Stressed by Strife: ASEAN from Pattaya to Preah Vihear
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The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is Asia’s most resilient regional organization. Its ambitious new charter aims to foster, in a dynamic but disparate region, a triply integrated region comprising a Political and Security Community, an Economic Community, and a Socio-Cultural Community. The charter’s debut under Thailand’s 2008-09 chairmanship of the Association was badly marred, however, by political strife among Thai factions, clashes on the Thai-Cambodian border, and border-crossing risks of a non-military kind. How have these developments affected ASEAN’s regional performance and aspirations? Are its recent troubles transitional or endemic? Do they imply a need for the Association to reconsider its modus operandi, lest it lose its role as the chief architect of East Asian regionalism?
Dr Thitinan Pongsudhirak is director of the Institute of Security and International Studies and an associate professor of international political economy at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. He is a prolific author, having written many op eds, articles, chapters, and books on Thailand’s politics, political economy, foreign policy, and media, and on ASEAN and East Asian security and economic cooperation. He has worked for The Nation newspaper (Bangkok), The Economist Intelligence Unit, and Independent Economic Analysis (London). His degrees are from the London School of Economics (PhD), Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (MA), and the University of California (BA). His doctoral study of the 1997 Thai economic crisis won the United Kingdom’s Lord Bryce Prize for Best Dissertation in Comparative and International Politics—currently the only work by an Asian scholar to have been so honored.
Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room
Thitinan Pongsudhirak
Stanford Humanities Center
424 Santa Teresa St.
Stanford, CA 94305
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FSI-Stanford Humanities Center International Visiting Scholar
Thitinan Pongsudhirak is a high-profile expert on contemporary political,
economic, and foreign-policy issues in Thailand today He is also a
prolific author; witness his op ed, "Moving beyond Thaksin," in
the 25 February 2010 Wall Street Journal.
Pongsudhirak is not senior in years, but he is in stature. His
career path has been meteoric since he earned his BA in political science
with distinction at UC-Santa Barbara not long ago. In 2001 he received
the United Kingdom's Best Dissertation Prize for his doctoral thesis at
the London School of Economics on the political economy of Thailand's
1997 economic crisis.
Since 2006 he has held an associate professorship in international
relations at Thailand's premier institution of higher education,
Chulalongkorn University, while simultaneously heading the Institute of
Security and International Studies, the country's leading think tank on
foreign affairs.
His many publications include: "After the Red Uprising," Far East
Economic Review, May 2009; "Why Thais Are Angry," The New York
Times, 18 April 2009; "Thailand Since the Coup," Journal of
Democracy, October-December 2008; and "Thaksin: Competitive
Authoritarian and Flawed Dissident," in Dissident Democrats: The
Challenge of Democratic Leadership in Asia, ed. John Kane et al.
(2008). He has written on bilateral free-trade areas in Asia,
co-authored a book on Thailand's trade policy, and is admired by
Southeast Asianist historians for having insightfully revisited, in a
2007 essay, the sensitive matter of Thailand's role during World War
II.
He was a Salzburg Global Seminar Faculty Member in June 2009, Japan
Foundation's Cultural Leader in 2008, and a Visiting Research Fellow at
the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (Singapore) in 2005. For
ten years, in tandem with his academic career, he worked as an analyst
for The Economist's Intelligence Unit.
Seminars
Thitinan Pongsudhirak
Stanford Humanities Center
424 Santa Teresa St.
Stanford, CA 94305
0
FSI-Stanford Humanities Center International Visiting Scholar
Thitinan Pongsudhirak is a high-profile expert on contemporary political,
economic, and foreign-policy issues in Thailand today He is also a
prolific author; witness his op ed, "Moving beyond Thaksin," in
the 25 February 2010 Wall Street Journal.
Pongsudhirak is not senior in years, but he is in stature. His
career path has been meteoric since he earned his BA in political science
with distinction at UC-Santa Barbara not long ago. In 2001 he received
the United Kingdom's Best Dissertation Prize for his doctoral thesis at
the London School of Economics on the political economy of Thailand's
1997 economic crisis.
Since 2006 he has held an associate professorship in international
relations at Thailand's premier institution of higher education,
Chulalongkorn University, while simultaneously heading the Institute of
Security and International Studies, the country's leading think tank on
foreign affairs.
