Gil-li Vardi joined CISAC as a visiting scholar in December 2011. She completed her PhD at the London School of Economics in 2008, and spent two years as a research fellow at the Oxford Leverhulme Programme on the Changing Character of War at the University of Oxford, after which she joined Notre Dame university as a J. P. Moran Family Assistant Professor of Military History.
Her research examines the interplay between organizational culture, doctrine, and operational patterns in military organizations, and focuses on the incentives and dynamics of change in military thought and practice.
Driven by her interest in both the German and Israeli militaries and their organizational cultures, Vardi is currently revising her dissertation, "The Enigma of Wehrmacht Operational Doctrine: The Evolution of Military Thought in Germany, 1919-1941," alongside preparing a book manuscript on the sources of the Israeli Defence Forces’ (IDF) early strategic and operational perceptions and preferences.
The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University announced today that Kavita N. Ramdas will assume the position of executive director of the newly launched Program on Social Entrepreneurship. Ramdas is widely recognized as a pioneer in the field of global development, gender justice, and philanthropy working for over 20 years to advance the rights of marginalized and excluded communities worldwide.
As President and CEO of the Global Fund for Women from 1996 to 2010, Ramdas led the largest public grant-making organization in the world supporting women's human rights in over 170 countries. During her tenure at the Global Fund for Women, Ramdas more than tripled the Fund's assets allowing grant-making to increase 12 percent annually, and expanded the Fund's portfolio of investees threefold. Harnessing her exceptional skills and networks to lead this new program, Ramdas will bring social entrepreneurs, academics, and students together at Stanford to advance research and accelerate social change.
"Kavita Ramdas is one of the world's most respected international development practitioners, social justice advocates, and thinkers in the emerging field of social entrepreneurship," said CDDRL deputy director and co-investigator for this project, Kathryn Stoner. "At Stanford, Kavita recognized the need to bring a practitioner's perspective into the classroom and infuse our research agenda with a first-hand account of the challenges confronting the developing world. The Program on Social Entrepreneurship will bring global practitioners to Stanford to engage our students, faculty, and researchers in more active exchange and connection to the most pressing issues of the twenty-first century."
The Program on Social Entrepreneurship will be housed at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, where interdisciplinary research is conducted by leading faculty, scholars, and students. Deborah L. Rhode the Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law and director of the Stanford Center on the Legal Profession at the Stanford Law School will serve jointly with Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute, as a faculty principle investigator to the program.
"We are thrilled that Kavita Ramdas is joining the ranks at CDDRL to advance our research on global under-development, poverty reduction, and economic growth," said CDDRL Director Larry Diamond. "She will bring to the Center a wealth of practical experience and a passionate commitment to supporting grassroots initiatives and leaders who are pioneering new approaches to intractable problems worldwide, all of which will be a wonderful asset to our center and students, the Freeman Spogli Institute, and to Stanford."
The Program on Social Entrepreneurship will join four other core research programs at CDDRL, which probe the most urgent issues in the field of democracy and development today, including; information and communication technology's impact on political development, how human rights can best be deployed to advance social justice, the state of poverty and governance in Latin America, and the prospects for democratic reform in the Arab world. Working in partnership with other institutes on campus, the program will benefit from the guidance and active engagement of a cross-disciplinary faculty advisory committee at the Haas Center for Public Service, the Center for Philanthropy and Civil Society, the Clayman Institute for Gender Research, Stanford Law School, Stanford Medical School, and the Center for Social Innovation at the Graduate School of Business.
The hallmark of the Program on Social Entrepreneurship is an eight-week "entrepreneur in residence" initiative that will bring four rising leaders to Stanford twice a year to expose researchers, students, and the local philanthropic community to the ideas, visions, and strategies they are using to transform their societies. These social entrepreneurs drawn from the U.S. and abroad will have the opportunity to reflect on their work, engage the scholarly community to advance research on this emerging field, and galvanize international support for their innovative work. Visiting entrepreneurs will be featured in seminars, courses, and special events across the larger university and the Silicon Valley during their residency at Stanford to reach as broad an audience as possible.
