FSI researchers work to understand continuity and change in societies as they confront their problems and opportunities. This includes the implications of migration and human trafficking. What happens to a society when young girls exit the sex trade? How do groups moving between locations impact societies, economies, self-identity and citizenship? What are the ethnic challenges faced by an increasingly diverse European Union? From a policy perspective, scholars also work to investigate the consequences of security-related measures for society and its values.
The Europe Center reflects much of FSI’s agenda of investigating societies, serving as a forum for experts to research the cultures, religions and people of Europe. The Center sponsors several seminars and lectures, as well as visiting scholars.
Societal research also addresses issues of demography and aging, such as the social and economic challenges of providing health care for an aging population. How do older adults make decisions, and what societal tools need to be in place to ensure the resulting decisions are well-informed? FSI regularly brings in international scholars to look at these issues. They discuss how adults care for their older parents in rural China as well as the economic aspects of aging populations in China and India.
Professor Sharon Zukin's talk will describe how, in cities across the world, the everyday spaces of local shopping streets are undergoing dramatic transformations. Globalization brings new products and people, while different types of gentrification reshape the street's aesthetics and atmosphere. How do we "read" these changes? Do they destroy the sense of the "local" to make every street, in every city, more alike?
Professor Zukin is the author of a number of books on cities, culture and consumer culture, and urban, cultural and economic change. She received the Lynd Award for Career Achievement in urban sociology from the American Sociological Association, and the C. Wright Mills Book Award for Landscapes of Power. You can learn more about her work here: http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/web/academics/faculty/faculty_profile.jsp?faculty=420
Presented by the Program on Urban Studies and co-sponsored by the Anthropology Department, Center for East Asian Studies, Center on Poverty and Inequality, The Europe Center, Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Sociology Department, Stanford in Government and Urban Beyond Measure.
Building 200 Room 002
Sharon Zukin
Professor of Sociology
Speaker
Brooklyn College, CUNY
Seoul faces challenges that are not very different from other global cities, said Mayor Park Won Soon, the public figure who leads the South Korean city of over 10 million people, concluding that the key to solving them is by better engaging and empowering citizens.
“We tore down the silos,” said Park, speaking to a Stanford audience about his efforts to improve Seoul’s bureaucracy and access for citizens.
At McCaw Hall, Park discussed his background as a scholar, civic activist and philanthropist, emphasizing how it provides him perspective as a leader, and the acumen to think differently to address a wide range of issues affecting Seoul, including poverty, climate change and an aging population.
Park’s visit to Stanford University was sponsored by the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia Pacific Research Center (APARC) in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. The event was part of the Asia-Pacific Leaders Forum, a seminar series that brings Asian leaders to Stanford to share their experiences. In 2013, the series hosted Ban-Ki Moon, U.N. Secretary General, and in 2009, then-South Korean assembly member, now president, Park Geun-hye.
[[{"fid":"216091","view_mode":"crop_870xauto","fields":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"Stanford professor Gi-Wook Shin welcomes Mayor Park.","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Stanford professor Gi-Wook Shin welcomes Mayor Park.","field_credit[und][0][value]":"Rod Searcey","field_caption[und][0][value]":"Stanford professor Gi-Wook Shin welcomes Mayor Park.","field_related_image_aspect[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto","pp_lightbox":false,"pp_description":true},"type":"media","attributes":{"title":"Stanford professor Gi-Wook Shin welcomes Mayor Park.","height":948,"width":870,"style":"margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 15px; padding: 0px; float: left; width: 225px; height: 240px;","class":"media-element file-crop-870xauto"}}]]Mr. Park has long-had a connection to the university, though. He was a visiting professor at Shorenstein APARC in 2005, and continued to collaborate with researchers after leaving.
Gi-Wook Shin, director of Shorenstein APARC, introduced Mr. Park, referencing their connection and past projects to a crowd of nearly 275 people, including Korean community members and media.
“We’ve known each other as colleagues and friends for a number of years," Shin said, "so it is a pleasure to host Mayor Park, and hold a public forum to hear [his] vision."
Shin and Park established a fellowship for Korean NGO leaders, and awarded it to 30 leaders over three years.
Fighting for equality
As a university student in 1975, Park protested against South Korea’s government led by President Park Chung-hee, a military leader who ruled under highly authoritarian law. Mr. Park was imprisoned for his activism and eventually expelled from school, but his enthusiasm for justice and democracy never waned, he said.
He said the political and social chaos during those years in South Korea motivated him to pursue justice through other channels, going on to become a human rights lawyer and into public office as mayor in 2011.
South Korea gradually transitioned into a democracy in the 1980s, influenced in large part by many sweeping civil movements. The country has since stabilized, and now enjoys cultural and economic success in the world today.
Park speaks to the audience about governance, emphasizing the importance of communication.
But, there is a “shadow behind the miracle,” said Park, referring to the myriad of societal problems that Seoul still faces, like many cities dealing with the effects of urbanization.
He said the only way to identify and address problems is through a highly participatory system of governance, and one that isn’t afraid to think of new solutions to old problems.
