Richard Roberts
History Department
Bldg. 200, Rm 211
Stanford, CA 94305-2024
0
rroberts@stanford.edu
Frances & Charles Field Professor in History and Professor of African History
Director of the Center for African Studies
and CDDRL Affiliated Faculty
Richard Roberts is the Frances & Charles Field Professor in History and African History, and Director of the Center for African Studies at Stanford University. He is also affiliated with the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (CCRSE). Roberts is one of the world's experts on the social and economic history of French West Africa and has been teaching African history to Stanford students since 1980.
His current research interest is the social history of everyday life during the 25 years surrounding French conquest of the interior of West Africa-especially how colonial conquest and the establishment of colonial rule ushered in changes in African societies and economies.
Some of his Courses include: Africa in the 20th Century, The End of Slavery in Africa and the Americas, Law in Colonial Africa, African Identities in a Changing World, and Core Colloquium on Precolonial African History. Some recent publications include: Two World of Cotton: French Colonialism and the Regional Economy of the French Soudan, 1800-1946 (Stanford, 1996), Cotton, Colonialism, and Social History in Sub-Saharan Africa, with Allen Isaacman (Heinemann, 1995), and Domestic Violence and the Law in Africa: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (Ohio University Press, forthcoming) with Emily Burrill and Elizabeth Thornberry.
Roberts received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 1978, his M.A. at Simon Fraser University in 1973, and his B.A. at the University of Wisonsin in 1970.
The New Global Architecture - Where Europe Fits In
-
Ambassador Sheinwald discusses how he envisages international relations will form in the near and far future. He places particular emphasis on the growing importance of the US-China relationship. At the same time, Ambassador Sheinwald explores the EU as a key global power and its necessary cooperation with the US.
Synopsis
Ambassador Sheinwald clearly feels that the international stage is moving. In fact, for him, the change in the international order is accelerating due to the global financial crisis. In this sense, Ambassador Sheinwald explains that the UK has long supported expanding decision-making international institutions such as the UN Security Council. However, the UK still sees the value in intimate, power-focused bodies such as the G8. Ambassador Sheinwald discusses the fact that there is increasingly a sense that a ‘G2’ is developing between the US and China. To Ambassador Sheinwald, this model would not literally work as he argues China needs, at this stage in its development, a multilateral setting to grow into the active and cooperative power we would all like to see it become. At the same time, Ambassador Sheinwald believes that the partnership between the US and China is important in paving a solution to the current economic state and shaping the future global economy. In fact, the UK and the EU welcome this new cooperation between the two powers. Ambassador Sheinwald feels the US and the EU can harness China’s shared global interest on issues such as climate change, in which the EU has played a front role, to develop at stable global relationship. Moreover, he believes that if the US and EU can cooperate to form low carbon economies, it could incentivize China and India to act similarly. However, Ambassador Sheinwald stresses that for non-economic issues the US and China’s relationship is still important but slow moving, and he expresses the belief that it will take decades for any real ‘G2’ to emerge.
In the meantime, Ambassador Sheinwald argues that while the US looks round the world for support on key issues, it will find that the EU shares the most values and has the capacity to promote them. He cites the enormous investments between the two in comparison to the US and China to show the scale of the US and the EU’s relationship. Ambassador Sheinwald argues that financially the US and EU need regulatory cooperation, using a scientific basis, to set global standards. He stresses as well that the EU is a major global power on its own. It is increasingly seen as an honest, multilateral broker and plays a crucial in global economic recovery. Moreover, it has strong interest in fighting world terrorism. In comparison to other partners, the US can find similar values, intelligence, and capacity in the EU. In addition, the US can see more stability in Europe’s own backyard than perhaps 20 years ago. Looking to the future, Ambassador Sheinwald hopes that the Lisbon Treaty would help the EU organize itself further. Further stressing the importance of the US-EU partnership, Ambassador Sheinwald explains “nothing is more likely to be as dependable a foundation.”
In taking the time to answer questions, Ambassador Sheinwald discusses a number of issues. One partiuclar area of focus much emphasized was Europe's role in the conflict in Afghanistan. In addition, he addresses the issue of Britain and the US's relationship with China. Moreover, he also explains that he hopes that as developed countries deal with increasing security threats, their resolve in keeping their borders open will remain strong. Finally, Ambassador Sheinwald stresses the need to employ methods of sustainable, intelligent, and low carbon growth.
