FSI researchers strive to understand how countries relate to one another, and what policies are needed to achieve global stability and prosperity. International relations experts focus on the challenging U.S.-Russian relationship, the alliance between the U.S. and Japan and the limitations of America’s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.
Foreign aid is also examined by scholars trying to understand whether money earmarked for health improvements reaches those who need it most. And FSI’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center has published on the need for strong South Korean leadership in dealing with its northern neighbor.
FSI researchers also look at the citizens who drive international relations, studying the effects of migration and how borders shape people’s lives. Meanwhile FSI students are very much involved in this area, working with the United Nations in Ethiopia to rethink refugee communities.
Trade is also a key component of international relations, with FSI approaching the topic from a slew of angles and states. The economy of trade is rife for study, with an APARC event on the implications of more open trade policies in Japan, and FSI researchers making sense of who would benefit from a free trade zone between the European Union and the United States.
Daniel Schatz
The Europe Center
Encina Hall, 2nd Floor
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6165
The Europe Center
Encina Hall, 2nd Floor
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6165
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daniel@danielschatz.se.
Anna Lindh Fellow (Spring 2011)
Doctoral Candidate, Political Science, Humboldt University of Berlin
Daniel Schatz is a Visiting Anna Lindh Researcher at the Europe Center and a Doctoral Candidate in Political Science at the Humboldt University of Berlin.
Schatz’s doctoral dissertation, “The Politics of Foreign Policy Change: An Analysis of Sweden’s Middle East Policy 1996-2006” examines the dynamics of foreign policy change by analyzing changes in Sweden’s foreign policy towards Israel and the Palestinians. His main research interests are international relations, foreign policy analysis, foreign policy change, European and Scandinavian politics, the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli Conflict.
Prior to joining Stanford University, Schatz’s professional appointments include positions at the European Parliament, the UN Headquarters, the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, the World Jewish Congress Headquarters and the Canadian Embassy in Stockholm. He was nominated as a Candidate for Sweden's Parliament in 2006 and 2010.
Schatz is an editorial page contributor in Svenska Dagbladet, one of Sweden’s largest dailies. His articles and opinion pieces on contemporary international affairs appear regularly in European and international newspapers. He graduated with a Masters Degree in Political Science and European Studies from the University of Lund and has completed studies in International Relations the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and New York University. He speaks Swedish, English, Polish, German, Russian, Hebrew and Yiddish.
Shorenstein APARC announces three new political economy titles
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Economic development is a
dynamic process in East and Southeast Asia, and one that is inextricably tied
to policy.
Two new groundbreaking political economy publications are now available from
the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC), and
a third is forthcoming in August.
Going Private in China: The Politics of Corporate Restructuring and System Reform, addresses many key
reform questions faced over the past two decades by China, as well as by Japan and
South Korea. Edited by Stanford China Program director Jean C. Oi, this volume
demonstrates the commonalities between three seemingly disparate political
economies. In addition, it sheds important new light on China's corporate
restructuring and also offers new perspectives on how we think about the
process of institutional change.
In Spending Without Taxation: FILP and the Politics of Public Finance in Japan, former Shorenstein Fellow Gene Park demonstrates how the Japanese government established and mobilized the
Fiscal Investment Loan Program (FILP), which drew on postal savings, public
pensions, and other funds to pay for its priorities and reduce demands on the
budget. Referring to FILP as a "distinctive postwar political bargain," he
posits that it has had lasting political and economic effects. Park's book not
only provides a close examination of FILP, but it also resolves key debates in
Japanese politics and demonstrates that governments can finance their
activities through financial mechanisms to allocate credit and investment.
The Institutional Imperative: The Politics of Equitable Development in Southeast Asia, by former Shorenstein
Fellow Erik Kuhonta, argues that the realization of equitable development
hinges heavily on strong institutions and on moderate policy and ideology. He
does so by exploring how Malaysia and Vietnam have had the requisite
institutional capacity and power to advance equitable development, while
Thailand and the Philippines, because of weaker institutions, have not achieved
the same levels of success.
More detailed descriptions about these insightful volumes, as well as reviews
and purchasing information, are available in the publications section of the
Shorenstein APARC website.
