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.
Crimea: Russia's Unique Experiment on Integration of Annexed Territory | A Conversation with Mustafa Dzhemilev
This event is now full. Please send an email to sj1874@stanford.edu if you would like to be added to the wait list.
Crimea has become a precedent in the newest world history. After annexation, Russia turned the peninsula into a testing ground for new tactics of information warfare, suppression of dissent, and the formation of militaristic sentiment. The former resort has been transformed into a powerful military base whose missiles can reach targets in the Baltic States, Poland, the Czech Republic, and other nearby countries.
Russia has closed access to international organizations in Crimea. For the past five years, about 2.5 million people have remained without any legal protection from the actions of the occupying power. Forced disappearances, politically-motivated arrests, religious persecution, censorship, and the destruction of independent media have all become an everyday reality.
During the Soviet Union, Mustafa Dzhemilev defended the right of the Crimean Tatar People to return from the places of deportation to their homeland, Crimea. He spent more than 15 years in Soviet camps and prisons and survived a 306-day hunger strike, which ended only after Andrei Sakharov's request. Mustafa Dzhemilev has been awarded dozens of international awards for his human rights activities. After the annexation of the peninsula, Russia banned Mustafa's return to his native Crimea.
This event is co-sponsored by The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, The European Security Initiative at The Europe Center, and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, Stanford University. It is free and open to the public.
From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia
In 2008, when Michael McFaul was asked to leave his perch at Stanford and join an unlikely presidential campaign, he had no idea that he would find himself at the beating heart of one of today’s most contentious and consequential international relationships. As President Barack Obama’s adviser on Russian affairs, McFaul helped craft the United States’ policy known as “reset” that fostered new and unprecedented collaboration between the two countries. And then, as U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014, he had a front-row seat when this fleeting, hopeful moment crumbled with Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency. This riveting inside account combines history and memoir to tell the full story of U.S.-Russia relations from the fall of the Soviet Union to the new rise of the hostile, paranoid Russian president. From the first days of McFaul’s ambassadorship, the Kremlin actively sought to discredit and undermine him, hassling him with tactics that included dispatching protesters to his front gates, slandering him on state media, and tightly surveilling him, his staff, and his family.
From Cold War to Hot Peace is an essential account of the most consequential global confrontation of our time.
From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia
We have reached capacity for CEMEX Auditorium and are no longer accepting RSVPs
This event is co-sponsored by The European Security Initiative & Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, Stanford University. It is free and open to the public.
Stanford Graduate School of Business
Michael A. McFaul
Encina Hall
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Michael McFaul is the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in Political Science, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, all at Stanford University. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995 and served as FSI Director from 2015 to 2025. He is also an international affairs analyst for MSNOW.
McFaul 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).
McFaul has authored ten books and edited several others, including, most recently, Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder, as well as From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia, (a New York Times bestseller) Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should, How We Can; and Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin.
He is a recipient of numerous awards, including an honorary PhD from Montana State University; the Order for Merits to Lithuania from President Gitanas Nausėda of Lithuania; Order of Merit of Third Degree from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, and the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Stanford University. In 2015, he was the Distinguished Mingde Faculty Fellow at the Stanford Center at Peking University.
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.
International Working Group on Russian Sanctions
Global Populisms
Nick Clegg: Brexit and Europe - what happens now?
With the UK on the brink of exiting the European Union, prominent British voices are calling for the country to reconsider its decision to leave. A crucial parliamentary vote later this year will be the key moment, heralding either a last stand in favour of Britain's place in Europe or the unravelling of the country's forty-year membership of the world's most sophisticated supranational entity. In this lecture the former British deputy Prime Minister explores the origins of the UK’s troubled relationship with the EU, explains the current deep divisions in British politics, and charts an alternative course for the UK within a reformed Europe.
The Rt Hon Sir Nick Clegg served as Deputy Prime Minister in Britain’s first post war Coalition Government from 2010 to 2015. He was Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 2007 to 2015 and was a Member of Parliament for Sheffield Hallam for 12 years.
