In 2009, world events collided with Schaake’s position as a newly-seated MEP. While the democratic elections in the EU were unfolding without incident, 3,000 miles away in Iran, a very different story was unfolding. Following the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a second term as Iran’s president, allegations of fraud and vote tampering were immediately voiced by supporters of former prime minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the leading candidate opposing Ahmadinejad. The protests that followed quickly morphed into the Green Movement, one of the largest sustained protest movements in Iran’s history after the Iranian Revolution of 1978 and until the protests against the death of Mahsa Amini began in September 2022.
 
With the protests came an increased wave of state violence against the demonstrators. While repression and intimidation are nothing new to autocratic regimes, in 2009 the proliferation of cell phones in the hands of an increasingly digitally connected population allowed citizens to document human rights abuses firsthand and beam the evidence directly from the streets of Tehran to the rest of the world in real-time.
 
As more and more footage poured in from the situation on the ground, Schaake, with a pre-politics background in human rights and a specific interest in civil rights, took up the case of the Green Movement as one of her first major issues in the European Parliament. She was appointed spokesperson on Iran for her political group. 

The Best of Tech and the Worst of Tech

But the more Schaake learned, the clearer it became that the Iranian were not the only ones using technology to stay informed about the protests. Meeting with ights defenders who had escaped from Iran to Eastern Turkey, Schaake was told anecdote after anecdote about how the Islamic Republic’s authorities were using tech to surveil, track, and censor dissenting opinions.
 
Investigations indicated that they were utilizing a technique referred to then as “deep packet inspection,” a system which allows the controller of a communications network to read and block information from going through, alter communications, and collect data about specific individuals. What was more, journalists revealed that many of the systems such regimes were using to perform this type of surveillance had been bought from, and were serviced by, Western companies.
 
For Schaake, this revelation was a turning point of her focus as a politician and the beginning of her journey into the realm of cyber policy and tech regulation.
 
“On the one hand, we were sharing statements urging to respect the human rights of the demonstrators. And then it turned out that European companies were the ones selling this monitoring equipment to the Iranian regime. It became immediately clear to me that if technology was to play a role in enhancing human rights and democracy, we couldn’t simply trust the market to make it so; we needed to have rules,” Schaake explained.

The Transatlantic Divide

But who writes the rules? When it comes to tech regulation, there is longstanding unease between the private and public sectors, and a different approach between the East and West shores of the Atlantic. In general, EU member countries favor oversight of the technology sector and have supported legislation like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Digital Services Act to protect user privacy and digital human rights. On the other hand, major tech companies — many of them based in North America — favor the doctrine of self-regulation and frequently cite claims to intellectual property or widely-defined protections such as Section 230 as a justification for keeping government oversight at arm’s length. Efforts by governing bodies like the European Union to legislate privacy and transparency requirements are with raised hackles 
 
It’s a feeling Schaake has encountered many times in her work. “When you talk to companies in Silicon Valley, they make it sound as if Europeans are after them and that these regulations are weapons meant to punish them,” she says.
 
But the need to place checks on those with power is rooted in history, not histrionics, says Schaake. Memories of living under the eye of surveillance states such as the Soviet Union and East Germany still are fresh on many European’s minds. The drive to protect privacy is as much about keeping the government in check as it is about reining in the outsized influence and power of private technology companies, Schaake asserts.
 

Big Brother Is Watching

In the last few years, the momentum has begun to shift. 
 
In 2020, a joint reporting effort by The Guardian, The Washington Post, Le Monde, Proceso, and over 80 journalists at a dozen additional news outlets worked in partnership with Amnesty International and Forbidden Stories to publish the Pegasus Project, a detailed report showing that spyware from the private company NSO Group was used to target, track, and retaliate against tens of thousands journalists, activists, civil rights leaders, and even against prominent politicians around the world.
 
