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.
Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room
Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room
Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul in 1952 and grew up in a large family similar to those which he describes in his novels Cevdet Bey and His Sons and The Black Book, in the district of Nisantasi. As he writes in his autobiographical book Istanbul, from his childhood until the age of 22 he devoted himself largely to painting and dreamed of becoming an artist. After graduating from the American Robert College in Istanbul, he studied architecture at Istanbul Technical University for three years, but abandoned the course when he gave up his ambition to become an architect and artist. He went on to graduate in journalism from Istanbul University, but never worked as a journalist. At the age of 23 Pamuk decided to become a novelist, and giving up everything else retreated into his flat and began to write.
His first novel Cevdet Bey and His Sons was published seven years later in 1982. The novel is the story of three generations of a wealthy Istanbul family living in Nisantasi, Pamuk's own home district. The novel was awarded both the Orhan Kemal and Milliyet literary prizes. The following year Pamuk published his novel The Silent House, which in French translation won the 1991 Prix de la découverte européene. The White Castle (1985) about the frictions and friendship between a Venetian slave and an Ottoman scholar was published in English and many other languages from 1990 onwards, bringing Pamuk his first international fame. The same year Pamuk went to America, where he was a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York from 1985 to 1988. It was there that he wrote most of his novel The Black Book, in which the streets, past, chemistry and texture of Istanbul are described through the story of a lawyer seeking his missing wife. This novel was published in Turkey in 1990, and in French translation won the Prix France Culture. The Black Book enlarged Pamuk's fame both in Turkey and internationally as an author at once popular and experimental, and able to write about past and present with the same intensity. In 1991 Pamuk's daughter Rüya was born. That year saw the production of a film Hidden Face, whose script by Pamuk was based on a one-page story in The Black Book.
His novel The New Life, about young university students influenced by a mysterious book, was published in Turkey in 1994 and became one of the most widely read books in Turkish literature. My Name Is Red, about Ottoman and Persian artists and their ways of seeing and portraying the non-western world, told through a love story and family story, was published in 1998. This novel won the French Prix Du Meilleur Livre Etranger, the Italian Grinzane Cavour (2002) and the International IMPAC Dublin literary award (2003). Snow, which he describes as 'my first and last political novel,' was published in 2002. In this book set in the small city of Kars in northeastern Turkey he experimented with a new type of 'political novel,' telling the story of violence and tension between political Islamists, soldiers, secularists, and Kurdish and Turkish nationalists. In 1999 a selection of his articles on literature and culture written for newspapers and magazines in Turkey and abroad, together with a selection of writings from his private notebooks, was published under the title Other Colours.
Pamuk's most recent book, Istanbul, is a poetical work, combining the author's early memoirs up to the age of 22, and an essay about the city of Istanbul, illustrated with photographs from his own album, and pictures by western painters and Turkish photographers.
Pamuk was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006. The press release read "who in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the class and interlacing of cultures."
Sponsored by the Mediterranean Studies Forum, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies' S.T. Lee Lecture, the Division of International Comparative & Area Studies, the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, and the Forum on Contemporary Europe.
Memorial Auditorium
Stanford University
551 Serra Mall
Stanford, CA 94015
CISAC awarded honors certificates in international security studies to 14 undergraduates who completed theses on policy issues ranging from speeding up the detection of a bioterror attack to improving the World Bank's effectiveness at post-conflict resolution.
Among the 2006-2007 participants in CISAC's Interschool Honors Program in International Security Studies were award winners Brian Burton, who received a Firestone Medal for his thesis, "Counterinsurgency Principles and U.S. Military Effectiveness in Iraq," and Sherri Hansen, who received the William J. Perry Award for her thesis, "Explaining the Use of Child Soldiers." The Firestone Medal recognizes the top 10 percent of undergraduate theses at Stanford each year, and the Perry recognizes excellence in policy-relevant research in international security studies.
CISAC honors students "can make the world a more peaceful place in several ways," FSI senior fellow Stephen Stedman told students and guests at the honors ceremony. "They can graduate and find jobs of power and influence [and] they can identify real world problems and solve them."
This year's class, which included several double-majors, represented nine major fields of study: biology, history, human biology, international relations, mathematics, management science and engineering, physics, political science, Russia-Eurasian studies. Some students headed to business or policy positions, while others looked forward to advanced studies in law, medicine, biophysics, security studies, or other fields.
"I hope that this is the beginning, not the end, of your contributions to policy-relevant research," CISAC senior research scholar Paul Stockton, who co-directed the program with Stedman, told the students. He added, "In every potential career you have expressed a desire to pursue, from medicine to the financial sector and beyond, we need your perspectives and research contributions, to deal with emerging threats to global security."
