Douglas Rutzen, president and CEO of the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL), and adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., gave a talk on defending civil society for the Stanford Program on Human Rights’ Winter Speaker Series, “U.S. Human Rights NGOs and International Human Rights,” on January 7, 2015.

Rutzen sounded the alarm of today’s disturbing trend of governments around the world using the rule of law to restrict civic spaces of congregation and protestation. Highlighting that national governments are constitutionally committed to a rule of law, Rutzen claimed this is not being applied in the interests of the citizen but rather to restrict citizens’ criticism of government. Rutzen emphasized that this misuse of the rule of law to restrict civil society is a tool of manipulation utilized not just by nations with a history of civic control, such as Cuba and Russia, but also by liberal democracies, including the United States.

Rutzen noted that the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) established in 2000 were dramatically altered by the attacks of September 11, 2001. NGOs were targeted as potential terrorist organizations, while at the same time recognized for their potential to fight terrorism. This contradiction shows the tension in the role of NGOs in civil society. The challenge now lies in a long-term transformation of the relationship between NGOs representing civil society and national governments.

The talk continued with a discussion with Helen Stacy, director of the Program on Human Rights, and Rutzen. Stacy posed provocative questions that challenged Rutzen to defend his stance with questions on U.S. cultural imperialism; “good” and “bad” civil society groups; and the need to understand domestic civil society engagement with human rights issues as part of international human rights activism. 

-Dana Phelps, Program Associate, Program on Human Rights

Tokyo-based reporter Jacob Schlesinger will receive award for his journalistic work and achievements spanning three decades

Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) is pleased to announce Wall Street Journal reporter Jacob Schlesinger as the 2014 recipient of the Shorenstein Journalism Award.

Schlesinger has been selected for his excellence in reporting on Japan’s economy, trade and politics, over a more than three-decade career in journalism. A Japan watcher since the late 1980s, Schlesinger incisively covered the nation at its economic height, the ‘boom’ period, through its ‘bust,’ as the financial system collapsed in the 1990s, and now, into an era that has seen signs of economic revival.

Commenting on the selection of Schlesinger for the award, Professor Daniel Okimoto, one of the leading American experts on Japanese political economy and a former director of Shorenstein APARC, said:

 “Through the years, followers of Japan have had the benefit of being kept informed by a succession of first-rate journalists based in Tokyo, such as Bill Emmott (The Economist), author of “The Sun Also Sets,” and Gillian Tett (Financial Times), author of “Saving the Sun.” No foreign journalist has covered Japan longer, or understood its political economy more deeply, than Jacob M. Schlesinger (Wall Street Journal), author of “Shadow Shoguns.”

The Shorenstein Journalism Award, launched in 2002, is given to journalists who are outstanding in their reporting on Asia, and who have contributed significantly to Western understanding of the region. The award was originally designed to honor distinguished American journalists for their work on Asia, but since 2011, Shorenstein APARC re-envisioned the award to encompass Asian journalists who pave the way for press freedom, and have aided in the growth of mutual understanding between Asia and the United States. The award alternates between Western and Asian journalists.

The most recent award recipients were Aung Zaw, the founder of Burmese publication the Irrawaddy, and a pioneer of press freedom in that country, and Barbara Demick, the Los Angeles Times correspondent in Beijing and the author of ground-breaking studies of life in North Korea.

Schlesinger has covered Japan for the Wall Street Journal for nearly a decade. He is currently the Senior Asia Economics Correspondent and Central Banks Editor – Asia for the Journal, based in Tokyo. He came first to Japan as a reporter in the late 1980s, covering tech, trade and politics, and then reporting on Japan’s stock market crash and financial crisis, and the fallout that carried on through the mid-1990s, a period known as “the lost decade.”

Schlesinger then worked for 13 years in the Journal’s bureau in Washington DC, covering politics and the U.S. economy. He was part of the Journal’s team that was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for the “What’s Wrong” series about the causes and consequences of the late-1990s financial bubble.

Schlesinger returned to Japan as the Japan editor/Tokyo bureau chief in 2009, overseeing the coverage of the historic transfer of power to the Democratic Party of Japan, and the triple disaster of the massive earthquake of March 2011 and the tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster that resulted. He has since closely followed the return to power of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, and its leader Shinzo Abe, and his administration’s economic stimulus policy, known as ‘Abenomics,’ as well as growing tensions within the region.

