Despite adverse implications for its image, when it comes to territorial disputes, China has been willing to employ coercion. But Beijing is selective regarding the timing, targets, and tools of coercion. Military coercion is rare and the forms and uses of coercion vary. In the face of what China sees as similar threats by different countries, for example, Beijing tends to tailor its responses, country by country, case by case. Dr. Zhang will focus on Chinese coercive behavior in the South China Sea. She will offer a new theory as to when, why, and how China coerces other states.  Leveraging a wealth of newly available primary documents and hundreds of hours of interviews with Chinese officials, she will trace the decision-making processes that result in coercion’s use or non-use.

Where others may view China as repetitively aggressive, Dr. Zhang sees a cautious bully that does not coerce frequently and has tended, as it has gained strength, to use non-kinetic kinds of coercion. She finds that protecting a reputation for resolve and calculating economic costs are critical elements in China’s decision-making regarding the (dis)advantages of coercing its neighbors. Nor is the intended target country necessarily clear. China often coerces one to deter another – “killing the chicken to scare the monkey.” Implications will also drawn from her research that can help in projecting China’s likely future foreign-policy behavior beyond Southeast Asia and in understanding the roles played by coercion in the strategies of states more generally.

To learn more about, watch a recent interview APARC filmed with Dr. Zhang.

Ketian Vivian Zhang will be an Assistant Professor of International Security in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University starting in September 2019. Her book project at Stanford and a forthcoming article in International Security are on the subject of her talk. Beyond its topic, another part of her research agenda explores how the globalized economy and its chains of manufacture and supply affect the foreign-policy behaviors of states. Her 2018 PhD in political science is from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is a proud Badger, having earned her BA in political science and sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Catalonia’s bid for independence seems to have involved a major political puzzle for considerable parts of the European public, including academia. In response to the puzzle, there has been a recurrent inclination to perceive Catalan sovereigntism as an additional symptom of the larger malaise which has in recent years entailed the rise of nationalism, populism, and welfare chauvinism all over the Continent. The paper will argue that such views are a blatant misinterpretation of the Catalan process. At the same time, it will hold that the significance of recent political developments in Catalonia goes way beyond the opening of a new round of the conflictual relationship between the Spanish state and an ever contentious periphery.

What is at stake today in Catalonia is not just finding an adequate response to the old question of how to accommodate particular national identities in liberal-democratic states by relying on some version of the minority-rights-cum-territorial- autonomy formula. The issue rather is how to find democratic ways to change the foundations of pre-democratic forms of statehood. Seen against this background, the Catalan process calls for a thorough re-assessment of the meaning of sovereignty in complex polities and thereby bears a great potential for democratic innovation. We are confronting a phenomenon that has little to do with an anachronistic resurgence of nationalism or with a particular version of South European populism. On the contrary, the driving force of Catalan sovereigntism has been and is a popular republicanism with a substantial transformative impact. That this impact is hardly appreciated at the level of the European Union is one of the tragic ironies of what is currently happening between Brussels, Madrid, and Barcelona. To the extent that it stands by the side of the Spanish government in the conflict, thereby prioritizing the Europe of the states vis-à-vis the Europe of the citizens, the Union is ultimately undermining the very normative promises that once sustained its constitution.

Peter A. Kraus is a full professor of political science (comparative politics) and the director of the Institute for Canadian Studies at the University of Augsburg (Germany). He has been the chair of ethnic relations at the University of Helsinki, an associate professor of political science at Humboldt University in Berlin, a John F. Kennedy Memorial Fellow at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University, and a visiting professor at the New School for Social Research and at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. He has published widely and in several languages on cultural diversity and identity politics, ethnicity, nationalism, and migration, the dilemmas of European integration, as well as problems of democratization and democratic theory. He is the author of A Union of Diversity: Language, Identity, and Polity-Building in Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2008). His most recent publications include The Catalan Process: Sovereignty, Democracy and Self-Determination in the 21st Century (edited w. J. Vergés, Barcelona: Institut d’Estudis de l’Autogovern, 2017) and The Politics of Multilingualism: Europeanisation, globalization and linguistic governance (edited with F. Grin, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2018). Kraus has been the Chair of the Research Networking Programme “Responding to Complex Diversity in Europe and Canada” (RECODE, www.recode.info), funded by the European Science Foundation, and a member of the steering committee of the European Commission’s Seventh Framework project “Mobility and Inclusion in Multilingual Europe” (MIME, www.mime-project.org).

