International Development

FSI researchers consider international development from a variety of angles. They analyze ideas such as how public action and good governance are cornerstones of economic prosperity in Mexico and how investments in high school education will improve China’s economy.

They are looking at novel technological interventions to improve rural livelihoods, like the development implications of solar power-generated crop growing in Northern Benin.

FSI academics also assess which political processes yield better access to public services, particularly in developing countries. With a focus on health care, researchers have studied the political incentives to embrace UNICEF’s child survival efforts and how a well-run anti-alcohol policy in Russia affected mortality rates.

FSI’s work on international development also includes training the next generation of leaders through pre- and post-doctoral fellowships as well as the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program.

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Nonproliferation efforts have traditionally focused on controlling supply of proliferation-relevant technology, expertise, and material. As barriers to diffusion of all three have been lowered, there is increased acknowledgement of the need to reduce demand for such weapons, and, in cases where efforts to prevent proliferation have failed, the need to develop effective international responses. However, with few exceptions, approaches to nonproliferation have not changed qualitatively in the last 40 years. This research explores the concept of resilience as understood for other complex interactive systems, extracts key features, and applies them to nonproliferation. In addition, it examines unintended consequences of traditional nonproliferation strategies and feedbacks among them.  Based on insights gained from this exercise, a new analytical framework for nonproliferation will be proposed.

Arian L. Pregenzer is a 2009-2010 CISAC visiting scholar and a Senior Scientist in the Global Security Program at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She is responsible for initiating new programs in arms control and nonproliferation and for developing strategies for international engagement for multiple laboratory programs. In addition, she provides leadership for Sandia's efforts to integrate across nuclear weapons, arms control, and nonproliferation missions to effectively meet nuclear security challenges.

Most recently, Dr. Pregenzer has focused on near-term steps that can enhance nuclear security while advancing the goals of NPT Article VI. She is particularly interested in how international technical cooperation on topics such as verification methods for nuclear arms control, nuclear weapons security and accountability, and nuclear fuel cycle management can establish the technical basis for moving toward a world without nuclear weapons.

Dr. Pregenzer has bachelors' degrees in physics, mathematics, and philosophy from the University of New Mexico, and a Ph.D. in theoretical condensed matter physics from the University of California at San Diego. Prior to her career in international security, she worked at Sandia to develop lithium ion sources for particle-beam-driven inertial confinement fusion.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Arian Pregenzer CISAC Visiting Scholar Speaker
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Co-sponsored by the Mediterranean Studies Forum

Taking a contemporary policy-focused approach, this presentation will focus on the changes in Turkey's neighborhood and the concomitant transformation of Turkey's foreign policy since the demise of the Soviet Union and the beginning of the competition for the energy resources in the Caspian region. How and under which conditions can Turkey's transatlantic obligations, EU membership objectives, and regional aspirations can be reconciled?

Ahmet Evin is Professor of Political Science and the founding dean of Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Sabanci University (Istanbul, Turkey). He received his Ph.D. in Middle East Studies and Cultural History from Columbia University. He has taught at New York University, Harvard University, Hacettepe University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Hamburg, Bilkent University and Sabanci University. His research interests include theories of the State and elites; Turkish political development; and democracy and civil society. Prof. Evin currently works on current foreign policy issues related to the European enlargement, its significance for Turkey and the region as well as its effect on Transatlantic relations. Prof. Evin has initiated, with the European Commission's support, a policy dialogue on the future European architecture, EU's eastward expansion, its Mediterranean policy, and the customs union agreement with Turkey. Among his publications are "Turkish foreign policy: limits of engagement" (New Perspectives on Turkey, 2009), "The Future of Greek-Turkish relations" (Journal of Southeast European & Black Sea Studies, 2005), Towards Accession Negotiations: Turkey's Domestic and Foreign Policy Challenges Ahead (2004), Politics in the Third Turkish Republic (1998), State Democracy and the Military: Turkey in the 1980s (1988), Origins and Development of the Turkish Novel (1984), and Modern Turkish Architecture(1984).

