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.

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Dr. Mario Oshima will argue that Tokugawa social status should be understood as a two-line system comprised by occupational statuses such as warriors (bushi) and nobles (kuge), and regional ones such as farmers (hyakusho) and merchants (chonin), rather than single line system of warrior-peasant-artisan-merchant. He will explain why the typical four story single line conception has prevailed. Finally, he will address how this two-line conception sheds light on some comparisons between the US and Japan in terms of the relation between the individual and the organization in society.

Co-sponsored by CEAS.

Philippines Conference Room

Mario Oshima Professor, Economic History of Japan, Graduate School of Economics Speaker Osaka City University
Lectures
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The profile of foreign domestic workers in Hong Kong has changed in significant ways since Hong Kong's reunification with the People's Republic of China in 1997, the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, and the SARS outbreak of 2003. Several changes have also appears, the most striking of which is the influx of about 90,000 Indonesian domestic workers and the relative decrease in the number of Filipinas. Another change is the tenor and scope of the workers' activism.

Drawing from recent migrant worker protests (including the anti-WTO protests of December 2005,) Dr. Constable considers the increasingly global and transnational aspects of foreign domestic worker activism and the increased breadth of their networks and affiliations, as well as the implications of such activism in relation to newly generated and displaced meanings of citizenship and human rights within and beyond the context of the self-ascribed "Asian World City" of Hong Kong.

Nicole Constable received her MA and PhD degrees from the University of California at Berkeley in 1989. She is a sociocultural anthropologist whose interests include the anthropology of work; ethnicity, nationalism, and history; gender, migration, and transnationalism; folklore; and ethnographic writing and power.

Her geographical areas of specialization are Hong Kong, China and the Philippines. She has conducted fieldwork in Hong Kong on constructions of Hakka Chinese Christian identity and on resistance and discipline among Filipina domestic workers.

Her current research involves Chinese and Filipino immigrants to the U.S. and U.S.-Asian correspondence marriages.

Philippines Conference Room

Nicole Constable Professor, Department of Anthropology Speaker University of Pittsburgh
Seminars
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Martha Crenshaw is the Colin and Nancy Campbell Professor of Global Issues and Democratic Thought and Professor of Government at Wesleyan University, in Middletown, Conn., where she has taught since 1974. She has written extensively on the issue of political terrorism; her first article, "The Concept of Revolutionary Terrorism," was published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution in 1972. Her recent work includes the chapter on "Coercive Diplomacy and the Response to Terrorism," in The United States and Coercive Diplomacy (United States Institute of Peace Press), "Terrorism, Strategies, and Grand Strategies", in Attacking Terrorism (Georgetown University Press), and "Counterterrorism in Retrospect" in the July-August 2005 issue of Foreign Affairs. She serves on the Executive Board of Women in International Security and chairs the American Political Science Association Task Force on Political Violence and Terrorism.

She has served on the Council of the APSA and is a former president and councilor of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP). In 2004 ISPP awarded her its Nevitt Sanford Award for Distinguished Scientific Contribution and in 2005 the Jeanne Knutson Award for service to the society. She serves on the editorial boards of the journals International Security, Orbis, Political Psychology, Security Studies, and Terrorism and Political Violence. She coordinated the working group on political explanations of terrorism for the 2005 Club de Madrid International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security. For the next three years she will be a lead investigator with the new National Center for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism at the University of Maryland, funded by the Department of Homeland Security. She is also the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 2005-2006. She serves on the Committee on Law and Justice and the Committee on Determining Basic Research Needs to Interrupt the Improvised Explosive Device Delivery Chain of the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science. Her current research focuses on why the U.S. is the target of terrorism and the distinction between "old" and "new" terrorism, as well as how campaigns of terrorism come to an end.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Martha Crenshaw Colin and Nancy Campbell Professor of Global Issues and Democratic Thought and professor of government at Speaker Wesleyan University
Seminars
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One of Japan's most effective leaders, Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto has guided some of the most important developments in modern Japanese history, from improving trade and security relations with the United States to implementing crucial deregulation policies and administrative reforms. The regulatory reforms enacted during his term as prime minister - in the areas of administration, fiscal and economic structure, social security, and education - remain the most important items on the current Japanese political agenda.