Abstract:

The recent surge in nationalism and tribalism brings renewed salience to questions of identity within and across borders. Notably, it exposes the tension between bounded social identities, on the one hand, and universalist yearnings and commitments, on the other. Liberal democracy—and the ostensible universalism on which it is based—is struggling to resolve this tension. I turn instead to the cosmopolitan tradition. I argue that cosmopolitanism—and a genuinely cosmopolitan (i.e., unbounded) social identity, in particular—represents not just an extension of scope from the national to the global, but a qualitative shift that permeates all identities, and serves to fundamentally protect and liberate particularist attachments from their otherwise inherent instabilities and contradictions. On this view, the promise of cosmopolitanism does not rest exclusively in what it can deliver beyond our borders, but also in its potential to fundamentally recast social identities within boundaries, resolving crises of identity at all levels of society.

 

Speaker Bio:

Shahrzad Sabet's research spans politics, economics, psychology, and philosophy. She is a Fellow at the University of Maryland’s Bahá’í Chair for World Peace Program. Previously, she was a Senior Research Fellow at Princeton University’s Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance and a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard, where she recently received her PhD in Government. Her work has been featured in outlets such as The Washington Post and The New York Times.

Abstract:

Venezuela finds itself mired in an unprecedented economic and political crisis. The economy has contracted nearly 50% since President Maduro took office in 2013, oil production has declined to levels below those last seen in 1950, and inflation has reached an estimated annual rate of over 1.3 million percent. Millions have fled abroad in search of a better life, making Venezuela’s migration crisis the second worst in the world after Syria’s. In 2019, the ruling Maduro regime faces new challenges at home from an opposition that has declared it illegitimate, and from abroad due to diplomatic non-recognition by over 50 governments and the imposition of U.S. sanctions on the Venezuelan oil industry. This talk will examine the apparently intractable political and economic crisis facing Venezuela, the role of the military in keeping the present government in power, and the impact of the latest domestic and international pressures on the Maduro regime

 

Speaker Bio:

Harold Trinkunas is the Deputy Director of and a Senior Research Scholar at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. Prior to arriving at Stanford, Dr. Trinkunas served as the Charles W. Robinson Chair and senior fellow and director of the Latin America Initiative in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. His research focuses on issues related to foreign policy, governance, and security, particularly in Latin America. Trinkunas has written on emerging powers and the international order, ungoverned spaces, terrorism financing, borders, democratic civil-military relations, drug policy and Internet governance. He received his doctorate in political science from Stanford University in 1999. He was born in Maracaibo, Venezuela.

The format of this presentation is each of the four speakers will have approximately 15 minutes to present their research.  This will be followed by a short period of 5-10 minutes for any questions or comments from the audience.

In this session of the Global Affiliates Research Presentations, the following will be presented:

Alex Chen, SanJohn Capital, "A Happy Mind of an Investor"

As an investor, it's almost impossible to keep a peaceful mind and a tranquil heart.  An investor's physical, mental and spiritual states are susceptible to the market's ups=-and-downs, fluctuating with stock prices.  The emotional burden can be so heavy that many investors quit.  The defining quality of a successful investor is their ability to stay uninfluenced by external circumstances — or what is called a beginner's or happy mind.  In his presentation, Chen shares some examples of successful investments made with a new approach.

