Democratic Institutions & Processes
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The following activities and people highlight efforts at Stanford to understand, reimagine and strengthen formal systems of democratic governance, both political and legal.
Upcoming Events
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On-Campus Events
Book Talk with Hesham Sallam | Classless Politics: Islamist Movements, the Left, and Authoritarian Legacies in Egypt
Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law- -
On-Campus Events
Authoritarianism & Possibilities of Democratic Revival in Post-Election Turkey | Yektan Turkyilmaz, Ali Yaycıoğlu, Ayça Alemdaroğlu
Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law-
Research
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Stanford Legal Design Lab
The Stanford Legal Design Lab conducts research, designs interventions, and develops technologies and policies to promote equal access to justice. -
Spatial Social Science Lab
The lab provides a collaborative environment for research and training on a broad range of social phenomena that unfold in geographic space. -
Regulation, Evaluation and Governance Lab
RegLab partners with government agencies to design and evaluate programs, policies, and technologies that modernize government. -
Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab
PovGov is a research lab that aims to provide solutions to poverty, lawlessness, and violence. -
Golub Captial Social Impact Lab
Government Services: Technology can be leveraged to transform the public sector, improving government service delivery while increasing fairness, transparency, and accountability. -
Armed Non-State Actor Governance and the Rule of Law
Across the world there is extensive evidence of criminal, insurgent, and other non-state governance structures successfully controlling populations and territories in both competition and collaboration with formal states. -
Western Governance and Policy
The Western Governance and Policy research project at Stanford focuses on studying and analyzing the unique governance and policy challenges faced by western states and regions in the United States. -
Understanding Public Opinion
The Hoover Institution conducts two bi-annual polls that measure the political attitudes of voters, their reactions to their leader’s policy decisions, and their beliefs about the direction of America. -
Tech Track 2
TT2 seeks to break down barriers between the government, industry, and academia, and inspire partnerships that reinforce US advantages critical to protecting liberal Democratic values, fostering prosperity, and preserving peace worldwide. -
Structural Change in China
The project examines how China’s political institutions help or hinder continued reform and the challenges they face ahead. -
Strengthening US-India Relations
The goal of the US-India Program at Hoover is to generate, identify, and advance policy-relevant scholarship and connections that will deepen the relationship between the world’s oldest democracy and the world’s largest democracy. -
Strengthening Democracy Challenge
A joint project between academics and practitioners to crowdsource and identify short, scalable interventions to reduce anti-democratic attitudes, support for partisan violence, and/or partisan animosity among Americans. -
State and Local Governance Initiative
This key focus area centers on empowering state and local governance through research and policy recommendations. -
Regulation and Rule of Law Initiative
This initiative conducts research and analysis on the foundations of the market system, private property rights, and the rule of law in relation to a free society. -
Quality Improvement In Government
The Quality Improvement in Government initiative designs, pilots, and rigorously tests the effect of quality improvement initiatives in government. -
Open Courts
This project advocates for greater transparency in government use of surveillance technology overall, and in particular for greater public access to court records showing the nature and extent of law enforcement intrusion into our digital lives. -
National Security, Technology & Law Working Group
Brings together specialists with interdisciplinary expertise to analyze how technology affects national security and law and how governments can use that technology to defend themselves, consistent with constitutional values and the rule of law -
Institutional Foundations of the Chinese Bureaucratic State
Integrating a comprehensive analysis of elite mobility in the Chinese bureaucracy, on the one hand, with an ethnographic study of rural governance in China, on the other hand, this research project addresses these questions. -
Healthy Elections Project
The Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project was developed to ensure that the 2020 election can proceed with integrity, safety, and equal access. -
Government Innovation
Our research explores how data science, machine learning, and new program design can help revitalize government and where rigorous evaluation and evidence are most needed. -
Governance Project
The Governance Project seeks to better conceptualize and measure governance. Initially, it will seek to understand how it functions in two societies – the Peoples Republic of China and the United States – and then expand to additional countries. -
Democratic Fragility and Conflict Project
This initiative examines the causes for democratic fragility and conflict and adopts an interdisciplinary approach to finding and testing new potential solutions to these crucial issues. -
2023-24 U.S. National Election Panel Project
This project is designed to measure the related dynamics of a close general election, contested primaries, trials of Donald Trump, an economy that will contradict at least some expectations, and major international conflicts. -
Improving American Elections Project
The Improving American Elections Initiative brings together election officials, academic experts and political practitioners to study American elections and develop initiatives to improve Americans’ confidence in their reliability. -
Governance and Institutions Project
