Stanford University

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.

Implementing China's New Land Law: Evidence and Policy Lessons

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Increasing population pressure and non-agricultural demand for land have far-reaching implications for the way in which land rights are defined and access to land is regulated with a society. Unless clear and enforceable legal provisions are in place to impose constraints on the behavior of individual actors, this process may hurt the poor and/or have undesirable impacts on productivity. However, many countries, especially in Africa, have found it difficult to bring about legal change. Using the 2003 Rural Land Contracting Law as a point of departure, we describe recent changes of land relations in China, assess how legal provisions relate to practice, and describe progress in implementing the law. We find surprisingly rapid progress in implementation which is driven by a combination of centrally sponsored dissemination and democratic control at the local level. Issues for future research are identified.

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Publication Type
Working Papers
Publication Date
Authors
Scott Rozelle

APARC's Henry S. Rowen featured in new book on Bush's War Cabinet

Authors
Henry S. Rowen
News Type
News
Date
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APARC's Henry S. Rowen is featured in James Mann's new book for his role in formulating the military strategy that the United States should employ in a war against Iraq. The book details the Cheney-Wolfowitz-Rowen war plan -- dubbed "Operation Scorpion" -- which proposed an invasion of Iraq from the west, through the country's empty desert regions toward the Euphrates River.

APARC's Henry S. Rowen is featured in James Mann's new book, The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet, Viking Penguin: New York, 2004, pp 186-97, for his role in formulating the military strategy that the United States should employ in a war against Iraq. The book details the Cheney-Wolfowitz-Rowen war plan -- dubbed "Operation Scorpion" -- which proposed an invasion of Iraq from the west, through the country's empty desert regions toward the Euphrates River.

While campaigning for president in 2000, George W. Bush downplayed his lack of foreign policy experience by emphasizing that he would surround himself with a highly talented and experienced group of political veterans. This core group, consisting of Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Armitage, and Condoleezza Rice, has a long history together dating back 30 years in some cases. Dubbing themselves the Vulcans, they have largely determined the direction and focus of the Bush presidency. In this new book, Mann traces their careers and the development of their ideas in order to understand how and why American foreign policy got to where it is today.

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Malaysia after Mahathir: The Recent (March 21) Election and What It Means

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Future historians will mark the first national election to be held in Malaysia since the retirement of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad (1981-2003) as a watershed in the country's political history. Among key questions circulating in the run-up to the voting on 21 March 2004 were these: Would the ruling National Front gain or lose votes and seats? (Surprise: gained greatly.) Would the opposition Islamic Party, now in control of two states, improve or worsen its position? (Surprise: worsened sharply.) Would KeADILan, the political party which emerged after the sacking of Anwar Ibrahim, gain or lose? (Surprise: lost badly.) Answers to other questions were still unknown: Would the election benefit Malaysia's current Prime Minister, Abdullah Badawi, at the congress of his political party later this year? What would the ruling coalition's landslide imply for Malaysian democracy, stability, and development? For Malaysia's role in the campaign against terrorism? For the country's relations with its neighbors and with the U.S.? (Surprise: Come hear Elizabeth Wong and find out.)

This is the ninth seminar of the 2003-2004 academic year Southeast Asia Forum.

Okimoto Conference Room, Encina Hall

Elizabeth Wong Secretary-General National Human Rights Society (Hakam), Malaysia
Seminars
Southeast Asia Program

Ludger Kuehnhardt

616 Serra Street
Encina Hall, E106
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 723-0145 (650) 723-4811
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Visiting Scholar

Ludger Kuehnhardt was born in Muenster (Germany) in 1958. He is Director of the Center for European Integration Studies (ZEI), a think-tank of the University of Bonn which he helped to set up since 1997(www.zei.de). Prior to this, he was Chair of Political Science at the University of Freiburg and worked as Speechwriter for the former German President Richard von Weizsaecker. Ludger Kuehnhardt has been a Visiting Fellow ot Stanford's Hoover Institution in 1995/96. He was a Public-Policy Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington D.C. in 2002 and a Visiting Professor at Dartmouth College in 2000. He is a Visiting Professor at the Catholic University of Milan and at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna.

Prof. Kuehnhardts research interests center on transatlantic relations and European foreign and security policy in light of the joint new challenges in the Greater Middle East. He is also conducting research on the constitution-building process of the European Union and its ramification for European identity. His research interests include the "globalization" of regional integration processes and its link to the European integration experience.

He has wide range experiences in political and academic consulting work and has lectured in all continents. He studied history, philosophy and political science in Bonn, Geneva, Tokyo and at Harvard's Center for European Studies.

Ludger Kuehnhardt is the author of more than twenty books on Europe, transatlantic relations,political theory and history of ideas.