His many publications include: "After the Red Uprising," Far East
Economic Review, May 2009; "Why Thais Are Angry," The New York
Times, 18 April 2009; "Thailand Since the Coup," Journal of
Democracy, October-December 2008; and "Thaksin: Competitive
Authoritarian and Flawed Dissident," in Dissident Democrats: The
Challenge of Democratic Leadership in Asia, ed. John Kane et al.
(2008). He has written on bilateral free-trade areas in Asia,
co-authored a book on Thailand's trade policy, and is admired by
Southeast Asianist historians for having insightfully revisited, in a
2007 essay, the sensitive matter of Thailand's role during World War
II.
He was a Salzburg Global Seminar Faculty Member in June 2009, Japan
Foundation's Cultural Leader in 2008, and a Visiting Research Fellow at
the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (Singapore) in 2005. For
ten years, in tandem with his academic career, he worked as an analyst
for The Economist's Intelligence Unit.
Global warming could hurt some poor populations and lift others from poverty, FSE study finds
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The impact of global warming on food prices and hunger could be large over the next 20 years, according to a new Stanford University study. Researchers say that higher temperatures could significantly reduce yields of wheat, rice and maize - dietary staples for tens of millions of poor people who subsist on less than $1 a day. The resulting crop shortages would likely cause food prices to rise and drive many into poverty.
But even as some people are hurt, others would be helped out of poverty, says Stanford agricultural scientist David Lobell.
Lobell discussed the results of his research on Feb 19 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego.
"Poverty impacts depend not only on food prices but also on the earnings of the poor," said Lobell, a center fellow at Stanford's Program on Food Security and the Environment (FSE). "Most projections assume that if prices go up, the amount of poverty in the world also will go up, because poor people spend a lot of their money on food. But poor people are pretty diverse. There are those who farm their own land and would actually benefit from higher crop prices, and there are rural wage laborers and people that live in cities who definiztely will be hurt."
Lobell and his colleagues recently conducted the first in-depth study showing how different climate scenarios could affect incomes of farmers and laborers in developing countries.
Household incomes
In the study, Lobell, former FSE researcher Marshall Burke and Purdue University agricultural economist Thomas Hertel focused on 15 developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Hertel has developed a global trade model that closely tracks the consumption and production of rice, wheat and maize on a country-by-country basis. The model was used to project the effects of climate change on agriculture within 20 years and the resulting impact on prices and poverty.
Using a range of global warming forecasts, the researchers were able to project three different crop-yield scenarios by 2030:
- "Low-yield" - crop production is toward the low end of expectations.
- "Most likely" - projected yields are consistent with expectations.
- "High-yield" - production is higher than expected.
"One of the limitations of previous forecasts is that they don't consider the full range of uncertainties - that is, the chance that things could be better or worse than we expect," Lobell said. "We provided Tom those three scenarios of what climate change could mean for agricultural productivity. Then he used the trade model to project how each scenario would affect prices and poverty over the next 20 years.
"The impacts we're talking about are mainly driven by warmer temperatures, which dry up the soil, speed up crop development and shut down biological processes, like photosynthesis, that plants rely on," he added. "Plants in general don't like it hotter, and in many climate forecasts, the temperatures projected for 2030 would be outside the range that crops prefer."
Results
The study revealed a surprising mix of winners and losers depending on the projected global temperature. The "most likely" scenario projected by the International Panel on Climate Change is that global temperatures will rise 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) by 2030. In that scenario, the trade model projected relatively little change in crop yields, food prices and poverty rates
But under the "low-yield" scenario, in which temperatures increase by 2.7 F (1.5 C), the model projects a 10 to 20 percent drop in agricultural productivity, which results in a 10 to 60 percent rise in the price of rice, wheat and maize. Because of these higher prices, the overall poverty rate in the 15 countries surveyed was expected to rise by 3 percent.
However, an analysis of individual countries revealed a far more complicated picture. In 11 of the 15 countries, poor people who owned their own land and raised their own crops actually benefited from higher food prices, according to the model. In Thailand, for example, the poverty rate for people in the non-agricultural sector was projected to rise 5 percent, while the rate for self-employed farmers dropped more than 30 percent - in part because, as food supplies dwindled, the global demand for higher-priced crops increased.