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Ahmet Evin Professor of Political Science and the founding dean of Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Sabanci University (Istanbul, Turkey) Speaker
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Margot Gerritsen is an Associate Professor in Energy Resources Engineering. Originally from the Netherlands, she left the country after receiving her MSc degree from Delft University of Technology. She earned her PhD in Computational Mathematics from Stanford in 1996. After teaching at the University of Auckland in New Zealand for five years, she returned to Stanford in 2001. Together with her colleagues and students, Margot works to develop computational tools to optimize the development of energy resources. She is active in large-scale solar development, wind farm optimization, marine energy, as well as mitigation of the harmful environmental impacts of oil and gas production. Margot is an expert in energy resources, fluid dynamics and computational mathematics, and teaches courses in these areas. She regularly advises NGOs, VCs, policymakers and the energy industry. Margot produces a podcast show on energy issues at http://www.smartenergyshow.com.

Ian Hsu has been director of Internet Media Research at Stanford since 2007. A graduate of Stanford's class of 1998 in electrical engineering, Ian went on to earn a master's in management science and engineering in 2001. He previously worked at Advanced Micro Devices and Spansion, AMD's spinoff, the latter as a manager of internet marketing, before joining a startup called FilmLoop in 2006. For his work on Stanford's university Facebook strategy, Ian was awarded the 2009 Excellence in New Communcations Award by the Society for New Communication Research (SNCR), a global non-profit research and education think-tank dedicated to the understanding of new media.  Ian's work at Stanford has been covered by many educational and new media publications including The Chronicle of Higher Education, CASE Currents, Mashable and Inside Facebook.

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Margot Gerritsen Associate Professor of Energey Resources Engineering, Stanford Speaker
Ian Hsu Director of Internet Media Research, Stanford Speaker
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This article presents a method developed to assess laser Directed Energy Weapon engagements. This method applies physics-based models, which have been validated by experiments. It is used to assess the capabilities of the Airborne Laser (ABL), a system for boost phase missile defense purposes, which is in development under supervision of the U.S. missile defense agency. Implications for international security are presented.

The article begins with a general introduction to laser Directed Energy Weapons (DEW). It is notable that several laser directed energy weapon prototypes have recently become operational for testing. One of them is the ABL, a megawatt-class laser installed into a cargo aircraft. It is concluded that only the ABL could have significant political impact on an international scale at the moment. Hence, the remainder of the article focuses on the assessment of that system. The laser intensity, the induced temperature increase of a target and the impact of this temperature increase on the mechanical properties of the target are calculated for different scenarios. It is shown that the defensive capability of the ABL against ballistic missiles is limited. Even a successful laser engagement that deflects a missile trajectory from its intended target can have negative impact for third parties, as missile warheads will most likely not be destroyed.

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Science & Global Security
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Jan M. Stupl
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Executive Summary of Report

Nearly twenty years after the end of the Cold War, Russia and the United States continue to maintain hundreds of nuclear weapons capable of striking the other side, and to have at least some of these nuclear forces at Cold War levels of alert, that is, ready to fire within a few minutes of receiving an order to do so.

Even during the Cold War, alert levels were not static and moved up or down in step with changes in the strategic and tactical environments. While the operational readiness of some weapon systems has been reduced, there has been no major change in the readiness levels of most of the nuclear weapon systems in the post-Cold War era. This is in considerable part because Russia and the United States believe that despite fundamental changes in their overall relationship, vital interest requires maintaining a high level of nuclear deterrence.

The post-Cold War experience also demonstrates that alert levels can be reduced and measures can be taken to reduce the risk of accidents or unauthorized takeover of nuclear weapons. Further measures could be taken to reduce operational readiness of nuclear arsenals. U.S. and Russian experts alike stressed survivability as a key element in the acceptance of these measures because of its importance to maintaining deterrence.

Cold War legacy postures under which thousands of weapons are kept on high readiness can be altered through top-down policy initiatives, as was the case in the early 1990s with one class of nuclear weapons.

Technical issues related to the peculiar "ready" character of land-based ICBMs can be resolved by bringing designers into discussions on decreasing operational readiness of nuclear weapons. There was a sense that technical solutions to the problems of nuclear risk reduction are available and can be multilateralized. Information sharing can help implementation of these solutions.

