Stanford University

International Development

FSI researchers consider international development from a variety of angles. They analyze ideas such as how public action and good governance are cornerstones of economic prosperity in Mexico and how investments in high school education will improve China’s economy.

They are looking at novel technological interventions to improve rural livelihoods, like the development implications of solar power-generated crop growing in Northern Benin.

FSI academics also assess which political processes yield better access to public services, particularly in developing countries. With a focus on health care, researchers have studied the political incentives to embrace UNICEF’s child survival efforts and how a well-run anti-alcohol policy in Russia affected mortality rates.

FSI’s work on international development also includes training the next generation of leaders through pre- and post-doctoral fellowships as well as the Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program.

Rethinking the 'Overseas Chinese': What's in a Name?

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The movement of people leaving and returning to China from the second half of the 19th century to the present is a vast and complex subject. Among scholars worldwide, none has contributed more to the study of these cycles of migration and settlement in Southeast Asian contexts than National University of Singapore Prof. Wang Gungwu. His extensive writings on the topic richly illustrate the conceptual difficulties involved. 

The very terms used to name the phenomenon are contested: “Greater China,” “Chinese Diaspora,” “Huaqiao,” and “Nanyang Chinese”? Are these migrants and settlers and their descendants “Overseas Chinese” or “Chinese Overseas”? Are they even “Chinese” at all?  Prof. Wang’s struggles with nomenclature will be used by Prof. Huang to discuss larger issues, including how language can bias thought and influence policy and how to navigate the troubled waters at the confluence of scholarship and policy.

Huang Jianli is an associate professor in the Department History at the National University of Singapore and a research associate in the university’s East Asian Institute. His many publications include The Scripting of a National History: Singapore and Its Pasts (2008), Power and Identity in the Chinese World Order (co-edited, 2003) and Macro Perspectives and New Directions in the Studies of Chinese Overseas (co-edited, 2002). Recent journal articles include “Umbilical Ties: The Framing of Overseas Chinese as the Mother of Revolution” (2011), “Portable Histories in Mobile City Singapore: The (Lack)lustre of Admiral Zheng He” (2009), “Chinese Diasporic Culture and National Identity: The Taming of the Tiger Balm Gardens in Singapore” (2007), and “Entanglement of Business and Politics in the Chinese Diaspora: Interrogating the Wartime Patriotism of Aw Boon Haw” (2006).

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Jianli Huang

Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall E317
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 725-2375 (650) 723-6530
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2011 Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Distinguished Fellow on Southeast Asia
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Huang Jianli is an associate professor in the Department History at the National University of Singapore and a research associate at the university's East Asian Institute.

His first field of research interest is on the history of student political activism and local governance in Republican China from the 1910s to 1940s. His second area of study is on the postwar Chinese community in Singapore, especially its relationship vis-à-vis China and the larger Chinese diaspora. He has published a monograph on The Politics of Depoliticization in Republican China: Guomindang Policy towards Student Political Activism, 1927-1949 (1996, second edition 1999). A Chinese-language version of this monograph has just been published by the Commercial Press of Beijing in 2010. He has also co-authored a book on The Scripting of a National History: Singapore and Its Pasts (2008). In terms of edited volumes, he has co-edited Power and Identity in the Chinese World Order (2003) and Macro Perspectives and New Directions in the Studies of Chinese Overseas (2002).

He has articles in journals such as Modern Asian Studies, Journal of Oriental Studies, East Asian History, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, South East Asian Research, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Journal of Chinese Overseas, International Journal of Diasporic Chinese Studies and Frontiers of History in China. Some recent journal articles include "Umbilical Ties: The Framing of Overseas Chinese as the Mother of Revolution" (forthcoming, 2011), "Portable Histories in Mobile City Singapore: The (Lack)lustre of Admiral Zheng He" (2009), "Chinese Diasporic Culture and National Identity: The Taming of the Tiger Balm Gardens in Singapore" (2007), "Positioning the Student Political Activism of Singapore: Articulation, Contestation and Omission" (2006), "Entanglement of Business and Politics in the Chinese Diaspora: Interrogating the Wartime Patriotism of Aw Boon Haw" (2006) and "History and the Imaginaries of Big Singapore: Positioning the Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall" (2004).