Many students expressed interest in realizing that hope. Burton said his aspiration is to attain "a high-level cabinet or National Security Council position to cap a long career of public service in foreign policy."
Katherine Schlosser, a biology major who is headed to Case Western Reserve University for joint MD-master's in public health program, said she hopes to "keep conducting innovative research and to eventually rejoin the international security studies community in some capacity."
The 2007 honors recipients, their majors, thesis titles, advisers, and destinations, if known, are as follows:
Brian Burton, political science
"Counterinsurgency Principles and U.S. Military Effectiveness in Iraq"
Firestone Medal Winner
Adviser: David Holloway
Destination: Georgetown University, to pursue a master's degree in security studies
Martine Cicconi, political science
"Weighing the Costs of Aggression and Restraint: Explaining Variations in India's Response to Terrorism"
Adviser: Scott Sagan
Destination: Stanford University Law School
Will Frankenstein, mathematics
"Chinese Energy Security and International Security: A Case Study Analysis"
Adviser: Michael May
Destination: The Institute for Defense Analyses in Alexandria, Va., for a summer internship
Kunal Gullapalli, management science & engineering
"Understanding Water Rationality: A Game-Theoretic Analysis of Cooperation and Conflict Over Scarce Water"
Adviser: Peter Kitanidis
Destination: Investment Banking Division at Morgan Stanley in Los Angeles
Sherri Hansen, political science
"Explaining the Use of Child Soldiers"
William J. Perry Award Winner
Adviser: Jeremy Weinstein
Destination: Oxford University in England, to pursue master's degree in development studies
Andy Leifer, physics and political science
"International Scientific Engagement for Mitigating Emerging Nuclear Security Threats"
Adviser: Michael May
Destination: Harvard University, to pursue a PhD in biophysics
James Madsen, political science
"Filling the Gap: The Rise of Military Contractors in the Modern Military"
Adviser: Coit Blacker
Destination: World travel; then San Francisco to open a bar
Nico Martinez, political science
"Protracted Civil War and Failed Peace Negotiations in Colombia"
Adviser: Stephen Stedman
Destination: Washington, DC, to serve as a staff member for Senator Harry Reid
Seepan V. Parseghian, political science and Russian/Eurasian studies
"The Survival of Unrecognized States in the Hobbesian Jungle"
Advisor: James Fearon
Dave Ryan, international relations
"Security Guarantees in Non-Proliferation Negotiations"
Adviser: Scott Sagan
Destination: Stanford University, to serve as executive director of FACE AIDS
Katherine Schlosser, biology
"Gene Expression Profiling: A New Warning System for Bioterrorism"
Adviser: Dean Wilkening
Destination: Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, to pursue a joint medical degree and master's in public health
Nigar Shaikh, human biology and political science
"No Longer Just the 'Spoils of War': Rape as an Instrument of Military Policy"
Adviser: Mariano-Florentino Cuellar
Christine Su, history and political science
"British Counterterrorism Legislation Since 2000: Parlimentary and Government Evaluations of Enhanced Security"
Adviser: Allen Weiner
Destination: Stanford University, to finish her undergraduate degree; Su completed the honors program as a junior.
Lauren Young, international relations
"Peacebuilding without Politics: The World Bank and Post Conflict Reconstruction"
Adviser: Stephen Stedman
Destination: Stanford University, to finish her undergraduate degree; Young completed the honors program as a junior.
Monday, June 11, 2007
1:30 - 3:30 Panel 1: Election Campaigning in Japan
"Surrogate Representation: Forging New and Broader Constituencies in Japanese Politics"
Sherry Martin, Cornell University
"Running for National Office in Japan: The Institutional and Cultural Constraints Faced by Women Candidates"
Alisa Gaunder, Southwestern University
"How Large are Koizumi's Coattails? Party Leader Visits in the 2005 Japanese Election"
Kenneth McElwain, Stanford University
Discussant: Laurie Freeman, University of California - Santa Barbara
3:45 - 5:30 Panel 2: The Organization and Behavior of Political Parties
"Where Have All the Zoku Gone? LDP DM Policy Specialization and Expertise" (written with Ellis Krauss and Robert Pekkanen)
Ben Nyblade, University of British Columbia
"When Preferences are Not Behavior: Explaining Party Switch among Japanese Legislators in the 1990s"
Jun Saito, Wesleyan University
Discussant: Len Schoppa, University of Virginia
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
9:30 - 11:30 Panel 3: Electoral Systems and Voter Behavior
"The Political Economy of the Japanese Gender Gap"
Barry Burden, University of Wisconsin - Madison
"Has the Electoral System Reform Made Japanese Elections Party-Centered?"