Concerns over "re-alerting" races and vulnerability of "de-alerted" forces to conventional or nuclear strikes during "reversal" can be addressed through survivable forces, dialogue, and confidence building.

Other nuclear weapon states apparently have alert practices that differ from those of Russia and the United States. It was debated whether this state of affairs can be ascribed to an absence of nuclear war fighting capabilities or to a different assessment of the post-Cold War nuclear security environment. There was a sense that nuclear doctrines and alert practices of different nuclear weapon states cannot be analyzed in a vacuum and must be evaluated as parts of a larger political and security framework.

Non-nuclear weapon states' experts forcefully asserted the legitimate interest their states have in the issue and underlined the practical and constructive approach of the U.N. General Assembly resolution on reducing operational readiness of nuclear forces.

Non-nuclear weapon states say that lowering of the operational status of nuclear weapons would both reduce the risk of accidental or unintended nuclear war and provide a much-needed practical boost for disarmament and nonproliferation. Decreasing the operational readiness of nuclear weapons would be a highly desirable confidence-building measure between nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states. It would also be a welcome step in the lead-up to the 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference.

The principal objection to decreasing operational readiness of nuclear weapons as commonly understood has been that it seeks to address a problem that does not exist. Even if it does exist in some instances, it can be addressed by technical and organizational means updated to cover current threats such as nuclear terrorism. Furthermore, the remedy itself could end up undermining nuclear deterrence and strategic or crisis stability.

The insight that emerged during the meeting was that the above objection flows from a narrow view of de-alerting as meaning measures that make it physically impossible to promptly launch an attack on order. Such a view also leads to a somewhat excessive focus on verification of technical measures, which ends up giving an easy argument to the opponents of de-alerting-that it is not verifiable and therefore should not be attempted.

There are no fundamental obstacles to many useful measures of decreasing operational readiness of nuclear weapons, provided the issue is not framed narrowly. De-alert has to be seen not only as a technical fix but also as a strategic step in deemphasizing the military role of nuclear weapons, in other words, moving to retaliatory strike postures and doctrines instead of legacy preemptive or "launch on warning" postures. The ongoing U.S. Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) offers an opportunity for such a perceptual shift.

If decreasing operational readiness of nuclear weapons is reframed in this manner, several concrete steps become possible:

As part of the START follow-on negotiations, Russia and the United States could examine how measures to reduce operational readiness can accompany the bilateral arms control process.

Both Russia and the United States could further strengthen controls against unauthorized action, takeover, and tampering; further increase the capability of warning systems to discriminate real from imagined attacks; and enhance the survivability of their forces and their command and control systems.

Arrangements related to data exchange and ensuring a capability to destroy a "rogue" missile in flight could be multilateralized, at least in terms of sharing data, to bring other declared nuclear weapon states into the process.

Multilateralization of institutions such as the Joint Data Exchange Center may also have collateral benefits in the area of space security.

The premise of maintaining nuclear deterrence between Russia and the United States should not be considered immutable. A dialogue on legacy nuclear postures and doctrines in the Russia-U.S. context may trigger a broader dialogue among relevant states on reducing the salience of nuclear weapons, thus facilitating progress on disarmament and nonproliferation.

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EastWest Institute
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Corruption is a human condition and an ancient phenomenon. From the beginnings of civilization, public notables have abused their offices for personal gain while citizens have sought advantage by corrupting those holding power. Today, global security is threatened as never before by fiscal uncertainty, competition and mutual suspicion among world powers, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, and tyranny. This book reveals corruption to be at the very center of these global threats and proposes a combination of remedies such as positive leadership, enhanced transparency, tougher punishment, and enforceable new sanctions against shady activities.

Corruption, Global Security, and World Order explores the ties between corrupt practice and threats to global peace, corrupt practice and the suppression of human rights and development, corrupt practice and the maintenance of tyranny, and corruption in health and education.