The King Center supports research on the determinants of governance quality and the factors that bring about inclusive, resilient, democratic institutions. -
Election Integrity Partnership
A non-partisan coalition to empower the research community, election officials, government agencies, civil society organizations, social media platforms, and others to defend our elections against those who seek to undermine. -
Supreme Court Litigation Clinic
Under the direction of three faculty members clinic members work on real Supreme Court cases, representing parties and amici. -
Stanford Program on Democracy and the Internet
Seeks to promote research and courses that engage with the challenges new technologies pose to democracy in the digital age. -
Program on Turkey
The Program on Turkey at CDDRL is a platform for critical analysis and research on politics and society in Turkey. -
Program on Identity, Democracy, and Justice
The Program on Identity, Democracy, and Justice (IDJ) at CDDRL advances innovative research on the multifaceted dimensions of identity and their role in democratic development, struggles for recognition, social justice, and inclusion. -
Program on Capitalism and Democracy
The Program on Capitalism and Democracy seeks to address the crisis in democratic capitalism, marked by public disaffection with the system and perceived market and political failures. -
Program on Arab Reform and Democracy
Examines the different social and political dynamics within Arab countries and the evolution of their political systems, focusing on the prospects, conditions and possible pathways for Democratic reform in the region. -
Program on American Democracy in Comparative Perspectives
The Program on American Democracy in Comparative Perspective aims to investigate problems with American democracy, including polarization and gridlock, poor governance, and declining trust in government institutions. -
California Policy Research Initiative
The California Policy Research Initiative (CAPRI) at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) is intended to help state and local officials access policy-relevant research from Stanford. -
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Focused on the political development of select Asian countries, covers discourse on authoritarianism, democratic development, and human rights. -
Stanford Center for Law and History
The Stanford Center for Law and History (SCLH) brings together faculty, postdocs, and students from across Stanford University to examine the multifaceted interrelationships between law and history. -
Neukom Center for the Rule of Law
Neukom Center for the Rule of Law provides academics with unparalleled opportunities to confront the world’s most complex challenges, primarily in developing countries. -
McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society
The McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society is committed to bringing ethical reflection to bear on important social problems through research, teaching, and community engagement. -
John and Terry Levin Center for Public Service and Public Interest Law
Our research agenda is focused on supporting the development and health of the public interest legal field, with particular focus on US legal services for the indigent and the interaction of international human rights with domestic reform. -
Deborah L. Rhode Center on Advancing the Legal Profession
Through a multidisciplinary approach to teaching, research, and policy, the Rhode Center works to make civil justice more equitable, accessible, and transparent and to promote the legal profession’s commitment to the public interest. -
Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
An interdisciplinary center for research on development in all of its dimensions: political, economic, social, and legal, and the ways in which these different dimensions interact with one another. -
Center for Revitalizing American Institutions
This emerging center within the Hoover Institution focuses on studying and proposing reforms to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of American institutions, such as government agencies, public services, and regulatory bodies. -
Center for International Security and Cooperation
CISAC scholars are involved in issues like nuclear nonproliferation research, the study of international norms and ethics, and Track II talks with China, North Korea, Pakistan and Russia. -
Center for Human Rights and International Justice
The Center for Human Rights and International Justice is committed to investigating global human rights violations. They offer programs dedicated to advancing human rights, including civil society outreach efforts and trial monitoring. -
Hoover Institution
Seeking to improve the human condition by advancing ideas that promote economic opportunity and prosperity while securing and safeguarding peace for America and all mankind. -
Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Stanford’s hub for nonpartisan, interdisciplinary research, teaching, and policy impact in international affairs.
Engagement Opportunities
Spring 2024 Courses
People in the Stanford Community
- Assistant Professor of Art and Art History
- Assistant Professor (Teaching) of Law
- Assistant Professor of Sociology
- Hoover Research Fellow
- Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
- Hoover Fellow
- Associate Professor of Political Science
- Emeritus Faculty, Acad Council
- Visiting Scholar
- Associate Professor of History
- Charles Louis Ducommun Professor in the School of Humanities & Sciences, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute, at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research & Professor at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability
- Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
- Professor of Political Economy at the Graduate School of Business and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
- Bruce Tyson Mitchell Professor and Professor of Law
- Professor of Pediatrics (General Pediatrics) and, by courtesy, of Education
- Associate Director for Operations
- Olive H. Palmer Professor in Humanities
- Assistant Professor of Political Science
- David and Diane Steffy Fellow in American Public Policy Studies, Hoover Inst.
