Stanford University

October 2009 Dispatch - The DPJ and New Asianism

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The coming to power of a new party in Japan, with a strong mandate to rule, is unprecedented in the postwar era. In the aftermath of the Japanese elections in August of this year, there has been much discussion, particularly in the Japanese media, about the foreign policy orientation of the new Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)-led administration. Some commentators see an “anti-American” tilt—evidenced by differing views on the relocation of U.S. bases in Okinawa and the renewal of Japanese naval refueling operations in the Indian Ocean.

This viewpoint misses the foreign policy forest for its trees. The paradigm-shifting potential of this change lies much more in the DPJ’s desire to re-center Japan’s foreign policy on Asia. Across the spectrum of the DPJ, from former socialists on the left to those who came out of the conservative Liberal Democratio Party (LDP), there is broad agreement on the need to put much greater emphasis on Japan’s ties to the rest of Asia, particularly to China and South Korea.

The new Asianism in Japanese foreign policy was on display at the October 10 triangular summit of the Chinese, South Korean, and Japanese leaders, held in Beijing. It was only the second time these three have met on their own and the meeting was substantive, covering everything from coordinating on North Korea and economic stimulus policy to taking initial steps toward formation of a new East Asian Community. “Until now, we have tended to be too reliant on the United States,” Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama told reporters after the meeting, adding that “The Japan-U.S. alliance remains important, but as a member of Asia, I would like to develop policies that focus more on Asia.”

The dominant foreign policy camp in Japan has been what Hitoshi Tanaka, a former senior foreign ministry official and close advisor to the DPJ, calls “alliance traditionalists,” whom he defines as those who “place the maintenance of a robust alliance with the United States above all other foreign policy priorities.” In the view of some DPJ policy advisors, the previous conservative governments mistakenly tried to cope with the challenge of a rising China by getting as close to the United States as possible. The decision to send troops to Iraq and the Indian Ocean was prompted not by any deep support for those causes but rather by the belief that this would ensure U.S. support in any tensions with China, and with North Korea.

All this took place as Sino-Japanese relations descended into their most troubled phase in the postwar period, prompted by former Prime Minister Koizumi’s provocative visits to Yasukuni Shrine, which honors Japan’s war dead. High-level contacts with China were frozen, tensions rose over territorial issues in the East China Sea, and rising nationalism on both sides culminated in the outbreak of government-sanctioned anti-Japanese riots in 2005 and a Chinese campaign to block Japan’s permanent membership in the United Nations Security Council.

There was an attempt by Koizumi’s conservative successors to roll back some of these tensions. But those signals were always mixed with the persistence of anti-Chinese views and the powerful camp of rightwing nationalists in and around the LDP who cling to a revisionist view of Japan’s wartime role, some even indulging in a vigorous defense of Japanese imperialism.

In the view of DPJ policy advisers, this pseudo-containment strategy is doomed to failure. Given the increasing economic interdependence between the United States and China, and their overlapping strategic interests, the United States will never form an anti-China front. Japan cannot rely solely, these advisers argue, on the U.S.-Japan security alliance to deal with China’s bid for regional hegemony.

Nor can Japan afford to indulge fantasies of confrontation with China, given its own extensive ties to its economy and society. Rather, the greater threat, in the view of many Japanese analysts, is being abandoned by the United States through the formation of a U.S.-China “Group of Two” that effectively excludes Japan, or relegates it to second-level status in the region.

Japan, those policymakers argue, needs to preempt that threat by engaging Asia on its own—not only China, but the entire region, from India back to Korea. The DPJ’s own policy vision, articulated by Prime Minister Hatoyama, Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada, and party strongman Ichiro Ozawa, remains vaguely defined but has three clear elements:

  • The U.S.-Japan security alliance remains the cornerstone, but with limits.
  • Japan plays a leadership role in East Asian regionalism.
  • The “history” question must be resolved.

