Stanford University

Security

FSI scholars produce research aimed at creating a safer world and examing the consequences of security policies on institutions and society. They look at longstanding issues including nuclear nonproliferation and the conflicts between countries like North and South Korea. But their research also examines new and emerging areas that transcend traditional borders – the drug war in Mexico and expanding terrorism networks. FSI researchers look at the changing methods of warfare with a focus on biosecurity and nuclear risk. They tackle cybersecurity with an eye toward privacy concerns and explore the implications of new actors like hackers.

Along with the changing face of conflict, terrorism and crime, FSI researchers study food security. They tackle the global problems of hunger, poverty and environmental degradation by generating knowledge and policy-relevant solutions. 

Keeping It Professional: Language and Bureaucracy in the Cold War

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For winter quarter 2022, CISAC will be hosting hybrid events. Many events will offer limited-capacity in-person attendance for Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, visiting scholars, and students in accordance with Stanford’s health and safety guidelines, and be open to the public online via Zoom. All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone. 

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About the Event: How do states communicate internally about foreign policy and how does this change over time? Applying concepts from linguistics to a novel corpus of all President’s Daily Briefs from 1961 to 1977, we analyze change over time in the variety of terms used in national security writing (“lexical diversity”). We find a consistently declining level of lexical diversity across presidential administrations and despite variation in exogenous changes in foreign affairs. We argue that this increasingly homogenized language reflects a larger process of bureaucratization in American national security institutions in the 1960s and 1970s. We build on the concept of “organizational sensemaking” and argue that bureaucratization directly and indirectly compresses the terminological range used by individual bureaucrats and homogenizes the language of its outputs. One key payoff is shedding light on what is “lost in translation” when bureaucratic experts communicate with leaders and the foreign policy mistakes and misperceptions that may follow. Our research contributes to work on bureaucracy and perceptions in IR by identifying a subtle shift in the spectrum of terms with which the state interprets the world – a finding that is only tractable by combining computational and linguistic techniques with a large corpus of formerly classified intelligence materials.

 

About the Speaker: Eric Min is Assistant Professor of Political Science at UCLA. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University, where he was the Zukerman Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation for the 2017-2018 academic year. He is a 2020 Henry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Distinguished Scholar. His research interests focus on the application of machine learning, text, and statistical methods to the analysis of interstate war, diplomacy, decision-making, and conflict management. His research has been published or is forthcoming in American Political Science Review, International Organization, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, and Journal of Strategic Studies.

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to William J Perry Conference Room in Encina Hall may attend in person. 

Eric Min

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Eric Min is Associate Professor of Political Science at UCLA. He is received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University, where he was the Zukerman Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation for the 2017-2018 academic year. He was a Henry Frank Guggenheim Foundation Distinguished Scholar in 2021-22.

Min's primary research interests include the intersection of interstate war and diplomacy; international security and conflict management; and the application of machine learning, text, and statistical methods to study these topics. His work is published in the American Political Science Review, International Organization, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, and the Journal of Strategic Studies.

His dissertation, entitled “Negotiation in War,” was the recipient of the 2018 Kenneth Waltz Dissertation Prize from APSA’s International Security Section. Min’s book, titled Words of War: Negotiation as a Tool of Conflict, is part of the Studies in Security Affairs series at Cornell University Press.

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Tyrants on Twitter: Protecting Democracies from Information Warfare

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For winter quarter 2021, CISAC will be hosting hybrid events. Many events will offer limited-capacity in-person attendance for Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, visiting scholars, and students in accordance with Stanford’s health and safety guidelines, and be open to the public online via Zoom. All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone. 

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About the Event: This event is a book talk based on my forthcoming book, Tyrants on Twitter: Protecting Democracies from Information Warfare. Below is a brief summary of the book.

When Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram were first introduced to the public, their mission was simple: they were designed to help people become more connected to each other. Social media became a thriving digital space by giving its users the freedom to share whatever they wanted with their friends and followers. Unfortunately, these same digital tools are also easy to manipulate. As exemplified by Russia's interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, authoritarian states can exploit social media to interfere with democratic governance in open societies. 

