Stanford University

History

Supporting Revolution: American NGOs and Poland's Transition to Democracy, 1981-1989

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Greg Domber received his A.B in History and Philosophy from Lafayette College in 1997 and recently completed his Ph.D. in History at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. His dissertation, "Supporting the Revolution: America, Democracy, and the End of the Cold War in Poland, 1981-1989,"utilized a multi-archival, international history research approach combined with numerous oral history interviews to take a sober accounting of American and Western influences on Poland's democratic transformation from the declaration of martial law in December 1981 through the creation of the Mazowiecki government in August 1989.

At CDDRL, Greg plans to continue this research on international influences on Poland's transformation during the 1980s, focusing further work on the role played by non-governmental actors, particularly labor unions, émigré groups, humanitarian organizations, and American business interests.

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Gregory Domber

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CDDRL Hewlett Fellow 2007-2008
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Greg Domber received his A.B in History and Philosophy from Lafayette College in 1997 and recently completed his Ph.D. in History at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. His dissertation, "Supporting the Revolution: America, Democracy, and the End of the Cold War in Poland, 1981-1989,"utilized a multi-archival, international history research approach combined with numerous oral history interviews to take a sober accounting of American and Western influences on Poland's democratic transformation from the declaration of martial law in December 1981 through the creation of the Mazowiecki government in August 1989.

At CDDRL, Greg continued his research on international influences on Poland's transformation during the 1980s, focusing further work on the role played by non-governmental actors, particularly labor unions, émigré groups, humanitarian organizations, and American business interests.

Gregory Domber CDDRL Hewlett Fellow Speaker
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Luz Marina Arias

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CDDRL Hewlett Fellow 2007-2008
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Luz Marina Arias was a graduate student in the Department of Economics at Stanford University before coming to CDDRL. She was born and raised in Mexico City and completed her undergraduate studies in Economics in Mexico, at ITAM. Her research interests lie at the intersection of economics, political science, and history. She is interested in the impact on economic and political development of institutions that organize and coordinate economic and political behavior. Her current project focuses on one such central institution, the state, and studies the factors that lead to the emergence of the state as an entity centralizing coercive power. She studies Latin American history and in particular the experience of colonial Mexico in the transition to such a form of state.

Gregory Domber

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CDDRL Hewlett Fellow 2007-2008
IMG_0487.jpg

Greg Domber received his A.B in History and Philosophy from Lafayette College in 1997 and recently completed his Ph.D. in History at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. His dissertation, "Supporting the Revolution: America, Democracy, and the End of the Cold War in Poland, 1981-1989,"utilized a multi-archival, international history research approach combined with numerous oral history interviews to take a sober accounting of American and Western influences on Poland's democratic transformation from the declaration of martial law in December 1981 through the creation of the Mazowiecki government in August 1989.

At CDDRL, Greg continued his research on international influences on Poland's transformation during the 1980s, focusing further work on the role played by non-governmental actors, particularly labor unions, émigré groups, humanitarian organizations, and American business interests.

Unifying or Drifting Apart: National Identities in the Two Koreas

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The talk will explore conceptions of nation and national identity in both North Korea (DPRK) and South Korea (ROK) and the ways in which the two Koreas demonstrate areas of convergence and divergence in this all-important arena. While many Koreans still claim to be unified by primordial bonds of blood, language, and culture, differing ideals and priorities in the ROK and the DPRK have the potential of pushing the two Korea's further apart.

Larsen teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on the history of North and South Korea, East Asia, and the world, at the George Washington University. His book, Tradition, Trade and Empire: The Qing Empire and Choson Korea, is forthcoming. He has published, presented, and commented on a variety of contemporary issues including North Korea, nationalism and elections in South Korea, and Sino-Korean relations. He has appeared on ABC, MSNBC, VOA, the Canadian Broadcast System, and Al Jazeera. Dr. Larsen is the director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at the George Washington University. He received his PhD in history from Harvard University.

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Kirk Larsen Associate Professor of History and International Affairs Speaker The George Washington University
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Korean Studies Colloquium Series
Korea Program

After 60 years, Pakistanis struggle to find right course

Authors
Rafiq Dossani
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs

Two countries with a common and ancient civilization, India and Pakistan, celebrated 60 years of independence from colonial rule this week. At the time of independence, both countries were in danger of collapsing from internal and external threats. This greatly influenced both countries' subsequent turn toward centralism - in India's case, statism, and in Pakistan's case, army rule.

