2025 Global Development Postdoctoral Fellows Conference
Event Details:
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The King Center on Global Development and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) co-hosted the 2025 Global Development Postdoctoral Fellows Conference.
The conference featured talks from eight new fellows on wide-ranging global development topics including foreign aid, health technologies, urban ecology, opposition parties, and more.
The event was open to Stanford faculty, researchers, and graduate students.
Schedule
Friday, September 19, 2025
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Breakfast
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Welcome and Introductions
Katherine Casey
King Center on Global Development Faculty Director
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Who Calls the Shots? Financial Incentives and Provider Influence in the Adoption of a New Health Technology
This study models how patient subsidies and provider incentives impact the adoption of a new contraceptive in Kenya. It finds that changes in provider advice are the most critical driver of adoption and welfare, making provider behavior the key to effective incentive policies.
Chair: Paul Wise
King Center on Global Development Postdoctoral Fellow
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Adaptive Narrative Interventions to Foster Psychosocial Wellbeing
How can we design adaptive interventions that respond to the situational factors shaping people’s health and wellbeing? In this talk, I will discuss how human-AI interaction and collaboration can help individuals make sense of their experiences through meaningful narratives and receive personalized support that adapts to their changing responsibilities and social contexts.
Chair: Paul Wise
King Center on Global Development Postdoctoral Fellow
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Challenging Autocrats Abroad: Opposition Parties on the International Stage
When do opposition parties look beyond their borders for support? This paper develops the concept of opposition diplomacy—international engagement by opposition politicians aimed at shaping foreign policy and increasing pressure on incumbent regimes—and explores the goals, risks, and trade-offs that shape its use.
Chair: Lisa Blaydes
Einstein-Moos Postdoctoral Fellow
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Elite Economic Coercion and Opposition Political Selection in Autocratization
This paper argues that elite economic coercion—the threat or use of economic retaliation against opposition-aligned elites—is a key, underappreciated authoritarian strategy that discourages opposition political entry and lowers opposition candidate quality. Using Hungary's autocratization episode as a case study, it brings evidence from data on the performance of candidate-connected firms upon political entry and an original elite survey with opposition candidates.
Chair: Lisa Blaydes
Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) Pre-doctoral Fellow
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Lunch
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Reconvening
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The Warrior's Paradox: The Rise of Police-Led Armed Groups in Rio de Janeiro
Why do police officers form armed groups? I study the military police of Rio de Janeiro and argue that profit-seeking motivated officers to capitalize on lethal mandates to combat armed actors, founding police-led armed groups (PLAGs), locally known as milícias, in the late 1990s, early 2000s.
Chair: Saumitra Jha
Gerhard Casper Postdoctoral Fellow in Rule of Law
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Foreign Aid and the Performance of Bureaucrats
Despite extensive research on aid and development, we know little about how aid reshapes the bureaucracies that implement it. Using interviews, surveys, and experiments with 600 Ugandan career civil servants, I find that project aid diverts bureaucrats’ effort from routine duties towards better-paid aid projects and corrodes organizational cohesion.
Chair: Saumitra Jha
Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) Postdoctoral Fellow
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Quiet Inclusion
In this paper, I develop the concept of 'quiet inclusion' in which host governments strategically extend greater rights to refugees through de facto channels than through de jure laws and policies. I use mixed methods to examine the prevalence and mechanisms behind quiet inclusion in 24 countries in Africa.
Chair: Patricia Bromley
King Center on Global Development Postdoctoral Fellow
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Urban Amazonia: Amphibian Ecologies and Social Interactions in Leticia
Amazonian cities are rapidly expanding, reshaping ecosystems and health dynamics. This project studies how contrasting construction types in the Amazonian city of Leticia, Colombia, affect biodiversity, microclimates, and vector ecology, using mixed ecological and social methods co-developed with Indigenous partners to inform resilient and equitable tropical urban futures.
Chair: Patricia Bromley
King Center on Global Development Postdoctoral Fellow
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Reception
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