What does this mean? There should be little question, particularly after the initial meetings between the new government and the Obama administration, that the DPJ seeks to back away from the security alliance. Over the past fifteen years, the DPJ leadership has not only supported, but even led, the expansion of Japan’s security role, beginning with the passage of the 1992 law permitting Japanese participation
in peacekeeping operations and including the initial dispatch of naval forces to the Indian Ocean in response to 9/11. Though the DPJ has made commitments to reduce the U.S. presence in Okinawa, it is already realizing how difficult that is to accomplish; some kind of compromise on this issue is imminent. Similarly, Foreign Minister Okada’s visit to Afghanistan and Pakistan demonstrated a willingness to contribute, mostly through economic aid, to the security effort in both countries.

Prime Minister Hatoyama presented his somewhat romantic desire to reproduce the European experience to create an East Asian Community in September before the United Nations General Assembly. Hatoyama has indicated that he understands this is a long process, and has been careful to make clear that Japan has no intention of excluding the United States’ role in the region, nor the use of the dollar as a reserve currency. As Hatoyama put in his UN address:

Today, there is no way that Japan can develop without deeply involving itself in Asia and the Pacific region. Reducing the region’s security risks and sharing each other’s economic dynamism based on the principle of “open regionalism” will result in tremendous benefits not only for Japan but also for the region and the international community.

Given the historical circumstances arising from its mistaken actions in the past, Japan has hesitated to play a proactive role in this region. It is my hope that the new Japan can overcome this history and become a “bridge” among the countries of Asia.

I look forward to an East Asian community taking shape as an extension of the accumulated cooperation built up step by step among partners who have the capacity to work together, starting with fields in which we can cooperate—free frade agreements, finance, currency, energy, environment, disaster relief and more. Of course, Rome was not built in a day, so let us seek to move forward steadily on this, even if at a moderate pace.

DPJ policymakers advocate pursuit of an East Asian community as only one of a nest of regional structures, including a regional security system that might grow out of the Six Party talks on North Korea. They also embrace the idea of a Japan-U.S.-China strategic dialogue, based on their own perception that without the combined muscle of the United States and Japan, they cannot bring China to the table on a range of issues from energy to intellectual property.

The last element of the DPJ’s policy vision is to take another major step in clearing away the legacy of the wartime past. Hatoyama personally reaffirmed his government’s adherence to the statement on war responsibility issued by then Prime Minister Murayama in 1995, at the time of the 50th anniversary of the end of the war.

Hatoyama, Ozawa and others in the DPJ leadership are determined to confront the history issue in a way that eases tensions with China and South Korea and also closes doors backward. They will not only refuse to go to the Yasukuni Shrine but also want to remove the Class A war criminals whose “souls” are enshrined there by decision of the shrine authorities, to the consternation of the Emperor, among others. The DPJ led the hue and cry over the unapologetic revisionism of former Japanese air force chief of staff, General Toshio Tamogami, who wrote an essay justifying Japan’s colonialism and wartime aggression, including the attack on Pearl Harbor. Foreign Minister Okada has backed the creation of a joint history textbook by China, Japan and South Korea, based on the model followed by France and Germany. These are stances the LDP has been historically incapable of taking.

The DPJ draws some inspiration from the anti-imperial form of Asianism—“Small Nipponism”—championed by the late Tanzan Ishibashi, who served briefly as premier in the mid-1950s and who was allied to Hatoyama’s beloved grandfather, and former premier, Ichiro Hatoyama.

In the coming months, the Hatoyama government will have numerous opportunities to develop its new policies, particularly in the run-up to Japan’s hosting of the APEC summit next year. Undoubtedly, it will be difficult to implement in practice, but this new Asianism marks a clear turning point in Japan’s postwar foreign policy.

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Pluralism and Global Justice

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Cristina Lafont is presently a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Northwestern University. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Frankfurt . Habilitation, University of Frankfurt. She specializes in German philosophy, particularly hermeneutics and critical theory. She has also published in philosophy of language and contemporary moral and political philosophy. She is author of The Linguistic Turn in Hermeneutic Philosophy (MIT Press, 1999) and Heidegger, Language, and World-disclosure (Cambridge University Press, 2000).

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When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation

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This talk provides an overview of deliberative democracy projects conducted by the Center for Deliberative Democracy and its partners in China, Northern Ireland, Brazil, Bulgaria, Greece, Poland and other countries as well as on a European-wide basis. The projects all involve scientific random samples deliberating about policy choices and providing the before and after results as an input to policy making. The talk will focus particularly on the challenges of conducting such projects when they are intended as a precursor to further democratization or when there is ethnic conflict.