Tyrants on Twitter is the first detailed analysis of how Chinese and Russian agents weaponize Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube to subvert the liberal international order. In addition to examining the 2016 U.S. election, David L. Sloss explores Russia's use of foreign influence operations to threaten democracies in Europe, as well as China's use of social media and other digital tools to meddle in Western democracies and buttress autocratic rulers around the world. 

Sloss calls for cooperation among democratic governments to create a new transnational system for regulating social media to protect Western democracies from information warfare. Drawing on his professional experience as an arms control negotiator, he outlines a novel system of transnational governance that Western democracies can enforce by harmonizing their domestic regulations. And drawing on his academic expertise in constitutional law, he explains why that system—if implemented by legislation in the United States—would be constitutionally defensible, despite likely First Amendment objections. This book is essential reading in a time when disinformation campaigns threaten to undermine democracy.

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About the Speaker: David L. Sloss is the John A. and Elizabeth H. Sutro Professor of Law at Santa Clara University. He is the author of The Death of Treaty Supremacy: An Invisible Constitutional Change (Oxford Univ. Press, 2016) and Tyrants on Twitter: Protecting Democracies from Information Warfare (Stanford Univ. Press, forthcoming 2022). He is the co-editor of International Law in the U.S. Supreme Court: Continuity and Change (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2011) and sole editor of The Role of Domestic Courts in Treaty Enforcement: A Comparative Study (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2009). He has also published several dozen book chapters and law review articles. His book on the death of treaty supremacy and his edited volume on international law in the U.S. Supreme Court both won prestigious book awards from the American Society of International Law. Professor Sloss is a member of the American Law Institute and a Counsellor to the American Society of International Law. His scholarship is informed by extensive government experience. Before entering academia, he spent nine years in the federal government, where he worked on U.S.-Soviet arms control negotiations and nuclear proliferation issues.

This event is virtual only. This event will not be held in person.

David Sloss Professor of Law Santa Clara University
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Twenty Years of Stabilization and Reconstruction: Lessons from the U.S. Experience in Afghanistan

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*For fall quarter 2021, CISAC will be hosting hybrid events. Many events will offer limited-capacity in-person attendance for Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, visiting scholars, and students in accordance with Stanford’s health and safety guidelines, and be open to the public online via Zoom. All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

 

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About the Event: The Afghan government’s collapse in August demonstrated that two decades of donor-driven state-building efforts failed to build a foundation for a stable, democratic, and prosperous Afghanistan. Why did the United States and its allies fail, and what should donors learn for similar state-building efforts in the future, both large and small?

Spanning the U.S. government’s problematic strategies, inappropriate timelines, and poor understanding of the Afghan context, lessons learned reports by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) have warned for years that the Afghan government was exceptionally fragile and that many of the gains alleged by the U.S. officials were hollow and unsustainable. This CISAC seminar will detail how and why the U.S. government should reform its own institutions to more effectively stabilize conflict-affected environments around the world. 

Download SIGAR’s 20th anniversary report, What We Need to Learn (2021)

Download SIGAR’s report, Stabilization: Lessons from the U.S. Experience in Afghanistan (2018)

 

About the Speaker: David H. Young is a supervisory research analyst at the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction and a conflict and governance advisor with experience in six conflict/post-conflict environments: Afghanistan, the Sahel, Israel/Palestine, the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Northern Ireland. At SIGAR, he was the lead author of three comprehensive lessons learned reports: 1) A study of U.S. efforts to stabilize contested Afghan communities, 2) A review of U.S. efforts to build credible and transparent Afghan electoral institutions, and 3) the agency’s 20th anniversary report, What We Need to Learn. He was a civilian advisor to ISAF in Nuristan and Laghman provinces during the Afghanistan surge and subsequently served as a governance advisor to the World Bank, the U.S. Institute of Peace, and Afghanistan's Independent Directorate of Local Governance. His writing and commentary has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy, and the Daily Beast, among others.

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David Young Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction
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Cameron Burks

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Cameron Burks is the Vice President for Global Workplace and Safety at Okta. Okta is a leading independent identity partner, focused on enabling secure and seamless access to technology for individuals and organizations. He is the company’s leader directing enterprise physical security and safety, in addition to corporate real estate, capital projects and workplace operations.