For four decades, both statism and army rule seemed irreversible. This was despite failures across the board: In both countries, territory was lost and the economy stagnated. Resources were spent on developing nuclear weaponry and on dealing with the Kashmir insurgency, which was fostered by Pakistan and repressed by India. What was left was often wasted through corruption. By 1990, it was common for Pakistan to be labeled a failed state and India, perhaps more damningly, a failed democracy.

Pakistan's army and feudal landlords, who shared political power via an informal coalition throughout the first 40 years, deserve most of the blame for Pakistan's failures. They carved up the economy among themselves, and let the poor survive by growing food and providing simple services to the rich. India's greater failures hid these strategies from national or global attention. Pakistan even overtook India for a while until Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's nationalizations of the 1970s brought them on par again.

Pakistan, a day older than India, but with an even younger population, seems to have aged more poorly over the past two decades. As the Indian economy picks up speed on the back of the 1991 reforms, India is on its way to becoming a global player in services and acquiring as formidable a reputation as China for job creation. The IT sector alone creates three new jobs every minute of each working day. In the four statistics that really matter - literacy, life expectancy, infant mortality rates and the female-to-male ratio - only in the last does Pakistan perform better than India and that, too, marginally. In the others, it is substantially worse.

There is no single reason for Pakistan's poorer performance. It turned as reformist as India in the 1990s. This has benefited some parts of its economy. For instance, the country adds over 2.5 million new cell phone users each month, or 1 for every second of the day. Though below India's rate of 2.7 new cell phone users per second, it is a much better ratio to the population.

Religious fervor is often accused, but has not - in either the subcontinent's history or in Pakistan's shorter one - been a barrier to development. Despite incidents such as led to the recent siege of the Red Mosque in Islamabad, theocratic parties have never received more than 15 percent of the popular vote - and that was three decades ago. Evidence within all the countries of South Asia provides proof of the proposition that the poor, regardless of faith or ethnicity, seek the means of development, particularly the acquisition of education. Muslims are no exception to this proposition. For instance, the first administrative district to reach 100 percent literacy in the subcontinent was the Muslim-majority district of Malappuram in the Indian state of Kerala.

Finally, one cannot simply blame performance on Pakistan not being a full democracy. The world abounds with more failed than successful democracies, while China provides the most stunning counterexample of a successful dictatorship. Pakistan's current state of governance - in which the military, the courts and parliament share power and the press is relatively free - has been achieved through decades of negotiation and may well be the best framework given its current stage of political maturity.

Yet, there is one difference that may be the real reason for Pakistan's backwardness, and it is now becoming evident - again, by comparison with India. It is linked to bad governance but does not always follow from the democratic tradition. The difference is, in a word, freedom. India provides a good example: The government used to decide how resources were spent, leaving citizens with few choices on careers, education and lifestyles - on participation in their nation's growth. Since the 1990s, the Indian state has worked hard to give its citizens more freedom. The result is an invigorated India.

Pakistan, meanwhile, has moved slowly on freedom. The state has withdrawn from the economy, but now grants favors selectively to the private sector, with the inevitable corollary of massive corruption and loss of freedom of action.

This suggests that Pakistan is only a crucial freedom step away from success. In reality, the immediate future does not look promising because the country's citizens do not have the political will to achieve real change. It is a sad commentary that Pakistan's choices for the next cycle of political rule look like bad ones: the continuation of the present system of quasi-military rule or its replacement with the destructive feudal forces that Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif represent. Surely, Pakistan's citizens deserve much better - something worth pondering as their nation celebrates turning 60.

Reprinted with permission by The San Jose Mercury News.

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The Long Way West: A Farewell to the German Question

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Professor Winkler portrays the 'German Question" through the lens of history in the past 150 years. He examines a variety of key issues that have arisen throughout German history and acknowledges that this 'German Question' period has come to an end. Professor Winkler also looks to Germany's future in Europe.