Ko Maeda, University of North Texas
"The Incumbent Personal Vote in Japanese Politics"
Shigeo Hirano, Columbia University
Discussant: Mike Thies, University of California - Los Angeles
1:00 - 3:00 Panel 4: New Approaches to Electoral Analysis
"Stealing Elections on Election Night: A Comparison of Statistical Evidence from Japan, Canada, and the United States"
Ray Christensen, Brigham Young University
"Measuring Competitiveness in Multi-Member Districts"
Steven Reed, Chuo University and Kay Shimizu, Stanford University
"Declining Electoral Competitiveness: Post-reform Trends and Theoretical Pessimism"
Rob Weiner, Stanford University
Discussant: Margaret McKean, Duke University
3:00 - 3:15 Break
3:15 - 5:00 Panel 5: Legislative Issues in Japan Today
"Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: Postal Privatization as a Window on Political and Policymaking Change"
Patricia Machlachlan, University of Texas - Austin
"The Slow Government Response to Japan's Bank Crisis: A Principal-Agent Analysis" (with Michio Muramatsu)
Ethan Scheiner, University of California - Davis
Discussant: Frances Rosenbluth, Yale University
5:15 - 5:45 Closing remarks
Philippines Conference Room
Throughout history, nations have waged war against epidemics from bubonic plague to pulmonary tuberculosis. Today we confront HIV/AIDS, SARS, and avian influenza, among other major infectious diseases. Scientists around the world scrutinize viruses and bacteria more intently than ever. Yet while scientific advances are crucial, they are insufficient. The world is not well prepared for the next health crisis.
This timely book argues that the battle against infectious disease epidemics must be fought on two fronts. The first, of course, is the laboratory. The second is the wider social context that involves ordinary individuals and groups, legislators, and the state. The failure to contain HIV/AIDS and the emergence of new infectious diseases highlight the inadequacies of current preventive and management approaches to deal with epidemics.
The authors of Crisis Preparedness offer perspectives from social science, epidemiology, and public health, collectively seeking to answer the question: How can we prepare for the next global epidemic?
WASHINGTON, May 24 (IPS) - This year the Association of Southeast Asian Nations celebrates its 40th birthday, and it has big plans. After four decades of being largely a political and security alliance, ASEAN is accelerating its plans for economic integration.
ASEAN leaders are so eager to pull together into an economic community that they recently decided to move the goalposts. The economic benchmarks originally planned for 2020 have been moved up to 2015.
"The mission of this economic community is to develop a single market that is competitive, equitably developed, and well integrated in the global economy," says Worapot Manupipatpong, principal economist and director of the office of the Secretary-General in the ASEAN Secretariat. He was speaking last week at an Asian Voices seminar in Washington, DC, sponsored by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation.
The single market of 2015 would encompass all ten members of ASEAN: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. According to the projections of the ASEAN Secretariat, the single market will be accomplished by removing all barriers to the free flow of goods, services, capital, and skilled labor. Rules and regulations will be simplified and harmonised. Member countries will benefit from improved economies of scale. Common investment projects, such as a highway network and the Singapore--Kunming rail link, will facilitate greater trade.
Although there will not be a single currency like the European Union's euro, the ASEAN countries will nevertheless aim for greater currency cooperation.
"ASEAN's process of economic integration was market-driven," says Soedradjad Djiwandono former governor of Bank Indonesia, and it was influenced by the "Washington consensus" favoring increased liberalisation. "It is a very different framework from the closed regionalism of the Latin American model," he continues. With multilateral talks on trade liberalisation stalled, efforts have largely shifted to bilateral negotiations. "There has been a proliferation of bilateral agreements that developed countries use as a way to push a program for liberalising different sectors," Djiwandono concludes.
So far, ASEAN points to increased trade within the ten-member community as an early sign of success. But, overall trade share -- 25 percent -- pales in comparison to the 46 percent share of the North American Free Trade Agreement countries or the 68 percent share of EU countries. And with intra-ASEAN foreign direct investment rather low -- only 6 percent in 2005 -- financial integration lags behind trade integration.
The ASEAN approach differs in several key respects from the EU model, which originated in a 1951 coal and steel agreement among six European nations. ASEAN's origins, in contrast, have been primarily political and security-oriented, observes Donald Emmerson, director of the South-east Asia Forum at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford. "The success attributed to ASEAN is that it presided over an inter-state peace ever since it was formed. There's never been a war fought between ASEAN members."
