Society

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.

Authors
Vivek Srinivasan
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs
Technology, accountability and democracy in South Asia and beyond

Location: University of Mumbai, India

Dates: January 17-18, 2014

Over the last few years, there has been unprecedented focus on corruption and accountability across South Asia.  Accountability movements have resulted in a variety of initiatives including special monitoring bodies, transparency laws, monitoring mechanisms, judicial reforms and refining government processes.  These initiatives bring different understandings of problems and approaches, with varied strengths and weaknesses.  Despite these differences, they are increasingly converging on the use of technology to augment a growing set of accountability strategies.

The availability of new devices, the power of the Internet, the reach of mobile phones, and citizen activism give us reason to believe that the use of technology has real promise in advancing the accountability agenda. Yet the claim of technology’s promise is not without its critics. The use of technology has created new avenues for corruption despite claiming to combat it. Technologies rolled out in the name of advancing citizenship also create avenues for greater surveillance and disenfranchisement.  Many initiatives are not controversial, but their effectiveness is yet to be evaluated rigorously. Finally marginalized people, who need tools for accountability more than anyone else, have significantly lower levels of engagement with it.  The promises and problems of technology’s relationship with accountability require closer examination.

This conference proposes to bring together people who are engaged in these questions as activists, officials, academics and innovators to examine how technology is currently being used for accountability projects and to build meaningful platforms for the future. We specifically seek to bring together people with experience in accountability movements (with or without the use of technology), young innovators and researchers in order to promote rich multidisciplinary conversation and to build new collaborations.

One of the most persistent criticisms of technology for democracy projects is that they focus heavily on the tools without paying attention to the complexity of their use and the fact that accountability is a political project steeped in power relations.  In order to ensure that technical imagination goes hand in hand with a sophisticated understanding of the problems and strategies necessary to make technology a tool for progressive change, we propose to invite seasoned civil society activists and leaders from the government who have had a successful track record in managing positive change to meet individuals who are just beginning to consider technology as a response to the same problems. The conference will thus foster an exchange of ideas between innovators and experienced activists so that innovators can share their tools and experiences while also deepening their understanding of technology’s relevance and challenges for potential uses on the ground.  In turn, experienced political, social and economic leaders will gain ideas on how elements of technology can be introduced into in their work.  With this in mind, the conference format provides for opportunities to learn about technology projects, meet with platform creators, and participate in workshops to gain tools suitable for diverse campaign needs. 

The conference will be based on four broad themes: (1) Citizen activism for free and fair elections (2) Combatting “last-mile” corruption in public services (3) Gender, technology and accountability and (4) Building safeguards around India’s Aadhar project.  For further details including application, please download the call for papers here.

 

Organization:

The conference is led by the Center for South Asia and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) both at Stanford University.  It will be organized in partnership with Department of Civics and Politics, University of Mumbai and the Stanford Alumni Association of India.

 

DOWNLOAD CALL FOR PAPERS

All News button
1

Over the last few years, there has been unprecedented focus on corruption and accountability across South Asia.  Accountability movements have resulted in a variety of initiatives including special monitoring bodies, transparency laws, monitoring mechanisms, judicial reforms and refining government processes.  These initiatives bring different understandings of problems and approaches, with varied strengths and weaknesses.  Despite these differences, they are increasingly converging on the use of technology to augment a growing set of accountability strategies.

The availability of new devices, the power of the Internet, the reach of mobile phones, and citizen activism give us reason to believe that the use of technology has real promise in advancing the accountability agenda. Yet the claim of technology’s promise is not without its critics. The use of technology has created new avenues for corruption despite claiming to combat it. Technologies rolled out in the name of advancing citizenship also create avenues for greater surveillance and disenfranchisement.  Many initiatives are not controversial, but their effectiveness is yet to be evaluated rigorously. Finally marginalized people, who need tools for accountability more than anyone else, have significantly lower levels of engagement with it.  The promises and problems of technology’s relationship with accountability require closer examination.

This conference proposes to bring together people who are engaged in these questions as activists, officials, academics and innovators to examine how technology is currently being used for accountability projects and to build meaningful platforms for the future. We specifically seek to bring together people with experience in accountability movements (with or without the use of technology), young innovators and researchers in order to promote rich multidisciplinary conversation and to build new collaborations.

