Stanford University

Governance

FSI's research on the origins, character and consequences of government institutions spans continents and academic disciplines. The institute’s senior fellows and their colleagues across Stanford examine the principles of public administration and implementation. Their work focuses on how maternal health care is delivered in rural China, how public action can create wealth and eliminate poverty, and why U.S. immigration reform keeps stalling. 

FSI’s work includes comparative studies of how institutions help resolve policy and societal issues. Scholars aim to clearly define and make sense of the rule of law, examining how it is invoked and applied around the world. 

FSI researchers also investigate government services – trying to understand and measure how they work, whom they serve and how good they are. They assess energy services aimed at helping the poorest people around the world and explore public opinion on torture policies. The Children in Crisis project addresses how child health interventions interact with political reform. Specific research on governance, organizations and security capitalizes on FSI's longstanding interests and looks at how governance and organizational issues affect a nation’s ability to address security and international cooperation.

Talking to the Enemy: Explaining Diplomatic Strategy in Conflicts in Asia

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EMERGING ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY ASIA

A Special Seminar Series

RSVP required by February 12, 2019 to: https://goo.gl/forms/h9RRcz4vR9Ybn5cQ2

VALID STANFORD ID CARD MUST BE PRESENTED UPON ARRIVAL

 

ABSTRACT: Diplomacy plays a critical role in the management and resolution of armed conflict in the international system. After a war breaks out, decision makers see the opening of talks as a constructive step in the conflict’s resolution — dialogue allows for belligerents to broker deals and coordinate the logistics of war termination. However, in modern warfare, states almost always fight initially for period of time without engaging in talks. What factors explain whether states are willing to talk to their enemy while fighting and when might their diplomatic postures change? “Talking to the Enemy” presents a framework to explain variation in countries’ approaches to wartime diplomacy, focusing on the costs of talks and how states mitigate these costs to get to the negotiating table. I test this framework with respect to Chinese decision making in the Korean and Sino-Indian Wars — one in which China was against talks for nine months before opening up and the latter in which China actively pursued talks throughout the whole conflict. The findings have significant implications for crisis management and conflict resolution in U.S.-China relations.  

Oriana Mastro
PROFILE: Oriana Skylar Mastro is an assistant professor of security studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University where her research focuses on Chinese military and security policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, war termination, and coercive diplomacy. Dr. Mastro is also a 2017-2019 Jeane Kirkpatrick Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) where she is working on a book about China’s challenge to U.S. primacy. Mastro continues to serve in the United States Air Force Reserve for which she works as a Senior China Analyst at the Pentagon. For her contributions to U.S. strategy in Asia, she won the Individual Reservist of the Year Award in 2016. She has published widely, including in Foreign Affairs, International Security, International Studies Review, Journal of Strategic Studies, The Washington Quarterly, The National Interest, Survival, and Asian Security, and is the author of The Costs of Conversation: Obstacles to Peace Talks in Wartime, (Cornell University Press, 2019). She holds a BA in East Asian Studies from Stanford University and an MA.and PhD in Politics from Princeton University. Her publications and other commentary can be found on twitter @osmastro and www.orianaskylarmastro.com.  

 

Oriana Mastro Assistant Professor of Security Studies Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Seminars

David M. Lampton

Shorenstein APARC Stanford University Encina Hall Stanford, CA 94305-6055
650.724.6404
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Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow
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David M. (“Mike”) Lampton is the Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow at FSI and affiliated with Shorenstein APARC. Lampton (BA ’68, MA ’71, PhD ’74), an expert in Chinese politics and U.S.-China relations, is the Hyman Professor of China Studies and Director of the China Studies Program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies Emeritus.   Lampton's current book project is focused on the development of high-speed railways from southern China to Singapore. He is the author of a dozen books and monographs, including Following the Leader: Ruling China, from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping (University of California Press, 2014, and second edition 2019) and The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money, and Minds (University of California Press, 2008). He has testified at multiple congressional and commission sessions and published numerous articles, essays, book reviews, and opinion pieces in many venues popular and academic in both the western world and in Chinese-speaking societies, including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The American Political Science Review, The China Quarterly, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and many others.   Over the course of his career, Lampton accompanied American public and private sector leaders to China, and Chinese leaders to the United States. Formerly President of the National Committee on United States-China Relations, Lampton consults with government, business, and social sector organizations, and has served on the boards of several non-governmental and educational organizations, including the Asia Foundation for which he served as chairman. The recipient of many academic awards, he is an Honorary Senior Fellow of the American Studies Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, former Gilman Scholar at Johns Hopkins, and the inaugural winner of the Scalapino Prize in 2010, awarded by the National Bureau of Asian Research and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in recognition of his exceptional contributions to America’s understanding of the vast changes underway in Asia.