During the 2010-11 academic year, Ramdas was in residence at Stanford University as a visiting scholar and fellow at CDDRL and the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. During that time she co-taught a course at the School of Education examining the aspects of gender, education, and development. In spring 2011, she served as practitioner-in-residence at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Prior to her time at the Global Fund for Women, Ramdas developed and implemented grant-making programs to combat poverty and inequality in inner cities across the United States and to advance women’s reproductive health on a global scale as a program officer at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Ramdas's extensive experience in the fields of global development, human rights, women's leadership, and philanthropy extend to her array of prestigious affiliations and awards. At present, she serves on the Board of Trustees of Princeton University and Mount Holyoke College, both of which are her alma maters. Ramdas's leadership skills were recognized early in her tenure at the Global Fund for Women when she was selected to the prestigious Henry Crown Fellowship at the Aspen Institute.
Her accomplishments in the nonprofit field have led her to serve as an advisor and board member to a number of leading foundations and organizations, including; the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Advisory Council of the University of Chicago’s Global Health Initiative, the Global Development Program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Advisory Council of the Asian University for Women, PAX World Management, and the Council of Advisors on Gender Equity of the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University. She has just been invited by the United States Department of State to chair their new initiative on Women and Public Service, an effort spearheaded by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Ambassador Melanne Verveer. Ramdas also chairs the Expert Working Group of the Council of Global Leaders for Reproductive Health, an initiative of the Aspen Institute led by Mary Robinson former President of Ireland. Ramdas continues to provide strategic oversight and guidance to the Global Fund for Women in her capacity as a member of the Global Fund’s Council of Advisors.
Ramdas received academic training from Delhi University, a bachelor's degree in political science and international relations from Mount Holyoke College, and a master's degree in public affairs with a focus on international economic development from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.
"I look forward to launching this new program and joining the dynamic community at CDDRL and Stanford University," said incoming executive director of the Program on Social Entrepreneurship, Kavita Ramdas. "There is so much potential to catalyze the energy and expertise of the practitioner community and enhance the research of faculty and everyday learning experience of the student. I am confident that together we will transform ripples into waves of long-term transformational change across the developing world through this program."
Adama Gaye, author, political commentator, and scholar, from Senegal, has joined Stanford University this Academic year as a Visiting Scholar both at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and at the African Studies Center...He is working on the increasing economic and political relations between China and Africa. China has recently become Africa's number one economic partner ahead of the traditional Western nations States of Europe and the United States of America.
Gaye, the first author to have published a book, in 2006, on this newly growing China-Africa connections under the title: Chine-Afrique -Le dragon et l'autruche (Ed. L'Harmattan, Paris), has been monitoring this relationship since then, notably as a Visiting Fellow at Johns Hopkins University (Washington Dc) and at China's premier University, Peiking University.
A well-known African journalist, Gaye has been a regular commentator on African Affairs for Cnn, AlJazeera, France 24, Radio France Internationale, NPR, The Bbc, CCTV. He has written extensively on African Affairs for Newsweek, Jeune Afrique, Beijing Review; he is a former Editor of the London-based newsweekly, West Africa Magazine, Africa's oldest magazine.
Adama Gaye holds various university degrees, including post-graduate degrees from University Paris 2 and The Pantheon-Sorbonne. He obtained the coveted Oxford Diplomatic Studies Certificate and holds the China Senior Executive Management Certificate jointly delivered by Tsinghua University, China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) and Harvard Business School.
Gaye studied journalism at the University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar (Bachelor), in Senegal.
He intends to publish a new book on China-Africa while pursuing his other research interests during his tenure at Stanford. In addition to Africa's international relations, mainly with China, these include the unsteady democratic evolution of Africa and the renewed interests generated by Oil and Gas resources in the continent.
"The Fixer:The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi" is a feature-length documentary that follows the relationship between an Afghan interpreter and his client, American journalist Christian Parenti. This intimate portrait of two colleagues shifts dramatically when Ajmal is kidnapped along with an Italian reporter. The situation goes from bad to worse as foreign powers pressure for fast results, the Afghan government bungles its response and the specter of Taliban power looms in the background. What follows is the tragic story of one man forgotten in the crossfire: a brutal allegory of the proud land and perilous misadventure that is Afghanistan.
Following the screening, Ian Olds (the film's Director) will be in conversation with Robert Crews (History, Stanford).