Also distinguishing ASEAN from EU is the latter's institutionalisation. "ASEAN is radically different," Emmerson continues. "The much discussed ASEAN way is consultation, not even voting, since if they vote, someone will lose. Sometimes the consultation goes on without result. Sometimes decisions are reduced to the lowest common denominator. It also means that rhetoric predominates." This consultative process will be tested in November, when ASEAN leaders gather to adopt a charter, something that the EU has so far failed to accomplish.
Another difference with Europe is the enormous economic disparities among the ASEAN members, with Singapore and Brunei among the richest countries in the world and Laos among the poorest. These economic disparities are reproduced within the countries as well.
Worapot Manupipatpong points to two ASEAN initiatives for closing the gap. There is help for small and medium-sized enterprises. And the Initiative for ASEAN Integration,"basically provides technical assistance to Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar so that they can catch up with the rest of the ASEAN members," he says. "Attention will be paid to where these countries can participate in the regional networks, what comparative advantage they have, and how to enhance their capacities to participate in the regional development and supply chain."
Then there are ASEAN's efforts to address "public bads," according to Soedradjad Djiwandono. "When there is a tsunami or a pandemic," he argues, "the worst victims are the marginalised or the poor. Addressing that kind of issue has some positive impact on reducing inequality."
"The gap between the early joiners and the later joiners will continue to be substantial because ASEAN has always been more of a forum and less of a problem-solving organisation," observes Karl Jackson, director of the Asian Studies Program at the School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. "As a result one would expect that these gaps would be closed only as individual countries increase their rates of growth." He attributes the inequality within countries to the middle stage of growth experienced by almost all societies: "Inequality increases before the state becomes strong enough to redivide some of the pie and take care of the gross inequalities caused by rapid economic growth."
ASEAN is banking on financial and trade liberalisation increasing the overall regional pie. On paper it is an ambitious project. But "the low hanging fruit have been plucked," says Donald Emmerson. Tariffs on the "easy commodities" have already been reduced to less than 5 percent. But non-tariff barriers to trade remain, and member countries are very protective of certain sectors.
Also tempering the region's optimism is the memory of the Asian financial crisis. The crisis began in Thailand in 1997 and spread rapidly to other countries in the region. One school of thinking holds that capital mobility -- "hot money" -- either caused or considerably aggravated the crisis. Since the ASEAN integration promises greater capital mobility, will the region be at greater risk of another such crisis?
"One consequence of the economic dynamism of the Asia-Pacific region," notes Donald Emmerson, "is that the accumulation of vast foreign exchange reserves -- obviously in China, but in other countries too -- more than anything else represents an asset that can be brought into the equation as a stabilising factor in the event of a financial crisis." Also, he continues, as a result of the ASEAN plus Three network, which adds China, South Korea, and Japan to the mix, the 13 countries have "made serious headway toward establishing currency swap arrangements that would come into play in an emergency on the scale of an Asian financial crisis."
Karl Jackson also looks to currency reforms as a hedge against future crisis. The Thai baht and the Indonesian rupiah are now unpegged currencies. "You will not have a situation in which the central bank of Thailand loses 34 billion US dollars defending the baht," Jackson argues. "Instead, the baht will appreciate or depreciate according to market forces."
But Jackson still remains cautious about the future. He points to the large number of non-performing loans in the Chinese banking sector. Also, there is "this anomaly of the U.S. absorbing two-thirds of the savings coming out of Asia, plugging it mostly into consumption rather than direct investment," he observes. "Eventually there has to be some kind of readjustment. The real value of the dollar must fall." (END/2007)
Reprinted by permission from IPS Asia-Pacific.
This research aims at explaining the apparently higher breakdown rate of presidential democracies over parliamentary ones. It shows that the alleged greater negative effect of presidential regimes on democratic breakdown than parliamentary democracies would disappear, not just when military legacy is considered, but also when the effectiveness or power of legislatures is taken into account.
Speaker Bio
Ming Sing is Associate Professor at the Department of Public and Social Administration, City University of Hong Kong. He is a Visiting Fulbright Scholar at the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego (2006-07).
His current research interests are comparing political culture in Asia and institutional engineering in the world. He joined the Asiabarometer Survey Team in 2006 exploring political culture of all Asian societies in relation to democracy He has been doing research on institutional and non-institutional factors shaping global democratic breakdown longitudinally.
He has published on various aspects of democratization in Hong Kong and is the author and editor of three books: Hong Kong's Tortuous Democratization: a Comparative Analysis (New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004), and Hong Kong Government & Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). His third book (University of Hong Kong, 2007) focuses on the institutional engineering and governance problems in Hong Kong. He has also published articles in Government & Opposition, Democratization, East Asia, China Information, Chinese Law & Government, Journal of Contemporary Asia, International Journal of Public Administration and elsewhere.
Encina Ground Floor Conference Room