This type of surveillance has innovated quickly beyond the network monitoring undertaken by regimes like Iran in the 2000s, and taps into the most personal details of an individual’s device, data, and communications. In the absence of widespread regulation, companies like NSO Group have been able to develop commercial products with capabilities as sophisticated as state intelligence bureaus. In many cases, “no-click” infections are now possible, meaning a device can be targeted and have the spyware installed without the user ever knowing or having any suspicions that they have become a victim of covert surveillance.

“If we were to create a spectrum of harmful technologies, spyware could easily take the top position,” said Schaake, speaking as the moderator of a panel on “Countering the Misuse of Technology and the Rise of Digital Authoritarianism” at the 2023 Summit for Democracy co-hosted by U.S. President Joe Biden alongside the governments of Costa Rica, the Netherlands, Republic of Korea, and Republic of Zambia.
 
Revelations like those of the Pegasus Project have helped spur what Schaake believes is long-overdue action from the United States on regulating this sector of the tech world. On March 27, 2023, President Biden signed an executive order prohibiting the operational use of commercial spyware products by the United States government. It is the first time such an action has been formally taken in Washington.
 
For Schaake, the order is a “fantastic first step,” but she also cautions that there is still much more that needs to be done. The use of spyware made by the government is not limited by Biden's executive order, and neither is the use by individuals who can get their hands on these tools. 

Human Rights vs. National Security

One of Schaake’s main concerns is the potential for governmental overreach in the pursuit of curtailing the influence of private companies.
 
Schaake explains, “What's interesting is that while the motivation in Europe for this kind of regulation is very much anchored in fundamental rights, in the U.S., what typically moves the needle is a call to national security, or concern for China.”
 
It is important to stay vigilant about how national security can become a justification for curtailing civil liberties. Writing for the Financial Times, Schaake elaborated on the potential conflict of interest the government has in regulating tech more rigorously:
 
“The U.S. government is right to regulate technology companies. But the proposed measures, devised through the prism of national security policy, must also pass the democracy test. After 9/11, the obsession with national security led to warrantless wiretapping and mass data collection. I back moves to curb the outsized power of technology firms large and small. But government power must not be abused.”
 
While Schaake hopes well-established democracies will do more to lead by example, she also acknowledges that the political will to actually step up to do so is often lacking. In principle, countries rooted in the rule of law and the principles of human rights decry the use of surveillance technology beyond their own borders. But in practice, these same governments are also sometimes customers of the surveillance industrial complex. 

Schaake has been trying to make that disparity an impossible needle for nations to keep threading. For over a decade, she has called for an end to the surveillance industry and has worked on developing export controls rules for the sale of surveillance technology from Europe to other parts of the world. But while these measures make it harder for non-democratic regimes to purchase these products from the West, the legislation is still limited in its ability to keep European and Western nations from importing spyware systems like Pegasus back into the West. And for as long as that reality remains, it undermines the credibility of the EU and West as a whole, says Schaake. 
 
Speaking at the 2023 Summit for Democracy, Schaake urged policymakers to keep the bigger picture in mind when it comes to the risks of unaccountable, ungoverned spyware industries. “We have to have a line in the sand and a limit to the use of this technology. It’s extremely important, because this is proliferating not only to governments, but also to non-state actors. This is not the world we want to live in.”

Building Momentum for the Future

Drawing those lines in the sands is crucial not just for the immediate safety and protection of individuals who have been targeted with spyware but applies to other harms of technology vis-a-vis the long-term health of democracy.

“The narrative that technology is helping people's democratic rights, or access to information, or free speech has been oversold, whereas the need to actually ensure that democratic principles govern technology companies has been underdeveloped,” Schaake argues.

While no longer an active politician, Schaake has not slowed her pace in raising awareness and contributing her expertise to policymakers trying to find ways of threading the digital needle on tech regulation. Working at the Cyber Policy Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), Schaake has been able to combine her experiences in European politics with her academic work in the United States against the backdrop of Silicon Valley, the home-base for many of the world’s leading technology companies and executives.
 