This event is sponsored by the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies (CREEES). It is free and open to the public.
Priya Satia's research interests span modern British cultural and political history, colonialism and imperialism, the experience and practice of war, technology and culture, human rights and humanitarianism, the state and institutions of government, arms trade, political economy of empire, and environmental history.
Satia was raised in Los Gatos, California and educated at Stanford, the London School of Economics, and the University of California, Berkeley where she earned her Ph.D. in 2004. She is currently Assistant Professor of History at Stanford where she teaches courses on modern Britain and the British Empire.
Satia's latest book Spies in Arabia: The Great War and the Cultural Foundations of Britain's Covert Empire in the Middle East has been the recipient of several book prizes including the 2009 AHA-Pacific Coast Branch Book Award, the AHA Herbert Baxter Adams Book Prize in 2009, and the 2010 Pacific Coast Conference of British Studies Book Prize.
Her work can also be found in academic journals such as the American Historical Reviewand Past and Present. Her article, “The Defense of Inhumanity: Air Control in Iraq and the British Idea of Arabia” won the Article Prize of the Pacific Coast Conference on British Studies for 2005-2006 and the 2007 Walter D. Love Prize of the North American Conference on British Studies.
Satia is currently researching the manufacture, trade, and use of small arms in the British empire for her book project, "Guns: The True History of the British Empire."
Professor Landry Signé is a distinguished fellow at Stanford University’s Center for African Studies, founding chairman of the award-winning Global Network for Africa’s Prosperity, special adviser to world leaders on international and African affairs, full professor and senior adviser on international affairs to the chancellor and provost at UAA, and partner and chief strategist at a small African-focused emerging markets strategic management, investment, and government affairs firm. He has been recognized as a World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leader, Andrew Carnegie fellow as one of the “most creative thinkers,” Woodrow Wilson Public Policy fellow, JCI Ten Outstanding Young Persons in the World, Private Investors for Africa Fellow, and Tutu Fellow who “drives the transformation of Africa,” among others. Previously, Landry was founding president of a business strategy and development firm based in Montreal and a visiting scholar at the University of Oxford. He has also served on the board of organizations such as AMPION Catalyst for Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Africa, Citizens Governance Initiative, and the United Nations Association of Canada–Montreal, and was appointed by a United Nations Under-Secretary-General to serve on the Global Network on Digital Technologies for Sustainable Urbanization. He is the author of numerous key academic and policy publications on African and global affairs, with a special interest in the political economy of growth, development and governance; the politics of economic reform, foreign aid, and regional integration; entrepreneurship, non-market and business strategies in emerging and frontier countries; institutional change, political regimes, and post-conflict reconstruction; state capacity and policy implementation. Professor Signé received the fastest tenure and promotion to the highest rank of full professor of political science in the history of United States universities, for a scholar who started at an entry-level position in the discipline. He is a highly sought-after keynote speaker and presenter at conferences worldwide, engaging a broad variety of business, policy, academic, and civil society audiences. He has won more than 60 prestigious awards and distinctions from four continents and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Harvard International Review. Professor Signé was educated in Cameroon (with honors and distinction), in France (valedictorian and salutatorian), earned his PhD in Political Science from the University of Montreal (Award of Excellence and Award for the Best International PhD Dissertation), and completed his Postdoctoral Studies at Stanford University (Banting fellowship for best and brightest researchers). He has also completed executive leadership programs at the University of Oxford Said School of Business (Tutu fellowship) and Harvard Kennedy School (World Economic Forum fellowship).
World War Two, the most violent period in the modern history of Europe and Asia (1937–1945), left deep scars still evident on both continents. Numerous and often conflicting narratives exist about the wartime era, ranging from personal memoirs to official accounts of wartime actions. Many issues, from collaboration to responsibility for war crimes, remain unresolved. In Europe some issues that have been buried for decades, such as the record of collaboration with Nazi occupiers, are now resurfacing. In Northeast Asia, World War Two’s complex, painful legacy continues to impact popular culture, education, diplomacy, and even economic relations.
