Stanford University

Empowering the World: Entrepreneurship and the Future of Foreign Policy

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Please note: the start time for this event has been moved from 3:00 to 3:15pm.

Join FSI Director Michael McFaul in conversation with Richard Stengel, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. They will address the role of entrepreneurship in creating stable, prosperous societies around the world.

Richard Stengel Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Special Guest United States Department of State

Michael A. McFaul

Encina Hall
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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Director, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies, Department of Political Science
Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
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PhD

Michael McFaul is Director at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in the Department of Political Science, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995. Dr. McFaul also is as an International Affairs Analyst for NBC News and a columnist for The Washington Post. He served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014).

He has authored several books, most recently the New York Times bestseller From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia. Earlier books include Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should, How We Can; Transitions To Democracy: A Comparative Perspective (eds. with Kathryn Stoner); Power and Purpose: American Policy toward Russia after the Cold War (with James Goldgeier); and Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin. He is currently writing a book called Autocrats versus Democrats: Lessons from the Cold War for Competing with China and Russia Today.

He teaches courses on great power relations, democratization, comparative foreign policy decision-making, and revolutions.

Dr. McFaul was born and raised in Montana. He received his B.A. in International Relations and Slavic Languages and his M.A. in Soviet and East European Studies from Stanford University in 1986. As a Rhodes Scholar, he completed his D. Phil. In International Relations at Oxford University in 1991. His DPhil thesis was Southern African Liberation and Great Power Intervention: Towards a Theory of Revolution in an International Context.

International Working Group on Russian Sanctions

The International Working Group on Russian Sanctions aims to provide expertise and experience to governments and companies around the world by assisting with the formulation of sanctions proposals that will increase the cost to Russia of invading Ukraine, and support democratic Ukraine in the defense of its territorial integrity and national sovereignty.
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Global Populisms

A new project examining the global surge in populist movements and what it means for established democratic rules and institutions.
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World Class · A Democracy Activist Explains Georgia's Current Political Crisis and Turbulent History
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Juliet Johnson | REDS Seminar — Show Me the Money: Central Bank Museums and Public Trust in Monetary Governance

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Juliet Johnson REDS seminar

I argue that central banks attempt to build public trust in money and monetary governance through the strategic use of what I call a stability narrative, asserting that they can maintain the value of money, can maintain the security of money, represent the nation, and have grown increasingly professional and sophisticated over time. The talk explores the stability narrative by studying its expression in central bank museums. Museums tell stories; they distill, teach, and privilege the beliefs of their creators. As such, museums represent an excellent vehicle for understanding the ways in which central banks describe and promote their ability to govern money. The research is based on interviews and site visits at over 35 central bank museums and an original database that gathers and systematizes publicly available information on central bank museums worldwide.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Juliet Johnson‘s research focuses on the politics of money and identity. She is Professor of Political Science at McGill University, an Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and former President of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. She is the author of the award-winning Priests of Prosperity: How Central Bankers Transformed the Postcommunist World (Cornell 2016) and A Fistful of Rubles: The Rise and Fall of the Russian Banking System (Cornell 2000), co-editor of Developments in Russian Politics 10 (Bloomsbury 2024) and Religion and Identity in Modern Russia: The Revival of Orthodoxy and Islam (Routledge 2005), and author of numerous scholarly and policy-oriented articles. She has been Lead Editor of Review of International Political Economy, Network Director of the Jean Monnet network Between the EU and Russia (BEAR), Advisory Council member at the Kennan Institute, Research Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and National Fellow at the Hoover Institution. She received McGill University’s President’s Prize for Excellence in Teaching, the David Thomson Award for Graduate Supervision and Teaching, the Fieldhouse Award for Distinguished Teaching, and the Faculty of Arts Award for Distinction in Research. She earned her PhD in Politics from Princeton University and her AB in International Relations from Stanford University.

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


REDS: RETHINKING EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENT AND SECURITY


The REDS Seminar Series aims to deepen the research agenda on the new challenges facing Europe, especially on its eastern flank, and to build intellectual and institutional bridges across Stanford University, fostering interdisciplinary approaches to current global challenges.

REDS is organized by The Europe Center and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and co-sponsored by the Hoover Institution and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.

Learn more about REDS and view past seminars here.

 

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Kathryn Stoner

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.

