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.

"Nuclear Postures and Nuclear Disarmament"

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Michael May is Professor Emeritus (Research) in the Stanford University School of Engineering and a senior fellow with the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He is the former co-director of Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, having served seven years in that capacity through January 2000.

May is a director emeritus of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he worked from 1952 to 1988, with some brief periods away from the Laboratory. While there, he held a variety of research and development positions, serving as director of the Laboratory from 1965 to 1971.

May was a technical adviser to the Threshold Test Ban Treaty negotiating team; a member of the U.S. delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks; and at various times has been a member of the Defense Science Board, the General Advisory Committee to the AEC, the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, the RAND Corporation Board of Trustees, and the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

May received the Distinguished Public Service and Distinguished Civilian Service Medals from the Department of Defense, and the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award from the Atomic Energy Commission, as well as other awards.

His current research interests are in the area of nuclear terrorism, energy, security and environment, and the relation of nuclear weapons and foreign policy. A few of his specific projects are listed here:

May was the principal investigator on a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) project that CISAC conducted in cooperation with the Naval Postgraduate School centering on organizational learning research for the DHS. The project focused on learning from exercises, following up CISAC's previous work with the DHS on the federal-state-local coordination exercise Topoff-2. With CISAC affiliate Roger Speed, May completed a chapter, "Assessing the United States's Nuclear Posture," in U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy: Confronting Today's Threats, copublished by CISAC and Brookings. An earlier version of the chapter appeared in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

May is continuing work on creating a secure future for civilian nuclear applications. In October 2007, May hosted an international workshop on how the nuclear weapon states can help rebuild the consensus underlying the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Proceedings and a summary report are available online or by email request. May also chaired a technical working group on nuclear forensics. The final report is available online.

In April 2007, May in cooperation with former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry and Professor Ashton Carter of Harvard hosted a workshop on what would have to be done to be ready for a terrorist nuclear detonation. The report is available online at the Preventive Defense Project. A summary, titled, "The Day After: Action Following a Nuclear Blast in a U.S. City," was published fall 2007 in Washington Quarterly and is available online.

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Michael M. May Professor of Management Science and Engineering, Emeritus; FSI Senior Fellow; CISAC Faculty Member Speaker CISAC/FSI
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A New Era in Cross-Strait Relations--Challenges, Opportunities, and Constraints

The symposium will bring together scholars and current and former government officials from Taiwan, China, and US to take stock of cross-strait relations over the past decade. It will also assess the future development of cross-strait interactions from different angles including economic, political, and security perspectives.

 

Friday, May 29, 2009

8:15 am to 8:45 am

Registration & Reception
Continental Breakfast

8:45 am to 9:00 am

Introduction by Larry Diamond, Director of CDDRL; Senior Fellow of Hoover Institution and FSI, Stanford University

9:00 am to 10:30 am

Session I: Cross-Strait Relations under the DPP Administration

Moderator: Larry Diamond, Director of CDDRL; Senior Fellow of Hoover Institution and FSI, Stanford University

Speakers:

  • Ming-tong Chen, Professor of Graduate Institute of National Development, National Taiwan University; Former Chairman of Mainland Affairs Council
  • TJ Cheng, Class of 1935 Professor of Political Science, College of William and Mary
  • Shih-chung Liu, Visiting Scholar, Brookings Institution; Former Vice Chairman of the Research and Planning Committee in Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs

10:30 am to 10:50 am

Break

10:50 am to 12:15 pm

Session II: Recent Development under the KMT Administration

Moderator: Ramon Myers, Senior Fellow Emeritus of Hoover Institution, Stanford University

Speakers:

  • Chien-Min Chao, Deputy Minister of Mainland Affairs Council; Professor of Graduate Institute of Development Studies, National Chengchi University 
  • Alan D. Romberg, Distinguished Fellow, The Henry L. Stimson Center

12:15 pm to 1:30 pm

Lunch

1:30 pm to 3:00 pm

Session III: Economic Dimension of Cross-Strait Relations

Moderator: Henry Rowen, Senior Fellow of Hoover Institution; Emeritus Director, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University

Speakers:

  • Steven Goldstein, Sophia Smith Professor of Government, Smith College
  • Cliff Tan, Consulting Professor, Stanford Center for International Development

3:00 pm to 3:20 pm

Break

3:20 pm to 4:45 pm

Session IV: Taiwan's Domestic Politics and Cross-Strait Relations

Moderator: Eric Yu, Research Fellow & Program Manager, CDDRL, Stanford University

Speakers:

  • Yi-cheng Jou, Founder, Third Society Party
  • Shelley Rigger, Brown Professor of Political Science, Davidson College

 

Saturday, May 30, 2009
8:30 am to 9:00 am Continental Breakfast
9:00 am to 10:30 am

Session V: Taiwan's Security and Cross-Strait Relations

Moderator: Larry Diamond, Director of CDDRL; Senior Fellow of Hoover Institution and FSI, Stanford University

Speakers:

  • Chong-Pin Lin, Professor of Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies, Tamkang University; Former Deputy Minister of Defense of ROC
  • Sam Suisheng Zhao, Professor and Executive Director of the Center for China-US Cooperation, University of Denver
10:30 am to 10:50 am Break
10:50 am to 12:30 pm

Session VI: Impact of Cross-Strait Exchanges on Mainland China

Moderator: TJ Cheng, Class of 1935 Professor of Political Science, College of William and Mary

Speakers:

  • Yun-han Chu, Distinguished Fellow of Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica; Professor of Political Science, National Taiwan University
  • Gang Lin, Professor of Political Science, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
  • Robert Kapp, President of Robert A Kapp and Associate, Inc; Former President of the US - China Business Council
12:30 pm to 1:30 pm Lunch
1:30 pm to 3:00 pm Roundtable Conclusion

Frances C. Arrillaga Alumni Center

Symposiums

The Political Effects on Russia of the Global Financial Crisis

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Kathryn Stoner-Weiss is Deputy Director, Senior Research Scholar at CDDRL. Prior to coming to Stanford, she was on the faculty at Princeton University for nine years, jointly appointed to the Department of Politics and the Woodrow Wilson School for International and Public Affairs. At Princeton she received the Ralph O. Glendinning Preceptorship awarded to outstanding junior faculty. She also served as a Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at McGill University. She has held fellowships at Harvard University as well as the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC.

In addition to many articles and book chapters on contemporary Russia, she is the author of two single authored books: Resisting the State: Reform and Retrenchment in Post-Soviet Russia (Cambridge, 2006), and Local Heroes: The Political Economy of Russian Regional Governance (Princeton, 1997). She is also co-editor (along with Michael McFaul) of After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transitions (Cambridge, 2004).

She received a BA and MA in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and a PhD in Government from Harvard University. She speaks Russian and French.

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Kathryn Stoner is the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) and the Satre Family Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). From 2017 to 2021, she served as FSI's Deputy Director. She is Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) at Stanford and teaches in the Department of Political Science, the Program on International Relations, and the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy Program. She is also a Senior Fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution.

Prior to coming to Stanford in 2004, she was on the faculty at Princeton University for nine years, jointly appointed to the Department of Politics and the Princeton School for International and Public Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School). At Princeton, she received the Ralph O. Glendinning Preceptorship, awarded to outstanding junior faculty. She also served as a Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science at Columbia University and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at McGill University. She has held fellowships at Harvard University as well as the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. 

In addition to many articles and book chapters on contemporary Russia, she is the author or co-editor of six books: Transitions to Democracy: A Comparative Perspective, written and edited with Michael A. McFaul (Johns Hopkins 2013);  Autocracy and Democracy in the Post-Communist World, co-edited with Valerie Bunce and Michael A. McFaul (Cambridge, 2010);  Resisting the State: Reform and Retrenchment in Post-Soviet Russia (Cambridge, 2006); After the Collapse of Communism: Comparative Lessons of Transitions (Cambridge, 2004), coedited with Michael McFaul; and Local Heroes: The Political Economy of Russian Regional Governance (Princeton, 1997); and Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2021).

She received a BA (1988) and MA (1989) in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and a PhD in Government from Harvard University (1995). In 2016, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Ilia State University in Tbilisi, the Republic of Georgia.

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Mosbacher Director, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Professor of Political Science (by courtesy), Stanford University
Senior Fellow (by courtesy), Hoover Institution
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AHPP sponsors special journal issue on health service provider incentives

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AHPP sponsors special journal issue on health service provider incentives

The Director of the Asia Health Policy Program, Karen Eggleston, served as guest editor of the International Journal of Healthcare Finance and Economics for the June 2009 issue. The eight papers of that issue evaluate different provider payment methods in comparative international perspective, with authors from Hungary, China, Thailand, the US, Switzerland, and Canada. These contributions illustrate how the array of incentives facing providers shapes their interpersonal, clinical, administrative, and investment decisions in ways that profoundly impact the performance of health care systems.

The collection leads off with a study by János Kornai, one of the most prominent scholars of socialism and post-socialist transition, and the originator of the concept of the soft budget constraint. Kornai’s paper examines the political economy of why soft budget constraints appear to be especially prevalent among health care providers, compared to other sectors of the economy.