Synopsis

To Prof. Winkler, the reunification of Germany in 1990 resolved the ‘German Question.’ However, he argues that it has been a question not just since World War I but since the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806. Prof. Winkler believes that this event was not simply a struggle for territory but also involved striving for unity and freedom. These two key values, which Prof. Winkler emphasizes throughout his lecture, can be characterized by a constitutional nation-state. Prof. Winkler explains that although the 1848 Revolution was a failure, it was a step forward in that Germany realized that Austria was not going to be part of this nation-state when it would be created. Prof. Winkler cites that in creating the Prussian nation-state in 1871, Bismarck took care of the unity aspect. However, “parliamentization,” as he Prof. Winkler puts it, only occurred in 1918. He argues that this democratization of post-World War I Germany helped Hitler’s rise to power and then collapsed once Hitler started taking control of the government.

However, Prof. Winkler explains that Hitler’s fall initiated a learning process for the German people that was even more severe than after 1918, but this time not all had the chance to turn to democracy. Although many Germans longed to be reunited with their compatriots, a new mission for European integration of West Germany arose in as early as the late 1940s. Prof. Winkler explains it was an intellectual movement, primarily advanced by Catholic conservatives, which gradually shifted more to the middle and left. By 1986, this movement had shifted thoroughly left, at a time where many Germans had come to feel that the separation of East and West Germany was necessary, pointing to Auschwitz to support their point.

Prof. Winkler argues that once the Berlin Wall fell, the post-national identity that West Germany had created still remained. This created issues with many desiring European integration before German reunification. However, Prof. Winkler explains this notionwas argued down by notables such as Willy Brandt, who felt the guilt of World War II could not fade through indefinite division. Prof. Winkler argues that once Germany was reunified, although post-war guilt still remained, it had finally achieved unity and freedom, thus resolving the ‘German Question.’ Prof. Winkler finishes by revealing his belief in the uniqueness of German history in that while it belonged to the West, it had continually rejected the democratic enlightenment. Prof. Winkler emphasizes his belief that it is time for Germany to understand its history in order to know where ti stands now and how it can contribute to Europe. He argues that the way Germany confronts its history will be “crucial” to Europe as well.

About the speaker

Heinrich August Winkler studied history, philosophy, and public law in Tubingen, Heidelberg, and Munster. He was associate professor at the Freie Universitat in Berlin in 1970-72 and then professor of modern history in Freiburg until 1991. He has been at the Humboldt-Universitat in Berlin since 1992, and has been a visiting scholar in Princeton, at the Wilson Center in Washington, at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Berlin, and at the Historisches Kolleg in Munich. He is the author of numerous works including "Germany: The Long Road West," for which he won the Friedrich Schiedel Prize for Literature in 2002.

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Heinrich August Winkler Speaker
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The Spiral of State-Building and Confucian Revolution in Choson Korea

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On March 18, 1871, Taewongun (Grand Prince) who held real power when King Kojong (r. 1863-1907) assumed power at the age of 12, issued a historical order that was enforced nationwide: All Confucian private academies ever built, except for the forty-seven royal-chartered ones, were to be destroyed. To justify this unprecedented repression, Taewongun argued that the academies were "the fundamental causes for the decaying nation." During the period from 1865 to 1871, over 800 academies were abolished and these intermediate organizations largely disappeared from the central scene of the Korean history and politics. Taewongun's startling regulation of private academies was rather surprising. From the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, Choson monarchs enthusiastically encouraged and sponsored the establishment of the academies on the ground that the academy growth would contribute to country's moral reform and state-building. Why did the dramatic change of governmental policy on the academies occur? How can we resolve this historical enigma? To answer these questions, Koo situates this historical drama in a broader -structural- sociological context involving political competition between the state and nascent civil society, in association with his aim of overcoming the current historical explanations emphasizing more imminent causes of the abolition, such as military and fiscal abuses of the academies.

Jeong-Woo Koo is a visiting scholar at the department of sociology, Stanford University. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Stanford University in 2007. His interests include comparative-historical sociology, organizations, sociology of education, political sociology, quantitative method, and East-Asian studies. His dissertation explores a long term political competition between state and civil society in Choson Korea. He is currently working on two projects, one on the worldwide expansion of international human rights and its impact on nation-states (with John Meyer and Francisco Ramirez), and the other on the formation of regionalism in East Asia (with Gi-Wook Shin). His publications include "The Origins of the Public Sphere and Civil Society: Private Academies and Petitions in Korea, 1506-1800," Social Science History 31: 3 (Fall 2007), and "World Society and Human Rights: Worldwide Foundings of National Human Rights Institutions, 1978-2004," Korean Journal of Sociology 41: 3 (Spring 2007).