Prior to Okta, Cameron was the Vice President of Global Safety & Security and Workplace Solutions at Roku, and before that, the Vice President of Global Safety & Security at Adobe. Previously, he was the Deputy Chief Security Officer at Chevron Corporation.

Cameron transitioned to the private sector from the U.S. Department of State. He was a career member of the Foreign Service and a Special Agent with the Diplomatic Security Service.

Cameron was appointed as the U.S. embassy Regional Security Officer in Bangladesh and Moldova and served in temporary assignments in Japan, Haiti and Iraq. In these positions, he was the senior American diplomat responsible for leading the protection of personnel and facilities. 

While in Washington, DC, Cameron was the Senior Special Assistant and Chief of Staff to the Director and early in his career, served on the Secretary of State’s protective detail and conducted federal criminal investigations around the world.

Cameron is a Senior Fellow at the National Security Institute of George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. He was elected as Mayor, Vice Mayor and Council Member of his city of Lafayette, California from 2016 - 2020. Cameron holds a Bachelors in Sociology from the University of Oregon and a Master of Science in Criminal Justice from the California State University, Sacramento.

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Imagining the Unimaginable: War, Weapons, and Procurement Politics

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For winter quarter 2022, CISAC will be hosting hybrid events. Many events will offer limited-capacity in-person attendance for Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, visiting scholars, and students in accordance with Stanford’s health and safety guidelines, and be open to the public online via Zoom. All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone. 

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For a recording of this seminar, please contact Dr. Verschuren at sverschu@stanford.edu.

                                                                                           

 

About the Event: Rather than assuming convergence in countries' military capabilities, this seminar examines why and how countries decide to develop different weapon capabilities within similar domains of warfare. To answer these questions, this seminar will explore the role of ideas and institutional bargaining in shaping decisions about military technology. This talk will subsequently apply the theory to the development of missile defense from the 1980s until today.

 

About the Speaker: Sanne Verschuren is a Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University. Her research interests include the development of military technology, shifts in military strategy and tactics, and the role of ideas and norms therein. Her book project examines why and how countries decide to procure different weapon capabilities within similar military domains, particularly the development of missile defense (1980s-today), air power (1920s-1930s), and aircraft carriers (1950s-1960s). At CISAC, Sanne conducts research on the intersection between nuclear and conventional weapons. Sanne received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Brown University in August 2021.

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to William J Perry Conference Room in Encina Hall may attend in person. 

Sanne Verschuren

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Sanne Cornelia J. Verschuren is an Assistant Professor of International Security at the Pardee School of Global Studies of Boston University. Her research interests lie at the intersection of international relations, the domestic determinants of security policy, and the role of ideas, norms, and institutions in national security decision-making. She focuses on how states fight war, examining why they construct novel weapon technologies, how they envision fielding such technologies, and why they choose to abandon certain technologies and practices.

Professor Verschuren is in the process of finalizing her first book manuscript, titled "Imagining the Unimaginable: War, Weapons, and Procurement Politics." This book is based on her dissertation, which received APSA’s 2022 Kenneth N. Waltz Outstanding Dissertation Award. In the book, she asks why and how states decide to develop different weapon capabilities within a similar military domain—with the development of missile defenses by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and India as the central case studies. Other research by Professor Verschuren has appeared in Global Studies Quarterly, War on the Rocks, and Inkstick Media, among others.

Before joining Boston University, Professor Verschuren was a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at Sciences Po’s Center for International Studies, a Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, and a predoctoral research fellow with the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

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The Role Of Intelligence Agencies In Public Attribution Of Offensive Cyber Operations

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About the Event: Cyber operations have been traditionally considered covert actions, with incentives for both attacker and victim to remain silent and conceal the attack. Attribution is often a technically complex process that requires extensive work on the part of intelligence agencies. Although their work usually takes place ‘behind the scenes’, recent cases show intelligence agencies are playing an increasingly visible role in the public attribution processes.