Geopolitical Citizenship: The Implications of North Korean Refugee Resettlement

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EMERGING ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY ASIA

A Special Seminar Series

RSVP required by February 8, 2019 to: https://goo.gl/forms/dht3i9iX06mGpNyC3

VALID STANFORD ID CARD MUST BE PRESENTED UPON ARRIVAL

 

ABSTRACT: Most North Korean refugees and defectors live in South Korea, but in the past decade a growing number have moved beyond the Korean peninsula to create exile communities in North America, Europe, and other locations around the world. These movements have contributed to the emergence of a new and more globally distributed North Korean diaspora. What factors have shaped the emergence of this diaspora, and what effect is it likely to have?  I find that contestation over conceptions of citizenship, at both the level of the individual and the level of government policy, have combined to shape the migration and resettlement of North Korean defectors and refugees over time and across geographic space. I then draw on a comparison with other authoritarian diasporas and extra-territorial opposition movements to show how changing North Korean resettlement patterns are likely to have significant geopolitical implications--not just for the individuals and families that migrate out of North Korea, but for American and international security and human rights policies toward North Korea.  

Sheena Greitens
PROFILE: Sheena Chestnut Greitens is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri, and co-director of the university’s Institute for Korean Studies. She is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and an adjunct fellow with the Korea Chair at Center for Strategic and International Studies.  Dr. Greitens holds a Ph.D. from Harvard  University, M.Phil. from Oxford University, where she studied as a Marshall Scholar, and a B.A. from Stanford University. Greitens’ research focuses on security, East Asia, and the politics of democracy and dictatorship. Her work on China and North Korea has appeared in academic journals and edited volumes in English, Chinese, and Korean, and in major media outlets, and she has previously testified to Congress on security issues in the Asia-Pacific. Her first book, Dictators & Their Secret Police (Cambridge, 2016) received the 2017 Best Book Award from both the International Studies Association and the Comparative Democratization section of the American Political Science Association, and an honorable mention from APSA’s Politics and History section. She is currently working on a book manuscript on the geopolitical implications of North Korean defector and refugee resettlement.  

Sheena Greitens Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri and co-director of the university’s Institute for Korean Studies

Fukushima Accident and Its Aftermath

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Plese note: we're no longer accepting RSVPs for this event.

 

Eight years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake and subsequent Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident. Steady progress has been made towards the reconstruction of Fukushima, repopulation of surrounding areas, and the decommissioning of the plant, of which Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO) must shoulder 16 trillion yen of the 22 trillion yen, the total estimated cost of the accident. Meanwhile, with Japan having fully liberalized its electricity and gas retail market, the business environment surrounding TEPCO is undergoing a major change. In the long term, TEPCO foresees a decrease in demand for their power service and increased competition among utility companies. In this program, Naomi Hirose, who endeavored to manage the Fukushima incident spearhead reforming the company as President of TEPCO from 2012 to 2017, shares his insights on the current situation in Fukushima, lessons learned and implications from the accident.

 

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Naomi Hirose is senior executive whose service at the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) spans four decades.  He joined the company in 1976, having gained an appreciation for the energy industry following the 1973 Oil Shock, and worked in a number of management positions from 1992 to 2005, including corporate planning, sales, marketing, and customer relations.  Mr. Hirose became an executive officer in 2006, and in 2008, conceived and spearheaded a campaign promoting the economic and environmental benefits of electrification, called “Switch” that was a Japan-first. In 2010, he re-energized the company vision for global expansion.  Immediately after the 3.11 Fukushima Accident, Mr. Hirose dedicated himself to create the system for Nuclear Damage Compensation. After becoming President and CEO in 2012, he led the company in addressing a number of highly complex issues such as water management and decommissioning plans for the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, compensation for the accident and Fukushima revitalization, and keeping TEPCO competitive while facing the deregulation of Japan’s electricity market.  He currently serves as Executive Vice Chairman, Fukushima Affairs, overseeing the utility’s passionate and steadfast efforts to reconstruct and revitalize Fukushima Prefecture.  Mr. Hirose received his B.A. in Sociology from Hitotsubashi University in 1976,and his MBA from Yale School of Management in 1983.