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Jeong-Woo Koo Visiting Scholar, Department of Sociology, Stanford University Speaker
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Korean Studies Colloquium Series

Jewish Life in Berlin and Germany Today

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Hermann Simon is a historian and director of the New Synagogue Berlin-Centrum Judaicum Foundation. From 1988 to 1995 he supervised the restoration of the historical building which houses the New Synagogue. He read history and oriental studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin, and undertook graduate work on oriental numismatics in Prague, receiving his doctorate in 1976. From 1977 to 1988 he was active in this field, working as curator of oriental coins at the Bode Museum and as Director of Public Relations at the Staatliche Museen, Berlin. He has directed numerous exhibitions at the New Synagogue Berlin-Centrum Judaicum Foundation and elsewhere.

Dr. Simon has authored numerous articles on the history of Jews in Germany and numismatics as well as the book Das Berliner Jüdische Museum in der Oranienburger Straße, the third edition of which appeared in 2000. He is editor of the book series, Jewish Memoirs and Jewish Miniatures, and coeditor of the book series Jews in Berlin (with Andreas Nachama and Julius Schoeps).

Dr. Simon's wife, Deborah Simon, will also be at this seminar. Ms. Simon studied translation and interpreting (English and Spanish) at Humboldt University in Berlin. She has spent her working life teaching German-English translation at her alma mater. Besides translating numerous articles, Ms. Simon has created teaching materials for a variety of university courses in translation studies.

Sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europe, the Taube Center for Jewish Studies, and the German Consulate of San Francisco.

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Hermann Simon Director of the New Synagogue Berlin - Centrum Judaicum Foundation Speaker
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Shorenstein APARC delegation visits Chinese scholars, policymakers, and business leaders

Authors
Daniel C. Sneider
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs
In April 2007, a delegation of scholars from Shorenstein APARC visited Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Beijing, fulfilling the center's mission to carry its work "into Asia." The delegation met senior officials from government and business and held wide-ranging exchanges with Chinese scholars and policymakers at leading universities and research institutions. The conversation ranged from China's development strategy to the current state of relations between China and its longtime rival and neighbor, Japan. Daniel Sneider, Shorenstein APARC's associate director for research, recalled the busy trip for FSI's regular newsletter, Encina Columns, (page 8).

Walking down a side street in Shanghai's French Concession, a partially preserved corner of that city's gloried and turbulent past, visitors come upon an ivy-covered house that served as the headquarters for the Shanghai branch of the Communist Party in the 1940s. Here the spartan quarters of Mao's second in command, Zhou Enlai, are carefully preserved, the narrow beds and wooden desks evoking a simpler, revolutionary China.

A short ride away, across the murky waters of the Huangpu River, monuments to the new China are being erected in what was farmland less than two decades ago. The Pudong New Area, with its clusters of highrise office towers and multi-story shopping malls, is emblematic of the rush to wealth and economic power that now drives China.

These were among the images from a visit to China by a delegation of scholars from the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center from April 8-14, 2007. Though time was short, the group managed to visit Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Beijing.

Fulfilling Shorenstein APARC's mission to carry its work "into Asia," the delegation met senior officials from government and business and held wide-ranging exchanges with Chinese scholars and policymakers at leading universities and research institutions. The conversation ranged from China's development strategy to the current state of relations between China and its longtime rival and neighbor, Japan.

The delegation was led by Shorenstein APARC director and professor of sociology Gi-Wook Shin and by professor of political science Jean C. Oi, who has launched the center's new China studies program. The group included Shorenstein distinguished fellow Ambassador Michael H. Armacost, associate director for research Daniel C. Sneider, and senior program and outreach coordinator Neeley Main. In Beijing, Freeman Spogli Institute director Coit Blacker joined the delegation, as did Shorenstein APARC's Scott Rozelle.

