Expected dramatic shifts of foreign policy by leading democracies, including the U.S. and U.K., would shake a future of liberal international order, which has underpinned the stability even after the end of the Cold War. Since Mr. Donald Trump was elected as the 45^th President of the U.S., abovementioned discourse is heard everywhere in Europe and Asia today.

It is not clear, if American leadership and military presence would in fact retreat, how American allies behave and whether they can work together to sustain the order. Among others, Japan has been the exceptionally strong believer of such postwar American leadership. It is doubtful that all American allies and friends share same views, having their own historical context with the U.S. and own ideas on order and principles. Hence, naturally they shall differ in losing the confidence on the durability of American leadership.

A new order will be shaped by many factors, but American allies’ perspectives should not be overlooked. Hegemon’s own reluctance for ruling is surely significant. So is other great power’s revisionism, making use of such strategic opportunities. However, American allies has the potential to shape the fate of the order: if they succeed in acting collectively, it shall underpin the global governance for a while, and ensue the order transformation process in rather slow and peaceful pace. 

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If they fail, it shall not only accelerate the U.S. retrenchment, but invite an emergence of divisive and competitive order. Sahashi shares the findings from the international study project which he leads, and argues the difficulty for US allies to unite themselves and the potential order transformation in the long term.

Ryo Sahashi is Associate Professor of International Politics and Director, Faculty of Law, Kanagawa University, Yokohama, and is leading the newly-launched international joint study “Worldviews on the United States.” From 2014-2015, he served as Visiting Associate Professor, Shorenstein APARC, Stanford University.

David Timberman is a political analyst and development practitioner with 30 years of experience analyzing and addressing political, governance and conflict-related challenges, principally in Southeast and South Asia.  As a Visiting Scholar at Stanford/APARC he is working on a book on the contemporary Philippine political economy.  During 2015-2016 he was a Visiting Professor of Political Science at De La Salle University in Manila. He has lived and worked in the Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore, including experiencing first-hand the democratic transitions in the Philippines (1986-1988) and Indonesia (1998-2001). He has written extensively on political and governance issues in the Philippines and has edited or co-edited multi-author volumes on the Philippines, Cambodia, and economic policy reform in Southeast Asia.

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She is the author of numerous books on a variety of subjects including the People’s Republic of China’s exchange rate system, Japan’s macroeconomic policy, IMF policy, and the European debt crisis. Her most recent book (translated title: Unwinding Super-Easy Monetary Policy), published in August 2016, is about the monetary policies of the BOJ, the European Central Bank, and the Federal Reserve System. She regularly appears on CNBC, Bloomberg, Reuters, BBC, and features in many Japanese TV programs and newspapers, commenting on the Japanese economy and monetary policy. URL: http://www.sayurishirai.jp

Her most recent book in English is Mission Incomplete: Reflating Japan’s Economy published by the Asian Development Bank Institute in February 2017. It is a complete analysis of BOJ’s unconventional monetary easing from the late 1990s to the present. Free Download is available at https://www.adb.org/publications/mission-incomplete-reflating-japan-economy.

Abstract: Throughout the Cold War, Japanese leaders and policymakers have generally been careful to reflect the public’s firm opposition to anti-nuclear sentiment. However, the turn of the 21st century has witnessed a remarkable shift in the political debate, with élites alluding to a nuclear option for Japan. This sudden proliferation of nuclear statements among Japanese élites in 2002 has been directly linked by Japan watchers to the breakout of the second North Korean nuclear crisis and the rapid buildup of China’s military capabilities. Is the Japanese perception of this double military threat in Northeast Asia really the main factor that triggered this shift in the nuclear debate? This paper argues that Japanese élites’ behavior rather indicates that the new threats in the regional strategic context is merely used as a pretext to solve a more deep-rooted and long-standing anxiety that stems from Japan’s own unsuccessful quest for a less reactive, and more proactive post-Cold War identity. 

About the speaker: Sayuri Romei is a Nuclear Security Predoctoral Fellow at CISAC for 2016-2017 and a doctoral candidate in international relations at Roma Tre University in Rome, Italy. Her dissertation focuses on the evolution of Japanese élites’ nuclear mentality in the postwar era, looking at its ambivalent nuclear history and exploring how the country’s nuclear latency was seen by the United States throughout the Cold War. She holds a BA in English Language and Literature from the University of Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris III, a BA in international relations from the University of Roma La Sapienza, and an MA in international relations from Roma Tre University. Her fellowship at CISAC is sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation.

