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Benjamin Self chosen as Center's Takahashi Fellow in Japanese Studies

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The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center has selected Benjamin Self as the Takahashi Fellow in Japanese Studies. He will take up his position at the start of the 2008-2009 academic year.

As a senior research scholar, Self will develop and promote Japanese studies and research at Shorenstein APARC. Self has worked across a broad range of topics related to contemporary Japan, analyzing issues in security, international relations, domestic politics and political economy.
"We very much look forward to Ben joining us at the center. Japanese studies and research have been a historic strength at the center and we have great plans for strengthening and broadening these programs." says director of the center, Gi-Wook Shin
Self comes to Shorenstein APARC from the Henry L. Stimson Center where he was a senior associate. Previously, he worked with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. and was a visiting research fellow at Keio University in Tokyo where he conducted research on Japanese foreign and security policy, with particular focus on Japan-China relations.

Self returns to Stanford University where he received his A.B. in political science. He also received a M.A. in Japan studies and international economics from Johns Hopkins University's Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.

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Michael Korver speaks on venture capital in Japan

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Venture capitalist, attorney and educator Michael Korver opened SPRIE's spring seminar series on new post-bubble patterns of entrepreneurship in Japan. Korver, a managing partner in Japan's Global Venture Capital, spoke on how he has seen venture capital evolve there in light of his own firm's experiences.

Korver argued that despite a number of problems surrounding the venture capital situation in Japan--a surplus of capital overwhelmingly from large entities in the financial services sector, low perceptions of entrepreneurial activity, and a lack of "high growth expectation" entrepreneurial activity--Tokyo offers a number of advantages to entrepreneurs, perhaps the most significant being Japan's early-adopter, high-consumption domestic market.

"Tokyo is... the perfect incubator for new businesses, ...but the Japanese leaders do not understand that the future of Japan... is absolutely dependent on creating entrepreneurial innovation."
-Michael Korver

He conceded that things have gotten worse since 2006: the backlash from the Livedoor/Takafumi Horie scandal and the resulting drop in the stock market, a 20% withholding tax on investment in Japan from foreign sources and the Ministry of Finance's regulation of industries that use limited partnerships like the venture capital industry have all added up to a drying-up of VC investments and a drop in IPOs in Japan.

Nonetheless, Korver will continue to have Tokyo as his base of operations. "Tokyo is... the perfect incubator for new businesses, ...but the Japanese leaders do not understand that the future of Japan... is absolutely dependent on creating entrepreneurial innovation."

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Implementation of European Law in the New Member States of the EU

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Adoption of European law was a central part of the accession process of new member states of the EU but turned out to be much more difficult than implementation of European Law in the old member states. Problems included not only the amount of European legislation, its dynamic nature and language problems. Literal implementation resulted in diminishing the coherence of national legal rules and structures. In addition, legislation did not take account of national specifics and differences in legal culture. Built-up of working institutions and procedures takes time and efforts and deficiencies add to hampering implementation and application of European law.

Many problems of new member states in the accession process are present in the old member states as well. They may lead to a review of the European legislative process and structural reforms. The pace of legislation should slow down, it should be more reflexive and “re-connect” to the national and local level. Care should also be taken by national legislators in better integrating European law into national law. Structural reform would include strengthening of democratic institutions on a European level including the European court system. This should be accompanied by practical cooperation and mutual exchange.

Prof. Dr. Wiebe studied law at the University of Hannover, Germany, and at the University of Virginia (U.S.A.) where he received the LL.M. degree in 1988. In 2001 he completed his habilitation. Since Sept. 2002 he is a professor on the newly established Chair for Information Law and Intellectual Property Law at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration (www.infolaw.at). Prof. Dr. Wiebe is a member of various academic associations and Vice President of the German Computer Law Association (DGRI e.V.).

