As part of Stanford Democracy Day, several Stanford scholars share their perspectives on domestic and comparative erosion of democracy, providing context for current elections in the United States and around the world.

Speakers:

Christophe Crombez, Senior Research Scholar at The Europe Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Professor of Political Economy at the Faculty of Economics and Business at KU Leuven in Belgium. His research focuses on EU institutions and their impact on policies, EU institutional reform, lobbying, party politics, and parliamentary government.

Anna Grzymała-Busse, Professor in the Department of Political Science, the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor of International Studies, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the director of The Europe Center. Her research interests include political parties, state development and transformation, informal political institutions, religion and politics, and post-communist politics.

Hakeem Jefferson, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, faculty affiliate with the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity and the Stanford Center for American Democracy. His research focuses primarily on the role identity plays in structuring political attitudes and behaviors in the U.S., with a special interest in understanding how stigma shapes the politics of Black Americans, particularly as it relates to group members’ support for racialized punitive social policies. 

Hesham Sallam, Senior Research Scholar at CDDRL, where he serves as Associate Director for Research. He is also Associate Director of the Program on Arab Reform and Development. Sallam is co-editor of Jadaliyya ezine and a former program specialist at the U.S. Institute of Peace. His research focuses on political and social development in the Arab World. Sallam’s research has previously received the support of the Social Science Research Council and the U.S. Institute of Peace.

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