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Brookings Institution Press in "Corruption, Global Security and World Order", Robert I. Rotberg, ed.
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Combating militant violence-particularly within South Asia and the Middle East-stands at the top of the international security agenda. Despite the extensive literature on the determinants of political attitudes, little is known about who supports militant organizations and why. To address this gap we conducted a 6000-person, nationally-representative survey of Pakistanis that measures affect towards four important militant organizations. We apply a novel measurement strategy to mitigate social desirability bias and item non-response, which plagued previous surveys due to the sensitive nature of militancy. Our study reveals key patterns of support for militancy. First, Pakistanis exhibit negative affect toward all four militant organizations, with those from areas where groups have been most active disliking them the most. Second, personal religiosity does not predict support, although views about what constitutes jihad do. Third, wealthy Pakistanis and those who support core democratic rights are more supportive of militant organizations than others. Longstanding arguments tying support for violent political organizations to individuals' economic prospects or attitudes towards democracy-and the subsequent policy recommendations-may require substantial revision.

Jacob N. Shapiro is Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. His primary research interests are the organizational aspects of terrorism, insurgency, and security policy. Shapiro’s ongoing projects study the causes of support for militancy in Islamic countries and the relationship between aid and political violence. His research has been published in International Security, International Studies Quarterly, Foreign Policy, Military Operations Research, and a number of edited volumes. Shapiro co-directs the Empirical Studies of Conflict Project. He is a member of the editorial board of World Politics, is a former Harmony Fellow at the Combating Terrorism Center at the United States Military Academy, and served in the U.S. Navy and Naval Reserve. Ph.D. Political Science, M.A. Economics, Stanford University. B.A. Political Science, University of Michigan.

Jon Krosnick received a B.A. degree in psychology from Harvard University and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in social psychology from the University of Michigan.

Prior to joining the Stanford faculty in 2004, Dr. Krosnick was professor of psychology and political science at Ohio State University, where he was a member of the OSU Political Psychology Program and co-directed the OSU Summer Institute in Political Psychology.

He has taught courses on survey methodology around the world at universities, for corporations, and for government agencies, including at IBM, Pfizer, the National Opinion Research Center, RTI International, the White House Office of Management and Budget, Total Research Corporation, the American Society of Trial Consultants, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. General Accounting Office, the Office for National Statistics, London, UK, the London School of Economics and Political Science, the University of Amsterdam, the University of Johannesburg, the Australian Market and Social Research Society's Professional Development Program, and ZUMA (in Mannheim, Germany). He has provided expert testimony in court and has served as an on-air election-night television commentator.

Dr. Krosnick has served as a consultant to such organizations as Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, the CBS Office of Social Research, ABC News, the National Institutes of Health, Home Box Office, NASA, the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the Internal Revenue Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Cancer Institute, and Google.

From 2005 through 2009, he is Principal Investigator of the American National Election Studies.

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Jacob N. Shapiro Assistant Professor of Politics and Public Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton Speaker
Jon Krosnick Frederic O. Glover Professor in Humanities & Social Sciences; Professor of Communication & Political Science; Senior Fellow at Woods Institute; Professor, by courtesy, of Psychology Speaker
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Why do Western democracies respond militarily to complex humanitarian emergencies when and as they do?  Why do they send peacekeepers or combat forces to some conflicts and not others?  When they do so, how do they choose the political goals, military strategies, and military resources that they contribute to these operations?  I will explain what I mean by the term ‘complex humanitarian emergency,' and lay out the humanitarian implications of different kinds of military responses.  To illustrate, I will provide a few examples of complex emergencies and Western responses to them.  I will also offer some ideas about the factors that influence these policy decisions, and demonstrate their importance with a few comparative examples of Australian responses to complex humanitarian emergencies in its region.

Andrea Everett is a 2009-2010 CISAC visiting scholar. A Ph.D candidate in international relations at the Department of Politics at Princeton University, she is also a 2004 CISAC Undergraduate Honors Program graduate.  After graduating from Stanford but before arriving at Princeton, Andrea spent a year studying transatlantic relations in Berlin, Germany on a Fulbright scholarship.

