* Please note all CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

Register in advance for this webinar: https://stanford.zoom.us/webinar/register/8416226562432/WN_WLYcdRa6T5Cs1MMdmM0Mug

About the Event: Is there a place for illegal or nonconsensual evidence in security studies research, such as leaked classified documents? What is at stake, and who bears the responsibility, for determining source legitimacy? Although massive unauthorized disclosures by WikiLeaks and its kindred may excite qualitative scholars with policy revelations, and quantitative researchers with big-data suitability, they are fraught with methodological and ethical dilemmas that the discipline has yet to resolve. I argue that the hazards from this research—from national security harms, to eroding human-subjects protections, to scholarly complicity with rogue actors—generally outweigh the benefits, and that exceptions and justifications need to be articulated much more explicitly and forcefully than is customary in existing work. This paper demonstrates that the use of apparently leaked documents has proliferated over the past decade, and appeared in every leading journal, without being explicitly disclosed and defended in research design and citation practices. The paper critiques incomplete and inconsistent guidance from leading political science and international relations journals and associations; considers how other disciplines from journalism to statistics to paleontology address the origins of their sources; and elaborates a set of normative and evidentiary criteria for researchers and readers to assess documentary source legitimacy and utility. Fundamentally, it contends that the scholarly community (researchers, peer reviewers, editors, thesis advisors, professional associations, and institutions) needs to practice deeper reflection on sources’ provenance, greater humility about whether to access leaked materials and what inferences to draw from them, and more transparency in citation and research strategies.

View Written Draft Paper

About the Speaker: Christopher Darnton is a CISAC affiliate and an associate professor of national security affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School. He previously taught at Reed College and the Catholic University of America, and holds a Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University. He is the author of Rivalry and Alliance Politics in Cold War Latin America (Johns Hopkins, 2014) and of journal articles on US foreign policy, Latin American security, and qualitative research methods. His International Security article, “Archives and Inference: Documentary Evidence in Case Study Research and the Debate over U.S. Entry into World War II,” won the 2019 APSA International History and Politics Section Outstanding Article Award. He is writing a book on the history of US security cooperation in Latin America, based on declassified military documents.

Please note: the start time for this event has been moved from 3:00 to 3:15pm.

Join FSI Director Michael McFaul in conversation with Richard Stengel, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. They will address the role of entrepreneurship in creating stable, prosperous societies around the world.

Join us for our Spring Quarter Seminar Series featuring Shorenstein APARC Visiting Scholar and Japan Program Fellow Dr. Shinichi Kitaoka, Emeritus professor at the University of Tokyo and a distinguished scholar in modern Japanese politics, presents his new interpretations of six major issues in modern Japanese politics based on recent studies in Japan and his own experience as the Ambassador to the United Nations and the President of Japan International Cooperation Agency.

This seminar series re-examines several important and well-known issues in modern Japanese politics and diplomacy from the late 19th century to the 21st century based upon the lecturer’s recent research and experience within the government. Major topics are, Meiji Restoration as a democratic revolution, resilience of Taisho Democracy, Military as a bureaucracy, Surrender and the American Occupation, Yoshida Doctrine and the Regime of 1955, Development of ODA policy, and recent development of Security Policy in the 21st Century.

Catered dinner will be served at seminar sessions.

Speaker:

Image

Shinichi Kitaoka is the former President of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA: 2015-2022) and Emeritus Professor, University of Tokyo. Previous posts include President of the International University of Japan (2012-2015), professor at University of Tokyo (1997-2012), Professor of National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) (2012-), Professor of Graduate Schools for Law and Politics, the University of Tokyo (1997-2004, 2006-2012), Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Deputy Permanent Representative of Japan to the United Nations (2004-2006), and Professor of College of Law and Politics, Rikkyo University (1985-1997).