While differences exist in the wartime circumstances and reconciliation processes of Europe and Asia, many valuable lessons can be gained through a study of the experiences on both continents. The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) facilitated a comparative dialogue on World War Two, bringing together 15 noted experts for the Colonialism, Collaboration, and Criminality conference, held June 16 to 17 at Stanford. Each of the event’s five panels paired an Asia and a Europe scholar addressing a common theme.
The debate over remembrance of World War Two
Asia’s relative lack of progress in achieving reconciliation of the painful legacies of the war in Asia and the Pacific continues to bedevil current relations in the region. This is a consequence of the way the Cold War interrupted the resolution of wartime issues and blocked dialogue over the past, particularly between Japan, China, and South Korea, suggested Daniel C. Sneider, associate director for research at Shorenstein APARC. The widely held image of an unrepentant Japan ignores the fierce debate within Japan over wartime memory, often obscured by the prominence of rightwing nationalist views. Meanwhile, within China and Korea, wartime memory is also increasingly contested ground, from the issue of collaboration to the emergence of a more nationalist narrative in China, further complicating relations among those Asian neighbors.
Daniel Chirot, a professor of international studies at the University of Washington, emphasized that immediate postwar economic and security needs, including the growth of Communism, accelerated West Germany’s willingness to reconcile with its Western neighbors. He concurred with Sneider, saying that no such imperative existed in Northeast Asia until the need for economic cooperation three decades after the war. He suggested that the growth of regional integration might, as in Europe, drive Northeast Asia toward greater reconciliation.
Divided memories
Justice for sensitive historical human rights issues, such as World War Two atrocities, bears increasing importance in today’s ever-globalized economic and political climate, stated Thomas Berger, a professor of international relations at Boston University. Berger noted the challenge that Japan’s factional politics poses to a revision of the country’s official wartime narrative, and suggested that a strong regional structure, such as the European Union, could effectively facilitate reconciliation in Northeast Asia.
Frances Gouda, a professor of political science at the University of Amsterdam, examined the use of Anne Frank and former Indonesian president Sukarno as “icons of memory” in Dutch interpretations of World War Two. She asserted that Frank’s victimization allows people to come to terms with Nazi war crimes, but that Sukarno’s vilification as a Japanese collaborator oversimplifies history and allows the Netherlands to avoid confronting its own colonial past.
Collaboration and resistance
France’s Vichy regime, responsible both for collaborating with the Nazis and acting independently to persecute Jewish citizens, remains a painful and unresolved subject in the country’s contemporary quest for national identity, said Julian Jackson, a professor of history at Queen Mary, University of London. He pointed to French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s act of making a national martyr out of Guy Môquet, a young communist who died resisting the German Occupation, as a key example of the complexities involved in trying to come to terms with France’s past.
Ongoing territorial disputes over islands located between Japan and its neighbors in China and Korea are a product of the unresolved legacy of the wartime era in Asia. Sovereignty over those islands was left deliberately unresolved by the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty which formally ended the war, suggested Alexis Dudden, a professor of history from the University of Connecticut. As a result, the territorial disputes have become a battleground on which larger questions of historical memory about the war are contested, not only by Japanese conservatives but also by Koreans and Chinese, she said.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru’s press statement at the San Francisco Peace Treaty.
(U.S. National Archives)
Paths to reconciliation
Gi-Wook Shin, director of Shorenstein APARC and a professor of sociology, suggested that while Europe’s experience with war and reconciliation offers lessons for Asia, significant differences exist between the wartime and post-war situations of the two continents, and that reconciliation in Asia requires time. Increased economic interaction between the countries in Northeast Asia serves less to foster reconciliation, he said, than to spur competition for regional dominance. Shin emphasized that the United States, which has greatly impacted the region’s post-war history, can play a critical role as a facilitator in establishing lasting regional accord.
The Nazi regime’s systematic attempt to completely wipe out all traces of Jewish history and culture in Europe, even as closely bound as it was with Germany’s own traditions, is a unique case, stated Fania Oz-Salzberger, a professor of history at Haifa and Monash Universities. She explored universal elements in the German-Jewish reconciliation experience, noting, like Shin and Chirot, the important element of time that is needed to reflect upon painful events of the past. Oz-Salzberger especially spoke of the healing that takes place at the level of society and culture, sometimes even before governments are ready to reconcile with one another.