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On the Demos and its Kin: Nationalisms and Democratic Legitimacy
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Abstract
Both cultural nationalism and democratic theory seek to legitimate political power by rendering it compatible with the freedom of those over whom it is exercised, i.e., by appeal to a notion of collective self-rule. Both doctrines thus advance a self-referential theory of political legitimacy: their principle of legitimation refers right back to the very persons over whom political power is to be exercised. Since self-referential theories base legitimation in a collective self, they must necessarily combine the question of legitimation with the question of boundaries. The problem is that it is impossible to solve both problems together once it is assumed that the collectivity in question is in principle bounded. Cultural nationalism claims that political power is legitimate insofar as it authentically expresses the nation's pre-political culture, but it cannot fix the nation's cultural boundaries pre-politically. Hence the collapse into ethnic nationalism. The democratic theory of bounded popular sovereignty claims that political power is legitimate insofar as it expresses the people's will, but cannot itself legitimate the pre-political boundaries of the people it presupposes. Hence the collapse into cultural nationalism. Only a theory of unbounded popular sovereignty avoids this collapse of demos into nation into ethnos, but such a theory departs radically from traditional theory. It abandons the notion of a pre-politically constituted "will of the people," supports the formation of global democratic forums, and challenges the legitimacy of unilaterally controlled political boundaries.
Arash Abizadeh is associate professor in the Department of Political Science and associate member of the Department of Philosophy, McGill University, and specializes in contemporary political theory and the history of political philosophy. His research focuses on democratic theory and questions of identity, nationalism, and cosmopolitanism; immigration and border control; and seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophy, particularly Hobbes and Rousseau. He is currently finishing a book titled The Oscillations of Thomas Hobbes: Between Insight and the Will.
Graham Stuart Lounge
Arash Abizadeh
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science
Speaker
McGill University
Workshops
E-commerce, online gaming and social networking benefit from internet boom in China: SPRIE visiting scholar details way forward for US internet firms and investors
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Duncan Clark, Visiting Scholar at SPRIE and Chairman/Founder of Beijing-based investment advisory firm BDA China, spoke to a packed room at a seminar titled "Life after Google? The Way Forward for US Internet Firms and Investors in China", hosted by SPRIE, about the appeal and complexities of China's dynamic internet sector. The talk is part of SPRIE's ongoing series of speaker events, seminars and conferences entitled "China 2.0: The Rise of a Digital Superpower".
China's internet population will soon be double that of the US. China is home to a thriving market for social networking, games, e-commerce and other applications. While many individual and institutional investors in Chinese internet firms have profited from this growth, US internet firms themselves have struggled to gain a foothold. In fact a number of the most iconic internet firms in the US - including eBay, Yahoo and Google - have either pulled out of China or significantly scaled back their expectations for the market. Why?
Censorship and government restrictions are often pointed to as the principal cause. Is this justified, or does it sometimes serve as a convenient excuse for other factors such as management missteps?
Certainly Google placed blame squarely with the Chinese government, citing the growing burden of censorship and sophisticated attacks on Gmail as principal motivations for its 2010 decision to scale back its China business. In his 45-minute talk, Clark discussed the implications of Google's move, both for the company (and the benefits to its main competitor Baidu) and for a new wave of US internet companies who are evaluating the market (such as Facebook) or who have recently entered the market (such as Groupon).
Clark explored the psyche driving the Chinese government's approach to internet restrictions and the varying degrees of sensitivity associated with online activities such as social networking, email/IM, games and e-commerce. He also discussed the risks faced by Chinese internet founders/CEOs as they balance the need to serve customers and the stock market with serving the requirements and expectations of the Chinese government and the Communist Party.
The talk reviewed in turn the experience of various US internet companies in China and how elusive the right formula for success can be.
Clark concluded with a discussion of the more positive of US individual and institutional investors. While competitive risks remain substantial, backing Chinese management teams to some extent insulates investors from the vagaries of government regulation. Chinese internet firms such as Baidu, Tencent and Taobao have emerged as some of the world's most highly visited and most valuable sites. Clark explored the questions of how sustainable are their positions in China, and whether these firms can demonstrate an ability to innovate and extend their reach beyond China's shores.
Duncan Clark and Marguerite Gong Hancock, associate director of SPRIE, are continuing their research into these and other topics as part of SPRIE's China 2.0: The Rise of a Digital Superpower project. SPRIE looks forward to the perspectives of upcoming invited speakers as the program keeps apace with the fast growing but unpredictable China internet market.
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Constraints on China's Foreign Policy: Inside and Out
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This group of expert panelists seek to assess what China is doing in the global arena and ways in which China's activities on the world stage have changed China and the international system. Many commentaries on China's rise and growing engagement in international affairs seem to posit inexorable behaviors explained by realist theories about the behavior of rising states or the will, cunning, and putative goals of Chinese leaders. Such explanations often ignore or downplay the many ways in which China's foreign policy and behavior on the world stage are shaped by domestic pressures, structural features of the international system, and the initiatives and responses of other countries.
Please note that there will be no multimedia or presentation materials available for download from this event.
