Stanford University

International Relations

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.

Don Emmerson on NPR: Who's Behind The Jakarta Bombings?

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In an interview with Boston's WBUR90.9, Donald K. Emmerson, the director of the Southeast Asia Forum at Stanford University, discusses theories connecting the recent deadly hotel bombings in Jakarta with Indonesia's July 8 presidential election. Emmerson says Jemaah Islamiyah - a militant Islamist group suspected in the attack - may be trying to focus on foreigners to reduce any public backlash against the violence by targeting "a hotel that is symbolic of foreign investment," but that it is difficult to find a clear motive for the attacks. "I frankly think that these are fanatics, deeply committed to some form of an Islamic state. At that level, if you believe in jihad so deeply, maybe reasonable explanations fall short of the mark."

In an interview with Boston's WBUR90.9, Donald K. Emmerson, the director of the Southeast Asia Forum at Stanford University, discusses theories connecting the recent deadly hotel bombings in Jakarta with Indonesia's July 8 presidential election.  Emmerson says Jemaah Islamiyah - a militant Islamist group suspected in the attack - may be trying to focus on foreigners to reduce any public backlash against the violence by targeting "a hotel that is symbolic of foreign investment," but that it is difficult to find a clear motive for the attacks. "I frankly think that these are fanatics, deeply committed to some form of an Islamic state. At that level, if you believe in jihad so deeply, maybe reasonable explanations fall short of the mark."

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"The Role of the Private Sector in Health" symposium held in Beijing

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Karen Eggleston
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"The Role of the Private Sector in Health" was the topic of a full day symposium held July 11th at the Beijing International Convention Center. Convened one day before the World Congress of the International Health Economics Association, the private sector symposium attracted over a hundred participants from nations around the world. Aiming to foster dialogue between researchers interested in the private sector and policymakers, the event is one in a series with the long-term goal of promoting greater research interest and knowledge generation regarding the private sector to benefit health systems development. The program featured several scientific paper presentations and panels as well as keynote addresses by representatives from the Chinese Ministry of Health and the World Bank.

Karen Eggleston of the Asia Health Policy Program worked alongside several others on the organizing committee for this ongoing collaboration about the role of the private sector in health policy. Other committee members included Ruth Berg, PSP ONE, Abt Associates; Peter Berman, World Bank; Birger Forsberg, Karolinska Institutet; Gina Lagomarsino, Results for Development; Qingyue Meng, Shandong University; Dominic Montagu, University of California, San Francisco; Sara Bennett, Alliance for Health Systems and Policy Research; and Stefan Nachuk, Rockefeller Foundation.

Selected papers about the private health sector in Asia presented at the symposium will appear in the Asia Health Policy Program's working paper series on health and demographic change in the Asia-Pacific.

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CISAC announces members of 2009-10 Honors Program

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CISAC is pleased to announce that 14 seniors have been selected to participate in its Undergraduate Honors Program in International Security Studies. 

The program provides an opportunity for eligible students focusing on international security subjects in any field to earn an honors certificate.

Students selected intern with a security-related organization, attend the program's honors college in Washington, D.C. in September, participate in a year-long core seminar on international security research, and produce an honors thesis with policy implications.