Umesh Desai, Reliance Life Sciences, "Production Management and Process Excellence Aspects in Manufacturing of Biopharmaceutical Products"

Achieving excellence, especially in the manufacturing of biopharmaceutical products, is difficult, but not impossible.  Successful use of different process excellence tools such as Lean (different wastes), Kaizen (continuous improvement), and Six Sigma (reduce variation) started in the automobile industry in the 1950s with the Toyota Production System.  Some pharma manufacturers tried to introduce these concepts, but were met with difficulties due to complex production manufacturing processes, maintaining good quality products, and meeting regulatory guidelines.  Implementing and maintaining this operational excellence in pharma industries, and then shifting to the biopharma industry made the task even more challenging.  Today, you can see these concepts in the biopharma industry more, but still not fully.  In his presentation, Desai will share examples of operational excellence and show how it has been modified and applied to the biopharma industry.  He will also share some solutions to improve the production time and efficiency to get the right quality product with affordable cost to the user. 

Akihisa Makino, Japan Patent Office, "Best Strategies for Intellectual Property in the Field of Medical Science"

Intellectual property (IP), such as patents, are exclusive rights and essential to make businesses with technology successful.  All companies, including startups, are required to obtain patents and plan their IP strategy properly by the time their products launch.  In the field of medical science, there are various technical fields such as cellular therapy, vaccine, small molecule organic compounds, and regenerative medicine, each with different IP strategy.  In his research, Makino has studied patent application trends in each of these technical areas as well as differences in patent application categories between small and large companies in Japan and the United States.  Additionally, after investigating patents of successful companies, in this presentation, Makino will propose the best IP strategy in this field based on his research findings.

Keisuke Yamazaki, The Asahi Shimbun, "How to Encourage Internet Users to Utilize the Web with Political Balance"

Every day, we get our news in a variety of ways – browsing the web, through news feeds of social networking services and from news apps.  These systems each have their own algorithms that deliver articles to fit the user's preferences.  Though they are good tools for users to find articles, the diversity of the articles is often lost.  In his research, Yamazaki studied situations of internet bias such as a "filter bubble".  In this presentation, he shares measures he learned to avoid this bias and proposes new methods to distinguish between liberal and conservative news by using machine learning. 

The format of this presentation is each of the four speakers will have approximately 15 minutes to present their research.  This will be followed by a short period of 5-10 minutes for any questions or comments from the audience.

In this session of the Global Affiliates Research Presentations, the following will be presented:

Yosuke Hatano, Shizuoka Prefectural Government, "Digital Transformation of the Public Sector and Possibilities to Introduce to Local Government of Japan"

What is needed for local governments in Japan to succeed in the age of digitalization?  How can they adapt to survive in the rapidly changing environment?  Players of the public sector in Japan are now under pressure to find ways of transforming social conditions and new tools to offer better solutions to the people.  In his research, Hatano has searched for actual cases that have used the power of digital and information technologies in the policy-making process and in public service.  In his presentation, Hatano will share an overview of the current situation as well as offer suggestions on ways to introduce digitalization to transform Japanese local governments. 

Yusuke Matsuda, Nippon Foundation, "Social Impact Investing Trends and Best Practices in the U.S."

Social problems are becoming more complex and severe in current society.  It is crucial for non-profit organizations to involve and create a coalition with governmental organization, for-profit enterprises, and citizens together to solve various social issues.  Impact investment has been playing a crucial role to build this coalition of philanthropists and investors.  Impact investment is a practice distinguished by its aim to general social and environmental benefits alongside financial returns.  Currently, there is more than $70 billion in assets under management by major traditional investment funds such as BlackRock, Credit Suisse, and Goldman Sachs.  As more financial and professional talent engages in solving social issues, we have seen non-profit organizations accelerating their capacity and speed to have social impact.  In his presentation, Matsuda introduces Omydiar network, one of the most impactful investment fund's strategy, to help us learn how we can structure more effective financial schemes to solve social issues. 