Bechtel Conference Center
Thomas Christensen
Department of Politics
Keynote Speaker
Princeton University
Jean C. Oi
Department of Political Science
Stanford University
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-26044
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joi@stanford.edu
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
William Haas Professor in Chinese Politics
Jean C. Oi is the William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics in the department of political science and a Senior Fellow of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. She is the founding director of the Stanford China Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. Professor Oi is also the founding Lee Shau Kee Director of the Stanford Center at Peking University.
A PhD in political science from the University of Michigan, Oi first taught at Lehigh University and later in the Department of Government at Harvard University before joining the Stanford faculty in 1997.
Her work focuses on comparative politics, with special expertise on political economy and the process of reform in transitional systems. Oi has written extensively on China's rural politics and political economy. Her State and Peasant in Contemporary China (University of California Press, 1989) examined the core of rural politics in the Mao period—the struggle over the distribution of the grain harvest—and the clientelistic politics that ensued. Her Rural China Takes Off (University of California Press, 1999 and Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 1999) examines the property rights necessary for growth and coined the term “local state corporatism" to describe local-state-led growth that has been the cornerstone of China’s development model.
She has edited a number of conference volumes on key issues in China’s reforms. The first was Growing Pains: Tensions and Opportunity in China's Transformation (Brookings Institution Press, 2010), co-edited with Scott Rozelle and Xueguang Zhou, which examined the earlier phases of reform. Most recently, she co-edited with Thomas Fingar, Fateful Decisions: Choices That Will Shape China’s Future (Stanford University Press, 2020). The volume examines the difficult choices and tradeoffs that China leaders face after forty years of reform, when the economy has slowed and the population is aging, and with increasing demand for and costs of education, healthcare, elder care, and other social benefits.
Oi also works on the politics of corporate restructuring, with a focus on the incentives and institutional constraints of state actors. She has published three edited volumes related to this topic: one on China, Going Private in China: The Politics of Corporate Restructuring and System Reform (Shorenstein APARC, 2011); one on Korea, co-edited with Byung-Kook Kim and Eun Mee Kim, Adapt, Fragment, Transform: Corporate Restructuring and System Reform in Korea (Shorenstein APARC, 2012); and a third on Japan, Syncretism: The Politics of Economic Restructuring and System Reform in Japan, co-edited with Kenji E. Kushida and Kay Shimizu (Brookings Institution, 2013). Other more recent articles include “Creating Corporate Groups to Strengthen China’s State-Owned Enterprises,” with Zhang Xiaowen, in Kjeld Erik Brodsgard, ed., Globalization and Public Sector Reform in China (Routledge, 2014) and "Unpacking the Patterns of Corporate Restructuring during China's SOE Reform," co-authored with Xiaojun Li, Economic and Political Studies, Vol. 6, No. 2, 2018.
Oi continues her research on rural finance and local governance in China. She has done collaborative work with scholars in China, including conducting fieldwork on the organization of rural communities, the provision of public goods, and the fiscal pressures of rapid urbanization. This research is brought together in a co-edited volume, Challenges in the Process of China’s Urbanization (Brookings Institution Shorenstein APARC Series, 2017), with Karen Eggleston and Wang Yiming. Included in this volume is her “Institutional Challenges in Providing Affordable Housing in the People’s Republic of China,” with Niny Khor.
As a member of the research team who began studying in the late 1980s one county in China, Oi with Steven Goldstein provides a window on China’s dramatic change over the decades in Zouping Revisited: Adaptive Governance in a Chinese County (Stanford University Press, 2018). This volume assesses the later phases of reform and asks how this rural county has been able to manage governance with seemingly unchanged political institutions when the economy and society have transformed beyond recognition. The findings reveal a process of adaptive governance and institutional agility in the way that institutions actually operate, even as their outward appearances remain seemingly unchanged.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative
Learn moreFiscal Politics and Central-Local Relations in China
Learn moreStructural Change in China
Learn moreDirector, China Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Lee Shau Kee Director of the Stanford Center at Peking University
Faculty Affiliate at the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
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Scott Kastner
Department of Government and Politics
Speaker
University of Maryland
Stan Rosen
Department of Political Science
Speaker
University of Southern California
Terry Sicular
Department of Economics
Speaker
Stanford Univeristy
Bruce Dickson
Elliot School of International Affairs
Speaker
George Washington University
Michael H. Armacost
Shorenstein Distinguished Fellow, Shorenstein APARC
Moderator
Stanford University
Ely Ratner
Associate Political Scientist
Speaker
RAND Corporation
Tai Ming Cheung
School of International Relations and Pacific Studies
Speaker
University of California, San Diego
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