One of the most persistent criticisms of technology for democracy projects is that they focus heavily on the tools without paying attention to the complexity of their use and the fact that accountability is a political project steeped in power relations.  In order to ensure that technical imagination goes hand in hand with a sophisticated understanding of the problems and strategies necessary to make technology a tool for progressive change, we propose to invite seasoned civil society activists and leaders from the government who have had a successful track record in managing positive change to meet individuals who are just beginning to consider technology as a response to the same problems. The conference will thus foster an exchange of ideas between innovators and experienced activists so that innovators can share their tools and experiences while also deepening their understanding of technology’s relevance and challenges for potential uses on the ground.  In turn, experienced political, social and economic leaders will gain ideas on how elements of technology can be introduced into in their work.  With this in mind, the conference format provides for opportunities to learn about technology projects, meet with platform creators, and participate in workshops to gain tools suitable for diverse campaign needs. 

The conference will be based on four broad themes: (1) Citizen activism for free and fair elections (2) Combatting “last-mile” corruption in public services (3) Gender, technology and accountability and (4) Building safeguards around India’s Aadhar project.  For further details including application, please download the call for papers below.

 

Organization:

The conference is led by the Center for South Asia and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) both at Stanford University.  It will be organized in partnership with Department of Civics and Politics, University of Mumbai and the Stanford Alumni Association of India.

University of Mumbai, India

Conferences
-

Faculty and students of Peking University have been at the forefront of China’s modern history.  The social impact of the university has been enormous.  Its educational philosophy needs to continually evolve, especially as China has developed in the last few decades at historically unprecedented rates.  President Wang will discuss these changes, how the university copes with new challenges, and how the globalization of Peking University fits into his vision for the future.

Wang Enge was appointed President of Peking University in 2013. He obtained his B.S. and M.S. in theoretical physics from Liaoning University in 1982 and 1985 respectively and received his Ph.D. from Peking University in 1990. He served as Director of the Institute of Physics (CAS) (1999-2007), Founding Director of the International Center for Quantum Structures (2000), Director of the Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics (2004-2009), CAS Deputy Secretary-General (2008-2009), and Executive President of CAS Graduate University (2008-2009).  President Wang is a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS), as well as a fellow of the American Physical Society and the Institute of Physics (UK). He has been a JSPS professor of Tohoku University (Japan), an AvH Scholar of Fritz-Haber Institute der MPG (Germany), a KITP Visiting Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara (USA), a Visiting Professor at the University of California, Berkeley (USA), a Visiting Professor at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (Italy), and a GCEP Scholar at Stanford University.

A reception will follow immediately afer this talk

Koret-Taube Conference Center
Gunn–SIEPR Building
366 Galvez Street

WANG Enge President Speaker Peking University
Conferences

Encina Hall
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305

0
Visiting Student Researcher, The Europe Center
la_foto.JPG

Ana Gonzalez is a doctoral candidate in International Law at the University Juan Carlos I in Madrid.  She is also the Academic Secretary of the Robert Schuman Institute for European Studies at the University Francisco de Vitoria in Madrid and also coordinates the Europe Office at this University.  She holds a LL.M from the Humboldt Universitaet zu Berlin, Germany in European and German Law, and a Master Degree in European Law from the Carlos III University, Madrid, Spain. She also has expertise on project building and execution around stable collaboration partnerships in European Projects.

Ana Gonzalez's main focus of research is on the European Neighbourhood Policy, Enlargement Policy, Strategic Partnerships and the future of these policies in the European Union. She works regularly with the Spanish Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defence to incorporate the study of these policies into Spanish academics and courses and seminars.

Ms. Gonzalez also works directly with the Research and Faculty Vice Dean at the University Francisco de Vitoria developing research and teaching innovation at the University.  She is in charge of the ERASMUS-Prof., and has participated in different conferences.

Between 2007 and 2009 she worked in different think tanks including the International Crisis Group in Brussels and INCIPE and the Spain-Russia Council in Madrid.