His email contact is hishjl@nus.edu.sg and curriculum vitae is available at http://profile.nus.edu.sg/fass/hishjl

Jianli Huang 2011 Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Distinguished Fellow Speaker Stanford University
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Understanding China's home-grown social media

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Thomas Crampton, who oversees social media strategy in the Asia-Pacific region for the marketing and communications company Ogilvy and Mather, spoke to a standing room only audience at a seminar hosted by SPRIE about how controls imposed by the Chinese government have created a vibrant and unique social media domestic ecosystem.

Daniel C. Sneider, associate director for research at Shorenstein Asian-Pacific Research Center, also shared his views on the issue of the role of the internet and social media in social and political change.

Much has been written of late about the PRC government's efforts to control and censor the internet. The government's censorship of websites is an important issue, but it is not the top priority of the country's 420 million internet users or netizens. Their top priority is to connect with other Chinese online. The internet has opened access to information for ordinary Chinese citizens in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago. Coming from a world where information was pre-filtered by editors at state-run media, China's internet is freewheeling by comparison.

"China's government officials are the most savvy in understanding the power of social media and actively trying to shape its use," Crampton noted at the talk. Rather than eliminate social media, restrictions on foreign websites and social media have resulted in a flourishing home-grown, state-approved ecosystem in which Chinese-owned properties thrive. YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter have faced blockage in China, but their Chinese equivalents are expanding. According to the official statistics from the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) , the number of Chinese netizens reached 420 million at the end of June 2010. But their patterns of use vary from those in other countries. Quoting a 2008 MTV Music Matters survey, Crampton showed a graph that young people across Asia have made a similar number of friends online and offline. Only in China, however, young people actually have more friends online than offline. This points to a convergence of the offline and online worlds, where it is less important to distinguish between what happens online from the "real world." In China, more than in many countries, social media has become deeply integrated into people's lives.

China's government officials are the most savvy in understanding the power of social media and actively trying to shape its use.

- Thomas Crampton, Ogilvy and MatherIn China, as elsewhere in Asia, local variations of internet usage are driven by language, culture, levels of economic development, and the underlying digital ecosystem. For example, rather than short videos popular on YouTube, China's Youku and Tudou are filled with longer form of content, up to 70 percent of which is professionally produced, though individual Chinese users produce and post videos too. Users in China spend up to an hour per day on these sites, compared with less than 15 minutes spent by Americans on YouTube. In the way they present programs, the Chinese sites seem more like online television stations or a replacement for digital video recorders.

Twitter vs. Sina Weibo

Crampton cited another difference between Chinese and foreign social media that is rooted in language. At first glance, Sina Weibo is a latecomer to the microblog phenomenon. Launched in 2009, just about three years after Twitter, it is by far the most popular microblogging platform in China.

Similar to Twitter, Sina Weibo allows users to post 140-character messages, and users can follow friends and find interesting comments posted by others. Small but important differences in the platform have made some say it is a Twitter clone, but better. For example, unlike Twitter, Sina Weibo allows users to post videos and photos, comment on other people's updates, and easily add comments when re-posting a friend's message.

Though mobile phones are used to send less than 20 percent of Twitter updates in the United States, nearly half of Sina Weibo's updates are sent via mobile phone. This phenomenon points to the growth of China's mobile internet, one of the biggest trends in China and Asia.

Perhaps the most striking difference between Chinese and foreign social media, however, is the length of communications expressed via microblogs in Chinese versus English. One measure is to look at what Dell Inc., a company skilled at social media, can communicate on microblogs in Chinese compared to English. Twitter holds messages to 140 characters, which is quite short in English, especially if users want to include a URL. Dell often uses its Twitter feed, @delloutlet, to promote special offers, such as this posting: "Today's Deal: Get FREE Eco-Lite Sleeve with the purchase of any Dell Outlet Insprion Mini 10 or 10v Netbook! http://bit.ly/77fUFG." This message came in at 136 characters, almost the maximum length.

