Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law seeks to promote innovative and practical research on the design and implementation of policies to foster democracy, to promote balanced and sustainable growth, and to advance the rule of law in countries undergoing dramatic change.

Policy Relevant

CDDRL scholars and policy analysts have found that the most interesting and innovative answers to questions about democracy and development are located at the intersection of law, politics, and economics.
-Michael McFaul, Director CDDRL

The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law was founded in October 2002 as a research center within the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies in cooperation with the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, Stanford University Law School and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

Reflecting on a decade's worth of academic research and revolutionary change in the international system, the Center's founders were convinced that without fundamental changes in the ways most developing and transitioning societies are governed, the reforms necessary to provide individual citizens with security and economic opportunities could not be implemented.

In particular, the Center was founded to explore the complex and problematic relationships among the demand for more representational forms of governance, the logic of economic reform and barriers to growth, changing conceptions of state sovereignty in an increasingly globalized international environment, and the requirements and consequences of a system of rule of law in places where such systems are lacking.

The Center's mission is to promote high-quality, policy relevant research and to generate specialized teaching, training and outreach activities to assist developing countries and transitioning societies in the design and implementation of policies to foster democracy, the rule of law, and balanced and sustainable economic progress

The mission requires asking important, and as yet unanswered, questions regarding state building, democracy, law, and economic development. Center researchers view these tasks as opportunities to increase knowledge on these topics informed both by academic and applied policy work.

Interdisciplinary

CDDRL seeks to have a lasting impact on the the public policy of countries in economic, political, and social transition by employing insights and methodologies from a number of different disciplines including economics, law, political science, and sociology. Many of the researchers associated with the Center have hands on experience having worked in venues as diverse as Washington, Moscow, Baghdad, and Kabul.

Training

The Center also supports specialized teaching, training, and outreach activities to assist countries struggling with problems of political, economic, and judicial reform, constitutional design, economic performance, and corruption to improve their prospects for success. An important dimension of the Center's work is the identification and cultivation of institutional arrangements at all levels of society to encourage greater responsibility and accountability in decision-making, both public and private.

CDDRL has growing fellowship programs at the pre-doctoral and post-doctoral levels, and convenes conferences and workshops that attract high level policy makers, scholars and students from around the world.