Two other papers in the issue take up the challenge of empirically identifying the extent of soft budget constraints among hospitals and their impact on safety net services, quality of care, and efficiency, in the United States (Shen and Eggleston) and – even more preliminarily – in China (Eggleston and colleagues, AHPP working paper #8).

The impact of adopting National Health Insurance (NHI) and policies separating prescribing from dispensing are the subject of Kang-Hung Chang’s article entitled “The healer or the druggist: Effects of two health care policies in Taiwan on elderly patients’ choice between physician and pharmacist services” (AHPP working paper #5).

In “Does your health care depend on how your insurer pays providers? Variation in utilization and outcomes in Thailand” (AHPP working paper #4), Sanita Hirunrassamee of Chulalongkorn University and Sauwakon Ratanawijitrasin of Mahidol University study the impact of multiple provider payment methods in Thailand, providing striking evidence consistent with standard predictions of how payment incentives shape provider behavior. For example, patients whose insurers paid on a capitated or case basis (the 30 Baht and social security schemes) were less likely to receive new drugs than those for whom the insurer paid on a fee-for-service basis (civil servants). Patients with lung cancer were less likely to receive an MRI or a CT scan if payment involved supply-side cost sharing, compared to otherwise similar patients under fee-for-service. (This article is open access.)

The fourth paper in this special issue is entitled “Allocation of control rights and cooperation efficiency in public-private partnerships: Theory and evidence from the Chinese pharmaceutical industry” (AHPP working paper #6). Zhe Zhang and her colleagues use a survey of 140 pharmaceutical firms in China to explore the relationships between firms’ control rights within public-private partnerships and the firms’ investments.

Hai Fang, Hong Liu, and John A. Rizzo delve into another question of health service delivery design and accompanying supply-side incentives: requiring primary physician gatekeepers to monitor patient access to specialty care (AHPP working paper #2).

Direct comparisons of payment incentives in two or more countries are rare. In “An economic analysis of payment for health care services: The United States and Switzerland compared,” Peter Zweifel and Ming Tai-Seale compare the nationwide uniform fee schedule for ambulatory medical services in Switzerland with the resource-based relative value scale in the United States.

Several of the papers featured in this special issue were presented at the conference “Provider Payment Incentives in the Asia-Pacific” convened November 7-8, 2008 at the China Center for Economic Research (CCER) at Peking University in Beijing. That conference was sponsored by the Asia Health Policy Program of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University and CCER, with organizing team members from Stanford University, Peking University, and Seoul National University.

As Eggleston notes in the guest editorial to the special issue, AHPP and the other scholars associated with the issue “hope that these papers will contribute to more intellectual effort on how provider payment reforms, carefully designed and rigorously evaluated, can improve ‘value for money’ in health care.”

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Carbon Capture and Storage: An Assessment of Required Technological Growth Rates and Capital Investments

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In this new working paper PESD research affiliate Danny Cullenward studies the required rates of growth and capital investments needed to meet various long-term projections for CCS. Using the PESD Carbon Storage Database as a baseline, this paper creates four empirically-grounded scenarios about the development of the CCS industry to 2020. These possible starting points (the scenarios) are then used to calculate the sustained growth needed to meet CO2 storage estimates reported by the IPCC over the course of this century (out to 2100).

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Program on Energy and Sustainable Development, Working Paper #84
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The Weakness of Liberalism and Its Political Consequences in Democratized Korea

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Although South Korea has democratized, the weakness of liberalism there as a major political ideology and value system has prevented the full flowering of democracy.  This talk will examine the historical roots of liberalism's failure to take firm root in Korean politics and society.  The causes of such weakness are to be found, in both of the two major social and political forces in Korean society,  conservatives and radical/progressive forces; neither has been or is liberal.  The resulting problems include a strong, highly centralized state and its authoritarian tendencies,  the failure to create a stable party system, civil society's weak autonomy vis-à-vis the state, and inadequate constitutional checks-and-balances among the three branches of government exacerbated by a weak judiciary.  With democratic practice falling ever farther behind the Korean people's aspirations, enhanced liberalism will not solve all problems.  Nevertheless, Dr. Choi argues, it could point the way toward a richer Korean democracy.