  • Bertram Ang
    Departments of Economics & Political Science
    Restructuring of the Military Mindset
  • Amir Badat
    Program in International Relations
    Nuclear Disarmament and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
  • Daniel Cassman
    Departments of Political Science & Computer Science
    The Restart of Ended Civil Wars
  • Philippe de Koning
    Program in International Relations
    Minor in Economics
    The Influence of North Korea and China on Japanese Militarization
  • Daniel Leifer
    Department of Biology
    Rapid Mobilization of Health Care Workers in Times of Crisis
  • Ashley Lohmann
    Program in International Relations
    Tactical Change by Middle Eastern Terrorist Organizations, 1970-2004
  • Raffi Mardirosian
    Department of Economics & Public Policy Program
    The Adaptability of Terrorists and Rogue Nations to Financial Methods of Preventing WMD Proliferation and other Breaches of National Security
  • Ben Picozzi
    Department of Philosophy
    Minor in Classical Languages
    Norms and International Security with Respect to the Responsibility to Protect
  • Amir Ravandoust
    Department of Management Science & Engineering
    Minor in International Relations
    Nuclear Arab States: Is Proliferation Inevitable?
  • Sam Stone
    Department of Mathematics & Program in International Relations
    The Use of Energy Exports as a Foreign Policy Tool in the CIS and Eastern Europe
  • Gautam Thapar
    Department of Political Science
    Minor in Economics
    U.S. Aid to Pakistan
  • Son Ca Vu
    Department of Management Science & Engineering
    Minor in Political Science
    The A.Q. Khan Network: A Rogue Business Model
  • Georgia Wells
    Program in Human Biology
    Explaining the Radicalization of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt
  • Hao Yan
    Departments of Political Science & Economics
    China's Global Strategy

 

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Let's hear from the democracies on Iran, Larry Diamond and Abbas Milani argue in the <i>New York Times</i>

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Larry Diamond
Abbas Milani
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As the presidential electoral turmoil in Iran continues, pitting supporters of challenger Mir Hussein Moussavi against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President Obama has gotten it right, Larry Diamond and Milani say, "by signaling America's support for peaceful protest, human rights, and the rule of law." More explicit language, or action, would only play into the hands of Iran's conservative elements. But the world has more than 100 other democracies, Diamond and Milani note, arguing "It is time that their voices were heard and their actions felt in Tehran."

Notices of the demise of Iran’s Green Revolution are premature. Without question, the tyrannical triumvirate — Ayotallah Ali Khamenei, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Revolutionary Guard — have dealt a crippling blow to the popular movement protesting their electoral coup of June 12.

Thousands of Iranians have been arrested and savagely tortured — from street protesters to election campaign organizers for Mir Hussein Moussavi, the likely victor in that contest. Many are now being forced to “confess” to having been agents of the United States or Britain.

We have seen this play before, not simply in Iran but in other tyrannies that suppressed mass movements for democratic change with massive violence and terror.

But Iran in 2009 is not China in 1989, Burma in 1990 or Belarus in 2006. The crisis in the Islamic Republic has exposed and widened massive cracks within the ruling elite. Such divisions are always a sign of an impending crackup of dictatorship.

Despite the rush to bury Iran’s reformist movement as another lost cause, Iran remains at a possible political tipping point. Democracies around the world have a duty — not simply to themselves, but to their strategic interests — to weigh in. They must not be deterred by threats to shun talks over Iran’s nuclear program.

President Obama has gotten it right by signaling America’s support for peaceful protest, human rights and the rule of law. More explicit language, not to mention action, would only play into the hands of the most cynical and vicious conservative elements in Iran. Moreover, with no diplomatic ties and all but no trade with Iran, there is little more the U.S. could do right now to pressure the regime.

But there are over 100 other democracies in the world. It is time that their voices were heard and their actions felt in Tehran.

Britain shares with the U.S. the handicap of a past history of negative interference in Iran. But Britain has diplomatic and economic ties to the regime, and breaking or suspending those will weaken Ayatollah Khamenei and his reactionary allies.

Moreover, Britain can have a unique kind of impact in Iran: For more than a century, Iranians have believed in the omnipotence of the “British hand” in the affairs of their country. Any indication that Britain is no longer willing to do business with the Islamic regime will hearten the Iranian people and undermine the regime’s aura of invincibility.

Germany, France and Italy are major trading partners with Iran. They have little history of colonial interference in Iranian affairs. Their decision to refuse to recognize the Ahmadinejad regime would have an immense effect. More compelling still would be a similar declaration from the entire Group of 8 at its impending summit.