"If prices go up and you're tied to international markets, you could be lifted out of poverty quite considerably," Lobell explained. "But there are a lot of countries, like Bangladesh, where poor people are either in urban areas or in rural areas but don't own their own land. Countries like that could be hurt quite a lot. Then there are semi-arid countries - like Zambia, Mozambique and Malawi - where even if prices go up and people own land, productivity will go down so much that it can't make up for those price increases. In the 'low-yield' scenario, those countries would see higher poverty rates across all sectors."
Under the "high-yield" scenario, in which global temperatures rise just 0.9 F (0.5 C), crop productivity increased. The resulting food surplus led to a 16 percent drop in prices, which could be detrimental to farm owners. In Thailand, the poverty rate among self-employed farmers was projected to rise 60 percent, while those in the non-agriculture sector saw a slight drop in poverty. In Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi and Uganda, poverty in the non-farming sector was projected to decline as much as 5 percent.
Risk management
Lobell said that, although the likelihood of the "low-yield" or "high-yield" scenario occurring is only 5 percent, it is important for policymakers to consider the full range of possibilities if they want to help countries adapt to climate change and ultimately prevent an increase in poverty and hunger.
"It's like any sort of risk management or insurance program," he said. "You have to have some idea of the probability of events that have a big consequence. It's also important to keep in mind that any change, no matter how extreme, will benefit some households and hurt others."
The Program on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford is an interdisciplinary research and teaching program that generates policy solutions to the persistent problems of global hunger and environmental damage from agricultural practices worldwide. The program is jointly run by Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.
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Participatory Development in East Africa's Largest Slum: The Carolina For Kibera Story
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Carolina for Kibera (CFK) inspires and nurtures youth leaders in the slum of Kibera, Kenya through a unique model of participatory development. CFK recognizes the youth of Kibera as resilient, wise, innovative, and eager to lift their community above the poverty and violence that plagues it. CFK's long-term initiatives provide youth opportunities to learn and serve while addressing a wide range of community needs including healthcare, education, waste recycling and reduction, HIV/AIDS testing and counseling, and girls' empowerment. CFK's model of participatory to fight abject poverty, and prevent ethnic, gender and religious violence has been internationally recognized, earning awards as a Time Magazine and Gates Foundation "Hero of Global Health" and the 2008 Oklahoma City National Memorial Foundation's Reflections of Hope Award. CFK is a major affiliated entity of UNC based at the Center for Global Initiatives.
Salim Mohamed Salim Mohamed co-founded and served as the Executive Director of Carolina for Kibera for eight years. At the age of 16, he was involved in the development of MYSA - the largest youth sports program in Africa based in the Mathare slum of Nairobi. Salim has helped launch community based sports and development programs in Ghana, Gambia, and Nigeria and presented at the International AIDS Conference. He serves as a director for Shoe 4 Africa, an advisor to Global Education Fund and a YES! facilitator. A TED Africa Fellow, he is currently pursuing a master's degree at the University of Manchester.
Rye Barcott While an undergraduate on an NROTC scholarship at UNC-Chapel Hill in 2001, Barcott founded CFK with the late nurse Tabitha Atieno Festo and community organizer Salim Mohamed. Barcott served five years in the Marine Corps before earning a combined MBA and MPA at Harvard as a Reynolds Social Entrepreneurship Fellow and a member of the Harvard Endowment's Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility. In 2006, he was named an ABC World News Person of the Year. A TED Fellow and member of the UNC Chancellor's Innovation Circle, Barcott is writing a book that juxtaposes community organizing and counter-insurgency (under contract, Bloomsbury Publishing).