Dr. Kitaoka’s specialty is modern Japanese politics and diplomacy. He obtained his B.A. (1971) and his Ph.D. (1976) both from the University of Tokyo. He is Emeritus Professor of the University of Tokyo and Rikkyo University. He received many awards including the Medal with Purple Ribbon for his academic achievements in 2011.

Seminar Sessions

Session 1: Meiji Restoration -  April 10, 2025, 4:30 PM - 6:00 PM

Meiji Restoration, or revolution, was not only the establishment of centralized government, but also a democratic revolution in terms of wider participation of the people across classes and regions.

Session 2: Taisho Democracy - April 24, 2025, 4:30 PM - 6:00 PM

Party politics in pre-war Japan has been considered incomplete and fragile, but the rise of political parties in Taisho period (1911-1926) was a remarkable phenomenon and not particularly fragile compared to contemporary democracies around the world.

Session 3: Surrender and Occupation - May 1, 2025, 4:30 PM - 6:00 PM

What was the purpose of the United States? What did unconditional surrender mean? Why were the atomic bombs dropped? How was the constitution written and the Tokyo International Tribunal conducted? The legacies of occupation will also be discussed.

Session 4: The regime of 1955 - May 8, 2025, 4:30 PM - 6:00 PM

In 1955, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Japan Socialist party were formed While the former led Japan for 38 years, the latter remained out of power. The reasons of this rivalry and the consequences of this system will be discussed.

Session 5: Recent development of Japan’s security policy - May 15, 2025, 4:30 PM - 6:00 PM

Japan has set several constraints on their security policy, such as no export of weapons and a one percent ceiling on the military budget against GDP, among others. Finally, under Premier Abe, Japan started a series of effort to gradually become a “normal” country.

Session 6: Japan’s ODA - May 30 (FRIDAY), 2025, 4:30 PM - 6:00 PM

Japan began its Official Development Assistance in 1954, only 9 years after its defeat, and became No. 1 donor in the 1990s. The amount of ODA began to decline in 1997, reaching half of its peak, and Japan is now No. 3 in the world. However, Japan developed various unique approaches in its ODA. Now, as the US withdraws from ODA and the conflict between advanced and developing countries becomes tense, Japan’s ODA may provide unique approaches to developing countries.

Limited number of lunches available for registered guests on day of event.

About the event: Nuclear energy is breathing a fresh air of hope. Data centres, AI and electric mobility are driving electric power demand in the USA, while clean energy demand for development and industrialization in emerging and developing economies such as India is encouraging a comprehensive relook and a doubling down of investment in nuclear power. However, while the USA has technology and capital, its nuclear energy industry is bogged down by decades of neglect, resultant unravelling of supply chains and workforce shortages. Meanwhile, India's nuclear industry has made significant strides in recent decades but is limited by capital and technology. The talk explores the 'art of the possible' in a renewed nuclear energy cooperation between USA and India. Specifically, it argues that a US-India partnership involving technology sharing, joint standardisation of new designs, development of complementary supply chains and skilling of workforce would galvanize the opportunity presented by a key moment in nuclear energy history. Such a partnership would not only achieve the ambitious clean energy targets set by both countries, but also usher in a secure and sustainable nuclear energy future for the world.

About the speaker: Ambarish is an Indian career diplomat with nine years of experience and has served in various capacities at the Indian Embassies in Kyiv, Moscow, and at the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi. His experience lies in Political & Economic Affairs, Foreign Policy Planning and Strategic Outreach. Prior to a career in Diplomacy, Ambarish worked in Corporate Consulting and Business Analytics.

Presently, Ambarish is on an India-US Strategic Partnership Fellowship on critical and emerging technologies at the Center for International Security & Cooperation (CISAC), Stanford University. He holds a Master's Degree in Philosophy from the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and a Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani. As a diplomat, he has trained at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie and the Sushma Swaraj Institute of Foreign Service, New Delhi.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

No filming or recording without express permission from speaker.