James S. Fishkin holds the Janet M. Peck Chair in International Communication at Stanford University where he is Professor of Communication and Professor of Political Science. He is also Director of Stanford's Center for Deliberative Democracy and Chair of the Dept of Communication.

He is the author of a number of books including Democracy and Deliberation: New Directions for Democratic Reform (1991), The Dialogue of Justice (1992 ), The Voice of the People: Public Opinion and Democracy (1995). With Bruce Ackerman he is co-author of Deliberation Day (Yale Press, 2004). His new book When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation will be published by Oxford University Press in fall 2009.

He is best known for developing Deliberative Polling® - a practice of public consultation that employs random samples of the citizenry to explore how opinions would change if they were more informed. Professor Fishkin and his collaborators have conducted Deliberative Polls in the US, Britain, Australia, Denmark, Bulgaria, China, Greece and other countries.

Fishkin has been a Visiting Fellow Commoner at Trinity College, Cambridge as well as a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, a Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington and a Guggenheim Fellow.

Fishkin received his B.A. from Yale in 1970 and holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale as well as a second Ph.D. in Philosophy from Cambridge.

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James S. Fishkin holds the Janet M. Peck Chair in International Communication at Stanford University, where he is a Professor of Communication and Professor of Political Science (by courtesy). He is also Director of the Deliberative Democracy Lab at CDDRL (formerly the Center for Deliberative Democracy).

He is the author of a number of books, including Democracy and Deliberation: New Directions for Democratic Reform (Yale University Press, 1991), The Dialogue of Justice (Yale University Press, 1992 ), The Voice of the People: Public Opinion and Democracy (Yale University Press 1995). With Bruce Ackerman, he is the co-author of Deliberation Day (Yale University Press, 2004). And more recently, When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation (Oxford University Press, 2009 and Democracy When the People Are Thinking (Oxford University Press, 2018).

He is best known for developing Deliberative Polling® — a practice of public consultation that employs random samples of the citizenry to explore how opinions would change if they were more informed. Professor Fishkin and his collaborators have conducted Deliberative Polls in the US, Britain, Australia, Denmark, Bulgaria, China, Greece, Mongolia, Uganda, Tanzania, Brazil,  and other countries.

Fishkin has been a Visiting Fellow Commoner at Trinity College, Cambridge, as well as a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Fishkin received his B.A. from Yale in 1970 and holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale as well as a second Ph.D. in Philosophy from Cambridge.

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Nuclear Power Without Nuclear Proliferation?

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The global nuclear order is changing. Concerns about climate change, the volatility of oil prices, and the security of energy supplies have contributed to a widespread and still-growing interest in the future use of nuclear power. Thirty states operate one or more nuclear power plants today, and according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), some 50 others have requested technical assistance from the agency to explore the possibility of developing their own nuclear energy programs. This surge of interest in nuclear energy - labeled by some proponents as ‘the renaissance in nuclear power' - is occurring simultaneously with mounting concerns about the healthy of the nuclear nonproliferation regime, the regulatory framework that constrains and governs the world's civil and military- related nuclear affairs. The question then arises: is it possible to have nuclear power without nuclear proliferation? The answer is not clear, for the technical, economic, and political factors that will determine whether future generations will have more nuclear power without more nuclear proliferation are exceedingly complex and interrelated. Dr. Sagan will outline the current state of nuclear power and nuclear proliferation, before examining the weaknesses and promise of existing research on the subject. He argues that a key aspect of ensuring a safe nuclear future will be the strengthening of the NPT through "shared responsibility" for disarmament.

