This article examines the religious and intellectual dynamics behind the Ottoman military reform movement, known as the New Order, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Conventionally, the New Order has been examined within the framework of the Westernization of Ottoman military and administrative institutions. The Janissary-led popular opposition to the New Order, on the other hand, has been understood as a conservative resistance, fashioned by Muslim anti-Westernization. This article challenges this assumption, based on a binary between Westernization reforms versus Islamic conservatism. It argues that the Janissary-led popular opposition, which was consolidated long before the New Order, developed as a form of resistance by antinomian elements blocking the top-down disciplinary policies of the central state throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The New Order programme, which was unleashed in 1792, was also opposed by the Janissary-led coalition, on the basis that it would wipe out vested privileges and traditions. Supporting the New Order, we see a coalition and different intellectual trends, including: (i) the Euro-Ottoman military enlightenment, led by military engineers and scientists, which developed an agenda to reorganize and discipline the social-military order with universal principles of military engineering and (ii) Islamic puritan activism, which developed an agenda to rejuvenate the Muslim order by eliminating invented traditions, and to discipline Muslim souls with the universal principles of revelation and reason. While the Euro-Ottoman military enlightenment participated in military reform movements in Europe, Islamic activism was part of a trans-Islamic Naqshibandi-Mujaddidi network originating in India. We thus witness a discursive alliance between military enlightenment and Muslim activism, both of which had trans-Ottoman connections, against a Janissary-led popular movement, which mobilized resistance to protect local conventions and traditions.
In Beijing’s bustling Chaoyang District stands a multi-story building known as the Gonghe Senior Apartments: a 400-bed nursing home for middle-income seniors who are disabled or suffer from dementia. Why is Gonghe unique and why is it worth considering? Because Gonghe is a public-private partnership (PPP), a collaborative organizational structure supported by the District Civil Affairs Bureau Welfare Division that donated the land and building and the nonprofit Yuecheng Senior Living that operates the facility. And because PPPs like Gonghe might just be the right model to address the challenges surrounding elderly care in China as well as in other nations that face a looming burden of population aging.
This was a core message shared by Alan Trager, founder and president of the PPP Initiative Ltd., who spoke at a special workshop organized by Shorenstein APARC’s Asia Health Policy Program (AHPP). Focused on PPPs in health and long-term care in China, the workshop was part of a two-day convening related to the Innovation for Healthy Aging project, a collaborative research project led by APARC Deputy Director and AHPP Director Karen Eggleston that identifies and analyzes productive public-private partnerships advancing healthy aging solutions in East Asia and other regions.
The Innovation for Healthy Aging project is driven by the imperative to respond to a world that is aging rapidly. This demographic transition, reminded Trager at the opening of his talk, is a defining issue of our time, as aging is a multisectoral issue that increases the demand for health care, long-term care, and a large number of other social services. The aging challenge is exacerbated by its convergence with the rising prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), also known as chronic diseases. For while NCDs affect all age groups, they account for the highest burden among the elderly.
China: Ground Zero for Global Aging
Alan Trager discusses health and long-term care in China in the GSB's Highly Immersive Classroom
Alan Trager discusses health and long-term care in China in the GSB's Highly Immersive Classroom (Photo: Noa Ronkin)
The need to advance healthy aging and NCD prevention is a matter of grave concern in China, whose older population is larger than in any other country. Moreover, the aging challenge in China is interwoven with unique social trends. In particular, filial piety—which, for thousands of years, has been a fundamental family value and a mainstay of health and elder care—is under pressure, as young people strive to balance the demands of careers, fewer children per family, and migrating to cities for school and work, without affordable housing or long-term care financing support for their parents and other elderly relatives, who often stay in rural areas.
China’s health system is yet to adapt to the shift in the disease burden and health care needs driven by the aging population. Its existing health insurance programs are insufficient for outpatient management and care of chronic conditions, and as Trager emphasized, there is a lack of investment in training geriatric medicine professionals and incorporating geriatric principles into clinical practice.
How can China meet the high demand for elder care, increase workforce capacity, and promote healthy aging?
The answer, claims Trager, lies in developing multisector, integrated solutions to the challenges posed by population aging. While system-level efforts, such as building the social protection system and sustaining universal health coverage, continue to be led by the government, PPPs can play a major role in capacity building to ensure the sustainability of such systems through the advancement of technology, human resources, and innovation. Trager shared PPP Initiative Ltd.’s recent efforts to develop PPP solutions for aging populations in China and elsewhere. The workshop was held on October 10 at the Stanford GSB’s Highly Immersive Classroom, which is equipped with advanced video conferencing technology that allows participants in Palo Alto and at the Stanford Center at Peking University to collaborate in real-time. Experts from Beijing joined the discussion and followed Trager’s presentation with comments on how to move from awareness to action.