Continuing political impacts
Gilbert Rozman, a professor of sociology at Princeton University, suggested that Northeast Asia’s wartime history debates will continue to complicate regional relations unless China, Japan, and Korea reach a point of mutual reconciliation. He noted the role that Japan’s government, in the 1980s during its financial heyday, and more recently, China’s leaders during a similarly strong economic era, have played in prolonging the debate.
Memories of war are transmitted across the years through a complex process involving multiple actors and they can later influence political behavior, explained MIT political science professor Roger Petersen. He described the process within the context of the Lithuania’s successful declaration of independence from the former Soviet Union in January 1991. Petersen stated that Lithuanian émigrés, in part, helped keep the narrative of Soviet aggression and Lithuanian martyrdom alive until the conditions were right for action many decades later.
The Colonialism, Collaboration, and Criminality conference grew out of Shorenstein APARC’s Divided Memories and Reconciliation project, which for the past three years has examined the legacy of war-era memories in Northeast Asia and the United States and explored possible means of reconciliation. Shorenstein APARC has already published the first in a series of four books based on the project, and an edited volume of papers from the June 2011 conference is forthcoming next year.
Hero Image
Japanese wartime era postcard depicting the seizure of Rehe in northern China in late 1937.
The Asia Pacific Observatory (APO) on Health Systems and Policies was established in June 2011. It is a collaborative partnership of interested governments, international agencies, foundations, civil society, and the research community. Modeled on the European Observatory of the same name, the APO has as its main function the collection and analysis of information and research evidence on health care systems, policies, and reforms, with the aim of making this knowledge widely available and easily accessible throughout the Asia Pacific Region; it will also draw cross-country lessons and disseminate these in formats that can be directly used for policymaking.
This presentation will trace the history underlying the creation of the Observatory and indicate its objectives, organizational structure, and proposed modes of operation. It will describe the challenges of attempting to bring a wide range of stakeholders together in support of a regional collaborative research effort. It will also touch on ways that research entities located outside the Asia Pacific region might interact with the APO.
L. Richard Meyers was employed by the World Bank for two decades managing teams that carried out World Bank health sector projects and analytical work in a number of countries in East Asia. He directed a team that produced the first comprehensive health sector review for Vietnam, as well as the first Vietnam National Health Survey. He also led a team that produced the most comprehensive and empirically-based external analysis to date of the rural health sector in China. More recently he has worked with the European Health Observatory, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, the WHO Western Pacific and South Asia regional offices, and other stakeholders to facilitate the creation of the Asia Pacific Observatory.
In a piece for the Wall Street Journal on August 13, visiting scholar Evgeny Morozov cautions Western nations to be mindful of the dangerous precedent they set to authoritarian regimes when monitoring Internet content. While recent events in Norway and London may compel governments to employ surveillance tools, Morozov argues that Beijing and Tehran will be vindicated by their own repressive policies.
Did the youthful rioters who roamed the streets of London, Manchester and other British cities expect to see their photos scrutinized by angry Internet users, keen to identify the miscreants? In the immediate aftermath of the riots, many cyber-vigilantes turned to Facebook, Flickr and other social networking sites to study pictures of the violence. Some computer-savvy members even volunteered to automate the process by using software to compare rioters' faces with faces pictured elsewhere on the Internet.
The rioting youths were not exactly Luddites either. They used BlackBerrys to send their messages, avoiding more visible platforms like Facebook and Twitter. It's telling that they looted many stores selling fancy electronics. The path is short, it would seem, from "digital natives" to "digital restives."
As social media's role in the London riots is explored, British politicians are considering whether temporarily banning or censoring sites like Twitter and Facebook would quell or enflame the tensions, Cassell Bryan-Low reports from London.
Technology has empowered all sides in this skirmish: the rioters, the vigilantes, the government and even the ordinary citizens eager to help. But it has empowered all of them to different degrees. As the British police, armed with the latest facial-recognition technology, go through the footage captured by their numerous closed-circuit TV cameras and study chat transcripts and geolocation data, they are likely to identify many of the culprits.
