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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.

Anti-System Politics in Europe and America

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.

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Recent elections in the advanced western democracies have undermined the basic foundations of political systems that had previously beaten back all challenges -- from both the left and the right. The election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency, only months after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, signaled a dramatic shift in the politics of the rich democracies. In Anti-System Politics, Jonathan Hopkin traces the evolution of this shift and argues that it is a long-term result of abandoning the post-war model of egalitarian capitalism in the 1970s. That shift entailed weakening the democratic process in favor of an opaque, technocratic form of governance that allows voters little opportunity to influence policy. With the financial crisis of the late 2000s these arrangements became unsustainable, as incumbent politicians were unable to provide solutions to economic hardship. Electorates demanded change, and it had to come from outside the system.

Using a comparative approach, Hopkin explains why different kinds of anti-system politics emerge in different countries and how political and economic factors impact the degree of electoral instability that emerges. Finally, he discusses the implications of these changes, arguing that the only way for mainstream political forces to survive is for them to embrace a more activist role for government in protecting societies from economic turbulence. A historically-grounded analysis of arguably the most important global political phenomenon at present, Anti-System Politics illuminates how and why the world seems upside down.

 

Jonathan Hopkin

Jonathan Hopkin is Professor in the European Institute and the Department of Government of the London School of Economics and Political Science. He obtained his PhD at the European University Institute in Florence. He is the author of Party Formation and Democratic Transition in Spain (1999, Macmillan) and Anti-System Politics: The Crisis of Market Liberalism in Rich Democracies (2020, Oxford University Press). Previously he taught at the Universities of Bradford, Durham and Birmingham, and held visiting positions at Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, the University of Bologna, and the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He has published widely on the party politics and political economy of Europe in peer-reviewed journals as well as for a wider audience.

*If you need any disability-related accommodation, please contact Shannon Johnson (sj1874@stanford.edu) by February 24, 2022.

Hybrid: Online via Zoom and in-person for Stanford affiliates.

Jonathan Hopkin Professor of Comparative Politics speaker London School of Economics

Costly signaling, power and religious behavior, or What can we learn from the Skoptsy?

The focus of religion & politics research has been predominantly on the impact of religious actors on democratic and non-democratic political systems and religion-inspired political behavior. But to better understand the political significance of religion, it is necessary to look below this institutional level and adopt a micropolitical perspective which incorporates insights from fields such as behavioral ecology, social psychology or cognitive science to study the internal politics of religious communities.

Why is religion, despite its costly requirements and uncertain rewards, such a potent factor of mobilization? How does it legitimize claims for power and status? Why do religious groups significantly outlast secular ones? To address some of these questions, I examine political systems of communitarian religious groups – including the American Shakers and Russian Skoptsy – through the lenses of costly signaling theory of religion. This evolutionarily-informed theoretical framework contributes to the explanation of seemingly irrational and costly ascetic and ecstatic religious behavior not only as signals of commitment, but also as bids for power and status. The added value of such micropolitical study of religious communities is that it may shed light on the complex relationship between religion and political power in the early stages of human social development. But it also contributes to our understanding of some modern religio-political phenomena, such as various form of political sacrifice, including suicidal terrorism.
 

Maciej Potz

Maciej Potz is a professor of Political Science at the Department of Political Systems, Faculty of International and Political Studies, University of Łódź, Poland. He earned his Ph.D. in 2006 from the Silesian University in Katowice and his post-doctoral degree from the University of Łódź in 2017, both in Political Science. His primary area of interest is religion and politics, with special focus on theocracies (as a Foundation for Polish Science scholar, he studied Shaker and Mormon theocracies in the USA in 2009 and 2012) and political strategies of religious actors in contemporary democracies, especially in Poland and the USA. His other research interests include political theory (especially theory of power and democratic theory), comparative politics and, most recently, evolutionary political science.

Maciej Potz published three monographs: (i) Granice wolności religijnej [The Limits of Religous Liberty] 2008 (2nd ed. 2015), Wrocław: FNP, on religious freedom, church-state relations and confessional politics in the USA; (ii) Amerykańskie teokracje. Źródła i mechanizmy władzy usankcjonowanej religijnie [American Theocracies. The Sources and Mechanisms of Religion-Sanctioned Power] 2016, Łódź: UŁ, theorizing theocracy as a type of a political system and emprically exploring North American theocracies; (iii) Political Science of Religion: Theorizing the Political Role of Religion, 2020, London: Palgrave MacMillan – a theoretical framework for the analysis of religion’s impact on politics. He also authored several journal articles, including in Religion, State and Society, Journal of Political Power, Politics and Religion and Studia Religiologica.