Prior to his entry into British politics, he served as a leading Member of the European Parliament on trade and industry affairs and as an international trade negotiator in the European Commission dealing with the accession of China and Russia into the World Trade Organization.
As Deputy Prime Minister, Sir Nick occupied the second highest office in the country at a time when the United Kingdom was recovering from a deep recession following the banking crisis of 2008, and hugely controversial decisions were needed to restore stability to the public finances. During that time, he oversaw referenda on electoral reform and Scottish independence, and extensive reforms to the education, health and pensions systems. He was particularly associated with landmark changes to the funding of schools, early years’ education and the treatment of mental health within the NHS. His book, ‘Politics: Between the Extremes’, is a reflection on his time in Government and the place of liberalism in the current political landscape.
Sir Nick is one of the most high-profile pro-European voices in British politics, and has played an influential role in the debate leading up to and since the EU referendum in June 2016. His insight into the most senior levels of UK government, combined with an integral understanding and experience of European politics, contacts at the highest levels of government across the EU, and fluency in five European languages, mean that his views and analysis on the current Government’s Brexit negotiations continue to be in high demand. He published his second best-selling book - ‘How to Stop Brexit - and Make Britain Great Again’ - in October 2017.
As well as leading his small think tank, Open Reason, Sir Nick is a Global Commissioner for the Global Commission on Drugs Policy, Chairman of the Social Mobility Foundation and a Visiting Professor in Practice at the LSE’s School of Public Policy. He remains an outspoken advocate of civil liberties and center ground politics, of radical measures to boost social mobility, and of an internationalist approach to world affairs. He received a knighthood in the 2018 New Years Honours list, for his political and public service.
Koret-Taube Conference Center
John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Building
366 Galvez Street
Global Europe: Rethinking migration, democracy, and what sustains Europe at home at abroad
The "Brexit" has been seen as a major blow that changes the future of Europe, at the time when nationalist and separatist movements seem most ascendant, and the EU seems to be the toxic subject for plebiscites, the European Union is expanding its role as a global actor. These referendums, and threats to withdraw, are spurring Member States to return to the roots of the European Project. From its historical foundation, that project prizes freedom from war on the continent, and prosperity through free movement of trade and social capital.
Who Leads the West and Why: Trump or Merkel? Constitutional Cultures in the United States and Germany
Theodor Fontane, the master of German realist fiction, published his first novel, Before the Storm, in 1876. Set during the winter of 1812–13, in and around Berlin, it explores the decisive historical moment when Prussia changed sides—breaking out of its forced alliance with France in order to side with Russia in the anti-Napoleonic war. Yet the dialectic of the moment was such that Germans could join in the rout of the French while nonetheless embracing aspects of the French revolutionary legacy. Thus near the conclusion of the novel, the Prussian General von Bamme, commenting on social changes around him, a reduction in traditional structures of hierarchy, speculates, “And where does all this come from? From over yonder, borne on the west wind. I can make nothing of these windbags of Frenchmen, but in all the rubbish they talk there is none the less a pinch of wisdom. Nothing much is going to come of their Fraternity, nor of their Liberty: but there is something to be said for what they have put between them. For what, after all, does it mean but: a man is a man.” Mensch ist mensch.
The Europe Center Newsletter January 2018
Visiting Scholar: Jonas Tallberg
Jonas Tallberg is Professor of Political Science at Stockholm University. His research interests are global governance and European Union politics. He currently directs the research program “Legitimacy in Global Governance” (LegGov), funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond. Tallberg’s book publications include Legitimacy in Global Governance: Sources, Processes, and Consequences (Oxford University Press, forthcoming, co-edited), The Opening Up of International Organizations: Transnational Access in Global Governance (Cambridge University Press, 2013, co-authored) and Leadership and Negotiation in the European Union (Cambridge University Press, 2006). His articles have appeared in journals such as International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, British Journal of Political Science, and European Journal of International Relations. While at The Europe Center, Jonas will work on three different projects related to European and global governance:
The Choice for Europe since Maastricht: Member States’ Preferences for Economic and Fiscal Integration Funded by the European Commission, Horizon 2020, 2015-2019
Following the outbreak of the Eurozone crisis in 2009, European policy-makers agreed to a string of reforms that together amount to a profound deepening of fiscal and monetary cooperation in Europe. These reforms resulted from a rear-guard battle against the raging crisis and arduous negotiations among EU governments. While it is far from certain that they will suffice to alleviate the Eurozone’s problems, they raise a number of intriguing questions. What considerations led EU states to advocate these particular solutions to the Eurozone crisis? What states were successful in shaping the reforms agreed upon and why? What are the implications of these reforms for the viability of the Eurozone? This project brings together researchers in eight European countries to provide the most comprehensive and systematic analysis of domestic preference formation and interstate bargaining in the reform of the Eurozone.