Though now half a globe away from the European Parliament, Schaake’s original motivations to improve society and people’s lives have not dimmed.

“It’s up to us to guarantee the upsides of technology and limit its downsides. That’s how we are going to best serve our democracy in this moment,” she says.
 
Schaake is clear-eyed about the hurdles still ahead on the road to meaningful legislation about tech transparency and human rights in digital spaces. With a highly partisan Congress in the United States and other issues like the war in Ukraine and concerns over China taking center stage, it will take time and effort to build a critical mass of political will to tackle these issues. But Biden’s executive order and the discussion of issues like digital authoritarianism at the Summit for Democracy also give Schaake hope that progress can be made.
 
“The bad news is we're not there yet. The good news is there's a lot of momentum for positive change and improvement, and I feel like people are beginning to understand how much it is needed.”
 
And for anyone ready to jump into the fray and make an impact, Schaake adds a standing invitation: “I’m always happy to grab a coffee and chat. Let’s talk!”

The complete recording of "Countering the Misuse of Technology and the Rise of Digital Authoritarianism," the panel Marietje Schaake moderated at the 2023 Summit for Democracy, is available below.

In Aug. 2019, Bobby Chesney (from Strauss Center at the University of Texas at Austin) and Max Smeets (from ETH Zurich and also Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC)) convened a workshop in Amsterdam focusing on military operations in the cyber domain, from a transatlantic perspective. The “Transatlantic Dialogue on Military Cyber Operations—Amsterdam” gathered experts from military, civilian, and academic institutions hailing from a range of countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Estonia, and France.

Read the Rest at Lawfare Blog

Sophia Hu, a Stanford student and prospective anthropology major, writes a summary of an annual forum that examines China’s health policy in comparative perspective

The Asia Health Policy Program held its Third Annual Forum on China’s Community Health Services and Primary Health Care Reform on June 22 in Beijing. The forum featured a diverse panel of speakers who addressed how to improve China’s primary care and community health care services. From discussing insurance plans to evaluating national policies and encouraging students to consider working as rural doctors, the speakers presented a wide array of research and experience. A brief summary of each presentation is detailed below.

Weichang Wang, director of the Ningxia Health Care Reform, discussed his experiences implementing a reformed health insurance payment system, originally developed by a team of researchers at Harvard and executed in Ningxia, China. Through this plan, his team created a medical insurance fund for the town that prioritized reimbursement for lower-level institutions, i.e. primary care centers. The plan resulted in increased accessibility, frequency of visits and patient satisfaction at primary care centers. It also saved money; however, some issues did arise such as how to develop accurate projections for the medical fund.

Quilin Chen of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, informed by his experience in Inner Mongolia, examined the disparity of hospitalization rates among different regions. He analyzed several factors, including financial incentives for patients and hospitals, regional differences in culture, and technological changes among primary care centers.

Jiaying Zhao of Australia National University and Shanghai University proposed using artificial intelligence (AI) to support primary care centers. She highlighted the benefits of AI, including how it can help inform physician decisions and bolster patient trust in primary care centers. Zhao, whose presentation motivated a spirited debate, shared important insights on the growing role of technology/CS in the health care field.

Jeroen Struijs of the Netherlands National Institute of Public Health and the Environment gave an overview of the primary care system in the Netherlands. With one of the most highly regarded systems in the world, the Netherlands prioritizes primary care-centric health care. He described how Dutch citizens seek care with their primary care physicians first – or face a penalty – before going on to specialists or hospitals. He also explained their bundled payment system. This system pays health services providers for a “bundle” of treatment for certain diseases, helping to align provider incentives with efficient convenient care, rather than fee-for-service which financially rewards quantity of services.

Hyuncheol Kim, an assistant professor at Cornell University, examined trends in long-term care insurance and public cancer screening programs in South Korea with a regression discontinuity design. His analyses helped to explain the relative success and failure of those programs. For example, his analysis was consistent with a theory that an intervention has a higher likelihood of failing if those receiving the intervention have other channels to receive benefits, i.e. patients are able to seek private as opposed to public insurance. His presentation also inspired discussion about primary care in Korea and the challenges Korea faces – similar to those in China – in trying to move away from a hospital-centric delivery system.

