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.

-

The Consequences of Technological Developments for Politics and Government

Tuesday, April 24, 2018


Reception at 5:00pm. Talk from 5:30pm - 6:45pm.

RSVP required online.

The consequences of contemporary technological innovations for the lives and values of future generations are enormous. The wide range of expected – and unexpected – applications require rethinking governance arrangements, legal regimes, economic structures, and social relations. Exploration of such topics is the subject of the 2017-18 CASBS symposium series.

The first symposium, held in November 2017, focused on “AI, Automation, and Society.” Read about and view a video of that event here.

The second symposium, held in March 2018, involved “The Effects of Technology on Human Interactions.” View the event video here.

In this final installment of the 2017-18 series, CASBS presents a conversation featuring two 2017-18 CASBS fellows – Stanford professor Nate Persily, an expert on law, democracy, and the internet; and Carrie Cihak, a senior policy expert and practitioner at one of the most innovative county governments in the U.S. They will outline the challenges that recent technology-based advances pose to democracy, public policy, and governance systems. Social media platforms increasingly are viewed as vehicles for exploiting political discourse, rather than as democratizing forces. How should our institutions respond? Though modern technological innovations more easily connect people, what are the implications for issues of “digital equity,” government capacity, and regulatory frameworks? Though the positive impacts are substantial, how do we address the numerous negative impacts of the technology sector’s concentration in certain regional economies – including the San Francisco Bay Area and the greater Seattle area? These are just a few questions that will stimulate a thought-provoking discussion between the panelists and with the audience.

 


 

As Chief of Policy for King County Executive Dow Constantine, the highest ranking elected official of King County, WA, the 13th largest county in the United States, Carrie S. Cihak is responsible for identifying the highest priority policy areas and community outcomes for leadership focus and for developing and launching innovative solutions to issues that are complex, controversial and cross-sectoral. She is an architect of some of the county’s key initiatives, such as Best Starts for Kids as well as nationally-recognized work on equity and social justice. Prior to her work in Constantine’s administration, Cihak served for eight years as a senior-level analyst for the King County Council and as lead staff for the King County Board of Health. She also served as a staff economist on international trade and finance for President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers. As a policy fellow during the 2017-18 academic year, Cihak is leading projects at CASBS and in King County that advance meaningful collaboration between academic researchers and governments. She is spearheading efforts in King County on evidence-informed decision making and is co-director of CASBS’s Impact Evaluation Design Lab, launched in March 2018. She is also using time at CASBS to explore the science and evidence-base of belonging, while working back home to help launch a cross-sector partnership called “You Belong Here,” which seeks to build civic muscle and inclusive growth in the Seattle region.


Nate Persily is the James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, with appointments in the departments of political science, communication and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Prior to joining Stanford, Persily taught at Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and as a visiting professor at Harvard, NYU, Princeton, the University of Amsterdam, and the University of Melbourne. His scholarship and legal practice focus on American election law or what is sometimes called the “law of democracy,” which addresses issues such as voting rights, political parties, campaign finance, redistricting, and election administration. He has served as a special master or court-appointed expert to craft congressional or legislative districting plans for Georgia, Maryland, Connecticut, New York and, most recently, North Carolina. He also served as the Senior Research Director for the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. In addition to numerous articles (many cited by the Supreme Court) on the legal regulation of political parties, issues surrounding the census and redistricting process, voting rights, and campaign finance reform, Persily is coauthor of an election law casebook, The Law of Democracy. As a fellow at CASBS supported by the Annenberg Foundation, he is examining the impact of changing technology on political communication, campaigns, and election administration. In 2016, he received an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship to pursue this work. Persily also co-directs the Stanford Project on Democracy and the Internet.

 

*There will be valet parking at the event.

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University
75 Alta Road
Stanford, CA 94305

Nate Persily The James B. McClatchy Professor of Law Stanford Law School
Carrie Cihak Chief of Policy for King County Executive Dow Constantine King County, Washington
Lectures
0
top_pick_rsd25_070_0254a.jpg

Daphne Keller is the Director of Platform Regulation at the Stanford Program in Law, Science, & Technology. Her academic, policy, and popular press writing focuses on platform regulation and Internet users'; rights in the U.S., EU, and around the world. Her recent work has focused on platform transparency, data collection for artificial intelligence, interoperability models, and “must-carry” obligations. She has testified before legislatures, courts, and regulatory bodies around the world on topics ranging from the practical realities of content moderation to copyright and data protection. She was previously Associate General Counsel for Google, where she had responsibility for the company’s web search products. She is a graduate of Yale Law School, Brown University, and Head Start.

SHORT PIECES

 

ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS

 

POLICY PUBLICATIONS

 

FILINGS

  • U.S. Supreme Court amicus brief on behalf of Francis Fukuyama, NetChoice v. Moody (2024)
  • U.S. Supreme Court amicus brief with ACLU, Gonzalez v. Google (2023)
  • Comment to European Commission on data access under EU Digital Services Act
  • U.S. Senate testimony on platform transparency

 

PUBLICATIONS LIST

Director of Platform Regulation, Stanford Program in Law, Science & Technology (LST)
Social Science Research Scholar
Date Label
-

Through the Hack the Pentagon program, The Department of Defense (DoD) had asked Synack to look for vulnerabilities left undetected by traditional security solutions in one of their highly complex and sensitive systems. The DoD was going to push the limits of security beyond that of most enterprises, and the results were surprising. Hear from Synack CEO Jay Kaplan how the government can benefit from bug bounty programs, what Hack the Pentagon revealed about DoD security, and why more and more organizations are employing red team penetration testing. 