Scott Sagan is a professor of political science and co-director of Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation. Before joining the Stanford faculty, Sagan was a lecturer in the Department of Government at Harvard University and served as a special assistant to the director of the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon. He has also served as a consultant to the office of the Secretary of Defense and at the Sandia National Laboratory and the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Sagan is the author of Moving Targets: Nuclear Strategy and National Security (Princeton University Press, 1989), The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton University Press, 1993), and with co-author Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed (W.W. Norton, 2002). He is the co-editor of Peter R. Lavoy, Scott D. Sagan, and James L. Wirtz, Planning the Unthinkable (Cornell University Press, 2000) and the editor of Inside Nuclear South Asia (Stanford University Press, 2009). His most recent publications include "The Case for No First Use," Survival (June 2009) and "Good Faith and Nuclear Disarmament Negotiations" in George Perkovich and James A. Acton (eds.) Abolishing Nuclear Weapons: A Debate (Carnegie Endowment, 2009).

Allen S. Weiner is senior lecturer in law and co-director of the Stanford Program in International Law at Stanford Law School. He is also the co-director of the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation. His expertise is in the field of public international law and the foreign relations law of the United States. He is a seasoned international lawyer with experience in such wide-ranging fields as national security law, the law of war, international dispute resolution, and international criminal law. His current scholarship focuses on international law and the response to the contemporary security threats of international terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. For more than a decade he practiced international law in the U.S. Department of State, serving as an attorney-adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser and as legal counselor at the U.S. Embassy in The Hague. In those capacities, he advised government policy-makers, negotiated international agreements, and represented the United States in litigation before the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal and the International Court of Justice. He teaches courses in public international law, international conflict resolution, and international security matters at Stanford Law School. He received a BA from Harvard College and a JD from Stanford Law School.

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Scott D. Sagan

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Stanford University
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The Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science
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Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
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Scott D. Sagan is the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science, the Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, and a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, where he previously served as the social science co-director. He is the Inaugural Harry Frank Guggenheim Fellow for Nuclear Ethics and Security at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs (2026-2027). Sagan also serves as co-chair of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Committee on International Security Studies. Before joining the Stanford faculty, he was a lecturer in the Department of Government at Harvard University and served as special assistant to the director of the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon.

Sagan is the author of Moving Targets: Nuclear Strategy and National Security (Princeton University Press, 1989); The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton University Press, 1993); and, with co-author Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: An Enduring Debate (W.W. Norton, 2012). He is the co-editor of Insider Threats (Cornell University Press, 2017) with Matthew Bunn; and co-editor of The Fragile Balance of Terror (Cornell University Press, 2022) with Vipin Narang. Sagan was also the guest editor of a two-volume special issue of Daedalus: Ethics, Technology, and War (Fall 2016) and The Changing Rules of War (Winter 2017).

Recent publications include “Creeds and Contestation: How US Nuclear and Legal Doctrine Influence Each Other,” with Janina Dill, in a special issue of Security Studies (December 2025); “Kettles of Hawks: Public Opinion on the Nuclear Taboo and Noncombatant Immunity in the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Israel”, with Janina Dill and Benjamin A. Valentino in Security Studies (February 2022); “The Rule of Law and the Role of Strategy in U.S. Nuclear Doctrine” with Allen S. Weiner in International Security (Spring 2021); “Does the Noncombatant Immunity Norm Have Stopping Power?” with Benjamin A. Valentino in International Security (Fall 2020); and “Just War and Unjust Soldiers: American Public Opinion on the Moral Equality of Combatants” and “On Reciprocity, Revenge, and Replication: A Rejoinder to Walzer, McMahan, and Keohane” with Benjamin A. Valentino in Ethics & International Affairs (Winter 2019).

In 2022, Sagan was awarded Thérèse Delpech Memorial Award from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace at their International Nuclear Policy Conference. In 2017, he received the International Studies Association’s Susan Strange Award which recognizes the scholar whose “singular intellect, assertiveness, and insight most challenge conventional wisdom and intellectual and organizational complacency" in the international studies community. Sagan was also the recipient of the National Academy of Sciences William and Katherine Estes Award in 2015, for his work addressing the risks of nuclear weapons and the causes of nuclear proliferation. The award, which is granted triennially, recognizes “research in any field of cognitive or behavioral science that advances understanding of issues relating to the risk of nuclear war.” In 2013, Sagan received the International Studies Association's International Security Studies Section Distinguished Scholar Award. He has also won four teaching awards: Stanford’s 1998-99 Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching; Stanford's 1996 Hoagland Prize for Undergraduate Teaching; the International Studies Association’s 2008 Innovative Teaching Award; and the Monterey Institute for International Studies’ Nonproliferation Education Award in 2009.     