Stanford Law School
Room 182

Andreas Wiebe

Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration
Department of Information Technology Law and Intellectual Property Law
Althanstrasse 39-45
1090 Wien

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Distinguished Visiting Austrian Chair Professor, 2007-2008
Visiting Professor, Stanford Law School
Head of the Deparment of Information Technology and Intellectual Property Law, Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration
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Andreas Wiebe, LL.M., is Head of the Deparment of Information Technology and Intellectual Property Law at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration. From January through June 2008, Professor Wiebe served as Distinguished Visiting Austrian Chair Professor at the Forum on Contemporary Europe, during which time he taught courses in e-commerce law and intellectual property law at the Stanford Law School. Professor Wiebe co-organized the June 14 "Transatlantic Information Law Symposium," held at the Stanford Law School and presented by the Transatlantic Technology Law Forum and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

Andreas Wiebe Chair for Information Law and Intellectual Property Law Speaker Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration
Seminars

Petrostate: Putin, Power and the New Russia

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In the aftermath of the financial collapse of August 1998, it looked as if Russia's day as a superpower had come and gone. That it should recover and reassert itself after less than a decade is nothing short of an economic and political miracle.
 
Marshall Goldman incorporated extensive research, including several interviews with Vladimir Putin, in his new revealing book that chronicles Russia's dramatic reemergence on the world stage, illuminating the key reason for its rebirth: the use of its ever-expanding energy wealth to reassert its traditional great power ambitions. Goldman traces how this has come to be, and how Russia is using its oil-based power as a lever in world politics. Goldman provides an informative overview of oil in Russia, traces Vladimir Putin's determined effort to reign in the upstart oil oligarchs who had risen to power in the post-Soviet era, and describes Putin's efforts to renationalize and refashion Russia's industries into state companies and his vaunted "national champions" corporations like Gazprom, largely owned by the state, who do the bidding of the state. Goldman shows how Russia paid off its international debt and has gone on to accumulate the world's third largest holdings of foreign currency reserves--all by becoming the world's largest producer of petroleum and the world's second largest exporter. Today, Vladimir Putin and his cohort have stabilized the Russian economy and recentralized power in Moscow, and fossil fuels (oil and natural gas) have made it all possible.
 
The story of oil and gas in Russia is a tale of discovery, intrigue, corruption, wealth, misguidance, greed, patronage, nepotism, and power. Marshall Goldman tells this story with panache, as only one of the world's leading authorities on Russia could.

About the Speaker
Marshall I. Goldman is the Kathryn W. Davis Professor of Soviet Economics Emeritus at Wellesley College and until he retired, the Associate Director of the Davis Center for Russian Studies at Harvard University. He earned a B.S. in economics from the WhartonSchool of the University of Pennsylvania (1952), and an M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University, as well as an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1985. He has also been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Dr. Goldman’s publications include The Piratization of the Russian Economy, (Routledge April 2003), Lost Opportunity: Why Economic Reforms in Russia Have Not Worked (W.W. Norton, 1994), What Went Wrong with Perestroika: The Rise and Fall of Mikhail Gorbachev (W.W. Norton, 1991), Gorbachev’s Challenge: Economic Reform in the Age of High Technology (1987), The USSR in Crisis: The Failure of an Economic Model (1983), The Enigma of Soviet Petroleum: Half Empty or Half Full? ((1980), Détente and Dollars: Doing Business with the Soviets (1975), The Spoils of Progress: Environmental Pollution in the Soviet Union (1972), and Ecology and Economics: Controlling Pollution in the 70’s (1972). Dr. Goldman has published widely in Foreign Affairs, Atlantic Monthly, Boston Globe, Harvard Business Review, New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. He is a frequent guest on CNN and “Good Morning America” and has appeared on “NewsHour”, “Crossfire”, “Face the Nation”, “The Today Show”, “Nightline”, and NPR.

Dr. Goldman’s latest book, to be published by Oxford University Press in April, 2008, is Petrostate: Putin, Power and the New Russia.

This seminar is jointly sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europe and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.

CISAC Conference Room

Marshall Goldman Professor Emeritus of Soviet Economics Speaker Wellesley College
Seminars
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