Schlesinger is the author of the book, “Shadow Shoguns: The Rise and Fall of Japan’s Postwar Political Machine,” widely recognized as one of the most important works on Japan’s politicians, parties and the dramatic changes in its political order. Published in 1997, the book was hailed by Foreign Affairs as “a fascinating and penetrating tale.” He wrote the book while a visiting fellow at Shorenstein APARC.

Schlesinger will receive the award at a special ceremony at Stanford’s Bechtel Conference Center on March 9. He will also lead a panel discussion earlier that day examining the coverage of Japan’s economy, from boom to bust and back again, with Susan Chira, a former Tokyo correspondent and now deputy executive editor of The New York Times and Professor Takeo Hoshi, a prominent economist and director of Stanford’s Japan Program.

Please click here for the full press release.

Contact: Lisa Griswold, communications coordinator at Shorenstein APARC, with any questions about the award or the March 9 events.

Karl Eikenberry, a William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at FSI, believes the humanities belong at the center of American foreign policy. The retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and former ambassador to Afghanistan put cultural ventures, such as the Turquoise Mountain project, at the heart of his diplomacy.

Eikenberry continues his advocacy through his leadership on the congressionally commissioned report "The Heart of the Matter: The Humanities and Social Sciences for a Vibrant, Competitive, and Secure Nation." You can listen to him in conversation with Jerome McDonnell, long-time host of Worldview, the global affairs program on WBEZ public radio in Chicago. The program, recorded on Nov. 8, 2014, was presented in partnership with the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, as part of the 25th Anniversary Chicago Humanities Festival, Journeys.

Thousands rally across France and other nations in solidarity against the January 7, 2015 attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris by gunmen shouting “Allahu Akbar” or “Allah is [the] Greatest.” What does this tragedy, called one of the worst terror attacks on French soil, portend for the future of religious integration in France?  

Cecile Alduy, Stanford associate professor of French literature and affiliated faculty at Stanford's Europe Center in the Freeman Spogli Institutes for International Studies and Stanford Global Studies Division, was in Paris during the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices. 

Currently writing a book on Marine Le Pen and the far-right National Front, Alduy discussed the impact of the attack on French society and politics on KQED Radio's "Forum with Michael Krasny" (Thurs., Jan. 8, 2015). She was joined by David Pryce-Jones, author and senior editor of the National Review, Hatem Bazian of Zaytuna College, BBC News Paris correspondent Hugh Schofield, and Jack Citrin, professor of political science and director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley. 

Visit KQED Radio's Forum web article "Thousands Rally Across France After Attack Kills 12 in Paris" to download a recording of this interview.

The terrorist shootings in Paris have brought a new round of attention to issues of immigration, political polarization, religious discrimination and threats to global security. Scholars at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies are following the developments and talking about the attacks.

Cécile Alduy, is an associate professor of French literature writing a book on France’s far-right National Front political party and is an affiliated faculty member of FSI’s Europe Center. She is in Paris, where she wrote an opinion piece for Al Jazeera America and spoke with KQED’s Forum. 

David Laitin is a professor of political science and also an affiliated faculty member of The Europe Center as well as FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. His co-authored book, Why Muslim Integration Fails: An Inquiry in Christian-Heritage Societies, examines Muslim disadvantages and discrimination in Europe.

Christophe Crombez is a consulting professor at TEC specializing in European Union politics. And Martha Crenshaw, a senior fellow at FSI and CISAC, is an expert on political terrorism.

How are Parisians reacting to the tragedy?

Alduy: The mood here is of grief, disgust, anger, and fear. We were all in a state of shock: a sense of disbelief and horror, as if we had entered a surreal time-space where what we hear from the news happening in far away places—Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria—had been suddenly catapulted here, on our streets, in our everyday. The shock has given way to mourning. Lots of crying, swallowed tears and heavy hearts. But there’s also revolt and determination to not let that get to us and to not let it succeed in reviving internal wounds.

I was surprised by the spontaneous quiet demonstrations and collective mourning happening all over France: that people would go out rather than hide in spite of the fact that two heavy armed gunmen were on the loose. It was such a naturally humane, human, compassionate response. It was a real consolation to witness this getting together, this flame of humanity and solidarity braving the fear and silencing the silencers.  