Former co-director, Center for International Security and Cooperation
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Potential Misuses of the Internet in a Dystopic World

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Abstract
Technology can be a positive force for decentralization, but in extreme cases this can lead to chaos.  Technology can also be a positive force for centralization, creating huge value.  However, in extreme cases the potential for centralization could play into the hands of governments with totalitarian aspirations.  I will explore examples of each, and also of how technology companies can create systems and processes that prevent this kind of abuse.  I will bring up some of the most difficult decisions I have faced in my career and give the class a chance to tell me what they would have done in my shoes.

Kim Scott is the Director of Online Sales and Operations for AdSense and YouTube at Google. In that role, she is responsible for managing Google's worldwide network of partner publishers and building the YouTube community and YPP program.

 Prior to joining Google, Kim was the CEO and co-founder of Juice Software, a business intelligence start-up based in New York City. Kim was VP of Business Development at two other technology start-ups: CapitalThinking, a commercial mortgage ASP and Delta Three, an Internet telephony service provider.  Earlier in her career, Kim managed a pediatric clinic in Kosovo, served as senior policy adviser to Reed Hundt at the FCC, and worked in Moscow from 1990-1994.

Kim is the author of three unpublished novels, The Measurement Problem, The
Househusband, and Virtual Love.  Kim currently sits on the advisory board for Sunlight Foundation and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.  

Summary of the Seminar
Kim Scott, Director AdSense Online Sales & Operations at Google, explored the potential of new technology for both increasing decentralization and centralization. Decentralization refers to the capacity of the internet to disperse power and influence to many more people. In the political context, this has (arguably) enabled greater citizen activism. In business, online advertising enables start-ups to get going without relying on venture capitalist funding. Individuals have greater capacity for personal expression now that they can bypass publishing power houses and distribute their own work at virtually no cost. Corresponding to these benefits are a number of negative impacts. The same technology that allows pro-democracy groups to come together also enables terrorists and pedophile groups to organize and perpetrate harm on a greater scale.

Technology also allows for increasing centralization. The Internet provides a place for the world's information to be easily organized and accessed. But with this comes the risk that certain groups (particularly authoritarian governments) could deliberately misinform citizens.  

Kim raised a number of dilemmas for discussion, including:

  • How should technology companies respond to requests from governments to hand over data?
  • How should Internet companies respond to different countries' understanding of what content is acceptable? Google's policy to date has been to allow different access in different countries but it has stopped short of allowing any one country to dictate what others countries see.

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Rides of a lifetime: A tribute to Ron Raikes

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On September 5th, Ron Raikes was tragically killed in a farm accident. Ron was a stellar Nebraska farmer, an outstanding state senator, a renowned educator, and a good friend of FSE. During the winter quarter of 2008/9, he (and his brother Jeff of the Gates Foundation) spoke to the members of our world food economy class about farming and being a farmer in Nebraska. Ross Feehan was an undergraduate member of that class who went on to become a summer intern on the Raikes farm. Ross’s essay on his experiences is presented here as a tribute to Ron. Roz Naylor Director, FSE

Growing up I always wanted one thing around this time of year: a ride with Santa. Yes, a sky-high journey with that burly, bearded Claus who reportedly could offer children a chance to see the world differently. It seemed like an adventure to me, one that would surely offer a more thorough understanding of Christmas.

As summer recedes and December approaches it appears that my wish was granted this past summer while riding shotgun to and from a farm near the small town of Ashland, Nebraska alongside a man who seemed to a twenty-year-old everything I imagined Santa Claus to be at age seven. For five weeks in the company of a farm operator I had the opportunity to broaden my understanding of commercial food production and the managerial complexity, associated risk, and arrant talent involved in much of agriculture today.

farm med web
With three separate entities—crop production, cattle feeding, and conservation contracting—the “farm” I traveled to everyday was anything but pedestrian. Most mornings began during the dim hours headed north on a still Route 6, but my early conversations with him were exuberant. In between, and sometimes even during, calls to cattle buyers or astray truckers searching for highways into Ashland free of scales my host would talk to me about cattle market volatility, the method (or madness) ofnegotiation in the feedlot industry, and how trades for heifers and steers from Salina, Kansas hasten grain and livestock futures contracting in Chicago, Illinois. One topic led to the next, and by the time we crossed the railroads at Waverly, we were usually discussing broad issues ranging from the environmental concerns of industrial farming to the social tension in America between people who pejoratively view the actions of Corn Belt farmers and people who produce the food that fills those critics’ plates.

