a social psychologist researching psychology and media in conflict and intergroup relations. She has been a visiting scholar at the Psychology Department of Stanford University (1996) and a senior research fellow at the Asch Center for the Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at the University of Pennsylvania and Bryn Mawr College (2002-3, 2006-8). Her current main interests include psychological, moral and media-related aspects in conflict and peace-making, cognitive processing of social and political information, dynamics of intergroup communication in conflict, models of intergroup encounters, audience responses, and public opinion in conflict and peace making. On sabbatical leave, Stanford University, Department of Psychology.
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Ifat Maoz
Professor, Department of Communication and Journalism, Head, Swiss Center for Conflict Research, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Visiting Scholar, Department of Psychology and SCICN, Stanford
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Lee Ross
Professor of Psychology, Stanford
Commentator
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Doing History for IR -- Interpreting the A-Bomb Decision: Using Documents to Construct and Understand History
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ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Barton J. Bernstein is Professor Emeritus of History at Stanford University. He was Professor of History at Stanford from 1965-2012. Additionally, he was previously Co-Chair of the International Relations Program and the International Policy Studies Program. Professor Bernstein received his PhD in History from Harvard University and his BA from Queens College. He has taught extensively at Stanford; in the past, his courses have included: The United States Since 1945; The Politics and Ethics of Modern Science and Technology; and Decision Making in International Crisis: The A-Bomb, the Korean War, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Professor Bernstein has published extensively in numerous academic journals, and his books include: The Truman Administration: A Documentary History; Towards a New Past: Dissenting Essays in American History; Politics and Policies of the Truman Administration; and Twentieth-Century America: Recent Interpretations.
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Barton J. Bernstein
Professor of History, Emeritus, Stanford
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Making and Breaking Territorial Agreements: Explaining European Exceptionalism
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ABOUT THE TOPIC: While the overall record of compliance with interstate territorial agreement since 1815 is quite high, Europe experienced a disproportionate share of treaty failures compared to other regions of the world. In Europe, treaties were frequently made and frequently broken; everywhere else, the dominant pattern has been for treaties to be rarely made and rarely broken. I argue that this pattern arose due to multilateral and hierarchical nature of border settlements in Europe, which was heavily influenced by the region’s great powers. Although great powers often imposed treaty terms on other states, enforcement was, at best, inconsistent and, at worst, actively undermined by their own actions. Using a new data set on interstate territorial conflicts and agreements, I show that the fates of border settlements in Europe were highly interdependent and vulnerable to contagion, either failing or succeeding en masse. By contrast, in other regions, where border settlements tended to be bilaterally determined, treaty failures were less likely to cluster in time. In addition to their implications for the study of treaty compliance and conflict contagion, these results speak to the promise and dangers of externally-imposed peace agreements.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Kenneth A. Schultz is professor of political science at Stanford University and an affiliated faculty member at CISAC. His research examines international conflict and conflict resolution, with a particular focus on the domestic political influences on foreign policy choices. His most recent work deals with the origins and resolution of territorial conflicts between states. He is the author of Democracy and Coercive Diplomacy (Cambridge University Press, 2001), World Politics: Interests, Interactions, and Institutions (with David Lake and Jeffry Frieden, Norton, 2013), as well as numerous articles in peer-reviewed scholarly journals. He was the recipient the 2003 Karl Deutsch Award, given by the International Studies Association, and a Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, given by Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences.
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Kenneth A. Schultz
Department of Political Science
Stanford University
Encina Hall West
Stanford, CA 94305-6044
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kschultz@stanford.edu
Professor of Political Science
CISAC Core Faculty Member
Kenneth A. Schultz is professor of political science and a CISAC core faculty member at Stanford University. His research examines international conflict and conflict resolution, with a particular focus on the domestic political influences on foreign policy choices. He is the author of Democracy and Coercive Diplomacy and World Politics: Interests, Interactions, and Institutions (with David Lake and Jeffry Frieden), as well as numerous articles in peer-reviewed scholarly journals. He was the recipient the 2003 Karl Deutsch Award, given by the International Studies Association, and a 2011 Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching, awarded by Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences. He received his PhD in political science from Stanford University.
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