Andrea's research interests include international security and comparative democratic foreign policy. She is especially interested in the role of domestic political influences on democratic states' foreign policy decisions in the security arena. Her dissertation, "Responding to Catastrophe: Explaining Democratic Responsiveness to Complex Emergencies," seeks to explain why Western democracies respond to complex humanitarian emergencies abroad when and as they do. She focuses on understanding when and how these states decide to use military force in pursuit of positive humanitarian outcomes, and investigates the roles of public pressure, characteristics of complex emergencies, military capabilities, and national interests in these decisions.

Kenneth Schultz is an associate professor of political science at Stanford University and an affiliated faculty member at CISAC. His research examines how domestic political factors such as elections, party competition, and public opinion influence decisions to use force in international disputes and efforts to negotiate the end of international rivalries.

He is the author of Democracy and Coercive Diplomacy (Cambridge, 2001), as well as a number of articles in scholarly journals. He is the recipient of several awards, including the 2003 Karl Deutsch Award, given by the International Studies Association to a scholar under the age of 40 who is judged to have made the most significant contribution to the study of international relations and peace research. Schultz received his BA in Russian and Soviet studies from Harvard University and his PhD in political science from Stanford University.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Andrea Everett CISAC Visiting Scholar Speaker

Department of Political Science
Stanford University
Encina Hall West
Stanford, CA 94305-6044

(650) 736-1998 (650) 723-1808
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Professor of Political Science
CISAC Core Faculty Member
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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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Kenneth A. Schultz Associate Professor of Political Science; CISAC Faculty Member Commentator
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Undraa Agvaanluvsan is a native of Mongolia. She is currently a visiting professor at CISAC. Undraa received her bachelor's (1994) and master's (1995) degrees in physics from the National University of Mongolia, and a diploma in high energy physics at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy in 1997. Undraa obtained her PhD in 2002 at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, studying nuclear reactions and quantum chaos in nuclei. Following completion of her doctorate, she conducted postdoctoral research work in the Nuclear Experimental Physics group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. She published and co-authored several dozen articles in peer-reviewed journals.

In the past several years, Undraa's research interests have broadened to include policy studies. In the policy arena, she served as an adviser to Mongolia's Minister of Foreign Affairs. As an advocate of scientific education, Undraa serves as director of the Mongolian-American (MonAme) Scientific Research Center in Ulaanbaatar, which focuses on energy, the environment, and mineral processing technologies.

Her research interests at CISAC focus on nuclear energy studies. More specifically, Undraa is studying uranium mining and processing, front-end issues of the nuclear fuel-cycle, nuclear fuel supplies, and nuclear energy policy. Using her prior experience with scientific research in quantum chaos, she is working with her CISAC colleague Kate Marvel to study the resiliency of the electricity grid network when stressed with the addition of more power sources, including nuclear power generation.

At Stanford, Undraa has directed undergraduate research through the Bing Overseas Studies Program. She also teaches nuclear energy policy in the International Policy Studies program.

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Dr. Undraa Agvaanluvsan currently serves as the president of Mitchell Foundation for Arts and Sciences. She is also an Asia21 fellow of the Asia Society and co-chair of Mongolia chapter of the Women Corporate Directors, a global organization of women serving in public and private corporate boards. 

Dr. Undraa Agvaanluvsan is a former Member of Parliament of Mongolia and the chair of the Parliamentary subcommittee on Sustainable Development Goals. Prior to being elected as a legislator, she served as an Ambassador-at-large in charge of nuclear security issues at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia,  where she worked on nuclear energy and fuel cycle, uranium and rare-earth minerals policy issues. 

She is a nuclear physicist by training, obtained her PhD at North Carolina State University, USA and diploma in High Energy Physics at the International Center for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy. She conducted research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, USA and taught energy policy at International Policy Studies Program at Stanford University, where she was a Science fellow and visiting professor at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation. She published more than 90 papers, conference  proceedings, and articles on neutron and proton induced nuclear reactions, nuclear level density and radiative strength function, quantum chaos and the Random Matrix Theory, including its application in electric grid network. 

Undraa Agvaanluvsan CISAC Visiting Professor Speaker
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