Since each character in Chinese is a word, @delldirect, Dell's Chinese-language feed, can write much more using the Chinese-language Zuosa microblogging platform. As translated by Ogilvy's Beijing team, a similar message reads: "Dell's National Day Sale runs from Sept. 11 to Oct. 8. To celebrate the 60th anniversary with the motherland, Dell Home Computers is offering 6 cool gifts and deals on 10 computer models. These exciting offers will run non-stop for 4 weeks. Also, get a free upgrade to color casing and a 512MB independent graphics card, as well as other service upgrades. All offers are on a first-come, first-served basis. What are you waiting for? Act now!" Even with a message of this length-114 characters in Chinese-there is still enough space to put in a webpage link. In other words, 114 characters in Chinese translates into 434 characters in English, well beyond the text limit of a "tweet" in English. This language efficiency turns microblogging in China into a more blog-like platform.

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Thomas Crampton at the SPRIE seminar on March 16, 2011
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Making Open Innovation Work

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Richard Dasher

U.S.-Asia Technology Management Center
School of Engineering
Stanford, CA

(650) 724-0096 (650) 725-9974
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Consulting Professor
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At Stanford University, Dr. Dasher has directed the US-Asia Technology Management Center since 1994, and he has been Executive Director of the Center for Integrated Systems since 1998. He holds Consulting Professor appointments at Stanford in the Departments of Electrical Engineering (technology management), Asian Languages and Cultures (Japanese business), and at the Asia-Pacific Research Center for his work with the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He is also faculty adviser to student-run organizations such as the Asia-Pacific Student Entrepreneurship Society and the Forum for American/Chinese Exchange at Stanford.

From 2004, Dr. Dasher became the first non-Japanese person ever asked to join the governance of a Japanese national university, serving a term as a Board Director (理事) of Tohoku University . He continued as a member of the Management Council (経営協議会) until March 2010, and he now serves as Senior Advisor to the President (総長顧問) of Tohoku University. Dr. Dasher has been a member of the high-profile Program Committee of the World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI) of the Japanese Ministry of Education (MEXT) since 2007. He has served on the Multidisciplinary Assessment Committee of the C$500 million Canada Foundation for Innovation Leading Edge Fund in 2007 and again in 2010, and as a member of the Phase I and Phase II Review Panels of the C$200 million Canada Excellence Research Chairs Program in 2008 and again in 2010. He was a distinguished reviewer of the Hong Kong S.A.R. study on innovation in 2008–09, and since 2007 he has been a member of the Foresight Panel of the German Ministry of Education and Research. From 2001–03, Dr. Dasher was on the International Planning Committee advising the Japanese Minister of State for Science and Technology Policy in regard to the formation of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology.

As allowed by Stanford policy, Dr. Dasher maintains an active management consulting practice, through which he is an advisor to start-up companies and large firms in the U.S., Japan, and China. He has been a board director of Tokyo-based ZyCube Inc. since 2006, and he is founder and chairman of Pearl Executive Shuttle in Valdosta, Georgia, U.S.A. In the non-profit sector, he is a Board Director of the Japan Society of Northern California and the Keizai Society U.S. – Japan Business Forum, and he is an advisor to organizations such as the Chinese Information and Networking Association, the Silicon Valley – China Wireless Technology Association, and the International Foundation for Entrepreneurship in Science and Technology (iFEST). In 2010 he served as a consultant to The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) in regard to their establishment of a worldwide remote mentoring program for entrepreneurs. Dr. Dasher frequently gives speeches and seminars throughout Japan and Asia, as well as in the U.S. Recent appearances include the Nikkei Shimbun Business Innovation Forum, the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, speaking tours of Japan co-sponsored by METI and the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, and guest lectures at Chubu University, Kochi University of Technology, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, and the University of Tokyo.

From 1990–93, Dr. Dasher was a board director of two privately-held Japanese companies in Tokyo, at which he developed new business in international licensing of media rights packages and other intellectual properties. From 1986–90, he was Director of the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Service Institute advanced field schools in Japan and Korea, which provide full-time language and area training to U.S. and select Commonwealth country diplomats assigned to those countries. He received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Linguistics from Stanford University and, along with Prof. Elizabeth Closs Traugott, he is co-author of the often-cited book Regularity in Semantic Change (Cambridge University Press, 2002). He received the Bachelor of Music degree in clarinet and orchestra conducting from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he served on the faculty from 1978-85.