Private Efforts, Public Value
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From left to right: John Donahue, Karen Eggleston, Richard Zeckhauser. (Photo: Thom Holme)
Public-private collaborations—or rather collaborative governance–in China as well as in the United States is the subject of an upcoming volume co-authored by Eggleston with Harvard scholars Richard Zeckhauser and John Donahue. Both Zeckhauser and Donahue joined Eggleston the following day, October 11, at an AHPP-hosted seminar to discuss this upcoming publication, titled Private Roles for Public Goals in China and the United States: Contracting, Collaboration, and Delegation.
Eggleston, Donahue, and Zeckhauser define collaborative governance as private engagement in public tasks on terms of shared discretion, where each partner bears responsibilities for certain areas. Their upcoming book explores public-private collaborations in China and the United States, two countries where public needs require solutions that far outstrip the capacities of their governments alone. Beyond considering merely health and elderly care, the book features research into public and private roles in the governance of multiple other sectors, including education, transport infrastructure, affordable housing, social services, and civil society.
At the seminar, the three scholars reviewed different models of private efforts providing public value, outlined the justifications for collaborative governance, and explained some of the conditions that make such collaborative partnerships productive and valuable. They emphasized the need to account for the unique contexts in China and the United States and to steer clear of one-size-fits-all solutions.
Imperative for the Young Generation
One thing, they all agree, applies to both countries: government collaboration with private entities is inevitable if China and the United States are to achieve their articulated goals and meet rapidly increasing demand for high-end public services.
This sentiment echoed a claim Trager made the preceding day: a tidal wave of noncommunicable diseases in an aging world is approaching us quickly and governments cannot handle it alone. Young people must care about advancing creative solutions to this pressing problem because they will be the ones who will pay for the consequences if we get it wrong.
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Senior citizens relax on the Duolun Road in Shanghai, China.
Malaysia's ruling National Front (BN) coalition ran one of the most durable authoritarian governments in the world. But in May 2018, a coalition of opposition parties won power, unseating the BN government for the first time in 61 years. In two complementary talks, APARC scholars Sophie Lemière and Sebastian Dettman will examine the roots of this victory in light of the strategies, coalitions, and messianic messages used by the opposition. Using findings from their fieldwork in Malaysia, they will show how and why the opposition parties were successful and draw implications of the victory for Malaysia’s future under its new coalition government. The speakers will also convey broader insights about political competition in Southeast Asia’s semi-authoritarian polities and beyond.
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Sebastian Dettman completed his doctorate in the Department of Government at Cornell University in 2018. He researches party building, electoral competition, and political representation in newly democratic and authoritarian regimes, with a focus on Southeast Asia. Sebastian has an MA in Southeast Asian Studies from the University of Michigan and has worked as a consultant and researcher for organizations including the Asia Foundation, the International Crisis Group, and the Carter Center.
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Sophie Lemière is a political anthropologist in the Ash Center for Democracy at Harvard University. At Stanford she is working on a political biography of Malaysia’s current prime minister that features his recent election campaign. She is the editor of a series of books on politics and people in Malaysia, including Gangsters and Masters (2019), Illusions of Democracy (2017), and Misplaced Democracy (2014). She has held visiting research positions at universities in Singapore, Australia, and the US. Her PhD is from Sciences-Po in Paris.
Stanford Health Policy's Paul Wise held a conversation with Dr. Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank Group about improving the health of the poorest communities around the world. The two old friends talked about their work and the keys to accomplishing big goals during the Conversation in Global Health event. Wise is a core faculty member at Stanford Health Policy and the Center for Innovation in Global Health, as well as a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.
Populist leaders around the world often fight against corruption in an effort to win public support. Conventional wisdom holds that this strategy works because leaders can signal their benevolent intentions by removing corrupt officials. We argue that fighting against corruption can produce unintended consequences. By revealing scandals of corrupt officials, anti-corruption campaigns can alter citizens’ beliefs about public officials and lead to disenchantment about political institutions. We test this argument by examining how China’s current anti-corruption campaign has changed citizens’ public support for the government and the Communist Party. We analyze the results of two surveys conducted before and during the campaign, and employ a difference-in-differences strategy to show that corruption investigations decrease respondents’ support for the central government and party. We also examine our respondents’ prior and posterior beliefs, and the results support our updating mechanism.