Lingui Li, director of Ningxia Medical University’s Public Sector Management Centre, delivered an overview of strategies to recruit health care workers in rural areas. He emphasized the need to balance primary public health service with primary clinical service and highlighted the dearth of doctors in villages.

Jinglin Yue, deputy dean of the Zhongshan University’s Institute of Public Administration, presented about his experiences establishing a hierarchical treatment system that aims to bring more people to primary care before pursuing treatment at hospitals. He explained the various incentives of the diverse interest groups involved, and emphasized the need for future government policies that support a 2-way referral system.

Xiaoguang Yang of Fudan University’s School of Public Health also described efforts to create a two-way referral system, based on his research of an integrated health system in Shenzhen. This initiative, using a people-centered reform paradigm, introduced the concept of “community of common destiny” to Luohu, China. The reformers tried to manage supply and demand using financial incentives to help providers including hospital groups coordinate in promoting a more integrated system.

Xiaoyun Liu of Peking University examined the efficacy of a new national program that contracts with students to commit to practicing medicine in rural areas in exchange for free medical school tuition. Using surveys, he gathered data on why students chose the program and where they chose to become rural doctors, among other factors. He then used this data to propose changes to enhance the effectiveness of the program.

Guanyang Zou, a researcher at Queen Margaret University, presented an overview of international experiences or “models” of health and social care that catered specifically to aging populations. These models included the integration of ambulatory medical care and aspects of social care and long-term care services.

Bei Lu of the University of New South Wales took an economic approach toward addressing the issue of long-term care for elderly populations. In her research, she worked closely with policymakers in Qingdao, China, and used a model to estimate how long-term care insurance could be structured so that the elderly could get optimal care without imposing a disproportionate financial burden on young taxpayers and fairly compensate providers.

Each presentation contributed important knowledge toward understanding primary care in China and elicited substantial discussion. This forum would not have been possible without the participation of the numerous speakers and the generous support of the Asia Health Policy Program and Chinese affiliates.

Asked to summarize his biography and career, Donald K. Emmerson notes the legacy of an itinerant childhood: his curiosity about the world and his relish of difference, variety and surprise. A well-respected Southeast Asia scholar at Stanford since 1999, he admits to a contrarian streak and corresponding regard for Socratic discourse. His publications in 2014 include essays on epistemology, one forthcoming in Pacific Affairs, the other in Producing Indonesia: The State of the Field of Indonesian Studies.

Emmerson is a senior fellow emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), an affiliated faculty member of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, an affiliated scholar in the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, and director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. Recently he spoke with Shorenstein APARC about his life and career within and beyond academe.

Your father was a U.S. Foreign Service Officer. Did that background affect your professional life?

Indeed it did. Thanks to my dad’s career, I grew up all over the world. We changed countries every two years. I was born in Japan, spent most of my childhood in Peru, the USSR, Pakistan, India and Lebanon, lived for various lengths of time in France, Nigeria, Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and the Netherlands, and traveled extensively in other countries. Constantly changing places fostered an appetite for novelty and surprise. Rotating through different cultures, languages, and schools bred empathy and curiosity. The vulnerability and ignorance of a newly arrived stranger gave rise to the pleasure of asking questions and, later, questioning the answers. Now I encourage my students to enjoy and learn from their own encounters with what is unfamiliar, in homework and fieldwork alike. 

Were you always focused on Southeast Asia? 

No. I had visited Southeast Asia earlier, but a fortuitous failure in grad school play a key role in my decision to concentrate on Southeast Asia. At Yale I planned a dissertation on African nationalism. I applied for fieldwork support to every funding source I could think of, but all of the envelopes I received in reply were thin. Fortunately, I had already developed an interest in Indonesia, and was offered last-minute funding from Yale to begin learning Indonesian. Two years of fieldwork in Jakarta yielded a dissertation that became my first book, Indonesia’s Elite: Political Culture and Cultural Politics. I sometimes think I should reimburse the African Studies Council for covering my tuition at Yale – doubtless among the worst investments they ever made. 

