April 12th, 2011
Kieran Oberman tteching Global Justice Class
During spring quarter Kieran Oberman has been teaching "An Introduction to Global Justice". Read more »
December 7th, 2010
Designing Liberation Technologies
PGJ, Program on Liberation Technology in the newsMobile phones are one of the most rapidly adopted new technologies in history, with usage in all parts of the world rising quickly—and soaring in developing nations. In 2000, there were 16 million mobile subscriptions in Africa; in 2008, there were 376 million. No longer limited to one-to-one communication, mobile phones are mini-computers that provide access to the Internet and a wide array of services from banking to shopping.
November 23rd, 2010
Postdoctoral fellowships for Program on Global Justice
AnnouncementIn early January 2011, The Center for Ethics in Society will be accepting applications for our two post doctoral fellowship programs. It is our hope that our post doctoral fellows will partner with us to develop an inter-disciplinary ethics community across the campus. More information about the application process and the specific deadlines will be posted during Fall quarter.
November 18th, 2010
Mark Lemley: digital technologies' effects on the content industry
PGJ, Program on Liberation Technology in the newsAs new digital technologies arise, leading the music, movie, print journalism and other content industries to complain that they “cannot compete with free,” Mark Lemley, Director of the Center for Law, Science and Technology at SLS, poses the following overarching question: is the sky really falling on the content industries? As Lemley makes clear through a series of examples, representatives from these industries have echoed this same claim countless times throughout recent history, and yet have never been fully accurate. Even so, both the courts and the legislature have taken action in response to content industries’ claims in some cases. Read more »
November 11th, 2010
Matt Harrison on mobile technology and the evolution of the nation-state
PGJ, Program on Liberation Technology in the newsMatt Harrison, from the Prometheus Institute, began his talk with a discussion of the theoretical underpinnings behind the work of The Prometheus Institute. The work of the Institute is oriented by two central premises: first, that technology facilitates evolution, and second, that policy needs evolution. In this case, evolution is taken to mean adaptive self-organization, where the basic evolutionary mechanism is a progression through three steps: differentiation, selection and amplification. Harrison suggests that policy is not evolving rapidly enough because of legal and technical barriers--like opacity, perpetuity and monopoly--that impede progress, and that new technologies offer tools for improving self-organization and hastening evolution. Read more »
November 4th, 2010
Joshua Goldstein on making Gov 2.0 work in Kibera
PGJ, Program on Liberation Technology in the newsThe term Government 2.0 is often used to describe examples in which the tools, lessons, and ethos of the tech community are applied to help government and other organizations tackle big problems. By Josh Goldstein’s account, Government 2.0 has an especially large potential for impact in Africa, a fact that can be seen through examination of case examples at the local level. In an effort to better understand and communicate the link between technology and actual tangible impacts on people’s lives, Goldstein focused his talk on an organization called Map Kibera that represents an example of Government 2.0 that is playing out in Kibera, one of Africa’s largest slums.
Video available
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October 7th, 2010
Daniel Colascione and Evgeny Morozov discuss lessons from the 'Haystack Affair'
PGJ, Program on Liberation Technology in the newsProfessor Joshua Cohen introduced this week’s session with an overview of the event that has been dubbed the Haystack Affair. At the time of the Iran election in June 2009, various projects emerged as attempts to improve the flow of information among activists. One of the projects that emerged at this time was Haystack, a circumvention tool that aimed to make it difficult for the government to trace what members of Iran’s Green Movement were saying. Around August 2010, there was a flurry of discussion and critiques of Haystack on Stanford’s Liberation Technology listserv. By mid-September, the Censorship Research
Video available
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September 30th, 2010
Chris Spence: enabling moments of opportunity in closed societies using technology
PGJ, Program on Liberation Technology in the newsChris Spence, Chief Technology Officer of the National Democratic Institute, shared the National Democratic Institute's approach to the question of how technology can best be used for creating and advancing democracy in closed societies. There have been many recent developments in this space, including the publication of Blogs and Bullets (a report on new media in contentious politics), the closing of Haystack, and the occurrence of Google's Internet at Liberty conference in Budapest. However, the National Democratic Institute (NDI) has been working in this area for several years, and today works in more than 70 countries across the world.