Our driving conversations soon carried over into late mornings and afternoons—anytime when the space for conversation transpired. “The marketplace is fiercely competitive,” he would say to explain the indistinct security governmental support for crop production provides. Daily, his business was subject to environmental and market persuasions. Although federal insurance policies and subsidies were valuable for his business, he was still one of many farmers who jockeyed within a bullish and bearish economy. Prior to hedging his crops, for example, he had to contemplate the eminent yield successes on farms in Iowa in addition to this summer’s drought-induced crop loss in Argentina. But he also could not forget about policy makers in China and Europe who through their governmental measures influence world demand and supply of staple grains. These conversations depicted the realities of an interdependent food market around the globe and helped me distinguish applications of macro-agricultural studies.

corn med web
Everything I did became part of the learning experience. How could one truly know the size of a bushel of corn without crawling into a storage bin and scooping a truck load into a delivery chute? But before that corn was picked, the farmer had to select a specific variety to be planted from among the many genetically modified products advertised in catalogs and at events similar to a Monsanto luncheon I attended. The “relative maturity” grading system didn’t mean much to me until I ventured out through the warrens of corn and soybean rows to monitor milk lines and black layer emergence in different fields planted with disparate seeds. Working on the farm allowed me to learn hands-on of the agricultural science and technology I had previously studied within classroom walls.

Familiarizing myself with the farm’s operations did not come without mistakes, however. I will never forget the dexterous and visionary employees who taught me not just that wearing shorts while working on a farm is equivalent to modeling a Speedo at a consulting interview, but more importantly how complicated producing food is with advanced mechanized systems. Whether it be welding an auger for grain transfer, converting a piece of scrap metal into a rotating laptop computer harness for the cattle chute, or actually building a propane-powered irrigation pump, the competency of those with whom I worked was remarkable. I learned untold lessons and skills from colleagues, reminding me that a cattle pen could also be an educational setting. 

ron ross web
But no business could be productive without a savvy leader. During my last few weeks in Nebraska I spent time alongside the manager I so esteemed. His ability to synthesize futures and cash market strategies, reconcile input and output data to avert risk, and heed both large issues and small in a multifaceted business was phenomenal. The organization was a machine in itself—protean, even despite its seasonality and daily routine.

I could spend many more months in Ashland refining my tractor driving capabilities and acquiring more knowledge of agricultural management and economics. I wish I could witness the crops reach adulthood and the combines combing those matured fields during the autumn months. Yet, I am grateful for the time I had there, and what I learned will help guide me as I continue to navigate through complex issues facing U.S. agriculture and international food security.

This year I will still anticipate Christmas and its enduring celebrity, but I will rest in bed just a bit more calmly on Santa’s night. My conversations in a Toyota truck this summer and the knowledge gained from the entire experience in Nebraska have sated my sleigh-riding hunger and enhanced my studies of food’s complexities. This farm experience was that kind of ride for me, allowing me to evaluate the impact of U.S. commercial farmers within a global agricultural network, admire those who cultivate what we eat, and seek a deeper understanding of food as a livelihood and resource.

Ever wanted to see the North Pole? Try Nebraska.

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Proliferation Resistance of Nuclear Technologies: Conversion of Research Reactors and Other Case Studies

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Ambivalent nuclear technologies use or have a potential to produce nuclear weapon relevant materials like highly enriched uranium (HEU), plutonium, tritium and U233. It is important to assess the proliferation potential and measures to strengthen the proliferation resistance of these technologies as early as possible (preventively) to find alternative more proliferation resistant designs or at least to identify sensitive parameters or even critical parts that should trigger international safeguards and export controls.