About the Speaker
Nigel Sheinwald joined the British Diplomatic Service in 1976 and has served in Washington (twice), Brussels (twice) and Moscow and in a wide range of policy jobs in London.
He took up his position as British Ambassador to the United States in October 2007. In that role he leads the Embassy in Washington and nine Consulates-General around the United States. He had an earlier posting to Washington in 1983-87 as First Secretary (Political) in the Embassy.
Before becoming Ambassador in Washington, Sir Nigel served as Foreign Policy and Defence Adviser to the Prime Minister from 2003-2007.
Sir Nigel was the UK Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the European Union in Brussels from 2000-2003. Before that he was Europe Director in the FCO (1998-2000). He had an earlier posting in the UK Representation in 1993-95 as Head of its Political and Institutional Section. He began his career in EU work as Deputy Head of the FCO's European Union Department in 1989-92.
Sir Nigel's first foreign posting was in Moscow in 1978-79. He was also Head of the Foreign Office's Anglo-Soviet Section in 1981-83.
Sir Nigel has had a wide variety of other appointments in the FCO in London. From 1995-98, he was the FCO Press Secretary and Head of News Department. He was Deputy Head of the Foreign Office's Policy Planning Staff in 1987-1989, responsible for transatlantic relations and other issues. He also worked in London on the Japan Desk (1976-77) and on Zimbabwe (1979-81), including the Lancaster House Conference.
Sir Nigel was born in 1953 and educated at Harrow County Grammar School and Balliol College, Oxford. He is married with three sons.
This event is jointly sponsored by the Office for International Visitors at the Bechtel International Center, the Forum on Contemporary Europe, and the British Consulate General in San Francisco.
CISAC Conference Room
Sir Nigel Sheinwald
British Ambassador to the United States
Speaker
Seminars
May 2009 Dispatch - The Costs of Informal Caregiving by Invisible Caregivers in South Korea
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs
East and Southeast Asia are aging rapidly. South Korea, for example, has become one of the fastest aging societies in the world. In France, 115 years (1865–1980) were required for the proportion of population aged 65 and over to rise from 7 percent to 14 percent, but in South Korea, it is expected that a comparable change will occur in only eighteen years (2000–2018). More strikingly, it will take only eight years (2018–2026) for the proportion of South Korea’s elderly to increase from 14 percent to 20 percent. The nation’s old-age dependency ratio grew from 5.7 percent in 1970 to 12.6 percent in 2005, and is projected to further increase to 72.0 percent by 2050. At the macroeconomic level, these figures suggest an increasing burden on the working-age population to support the elderly population.
Such figures, however, do not tell the whole story about the burden shouldered by the working-age population. The lives of elderly and working-age individuals are not separate but rather, are linked by the institution of the family. Working-age adult children often take on the role of caring for elderly parents, who may have functional limitations and cognitive impairments. Such informal family caregiving is embedded in traditional Korean culture, as it is in many Asian societies that uphold traditional norms of filial piety.
As the elderly population grows, the demand for elderly long-term care will increase sharply. The supply of informal care, however, is decreasing for a number of reasons. Declining fertility rates have already diminished the potential pool of family caregivers. Further reducing the availability of family caregivers is an array of socioeconomic changes, such as increased migration, decreasing rates of intergenerational co-residence, and increasing labor force participation rates among women, who have historically served as the main family caregivers. Adult children, therefore, will increasingly experience a conflict between parental care responsibilities and their own work. Anecdotal evidence suggests that many daughters or daughters-in-law give up their professional employment to care for their disabled parent(s) or parent(s)-in-law. The work-family conflict also has important implications for the economy—informal caregiving may have additional negative effects on the labor force participation of the already shrinking working-age population.
I recently conducted a study using data from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging. My study indicated that providing at least ten hours of care per week reduces the probability of female labor force participation by 15.2 percentage points. I concluded that informal care is already an important economic issue in South Korea even though its population aging is still at an early stage. If the current trend continues, the labor market costs of informal caregiving will increase as the country experiences the full force of the demographic transition. One of the expected benefits of the public long-term care insurance implemented in July 2008 is to help family caregivers participate more easily in the labor force. In Japan, there is some evidence that long-term care insurance positively affects female labor force participation, but such beneficial effects have not yet materialized clearly in Korea. In both countries, there is much to learn from early experience with long-term care insurance.