Jay Kaplan co-founded Synack after serving in several security-related capacities at the Department of Defense, including the DoD’s Incident Response and Red Team. Prior to founding Synack, Jay was a Senior Cyber Analyst at the National Security Agency (NSA), where his focus was supporting counterterrorism-related intelligence operations. Jay received a BS in Computer Science with a focus in Information Assurance and a MS in Engineering Management from George Washington University studying under a DoD/NSA-sponsored fellowship. Jay holds a number of security certifications from ISC(2) and GIAC.

Encina Hall, E008 (garden level)

Jay Kaplan CEO Synack
Seminars
Authors
News Type
Blogs
Date
Paragraphs

Can Bitcoin thrive without China? 

Bitcoin started the month of September trading at an all-time high of $4,950. By implementing Segregated Witness, or SegWit, Bitcoin allowed more transactions to take place and signaled confidence that Bitcoin would scale. On September 4, the Chinese central bank banned trading in initial coin offerings (ICOs), leading to rumors that China was considering banning Bitcoin trading altogether. Those rumors were confirmed on September 14, and Bitcoin exchanges operating in China were told to cease trading for now. This article explores what happened next, and what the future of Bitcoin is without its largest mining pools...

 

Hero Image
Bitcoin accepted here Getty Images
All News button
1
Encina Hall, C433 616 Jane Stanford Way Stanford, CA 94305-6055
0
shelby_grossman.jpg PhD

Shelby Grossman was a research scholar at the Cyber Policy Center. Her research focuses on online safety. Shelby's research has been published in Comparative Political Studies, PNAS Nexus, Political Communication, The Journal of Politics, World Development, and World Politics. Her book, "The Politics of Order in Informal Markets," was published by Cambridge University Press. She is co-editor of the Journal of Online Trust and Safety, and teaches classes at Stanford on open source investigation and online trust and safety issues. 

Shelby was an assistant professor of political science at the University of Memphis from 2017-2019, and a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law from 2016-17. She earned her Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University in 2016.

Research Scholar
CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow, 2016-17
Date Label

Encina Hall, C148
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305

0
Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Director of the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy
Research Affiliate at The Europe Center
Professor by Courtesy, Department of Political Science
yff-2021-14290_6500x4500_square.jpg

Francis Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a faculty member of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). He is also Director of Stanford's Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy, and a professor (by courtesy) of Political Science.

Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on issues in development and international politics. His 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. His book In the Realm of the Last Man: A Memoir will be published in fall 2026.

Francis Fukuyama received his B.A. from Cornell University in classics, and his Ph.D. from Harvard in Political Science. He was a member of the Political Science Department of the RAND Corporation, and of the Policy Planning Staff of the US Department of State. From 1996-2000 he was Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University, and from 2001-2010 he was Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. He served as a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics from 2001-2004. He is editor-in-chief of American Purpose, an online journal.

Dr. Fukuyama holds honorary doctorates from Connecticut College, Doane College, Doshisha University (Japan), Kansai University (Japan), Aarhus University (Denmark), the Pardee Rand Graduate School, and Adam Mickiewicz University (Poland). He is a non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Rand Corporation, the Board of Trustees of Freedom House, and the Board of the Volcker Alliance. He is a fellow of the National Academy for Public Administration, a member of the American Political Science Association, and of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is married to Laura Holmgren and has three children.

(October 2025)

CV
Date Label

CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C147
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 724-6448 (650) 723-1928
0
Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science and Sociology
diamond_encina_hall.png MA, PhD

Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford, where he lectures and teaches courses on democracy (including an online course on EdX). At the Hoover Institution, he co-leads the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and participates in the Project on the U.S., China, and the World. At FSI, he is among the core faculty of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, which he directed for six and a half years. He leads FSI’s Israel Studies Program and is a member of the Program on Arab Reform and Development. He also co-leads the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He served for 32 years as founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy.

Diamond’s research focuses on global trends affecting freedom and democracy and on U.S. and international policies to defend and advance democracy. His book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency, analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the United States and around the world at this potential “hinge in history,” and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad.  A paperback edition with a new preface was released by Penguin in April 2020. His other books include: In Search of Democracy (2016), The Spirit of Democracy (2008), Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (1999), Promoting Democracy in the 1990s (1995), and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria (1989). He has edited or coedited more than fifty books, including China’s Influence and American Interests (2019, with Orville Schell), Silicon Triangle: The United States, China, Taiwan the Global Semiconductor Security (2023, with James O. Ellis Jr. and Orville Schell), and The Troubling State of India’s Democracy (2024, with Sumit Ganguly and Dinsha Mistree).

During 2002–03, Diamond served as a consultant to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and was a contributing author of its report, Foreign Aid in the National Interest. He has advised and lectured to universities and think tanks around the world, and to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other organizations dealing with governance and development. During the first three months of 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. His 2005 book, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, was one of the first books to critically analyze America's postwar engagement in Iraq.

Among Diamond’s other edited books are Democracy in Decline?; Democratization and Authoritarianism in the Arab WorldWill China Democratize?; and Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy, all edited with Marc F. Plattner; and Politics and Culture in Contemporary Iran, with Abbas Milani. With Juan J. Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset, he edited the series, Democracy in Developing Countries, which helped to shape a new generation of comparative study of democratic development.

Download full-resolution headshot; photo credit: Rod Searcey.

Former Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Faculty Chair, Jan Koum Israel Studies Program
Date Label

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

0
Senior Fellow, 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
mcfaul_headshot_2025.jpg PhD

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 Nausea 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. 

CV
Date Label
Subscribe to Governance