Richard Dasher Speaker
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Creating Sustainable Livelihoods in Poor Regions

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Claire Hunsaker, VP of Product Management and Strategy: Claire manages Samasource's microwork platform, worker training and management tools, and corporate websites. She is responsible for keeping Samasource at the leading edge of virtual work technologies and integrating Samasource products with clients and service partners. Prior to Samasource, Claire was Director of Virtual Agent Acquisition at LiveOps and she has also worked in rural Vietnam with ADAPT to combat anti-human trafficking on the Vietnam/Cambodia border. As a management consultant with Katzenbach Partners, she supported national technology companies and non-profits with strategic planning. Claire holds a BA in English with departmental honors from Columbia College, and an MA in English Literature from the University of London, and an MBA from Stanford.

Co-sponsored by Stanford Association for International Development (SAID).

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Claire Hunsaker VP of Product Management and Strategy Speaker Samasource
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Human Trafficking

SPICE Releases 2011 Catalog

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The 2011 SPICE catalog is now available.  SPICE has four curriculum units featured in this year's catalog.

Inter-Korean Relations: Rivalry, Reconciliation, and Reunification

This curriculum unit provides students with a multifaceted view of inter-Korean relations, asking them to study the relationship through the lenses of history, politics, economics, security, and socio-cultural and human dynamics. Finally, students apply their knowledge of inter-Korean relations to consider future prospects for the Korean peninsula.

Indigo: A Color That Links the World

This teacher's guide was developed specifically for teachers in the New York City Public Schools to encourage the use of Indigo: A Color That Links the World, Calliope: Exploring World History (September 2010, Volume 21, Number 1) and the study of the Silk Road in their classrooms. The indigo issue of Calliope and the teacher's guide were developed in collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project as part of its Silk Road Connect education initiative.

Early Encounters: The First Japanese Embassy to the United States, 1860

This graphic novel tells the story of the first Japanese diplomatic mission to leave Japan after over two centuries of isolation under the Tokugawa Shogunate. Chronicling encounters with foreign leaders, cross-cultural mishaps, and unlikely friendships that develop despite barriers of language and politics, the graphic novel follows the embassy's voyage to San Francisco, Washington D.C., and other cities on the East coast.

Sadako's Paper Cranes and Lessons of Peace

In collaboration with the Tribute World Trade Center Visitor Center (Tribute Center) in New York City, SPICE has developed educational materials that help students to reflect upon the impact of September 11th and the humanitarian efforts that took place in the aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center.

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2011 Catalog
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Book Talk: How American Innovation Can Overcome the Asian Challenge

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As the United States struggles to emerge from recession, India and China's continued robust growth is the subject of much interest and concern. Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Senior Fellow Adam Segal will talk about his new book Advantage: How American Innovation Can Overcome the Asian Challenge, analyzing Asia's technological rise, questioning assumptions about the United States inevitable decline, and explaining how America can preserve and improve its position in the global economy by optimizing its strength of moving ideas from the lab to the marketplace.

In his book, Segal argues that the emergence of India and China does not mean the end of American economic and technological power. Instead, the United States should now leverage its many advantages.

Through his research, Segal concludes the United States has an advantage over Asia in the realm of the software of innovation. “In America, your ideas can make you rich. Intellectual property is protected, and individual scientists are able to exploit their breakthroughs for commercial gains,” he writes. “It is time to realize that software in its most expansive sense offers the most opportunities for the United States to ensure its competitive place in the world.” The challenge is “to recover a culture of innovation that was driven underground, overshadowed by sexy credit default swaps and easy spending.”

Speaker

Adam Segal is the Ira A. Lipman senior fellow for counterterrorism and national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). An expert on security issues, technology development, and Chinese domestic and foreign policy, Dr. Segal currently leads study groups on cybersecurity and cyber conflict as well as Asian innovation and technological entrepreneurship. His new book Advantage: How American Innovation Can Overcome the Asian Challenge (W.W. Norton, 2011) looks at the technological rise of Asia. Dr. Segal is a research associate of the National Asia Research Program and was the project director for a CFR-sponsored independent task force on Chinese military modernization.