The smaller and less powerful democracies can also have an impact. It would be preposterous for Iranian hardliners to attribute ulterior strategic motives to actions by the Scandinavian countries or the Netherlands, Ireland, Canada or Slovenia. If a coalition of such countries were to condemn the crackdown, call for a release of political prisoners and demand full respect for human rights — and back up these positions with a downgrading of diplomatic and trade ties — this would send a powerful message to both sides in Iran.

Many democracies around the world, including the above, have diplomatic ties with Iran. It is important that they maintain their embassies in Tehran. But they should now refuse to recognize the legitimacy of Ahmadinejad’s government.

The most powerful coalition of democracies in the world, the 27-member European Union, is now debating whether to withdraw their ambassadors from Tehran in protest over the detention of the British Embassy’s Iranian personnel.

The withdrawal of E.U. ambassadors would send a stunning message to the Iranian hardliners that coups and bloody suppression of peaceful protests carry a heavy price in international standing.

With the simple diplomatic act of denying legitimacy — something nearly all democratic forces in Iran are now asking of the world — the democracies of the world can give a needed boost to the forces of democratic change in Iran and earn the lasting gratitude of a movement that will eventually triumph.

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Prescribing Cultures and Pharmaceutical Policy in the Asia-Pacific: A Book Launch Event

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Pharmaceutical policies are interlinked globally, yet deeply rooted in local culture. The newly published book Prescribing Cultures and Pharmaceutical Policy in the Asia-Pacific, edited by Karen Eggleston, examines how pharmaceuticals and their regulation play an important and often contentious role in the health systems of the Asia-Pacific.

In this colloquium, contributors to Prescribing Cultures discuss how the book analyzes pharmaceutical policy in China, Korea, Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, Australia, and India, focusing on two cross-cutting themes: differences in “prescribing cultures” and physician dispensing; and the challenge of balancing access to drugs with incentives for innovation.

As Michael Reich of Harvard University says in his Forward to Prescribing Cultures,

“The pharmaceutical sector…promises great benefits and also poses enormous risks.… Conflicts abound over public policies, industry strategies, payment mechanisms, professional associations, and dispensing practices—to name just a few of the regional controversies covered in this excellent book.

The tension between emphasizing innovation versus access -- a topic of hot debate on today’s global health policy agenda -- is examined in several chapters…

This book makes a special contribution to our understanding of the pharmaceutical sector in China… Globalization is galloping forward, with Chinese producers pushing the pace at breakneck speed. More and more, our safety depends on China’s ability to get its regulatory act together…”

The colloquium features presentations by Naoko Tomita (Keio University), Anita Wagner (Harvard University), and Karen Eggleston (Stanford FSI Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center). They will give specific examples of how pharmaceutical policy serves as a window into the economic tradeoffs, political compromises, and historical trajectories that shape health systems, as well as how cultural legacies shape and are shaped by the forces of globalization.

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Oksenberg Conference Room

Anita Wagner Speaker Harvard University
Naoko Tomita Speaker Keio University

Karen Eggleston

Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall E301
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 723-9072 (650) 723-6530
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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Professor, by courtesy, Health Policy
Faculty Research Fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research
Faculty Affiliate at the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
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Karen Eggleston is a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University and Director of the Stanford Asia Health Policy Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at FSI. She is also a Fellow with the Center for Innovation in Global Health at Stanford University School of Medicine, and a Faculty Research Fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Her research focuses on government and market roles in the health sector and Asia health policy, especially in China, India, Japan, and Korea; healthcare productivity; and the economics of the demographic transition.

Eggleston earned her PhD in public policy from Harvard University and has MA degrees in economics and Asian studies from the University of Hawaii and a BA in Asian studies summa cum laude (valedictorian) from Dartmouth College. Eggleston studied in China for two years and was a Fulbright scholar in Korea. She served on the Strategic Technical Advisory Committee for the Asia Pacific Observatory on Health Systems and Policies and has been a consultant to the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the WHO regarding health system reforms in the PRC.