About the Speaker 

Professor Maggiori is the Moghadam Family Professor of Finance at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. His research focuses on international macroeconomics and finance. He is a co-founder and director of the Global Capital Allocation Project. His research topics have included the analysis of exchange rates under imperfect capital markets, capital flows, the international monetary system, reserve currencies, geoeconomics, tax havens, very long-run discount rates and climate change, and expectations and portfolio investment. His research combines theory and data with the aim of improving international economic policy. He is a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a research affiliate at the Center for Economic Policy Research. He received his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley.

Among a number of honors, he is the recipient of the Fischer Black Prize awarded to an outstanding financial economist under the age of 40, the Carnegie and Guggenheim fellowships, and the Bernacer Prize for outstanding contributions in macroeconomics and finance by a European economist under age 40.

The family of Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh donated his personal archive to the Stanford Libraries' Special Collections and endowed the Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh Memorial Lecture series to honor his legacy and to inspire future generations. Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh (1919-2004) was former Governor of the Central Bank in Taiwan. During his tenure, he was responsible for the world's largest foreign exchange reserves, and was widely recognized for achieving stability and economic growth. In his long and distinguished career as economist and development specialist, he held key positions in multilateral institutions including the Asian Development Bank, where as founding Director, he was instrumental in advancing the green revolution and in the transformation of rural Asia. Read more about Dr. Hsieh.

Request Disability Accommodations and Access Info

Limited number of lunches available for registered guests on day of event.

About the event: Autonomous weapons systems (AWS) have sparked significant debate in international politics and research, especially regarding their ‘critical functions’ of target selection and engagement without human intervention or control. As a response to potential ethical and legal concerns, as well as security-related risks, AWS have been subject to an ongoing international regulation process at the United Nations since 2014. The primary focus of this process has been on maintaining human control over the use of force. However, since its initiation more than a decade ago, no regulatory framework has been agreed upon and core concepts, such as human control, are still highly contested.

Anna's research investigates why the regulation of AWS have not been successful (so far) by analyzing the co-production of weapons technology and arms control politics. In this talk, she shows that it is not solely determined by state interests. Rather, it is influenced by a complex interplay of knowledge production practices and discourses both within and outside of these processes. Moreover, with recent developments in and applications of artificial intelligence (AI), new questions about the nature of human-machine relations in war come to the fore, further complicating the regulatory landscape.

About the speaker: Anna-Katharina Ferl is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and the Stanford Existential Risk Initiative (SERI) at Stanford University. Her research focuses on the regulation of artificial intelligence and autonomy as well as the practices of knowledge production in international security. Anna received her PhD from the University of Frankfurt in 2024 and previously worked as a researcher at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF). In addition to academic publications, she has also contributed to several policy reports on topics such as German arms control policies and gender-specific aspects of new technologies in international security.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

No filming or recording without express permission from speaker.

About the event: Research shows that women are less likely to protest and have less cellphone access than men. Since studies indicate that cellphones can boost protest participation, we ask whether the gender gap in mobile ownership influences gender disparities in protest turnout. We find that the growing gender digital divide in cellphone ownership exacerbates the participation gap. We use survey data from Africa to show that where women systematically own fewer cellphones than men, they protest less frequently than men. We use a variety of methodological techniques to address concerns of endogeneity. We also probe one mechanism underpinning this relationship; we demonstrate that women who do not own cellphones face a political information disadvantage that limits their engagement. We conclude that unequal cellphone access further entrenches women’s position on the political margins.

This paper was co-authored with Tiffany Barnes, Emily Rains and Jingwen Wu.

About the speaker: Jakana Thomas is Associate Professor in the School of Global Policy and Strategy and Department of Political Science at University of California San Diego. Her research focuses on political violence and conflict processes with an emphasis on understanding women’s participation in and experiences with contentious politics. Her work has been published at the leading Political Science and International Relations journals, including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics and International Organization, among other outlets. She is PI on a Blue Shield Foundation funded project examining Californians’ experiences with violence across their lifespans (CalVEX).

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

No filming or recording without express permission from speaker.