Jang Jip Choi is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Korea University, Seoul, Korea, and currently a Visiting Professor in the Sociology Department at Stanford University.  Specializing in contemporary political history in Korea, the theory of democracy, comparative politics and labor politics, professor Choi is the author of many books, scholarly articles and political commentaries on Korean politics,  including  Democracy after Democratization in Korea (2002),  Which Democracy? (2007), and From Minjung to Citizens (2008).  Professor Choi holds a B.A. in political science from Korea University, and  an M.A. and a Ph.D in Political Science from the University of Chicago. He was a professor in the department of political science at Korea University until his retirement in 2008.

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Jang Jip Choi Visiting Professor, Sociology Department, Stanford University Speaker
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Stanford Korea Democracy Project

Former U.N. Special Envoy to Darfur Jan Eliasson addresses global crisis management

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Under the aegis of the Forum on Contemporary Europe, Ambassador Jan Eliasson, former U.N. Special Envoy to Darfur, visited Stanford and FSI to offer a new model for global crisis management of a wide range of issues, from piracy to global poverty.   As the former president of the U.N. General Assembly, Eliasson called for concerted action by NATO, the European Union, the U.N., and other actors on pressing security and humanitarian issues.  Arguing that current security and humanitarian challenges are greater than at any time in recent memory, Eliasson urged that world powers, along with international institutions, seek new leadership from the Obama administration grounded in recognition of the global impact of regional crises. 

To make his case for seeing the global in the regional, Eliasson raised the specter of the escalating sea piracy off the coast of Somalia.  Pirates in that region launch from the shores of a failed state – a polity that has degenerated into rival war-lord militias after combined forces of U.N. and Western powers lost their appetite for engagement, and turned their attention elsewhere.  While much of the world is refocused on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, multinational corporations are increasingly subject to and pay out multi-million dollar ransoms for the release of ship crews and cargoes that include the world’s commercial arms shipments.  The piracy has grown beyond instances of local plunder, into crime that threatens one of the most heavily trafficked shipping lanes between western and emerging markets.  Merchant marine as well as naval fleets have been forced to change course, altering global transportation and security routes.  Most recently, Eliasson’s call for international leadership would seem to have been heeded by nations attending the international summit in Brussels on the piracy crisis.  At the summit, the E.U. foreign policy chief, the U.N. Secretary General, and U.S. officials joined with more than sixty countries – including Iraq – to pledge over $200 million in aid to the Somali government for security and development.  This international cooperation, and attention to root causes, would seem to be the first sign of the kind of vision that Ambassador Eliasson urges for new and more comprehensive response.

Ambassador Eliasson completed his depiction of the most effective international policy responses with a focus on the world problem of poverty.  Drawing on his years of experience in the international and Swedish diplomatic corps, Eliasson explained that in the most impoverished areas of the world, the most effective investment in international aid is that which funds the education of girls and young women.  Teach a girl essential education, and she herself, along with her family, and her community, benefits in manifold ways. Raising his glass, Eliasson noted that great numbers of peoples still do not have access to cheap and clean water – an essential provision for health and development.  Water, and access to its diminishing supply, must be understood by the world’s new leaders as the high stake behind multiple border wars. 

The Forum hosted Ambassador Eliasson at FSI and Stanford for two days of talks to reach multiple audiences.  At a Stanford Speakers Bureau event, Ambassador Eliasson addressed an overflow crowd of students and offered  insights into the crisis in Darfur.  The Forum welcomed the opportunity to bring Ambassador Eliasson, so recently from his mission in Darfur, to spur student interest in the role of international (U.N.) and regional (European Union and African Union) peace keeping operations.  During the same visit to Stanford, the Forum on Contemporary Europe hosted Kerstin Eliasson, Board Member of the European Commission Joint Research Center, and former Assistant Undersecretary of the Swedish Ministry of Education and Science, to speak on research reforms in the European higher education system.  Kerstin Eliasson’s public address was co-hosted with the Forum by the faculty seminar series of the Stanford Institute for Higher Education Research.  The visit by Ambassador Eliasson, and Kerstin Eliasson, was a highlight of spring 2009 research and public dissemination of the Program on Sweden, Scandinavia, and the Baltic Region at the Forum on Contemporary Europe.

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Business Development of High End Molecular and Genetic Testing Services in the US Market

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This presentation will discuss the current clinical diagnostic business scenario and the business opportunities available with a focus on the U.S. market.

 

About the speaker:

Sivaraman Vasudevan is a corporate affiliate visiting fellow at Shorenstein APARC for 2008-09.  Prior to joining Shorenstein APARC, he has been working for Reliance Life Sciences in Bangalore, India as Regional Head in charge of sales opoerations for Eastern and Southern parts of India.  His job responsibilities include developing business plans, implementing strategies and achieving sales targets.  Additionally, he is part of an elite corporate team in developing national and regional marketing strategies. 

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