Rein Raud:
I arrived in Stanford with a fairly clear idea of what I wanted to do — and I accomplished not just all that, but also a lot more. My main goal was to gather and process material related to a philosophical understanding of current Russian totalitarianism, especially in its cultural aspects. Since the escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian war into a full-fledged conflict in 2022, I had been reading post-Hegelian Russian philosophers, both Bolshevist and anti-Bolshevist ones, in order to get a grasp on the historical, social and political narratives that had made this war possible, and also historians and social scientists who have analyzed the transformations of Russian society since the fall of the empire in 1917, through Stalinism, the Khruschev thaw, Brezhnev stagnation, perestroika and the post-Soviet period. I am not a historian of Russian society and ideas, but as a cultural theorist I have been trying to make sense of them in a more intellectual context. Just like for many people all over the world, the decision of Putin to start a full-fledged war had been a surprise for me, and yet, in retrospect, the trajectory from the failed democracy of the 1990s and the takeover of political power by the repressive apparatus to a military dictatorship unfortunately makes perfect sense.
One of my aims was to put these empirical data into a comparative framework and to find possible points of overlap between the developments in Russia/Soviet Union and other “secondary modernities”, that is, countries, which are not a part of what is usually considered to be the “West”, but which have also not been politically subjugate to the West, such as Japan, Turkey, Iran, China, and so on. All of these countries have had to establish a relationship with the West, needing its recognition on the one hand and trying to maintain a balance between Westernization and the preservation of their cultural and social heritage on the other. Not all of that heritage is compatible with Western values. Therefore, certain actors in all those societies have tried to supplant the oppressive elements in their traditions with social institutions imported from the West, while keeping their cultural identities intact. Other actors have tried to do precisely the opposite — to suppress any democratic developments and to keep the putative Westernization of their societies on the level of consumer habits. In many of these countries, a similar drive for totalitarianism and ideological control has been strong, perhaps even stronger than in Russia, which has had a special place among them — unlike all the other “secondary modernizers”, it is the only such nation with Christian roots, and one that has seen itself in dialogue with the West in the past.
The Stanford libraries have been the ideal place to conduct research on these topics. One the one hand, there are extensive collections of Russian material, comparable only to what is there in the archives and libraries of Russia, which are currently inaccessible because of political reasons. On the other hand, there are also impressive resources of American analyses of these political processes, which have been carried on constantly, but earlier studies of this type are often difficult to find. I returned home with thousands of pages of scanned articles and book chapters, and notes on the material I managed to work through while I was there.
In addition, the Centre for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies provided a stimulating intellectual environment and I was happy to benefit from conversations with Amir Weiner, Jovana Lazić and many of the guest researchers who were attending Stanford at the same time. The regular seminars on Fridays, with many high-level speakers, including such dignitaries as the former Ukrainian minister of defense Oleksi Reznikov and the exiled Belarusian diplomat-turned-activist Andrei Sannikov, authors such as Viktor Yerofeev, and fellow researchers such as Branko Sekulić, these occasions provided for inspiring discussions of topics related to my research and beyond. I was honoured to be able to speak on one of those occasions. Events organized by CREEES as well as other divisions of Stanford, including the lectures by the Finnish author Sofi Oksanen, the Ukrainian human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk, the British war historian Lawrence Freedman, the Canadian/Bulgarian political corruption sociologist Maria Popova and the political theorist Elizabeth Saunders from Cornell University provided a lot of theoretical and empirical context for my study.
Another setting of extremely interesting discussions were the weekly seminars on Baltic recent history and culture, with speakers mainly from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania participating, some of them visiting scholars in the US, such as myself, Juhan Saharov from Tartu University (Estonia) and Liina Kamm from Cybernetica (Tallinn, Estonia), others academics of Baltic descent working at US universities, such as Asta Zelenkauskaite from Drexel University and Dovile Budyte from Georgia Gwinnett College, and, last but not least, Stanford’s own specialists in the area, including Liisi Esse, Curator for Estonian and Baltic Studies at Stanford Libraries, who was also a gracious host to me and other Estonian scholars during our whole stay.
