Hailed by the New York Times as one of China's most influential intellectuals, Liu Junning is the founder and editor of the Journal Res Publica. Formerly a Fellow at the Institute of Political Science at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Liu is responsible for the Chinese translation of numerous works on democracy and classic liberal thought. In 1999 his collected essays were published as Republic, Democracy, Constitutionalism. He holds a doctorate in political theory from Beijing University.

In the space of ten short years, Germany and Japan have gone from paragons of economic success to models of political paralysis. In both countries, reformers call for a decisive move toward the liberal market model, yet find themselves frustrated with their governments' inability to act. This deadlock reflects the normal operation of German and Japanese democracy, and not its failure, for Germany and Japan are fundamentally divided over the merits of the proposed liberal reforms. As a result, Germany and Japan proceed with reforms slowly and cautiously, they package delicate compromises, and they design reforms to preserve the core institutions of their respective economic models as much as possible. Steven K. Vogel is Associate Professor of Political Science at UC Berkeley. He specializes in the political economy of the advanced industrialized nations, especially Japan. His book, Freer Markets, More Rules: Regulatory Reform in Advanced Industrial Countries (Cornell University Press, 1996), won the 1998 Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize. He has written extensively on Japanese politics, industrial policy, trade and defense policy. He has taught previously at the University of California, Irvine and Harvard University. He has a B.A. from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in Political Science from UC Berkeley.

Qian investigates decentralization and fiscal incentives in the central-provincial relationship during China's reform. He finds a strong correlation between local government revenue collection and local government expenditure and shows that the fiscal contracting system provides local governments with strong fiscal incentives. He also finds that stronger fiscal incentives in terms of higher marginal revenue retention rate implies faster development of non-state enterprises and more reform in state-owned enterprises. Federalism, Chinese style, is compared to federalism, Russian style. Born in Beijing, Yingyi Qian received his B.S. in applied mathematics from Tsinghua University, Beijing; his M.A. in statistics from Columbia University; his M.Phil. in management science from Yale University; and a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University. Professor Qian's fields of research include the theory of organizations, comparative institutional analysis, economics of transition, and reform and development in China. He is the author and co-author of many papers, including "Federalism and the Soft Budget Constraints," "Understanding China's Township-Village Enterprises," "Financial System Reform in China: Lessons from Japan's Main-Bank System," and "Enterprise Reform in China: Agency Problems and Political Control."

Southeast Asia has been buffeted by several shocks and momentous events over the last two years, in particular the economic recession which started in July 1997; the return of Hong Kong to China; and political instability, particularly in Indonesia.

Increasingly, large, extended urban regions compete with each other in the Region and in the global economy. Furthermore, as a result of strong driving forces, including free trade, convergence in tax structures, and the "death of distance", Southeast Asian urban regions are less protected and influenced by nation states, and are thus highly vulnerable to unpredictable consequences of strong forces associated with globalization and co-evolving domestic change.

Dr. Webster will assess events of the last few years in terms of the dramatic re-positioning that has occurred among major urban regions in Southeast Asia - identifying winners and losers. His assessment will be based on consideration of both competitiveness and resilience - the two primary objectives, perhaps non-reconcilable, of most Southeast Asian urban regions.

Dr. Webster is currently a visiting scholar at the Asia/Pacific Research Center. He has been Senior Urban Advisor to the National Planning Board, Prime Minister's Office, Thailand for the last five years. He is involved in formulation of strategies and policies related to urbanization in the context of rapid socio-economic change in Thailand. He is also full time advisor to the World Bank's Asia and Pacific Urban Unit. At the global level, he is involved in formulation of the World Bank's Global Urban Strategy, and the World Development Report 2000 which will focus on urbanization and decentralization.

Dr. Webster was formerly Director of the Urban Planning Program at the University of Calgary and Professor of Planning at the Asian Institute of Technology. He has advised a wide variety of governments, cities, corporations, and development agencies on urban policies and programming, particularly in Southeast Asia, over the last 25 years. He is the author of many academic and professional publications on urbanization and urban issues in Southeast Asia.

The Internet has penetrated China at an unprecedented rate. In 1994 2,000 Chinese computers had on-line access; by 2000 that figure had grown to 6 million, and China is now host to more than 30,000 websites. Many have lauded these developments for their potentially liberalizing effects; others have argued that the Internet merely strengthens the administrative capacity of the central government. How will the Internet transform China? Duncan Clark has been intimately involved in the Internet in China since its commercial inception in 1995. A recognized authority on the telecom sector in China, he is the founder of BDA China Limited, and serves on the Advisory Board of China's leading portal, Netease.com. He is a technology columnist for The South China Morning Post, and a frequent commentator on radio and television. He is a graduate of the London School of Economics.