Economics of Health and Aging in Asia

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Director, Asia Health Policy Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Stanford Health Policy Associate
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Nicholas Hope

Landau Economics Bldg.
579 Serra Mall
Stanford, CA 94305-6015

(650) 723-3879
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Director, Stanford Center for International Development
CDDRL Affiliated Faculty
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Nicholas Hope is the Director of the Stanford Center for International Development (SCID). He also directs SCID's China research program. His current research is private enterprise development in China and progress of reforms in China, especially in the financial sector. His interests are in East Asian economies, especially China and Indonesia, and his teaching interests are in development of Asian economies, role and effectiveness of international financial institutions, and thesis supervision of students working in those areas.

Prior to coming to Stanford, Dr. Hope worked at the World Bank as Country Director for China and Mongolia, and Director of the Resident Staff in Indonesia. He is the co-editor, with Dennis Tao Yang and Mu Yang Li, of How Far Across the River?: Chinese Policy Reform at the Millennium (Stanford University Press, 2003). He also co-edited, with Belton M. Fleisher, Anita Alves Pena, and Dennis Tao Yang, Policy Reform and Chinese Markets (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008).

Dr. Hope received his Ph. D. from Princeton University, and his undergraduate degrees from Oxford University and the University of Tasmania. He was awarded the Tasmanian Rhodes Scholarship and a research fellowship from the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

Peter Henry appointed by President Obama to the President's Commission on White House Fellowships

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Peter B. Henry, the Matsushita Professor of International Economics at Stanford's Graduate School of Business and an affiliated faculty member with the Freeman Spogli Institute’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), has been appointed by President Obama to the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships, the White House has announced. This distinguished and diverse group of 28 accomplished Americans is responsible for recommending an exceptional group of men and women to the President for selection as White House Fellows, America’s most prestigious program for leadership and public service.

“The men and women of this commission embody what makes the White House Fellows program so special,” said President Obama in making the June 17 announcement. “These leaders are diverse, non-partisan, and committed to mentoring our next generation of public servants. I am confident that they will select a class of White House Fellows that demonstrate extraordinary leadership, strong character, and a deep commitment to serving their country.”

“Peter Henry is a superb scholar, teacher, leader, and mentor,” said CDDRL Director and FSI and Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Larry Diamond. “This recognition is richly deserved and will give Peter a national venue to continue developing a new generation of leaders, scholars, and policy practitioners.”

Alumni of the White House Fellows Program include former Secretary of State Colin Powell, retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark, and author Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Henry is also the John and Cynthia Fry Gunn Faculty Scholar and Associate Director of the Center for Global Business and the Economy at Stanford’s business school.  He is a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Nonresident Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Among the numerous awards and honors Henry has received are a National Science Foundation Early CAREER Development Award, a National Science Foundation Minority Graduate Fellowship, a Ford Foundation Graduate Fellowship, and the National Economic Association Dissertation Prize.  He has published several articles in journals and books, including “Capital Account Liberalization, the Cost of Capital, and Economic Growth” in the American Economic Review and “Perspective Paper on Financial Instability” in Bjorn Lomborg’s Global Crises, Global Solutions.

Dr. Henry received his BA in Economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and was later a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, where he earned a BA in Mathematics.  He received his PhD in Economics from the Massachusetts Institution of Technology.

Professor Henry is also part of the distinguished Stanford faculty group that teaches in the Draper Hills Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development Program each summer at Stanford.  From some 800 applicants, this program selects 25 to 30 rising leaders from important countries in transition – such as Russia, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe—and brings them to Stanford to examine and help foster linkages among democracy, development, human rights, and the rule of law in their countries.  Other Stanford faculty teaching the Draper Hills Summer Fellows include Stanford President Emeritus Gerhard Casper, FSI Deputy Director Stephen Krasner, CDDRL Director Larry Diamond and Deputy Director Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, FSI Senior Fellow Helen Stacy, Avner Greif from economics, and Erik Jensen from Stanford Law School.