All in all, the material gathered and the ideas developed during my stay in Stanford will be reflected in many ways in my publications in preparation as well as the courses that I will be teaching at Tallinn University. I cannot imagine a more fruitful way of spending a sabbatical than this. I would therefore like to express my heartfelt thanks to the Kistler-Ritso Foundation, Vabamu, and personally to Liisi Esse, Jovana Lazić and Kadri Paju for their personal roles in making this possible, to Shelly Coughlan for her help with many practical matters and to everyone at CREEES for the wonderful academic atmosphere that I will be remembering for a long time.
Juhan Saharov:
I spent my visiting fellowship at the Centre of Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (CREEES) at Stanford in March-April 2024. The fellowship supported my book project on the Estonian perestroika and the Soviet collapse. In the book, I argue that the previous economic experiments in the Estonian SSR, its expert community and managerial knowledge (which was largely absent in other Soviet republics) functioned for local perestroika activists as an intellectual platform for making new radical political claims, like Estonian SSR`s quest for republic`s “self-management” 1987 and then “sovereignty” in 1988.
The book also examines how the “language of sovereignty” was exported from Estonia to other Soviet republics, including Russia in 1989–90. This is the topic why the Hoover Archive at Stanford was invaluable place for finding new sources. In Hoover Archives I worked with John B. Dunlop`s, Brendan Kiernan`s, and Michael McFaul`s collections, which is full of documents from the Soviet perestroika era. The Green Library included many books from late 1980s and early 1990s which I found very useful as well. The amount of relevant literature in the Green Library is impressive and makes me want to return.
The events at the CREEES were wonderful and very well organized. It was an honour to be part of it and give a guest lecture for Stanford students. My lecture Revolutionary Concepts: From Self-Management to Sovereignty in the Soviet Union (1987–1990) talked about the importance of language and concepts, as well as conceptual innovations during the revolutionary times, taking Estonian perestroika and the Soviet Union as its case study. The feedback from the students and my co-fellows was valuable and applicable to my research.
I`m thankful to Shelly Coughlan and Jovana Knežević at the CREEES for such a warm welcome and for making my fellowship a comfortable stay. Special thanks go to Liisi Esse for her professionalism and courage in developing the Estonian / Baltic studies at Stanford. I thank Vabamu and Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for their support and trust to my research.
My time at Stanford was unforgettable, not only because of the enriching experiences in Stanford campus but also due to the adventures I had traveling across California. The state’s natural beauty left a lasting impression on me, especially the breathtaking landscapes of Sequoia National Park and Death Valley. These parks offered mind-blowing experiences that I will cherish forever. Reflecting on my time at Stanford, I feel a profound sense of warmth and gratitude. The combination of academic growth and natural wonders of California made this period of my life truly special.
Liina Kamm:
I spent my fellowship at Stanford University studying the US experience of adopting privacy enhancing technologies in private and public sector systems, including AI systems. I am a senior researcher at Cybernetica, an Estonian deep-tech company, and my research is focussed on privacy enhancing technologies (PETs), and machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) both for ensuring privacy and using PETs to ensure privacy of ML models and AI systems.
Many of the more complex PETs have existed in theory for several decades. It has been possible to use them in practice for a shorter time, but this period has also lasted for tens of years. Unfortunately, in practice, organisations tend to use only the simplest, most error prone PETs (i.e., pseudonymisation and anonymisation), that often provide only the semblance of privacy. Naturally, there is a place for these technologies as well but, for more complex applications and very sensitive information, there are so many better choices. I want to find out what are the barriers to the adoption of technologies that offer better protection to personal and business data and how to accelerate the adoption of these technologies.