Juliet Johnson
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The Oxford World History of Empire | Volume Two: The History of Empires

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Edited by Peter Fibiger Bang, C. A. Bayly, and Walter Scheidel

  • Unparalleled coverage of the phenomenon of empire in world history, reaching either further back or across a greater expanse of space than any predecessor
  • A daring synthesis of the imperial experience across the full span of history
  • An important paradigm for the study of empire, generating a non-Eurocentric world history
  • A unique combination of syntheses, comparative thematic discussions, and in-depth treatment of a very wide range of individual empires, from Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas
  • Against the backdrop of world history, European colonial powers emerge unexpectedly as an especially unstable form of imperialism

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October 2019

Roman Wealth and Wealth Inequality in Comparative Perspective

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Roman Wealth and Wealth Inequality in Comparative Perspective
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October 2019

Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World)

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Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World)
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January 2017

The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century

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The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century
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Walter Scheidel

What Is Ancient History?

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From one of today’s most innovative ancient historians, a provocative new vision of why ancient history matters—and why it needs to be told in a radically different, global way.

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Journal Articles
October 2019

Roman Wealth and Wealth Inequality in Comparative Perspective

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Roman Wealth and Wealth Inequality in Comparative Perspective
Books
October 2019

Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World)

Author(s)
Escape from Rome: The Failure of Empire and the Road to Prosperity (The Princeton Economic History of the Western World)
Books
January 2017

The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century

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The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century
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Walter Scheidel

Gendered Innovations 2: How inclusive analysis contributes to research and innovation

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H2020 Expert Group to update and expand “Gendered Innovations/ Innovation through Gender” 

Chairperson: Londa Schiebinger 

Rapporteur: Ineke Klinge

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European Commission
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Londa Schiebinger
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The Underwater Eye: How the Movie Camera Opened the Depths and Unleashed New Realms of Fantasy

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In The Underwater Eye, Margaret Cohen tells the fascinating story of how the development of modern diving equipment and movie camera technology has allowed documentary and narrative filmmakers to take human vision into the depths, creating new imagery of the seas and the underwater realm, and expanding the scope of popular imagination. Innovating on the most challenging film set on earth, filmmakers have tapped the emotional power of the underwater environment to forge new visions of horror, tragedy, adventure, beauty, and surrealism, entertaining the public and shaping its perception of ocean reality.

Examining works by filmmakers ranging from J. E. Williamson, inventor of the first undersea film technology in 1914, to Wes Anderson, who filmed the underwater scenes of his 2004 The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou entirely in a pool, The Underwater Eye traces how the radically alien qualities of underwater optics have shaped liquid fantasies for more than a century. Richly illustrated, the book explores documentaries by Jacques Cousteau, Louis Malle, and Hans Hass, art films by Man Ray and Jean Vigo, and popular movies and television shows such as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Sea Hunt, the Bond films, Jaws, The Abyss, and Titanic. In exploring the cultural impact of underwater filmmaking, the book also asks compelling questions about the role film plays in engaging the public with the remote ocean, a frontline of climate change.

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Princeton University Press

Steve Fish | REDS Seminar: The Rebirth of the High-Dominance Liberal

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REDS Steve Fish

Over the past decade, illiberal demagogues around the world have launched ferocious assaults on democracy. Embracing high-dominance political styles and a forceful argot of national greatness, they hammer at their supposed superiority as commanders, protectors, and patriots. Bewildered left-liberals have often played to the type their tormentors assign them. Fretting over their own purported neglect of the folks’ kitchen-table concerns, they leave the guts and glory to opponents who grasp that elections are emotions-driven dominance competitions.

Consequently, in America, democracy’s survival now hangs on the illiberal party making colossal blunders on the eve of elections. But in the wake of Putin’s attack on Ukraine, a new cohort of liberals is emerging in Central and Eastern Europe. From Greens to right-center conservatives, they grasp the centrality of messaging, nationalism, chutzpah, and strength. They’re showing how to dominate rather than accommodate evil. What can American liberals learn from their tactics and ways?

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

 

Steven Fish

Steve Fish is a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Democracy from Scratch, Democracy Derailed in Russia, and Are Muslims Distinctive? and coauthor of The Handbook of National Legislatures. He is currently working on a book manuscript entitled Comeback: Crushing Trump, Burying Putin, and Restoring Democracy’s Ascendance around the World.

REDS: RETHINKING EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENT AND SECURITY


The REDS Seminar Series aims to deepen the research agenda on the new challenges facing Europe, especially on its eastern flank, and to build intellectual and institutional bridges across Stanford University, fostering interdisciplinary approaches to current global challenges.

REDS is organized by The Europe Center and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and co-sponsored by the Hoover Institution.