Naomi Hirose, Vice Chairman, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc. (TEPCO)
Seminars
Japan Colloquium Series

Pressure for Pressure: North Korean Strategic Culture and the Risks of Policy Blowback

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EMERGING ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY ASIA

A Special Seminar Series

RSVP required by January 29, 2019 to: https://goo.gl/forms/0bPqyoTQwub8WaRo2

VALID STANFORD ID CARD MUST BE PRESENTED UPON ARRIVAL

 

ABSTRACT: How does North Korea think about coercion—that is, threats and the use of force to achieve political goals? The answer affects not only the kinds of “sticks” to employ as part of North Korea policy, but the potential cost of using sticks or pressure at all. In this presentation, Jackson argues that part of North Korean strategic culture—specifically its beliefs about coercion—helps explain a durable pattern in its foreign policy and crisis bargaining history: generating deliberate friction with adversaries despite the risk of its own destruction. This presentation will explain the offensive and reputational underpinnings of how North Korea thinks about coercion, detail how this aspect of North Korean strategic culture helps us make sense of its foreign policy history, and explore the implication of this set of beliefs for recent North Korea policy. It will argue that the policy of “maximum pressure,” and its “strategic patience” antecedent, both contained implicit assumptions about North Korean behavior at odds with the historical record— assumptions that were blind to the risks of blowback they were generating.

PROFILE: Van Jackson is a senior lecturer in international relations at Victoria University of Wellington, the defense and strategy fellow at the Centre for Strategic Studies, and a global fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is also a senior editor with War on the Rocks and an associate editor with the Texas National Security Review. Jackson's first book, with Cambridge University Press, was Rival Reputations: Coercion and Credibility in U.S.-North Korea Relations (2016). His second book, just out and also with Cambridge University Press, is On the Brink: Trump, Kim and the Threat of Nuclear War (2018). He is a former Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. From 2009-2014, Jackson held positions in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) as a strategist and policy adviser focused on the Asia-Pacific, senior country director for Korea, and working group chair of the U.S.–Republic of Korea Extended Deterrence Policy Committee. He was a contributor to the 2013 Strategic Choices Management Review, the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review, and OSD’s implementation of the U.S. policy of rebalancing to the Asia-Pacific. He started his career as a Korean linguist in the U.S. Air Force.


 

Philippines Conference Room Encina Hall, 3rd Floor 616 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305

 

Van Jackson Senior Lecturer, Victoria University of Wellington; Defence and Strategy Fellow, Centre for Strategic Studies Wilson Center; Global Fellow, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Seminars

Video Interview with Sophie Lemière, 2018-19 Lee Kong Chian National University of Singapore-Stanford Fellow on Southeast Asia

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Prior to departing for Singapore and the second half of her Lee Kong Chian Visiting Fellowship on Southeast Asia , we sat down with Sophie Lemière , a specialist in Malaysian politics, to discuss the origins of her interest in Malaysia, the country's May 2018 electoral revolution and the prospects of its new governing coalition, what it was like to follow the Mahathir's election campaign, and some of her current projects.

A political anthropologist in the Ash Center for Democracy at Harvard University, Lemière is working on a political biography of Malaysia’s current prime minister Mohamad Mahathir that features his recent election campaign. She is the editor of a series of books on politics and people in Malaysia, including Gangsters and Masters (forthcoming 2019), Illusions of Democracy (2017), and Misplaced Democracy (2014). She has held visiting research positions at universities in Singapore, Australia, and the United States. Her PhD is from Sciences-Po in Paris.

The Lee Kong Chian Visiting Fellowship on Southeast Asia is part of a joint initiative by the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Stanford, whose aim is to raise the visibility, extent, and quality of research on contemporary Southeast Asia. Here at Stanford, the infrastructures for research is supported by our Southeast Asia Program .

Watch the video interview below. A transcript is also available.

 

 

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Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Fellow Sophie Lemiere being interviews Thom Holme, APARC
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Defending Free Assembly in the Digital World: A Roundtable with the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Assembly and Association

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Stanford’s Global Digital Policy Incubator (GDPi), the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the HANDA Center for Human Rights and International Justice, UC Berkeley’s Human Rights Center, and the Civic Space Initiative invite you to participate in a roundtable discussion with Clément Voule, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association, on the role of technology companies in defending freedom of assembly and association online.