Maciej Potz has taught political science-related courses in the University of Lodz and, as guest lecturer, at other European universities, including University of the West of Scotland in Glasgow, Buskerund College and NTNU (Norway), University of Joensuu (Finland), University of La Laguna (Spain). He participated in a number of international conferences, including “XXI World IAHR Congress in Erfurt (2015), IPSA World Congresses of Political Science in Santiago (2019), Madrid (2012) and Poznań (2016), APSA Annual Meeting (forthcoming in 2021).  

The research project he will be pursuing at Stanford, entitled Costly signaling Under His Eye: explaining the commune longevity puzzle, uses costly signaling theory of religion to explore the determinants of cohesion and longevity of (communitarian) religious groups. It also proposes a novel political interpretation of signaling behavior. Over the next three years, he will head a research team undertaking an empirical study (funded by National Science Centre of Poland) of power and status in Catholic religious orders.


*If you need any disability-related accommodation, please contact: Shannon Johnson (sj1874@stanford.edu) by February 3, 2022.

Online via Zoom

Maciej Potz Professor of Political Science speaker University of Łódź, Poland

Lauri Mälksoo

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Short-Term Research Fellow at the Stanford University Library, 2022
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Lauri Mälksoo is Professor of International Law at the University of Tartu in Estonia, member of the Institut de Droit International and of the Estonian Academy of Sciences. He has published widely on Russian and Soviet approaches to international law and human rights, including the monograph "Russian Approaches to International Law" (OUP, 2015).

Jonne Kamphorst

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Visiting Student Researcher at The Europe Center, 2022
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Jonne Kamphorst is pursuing a PhD in Political Science at the European University Institute in Florence. At Stanford, he is a Fulbright Visiting Scholar. He has earned an MPhil and MSc in politics and sociology from the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics, and he did his bachelor’s in Political Science at the University of Amsterdam. Jonne’s work focuses on voting behaviour, political parties, and political persuasion. The first part of his doctoral thesis asks why the preferences of voters have changed in advanced democracies. The second part of his thesis focuses on what politicians and parties can do to persuade radicalized, polarized, and disengaged voters to come back to the political mainstream. Jonne is thus particularly interested in the extent to which the numerous interventions against these potentially harmful phenomena are effective. He is exploring these topics using a selection of methods that employ an experimental logic, specifically (field) experiments and methods of causal inference.

Non-Recognition of Illegal Annexations: Will the Rule of International Law Hold?

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The rule in international law which prohibits forcible seizure of territory has lately come under pressure, for example when Russia seized and annexed Crimea in 2014. In the presentation, we will take a look back at the history of this rule, including the Western non-recognition of the Soviet annexation of the Baltic States in 1940-1991, of which Mälksoo has written a leading monograph. Current threats to the rule will be discussed such as the ideas that great powers are entitled to historic justice which may differ from what international law dictates or there is a regional international law dictated by the leading great power in the region. With President Putin's demands to the US and NATO, these international legal questions have again become utterly topical.

Lauri Mälksoo


Lauri Mälksoo is Professor of International Law at the University of Tartu in Estonia, member of the Institut de Droit International and of the Estonian Academy of Sciences. He has published widely on Russian and Soviet approaches to international law and human rights, including the monograph "Russian Approaches to International Law" (OUP, 2015).

 

*If you need any disability-related accommodation, please contact Shannon Johnson at sj1874@stanford.edu. Requests should be made by January 13, 2022.

Co-sponsored by Stanford University Library.

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Lauri Mälksoo Professor of International Law speaker University of Tartu in Estonia

LGBTQ rights and representation among right-wing parties

 

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How do we explain the divergence in the embrace of LGBTQ rights among right-wing European parties? In the 1990s and early 2000s, a few conservative parties started to embrace the gay rights cause, joining earlier adopters among left-wing and liberal Western European parties. Conservative parties in Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and Britain trumpeted their newly found enthusiasm for gay rights as a badge of modernity and political maturity. The embrace was driven by changing social values, the idiosyncratic agency of leadership, and declining religiosity. Today the right-wing lesbian, gay or bisexual parliamentarian is far from an exception. Since 1976, nearly 150 self-identifying LGB parliamentarians from right of center parties have taken office.
 