“A city that constantly collaborates and innovates to improve the quality of life for citizens,” he said, those are the efforts that create an environment “where people live in harmony and where people are happy.”
Park said listening to the voices of Seoul citizens is a cornerstone of his administration’s approach. And he has a motto that matches.
“Citizens are the mayor,” is the saying that Park administration attempts to fulfill through a variety of initiatives, including those led by the Seoul Innovation Bureau, a new administrative branch established to bring fresh ideas into the city’s paradigm.
Park’s administration holds town hall meetings and uses some of the latest technology to initiate dialogue with citizens, including SNS text messaging, social media and Wikiseoul, an online blog-style platform, to communicate policies and receive feedback.
[[{"fid":"216092","view_mode":"crop_870xauto","fields":{"format":"crop_870xauto","field_file_image_description[und][0][value]":"Park meets community members and media following his talk.","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Park meets community members and media following his talk.","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Park meets community members and media following his talk.","field_credit[und][0][value]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"Park meets community members and media following his talk.","field_related_image_aspect[und][0][value]":"","thumbnails":"crop_870xauto","pp_lightbox":false,"pp_description":true},"type":"media","attributes":{"alt":"Park meets community members and media following his talk.","title":"Park meets community members and media following his talk.","height":783,"width":870,"style":"margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 15px; padding: 0px; float: left; width: 230px; height: 200px;","class":"media-element file-crop-870xauto"}}]]He said he checks the city’s social media accounts personally because it allows him to keep a close eye on what issues are important to citizens, and often follows-up with constituents who write him “tweets,” messages received via Twitter.
Park says Seoul’s success is because of 10 million citizens and many institutions that have supported the city’s growth. He holds popular support in the city, and was recently reelected for a second mayoral term in June 2014, winning by a wide margin.
He said other countries are beginning to replicate his administration’s model, from e-governance activities to energy policy, calling it the “Seoul effect.”
Closing out the speech, Park said inclusiveness is the essence of good governance.
“If you want to travel fast go alone, but if you want to travel far, go together,” he said, citing a well-known proverb.
Below is the full video and transcript of his presentation.
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Park Won Soon, Mayor of Seoul, gives a speech at Stanford University.
Voters often punish incumbent parties for poor economic performance; whether they treat left and right governments differently is less clear. The literature hosts multiple disconnected and often contradictory theories of partisan accountability. We leverage both observational and survey experiment data to establish an empirical regularity: voters, on average, punish left-of-center incumbents more severely for economic downturns than their counterparts on the right. A luxury-goods model of voting best explains this regularity. When times get tough, voters prioritize social spending for basic economic security over spending on socially desirable but less necessary "luxury goods" policies (e.g., environmental protection). Parties associated with luxury goods policies, mostly left parties, are shunned in downturns. Thus, many incumbent parties of the left face double jeopardy: voters punish all incumbents for a weak economy; they punish many left incumbents additionally for their policies.
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Mark Kayser teaches applied quantitative methods and comparative politics at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. His research primarily focuses on elections and political economy. Current major projects focus on cross-national comparisons in the formation of economic perceptions and voting decisions, media reporting of the economy, and the effect of electoral competitiveness on incumbent behavior. Before coming to the Hertie School of Governance, he served as an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Rochester and as a postdoctoral Prize Research Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. He is the co-author of a book on the effect of electoral systems on regulation and price levels (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and the author or co-author of articles in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science and other leading journals.
Mark Kayser
Professor of Applied Methods & Comparative Politics
Speaker
Hertie School of Governance, Berlin
Economic and demographic transition pose major challenges for countries worldwide, particularly in large developing countries like China; however, strengthening social welfare programs can offset negative effects and help promote a sustainable future, according to Karen Eggleston, a scholar of Asia health policy at Stanford University.
“Unprecedented economic growth in China spanning the last three decades has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty and restored China to the prominence in the world economy that it once enjoyed centuries ago,” said Eggleston, who is a Center Fellow at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.
“Demographic change not only shapes the trajectory of [its] development, but interacts with macroeconomic and microeconomic forces” in numerous ways.
Eggleston, who presented “China’s Demographic Change in Comparative Perspective: Implications for Labor Markets and Sustainable Development” at the Jackson Hole 2014 Economic Symposium “Re-evaluating Labor Market Dynamics,” says a combination of societal changes makes China distinctive, and that the country can offer insights in comparative perspective. She joined two other experts for a panel discussion on demographics during the three-day conference led by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, which draws dozens of central bankers, policymakers, academics, and economists from around the world.
The research stems from a project that Eggleston heads on policy responses to demographic change in Asia. The initiative, which is a part of the Asia Health Policy Program, grew out of a 2009 conference cosponsored by the Global Aging Program at the Stanford Center on Longevity. Its outcomes have included the publication, Aging Asia, a special issue of the Journal of the Economics of Aging focused on China and India co-edited with David Bloom of Harvard University, and two forthcoming books on urbanization and demographic change in Asia.
China in flux
China is the most populous country in the world with more than 1.3 billion people. Its sheer size alone creates heavy demands as demographics change, and the economy continues its shift from a centrally-planned system to a market-based system.