In recent years, the right to free assembly and association online has been challenged from numerous sides, often under the pretext of national security, public order, morality, and prevention of abuse. These restrictions include blocking of groups and websites focused on minority groups, large-scale Internet shutdowns, mass online harassment and doxing campaigns, and the use of facial recognition software to identify protesters. Violations of offline rights are spilling over into online spaces, where their impact ripples through entire societies. This creates an urgent need for the protection of these rights in new domains. The United Nations is seeking input from the private sector, academic experts, and the broader public on how to protect these shrinking spaces.

Participants are invited to share cases in which individual and collective rights to peacefully assemble online were violated. The conversation will inform the Special Rapporteur’s report to the United Nations Human Rights Council on threats to free assembly in the digital realm and how they can be addressed.

 Lunch will be provided prior to the event.

We Look forward to your attendance at this special event.

Clément Voule United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association
Panel Discussions
CDDRL Special Events

South Asia Colloquia

Launched in 2016, this series of public lectures features academics, government practitioners, and business experts who explore contemporary issues focused on the countries of South Asia—their potential and problems, their economies, their place in the region and in the global arena, the agendas of their administrations, and their relations with the United States.

Japan-US Trade Frictions Past and Present: Implications for China-US Trade War

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The event is jointly sponsored by the Japan Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership.

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Japan and the US were involved in fierce trade frictions beginning with textiles in the 1950s to semi-conductors in the 1990s. Bilateral trade problems between Japan and the US have resurged recently after Donald Trump became US President. Analysis of Japan-US trade frictions can provide useful implications for ongoing trade war between the US and China.

Shujiro Urata is a Professor at the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies, Waseda Univeristy.  His focus of research is in international and development economics.  He received his PhD in Economics from Standford University in 1978.

Philippines Conference Room Encina Hall, 3rd Floor 616 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305
Shujiro Urata Professor Waseda University
Seminars
Japan Colloquium Series

North Korea and Myanmar: Divergent Paths

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The stories of North Korea and Myanmar (Burma) are two of Asia’s most difficult. For decades they were infamous as the region’s most militarized and repressed, self-isolated and under sanctions by the international community while, from Singapore to Japan, the rest of Asia saw historic wealth creation. Andray Abrahamian, author of the recent book North Korea and Myanmar: Divergent Paths (McFarland, 2018), examines and compares the recent histories of North Korea and Myanmar, asking how both became pariahs and why Myanmar has been able to find a path out of isolation while North Korea has not. 

Abrahamian finds that both countries were faced with severe security threats following decolonization. Myanmar was able to largely take care of its main threats in the 1990s and 2000s, allowing it the space to address the reasons for its pariah status. North Korea's response to its security threat has been to develop nuclear weapons, which in turn perpetuates and exacerbates its isolation and pariah status. In addition, Pyongyang has developed a state ideology and a coercive apparatus unmatched by Myanmar, insulating its decision makers from political pressures and issues of legitimacy to a greater degree.

Dr. Andray Abrahamian is currently the 2018-19 Koret Fellow in Korea Program at Stanford. He is a member of the US National Committee on North Korea and an Adjunct Fellow at Pacific Forum and at Griffith University. Working for a non-profit, Choson Exchange, has taken him to the DPRK nearly 30 times; he has also lived in Myanmar.

Philippines Conference Room Encina Hall, 3rd Floor 616 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305

Andray Abrahamian

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Lecturer
Koret Fellow, 2018-19
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Andray Abrahamian was the 2018-19 Koret Fellow at Stanford University. He is also an Honorary Fellow at Macquarie University, Sydney and an Adjunct Fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute. He is an advisor to Choson Exchange, a non-profit that trains North Koreans in economic policy and entrepreneurship. He was previously Executive Director and Research Director for Choson Exchange. That work, along with supporting sporting exchanges and a TB project, has taken him to the DPRK nearly 30 times. He has also lived in Myanmar, where he taught at Yangon University and consulted for a risk management company. He has conducted research comparing the two countries, resulting in the publication of "North Korea and Myanmar: Divergent Paths" (McFarland, 2018). Andray has published extensively and offers expert commentary on Korea and Myanmar, including for US News, Reuters, the New York Times, Washington Post, Lowy Interpreter and 38 North.  He has a PhD in International Relations from the University of Ulsan, South Korea and an M.A. from the University of Sussex where he studied media discourse on North Korea and the U.S.-ROK alliance, respectively. Andray speaks Korean, sometimes with a Pyongyang accent.
<i>2018-19 Koret Fellow, APARC, Stanford University</i>
Seminars
Korean Studies Colloquium Series
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