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This distinguished and diverse group of 28 accomplished Americans is responsible for recommending an exceptional group of men and women to the President for selection as White House Fellows, America’s most prestigious program for leadership and public service.

Climate Extremes and Crop Adaptation

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In June 2009, a group of experts in climate science, crop modeling, and crop development gathered at Stanford University to discuss the major needs for successful crop adaptation to climate change. To focus discussion over the three day period, the meeting centered on just three major crops – rice, wheat, and maize – given that these provide the bulk of calories to most populations. The meeting also focused on two aspects of climate– extreme high temperatures and extreme low moisture conditions (i.e. drought) – that present substantial challenges to crops in current climate and are likely to become more prevalent through time. Other aspects of climate change such as more frequent flooding or saltwater intrusion associated with rising sea levels were not addressed, although they may also be important.

The current document is split into two sections:

  • a brief summary of material presented at the meeting on the current state of climate projections, crop modeling, crop genetic resources and breeding; and
  • the collective views of participants on major needs for future research and investment, which emerged from discussions over the three day meeting.

The main target audiences for the document are donor institutions seeking to invest in climate adaptation, and climate and crop scientists seeking to set research agendas. We intend the term donor institutions to include private foundations, governments, and inter‐governmental organizations such as the World Bank and United Nations. An underlying assumption of the Stanford meeting was that there is a real and growing need to identify specific investment opportunities that will improve food security in the face of climate change. This is reflected, for instance, by the recent G8 announcement of a $20B investment in food security, the expectation of additional resources for adaptation from the Copenhagen Conference in 2009, and the emphasis of the Obama administration on food and climate issues.

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David Lobell

Johan Swinnen

LICOS Center for Transition Economics
K.U.Leuven
Deberiotstraat
34 3000 Leuven, Belgium

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Professor at the University of Leuven (KUL) in Belgium. Research Affiliate, Rural Education Action Project, FSE Visiting Scholar
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Johan Swinnen is Professor of Development Economics and Director of LICOS Center for Institutions and Economic Performance at the University of Leuven (KUL) in Belgium. He is also Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), Brussels, where he directs the programme on EU agricultural and rural policy. From 2003 to 2004 he was Lead Economist at the World Bank and from 1998 to 2001 Economic Advisor at the European Commission.

He is a regular consultant for these organizations and for the OECD, FAO, the EBRD, and several governments and was coordinator of several international research networks on food policy, institutional reforms, and economic development. He is President—Elect of the International Association of Agricultural Economists and a Fellow of the European Association of Agricultural Economists. He holds a Ph.D from Cornell University.  

His research focuses on institutional reform and development, globalization and international integration, media economics, and agriculture and food policy. His latest books are “Political Power and Economic Policy” (Cambridge Univ Press),  “The Perfect Storm: The Political Economy of the Reform of the Common Agricultural Policy” (CEPS),  “Global Supply Chains, Standards, and the Poor” (CABI), “Distortions to Agricultural Incentives in the Transition Economies of Europe and Central Asia” (World Bank Publications), and “From Marx and Mao to the Market” (Oxford University Press -- and Chinese translation by Beijing University Press). He is the president of The Beeronomics Society and editor of the book “The Economics of Beer” (Oxford Univ Press).

Dane Klinger

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Affiliated scholar
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Dane Klinger is the Director of Biology at Forever Oceans Corporation, an aquaculture technology startup. As an interdisciplinary environmental scientist and marine biologist, Dane has worked for and with businesses, foundations, universities, policymakers, and NGOs in the United States and abroad to develop innovation solutions to a range of challenges in commercial aquaculture and the global seafood trade. He holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University and was a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University.

 

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