The trip started in Shanghai, a dynamic center of finance and industry that has drawn in many Stanford graduates. State-owned enterprises such as Baosteel, one of the world's largest steel producers, are in the midst of becoming players in the global marketplace. From Baosteel's sprawling complex of docks, blast furnaces, and rolling mills along an estuary of the Yangtze River, products are now being dispatched around the world. In a meeting, the leadership of the Baosteel Group expressed an eagerness to tap into the educational and training opportunities offered at Stanford University.

Shanghai is not only the business capital but also a political center, rivaling Beijing. The Shanghai Institute for International Studies is an unofficial foreign relations arm of the Shanghai government. Shanghai Institute scholars are also players in national policy debate on many key issues facing China, such as relations with Taiwan, with Japan, and even with the Korean peninsula.

The scholars presented their views on a wide range of issues, from the preparations for the 17th Congress of the Communist Party this coming fall to emerging structures of regional integration in East Asia. Professor Xu Mingqi, who is also a senior leader of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, explained that China's development strategy is shifting toward a more balanced approach. Whereas local government officials previously were pressed to meet targets for GDP growth, foreign investment, and export volume, now they must also raise employment levels, close the growing income gap, and provide social security.

Hangzhou, considered one of the most beautiful cities in China, is a two-hour drive south of Shanghai. The modern roadway passed a tableau of the suburbanization of this part of China's countryside, with multi-story brick homes mushrooming amidst the fields. The delegation arrived at Zhejiang University, considered among the best of China's provincial higher educational institutions and growing rapidly in size and scope.

The Shorenstein APARC delegation met with faculty members from Zhejiang's social science departments, who briefed the delegation on their research work in areas such as distance education, international relations, Chinese history, even a school of Korean studies. Zhejiang is also the site of a new research institution, the Zhejiang Institute for Innovation (ZII), founded by Stanford engineering graduate Min Zhu, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who is determined to bring the lessons of Stanford and the valley to his home province and his undergraduate alma mater. ZII aims to foster applied research that can tie the university to the vibrant entrepreneurial culture of Zhejiang province. Shorenstein APARC researchers may soon be carrying out fieldwork in this laboratory of change, based at ZII.

Beijing, however, is still the place that matters most in China, not only in the realm of government but also when it comes to academic scholarship. The delegation met with two of Shorenstein APARC's longtime corporate affiliates in China: PetroChina, the state-owned oil and gas giant, and the People's Bank of China. Shorenstein APARC dined with a lively group of Chinese journalists, organized by former Stanford Knight fellow Hu Shuli, the editor of Caijing Magazine, considered China's leading independent business publication.

The substantive task was to forge new ties with key research institutions. The current state of China's development strategy was again on the agenda when the delegation met with senior officials from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), formerly China's State Planning Commission. Alongside the NDRC, the delegation met as well with the leadership of an offshoot of China's State Council, the China Development Research Foundation, which is doing important work in promoting good governance in areas such as poverty alleviation, nutrition, and budgeting. Those conversations were echoed later in our meetings with scholars from Peking University's School of Government.

Shorenstein APARC's own China program, as Oi explained, is focused on understanding the tensions that arise as China grapples with the consequences of its rapid economic development. Out of the meetings in Beijing, an ongoing dialogue has begun, to be advanced this summer with a visit from a NDRC delegation and in the fall with an international conference at Stanford on China's Growing Pains.

The delegation also engaged in frank and useful exchanges on a variety of international relations issues. We had an extended meeting with scholars and leaders of the China Reform Forum (CRF), a think-tank associated with the Communist Party's Central Party School, the premier institution for training party leaders and officials. The CRF is credited with authoring important concepts such as the foreign policy doctrine of China's "Peaceful Rise." These discussions were followed by a visit and exchange with scholars from Peking University's widely respected School of International Studies.

The scholars shared analysis of the current state of the North Korean nuclear negotiations, as well as evaluating the outcome of Chinese Premier Wen Jibao's visit that week to Japan. Over dinner with CRF Vice Chairman Ding Kuisong, the conversation turned to the American presidential politics and the future direction of U.S. foreign policy.

Professors Blacker, Shin, and Oi also met with senior officials of Peking University, as part of an ongoing dialogue about cooperation between these two premier institutions of higher education.

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