-

Il Rae Cho"Preparing Financially for Aging and Retirement"

Recently, many issues related to aging have become more serious in both economic and social aspects all over the world.  Aging is something that nobody can avoid or neglect. However, most people tend to consider the issue of aging and retirement less serious than needed in real situations.  The lack of preparation for retirement may cause an economic turmoil to an individual's retirement life and national finance for social security.  In this presentation, Cho will show the current situations about aging and retirement and will offer practical solutions.

 

Yong Je Kim, "Next Generation Multimedia - What Will That Be?

Can you imagine the future TV and mobile phone?  What will they look like?

Only a few years ago, the main feature of a mobile phone was to make simple voice calls.  Today, we can do so much more - watch drama shows, sports and movies; take pictures and send them anywhere; and stay up-to-date checking the news and stock information of all countries in real time.  Through social media, we can share our opinion with many people regardless of location.  We can purchase goods or buy tickets for a concert simply using our mobile phones - without needing actual money or credit cards.  At the same time, TVs are getting smarter - providing useful functions like online shopping, remote video calls and watching movies without going to the movie theater. 

There are many technologies to enable these improvements, but the key technology is multimedia.  In this presentation, Kim will introduce some noticeable multimedia components and their progress, including examples of possible future TV and mobile phones. 

Philippines Conference Room

Il Rae Cho Speaker
0
Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellow
Yong_Je_Kim.jpg MS

Yong Je Kim is a corporate affiliate visiting fellow at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) for 2013.  Kim has been working at Samsung Electronics for 28 years in the R&D Center.  His work has focused mainly in the area of multimedia signal processing for digital TV and mobile phones, serving most recently as the Senior Vice President of the multimedia R&D team.  Kim received his bachelor's degree in electronic engineering from Sogang University and his master's degree from Ajou University.

Yong Je Kim Speaker
Seminars
-
Abstract:
Can the introduction of the Internet undermine incumbent power in a semi-authoritarian regime? I examine this question using evidence from Malaysia, where the incumbent coalition lost its 40-year monopoly on power in 2008. I develop a novel methodology for measuring Internet penetration, matching IP addresses with physical locations, and apply it to the 2004 to 2008 period in Malaysia. Using distance to the backbone to instrument for endogenous Internet penetration, I find that areas with higher Internet penetration experience higher voter turnout and higher candidate turnover, with the Internet accounting for one-third of the 11% swing against the incumbent party in 2008. The results suggest that, in the absence of the Internet, the opposition would not have achieved its historic upset in the 2008 elections.
 

Luke Miner recently completed his PhD in economics from the London School of Economics. He was also a postdoctoral fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law in the Liberation Technology Program. He is currently working as a data scientist in the techology sector.

Miner’s research interests are political economy and development economics. In particular, he aims to quantitatively assess the effect of the Internet and new media on political accountability, development, and election outcomes. His past research finds a strong effect of Internet diffusion on results of Malaysia's 2008 elections, where it contributed to the ruling coalition's largest electoral setback in thirty years. His current research looks at the effect of the Internet on the 2008 U.S. presidential elections, in particular as a means of promoting campaign contributions.

Wallenberg Theater

Luke Miner Data Scientist Speaker
Seminars

Shorenstein APARC
Encina Hall E310
616 Serra Street
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 725-4237 (650) 723-6530
0
2013-14 Pantech Fellow in Korean Studies
Sunny_pic_big_crop_head.JPG MA, PhD

Sunny Seong-hyon Lee, a journalist based in Beijing, China, is the 2013-14 Pantech Fellow in Korean Studies at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Reseach Center.

Dr. Lee has lived in China for 11 years, including as chief correspondent and later as director of China Research Center of the Korea Times. He served as an internal reviewer of the North Korean reports by the International Crisis Group (ICG) on multiple occasions. A fluent Chinese speaker and writer, he is a frequent commentator on China-Korea relations as well as on North Korea in Chinese newspapers and on TV. He has also appeared on CNN, Al Jazeera, and the Chinese state CCTV.

Dr. Lee taught at Salzburg Global Seminar, gave lectures to members of Harvard Kennedy School, the Confucius Institute, Seoul National University, Yonsei University, Korea University, Tsinghua University, Guo JI Guan Xi Xue Yuan, Korea Economic Institute, The Korea-China Future Forum, the Korea Journalists’ Association, and the Korea-China Leadership Program of the Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies.