In most parts of Asia, informal caregivers remain invisible on the policy agenda, not only because of cultural norms that perpetuate family-centered care but also because informal care incurs no public cost. However, the demographic transition, coupled with socioeconomic changes in the region, underscores the need to examine whether informal care is really without costs, at both individual and societal levels. Throughout Asia, the challenge for public policy will be finding the optimal mix of informal, family-based and formal, socially supported elder care.
All News button
1
Research Presentations by Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellows (Session 3)
-
In this session of the Shorenstein APARC Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellows Research Presentations, the following will be presented:
Jiecheng Cheng, “Knowledge Management of the Petroleum Enterprise”
Knowledge management as an effective tool to retain, capture, share and reuse organization knowledge. This is important in dealing with the problem of lost knowledge caused by a company’s growth, employee turnover, retirement, and the quandary caused by information explosion. Petroleum enterprises are more knowledge intensive and could benefit from knowledge management. Cheng’s research presents the concept and theory of knowledge management, the needed technologies, the role of the people, the key practical issues, and the future of knowledge management.
Yoshiko Moriguchi, “Demand Response by Smart Meters”
A smart meter is generally defined as a type of advanced electrical meter that enables to monitor the energy consumption at real time base or near real time base. It has the additional features more than simple automated meter reading and can provide customers with the feedback to encourage their actions for saving energy and money. In North America and Europe, many studies have been conducted to address the relation of data feedback and customer’s behaviors. Japanese utilities just started to consider installation of smart meters, therefore, this research will address the topics that can be referred to demand response by smart meters for residential customers in Japan.
Boyoung Shin, “Korea's Public Policy Profile Amidst Regime Change: Analysis of President Noh's Real Estate Policy”
After nearly half a century of conservatives in power, Korea’s center left party (the NCNP and the MDP ) won the presidential elections in 1997 and 2002 consecutively and became the ruling party until the beginning of 2008. This major transformation of power struggle structure in Korea subsequently led characteristic changes in the public policy making tendency of its administration. Yet, Korea still was in the midst of the Neo-liberalized way of economical and social structural reform that was guided by IMF since the1997 financial crisis. In his research Shin examines the Noh administration’s challenge to compensate its supporters by exploring its particular public policy: “Real Estate Policy of Noh Administration”.
Philippines Conference Room
Jiecheng Cheng
Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellow, PetroChina
Speaker
Yoshiko Moriguchi
Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellow, Kansai Electric Power Company
Speaker
Boyoung Shin
Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellow, Kyungmin College
Speaker
Seminars
James S. Fishkin
Encina Hall, E102
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305
0
jfishkin@stanford.edu
Janet M. Peck Professor of International Communication
Professor of Political Science (by courtesy)
Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
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.
Director, Deliberative Democracy Lab
Hide publication sections
Off
Iran's Nuclear and Missile Potential: A Joint Threat Assessment by U.S. and Russian Technical Experts
Paragraphs
A confluence of events has presented the Russian Federation and the United States with an unusual opportunity to transform their relationship.
The unfortunate reality is that trust is at an exceedingly low level between the elites and publics of both nations. Building that trust requires a leap of faith that they can work together on the most difficult issues. The determination to drive such trust-building on a vexing issue was behind the decision of senior Americans and Russians brought together by the EastWest Institute in 2007 to explore if collaboration was possible on the issue of Iran's ballistic missile and nuclear program. Following a tough yet civil private debate in Moscow, the participants - including on the American side General (ret.) James L. Jones, Ambassador Henry Crumpton, and General (ret.) Lance Lord, and a senior Russian delegation led by Presidential Representative Ambassador Anatoly Safonov - agreed that EWI should convene leading scientists from both states to take up the Iran issue and make it the subject of the fi rst JTA - Joint Threat Assessment. It would be an attempt to see if the top scientists and experts of the two states could agree on the nature of the threat posed by Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile program. Our debate in Moscow demonstrated that there was no easy agreement on Iran's intentions. A great cloud of ‘smoke' hung over the policy communities of both nations - a mixing of emotions and unsubstantiated reports with facts and policies. There was no dialogue. Instead the issue generated independent monologues fraught with suspicion and distrust. The decision to move forward with a JTA was a risky one. There was no assurance that it could be done.