With cyberattacks and intrusions becoming an integral component of both warfare and diplomacy, attribution – and its mechanisms and consequences – also play a growing role. Governments are increasingly required to balance expectations, credibility and transparency of high-stake attribution processes with the need to minimize exposure of their intelligence agencies and technological capabilities.

Combining original data on intelligence agencies’ involvement in public attribution cases and an analysis of the SolarWinds hack and the DNC intrusion as an illustrative case-studies, this research offers a broader understanding of the emerging changes in the role of intelligence agencies in the cyber domain, including its more public components. The implications of this research will serve scholars working on the intersection between cyber operations, intelligence and decision-making, and will also serve practitioners and decision-makers facing the need to decide how to respond after an offensive cyber operation took place.

 

About the Speaker: Dr. Gil Baram is a cybersecurity post-doctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). She received her Ph.D. from Tel Aviv University’s School of Political Science, Government and International Relations, and was the recipient of the Fulbright postdoctoral fellowship. Her postdoctoral research at CISAC focuses on national decision-making during cyber conflict.

Previously, Dr. Baram has held fellow positions with the Centre of Excellence for National Security at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and served as the Head of cyber and space research team at the Israeli think tank Yuval Ne'eman workshop for Science, Technology and Security.  

This event is virtual only. This event will not be held in person.

Gil Baram

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Dr. Gil Baram is a senior lecturer (US Associate Professor) at the Political Studies Department, Bar Ilan University. She is a non-resident research scholar at the Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity (CLTC), University of California, Berkeley. She is also a senior adjunct research fellow at the Centre of Excellence for National Security, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Previously, she was a Fulbright Cybersecurity postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University.

Dr. Baram’s research explores, among other areas, AI-driven cyber threats, the impact of technology on national security, the role of Intelligence agencies in cyber operations, cyber threats to space systems, cyber diplomacy and norms development, and data-based approaches to cyber conflict research.

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Cyber Threats and Nuclear Weapons

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For fall quarter 2021, CISAC will be hosting hybrid events. Many events will offer limited-capacity in-person attendance for Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, visiting scholars, and students in accordance with Stanford’s health and safety guidelines, and be open to the public online via Zoom. All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone. 

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Seminar Recording

About the Event: The technology controlling United States nuclear weapons predates the Internet. Updating the technology for the digital era is necessary, but it comes with the risk that anything digital can be hacked. Moreover, using new systems for both nuclear and non-nuclear operations will lead to levels of nuclear risk hardly imagined before. This book is the first to confront these risks comprehensively.

With Cyber Threats and Nuclear Weapons, Herbert Lin provides a clear-eyed breakdown of the cyber risks to the U.S. nuclear enterprise. Featuring a series of scenarios that clarify the intersection of cyber and nuclear risk, this book guides readers through a little-understood element of the risk profile that government decision-makers should be anticipating. What might have happened if the Cuban Missile Crisis took place in the age of Twitter, with unvetted information swirling around? What if an adversary announced that malware had compromised nuclear systems, clouding the confidence of nuclear decision-makers?

Cyber Threats and Nuclear Weapons, the first book to consider cyber risks across the entire nuclear enterprise, concludes with crucial advice on how government can manage the tensions between new nuclear capabilities and increasing cyber risk. This is an invaluable handbook for those ready to confront the unique challenges of cyber nuclear risk.

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About the Speaker: Since 2014, Herb Lin has been senior research scholar for cyber policy and security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and Hank J. Holland Fellow in Cyber Policy and Security at the Hoover Institution, both at Stanford University.  He also served as a professional staff member and staff scientist for the House Armed Services Committee (1986-1990), where his portfolio included defense policy and arms control issues. He received his doctorate in physics from MIT.

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to William J Perry Conference Room in Encina Hall may attend in person. 

