Lina Khatib is the manager and co-founder of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. She is an expert on Middle East politics and media and has published widely on topics such as new media and Islamism, political media and conflict in the Arab world, and the political dynamics in Lebanon and Iran. She is also a Research Fellow at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School. She is currently writing a book titled Image Politics in the Middle East for IB Tauris, which examines the power struggles among states, political leaders, political parties, civil society groups, and citizens in the region. She has also recently led a research project on US public diplomacy towards the Arab world in the digital age. She is the author of two books, Filming the Modern Middle East: Politics in the Cinemas of Hollywood and the Arab World (2006), and Lebanese Cinema: Imagining the Civil War and Beyond (2008) and has published widely on Middle East politics. 

In this seminar, she will talk about how Lebanon reached the political crisis it is in right now, the political strategy that has led to it, and what this means for Lebanon's political future.

This colloquium will feature presentations by two visiting scholars from China. First, Dr. Huijun Liu will present research on health risks associated with gender imbalance in China. The problems of abnormal sex ratio at birth and high female infant mortality have plagued many Asian countries with a strong male preference and gender inequality. In China, these problems having lasted for more than twenty years and contributed to a serious gender imbalance in the population. As a direct consequence, “surplus men” or “forced bachelors,” are expected to increase to more than 30 million. Dr. Liu will discuss the potential health risks and other social problems likely to be exacerbated by this large-scale gender imbalance in China.

Second, Dr. Dahai Zhao will present “How Is Health Insurance Coverage Utilized among Migrant Workers in Shanghai, China?” According to the regulations of the Chinese national and Shanghai municipal governments, migrant workers employed in Shanghai should all be entitled to the Shanghai Migrant Worker Hospitalization Insurance (SMWHI) without premium and the vast majority should also have coverage through the New Rural Cooperative Medical System (NRCMS). Dr. Zhao will present results from research, conducted jointly with Dr. Wei Yu and Dr. Alan M. Garber, examining the status of the coverage and utilization of health insurance among migrant workers employed in Shanghai. Through their study, they found that a significant minority of migrant workers in Shanghai still had no health insurance, and that health insurance utilization among migrant workers was strongly limited by hospital location.

Huijun Liu is an associate professor in the Public Policy and Administration School at Xi'an Jiaotong University, China. She received her PhD in management science and engineering from the Management School of Xi'an Jiaotong University. Her main areas of research focus on gender imbalance, reproductive health, vulnerability, and social support. Her current research focuses on how gender imbalance and migration amplify the risk of HIV transmission in China. Liu has published over twenty papers in Chinese academic journals, including China Soft Science, Population and Economics, Psychological Science Advance, Collection of Women's Studies, and Modern Preventive Medicine.

Dr. Zhao is an assistant professor with the School of Public Economics and Administration at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (SUFE), and a fellow with the Center for Health Policy at SUFE. He earned a master's degree in medicine in 2005 and a PhD in 2008, both from Fudan University, China.

Please join the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law as we celebrate the publication of Francis Fukuyama's latest book, The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution, which will be released in April by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This first of a major two-volume work provides a sweeping account of how today's basic political institutions developed. Professor's Morris and Weingast will provide commentary and reflections on the book to engage in a substantive conversation about the important insights that Fukuyama highlights tracing the evolution of human history through the 18th century.  

Book signing and reception to follow.

Francis Fukuyama is the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), resident in FSI's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, effective July 2010.  He comes to Stanford from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University, where he was the Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy and director of SAIS' International Development program.

Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on issues relating to questions concerning democratization and international political economy.  His book, The End of History and the Last Man, was published by Free Press in 1992 and has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. His most recent books are America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy, and Falling Behind: Explaining the Development Gap between Latin America and the United States.