Indeed, most outside experts told us that the task was impossible. Relations between Russia and the United States had deteriorated to a nadir not seen in decades. Among the major causes for the severe decline were the rushed ballistic missile defense agreements between the United States and Poland and between the United States and the Czech Republic to deploy assets in these European countries to counter a potential Iranian nuclear and missile threat. The United States government viewed this as a defensive move. Was Iran developing a capacity to hit Europe? How long would it take? The Russian government countered that the ballistic missile defense deployment near its borders was surely directed against Russia - an offensive move. Russian leaders and experts dismissed the idea that Iran currently possessed an offensive ballistic missile program capable of striking Europe. The sixteen Americans and Russians who sat around that Track 2 table back in 2007 in Moscow could have stopped at that impasse - but they did not. They agreed that the heart of the issue did not start with either the United States or with Russia but rather with the need to decipher the threat - what were Iran's technical capabilities? Could the two sides analyze and come to an agreement on the nature of the threat through a joint threat assessment?
Russia and the United States have been in dispute over the timeframe involved for Iran to acquire nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles, on the means needed to prevent that from happening, and - in the worst case that it cannot be prevented - the military operational responses available to both sides to defend against Iran's potential use of nuclear armed missiles. It was agreed that only after capabilities are ascertained can productive political conversations about motives and policy responses follow. Therein lay the mandate for the two teams of scientists, who worked independently and in a series of joint meetings that more often than not lasted well into the night.
Though the Iranian nuclear program has been the subject of detailed forensic public analyses, much less detailed attention has been paid, in public at least, to the Iranian missile program. Claims and counterclaims abound and defy easy understanding by the non-specialist. This report aims to fi ll that gap by providing a detailed examination of Iranian nuclear and missile capabilities. When might Iran be capable of deploying nuclear warheads? Assuming that Iran can develop that capability, would the proposed missile defenses be able intercept Iranian missiles? What are the possibilities of U.S.-Russian cooperation in this area? These are the vital questions that this report examines and makes its assessments.
All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Working Papers
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
EastWest Institute
International scholars to be in residence for pilot program
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs
Four scholars from Asia, Africa, and Europe have been chosen to come to Stanford under a new program launched by FSI and the Stanford Humanities Center to engage high-profile international scholars in the intellectual life of the university. The group includes Italian sociologist Diego Gambetta, Thai political scientist Thitinan Pongsudhirak, South African anthropologist Steven Robins, and French historian Anne Simonin.
The residencies are meant to attract high-profile international scholars whose research and writing coincide with the missions of both the Humanities Center and FSI. The visitors will offer informal seminars and public lectures and will be available for consultations with interested faculty and students.
All News button
1
Language Policy in Ukraine: What People Want the State to Do
-
Kulyk’s talk at Stanford will focus on popular preferences regarding language policy of the Ukrainian state as revealed by a comprehensive survey conducted in December 2006, the first such survey ever conducted in Ukraine. He will analyze the respondents’ views of actual and desirable language use in different practices, legal statuses of languages, and evolution of the language situation in the country, both on the aggregate level and broken down by ethnic, linguistic, regional, generational and other categories. He will thus demonstrate both diversity and ambivalence of popular attitudes and discuss how they influenced the state policy by constraining a compromise between the adherents of opposing political courses and, at the same time, enabling the government and major parties to alternate between emphasizing and downplaying the language issue in their political rhetoric and practice.