In his first-ever Stanford address, Prime Minister Hashimoto will consider the changes under way in Japan with the candor and insight that only a former head of state can offer. The return to prominence of Hashimoto's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) - after a September 2005 landslide victory - only increases the timeliness of his perspective.

Ryutaro Hashimoto is an experienced policy expert. He served two years as prime minister of Japan and thirteen terms in the House of Representatives. He has held a number of important cabinet posts, including minister of finance and minister of international trade and industry. As prime minister, Hashimoto tackled such pressing domestic issues as administrative reform and deregulation. He also made significant gains on the diplomatic front, and through summit meetings with U.S. President Bill Clinton, reinforced the bilateral security arrangements on which the post-Cold War Japan-U.S. alliance is founded. Since leaving office in 1998, Prime Minister Hashimoto has served as senior adviser to Prime Minister Koizumi, senior advisor for Administrative Reform Promotion at the LDP headquarters, and Minister of State for Administrative Reform.

Bechtel Conference Center

Ryutaro Hashimoto Former Prime Minister of Japan Speaker
Lectures
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Thomas Carothers is a leading authority on democracy promotion and democratization worldwide as well as an expert on U.S. foreign policy generally. He is the founder and director of the Democracy and Rule of Law Project which analyzes the state of democracy in the world and the efforts by the United States and other countries to promote democracy. In addition, he has broad experience in matters dealing with human rights, international law, foreign aid, rule of law, and civil society development. He is the author or editor of six critically acclaimed books on democracy promotion as well as many articles in prominent journals and newspapers. He is adjunct professor at the Central European University in Budapest and serves on the board of various organizations devoted to democracy promotion.Prior to joining the Endowment, Carothers practiced international and financial law at Arnold & Porter and served as an attorney-adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State.

Encina Basement Conference Room

Thomas Carothers Director, Democracy and Rule of Law Project Speaker Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC
Seminars
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Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's inauguration provides the U.S. administration a chance to show it is serious about supporting nascent democracies, creating stability in a volatile region, and providing economic opportunities for Africa's poorest countries. CISAC's Jeremy M. Weinstein and colleague Steve Radelet tell how, in this Boston Globe op-ed.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's inauguration as the president of Liberia marks a watershed in the country's tumultuous history.

Twenty-five years of misrule and civil war under Samuel Doe, Charles Taylor, and successive interim governments have left the country in ruins. Nearly 300,000 Liberians lost their lives, average income is one-eighth what it was in 1980, and large majorities of the population subsist in dire poverty.

Since United Nations and US troops ousted Taylor in 2003, a fragile peace has taken hold, supported by 15,000 UN peacekeepers. With free and peaceful elections under their belts, Liberians are feeling new optimism and hope. Markets here are bustling, stores are freshly painted and open for business, and newspapers and radios feature lively debate.

The new government is a clear break from a past characterized by rule by force, extensive corruption, and a culture of impunity. Sirleaf, the first African woman elected head of state, has been an outspoken champion of accountability, transparency, and good governance for decades, a stance that landed her in jail twice and was a hallmark of her opposition to past governments and campaign for the presidency.

Already change is underway. She has instituted a code of conduct and full financial disclosure for senior officials, and endorsed a program that will install internationally recruited financial controllers in several state enterprises and create a strong anticorruption commission. Her government plans to publish financial accounts on the Web, make it easier for whistleblowers to report infractions, and rewrite Liberia's outdated constitution to firmly establish participatory democracy, decentralize power, and install robust checks on the executive.