Dr. Lee will use his Pantech Fellowship at Stanford to write a book manuscript on the latest China-Korea relations, especially since the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. He will also engage Stanford audiences and members of the public through lectures and research meetings.

Dr. Lee received a bachelor’s degree from Grinnell College, a master’s degree from Harvard University and Beijing Foreign Studies University, and a PhD from Tsinghua University, where he completed his doctoral dissertation on North Korea, examining the media framing of North Korea by analyzing the journalist-source relationship. He is also a non-resident James A. Kelly Fellow at Pacific Forum CSIS, and a 2013 Korea Foundation-Salzburg Fellow.

Dr. Lee’s recent writings include:

“Firm Warning, Light Consequences: China’s DPRK Policy Upholds Status Quo” (The Jamestown Foundation)

http://www.jamestown.org/programs/chinabrief/single/?

“Will China's soft-power strategy on South Korea succeed?” (CSIS)

http://csis.org/publication/23-will-chinas-soft-power-strategy-south-korea-succeed

“Chinese Perspective on North Korea and Korean Unification” (The Korea Economic Institute in Washington DC)

http://www.keia.org/sites/default/files/publications/kei_onkorea_2013_sunny_seong-hyon_lee.pdf

“China’s North Korean Foreign Policy Decoded”  (Yale Global Online)

http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/chinas-north-korean-foreign-policy-decoded

“Why North Korea may muddle along” (Asia Times)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/NB28Dg02.html

 

Established in 2004, the Pantech Fellowship for Mid-Career Professionals, generously funded by Pantech Co., Ltd., and Curitel Communications, Inc. (known as the Pantech Group), is intended to cultivate a diverse international community of scholars and professionals committed to and capable of grappling with challenges posed by developments in Korea.

Shorenstein APARC
Encina Hall E332
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 724-5710 (510) 705-2049 (650) 723-6530
0
Developing Asia Health Policy Fellow
IMG_4537.jpg MD

Gendengarjaa Baigalimaa joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) during the 2013-2014 acedemic year as the Asia Health Policy Program Fellow. She joins APARC from the Mongolian National Cancer Center, where she serves as a Gynecological Oncologist.

During her appointment as Health Policy Fellow, she will conduct a comparative study of how knowledge of cervical cancer risk factors has influenced behavior changes in Mongolia before and after the introduction of the National Cervical Cancer Program.

Baigalimaa is the Executive Director of Mongolian Society of Gynecological Oncologists and is also a member of the International Gynecological Cancer Society (IGCS) in Mongolia, Russia, and France.

Baigalimaa holds a MD from Minsk Belarussia Medical University. She also received a Masters in Health Science from Mongolian Medical University. She is fluent in both Russian and English.

Shorenstein APARC
Encina Hall C331
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 725-6948 (650) 723-6530
0
Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow in Contemporary Asia
CHEN_Ling_3X4.jpg MA, PhD

Ling Chen joins the Walter Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) during the 2013-2014 year from Johns Hopkins University where she received her Ph.D. in political science. Her research interests lie in comparative politics and political economy, especially the political origins of economic policies and outcomes in China and East Asia. During her time at Shorenstein APARC, Chen will conduct research on how global firms enabled bureaucratic manipulation of mandatory economic policies in local China. Her research is based on 18 months of fieldwork throughout China and economic census and survey data at both the city and the firm level.

Chen has published articles in The China Journal, Review of International Political Economy, and New Political Economy. A recent article based on her dissertation research has also been accepted for publication by Politics & Society.  Her research has received support from the Social Science Research Council (Andrew Mellon Foundation), Institute for Humane Studies, Fei Hsiao-Tung Foundation, Johns Hopkins University, as well as other institutions.

Chen holds a MA in political science from the University of Toronto and a BA in political science and a BA in economics from Peking University. She was also a pre-doctoral research fellow at Brown University.

Authors
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

Millions of Americans who need to buy health insurance are eligible for federal subsidies. But the government may have underfunded the expense by billions of dollars, according to Stanford researchers.