SPEAKER:
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Yuhua Wang is an assistant professor in the Department of Government at Harvard University. He received his B.A. from Peking University and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. Yuhua's research has focused on the emergence of state institutions, with a regional focus on China. Yuhua is the author of Tying the Autocrat’s Hands: The Rise of the Rule of Law in China (Cambridge University Press, 2015). He is currently working on a book-length project to examine long-term state development in China.
Singapore’s government is widely seen as competent, honest, and meritocratic—an exceptional case of post-colonial governance. Nor can any elected incumbent party anywhere match Singapore’s People’s Action Party’s 59-year record of uninterrupted rule. But recent events have cast doubt on the PAP government’s reputation for performance and stability. Despite acknowledging its need for new leaders, the government has been unable to select a clear successor to the current prime minister, even as his talented and popular deputy is sidelined, apparently due to his ethnic-minority background. When the government tried to ascertain public opinion on legislation against “deliberate online falsehoods,” the exercise descended into name-calling and threats against witnesses. Resentments have meanwhile risen over socioeconomic inequality and the mismanagement of public transport, housing, and health care.
How did this happen? In his talk, Dr. Thum will explore the historical forces that have shaped Singapore's politics and governance; explain the political economy of decision-making there; and recount his own experience with the turmoil affecting the country's government. He will argue that Singapore's post-colonial independence and governance are an evolution of—not from—British colonial rule. The government is responsive and accountable to international capital. But the PAP needs the approval of voting citizens to legitimize its continuation in power. The party’s leaders embody this dilemma in their struggles to reconcile two such different and competing sets of interests.
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Thum Ping Tjin (“PJ”) is a historian. He founded and serves as managing director of New Naratif (www.newnaratif.com), a Southeast Asian platform for research, journalism, art, and community organization that supports democracy and human rights. He is also a founding director of Project Southeast Asia, an interdisciplinary research cluster on the region at the University of Oxford. A Rhodes Scholar, Commonwealth Scholar, Olympic athlete, and the only Singaporean to have swum the English Channel, his scholarship centers on the history of Southeast Asian governance and politics. In March 2018 he was questioned for six hours by Singapore’s minister for law and home affairs for his criticism of statements and actions undertaken by PAP politicians acting under internal security laws in Singapore during the Cold War.
Rachel Hirshman, BS ’18, MS ’19, spent the summer in Hawaii helping plan and execute military exercises via an internship with the United States Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) sponsored by APARC’s U.S.-Asia Security Initiative. Stanford News spoke with Hirshman about U.S. military operations in Hawaii and her work with INDOPACOM.
The digital transition of the world economy is now entering a phase of broad and deep societal impact. While there is one overall transition, there are many different sectoral transformations, from health and legal services to tax reports and taxi rides, as well as a rising number of transversal trends and policy issues, from widespread precarious employment and privacy concerns to market monopoly and cybercrime. This Research Handbook offers a rich and interdisciplinary synthesis of some of the recent research on the digital transformations currently under way.
This comprehensive study contains chapters covering sectoral and transversal analyses, all of which are specially commissioned and include cutting-edge research. The contributions featured are global, spanning four continents and seven different countries, as well as interdisciplinary, including experts in economics, sociology, law, finance, urban planning and innovation management. The digital transformations discussed are fertile ground for researchers, as established laws and regulations, organizational structures, business models, value networks and workflow routines are contested and displaced by newer alternatives.
This book will be equally pertinent to three constituencies: academic researchers and graduate students, practitioners in various industrial and service sectors and policy makers.
Chapter 17 of this book, The Impact of Digital Technologies on Innovation Policy, was written by Shorenstein APARC Research Scholar Kenji Kushida.
Highly readable yet deeply researched, this book serves as an essential guide to the many ways in which Japan has risen to become one of the world's most creative and innovative societies.
• Challenges conventional views of Japan as mired in two unproductive "lost decades" by documenting the myriad ways in which the nation has embraced creativity and innovation
• Describes the ways in which Japan has transformed our lives and explains the guiding principles of one of the world's least understood, most vibrantly creative societies
• Explains how Japan, as the world's first non-Western developed nation, can inspire other nations at a time when America's economic and social models are being challenged as never before
• Argues that, in a world that seems to have lost its direction in the face of threats ranging from terrorism to angry populism, Japan can assume greater leadership in preserving global peace and prosperity
Chapter 4 of this book, Departing from Silicon Valley: Japan's New Startup Ecosystem, was written by Shorenstein APARC Research Scholar Kenji Kushida.
Alan Trager discusses health and long-term care in China in the GSB's Highly Immersive Classroom