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One policy option for countries reliant on natural resources is to share part of the revenues directly with citizens, an idea known as oil to cash. Technological innovation, such as biometric identification and mobile money, now allow direct payments to people on a massive scale. Additional changes in the global marketplace, experiments in India and Kenya, and shifting political views of cash transfers have all affected the potential of cash to boost governance.

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In this talk, Karine Walther discusses her new book Sacred Interests: The United States and the Islamic World, 1821-1921. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as Americans increasingly came into contact with the Islamic world, U.S. diplomatic, cultural, political, and religious beliefs about Islam began to shape their responses to world events. In Sacred Interests, Karine V. Walther excavates the deep history of American Islamophobia, showing how negative perceptions of Islam and Muslims shaped U.S. foreign relations from the Early Republic to the end of World War I.

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The Iraqi government, the Peshmerga, the international coalition and a consortium of militia have been winning the war against ISIS in Iraq.  The concern moving forward is whether Iraq’s state institutions have what it takes to prevent ISIS from reemerging in a new, and more deadly form after the current conflict is over. What does recent history, the current military campaign, and the Donald Trump administration’s current trajectory tell us about Iraq’s prospects?

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Due to the overwhelming interest in this event, we are now booked to full capacity and unable to take further reservations.

Please contact khaley@stanford.edu if you would like to be placed on the wait list.

This is a watershed French presidential election marked by the collapse of the main political leaders and established political parties as well as the amplification of corruption scandals by social networks.  The French electorate is torn between disengagement from politics, anger and confusion.  In the first ballot on April 23rd, voters are likely to reject the traditional Right/Left divide and stage the run-off campaign as a stark choice between far-Right populist leader Marine Le Pen and 39 year old pro-European centrist Emmanuel Macron.  These candidates and their ideas are the most emblematic incarnation of the clash that increasingly defines Western politics, pitting anti-immigrant and anti-trade nationalists against the more cosmopolitan elites.  Will France vote more like the Dutch or the British and Americans?  With what consequences for herself, Europe and the transatlantic relationship?

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Patrick Chamorel has written and lectured extensively on US and European politics. His research has focused recently on US strategic, political and economic relations with Europe and the EU, American and European political and business elites, the impact of globalization on governments, business and civil society, Euro-skepticism in America, and US and French presidential elections. He regularly contributes to the media, including the Wall Street Journal, Die Welt, Les Echos, Atlantico.fr, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and CNN International.

In the 1990s, Patrick Chamorel was a Senior Advisor to the Minister of Industry and in the Policy Planning Office of the Prime Minister in Paris. He is a graduate of Sciences-Po in Paris where he also earned his Ph.D. in Political Science after doing research at UC Berkeley and Stanford University. In addition, he holds a Master in Public Law from the University of Paris.

Abstract: In 1992, North Korea offered to dismantle its plutonium-production reactors in exchange for more “proliferation-resistant” light water reactors (LWRs) from the West, and this offer culminated in the 1994 Agreed Framework with the United States. After the Agreed Framework collapsed in 2002, North Korean negotiators continued to insist that LWRs were a prerequisite for relinquishing its nuclear weapons capabilities. Why has the regime placed such importance on this particular form of energy generation? I examine the history of North Korea’s pursuit of LWR technology, and the shifting role that pursuit played in its diplomacy. A technically informed look at the LWR fuel cycle reveals a network of technical dependence that can draw nations into enduring modes of collective action. At times, and with varying degrees of awareness, actors on all sides of the North Korean nuclear crisis sought to leverage these unique aspects of LWR technology, hoping to lay a path for North Korea to vacate its isolation. This overlooked history offers important lessons for nonproliferation thought and policy.

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Dr. Jillian Schwedler is Professor of Political Science at the City University of New York’s Hunter College and the Graduate Center, and Nonresident Senior Fellow of the Rafiq Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council.  She is member of the Board of Directors and the Editorial Committee of the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), publishers of the quarterly Middle East Report.

Dr. Schwedler’s books include the award-winning Faith in Moderation: Islamist Parties in Jordan and Yemen (Cambridge 2006) and (with Laleh Khalili) Policing and Prisons in the Middle East (Columbia 2010).  Her articles have appeared in World Politics, Comparative Politics, Middle East Policy, Middle East Report, Journal of Democracy, and Social Movement Studies, among many others.  Her research has received support from the National Science Foundation, the United States Institute of Peace, the Fulbright Scholars Program, the American Institute for Yemen Studies, and the Social Science Research Council, among others.