China’s population age 60 and older is projected to increase from one-tenth of the population in year 2000 to a staggering one-third by year 2060. Simultaneously, the population age 14 and under is projected to decrease by one-third between years 2010 and 2055 (Figure 2).
Eggleston, and others who closely watch the situation, say these demographic changes will bring a myriad of challenges to the labor market and to cultural norms related to intergenerational support, work and retirement.
China’s low birth rates have largely been influenced by family planning campaigns that begun in the early 1970s, and later, the “one child policy,” a population control policy that allowed for the birth of only a single child in many families. Recently, the government has relaxed that policy, and analysts believe the change will eventually help to balance the population age structure and infuse the workforce with new employees, filling the void caused by retiring workers in the coming years.
In the meantime, preparing support structures for the older generations’ departure from the labor market is essential. Social welfare programs, including health insurance and retirement and childcare services, will see significant demand, and require restructuring to handle the influx.
China’s aging population experience is similar to other countries in Asia. Japan, South Korea and India are also projected to see significant increase in median age over the next 30 years (Figure 1).
Eggleston says China has made positive steps toward restructuring its institutions, including establishing government-subsidized health insurance programs and reforming pension systems. Most notably since 2002, China took a large step towards universal health care by implementing the New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme for rural residents. Now, nearly all citizens have access to basic medical care, which can support healthy aging as well as mitigate large “precautionary savings” and help those struck by medical conditions requiring significant services.
A pension system for people in China’s rural areas, developed by the government in 2009, also set up a supportive system by providing increased transfers for seniors, and, interestingly, supporting labor markets by easing the worries of adult children who migrate to urban areas for work.
China has been forward thinking with its related public policies, but it certainly can do more, Eggleston says. Integrating technology into its health systems, and making its services more fiscally responsible could improve efficiency, and expand access to care.
Gi-Wook Shin, director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, and David Straub, associate director of the Korea Program, presented their new study "Tailored Engagement: Toward an Effective and Sustainable Inter-Korea Relations Policy" to a Washington, D.C. audience at the Brookings Institution on Sept. 29. The Voice of America wrote an article in Korean about the presentation, citing Shin saying, "Engagement is important and essential but it must be carefully tailored or fitted to changing political and security realities on and around the Peninsula."
As the new academic year gets underway, the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center’s Corporate Affiliates Program is excited to welcome its new class of fellows to Stanford University.
The 2014-15 fellows and their affiliations are listed below:
Liang Fang, China Sunrain Solar Energy Co., Ltd.
Wataru Fukuda, Shizuoka Prefectural Government
Zhao Han, PetroChina
Yoshihiro Kaga, Ministry of Economy, Trade & Industry, Japan
Tsuyoshi Koshikawa, Ministry of Finance, Japan
Jaigeun Lim, Seoul Metropolitan Government
Yun Bae Lim, Samsung LIfe Insurance
Feng Lin, ACON Biotechnology
Yasunori Matsui, Mitsubishi Electric
Tatsuru Nakajima, Sumitomo Corporation
Shingo Nakano, Ministry of Economy, Trade & Industry, Japan
Ryuichi Ohta, Japan Patent Office
Jong Soo Paek, Samsung Electronics
Rajeev Prasad, Reliance Life Sciences
Ryuichiro Takeshita, Asahi Shimbun
Ryo Wakabayashi, Sumitomo Corporation
Changbao Zhang, PetroChina
At Stanford, the fellows will audit classes, work on English language skills, and conduct individual research projects. At the end of the year, they will give formal presentations on their research findings. At the Center, they will have the opportunity to consult with Shorenstein APARC's scholars and attend events featuring visiting experts from around the world. The fellows will also participate in special events and site visits to gain a firsthand understanding of business, society and culture in the United States.
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The 2014-15 Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellows stand on the front steps of Encina Hall.
Encina Hall 616 Serra Street Stanford, CA 94305-6165
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irmgard.marboe@univie.ac.at
Visiting Scholar at The Europe Center, 2014-2015
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Irmgard Marboe is a visiting scholar at The Europe Center and an Associate Professor of International Law in the Department of European, International and Comparative Law, Faculty of Law at the University of Vienna. She is the head of the Austrian National Point of Contact for Space Law (NPOC) of the European Centre for Space Law (ECSL). Between 2008 and 2012, she was the chair of the working group on national space legislation of the Legal Subcommittee of the UN Committee for the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space which drafted the most recent UN General Assembly resolution relating to outer space activities (Res 68/74 of 11 December 2013).
Another research focus is international investment law where Professor Marboe specializes on the issue of compensation and damages. A second edition of her book Calculation of Compensation and Damages in International Investment Law (Oxford University Press, 2009) is currently in preparation. In addition, she works on Islamic law in the context of international law. She has been the director of the bi-annual Vienna International Christian-Islamic Summer University (www.vicisu.com) since 2008.
While at Stanford, Professor Marboe will work on a research project comparing US and European policies and legislation on data collected by Earth observation satellites.
FSI researchers work to understand continuity and change in societies as they confront their problems and opportunities. This includes the implications of 
Park speaks to the audience about governance, emphasizing the importance of communication.
