---Note: This event is co-sponsored by the Stanford Department of History---

The scope of official secrecy is rapidly expanding. The sheer scale of the national security state, the growth of electronic media, and the power that still comes from compartmentalizing information means that the government is only releasing a tenth as many pages of classified information as it produces. Hundreds of millions of secret documents are piling up, raising doubts about how we will be able to reconstruct the past and ensure government accountability. But historians are now teaming up with data scientists to analyze the millions of documents that are being released. Since these were among the first official documents produced and stored on computers, we can use techniques like natural language processing and machine-learning. It may now be possible to make out the broad patterns of official secrecy, attribute authorship to anonymous documents, and perhaps even predict the content of redacted text. But the political and ethical questions remain: what does the public need to know, and when do they need to know it?

About the speaker: Matthew Connelly is professor of history at Columbia University. His publications include A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria's Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era (2002), and Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population (2008). He has written research articles in Comparative Studies in Society and History, The International Journal of Middle East Studies, The American Historical Review, The Review francaise d'histoire d'Outre-mer, and Past & Present. He has also published commentary on international affairs in The Atlantic Monthly, The Wilson Quarterly, and The National Interest. He directs the University Seminar on Big Data and Digital Scholarship, the dual masters program with the LSE in International and World History, and the Hertog Global Strategy Initiative, a research program on the history and future of planetary threats. He received his B.A. from Columbia (1990) and his Ph.D. from Yale (1998).

Fusion reactors have the potential to be used for military purposes. This talk provides quantitative estimates about weapon-relevant materials produced in future magnetic confinement commercial fusion reactors, discusses whether states will ever consider such a use and addresses possible implications for the current regulatory system.

About the speaker: Matthias Englert is group leader of the physics and disarmament section at the Interdisciplinary Research Group Science Technology and Security (IANUS) and holds a PhD in physics from Darmstadt University of Technology in Germany. Before joining IANUS he was a postdoctoral science fellow at CISAC, Stanford University from 2009-2011. His major research interests include nonproliferation, disarmament, arms control, nuclear postures and warheads, fissile material and production technologies, the civil use of nuclear power and its role in future energy scenarios and the possibility of nuclear terrorism. Although a substantial part of his professional work has been technical, he is equally interested in and actively studies the historical, social and political aspects of the use of nuclear technologies (nuclear philosophy). Matthias is the chairman of the board of the German Research Association Science, Disarmament and International Security (FONAS) and Vice Speaker of the Physics and Disarmament working group of the German Physical Society (DPG).

Grant Miller will discuss the results of his SAPARC-funded research in rural China, supplementing a large NIH-funded project about pay-for-performance to improve health. The research was designed to test the effect of offering school principals small incentives for anemia reduction on the health and academic performance of primary school students – potentially leading to substantially more cost-effective health policies.

Grant Miller, PHD, MPP, is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Stanford School of Medicine, a Core Faculty Member at the Center for Health Policy/Primary Care and Outcomes Research, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). He is also a Faculty Fellow of the Stanford Center for International Development and a Faculty Affiliate of the Stanford Center for Latin American Studies. His primary areas of interest are health and development economics and economic demography.

Miller's current research focuses broadly on behavioral obstacles to health improvement in developing countries. One line of studies investigates household decision-making underlying puzzlingly low adoption rates of highly efficacious health technologies (like point-of-use drinking water disinfectants and improved cookstoves) in many poor countries. Another vein of research investigates misaligned macro- and micro-level incentives governing the supply of health technologies and services. He has conducted these and other research projects at institutions including the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Urban Institute, and the University of California-San Francisco's Institute for Health Policy Studies. He received a BA in psychology from Yale College, a master's degree in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a PhD in health policy/economics also from Harvard.

Adopting a child, as an alternative to bearing a child, is a widely accepted means of creating a family in America today. By contrast, it is surprisingly uncommon for married couples in Japan to adopt an infant and raise the child “as their own.” In my estimates, the rate of unrelated child adoption per 10,000 births in recent years was about 170 in the U.S. and 6 in Japan. In this study, I use a framework of family economics to examine the evolution of child adoption in the U.S. and Japan from 1950 to 2010. I compile historical statistics to compare the trends in child adoption and explore demand-side, supply-side, and institutional factors underlying the observed trends. I find that, in the U.S., there has been an “excess demand” for adoptable infants throughout the postwar period and thus the trends were essentially driven by the availability of infants relinquished for adoption. Due to large supply shocks, the composition of child adoption in the U.S. has changed greatly from domestic infant adoption to the adoption of foreign infants and foster-care children since the 1970s. It is much harder to explain the adoption trends in Japan, however, which exhibit a persistent and continuous decline over the last five decades. Taking advantage of the major legal reform that took place in 1988, I test a demand-side theory of child adoption and examine what motivated parents to adopt children in Japan. Finally, I discuss a role of child adoption in improving children’s welfare.