Such regimes are eager to see what kind of precedents will be set by Western officials as they wrestle with these evolving technologiesAuthoritarian states are monitoring these developments closely. Chinese state media, for one, blamed the riots on a lack of Chinese-style controls over social media. Such regimes are eager to see what kind of precedents will be set by Western officials as they wrestle with these evolving technologies. They hope for at least partial vindication of their own repressive policies.
Some British politicians quickly called on the BlackBerry maker Research in Motion to suspend its messaging service to avoid an escalation of the riots. On Thursday, Prime Minister David Cameron said that the government should consider blocking access to social media for people who plot violence or disorder.
After the recent massacre in Norway, many European politicians voiced their concern that anonymous anti-immigrant comments on the Web were inciting extremism. They are now debating ways to limit online anonymity.
Does the Internet really need an overhaul of norms, laws and technologies that gives more control to governments? When the Egyptian secret police can purchase Western technology that allows them to eavesdrop on the Skype calls of dissidents, it seems unlikely that American and European intelligence agencies have no means of listening the calls of, say, a loner in Norway.
We tolerate such drastic proposals only because acts of terror briefly deprive us of the ability to think straight. We are also distracted by the universal tendency to imagine technology as a liberating force; it keeps us from noticing that governments already have more power than is healthy.
The domestic challenges posed by the Internet demand a measured, cautious response in the West. Leaders in Beijing, Tehran and elsewhere are awaiting our wrong-headed moves, which would allow them to claim an international license for dealing with their own protests. The yare also looking for tools and strategies that might improve their own digital surveillance.
After violent riots in 2009, Chinese officials had no qualms about cutting off the Xinjiang region's Internet access for 10 months. Still, they would surely welcome a formal excuse for such drastic measures if the West should decide to take similar measures in dealing with disorder. Likewise, any plan in the U.S. or Europe to engage in online behavioral profiling—trying to identify future terrorists based on their tweets, gaming habits or social networking activity—is likely to boost the already booming data-mining industry. It would not take long for such tools to find their way to repressive states.
But something even more important is at stake here. To the rest of the world, the efforts of Western nations, and especially the U.S., to promote democracy abroad have often smacked of hypocrisy. How could the West lecture others while struggling to cope with its own internal social contradictions? Other countries could live with this hypocrisy as long as the West held firm in promoting its ideals abroad. But this double game is harder to maintain in the Internet era.
In their concern to stop not just mob violence but commercial crimes like piracy and file-sharing, Western politicians have proposed new tools for examining Web traffic and changes in the basic architecture of the Internet to simplify surveillance. What they fail to see is that such measures can also affect the fate of dissidents in places like China and Iran. Likewise, how European politicians handle online anonymity will influence the policies of sites like Facebook, which, in turn, will affect the political behavior of those who use social media in the Middle East.
Should America and Europe abandon any pretense of even wanting to promote democracy abroad? Or should they try to figure out how to increase the resilience of their political institutions in the face of the Internet? As much as our leaders might congratulate themselves for embracing the revolutionary potential of these new technologies, they have shown little evidence of being able to think about them in a nuanced and principled way.
Phillip Lipscy, an assistant professor of political science and a center fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies, is currently conducting research on energy efficiency and financial crisis response. Here he discusses his recent research within the context of contemporary Japan, and comments on current social and political conditions in Japan after the March 2011 disaster.
What is the primary focus of your research right now?
One focus is on the politics of energy efficiency. I am exploring the question: Why do some countries, like Japan, pursue very aggressive efficiency measures, while others, like the United States, choose not to?
I am also researching the politics of financial crisis response. My key research questions include: What political factors determine the speed and effectiveness of crisis response? When do countries act decisively? What policies are chosen and under what conditions?
In your recent research about energy-efficient policymaking, what are some of the cases and issues in Asia that you have explored?
Japan is a very important case. Its economy is one of the most energy efficient in the world based on measures such as energy intensity. There are a lot of questions, however, about whether any of that is due to policy measures.
I have been examining Japan’s transportation sector with Lee Schipper, a senior research engineer at Stanford’s Precourt Energy Efficiency Center, and our findings are counterintuitive. Most of Japan's relative advantage in transportation sector efficiency is not due to automobile fuel economy, which is what the Japanese government tends to play up. Instead, Japan is characterized by an abnormally high rail share and less total distance traveled. [A great loss to the Stanford community, Dr. Schipper recently passed away. More information is available here.]