In 2023, our privacy research group in Cybernetica put together a concept and roadmap for the adoption of PETs in the public sector in Estonia at the request of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications. For this we interviewed 18 government organisations to understand which technologies are already in use, and what are the issues and requirements that cannot be addressed by currently existing technologies. Estonia is digitally quite advanced, but even we do not employ PETs to the extent of their potential. The experience of Estonian government organisations can be extended to Europe with some modifications as all the EU countries need to adhere to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
However, this is not the case with the USA that has varied state legislation about data protection and where data may get treated more like property for which the ownership is defined totally differently from Europe. I went to Stanford University to find out, through a series of interviews and personal testimonials, how the Americans view PETs and why, even without a federal data privacy legislation, several of the government agencies and larger corporations have deployed complex PETs like secure multi-party computation, differential privacy and federated learning with homomorphic encryption.
California is on the one hand a good starting place to study PETs as it has the California Consumer Privacy Act, which in some regards is similar to the GDPR, but is still different. On the other hand, California does not give a view of the notions in states without any kind of data privacy act. While at Stanford, I met with several people from government agencies and from large corporations. I talked with the local cryptography research group to understand why and how they have deployed PETs in their research and for real world studies. In this regard Stanford is a great place for research as it is one of the top universities, and hence gets a lot of requests for solving complex real-world problems. The list of products and technologies launched through such collaborations is impressive.
While there I also attended several different events and guest lectures. It is a wonderful place for holding one- or two-day conferences and inviting top tier researchers and industry leaders to talk either in keynotes, panels or fireside chats as they often do not have far to travel and are able to attend in person. It probably helps that several of them are alumni of Stanford as well. There were always current topics being discussed in guest lectures, and even though some of these were not in my field, they were really thought-provoking.
The time I spent at Stanford was really intense. I was hoping to do more reading and write more articles on my work, but I ended up communicating and investigating more than I expected. I did manage to submit two papers and one of the interviews culminated in a proposal for (and acceptance of) a Dagstuhl seminar on the practical use of PETs for social benefit. I also hope to further collaborate with other interviewees in the future. At the end of my fellowship, I also got the opportunity to present my work to a US federal cross-agency task force on privacy.
I got a warm reception from Liisi Esse, the curator for Estonian and Baltic studies at Stanford Libraries and from Andrew Grotto from the program on Geopolitics, Technology and Governance. I could use an office in the Stanford Library. I know this is weird, but I have always had a dream of working at a library surrounded by bookshelves, and having an office behind the library stacks was magical. I did work in the many reading rooms in the library as well as Stanford Library has several different and increasingly cosy reading rooms.
I also managed to meet other Estonian fellows, students and people working in different companies while I was at Stanford. It was great to find out what others are working on and discuss our research directions. I think these connections will also last long after I return to Estonia. We travelled together to different parts of California. The nature and variety of California is amazing and I would encourage all future fellows to find a way to look around. I also went to San Francisco by Caltrain on several weekends and walked around the city for hours, and each time the city had so much new to offer. Even Stanford and the surrounding areas had very diverse and cool sights to discover.
I am grateful for the possibility to do my research at Stanford. I would be happy to go back and I wholeheartedly recommend the experience to all researchers whose fields of study align with the fellowship topics.
Kairi Talves:
The main aim of my fellowship at Stanford University (February-May 2024) was to support my research about the role of technology in strengthening national security and resilience in small countries. In today’s security environment, the impact of science and technology on gaining security and resilience is more critical than ever. This is especially important for countries like Estonia and other Baltic States that are on the ‘front line’ in terms of their geopolitical location. The purpose of my research trip was twofold: on the one hand, to have prominent academic discussions with the scholars of Stanford University and other research institutes. On the other hand, I expected to extend the network for future cooperation in the research of technology and security in Estonia and the Baltic States. Both aims were fulfilled. I had enriching discussions with many scholars at Stanford, naming a few of them: Bradley Boyd, Jerry Kaplan, Andrew Grotto, Nathaniel Persily, Jeffrey Hancock, Amy Zegert, and Amir Weiner. Quite many of these interactions have the potential for future cooperation, from which the most concrete projects are described below.