Herbert Lin

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C236
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

650-497-8600
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Senior Research Scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Hank J. Holland Fellow in Cyber Policy and Security, Hoover Institution
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Dr. Herb Lin is senior research scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, both at Stanford University.  His research interests relate broadly to the impact of emerging technologies on national security, especially in the digital domain (cyber, artificial intelligence, information warfare and operations), and has written extensively on the role of offensive operations in cyberspace as instruments of national policy.  In addition to his positions at Stanford University, he is Chief Scientist, Emeritus for the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies, where he served from 1990 through 2014 as study director of major projects on public policy and information technology.  From 2016 to 2025, he was a member of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. In 2016, he served on President Obama’s Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity and in  2021 on the Aspen Commission on Information Disorder.  Prior to his NRC service, he was a professional staff member and staff scientist for the House Armed Services Committee (1986-1990), where his portfolio included defense policy and arms control issues. He received his doctorate in physics from MIT.

Avocationally, he is a longtime folk and swing dancer and a lousy magician. Apart from his work on cyberspace and cybersecurity, he is published in cognitive science, science education, biophysics, and arms control and defense policy. He also consults on K-12 math and science education.

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Natural Gas in Europe, Nord Stream 2 and Russia

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*For fall quarter 2021, CISAC will be hosting hybrid events. Many events will offer limited-capacity in-person attendance for Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, visiting scholars, and students in accordance with Stanford’s health and safety guidelines, and be open to the public online via Zoom. All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

 

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About the Event: Natural gas prices in Europe have spiked in recent weeks. In the meantime, Russia is pressing for early certification of the newly-completed Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which would increase capacity for moving gas from Russia to Europe. How serious is the gas situation in Europe, and how might Nord Stream 2 affect it? What motivates Moscow's push to get the new pipeline in operation? What policy should the U.S. government pursue on these questions? Ambassador Daniel Fried of the Atlantic Council and Edward Chow of Center for Strategic and International Studies will address these issues on November 17.

 

About the Speakers: In the course of his forty-year Foreign Service career, Ambassador Fried played a key role in designing and implementing American policy in Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union. As special assistant and NSC senior director for Presidents Clinton and Bush, ambassador to Poland, and assistant secretary of state for Europe (2005-09), Ambassador Fried crafted the policy of NATO enlargement to Central European nations and, in parallel, NATO-Russia relations, thus advancing the goal of Europe whole, free, and at peace. During those years, the West’s community of democracy and security grew in Europe. Ambassador Fried helped lead the West’s response to Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine starting in 2014: as State Department coordinator for sanctions policy, he crafted US sanctions against Russia, the largest US sanctions program to date, and negotiated the imposition of similar sanctions by Europe, Canada, Japan, and Australia.   

 

Edward C. Chow is an international energy expert with 45 years of industry experience working in Asia, Middle East, Africa, South America, Europe, Russia, Black Sea and Caspian regions. He negotiated successfully multibillion-dollar oil and gas agreements and specializes in investments in emerging economies. He developed government policy and business strategy while advising governments, international financial institutions, major oil companies, and leading multinational corporations. He worked for more than 20 years at Chevron Corporation in headquarter and overseas assignments. He taught at Georgetown and George Washington universities and served as visiting professor at Ohio University and Fudan University in Shanghai. He is a senior associate in the Center for Strategic and International Studies and affiliate faculty at George Mason University.

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Daniel Fried ormer US Ambassador to Poland; Weiser Family Distinguished Fellow Atlantic Council
Edward C. Chow Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
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Fear about China’s new space weapon echoes older worries about war from space

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Look up! The ghosts of space weapons past have once again darkened our cosmic doorway. Recently Britain’s Financial Times reported that China flight-tested a new breed of space weapon when it launched a massive “Long March” rocket tipped with a nuclear-capable, hypersonic glider. The missile briefly entered orbit before descending on its target, which it missed by roughly two dozen miles. The report suggested that the test was evidence that China has “made astounding progress on hypersonic weapons and [is] far more advanced than US officials realised.”

Read the rest at The Washington Post

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China flight-tested a new breed of space weapon when it launched a massive “Long March” rocket tipped with a nuclear-capable, hypersonic glider. But history tells us why the test isn’t a cause for panic.

The Russia Challenge: Limited or Resurrected?