What I show in my research is that Japan's efficiency achievements are closely tied to traditional pork barrel politics. High costs have been imposed on the general public—for example, through automobile taxes and highway tolls. The revenue from these measures was traditionally redistributed to key constituencies of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), namely rural residents and the construction industry.
This arrangement worked nicely for several decades, reducing energy consumption while also helping to keep the LDP in power. These arrangements, however, have become unsustainable with political changes since the 1990s, particularly the coming to power of the Democratic Party of Japan. These political changes have put Japan's energy efficiency policy in a state of flux. The current electoral system makes it more difficult to impose diffuse costs on the public—such as through gasoline or CO2 taxes—but there is no obvious alternative mechanism.
A young boy helps with clean-up efforts after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. (Flickr/DJ Milky)
As far as you can speculate at this point, what impact do you think that the Fukushima nuclear disaster will have on Japan’s future energy policy?
Before the Fukushima disaster, Japan had planned to increase electricity generated by nuclear power to 50 percent by 2030. These plans are almost certainly going to be shelved. Prime Minister Naoto Kan recently announced plans to gradually move away from nuclear power in the coming years.
This discussion is not unique to Japan. Germany, Italy, and Switzerland have all recently announced anti-nuclear policies in response to Fukushima. On a recent trip to Taiwan, I found a similar discussion underway there. Taiwan, however, is very similar to Japan in terms of its high dependence on energy imports. This dependence creates a dilemma.
Japan's economy is already one of the most energy efficient in the world, making it more difficult to realize incremental energy savings through efficiency gains. Oil and natural gas are volatile and subject to geopolitical shocks. Renewables are not yet able to meet the kind of energy demand you have in a large economy like Japan. For the foreseeable future, less nuclear energy means higher costs and greater dependence on fossil fuels. That is going to have negative implications for energy security and climate change.
You recently returned from a trip to Japan. What is your perception of the way that everyday people are dealing with the triple disaster that took place in March? What is your assessment of the political situation?
The most remarkable thing is how quickly the Japanese people came together to support disaster victims and conserve energy. There was an outpouring of help, especially volunteer activities and financial contributions. People are taking energy conservation seriously, keeping air conditioning off even during the unbearably humid summer.
The situation at Fukushima was a big blow to the national psyche though. There have been some media reports overplaying the dangers of radiation, and people are deeply concerned about food safety.
Unfortunately, the political situation has been truly tragic. Even for a political scientist like myself, the inability of Japanese leaders to come together after the disaster is troubling. It took less than a month after the earthquake for bickering and squabbling to return full force. On a more positive note, local government leaders and some private sector actors have filled the void to some degree.
It was striking to find how much the Japanese private sector was stepping in to take over functions that we generally associate with government—things like disaster relief, provision of supplies, and screening food for radiation contamination.
A view of the floor of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. (Flickr/Stefan)
What publications are you currently working on?
I just finished a manuscript, co-authored with my former student Philippe de Koning, on how Japan's defense establishment has dealt with fiscal austerity over the past decade. Now that the United States and Europe are dealing with similar pressures to cut back defense spending, we wanted to see how Japan had managed. We found that Japan's defense planners have fared relatively well within the domestic budgetary process, but they are in an extremely tough situation. Without a major change in policy, when the short-term coping measures being implemented today run their course over the next decade, Japan will face a sharp reduction in its military capabilities.
In addition, I collaborated during the past academic year with Hirofumi Takinami, a Shorenstein APARC Visiting Fellow from Japan’s Ministry of Finance, to examine lessons from Japan’s financial crisis in the 1990s. We looked at the extent to which the United States took these lessons into account when it encountered its own economic downturn in 2008. We found that Japan's crisis influenced the U.S. response quite a bit, but there was some variation by policy area based on the degree of politicization. For example, in monetary policy, which is technocratic and politically insulated, the lessons from Japan were implemented quickly. It was slower for financial sector bailouts though, and especially so for fiscal policy.
In this coming academic year what are the courses that you will be teaching?
I will be teaching a graduate seminar on political economy, primarily intended for PhD students in political science, as well as an undergraduate course on the politics of financial crisis.