In a recent article published in Health Affairs, the researchers expose the remarkable control employers will soon have on federal revenue. Employers will soon decide whether to continue providing health insurance to their employees, cut their coverage or increase premiums that workers pay. 

These choices will in part determine whether it will be financially beneficial for workers to buy insurance through the government’s new health insurance exchanges, rather than be insured through their employers.  And such decisions could change government expenditures by billions of dollars– a potential spending increase that the federal government has likely not accounted for.

"There’s going to be a lot more federal money required for insurance subsidies than people are ready for," said Jay Bhattacharya, an associate professor of medicine at Stanford and a core faculty member of Stanford Health Policy, a center at the university’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Bhattacharya co-authored the study with medical students Daniel Austin, Anna Luan and Louise Wang from Stanford.

Because a lot of employers and employees are going to realize that employer-provided coverage isn’t worth it – that it makes more economic sense for their employees to get health insurance through the exchanges,” Bhattacharya said.

As of Oct. 1, millions of Americans began receiving federal subsidies to buy health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. People are eligible for a subsidy if they earn between 133 and 400 percent of the poverty level. For individuals, that’s between $14,404 and $43,320. And for a family of four, the range is between $29,326 and $88,200. The subsidies from the government amount to $9,247 for a family of four living on $56,604 a year.

The new health care law assumes that workers who already have affordable insurance through their employers will not use the exchanges, though no mechanism is in place to check that a person using a subsidy isn’t already insured. And while there is a penalty – about $3,000 per employee after the first 50 employees – to  large employers who stop offering health insurance, it is often cheaper for an organization to pay the fine. Providing insurance to cover an employee’s family could cost a business $16,000 or more to cover an employee’s family.

Bhattacharya was interested in understanding the financial implications for the federal government should an employer decide to keep or end its health insurance coverage for employees eligible for subsidies. So he and his colleagues modeled how much the federal government would have to provide in subsidies if an employer stopped providing health insurance to workers, and those employees then used the federal subsidies to buy themselves insurance on the exchanges.  

“These decisions that employers are making about whether or not to provide their employees health insurance has a huge effect on federal government spending,” Bhattacharya said.  

According to the researchers’ calculations, if everyone who would benefit financially from receiving health insurance through the exchanges rather than from their employer chose to buy insurance on the exchanges, the federal government would be on the hook for $132 billion per year to pay for the subsidized insurance.  While not everyone who benefits financially from dropping employer-based coverage will do so, Bhattacharya estimates that federal costs would climb by nearly $7 billion if employers raise health insurance premiums by even just $100 because it would induce millions of employees to switch to exchange-based coverage.

In many instances, Bhattacharya pointed out, companies can still ensure their employees have benefits and make more money by cutting their workers’ health insurance if they’re eligible for subsidies, paying their employees a slightly higher salary and encouraging them to receive the federal subsidies and buy their own policies. But doing so puts a heavier financial burden on the government.

On the flip side, if more employers decide to offer health insurance – perhaps wanting to avoid the small penalty or because of the appearance of not offering a basic benefit – the government could end up spending a lot less on subsidies. But Bhattacharya expects that is unlikely.

The study used data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Household Component – a national survey of household health care use, insurance status, and health expenses, as well as demographic and socioeconomic information – to construct a model.  The model revealed that as employees’ health insurance contributions rise (when their insurance is provided by an employer), employees are increasingly enticed to drop their employer coverage and buy insurance through the exchange. Among workers who qualify for a subsidy and see an increase of $100 in their employer-based premium contribution levels, 2.25 million individuals would choose to instead buy insurance on the exchanges – increasing federal spending for subsidies by $6.7 billion.

“In the model we assume that if there’s a $1 benefit, employees will drop their employer-sponsored coverage. In reality there’s a lot of inertia and you most likely won’t get that $1 increase,” Bhattacharya said. “On the other hand, in the medium run, employers might say ‘employees will benefit if I drop coverage. I can raise their wages, and they’ll get better coverage on the exchanges.’”

Teal Pennebaker is a Washgington, D.C.-based freelance writer and former information editor and external relations coorinator at Stanford Health Policy.

Hero Image
obama signs
President Barack Obama signs the health insurance reform bill on March 23, 2010. | Reuters
All News button
1
Subscribe to Society