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.
Stanford Law School, Room 190
Stanford Law School, Room 190
CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C144
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Erik Jensen holds joint appointments at Stanford Law School and Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. He is Lecturer in Law, Director of the Rule of Law Program at Stanford Law School, an Affiliated Core Faculty at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and Senior Advisor for Governance and Law at The Asia Foundation. Jensen began his international career as a Fulbright Scholar. He has taught and practiced in the field of law and development for 35 years and has carried out fieldwork in approximately 40 developing countries. He lived in Asia for 14 years. He has led or advised research teams on governance and the rule of law at the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the African Development Bank. Among his numerous publications, Jensen co-edited with Thomas Heller Beyond Common Knowledge: Empirical Approaches to the Rule of Law (Stanford University Press: 2003).
At Stanford, he teaches courses related to state building, development, global poverty and the rule of law. Jensen’s scholarship and fieldwork focuses on bridging theory and practice, and examines connections between law, economy, politics and society. Much of his teaching focuses on experiential learning. In recent years, he has committed considerable effort as faculty director to three student driven projects: the Afghanistan Legal Education Project (ALEP) which started and has developed a law degree-granting programs at the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF), an institution where he also sits on the Board of Trustees; the Iraq Legal Education Initiative at the American University of Iraq in Sulaimani (AUIS); and the Rwanda Law and Development Project at the University of Rwanda. He has also directed projects in Bhutan, Cambodia and Timor Leste. With Paul Brest, he is co-leading the Rule of Non-Law Project, a research project launched in 2015 and funded by the Global Development and Poverty Fund at the Stanford King Center on Global Development. The project examines the use of various work-arounds to the formal legal system by economic actors in developing countries. Eight law faculty members as well as scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute are participating in the Rule of Non-Law Project.
Using annotated lectures of a Stanford University course and various activities, students explore five important environmental topics: the environment and security, population, the idea of "sustainable development," free trade and the environment, and climate change.
Stanford Law School
Stanford University
SCICN, Gould Center
Stanford, CA 94305-8610
Byron Bland is associate director of the Stanford Center on Conflict and Negotiation and a research associate at CDDRL. An ordained Presbyterian minister and former Stanford campus chaplain, he has served as an ombudsman and conflict resolution consultant for various community and church groups. His more recent work concerns the politics of reconciliation in divided societies.
After serving the Stanford campus for 18 years as a chaplain, Bland left that post in 1994 to concentrate on peacemaking efforts in Northern Ireland. He is currently involved in a research project exploring the social and political dynamics of reconciliation with Community Dialogue, a grassroots dialogue organization in Northern Ireland. He is also working with community groups and civil leaders in the Israel and the West Bank.
Before coming to Stanford University in 1976, Bland was the pastor of a multiracial, urban church in San Francisco. While at Stanford, he was appointed an associate fellow at the Program for Interdisciplinary Studies during 1993-1994. He is a founding member of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion. For the past 20 years, he has taught an interdisciplinary course on peace at Stanford. He has also served as a lecturer in the Stanford Law School, the School of Education, and the International Relations program. He received an undergraduate degree in industrial engineering from Georgia Tech, an MA in social ethics and a master of divinity degree from the San Francisco Theological Seminary.
Philippines Conference Room, Encina Hall, Third Floor, Central Wing
Philippines Conference Room, Encina Hall, Third Floor, Central Wing
Work on the complex and evolving nature of sovereignty has been underway at Stanford IIS since the mid-1990s. The Center will build on this foundation of knowledge by taking up the issues of intervention, or efforts by external actors to alter domestic authority structures in other states. While influencing domestic authority structures of target states has been central to statecraft for centuries, it has been all but ignored by most international relations theorists.
Nearly half the world's population - some 2.8 billion people - lives on less than two dollars per day. The gap between the rich and the poor is vast. There are two overarching reasons for those fortunate enough to reside in the more affluent West to be concerned about poverty in the developing world. One is humanitarian. The other is self-interest. Poverty triggers violence. In the over one hundred large civil wars that have engulfed many parts of the world since the Second World War, the leading cause of insurgency is poverty - not ethnicity or religion.
During the Meiji period, the ancient ball game of kemari-in which participants use their feet to keep a small ball aloft-and its few remaining enthusiasts received governmental support as part of performative efforts to connect the new modern state with an authentically "Japanese" past. Most commonly remembered as a favorite pastime of Heian court nobles, kemari has been played by modern aficionados adorned in "traditional" costumes throughout the 20th century at numerous state events. These athletic performances repeatedly have reconnected Japan for outside observers and its own citizens with an image of perduring tradition and cultural uniqueness. In this paper, I will explore how kemari has been reconsidered and celebrated for a different purpose in recent years. Efforts by the Japan Football Association (JFA) to first secure and then ensure the success of the 2002 World Cup co-hosted with South Korea occasioned a new role for kemari. In the years leading up to the World Cup, government authorities, JFA officials, and kemari supporters have positioned kemari as the oldest precursor to the modern game of association football or soccer. Through an examination of the often carefully choreographed museum exhibitions, media releases, and public stagings of kemari produced around and during the World Cup, I will contemplate the ways that history is used to claim legitimacy and authenticity in the present. I will consider ideas about the relationship between past and present inherent in claims by scholars from Japan and elsewhere, who have contributed to contemporary narratives of continuity and connection between kemari and modern soccer. Lastly, I will suggest how new understandings of kemari may be altering individuals' understanding of Japaneseness and Japan's place in, and relationship with the rest of the world.
Oksenberg Conference Room, Third Floor South, Encina Hall