Legitimacy in Global Governance (LegGov) Funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, 2016-2021
The purpose of this research program is to offer the first systematic and comprehensive analysis of legitimacy in global governance. To what extent are global governance institutions (GGIs) regarded as legitimate? What explains that legitimacy? By what processes are GGIs legitimated and delegitimated? What are the consequences of legitimacy (or its absence) for the functioning of GGIs? How are these legitimacy dynamics in global governance similar to or different from the dynamics of legitimacy in the nation-state and other forms of governance? While legitimacy in global governance has generated growing interest in recent years, it has not yet been researched methodically by a coordinated team of specialists. We address the overarching question of why, how, and with what consequences GGIs gain, sustain and lose legitimacy by exploring three principal themes: (1) sources of legitimacy, (2) legitimation and delegitimation strategies, and (3) consequences of legitimacy. In the broadest sense, the program considers what systematic attention to legitimacy can tell us about world politics, and what experiences from world politics suggest for understanding legitimacy in contemporary politics generally.
The Performance of International Organizations: Institutional Design and Policy Output in Global Governance Funded by the Swedish Research Council, 2014-2018
statsvet.su.se/forskning/forskningsprojekt/pio
Many problems confronting today’s societies are transnational in character, leading states to increasingly rely on international organizations (IOs) for policy solutions. Yet the performance of IOs varies extensively. While some IOs are highly successful in developing, adopting, and enforcing policy, others are less successful. How can we account for this mixed record in IO performance? Are there identifiable factors that make IOs work better or worse? While existing research points to a multitude of factors that are beyond the control of IOs themselves, this project explores when, how, and why the institutional design of IOs shapes their performance. The project adopts a mixed-method design, combining a statistical analysis of performance in a large number of IOs with in-depth case studies of select IOs. It spans IOs in multiple policy areas and world regions over the time period 1950 to 2010. The project promises three central contributions to research and policy. First, it will offer the most systematic and comprehensive analysis so far of how institutional design shapes the performance of IOs. Second, it will generate a unique dataset on the policy output of IOs of extensive value to the research community. Third, it will be policy relevant, by providing policy-makers with evidence on the effects of design choices that can help them to systematically improve global governance.
Seminar with Lars-Erik Cederman
Born in Sweden in 1963, Lars-Erik Cederman received an M.Sc. in Engineering Physics from the University of Uppsala in 1988 and an M.A. in International Relations from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva in 1990 before obtaining his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Michigan in 1994. Using computational modeling, he wrote his dissertation on how states and nations develop and dissolve. He has since taught at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Oxford, UCLA, and Harvard.
Lars-Erik Cederman is editor of Constructing Europe's Identity: The External Dimension (Lynne Rienner, 2001) and the author of Emergent Actors in World Politics: How States and Nations Develop and Dissolve (Princeton University Press, 1997), which received the 1998 Edgar S. Furniss Book Award. He is also the author and co-author of articles in scholarly journals such as the American Political Science Review, European Journal of International Relations, International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. His main research interests include computational modeling, International Relations theory, nationalism, integration and disintegration processes, and historical sociology.
This seminar is part of the Comparative Politics Workshop in the Department of Political Science and is co-sponsored by the Munro Lectureship Fund and The Europe Center.