Oksenberg Conference Room
Rye Barcott
Founder (l)
Speaker
Carolina for Kibera (CFK)
Salim Mohamed
Co-Founder (r)
Speaker
Carolina for Kibera (CFK)
Conferences
A Typological Analysis of Democratic Legitimacy: the Asian Cases
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A well-known puzzle in the study of Asian democratization is the inverse relationship between the level of democracy and the support for the "D" word. According to the latest Asian Barometer survey, Thailand, China, Vietnam, Mongolia, and Cambodia have a much higher level of overt support for democracy than those well-recognized democracies such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. To unravel this puzzle, the authors develop a new regression method for the two-dimensional typological analysis including the "D" word and the liberal democratic attitude. Four ideal types of democratic orientation are defined and analyzed: Consistent Democrats (high support for democracy, high liberal democratic value), Critical Democrats (low support for democracy, high liberal democratic value), Non-Democrats (low support for democracy, low liberal democratic value), and Superficial Democrats (High support for democracy, low liberal democratic value). Different from most of the regression methods, the dependent variables in typological regression include the radius and the azimuth and therefore transform the categorical nature of the two-by-two typology into distinctive types with a continuous character. The preliminary result indicates the high support rate of the "D" word in those less democratic countries is associated with a phenomenon that the word "democracy" has lost its distinctive semantic meaning and could embrace all desirable political values, covering any variety of political systems in the world.
Professor Min-hua Huang received his Ph.D. in Political Science from University of Michigan, and his B.A. in Business Administration from National Taiwan University. He is currently teaching at the Department of Political Science, Texas A&M University. In this special seminar, he will address the above issues, leading us to reconsider democracy and democratization in Asia.
Philippines Conference Room
Min-hua Huang
Assistant Professor
Speaker
Department of Political Science, Texas A&M University
Seminars
Crisis and Consensus; America and ASEAN in a New Global Context
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No crisis is uniformly global. The suffering and the opportunity that a "global" crisis entails are always unevenly distributed across countries, and unevenly across the population inside any one country. That said, one can nevertheless argue that we-not the old royal "we" but, more presumptuously, the new global "we"-are in January 2009 experiencing the latest of four dramatic changes that major parts of the world have undergone over the last twenty years.
Revised and updated as of late January 2009, this paper was originally presented at a conference on "Refreshing Thai-U.S. Relations" held in Thailand on 8-9 January 2009.
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American Studies Program, Chulalongkorn University (Bangkok, Thailand)
International Voices Seminar
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Thitinan Pongsudhirak, an International Visitor in 2009-10, is a high-profile expert on contemporary political, economic, and foreign-policy issues in Thailand today. Pongsudhirak is not senior in years, but he is in stature. His career path has been meteoric since he earned his BA in political science with distinction at UC Santa Barbara only ten years ago. In 2001, he received the United Kingdom’s Best Dissertation Prize for his doctoral thesis at the London School of Economics on the political economy of the Thai economic crisis in 1997.
Since 2006 he has held an associate professorship in international relations at Thailand’s premier institution of higher education, Chulalongkorn University, while simultaneously heading the Institute of Security and International Studies, the country’s leading think tank on foreign affairs.
His publications include: “After the Red Uprising” in Far East Economic Review, May 2009; “Why Thais Are Angry” in The New York Times, 18 April 2009; “Thailand Since the Coup” in Journal of Democracy, October-December 2008; “Thaksin: Competitive Authoritarian and Flawed Dissident” in John Kane, Haig Patapan and Benjamin Wong (eds), Dissident Democrats: The Challenge of Democratic Leadership in Asia, New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. He was Salzburg Global Seminar Faculty Member in June 2009, Japan Foundation’s Cultural Leader in 2008, Visiting Research Fellow at ISEAS in Singapore in 2005.
For ten years, in tandem with his academic career, he worked as an analyst for The Economist’s Intelligence Unit. He has written on bilateral free-trade areas in Asia, co-authored a book on Thailand’s trade policy, and is admired by Southeast Asianist historians for having insightfully revisited, in a 2007 essay, the sensitive matter of Thailand’s role during World War II.
The international visitors seminar series provides an opportunity for the Humanities Center's international scholars in residence to engage with the Stanford community by presenting and discussing their recent work in a congenial environment. Stanford faculty, students, and affiliates meet over lunch to hear a brief, informal presentation and engage in vigorous discussion. The series seeks to foster the exchange of ideas across borders and across disciplines, with the particular goal of enhancing interactions between researchers in the humanities and the social scientists.
Levinthal Hall
Thitinan Pongsudhirak
Professor, International Political Economy, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand; FSI-Humanities Center International Visitor, 2009-2010
Speaker
Seminars