Indonesia stimulated my curiosity in several directions. Living in an archipelago led me to maritime studies and to writing on the rivalries in the South China Sea. Fieldwork among Madurese fishermen inspired Rethinking Artisanal Fisheries Development: Western Concepts, Asian Experiences. Experiences with Islam in Indonesia and Malaysia channeled my earlier impressions of Muslim societies into scholarship and motivated a debate with an anthropologist in the book Islamism: Contested Perspectives on Political Islam. 

What led you to Stanford?

In the early 1980s, I took two years of leave from the University of Wisconsin-Madison to become a visiting scholar at Stanford, and later I returned to The Farm for shorter periods. At Stanford I enjoyed gaining fresh perspectives from colleagues in the wider contexts of East Asia and the Asia-Pacific region. In 1999, I accepted an appointment as a senior fellow in FSI to start and run a program on Southeast Asia at Stanford with initial support from the Luce Foundation.

As a fellow, most of your time is focused on research, but you also proctor a fellowship program and have led student trips overseas. How have you found the experience advising younger scholars?

In 2006, I took a talented and motivated group of Stanford undergrads to Singapore for a Bing Overseas Seminar. I turned them loose to conduct original field research in the city-state, including focusing on sensitive topics such as Singapore’s use of laws and courts to punish political opposition. Despite the critical nature of some of their findings, a selection was published in a student journal at the National University of Singapore (NUS). NUS then sent a contingent of its own students to Stanford for a research seminar that I was pleased to host. I encouraged the NUS students to break out of the Stanford “bubble” and include in their projects not only the accomplishments of Silicon Valley but its problems as well, including those evident in East Palo Alto.

That exchange also helped lay the groundwork for an endowment whereby NUS and Stanford annually and jointly select a deserving applicant to receive the Lee Kong China NUS-Stanford Distinguished Fellowship on Contemporary Southeast Asia. The 2014 recipient is Lee Jones, a scholar from the University of London who will write on regional efforts to combat non-traditional security threats such as air pollution, money laundering and pandemic disease.

Where does the American “pivot to Asia” now stand, and how does it inform your work? 

Events in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and now in Crimea as well, have pulled American attention away from Southeast Asia. Yet the reasons for priority interest in the region have not gone away. East Asia remains the planet’s most consequential zone of economic growth. No other region is more directly exposed to the potentially clashing interests and actions of the world’s major states – China, Japan, India and the United States. The eleven countries of Southeast Asia – 630 million people – could become a concourse for peaceful trans-Pacific cooperation, or the locus of a new Sino-American cold war. It is in that hopeful yet risky context that I am presently researching China’s relations with Southeast Asia, especially regarding the South China Sea, and taking part in exchanges between Stanford scholars and our counterparts in Southeast Asia and China. 

Tell us something we don’t know about you.

Okay. Here are three instructive failures I experienced in 1999, the year I joined the Stanford faculty. I was evacuated from East Timor, along with other international observers, to escape massive violence by pro-Indonesian vigilantes bent on punishing the population for voting for independence. The press pass around my neck failed to protect me from the tear gas used to disperse demonstrators at that year’s meeting of the World Trade Organization – the “Battle of Seattle.” And in North Carolina in semifinal competition at the 1999 National Poetry Slam, performing as Mel Koronelos, I went down to well-deserved defeat at the hands of a terrific black rapper named DC Renegade, whose skit included the imaginary machine-gunning of Mel himself, who enjoyed toppling backward to complete the scene. 

The Faculty Spotlight Q&A series highlights a different faculty member at Shorenstein APARC each month giving a personal look at his or her teaching approaches and outlook on related topics and upcoming activities.