Stanford University

Governance

FSI's research on the origins, character and consequences of government institutions spans continents and academic disciplines. The institute’s senior fellows and their colleagues across Stanford examine the principles of public administration and implementation. Their work focuses on how maternal health care is delivered in rural China, how public action can create wealth and eliminate poverty, and why U.S. immigration reform keeps stalling. 

FSI’s work includes comparative studies of how institutions help resolve policy and societal issues. Scholars aim to clearly define and make sense of the rule of law, examining how it is invoked and applied around the world. 

FSI researchers also investigate government services – trying to understand and measure how they work, whom they serve and how good they are. They assess energy services aimed at helping the poorest people around the world and explore public opinion on torture policies. The Children in Crisis project addresses how child health interventions interact with political reform. Specific research on governance, organizations and security capitalizes on FSI's longstanding interests and looks at how governance and organizational issues affect a nation’s ability to address security and international cooperation.

Membership Conditionality and Institutional Reform: The Case of the OECD

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The process of joining an IO may cause liberalization before membership. Thus studies that only evaluate compliance after membership underestimate the effects. Conditional membership may be one of the most important sources of leverage for IOs.  The rule-makers establish rules that don't go far beyond what they would otherwise do, but rule-takers often must accept a broad range of policy reforms they would not otherwise consider. The influence of accession conditions has been studied in the context of EU and NATO, where sizeable benefits and formal conditions motivate major concessions by applicants. This paper proposes to examine a much less powerful organization, the OECD. Here the qualifications for membership are ambiguous and leave open room for informal pressure for a range of economic reforms. The politics of joining organizations touch closely on concerns about status and legitimacy as well as functional demands for cooperation in complex issue areas. I will examine how OECD membership has motivated specific reforms in regulatory policies and trade in a comparison of the East European transition economies accession with that of Japan, Mexico, and Korea. Statistical analysis of patterns of when countries apply for membership will test for the role of economic and political conditions as well as the political relations among members.

Christina Davis is a professor at the Department of Politics and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs of Princeton University. Her teaching and research interests bridge international relations and comparative politics, with a focus on trade policy. Professor Davis' interests include the politics and foreign policy of Japan, East Asia, and the European Union and the study of international organizations. She is the author of Food Fights Over Free Trade: How International Institutions Promote Agricultural Trade Liberalization (Princeton University Press, 2003) and Why Adjudicate? Enforcing Trade Rules in the WTO (Princeton University Press, 2012).
 
This seminar is part of TEC's "Europe and the Global Economy" program seminar series.

CISAC Conference Room

Christina Davis Professor of Politics and International Affairs Speaker Princeton University
Seminars
Europe and the Global Economy
Europe and the Global Economy Seminar Series

Brian Johnsrud

450 Serra Mall Bldg. 460, Room 219
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-2022

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PhD candidate in the Program in Modern Thought and Literature, Stanford
Former Anna Lindh Fellow, The Europe Center
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Brian Johnsrud is finishing his PhD in Stanford’s interdisciplinary Program in Modern Thought and Literature, under the supervision of Amir Eshel (Comparative Literature), Fred Turner (Communication), Sam Wineburg (Education and History), Lina Khatib (Middle Eastern Studies), and Sandra S-J Lee (Medical Anthropology). 

Brian’s research considers how the Crusades and other violent histories have served as popular metaphors for relations between the U.S. and Middle East since the First Gulf War. In particular, he explores how those analogies are employed and mediated to affect realms like U.S. national intelligence reports, conspiracy theory novels like Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code, genetic ancestry studies conducted by IBM and National Geographic's Genographic Project in Lebanon, and Iraqi primary school textbook revision by the U.S. after 2003. 

Brian's research interests in digital humanities have led to a platform he is currently developing through a collaboration between Stanford University and MIT: LacunaStories.com. The mixed-media, online platform creates an collaborative research ecosystem for academics, students, and the general public to engage with and respond to texts, media, and other resources related to 9/11.

Group Coordinator, The Contemporary Research Group

Migration

Through periods of colonial expansion, New World emigration, postcolonial immigration, and Eurozone migration, Europe has been shaped and reshaped by the constant movement of people and communities within and across its borders. The Europe Center supports scholarship that explicates the socio-political, economic, and cultural consequences of migration for both states that receive immigrants and states that send emigrants.

European Governance

The governance of Europe has constantly been reimagined, debated, and revolutionized. The Europe Center promotes scholarly, interdisciplinary research on the social, political, and economic processes, both historical and contemporary, that have driven the evolution of governance in Europe.

Jozef Bátora

Encina Hall
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305

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Visiting Professor, The Europe Center
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Jozef Bátora is full professor at the Department of Political Science, Comenius University in Bratislava. He holds a PhD in political science from the University of Oslo (2006). His work experience includes positions as associate professor and director at the Institute of European Studies and International Relations at Comenius University (2009 – 2015), visiting professor at The Europe Center, FSI, Stanford University (2013),  research fellow at the Institute for European Integration Research at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna (2006 – 2009), senior researcher at ARENA – Centre of European Studies at the University of Oslo (2006), and visiting scholar at Scancor, Stanford University (2003 – 2004). His research interests encompass international institutions and their change, organization theory, diplomacy, EU foreign policy, EU governance and security. He has published in a number of leading peer reviewed journals including Journal of European Public Policy, Journal of Common Market Studies, West European Politics, International Relations, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy and Cambridge Review of International Affairs. In the period 2012-2015, he served as coordinating editor of Journal of International Relations and Development (www.palgrave-journals.com/jird). His latest book is The European External Action Service: European Diplomacy Post-Westphalia? (Palgrave 2015).

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Academic Freedom, Democracy and the Public Policy Process

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This article is framed by the 900-plus year old debate on the importance of academic freedom for democracy and human progress outlined by Karran. In particular, it discusses some contemporary threats to academic freedom in relation to the role of researchers and research institutes in the public policy process. Using a series of recent case studies of attempts to interfere with the publication of research findings in key sensitive policy areas of genetically modified foodstuffs, climate change, and agriculture, it is argued that while academic freedom plays a crucial role in relation to the development of public policies, it is currently under threat. This matter is discussed within a framework that allows the understanding of the relationship between researchers and the intervening State, the corporate and non-government sectors with economic or social interests in any particular intervention, the media, and citizens. We apply the framework to recent cases in several controversial areas of policy that illustrate problems that have arisen. Moreover, we hypothesise that the problems have become more acute since the start of the era of privatisation and new public management with research agendas and targets often being increasingly set by policymakers. Finally, we draw some conclusions about the role of researchers and institutes in relation to agricultural and rural matters in modern democracies, arguing that freedom of speech and expression is an essential element in the policy role of researchers. At the root of this is the intensifying debate between representative and participatory democracy.

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Journal Articles
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Sociologia Ruralis
Authors
Klaus Mittenzwei
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Migration and Integration: Global and Local Dimensions

The Europe Center's 2-day multidisciplinary dialogue on migration -- the subject of great and growing consequence in the contemporary world. Conference participants from a wide range of theoretical, case-study, and comparative approaches will address the phenomenon of population movement and the experience of migration in its various qualities.

The agenda for this conference is below.

Co-sponsored by the University of Vienna, the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, and the Center for International Security and Cooperation


 

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