Stanford University offered a vigorous atmosphere for both research and study. I gained useful input from meetings and seminars at several research institutions: the Center for International Security and Cooperation and the Cyber Policy Center in FSI, the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, Hoover Institutions, and Stanford Law School. I am grateful to the Stanford Libraries for offering the office space and the collection of books that I have not found elsewhere (amazingly, also the newest ones about AI and tech!). I participated in more than 20 seminars of guest lectures and regular courses of Stanford University. I picked these courses considering my interests in AI, the interdisciplinary effects of technologies, and the impact of emerging technologies in society and policy. The courses included: AI, Autonomy, and Future Warfare (by Bradley Boyd), Human versus Machine: Artificial Intelligence through the Lens of Human Cognition (by Christina Chick), Trust, Truth, and Tech (by Jeffrey Hancock), AI for Social Good (by Chris Piech), and Techniques of Failure Analysis (by Abid Kemal). I am immensely thankful to the lecturers for accepting me for auditing in the class.
The main results of my fellowship:
- Co-edited the monograph “Artificial Intelligence in Military Technology: Sociological, Cultural, and Ethical Perspectives.” The aim of the book is to offer a multidisciplinary, differentiated, informed, and open approach to AI applications in the public, in politics, and in the military. Springer Nature has approved the book for publishing at the beginning of 2025.
- Delivered a public lecture on 25.04.2024 under the framework of the Program on Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance, titled „The role of technology in the security and resilience of small states: the example of Estonia”.
- I wrote three manuscripts to be published in the peer-reviewed volumes:
- Fear of the Robots: Cultural Perspectives on Technological Autonomy (co-author from the Berlin School of Economics and Law, to be published in the abovementioned monograph).
- Acceptance model of artificially intelligent military technologies in the small country context (co-authors from the Estonian Military Academy, to be published in the abovementioned monograph).
- The role of technology in the security and resilience of small states: the example of Estonia (to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, currently under review).
- The future cooperation with Stanford University in a research project called “Future of Decision Making” aims to study how AI will affect human decision-making systems, identify opportunities and risks of integrating emerging technology into human decision-making, and suggest how human organizations and processes can evolve to achieve the best outcomes.
- The initiation of the new research project in Estonia about cognitive warfare. Cognitive warfare is becoming increasingly widespread and easily conducted in the context of growing technological saturation. We have had preliminary discussions about the inclusion of Stanford researcher into the research group.
- Possible future cooperation in the framework of the Estonian and Baltic Studies Programme through the exchange of scholars and students between Stanford and Estonia. For example, in cooperation of Estonian Ministry of Defence and Estonian Military Academy we can offer the program and briefings on certain topics of defense and security for the Stanford students’ during the Global Studies Internship Programme. The list of possible topics is sent to Vabamu and Stanford. We have also discussed inviting Stanford scholars and experts to Estonia as speakers at specific conferences or workshops on defense innovation, international policy and technology.
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I would like to thank the Kistler-Ritso Foundation, Vabamu, and Kadri Paju for the opportunity to visit Stanford and for their support during the whole process. A similar big thanks goes to Stanford Libraries and Liisi Esse, who did everything to make my first weeks as easy as possible and so wonderfully holds the community of Estonians in Standord. I am going to miss our regular meetings in Coupa. And of course, Michael Keller, it was so nice to meet you! Thank you for the hint about the Silicon Valley collection in the library and for being such a great friend of Estonia and the Baltic States and supporting the program. Thank you! Also, Andy Grotto, thank you so much for hosting my stay, supervising my topic, and for your suggestions about scholars whom to meet at Stanford. Many of them were a real jackpot for my research!