Recovery from deep conflict in Africa is not easy, but we know it is possible. Mozambique was destroyed by civil war in the 1980s, but its democratically elected government led the way to peace, stability, and a doubling of income in a dozen years. Sierra Leone suffered a blood bath in the 1990s, but the 1999 peace agreement and 2001 elections brought stability and economic growth of 7 percent a year. Rwanda's genocide was followed by a recovery that few could have imagined.

But Sirleaf faces a daunting task. Liberia's recovery will depend mainly on Liberians themselves, but it will require strong international support, just as in Mozambique, Sierra Leone, and Rwanda.

West Africa's civil wars have spawned widespread smuggling of diamonds, transshipment of drugs, and easy money laundering opportunities for global terrorist groups. Liberia's historic moment provides the U.S. administration a chance to show it is serious about supporting nascent democracies, creating stability in a volatile region, and providing economic opportunities for Africa's poorest countries.

First, the United States must continue its crucial role in the demobilization of combatants and commit to long-term rebuilding of Liberia's police and army. The new government must be able to maintain and enhance security to begin to recover.

Second, the administration should support rapid and comprehensive forgiveness of Liberia's debts, which were mainly undertaken and wasted by the rapacious Doe government. It makes no more sense to stick today's Liberians with the bill, including 20 years of accumulated interest, than to force today's Iraqis to pay Saddam Hussein's bills.

Third, and perhaps most urgent, Congress should approve supplemental funding of $50 million to $100 million to support the new government. Unfortunately, Congress recently cut the administration's initial request for Liberia, a short-sighted step that sent the wrong signal to a struggling democracy and old ally at a crucial turning point. These funds would build critical infrastructure, put kids back into schools, and continue vital training for security forces. It would give Liberians their best chance of securing peace and basic freedoms.

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In the days after 9/11, there was a widespread sentiment that suicidal terrorist attacks were irrational acts well beyond the bounds of quantitative risk assessment. Since then, terrorism risk models have been developed which are based on certain key theoretical principles that are validated by observational terrorism experience. These principles will be elaborated, and illustrated with examples from conflicts around the world.

Gordon Woo is a catastrophist, specializing on mathematical aspects of catastrophe risk modelling. He has developed a quantitative framework for modelling terrorism risk applied e. g. on the Olympic Games 2004 and the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Prior to this, his main focus has been on natural and environmental hazards. He has twenty years of practical experience in consulting for commercial, industrial and government organizations on major public risk issues varying from the disposal of radioactive waste, to oil pollution, flight safety, to earthquake, windstorm and flood protection.

Dr. Woo graduated as the top mathematician of his year at Cambridge University. He completed his PhD in theoretical physics as a Kennedy Scholar at M.I.T., after which he was elected a Junior Fellow of the Harvard University Society of Fellows. His work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal and Newsweek. In July 2004, he was named by Risk & Treasury Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in finance.

CISAC Conference Room

Gordon Woo Principal Risk Analyst Speaker Risk Management Solutions
Seminars
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Between 1870 and 1945, France and Germany fought each other in three bloody wars, each of which left bitter memories and lingering antagonisms in its wake. Bitter memories in turn fed the respective histories of the two neighboring nations, and these became integral features of French and German national identities throughout the first half of the twentieth century. How and when did this begin to change? Siegel will discuss the efforts of twentieth-century French and German historians and teachers to break the intractable cycle of warfare and memory, nationalism and history. Professor Siegel will explore the links between collective memory, scholastic history, and nationalism as well as the complexities of turning history into a tool of international reconciliation. She will explore whether the sequence of events towards reconciliation in France and Germany might be replicable in other environments, notably Asia, in the context of recent events that suggest a rising nationalism in Asia.

Dr. Mona Siegel joined the CSU - Sacramento history faculty in 2003. Her teaching and research interests include modern French history, the history of women and gender, history and memory, peace history, and the history of the world wars. Her current research projects include "The Disarmament of Hatred: History, Truth, and Franco-German Reconciliation from World War I to the Cold War."

Philippines Conference Room

Mona L. Siegel Assistant Professor of History Speaker California State University - Sacramento
Seminars
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