Video available
paper, presentation available
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September 23rd, 2010
Josh Cohen: mobile development meets design thinking
PGJ, Program on Liberation Technology in the newsJoshua Cohen, Professor of Political Science, Philosophy and Law at Stanford University, began the first session of this quarter's Seminar on Liberation Technologies by posing a big question: are information and communication technologies able to advance human well-being for development? After all, Mobile ICT has potential to be a good thing for development for a multitude of reasons. First, as Solow's model of growth has shown, technological innovation tends to be good for growth. Second, economic growth is closely related to development. Third, mobile phone usage is rapidly growing and indigenous in much of the world, which means that new technologies do not need to be "parachuted" in to scenarios where they are not matched to local needs. Finally, there is high mobile penetration today, even in low-income settings.
Video available
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August 4th, 2010
Program on Global Justice begins workshop series
AnnouncementThe Program on Global Justice will begin its series of Linda Randall Meier Research Workshops on October 1, 2010. This series examines questions of global justice including: poverty, inequality between nations, oppressive regimes, identity, human rights, and our duties to one another. Some of the guest speakers will be Sam Bowles, Santa Fe Institiute, Yochai Benkler, Harvard Law School and Ruth Grant, Duke University.The workshops bring together faculty and graduate students from across the university to investigate the complexities of these questions and to discuss possible answers. Cosponsored by the Program on Global Justice and the Stanford Humanities Center. Please see the events calendar for time and location:
July 21st, 2010
Post Doctoral Fellows teach Global Justice class
Allegra McLeod, Post Doctoral Fellow for the Program on Global Justice, and Kieran Oberman, Post Doctoral Fellow for the Program on Global Justice and the Center for Ethics in Society, are seen preparing for a session of Introduction to Global Justice. Each year the program's Post Doctoral Fellows have the opportunity, as part of their appointment, to teach the Stanford course which includes recent work in political theory on global justice. The course is designed to encourage students to think critically about some of the important questions regarding such issues as global poverty, human rights, fair trade, immigration and climate change. Questions include: Do developed countries have a duty to aid developing countries? When is humanitarian intervention justified? and Is torture ever justified? Readings include Charles Beitz, Thomas Pogge and John Rawls.
May 5th, 2010
The Promise of Information and Communications Technology
in the newsOn April 19, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies convened a special conference on Technology, Governance, and Global Development, to examine how technical innovation solves, or fails to solve, the problems of chronic global underdevelopment. Experts from business, medicine, philanthropy, academia, government and non-governmental organizations, along with young Stanford alumni, addressed technology's ability to help secure gains in health, economic development, agricultural innovation, food security, and human development.
Audio & Video transcripts available
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May 3rd, 2010
FSI's Technology, Governance, and Global Development Conference
FSI Stanford NewsIn mid-April, FSI convened a conference on Technology, Governance, and Global Development, to examine how technical innovation solves, or fails to solve, the problems of global underdevelopment. Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State, gave a lunch keynote address with a focus on why democracies are more effective in delivering economic development. Bill Gates, Co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, urged students to become actively involved in the major issues of global health and education.
Audio & Video transcripts available
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April 27th, 2010
Josh Cohen and Boston Review win major award
CDDRL, FSI Stanford in the newsThe Boston Review, edited by Deborah Chasman and FSI's Josh Cohen, professor of law, political science, and philosophy and CDDRL affiliated faculty, has won the 2010 Utne Independent Press Award for Best Writing. Said Utne, "Crack open Boston Review's generously sized newsprint pages and plunge into a world where poems sit alongside political essays, where fiction coexists with cultural criticism, and where - this is key - every element in the intellectual fiesta is thought-provoking and expertly crafted." Read more »
April 17th, 2009
Joshua Cohen's Program on Global Justice joins Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL)
CDDRL, FSI Stanford, PGJ, Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program AnnouncementThe Program on Global Justice, which explores issues at the intersection of political norms and global political-economic realities, has joined CDDRL, Center Director Larry Diamond announced. Josh Cohen, a professor of political science, philosophy, and law, came to Stanford from M.I.T. in 2006 to launch a new program on global justice at FSI. Read more »
March 9th, 2009
Democracy 2.0 - An Upgrade?