Akira Muto, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan, "Two Revisionist Powers in Eurasia and How to Deal with Them in the 21st Century"

The world today is full of uncertainties.  During the Cold War, the containment policy worked successfully against the single adversary, the Soviet Union, and led to the victory of liberal democracies.  However, today, liberal democracies are challenged by more than one major power - first and foremost by the two revisionist powers, Russia and China, and possibly more including Iran.  Is dual containment as suggested by the US Administration's National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy a realistic and plausible policy?  In his research, Muto explores alternative policy options and makes suggestions for U.S.-Japan Alliance to build upon FOIP (Free and Open Indo-Pacific) which has been advocated by the Japanese government in recent years with a focus on the differences between adversaries for purposes of defending and reinforcing liberal institutions.  Muto prefers containment based on the balance of power tactics, as originally considered by George Kennan, rather than the "globalized" version of containment and defeating adversaries by means of war, which would be too costly.

Ramachandra Siddappa, Reliance Life Sciences, "A Scientific Visualization to Improve Biopharmaceuticals' Technical and Operational Management"

Biologics are drug products manufactured in, extracted from, or semi-synthesized from biological sources.  Demand for biologics is increasing.  The global pharmaceutical market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 9.4%, reaching $278 billion in revenue by the end of 2020.  This high rate of growth is driven by factors such as aging population and increased prevalence of chronic disease, especially in the western world.  However, the most important reason for such a high rate of increase in use of biopharmaceuticals is superior effectiveness in treating many diseases, including treating conditions for which there were previously few effective drug treatments available. 

Biologics have a very complex production process and are affected by a wide range of factors such as cell system, fermentation media, operation conditions, problems faced in scaleup and very long batch periods.  To meet the high demand of these lifesaving drugs and to overcome the challenges faced by biopharma industries, Siddappa has focused his research on strategic and operational decision making by applying mathematical programming techniques for production planning of biopharma manufacturing facilities for improved costs effectiveness and better capacity management.

The format of this presentation is each of the three speakers will have approximately 15 minutes to present their research.  This will be followed by a short period of 5-10 minutes for any questions or comments from the audience.

In this session of the Global Affiliates Research Presentations, the following will be presented:

Hiroto Akai, Ministry of Finance, Japan, "FinTech and Japanese Banks:  Implications for Fiscal Sustainability"

Although Japan has the world's largest government debt, the interest rate of the Japanese Government Bond (JGB) still remains lower than most major countries.  In the JGB market, Japanese banks play a key role as massive investors.  However, in recent years, many business environments surrounding Japanese banks have dramatically changed.  One of the biggest changes is FinTech.  Given the growth of FinTech, some researchers argue that it could disrupt traditional banking.  In his research, Akai provides an overview of the FinTech phenomenon, especially in the U.S., and tries to analyze the relationship between FinTech and incumbent banks.  Given the characteristics in Japan's financial market, Akai tries to clarify the impact of Fintech to the investment behavior of Japanese banks.

Yasuhito Ando, Kozo Keikaku Engineering, "Use of AI in Architectural Design:  Defining Comfort in Residential Design"

In the construction industry, the use of IT, AI, and robotics is advancing with many used to respond to labor shortages and reduce costs.  However, the value of using a computer is not only to improve efficiency, but to possibly create new solutions beyond the limit of human established concepts.  Computational design is expected to derive optimal solutions that humans have never imagined in complex conditions. 

In the design of buildings, there are already examples of computer-based optimization of structure, design, cost and environment.  However, there is no example of realizing comfortable planning.  This is because the comfort is vague and difficult to design.  In his research, Ando examines how to find comfort definitions from housing design data.

Takanori Tomozawa, Ministry of Economy, Trade & Industry, Japan, "Innovation for Energy Policy & Companies in Japan —  Lessons Learned from Silicon Valley"

In the energy field, innovation is becoming more and more essential under the trends of decarbonization, digitaliation, decentralization, and so on.  Tomozawa's research objective is to find implications to improve the energy innovation capability of the Japanese government and companies.  To do so, Tomozawa has scrutinized the activities of other countries' energy companies, the energy innovation ecosystem especially in the Silicon Valley, and the discussion about future electricity system reform in California.  Silicon Valley is a place where high-technologies are developed before anywhere else in the world, where many emerging startups are created, and where there is a variety of opportunities to invest in innovations under the advanced legal system.  In his presentation, Tomozawa will share the lessons he has learned from Silicon Valley to achieve his objective.