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*For fall quarter 2021, CISAC will be hosting hybrid events. Many events will offer limited-capacity in-person attendance for Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, visiting scholars, and students in accordance with Stanford’s health and safety guidelines, and be open to the public online via Zoom. All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

 

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About the Event: As relations between the West and Russia plunge to a post-Cold War nadir, how strong a competitor will the Kremlin prove? Will constraints on Putin's autocracy hinder his ability to have Russia play a great power role, or has Russia alrealdy successfully resurrected itself and is now able to exercise significant influence on the global stage? On November 10, Timothy Frye (author of Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin's Russia) and Kathryn Stoner (author of Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order) will discuss the nature and depth of the Russian challenge to the West.

 

About the Speakers: 

Timothy Frye is the Marshall D. Shulman Professor of Post-Soviet Foreign Policy at Columbia University. Professor Frye received a B.A. in Russian language and literature from Middlebury College, an M.A. from Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia. His research and teaching interests are in comparative politics and political economy with a focus on the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. His most recent book is Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin’s Russia (Princeton University Press, 2021). He co-directs the International Center for the Study of Institutions and Development at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow and edits Post-Soviet Affairs.

Kathryn Stoner is the Deputy Director at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, and at the Center on International Security and Cooperation at FSI. She teaches in the Department of Political Science at Stanford, and in the Program on International Relations, as well as in the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Program. Prior to coming to Stanford in 2004, she was on the faculty at Princeton University for nine years, jointly appointed to the Department of Politics and the Princeton School for International and Public Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School). At Princeton she received the Ralph O. Glendinning Preceptorship awarded to outstanding junior faculty. She also served as a Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at McGill University. She has held fellowships at Harvard University as well as the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC. In addition to many articles and book chapters on contemporary Russia, she is the author or co-editor of six books: "Transitions to Democracy: A Comparative Perspective," written and edited with Michael A. McFaul (Johns Hopkins 2013); "Autocracy and Democracy in the Post-Communist World," co-edited with Valerie Bunce and Michael A. McFaul (Cambridge, 2010); "Resisting the State: Reform and Retrenchment in Post-Soviet Russia" (Cambridge, 2006); "After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transitions" (Cambridge, 2004), coedited with Michael McFaul; and "Local Heroes: The Political Economy of Russian Regional" Governance (Princeton, 1997). Her most recent book is Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order" (Oxford University Press, 2021). She received a BA (1988) and MA (1989) in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and a PhD in Government from Harvard University (1995). In 2016 she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Iliad State University, Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia.

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Timothy Frye

Kathryn Stoner

FSI
Stanford University
Encina Hall C140
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 736-1820 (650) 724-2996
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Satre Family Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
kathryn_stoner_1_2022_v2.jpg MA, PhD

Kathryn Stoner is the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Satre Family Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). From 2017 to 2021, she served as FSI's Deputy Director. She is Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford and teaches in the Department of Political Science, the Program on International Relations, and the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Program. She is also a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution.

Prior to coming to Stanford in 2004, she was on the faculty at Princeton University for nine years, jointly appointed to the Department of Politics and the Princeton School for International and Public Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School). At Princeton, she received the Ralph O. Glendinning Preceptorship, awarded to outstanding junior faculty. She also served as a Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science at Columbia University and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at McGill University. She has held fellowships at Harvard University as well as the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. 

In addition to many articles and book chapters on contemporary Russia, she is the author or co-editor of six books: Transitions to Democracy: A Comparative Perspective, written and edited with Michael A. McFaul (Johns Hopkins 2013);  Autocracy and Democracy in the Post-Communist World, co-edited with Valerie Bunce and Michael A. McFaul (Cambridge, 2010);  Resisting the State: Reform and Retrenchment in Post-Soviet Russia (Cambridge, 2006); After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transitions (Cambridge, 2004), coedited with Michael McFaul; and Local Heroes: The Political Economy of Russian Regional Governance (Princeton, 1997); and Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2021).

She received a BA (1988) and MA (1989) in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and a PhD in Government from Harvard University (1995). In 2016, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Ilia State University in Tbilisi, the Republic of Georgia.

Download full-resolution headshot; photo credit: Rod Searcey.

Mosbacher Director, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Professor of Political Science (by courtesy), Stanford University
Senior Fellow (by courtesy), Hoover Institution
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