What can we say about the brothers who allegedly carried out the attack?

Crenshaw: Apparently they are French citizens of Algerian immigrant origin, who had moved into the orbit of French jihadist networks some years ago. They were both known to French and American authorities, just as the 7/7 London bombers were known to the British police.  One had spent time in a French prison for his association with a jihadist network that sent young men to fight in Iraq, and the other is said to have recently trained in Yemen.  In that case, he would almost certainly have come into contact with operatives of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (known as AQAP).  AQAP is an extremely dangerous organization in Yemen and abroad.  The U.S. has regarded it as a number one threat for some time – this is the group that sent the infamous Christmas or underwear bomber on a flight to Detroit in 2009.  Its chief ideologue, the American Anwar al-Awlaki, was killed in an American drone strike in 2012. The fact that the terrorists were two brothers also brings to mind the case of the Tsarnaev brothers and the Boston Marathon bombing.  

What are the cultural and societal implications of the shooting?

Alduy: The event highlights a menace that had been rampant, and duly acknowledged by the French government: that of French-born radicalized Muslims going to Syria, Afghanistan or Iraq to be trained as jihadist and then coming back to conduct terrorist attacks on French soil (this was already the case for Mohammed Merah, but he was not part of an Al-Qaeda cell and acted all alone, as did the man who attacked the Jewish Museum in Bruxells). The cultural and societal implication is that we are now talking of being a country at war, with al-Qaida recruiting among us our potential enemies. In other words, France has to come to terms with the fact that its own values, its own political system, and its own people have been shot execution style in the name of the jihad by our own children.

Explain the extent to which Muslims are disenfranchised and discriminated against in France.

Laitin: Our book documents that Muslims, just for being Muslims, face rather significant discrimination in the French labor market. We sent out CVs to employers, comparing two identically qualified applicants, one named Khadija Diouf and the other Marie Diouf. Both were from Senegalese backgrounds but were French citizens and well educated. Marie received a significantly larger number of “call backs.” From a survey, we know that controlling for race, for gender, and for education, Muslims from one of the two Senegalese language communities we study have much lower household income than matched Christians. We connect this finding to that of the discrimination in the labor market. In our book, we search for the reasons that sustain discrimination against Muslims in France. Here we find that the rooted French population prefers not to have Muslims in their midst, and not to have a lot of Muslims in their midst. Tokens are O.K.

Meanwhile, Muslims exhibit norms concerning gender and concerning public displays of religious devotion that are threatening to the norms of the rooted French. We therefore see a joint responsibility of both the French and the immigrant Muslim communities in sustaining what we call a “discriminatory equilibrium”.

Can these shootings be attributed to those inherent tensions?

Laitin: There is no evidence that this discriminatory equilibrium is in any way responsible for the horrendous criminal behavior exhibited in the offices of Charlie Hebdo. There is a viral cult that is attractive to a small minority of young Muslims inducing them to behavior that is inhuman. The sources of this cult are manifold, but it would be outrageous to attribute it to the difficulties that Muslims face in fully integrating into France.

How will the shootings affect the standing of right-leaning political parties that have been gaining traction?

Crombez: I think the shootings in Paris will provide a further boost to the electoral prospects of France's extreme-right, anti-immigrant party, the National Front. Opinion polls in recent months already showed that it could emerge as France's largest political party at the departmental elections in March – as far as vote share is concerned – and that the Front's candidate for the Presidency in 2017 is likely to make it into, but lose, the second round run-off with the candidate of the moderate right, as was the case in 2002. The shootings will only have improved the Front's chances. Even if the election results are consistent with the polls taken prior to the shootings, and the Front doesn't do even better than the polls predicted, the dramatic results are likely to be attributed to the shootings.

And the long-term political fallout?

Crombez: The effects will reverberate throughout Europe. But as time passes and the shootings become but a distant memory, the effects will disappear. I would draw a parallel here with what happened after the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster in Japan in 2011. In the following months Green parties did very well in elections in Europe at various levels, but after a year or so that effect seems to have dissipated. I would expect this to be the case with the shootings also, except if there are more such incidents to follow.