The Remaking of Austria After World War II: Occupation, Identity, and Society, 1945-55

June 4, Friday

9:00-9:30

Continental Breakfast

9:30-10:00

Opening remarks by Norman Naimark and Amir Eshel

10:00-12:30

Panel I: The Meaning of the Allied Occupation for Austrian History

Chair: Norman Naimark, Stanford University

Speaker: Michael Gehler, Innsbruck University, "Still 'Occupied' by Germany, 1945-1955"

Speaker: Oliver Rathkolb, Democracy Centre, Vienna, and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for History and Society, "The 'Allied Occupation' and the Collective Memory of Austrians after 1945"

Speaker: Guenter Bischof, University of New Orleans, "The Meaning of the Allied Occupation for Austrian History"

12:30-2:00

Lunch

2:00-4:30

Panel II: Society and Culture in Four-Power Austria

Chair: Amir Eshel, Stanford University

Speaker: Wendelin Schmidt-Denger, University of Vienna, "Austria 1945-1948-1995: Literature"

Speaker: Kristin Rebien, Stanford University, "Beyond the Dream: Paul Celan on Postwar Austrian Surrealism"

Speaker: Matti Bunzl, University of Illinois, Urbana, "Thinking the Center through the Margins: Jews and Homosexuals in Post-World War II Austria"

June 5, Saturday

9:00-9:30

Continental Breakfast

9:30-12:00

Panel II: The Soviet Factor

Chair: David Holloway, Stanford University

Speaker: Vojtech Mastny, Wilson Center, Washington D.C., "The Soviet Factor in the Remaking of Austria after World War II"

Speaker: Wolfgang Mueller, University of Vienna, "Some Aspects of the Political Mission of the USSR in Austria, 1943-45"

Speaker: Gennady Bordiugov, AIRO-XX Publishers, Russia, "Germany and Austria: View from the USSR"

Speaker: Norman Naimark, Stanford University, "Stalin and the Austrian Question"

12:00-1:00

Lunch

1:00-3:20

Panel IV: Central European Perspectives

Chair: Ludger Kuenhardt, Bonn University

Speaker: Arnold Suppan, University of Vienna, "Austria and Its Neighbors in the East, 1945-1948"

Speaker: Dietrich Orlow, Boston University, "Austria and Germany after World War II: Similarities and Differences Protocol"

Speaker: Peter Kenez, University of California, Santa Cruz, "Hungary, 1945-1948"

3:40-4:00

General Discussions

Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room

Workshops
Austria in the Postwar World

Divide between U.S. tech firms and China -- A Great Wall?

News Type
Commentary
Date
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The honeymoon between China and the U.S. tech industry is over, and the warm feelings may be gone for a while. APARC's Lawrence J. Lau comments.

History shows that these sorts of trade problems can last a long time. In the '80s, Japanese and U.S. semiconductor manufacturers sparred constantly. A truce only began in the '90s when Japan was already mired in an economic slide. Moreover, such trade quarrels can lead to global incompatibilities that linger for years and hurt both importers and exporters. "I believe there are genuine security concerns on China's part, although the domestic industry is also likely to benefit," said Lawrence Lau, the Kwoh-Ting Li professor of economic development at Stanford University. "This happens quite often. Our cell phones do not work in Japan, so the Japanese manufacturers and distributors have a lock in their home market. However, that did not exactly help Japan. By setting a different standard, Japan has actually limited the growth of its own cell phone companies."

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Walking the Tightrope: Civil Society and the Singapore State

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Consider the paradox: Singapore's economy is well developed, yet civil society in the city-state has failed to generate significant pressure for greater openness and more democracy. Nor does Singapore appear to have been affected by the ?Third Wave? of democratization that has swept other parts of the world. Scholars have tried to account for the conundrum by noting the deterrent effect of extensive state power, including the Internal Security Act (ISA), which allows for detention without trial. The state in Singapore has been likened to a large banyan tree whose omnipresent foliage casts shadows so wide and deep that no other organisms can take root or grow.

In her talk, Prof. Kadir will challenge this explanation as overdrawn. She will question the extent to which the Sinagpore state has remained immune from societal pressures, and explore the increasingly complex dynamics of society-state interaction. Based on a review of different civil-society actors and actions, she will highlight two modes in which social groups are proactive toward the state: by engaging it through interest advocacy, and by resisting it through efforts to protect their own autonomous space. The conventional wisdom is partly correct: Civil society does suffer the stunting shadows of the banyan tree. Yet social pressures are being felt. Ironically, some of these pressures, far from undermining the state, have helped it to remain strong.

Suzaina Kadir, currently a fellow at the Asia Research Institute in Singapore, is writing a book on state power and religious authority in Indonesia.

Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room

Suzaina Kadir Assistant Professor, Political Science National University of Singapore
Seminars
Southeast Asia Program

Anti-Americanism in Europe: A Cultural Problem

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Since September 11, 2001, the attitudes of Europeans toward the United States have grown increasingly more negative. For many in Europe, the terrorist attack on New York City was seen as evidence of how American behavior elicits hostility -- and how it would be up to Americans to repent and change their ways. In this revealing look at the deep divide that has emerged, Russell A. Berman explores the various dimensions of contemporary European anti-Americanism.

The author shows how, as the process of post-cold war European unification has progressed, anti-Americanism has proven to be a useful ideology for the definition of a new European identity. He examines this emerging identity and shows how it has led Europeans to a position hostile to any "regime change" by the United States -- no matter how bad the regime may be -- whether in Serbia, Afghanistan, or Iraq.

Berman details the elements -- some cultural, some simply irrational -- of this disturbing movement and tells why it is likely to remain a feature of relations between the United States and Europe for the foreseeable future. He explains how anti-Americanism operates like an obsessive prejudice and stereotype, impervious to rational arguments or factual proof, and shows how the negative response to U.S. policies can be traced to a larger, more deeply rooted movement against globalization.

Anti-Americanism in Western Europe is not just a friendly disagreement, it is a widening chasm. This book makes a major contribution to understanding this important ideological challenge.

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Publication Type
Books
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Hoover Press
Authors
Russell A. Berman
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