FSI Stanford, CDDRL NewsHas the Internet democratized American politics? Did the Internet phenomenon Democracy 2.0 elect Barack Obama? Program on Global Justice Director Joshua Cohen, professor of law, philosophy, and political science, offers his perspective that despite conventional wisdom, the Internet was not, in fact, responsible for putting a Democrat in the White House this election cycle.
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February 25th, 2009
Supply Chain of the Future Research Roundtable
in the newsBuilding on two prior workshops held in 2008, one at MIT and the other here at Stanford ,this daylong discussion, attended by roughly 40 scholars and practitioners from universities, labor organizations, corporations and NGOs, focused on how companies can move beyond monitoring and compliance to build socially and environmentally responsible supply chains.
November 7th, 2008
Bloggingheads: Proud to Be American
FSI Stanford, CDDRL Op-ed: NYTimes.com on November 5, 2008Program on Global Justice Director Joshua Cohen and Glenn Loury of Brown discuss how Barack Obama's victory changes international opinion of Americans.
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October 30th, 2008
Program on Global Justice/Center for Ethics in Society seek postdoctoral fellows for 2009-2010
AnnouncementThis year we again seek two candidates for the fellowship positions. One of the fellowships will be housed entirely in the Program on Global Justice, and one will be jointly sponsored by the Center and Program: candidates for these positions should additionally have research interests in international topics. Fellows will teach one class (typically a seminar), participate in the Political Philosophy and/or Global Justice Workshops, and help in developing an inter-disciplinary ethics community across the campus.
October 29th, 2008
Playing with Fire
FSI Stanford, CDDRL Op-ed: Bloggingheads.tv on October 27, 2008Program on Global Justice Director Joshua Cohen talks with Glenn Loury of Brown University about Sarah Palin, what comes after the collapse of conservatism, and why a life defined by racial identity is poorly lived.
September 23rd, 2008
Program on Global Justice: Just supply chains, liberation technology, and human rights
FSI Stanford, CDDRL, FSE NewsOne of Stanford's many remarkable attractions is the Rodin sculpture garden. And perhaps the most extraordinary Rodin sculpture is his Gates of Hell, inspired by Dante's Inferno. In his Divine Comedy, Dante tells us that the inscription over the Gates of Hell is "abandon all hope, ye who enter here." Read more »
August 8th, 2008
Working group takes environmental ethics in two directions
The Environmental Ethics Working Group has embarked on two distinct and experimental approaches to environmental ethical research. One approach explores the normative dimensions of quantitative environmental research. The other approach seeks either to integrate scientific data into normative arguments or to examine the real world quantitative implications of such arguments. Read more »
July 23rd, 2008
Video blog: Cohen, Loury take another look at presidential politics
FSI Stanford, CDDRL Op-ed: Bloggingheads.tv on July 7, 2008PGJ Director Joshua Cohen talks to Glenn Loury of Brown University about which presidential candidate would be more likely to bring Bush to justice, what to do if Iran gets nukes, and how we might define the "genetics of social mobility."
This 67-minute "diavlog" is tabbed by topic and uses split-screen streaming videos to feature two people in remote locations.
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July 22nd, 2008
Book Review: The Gunslinger
CISAC, CDDRL Op-ed: Boston ReviewFSI senior fellow Stephen Stedman reviews John Bolton's book, Surrender Is not an Option, in the July/August issue of the Boston Review. "The memoir reads like an international relations primer done in the style of a modern morality tale," he writes. "Imagine Kenneth Waltz's classic Man, the State, and War as written by Ayn Rand." Read more »
June 26th, 2008
Video blog: Cohen, Lindsay on 'Obamacons'
FSI Stanford, CDDRL Op-ed: Bloggingheads.tv on June 17, 2008Program on Global Justice Director Joshua Cohen video debates Brink Lindsay from the Cato Institute on conservative judges, a war that goes on forever, and why we should care about inequality between the well-off and the filthy rich.
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