 

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Kathryn Stoner

Perry Conference Room
Encina Hall, Second Floor, Central, C231
616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305

Steve Fish, University of California, Berkeley
Seminars

Sheri Berman | REDS Seminar: The Political Consequences of Economic Ideas

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Sheri Berman event

Across Europe, social democratic (or more broadly center-left) parties are a shadow of their former selves.

Most treatments of the center-left's decline stress economic factors like globalization or the decline of manufacturing or social factors, like the decline of the traditional working class. While such factors are important, they alone cannot explain the center-left’s decline if only because such factors do not correlate well with the fortunes of center-left parties across either time or space. This talk will accordingly focus on the political causes of the center-left's decline, in particular its shift to the center on economic issues and the dilution of its class-based political appeals during the late 20th century. This transformation had a variety of unintended and detrimental consequences for center-left parties, played a significant role in the rise of the populist right, and contributed to reshaping the dynamics of western democracies more generally.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Sheri Berman
Sheri Berman is a professor of political science at Barnard College, Columbia University. Her research interests include the development of democracy and dictatorship, European politics, populism and fascism, and the history of the left. Her latest book is Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Present Day. In addition to her scholarly work, she has published in a wide variety of non-scholarly publications including The New York Times, the Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, VOX, The Guardian and Dissent. She is on the boards of The Journal of Democracy, Political Science Quarterly, Dissent and Persuasion. 

REDS: RETHINKING EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENT AND SECURITY


The REDS Seminar Series aims to deepen the research agenda on the new challenges facing Europe, especially on its eastern flank, and to build intellectual and institutional bridges across Stanford University, fostering interdisciplinary approaches to current global challenges.

REDS is organized by The Europe Center and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and co-sponsored by the Hoover Institution.

 

CDDRL, TEC, Hoover, and CREEES logos
Kathryn Stoner

William J. Perry Conference Room
Encina Hall, Second Floor, Central, C231
616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305

Sheri Berman, Barnard College
Seminars

Europe After America

Download transcript of talk

 

This event is open to the public online via Zoom, and limited-capacity in-person attendance for Stanford affiliates may be available in accordance with Stanford’s health and safety guidelines.

 

The latest tensions between Europe and America in the wake of the Afghanistan pullout and the Australian submarine deal reflect more than just temporary friction, but rather may indicate profound shifts in the geopolitical order that could signal the dissipation of the Atlantic alliance three decades after the end of the Cold War and nearly eight decades after its birth.

William Drozdiak

For more than four decades, William Drozdiak has been regarded as one of the most knowledgeable American observers of European affairs. During his tenure as foreign editor of the Washington Post, the newspaper won Pulitzer Prizes for its international reporting on the Israeli—Palestinian conflict and the collapse of the Soviet communist empire. He also served as the Post’s chief European correspondent, based at various times in Bonn, Berlin, Paris and Brussels, and covered the Middle East for Time magazine. He later became the founding executive director of the German Marshall Fund’s Transatlantic Center in Brussels and served for ten years as president of the American Council on Germany. Before becoming a journalist, he played professional basketball in the United States and Europe for seven years. His highly acclaimed book, “Fractured Continent: Europe’s Crises and the Fate of the West,” was selected by the Financial Times as one of the best political books of 2017. His latest book, “The Last President of Europe: Emmanuel Macron’s Race to Revive France and Save the World,” which focuses on France’s youthful president and his efforts to shape the future of Europe and a new world order, was published by Hachette and PublicAffairs in April 2020.

 

*If you need any disability-related accommodation, please contact Shannon Johnson at sj1874@stanford.edu. Requests should be made by October 18, 2021.

This event is co-sponsored by the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

Transcript of talk
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William Drozdiak Global Europe Fellow speaker Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C.

Anna Weichselbraun

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Visiting Scholar at The Europe Center, 2021
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Anna Weichselbraun holds a research and teaching postdoc (2018-2024) in the Department of European Ethnology at the University of Vienna. She is currently developing a new project on technologies of trust which is focused on blockchain. She earned a PhD in Sociocultural and Linguistic Anthropology from the University of Chicago (2016), and completed a postdoc at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation.

Anna is interested in problems of Anthropocene governance, that is, the social mechanisms and technological infrastructures by which humans attempt to mitigate the uncertainty emanating from each other and their environments. She works at the intersection of an historical anthropology of knowledge, semiotics, and science and technology studies with an empirical focus on the global governance of technology in the long 20th century. She has published articles from this research in Cultural Anthropology and PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review. Her book manuscript on nuclear knowledge making practices at the International Atomic Energy Agency, is under review with Cornell University Press.

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