The position of the radical right is more complex. When it comes to gay and lesbian rights, radical right parties can be divided into two groups. Parties from the Netherlands, Belgium, and northern European countries have invoked the nationalism of gay rights as a club to beat back the Muslim immigrant. Homonationalism has become a successful electoral strategy, which blends support for gay rights with xenophobia and Islamophobia. In contrast, radical right parties in Eastern and Southern Europe have not embraced gay rights. In most of these countries, “homosexuality” is seen as a foreign threat, imposed by Western liberals or alien to Catholic culture and tradition. While the arc of the gay rights movement bends towards freedom, in most countries the T has been jettisoned from the LGB. When the left is slow to adopt, the right sees little gain in moving on the issue, nor is disposed to lead from the front.

 

Gabriele Magni
Gabriele Magni is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Director of the Global Policy Institute at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. His research examines the factors that shape political inclusion, solidarity and representation in advanced democracies. One stream of his work explores the link between economic inequality, immigration and welfare attitudes. A second stream examines LGBTQ rights and representation, focusing on LGBTQ candidates and politicians. His research has appeared in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, and the British Journal of Political Science, among other outlets. He has also written for The Washington Post, Politico and The New Republic, and provided commentary to The New York Times, The Washington Post, FiveThirtyEight, NBC News and Reuters. Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University’s Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance.


*If you need any disability-related accommodation, please contact Shannon Johnson (sj1874@stanford.edu) by February 10, 2022.

Co-sponsored by the Clayman Institute for Gender Research.

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Gabriele Magni Loyola Marymount University
Lectures

Political Entrepreneurs: The Rise of Challenger Parties in Europe

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Challenger parties are on the rise in Europe. Like disruptive entrepreneurs, these parties offer new policies and defy the dominance of established party brands. In the face of these challenges and a more volatile electorate, mainstream parties are losing their grip on power. Drawing on research from her recent book, Professor Sara Hobolt explores why some challenger parties are so successful and what mainstream parties can do to confront these political entrepreneurs.


Sara Hobolt

Sara B. Hobolt is the Sutherland Chair in European Institutions and a professor at the Department of Government, London School of Economics and Political Science.

She has published five books and over 60 journal articles on European and EU politics and political behaviour.

Her most recent book is Political Entrepreneurs: The Rise of Challenge Parties in Europe (Princeton University Press, 2020, with Catherine De Vries). She is also the Chair of the European Election Studies (EES), a Europe-wide project studying voters, parties, candidates and the media in European Parliamentary elections. Professor Hobolt regularly provides commentary in the media on elections, Brexit, public opinion and European and EU politics.


*If you need any disability-related accommodation, please contact: Shannon Johnson (sj1874@stanford.edu) by January 6, 2022.

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Sara Hobolt Sutherland Chair of European Institutions speaker London School of Economics

The realist science of politics: the art of understanding political practice

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European Journal of International Relations
Classical Realism represents a science of politics that is distinct from the conventional understanding of science in International Relations. The object of Realist science is the art of politics, which is the development of a sensibility based on practical knowledge to balance values and interests and to make judgments. Realism’s science and its object led to its tagging as “wisdom literature.” This article illustrates that reading Hans Morgenthau’s and Raymond Aron’s work shows how their hermeneutic form of enquiry provides insights into the character of international politics, which conventional understandings do not. Following the example of Morgenthau, the article, first, illustrates how Realism, rather than providing a theory of practice, builds on a science with the purpose to judge knowledge. Realism’s science analyzes the objective conditions of politics, theorizes them, and takes into account the requirements of political practice under contingencies and considerations of morality. The article, second, examines Aron’s take on political practice in the context of the Cold War and politics that built on knowledge without experience to judge knowledge. Morgenthau and Aron’s science helps to capture Realism’s take on politics as an art, how to explicate Realism’s epistemological foundation and value in studying international politics. Doing so, the article, third, contributes to practice theory by clarifying several aspects of Realism’s science. In particular, it shows how Realism captures the art of politics by conceptualizing practice as a form of human conduct thereby offering a more coherent notion of practice than current practice theory.

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Europe After America

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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.

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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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