<p>How strong is Stanford in the International Relations/public policy area?</p>
<p>its pretty awesome. public policy is way stronger than IR but all the same you get to study with some world-class profs, go abroad, study a language blah blah the website is
ica.stanford.edu</p>
<p>on the contrary, my impression is that IR is a strong program at stanford. it is one of the interdisicplinary majors that stanford is currently heavily funding under its new interdisiciplinary initiative. i have 2 reasons to say so: the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Hoover Institution. Both are AMAZING research centers, with a wide variety of foci, from the politics of the Asia-Pacific region (APARC), democracy and development (CDDRL), security and cooperation (CISAC), health and public policy (forgot...)...there are a TON of research centers within FSI (the first one mentioned) with simply AMAZING professors. Condi was a fellow at CISAC and also a fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative thinktank that houses (or is frequently visited by, at the least) many secretaries of defense and state from the bush1/reagen/carter/etc. administrations as well as experts in their fields. Gerhard Casper, former President of Stanford, is affiliated with CDDRL and researches Rule of Law in developing countries. Hoover does also include liberal thinkers, including Larry Diamond, who helped draft the Iraqi constitution and was senior governance advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. Lots and lots of big names, interviewed very often by newspapers, radio shows, and even TV shows like the Daily Show, IR at Stanford is a very popular major that is definitely not lacking (more pop than Public Policy).</p>
<p>Answer to similar, previous question:</p>
<p>"stanford has some top-notch research centers and professors on campus. much of this administration's foreign policy has been directed by stanford affiliates - condi rice was a fellow at CISAC, the center for international security and cooperation, here (you can write an honors thesis with a prof from CISAC), larry diamond, a professor and fellow @ the hoover institution, was advisor to the coalition authority in iraq, stephen krasner, another prof, is condi's policy director, etc....</p>
<p>lots of amazing profs and big names in IR, especially in relation to democracy (basically diamond + krasner) and security (stedman + sagan), two big fields in IR, at stanford. we also have the hoover institution, which, despite being blatantly conservative, does house raging liberal profs (i.e. diamond) for a nice balance..."</p>