- Lecturer
- Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and Rose-Marie and Jack R. Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor, by courtesy, of Economics and of Finance at the Graduate School of Business
- Marta Sutton Weeks Professor of Ethics in Society and Professor of Philosophy and of Law, Emeritus
- William Bennett Munro Professor of Political Science
- Lecturer
- Senior Research Scholar
- Deputy Director
- Professor of Law
- Professor (Teaching) of Law
- Janet M. Peck Professor of International Communication, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science
- Marion Rice Kirkwood Professor of Law, Emeritus
- Olivier & Nomellini Senior Fellow in International Studies at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science
- Associate Professor of History and of Law
- Charles J. Meyers Professor in Law and Business, Emeritus
- Professor of Communication, Emeritus
- Janet M. Peck Professor of International Communication, Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
- Professor of Biology
- Nelson Bowman Sweitzer and Marie B. Sweitzer Professor of Law, Emeritus
- Morris M. Doyle Centennial Professor of Public Policy and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
- W. A. Franke Professor of Law and Business, Emeritus
- Kimberly Glenn Professor and Professor of Political Science
- Davies Family Professor, Professor of Political Science, Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, and by courtesy, at the Hoover Institution
- Lewis Talbot and Nadine Hearn Shelton Professor of International Legal Studies, Emeritus
- Judge John W. Ford Professor of Dispute Resolution
- Program Director, Policy Lab and Lecturer in Law
- William Robertson Coe Professor and Professor of Political Science and of Communication
- Assistant Professor of Sociology
- Sara Hart Kimball Professor of the Humanities
- Assistant Professor of Political Science
- Professor of the Practice of Law
- Masters Student
- Senior Lecturer of Sociology
- Gildred Professor in Latin American Studies, Emerita
- Kenneth & Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law
- Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History, Emeritus
- Professor of Law, Keith and Jan Hurlbut Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Professor of Political Economics at the GSB, Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and Professor, by courtesy, of Health Policy
- Academic Prog Prof 1
- Associate Professor of Anthropology, and by courtesy, of Medicine (Stanford Prevention and Research Center) and Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
- Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and at the Hoover Institution
- Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and at the Hoover Institution, Emeritus
- Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
- James T. Watkins IV and Elise V. Watkins Professor
- Senior Fellow Adjunct
- Executive Director King Center on Global Development and Research Scholar
- Senior Lecturer of Law
- James and Patricia Kowal Professor, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Professor, by courtesy, of Psychology
- Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
- Provost, Professor of Law, Frederick Emmons Terman Professor and Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
- Ray Lyman Wilbur Professor, Emeritus
- Richard and Frances Mallery Professor of Law and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
- Director, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Freeman Spogli Institute and the Woods Institute
- Hoover Research Fellow
- William F. Baxter-VISA International Professor of Law and Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
- Hoover Institution Research Fellow
- William Bennett Munro Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Emeritus
- Fellow, Stanford Center for Law and History
- Jean and Rebecca Willard Endowed Professor of Classics
- Distinguished Visiting Fellow
- Adelbert H. Sweet Professor of Law and Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
- Markos & Eleni Kounalakis Chair in Honor of Constantine Mitsotakis, Professor of Political Science, of Classics, by courtesy, of Philosophy and Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at the Hoover Institution
- William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
- Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor and Professor, by courtesy, of English
- Sir Robert Ho Tung Professor of Chinese Studies, Professor of Communication, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science and of Sociology
- Ilene And Morton Harris Senior Fellow (Adjunct)
- Policy Analyst
- James B. McClatchy Professor, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Professor, by courtesy, of Communication and of Political Science
- Research Scholar
- Ormond Family Professor of Finance and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
- McGregor-Girand Professor of Social Ethics of Science and Technology, Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for HAI, Professor, by courtesy, of Education, of Philosophy and Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at FSI
- Executive Director, Deborah L. Rhode Center on the Legal Profession, Stanford La
- Tad & Dianne Taube Director of the Hoover Institution, Denning Professor of Global Business & the Economy, Thomas & Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy at Hoover, Professor of Political Sci & Senior Fellow, by courtesy, at FSI
- Lecturer
- Research Scientist
- Professor of Political Science, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
- Director, Justice Advocacy Project and Lecturer in Law
- Helen C. Farnsworth Professor of International Agricultural Policy and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
- Senior Research Scholar
- Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Steven and Roberta Denning Professor, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
- Senior Fellow (Adjunct)
- William J. Perry Professor, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Professor, by courtesy, of East Asian Languages and Cultures
- Luke W. Cole Professor of Environmental Law, Director of the Stanford Environmental Law Clinic, Professor (Teaching) at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment
- Stanley Morrison Professor of Law
- Clinical Assistant Professor
- Fairleigh S. Dickinson, Jr. Professor of Public Policy
- Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
- The Nelson Bowman Sweitzer and Marie B. Sweitzer Professor of Law
- Hoover Institution Research Fellow
- Lecturer
- Deputy Director
- Henri H. and Tomoye Takahashi Professor of Japanese Studies, Professor of Sociology and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
- Fellow, Rock Center for Corporate Governance
- Lecturer
- Senior Research Scholar
- Senior Lecturer in Law
- Associate Professor of History
- Kleinheinz Family Professor of International Studies and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
- Senior Research Scholar
- Associate Dean for Global Programs and Professor of Law
- Postdoctoral Scholar
- Kwoh-Ting Li Professor of Economic Development and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Past Events
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Past Event On-Campus Events
Isabela Mares | Parliaments in Times of Democratic Erosion
Freeman Spogli InstituteOpen to: Stanford community-*This event has already occurred. -
Past Event On-Campus Events
Alice Siu - Research and Public Service: Intersections Between Academia and Policy-Making
Stanford in GovernmentOpen to: Stanford students-*This event has already occurred. -
Past Event On-Campus Events
Presidents Beware: Investigations, Impeachment, Disqualification, and Prosecution
Stanford Constitutional Law CenterOpen to: Everyone-*This event has already occurred.