Chiaki Moriguchi is a professor at the Institute of Economic Research of Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo. She received a BA from Kyoto University, an MA from Osaka University, and a PhD from Stanford University, all in economics. She was an assistant professor at Harvard Business School and Northwestern University and a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, prior to joining Hitotsubashi University in 2009. Her main research fields are comparative economic history, comparative institutional analysis, and the economics of family. She has worked on the comparative historical analysis of employment systems, income inequality, and family formation in Japan and the U.S. Her research has appeared in Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Economic History, and Industrial and Labor Relations Review. She is a recipient of the 2011 Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Prize.  

Abstract:

Does formalization really matter for developing economies? Informality has been considered as a negative economic factor as it has been associated with low productivity, high barriers to growth (dead capital), low government revenues and lack of access to credit and property rights. The remedy has been often sought in the formalization of informal economic activities, firms, workers and transactions. However, is formalization anyway a good option for development and growth in such hostile institutional settings like the ones existent in most developing countries including the Middle East? Will formalization save small entrepreneurs from rampant corruption, high interest rates, dependent judiciary, and weak rule of law? or are there alternative means to render the present informal settings more productive and developmental?

Speaker Bio:

Roundtable on Democracy Promotion

Future Directions for Canadian Democracy Promotion

Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law

Stanford University

16 April 2013

Agenda

9:00-9:45 Introductions

Purpose of roundtable and introduction of participants: Larry Diamond and Chris MacLennanOverview presentation on Canada’s experience with democracy promotion since the 1990s: Chris MacLennan

9:45-11:00 Democratization – Latest thinking on democracy, democratization and governance

Key Questions: What is the most recent thinking on democratization – how and why do democratic transitions happen; why do democracies fail; and, why do authoritarian regimes survive and thrive? What is the relationship between good governance and democracy?Lead Discussant: (TBC) to introduce session and offer initial thoughts on current state of democratization scholarship (5-10 minutes).

11:00:11:15 Break

11:15-12:30 Democracy Assistance – What donors can and should be doing to aid democratic transitions

Key Questions: What are the most effective ways to advance democracy through the use of international development assistance (types of programs / instruments, choice of countries, etc.)? Is a focus on governance capacity building enough or are the more political aspects of democracy building necessary?Lead Discussants: Richard Youngs (TBC) (European approaches) and David Yang (TBC) (US approaches) to introduce session and offer initial thoughts from their respective viewpoints (5-10 minutes each).

12:30-1:30 Lunch

1:30-3:30 Canada – Future Directions for Canadian Democracy Promotion

Potential Roles (1:30-2:30)

Key Questions: Is there a particular approach that Canada should take to support democratic development internationally? Should Canada pursue a broad-based approach to democracy promotion (like the US and EU) as it has in the past or should it focus on a specific role or niche internationally? Should Canada adopt a geographic focus (Americas, commonwealth countries, Francophonie) or something targeted to specific democratic challenges (fragile democracies, fragile states, transitioning states)? Is a more political approach required or can Canada maintain a more developmental approach to advancing democracy?Lead Discussant: Robert Miller (TBC) to introduce question and offer initial thoughts (5-10 minutes).

Institutions (2:30-3:30)

Key Questions: What type of institutional arrangements should Canada adopt to undertake democracy promotion? Does Canada need an independent body to advance the more “political” aspects of democracy assistance (e.g., political parties, elections, support to NGOs)? Is a special program needed either focused on democracy assistance or tying development to democracy performance (MCC)?Lead Discussant: Les Campbell (TBC) to introduce question and offer initial thoughts (5-10 minutes).

3:30-4:00 Conclusions and Next Steps

Final Thoughts: AllNext Steps: Chris MacLennan

David Skarbek is a Lecturer in the Department of Political Economy at King’s College London and an Associate Member of the Extra-Legal Governance Institute at the University of Oxford. He serves on the editorial board of Global Crime. His research examines how people define and enforce property rights and engage in trade in the absence of strong, effective governments.