Volodymyr Kulyk is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, in Kyiv, from which he received his Ph.D. in 1999. Currently, he is a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. His research fields include politics of language and ethnicity in contemporary Ukraine and other multilingual societies, language ideologies, and media discourse. Kulyk is the author of two published books and numerous articles and book chapters on these topics in Ukrainian, English and other languages. His last published text is “Language Policies and Language Attitudes in Post-Orange Ukraine”, in Juliane Besters-Dilger (ed.), Language policy and language situation in Ukraine. Analysis and recommendations (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2008). His new book, Dyskurs ukraïns’kykh medii: Identychnosti, ideolohiï, vladni stosunky (Ukrainian Media Discourse: Identities, Ideologies, Power Relations) will be published in Kyiv later this year. He guest-edited a special issue of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language on “Languages and Language Ideologies in Ukraine”, to appear in early 2010. As a Wilson Center Fellow, Kulyk works on a project titled “Language, Identity and Democracy in Post-Soviet Ukraine”, which will result in an English-language book.
Jointly sponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europe and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.
Encina Ground Floor Conference Room
Volodymyr Kulyk
Woodrow Wilson Center Fellow
Speaker
Seminars
Former U.N. Special Envoy to Darfur Jan Eliasson addresses global crisis management
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs
Under the aegis of the Forum on Contemporary Europe, Ambassador Jan Eliasson, former U.N. Special Envoy to Darfur, visited Stanford and FSI to offer a new model for global crisis management of a wide range of issues, from piracy to global poverty. As the former president of the U.N. General Assembly, Eliasson called for concerted action by NATO, the European Union, the U.N., and other actors on pressing security and humanitarian issues. Arguing that current security and humanitarian challenges are greater than at any time in recent memory, Eliasson urged that world powers, along with international institutions, seek new leadership from the Obama administration grounded in recognition of the global impact of regional crises.
To make his case for seeing the global in the regional, Eliasson raised the specter of the escalating sea piracy off the coast of Somalia. Pirates in that region launch from the shores of a failed state – a polity that has degenerated into rival war-lord militias after combined forces of U.N. and Western powers lost their appetite for engagement, and turned their attention elsewhere. While much of the world is refocused on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, multinational corporations are increasingly subject to and pay out multi-million dollar ransoms for the release of ship crews and cargoes that include the world’s commercial arms shipments. The piracy has grown beyond instances of local plunder, into crime that threatens one of the most heavily trafficked shipping lanes between western and emerging markets. Merchant marine as well as naval fleets have been forced to change course, altering global transportation and security routes. Most recently, Eliasson’s call for international leadership would seem to have been heeded by nations attending the international summit in Brussels on the piracy crisis. At the summit, the E.U. foreign policy chief, the U.N. Secretary General, and U.S. officials joined with more than sixty countries – including Iraq – to pledge over $200 million in aid to the Somali government for security and development. This international cooperation, and attention to root causes, would seem to be the first sign of the kind of vision that Ambassador Eliasson urges for new and more comprehensive response.
Ambassador Eliasson completed his depiction of the most effective international policy responses with a focus on the world problem of poverty. Drawing on his years of experience in the international and Swedish diplomatic corps, Eliasson explained that in the most impoverished areas of the world, the most effective investment in international aid is that which funds the education of girls and young women. Teach a girl essential education, and she herself, along with her family, and her community, benefits in manifold ways. Raising his glass, Eliasson noted that great numbers of peoples still do not have access to cheap and clean water – an essential provision for health and development. Water, and access to its diminishing supply, must be understood by the world’s new leaders as the high stake behind multiple border wars.
The Forum hosted Ambassador Eliasson at FSI and Stanford for two days of talks to reach multiple audiences. At a Stanford Speakers Bureau event, Ambassador Eliasson addressed an overflow crowd of students and offered insights into the crisis in Darfur. The Forum welcomed the opportunity to bring Ambassador Eliasson, so recently from his mission in Darfur, to spur student interest in the role of international (U.N.) and regional (European Union and African Union) peace keeping operations. During the same visit to Stanford, the Forum on Contemporary Europe hosted Kerstin Eliasson, Board Member of the European Commission Joint Research Center, and former Assistant Undersecretary of the Swedish Ministry of Education and Science, to speak on research reforms in the European higher education system. Kerstin Eliasson’s public address was co-hosted with the Forum by the faculty seminar series of the Stanford Institute for Higher Education Research. The visit by Ambassador Eliasson, and Kerstin Eliasson, was a highlight of spring 2009 research and public dissemination of the Program on Sweden, Scandinavia, and the Baltic Region at the Forum on Contemporary Europe.
Hero Image
All News button
1