Before coming to CFR, Dr. Segal was an arms control analyst for the China Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists. There, he wrote about missile defense, nuclear weapons, and Asian security issues. Dr. Segal has been a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for International Studies, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, and Tsinghua University in Beijing. He has taught at Vassar College and Columbia University. Dr. Segal is the author of Digital Dragon: High-Technology Enterprises in China (Cornell University Press, 2003), as well as several articles and book chapters on Chinese technology policy. His work has recently appeared in the International Herald Tribune, Financial Times, Washington Quarterly, Los Angeles Times, and Foreign Affairs. Dr. Segal currently writes for the CFR blog, “Asia Unbound".

Dr. Segal has a BA and PhD in government from Cornell University, and an MA in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. He reads and speaks Chinese.

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Adam Segal Ira A. Lipman Senior Fellow for Counterterrorism and National Security Studies Speaker Council on Foreign Relations
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SSIPI partnership launches open call for papers on Lebanon

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The Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University, the Safadi Foundation USA (SFUSA), and the Center on International Private Enterprise (CIPE), announce an open call for papers on behalf of the Safadi-Stanford Initiative for Policy Innovation (SSIPI).

SSIPI seeks policy-focused papers that provide clear and concise recommendations to the Lebanese authorities, the international donor community, and other regional groups. The objective of SSIPI is to promote new analysis on Lebanon. Qualified applicants have the academic freedom to choose a paper topic of their choice within the realm of economic development and entrepreneurship. Papers should include recommendations that address the linkages between economic development and institution building, security and civil peace, and other governance related issues. In addition, papers should reflect a deep understanding of the role of institutions and whether accelerated, more balanced economic growth, social and fiscal reforms, a particular process of economic development or new developing areas of entrepreneurialism, if any, could help in reducing the negative influences posed by confessionalism in the economy. 

Abstracts should be submitted according to the guidelines below. Upon review of the abstracts by an independent reviewing committee, a select group of scholars will be chosen to submit their full paper and compete for the title of Safadi scholar of the Year. SSIPI will offer the Safadi Scholar of the Year the opportunity to develop a piece of research at CDDRL, led by Larry Diamond, as well as meet with strategic policy makers in Washington, DC. In addition, the scholar will have the chance to present their research at a policy conference in Washington, DC.

Requirements:

Deadline for one-page abstracts is March 31, 2011. Abstracts should be emailed to SSIPI.2011.Submissions@gmail.com.  Please note "Abstract Submission" in subject of email. The selection committee warrants applicants from academia, the public and private sectors, and NGOs, either from Lebanon or abroad, who are working on economic development and entrepreneurship in Lebanon. Qualified candidates should hold a graduate degree from an accredited university.  For more info please visit: Safadi-Stanford Initiative for Policy Innovation

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Traditional Governance, Citizen Engagement and Local Public Goods: Evidence from Mexico

In developing countries authority is often wielded unevenly. Tribes, clans, religious groups and other traditional leaders control zones of governance outside of the reach of the state. The accepted view has been that traditional authorities are a historical burden to developing societies striving to modernize.

Japanese Politics in Chaos or in Transition?

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Koji Murata received his M.Phil in Political Science from the George Washington University, where he studied as a Fulbright student, and his Ph.D. in Political Science from Kobe University, Kobe, Japan.

Dr. Murata's specialties include US foreign policy in East Asia, Japans foreign and
defense policy, and the history of U.S.-Japan alliance. Dr. Murata was a visiting fellow of the Henry L. Stimson Center and the Mike Mansfield Foundation in DC.

Dr. Murata is an author of many books, chapters and articles both in Japanese and English. He has testified in Japanese National Diet many times, and is a frequent commentator on Japanese TVs and newspapers. Professor Murata will assume the deanship of School of Law, Doshisha University beginning in April, 2011.

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Koji Murata Professor of International Politics Speaker Doshisha University
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