After a brief description of historical legacies, Dr. Katahara looks at changes and continuities in the patterns and contents of civil-military relations through an exploration of the jurisdictional boundaries in the two areas: the structure of political domination; and national security policy making. This study is part of East-West Center's project on the State and the Soldier in Asia, directed by Muthiah Alagappa. Dr. Eiichi Katahara teaches Japan's diplomatic history and international relations in Asia and the Pacific in the Faculty of Law at Kobe Gakuin University, Japan (1992~). He held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California's Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (1991-1992) and at the Australian National University (1989-1991), lectured in Japanese Politics in the Department of Political Science and was a research fellow in the Australia-Japan Research Center. He has published articles on topics related to Japan's security policy, and security affairs in the Asia-Pacific region. His recent publications include "Japan's Plutonium Policy: Consequences for Nonproliferation" (The Nonproliferation Review, Vol.5, No.1, 1997); "Japan's Concept of Comprehensive Security in the Post-Cold War World" (in S. Shirk & C. Twomey eds. Power and Prosperity: Economic and Security Linkages in Asia-Pacific, 1996). He has also written background chapters on Japan for Asia Pacific Security Outlook 1998 and Asia Pacific Security Outlook 1999 (forthcoming) (edited by Charles Morrison).

The talk deals with the affects of state-led industrialization on social formation in South Korea. Ha focuses on explaining why traditional primary ties have become dominant social units in spite of extensive and rapid economic changes. Going beyond a conventional abstract state-based explanation of Korean economic success, his talk traces historical origins of social conditions in the 1960s which interacted with state-initiated economic development to bring about neofamilial social units. By proposing a different framework to understand social consequences of Korean industrialization, theoretical and practical advantages will be presented through specific examples, such as the nature of civil society, middle class and bureaucracy. Prof. Ha received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 1985. He has been teaching at the Department of International Relations of Seoul National University since 1986. He is currently on leave as visiting professor at the Department of Political Science of UC Berkeley. His recent research is on industrialization and tradition in late industrializing countries and the impacts of the role of strong state on society. He is preparing a book on social institutional dynamics of late industrializing countries. Some of his works include: Legitimacy and Stability under Brezhnev: A Case of Drifting Regime Type (1997, in Russian), Industrialization and Debureaucratization of Korean Bureaucracy (1996, in Korean), The Modern School System and the Reinforcement of School Ties: A Paradox of Colonial Control (1997).

The talk will highlight the economic and social development of India and Pakistan and how this has been affected by the high level of military expenditures. It will trace the likely consequences of the emergence of a nuclear race on the two economies arising both from the short-run impact of economic sanctions and the costs in the long-run of increased sophistication of military technology. Before becoming the managing director of the SPDC in Pakistan, Dr. Hafiz Pasha was Advisor to the Prime Minister on Finance and Economic Affairs and Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, with status of federal minister. Earlier, he was Vice Chancellor of the University of Karachi, Dean and Director of the Institute of Business Administration, Karachi, and Professor and Director of the Applied Economics Research Centre, University of Karachi. Dr. Pasha's publications cover the fields of public finance, urban and regional economics and economics of social sectors. He has been involved with high-level policy making in Pakistan and has taken on numerous research assignments for international bilateral and multilateral agencies.

Like a double-edged sword, the recent conflict in East Timor challenged Indonesia and the international community alike. For Indonesia, the crisis and its resolution offered a chance for military reform, yet threatened national unity. For international donors, the chance to defend human rights and implement self-determination carried a risk of provoking nationalist resentment against foreign intervention for democratic change.This talk will focus on the international community and its donor countries and agencies. How did they react to the conflict in East Timor? What were their strategies? How did their actions affect Indonesia -- not only its East Timor policies but also the course of its own democratic transition? Looking back on them now, do the crisis and its outcome lessons for the feasibility of foreign intervention to achieve domestic political reform? If so, what are they? If not, why not? And what do the answers to these questions imply for the democratic prospect in developing countries more generally?

This talk explores the broader puzzles of the East Asian economic crisis through a focus on the Thai textile-garment industry. Once the leading Thai export, the textile industry weakened in the 1990's in the face of wage increases, regional competition and slackening demand. The goal of this talk is to explain the industry's past success, its failure to sustain that growth through technical upgrading, and its current responses to the crisis. The emphasis is on the political and institutional factors influencing industry performance. Rick Doner is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Emory University. He is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Asia/Pacific Research Center at Stanford University. He received his B.A. in Political Science from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, his M.A. in Chinese Studies from Stanford University and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Professor Doner's general research interest is comparative political economy of Southeast Asia. This current research covers political and institutional bases of Thai economic growth, comparative analysis of business associations in developing countries, flexible production in East Asia, and political economy of the hard disk drive industry in East Asia.