The conclusions of different case studies investigating the proliferation resistance of nuclear technologies such as spallation neutron sources, tokamak fusion reactors and plutonium fuels will be briefly presented. The main part of the talk will focus on the minimization or elimination of civil HEU usage and the role of research reactor conversion to the use of low enriched uranium, which is intrinsically more proliferation resistant. The conversion of the German high flux research reactor FRM-II will serve as an example for the complex political and technological challenges and problems one has to face, especially, if proliferation concerns are not taken seriously in the research and design phase. These case studies of relatively disparate nuclear technologies have in common that they are neutron producing technologies and some questions regarding their proliferation potential can be addressed using neutronic codes.

Finally, the talk will briefly outline the future research of the next year addressing centrifuge technology as another case study to explicate on exemplary basis general criteria for the proliferation resistant use of nuclear technologies.


Matthias Englert is a postdoctoral fellow at CISAC. Before joining CISAC in 2009, Matthias was a researcher at the Interdisciplinary Research Group Science Technology and Security (IANUS) and a PhD student at the department of physics at Darmstadt University of Technology in Germany. 

His major research interests include nonproliferation, disarmament, arms control, nuclear postures and warheads, fissile material and production technologies, the civil use of nuclear power and its role in future energy scenarios and the possibility of nuclear terrorism.  His research during his stay at CISAC focuses primarily on the technology of gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment, the implications of its use for the nonproliferation regime and on technical and political measures to manage the proliferation risks. 

Matthias has been participating in projects investigating technical aspects of the concept of proliferation resistance with topics spanning from conversion of research reactors, uranium enrichment with gas centrifuges, reducing plutonium stockpiles with reactor based options,  spallation neutron sources and fusion power plants. Further research topics included fissile material stockpiles, fuel-cycles and accelerator  driven systems. Although a substantial part of his professional work of the last years was quite technical he is equally interested in and actively studies the historical, social and political aspects of the use of nuclear technologies. Research interests include the dispute about Article IV of the NPT, the future development of the NPT regime, possibilities for a nuclear weapon free world, preventive arms control, and history and development of proliferation relevant programs. By studying contemporary theory in philosophy of the interaction of science, technology and society, Matthias acquired analytical tools to reflect on approaches describing or addressing the problem of ambivalent technology.

Matthias is a vice speaker of the working group Physics and Disarmament of the German Physical Society (DPG) and a board member of the  German Research Association for Science, Disarmament and Security (FONAS).

 

Michael May is Professor Emeritus (Research) in the Stanford University School of Engineering and a senior fellow with the Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He is the former co-director of Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, having served seven years in that capacity through January 2000. May is a director emeritus of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he worked from 1952 to 1988, with some brief periods away from the Laboratory. While there, he held a variety of research and development positions, serving as director of the Laboratory from 1965 to 1971. May was a technical adviser to the Threshold Test Ban Treaty negotiating team; a member of the U.S. delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks; and at various times has been a member of the Defense Science Board, the General Advisory Committee to the AEC, the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, the RAND Corporation Board of Trustees, and the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. May received the Distinguished Public Service and Distinguished Civilian Service Medals from the Department of Defense, and the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award from the Atomic Energy Commission, as well as other awards. His current research interests are in the area of nuclear and terrorism, energy, security and environment, and the relation of nuclear weapons and foreign policy.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Matthias Englert Postdoctoral Fellow, CISAC Speaker
Michael M. May Professor of Management Science and Engineering, Emeritus; FSI Senior Fellow; CISAC Faculty Member Commentator
Seminars

Principles of European Integration: Treaty revisions in multi-stage two-level processes

This project explores the revision of the treaties of the European Union using a multi-stage two-level-analysis. For the current revision of the Nice treaty, there are inferences between the domestic and European level, most obviously when referendums are carried. This time, a convention made a proposal for revision which was discussed by the member states at intergovernmental conferences (IGCs), and this project examines how member states have formed their positions on the treaty revision in inter-ministerial coordination.

Thomas Koenig

University of Mannheim
PBox 103462
D-68131 Mannheim

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Professor of Political Science, University of Mannheim
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Thomas König has the chair for international relations and is co-director of the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES) at the University of Mannheim, Germany. Before, he was professor at the German University Speyer and at the University of Konstanz. For his research, he was nominated for the Descartes Research Prize of the European Union and the Harrison Prize, received the Fulbright chair at Washington University St. Louis and the Karl W. Deutsch professorship at the Wissenschaftscentre Berlin, and was Marie Curie- and Heisenberg Fellow of the German National Science Foundation. König’s publications include the major scholarly journals and a variety of topics. He collaborated with a large number of scholars, including Chris Achen, Thomas Bräuninger, Ken Benoit, Daniel Finke, Simon Hug, Dirk Junge, Michael Laver, Brooke Luetgert, Bernd Luig, Lars Mäder, Sven-Oliver Proksch, Gerald Schneider, Jonathan Slapin, Heiner Schulz, Frans Stokman, Robert Thomson, Vera Tröger, George Tsebelis – just to name a few.

In his early publications in the 1990s, he studied the influence of interest groups on labor and social legislation in Germany, USA and Japan using network analysis and exchange theory. With Franz Urban Pappi and David Knoke he gathered data and extended the Coleman exchange model for modeling the institutionalized access of interest groups to political decision makers. Using spatial analysis, he also studied legislative gridlock in Germany in this period. From the mid-1990s, König devoted more attention to European integration by gathering data on EU constitutional, legislative and implementation politics. Today, König established a historical archive on EU politics containing all constitutional, legislative and implementation activities since the mid-1980s. For Germany, he also collected legislative data since the 1950s. These two topics – German and European politics – are dominating his further work, which is about the estimation of actors’ preferences. Regarding the European Union, König tested rivalry approaches on the power of the European Parliament, the impact of enlargements on Council decision making and the strategies of member states when they attempted to revise the institutional framework of the EU. In the beginning of the 2000s, he directed the DOSEI project and investigated the constitution-building process of the EU. Following, he studied the implementation process of EC directives and the power of the European Court of Justice.

All these data is used to evaluate the empirical implications of game-theoretical models with some focus on the analysis of Germany and European integration, including the constitutional, legislative and compliance level. In this regard, König also established the first EITM summer institute in Europe training young scholars in order to use sophisticated techniques for the study of politics. Recent publications include "Troubles with Transposition: Explaining Trends in Member State Notification Failure and Timelines", British Journal of Political Science 2009 (with Brooke Luetgert), "Why don’t veto players use their power?", European Union Politics 2009, "Why do member states empower the European Parliament?", Journal of European Public Policy 2008, "Bicameral Conflict Resolution in the European Union. An Empirical Analysis of Conciliation Committee Bargains", British Journal of Political Science 2007 (with Lindberg, Lechner and Pohlmeier).

Professor König was a Visiting Scholar at The Europe Center and at the Hoover Institution during Fall 2009.

Erick Arenas

Department of Music
Stanford University
Braun Music Center
541 Lasuen Mall
Stanford, CA 94305-3076

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Ph.D. Candidate, Musicology, Stanford University
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Erick Arenas is a Ph.D. candidate in musicology at Stanford. His research focuses on the relationship between musical culture and ritual life in the capitals of Catholic Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Before coming to Stanford, Erick studied music history at the University of the Pacific and the University of Oregon. His master’s research dealt with the persistence of liturgical music traditions in nineteenth-century Paris and the music of Charles Gounod.

Erick’s doctoral dissertation, “Johann Michael Haydn and the Missa solemnis of Eighteenth-Century Vienna and Salzburg,” explores the style, tradition, and significance of the elaborate musical rendering of the Mass within the imperial-Viennese and archepiscopal-Salzburg contexts. He seeks to draw greater attention to the central place of sacred music in the Austrian musical legacy, a research area that has been dominated almost exclusively by concert and theatrical music scholarship. As a case study, he examines the achievements of J. M. Haydn (1737-1806), a figure once considered the preeminent composer of liturgical music within the milieu of Joseph Haydn and W. A. Mozart. By shedding light on the extent to which eighteenth-century musical life was still influenced by waning Baroque and Counter-Reformation values, Erick’s project offers one significant lens for a broader examination of the complex musical culture of the Age of Enlightenment.

In Summer 2009 Erick was awarded the FCE Advanced Graduate Student Travel Fellowship in order to study manuscript sources in Austrian music archives.

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