Elections
-

Due to the overwhelming interest in this event, we are now booked to full capacity and unable to take further reservations.

Please contact khaley@stanford.edu if you would like to be placed on the wait list.

 

This is a watershed French presidential election marked by the collapse of the main political leaders and established political parties as well as the amplification of corruption scandals by social networks.  The French electorate is torn between disengagement from politics, anger and confusion.  In the first ballot on April 23rd, voters are likely to reject the traditional Right/Left divide and stage the run-off campaign as a stark choice between far-Right populist leader Marine Le Pen and 39 year old pro-European centrist Emmanuel Macron.  These candidates and their ideas are the most emblematic incarnation of the clash that increasingly defines Western politics, pitting anti-immigrant and anti-trade nationalists against the more cosmopolitan elites.  Will France vote more like the Dutch or the British and Americans?  With what consequences for herself, Europe and the transatlantic relationship?

Image
Image of Patrick Chamorel, Senior Resident Scholar at the Stanford University Center in Washington DC.

Patrick Chamorel
is Senior Resident Scholar at the Stanford University Center in Washington DC. He teaches Political Science, with an emphasis on comparative American and European politics, public policy and political economy, as well as transatlantic relations. He has taught Transatlantic Relations on Stanford’s California campus as well as French Politics at the Stanford in Paris campus. Over the last few years, he has been teaching a semester course and an intensive seminar at the Reims Euro-American campus of Sciences-Po Paris. In addition to Stanford, he has taught at the University of California (Berkeley and Santa Cruz), George Washington University, and Claremont McKenna College where he was the Crown Visiting professor of Government. He was a Fellow of the Institute for Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley, the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington DC and the Hoover Institution at Stanford, as well as a Congressional Fellow of the American Political Science Association (Offices of Harry Reid in the U.S. Senate and Norman Mineta in the House of Representatives).

Patrick Chamorel has written and lectured extensively on US and European politics. His research has focused recently on US strategic, political and economic relations with Europe and the EU, American and European political and business elites, the impact of globalization on governments, business and civil society, Euro-skepticism in America, and US and French presidential elections. He regularly contributes to the media, including the Wall Street Journal, Die Welt, Les Echos, Atlantico.fr, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and CNN International.

In the 1990s, Patrick Chamorel was a Senior Advisor to the Minister of Industry and in the Policy Planning Office of the Prime Minister in Paris. He is a graduate of Sciences-Po in Paris where he also earned his Ph.D. in Political Science after doing research at UC Berkeley and Stanford University. In addition, he holds a Master in Public Law from the University of Paris.

Patrick Chamorel Senior Resident Scholar and Professor of Political Science Speaker Stanford University Center in Washington, DC
Seminars
-
 
If you thought that world politics is boring, think again. 2016 was potentially as important as 1945 and 1989. The end of WWII marked the beginning of our current global institutions and a bipolar world. The end of the Cold War kicked off an unprecedented era of liberal democracy, social market economics, and globalization. Last year arguably marked an end of that era, as demonstrated by Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. Was Brexit and the election of Donald Trump the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning? Come and find out. As a former Prime, Finance, and Foreign Minister of Finland, Alex will give you a practical answer with a theoretical twist and a blend of humour.

 

Image
Alexander Stubb image

 

Alexander Stubb has served as Prime Minister, Finance Minister, Foreign Minister, Trade and Europe Minister of Finland. He was a Member of the European Parliament from 2004-2008 and in the national government from 2008-16. He was the Chairman of the National Coalition Party from 2014-16 and is currently a Member of the Finnish Parliament.

Stubb's background is in academia and civil service. He has published 16 books, tens of academic articles and hundreds of columns. He holds a Ph.D. From the London School of Economics and Political Science, a Master's degree from the College of Europe in Bruges, and a B.A. from Furman University in South Carolina. He also studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. He worked as an expert adviser at the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Helsinki and in Brussels, and in President Romano Prodi's team at the European Commission. He has been a visiting Professor at the College of Europe in Bruges.

His expertise includes European and International Affairs, Foreign and Security Policy, the Euro and the Global Economy. His current interests are Brexit, global affairs, the Fourth Industrial Revolution (digitalisation, robotisation and artificial intelligence) and health and exercise science. Stubb is a sought after speaker and a frequent commentator on international affairs for many global news channels. He writes a regular column for the Financial Times and Dagens Industri, the Swedish business journal.

Stubb speaks Finnish, Swedish, English, French and German. He is an avid sportsman, having played ice-hockey, handball, and national team golf in his youth. His current passions are cycling and triathlon. He participated in the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii in October 2016.

Alexander Stubb Speaker former Prime Minister of Finland and current member of the Finnish Parliament
Lectures
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs
South Korea’s Constitutional Court upheld a parliamentary decision to impeach President Park Geun-hye on Friday. She becomes the country’s first democratically elected leader to be forcibly removed from power, following allegations of corruption that have incited widespread protests for months.
 
Gi-Wook Shin, director of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, answers some questions about the impact of Park’s impeachment and path ahead for South Korea.
 
What happens next?
 
The ruling declares that President Park is no longer president and that she must vacate Blue House, the official residence of the South Korean head of state. Indeed, she returned to the residence where she had lived before assuming the presidency. A presidential election will be held within 60 days, most likely on May 9. In the meantime, South Korean Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, who was appointed as acting president, will continue in that role until the election. 
 
The decision made by the court was only one part of the investigation into Park’s political scandals and alleged corruption. The verdict delivered on March 10 states that Park committed a grave violation of constitutional law. Park could still face charges for corruption and cronyism, as a separate legal process is ongoing, and she could be put into jail.
 
How are people in South Korea responding to the ruling so far?
 
Most people are accepting the ruling. The decision to confirm Park’s impeachment was largely expected. One noteworthy aspect of the ruling, though, was its unanimity – all eight judges on the court voted to confirm her impeachment. This collective stance aimed to message an agreement that ‘it’s time to move on’ and to minimize the potential for discord in government and society.
 
Following months of protests in Seoul, the reactions on the streets have been fairly restrained. However, there is a contingent that supported Park throughout the trial and they still refuse to accept the ruling. Park herself also expressed defiance, rather than accepting the verdict, reportedly saying, “It will take time, but the truth will eventually be revealed.” Political tensions will continue, perhaps even after the upcoming election.
 
What motivated the protests and impeachment process, and what does it represent?
 
Beyond the political scandals, the protests are more broadly an expression of popular discontent over a range of issues. Following two decades of rapid modernization, South Koreans are experiencing growing inequality, high youth unemployment, and fatigue over two presidential terms by conservative parties. Civic participation was a main driver behind the protests. The protests were large scale and prolonged but certainly not unusual for South Korea. Historically speaking, South Korea has a pattern of a strong state setting itself against a contentious civil society. As was evident in 2016-17, political parties, instead of addressing the issues and public opinion, were being led by the movements themselves.
 
The impeachment trial and civic activism represent neither a crisis of politics nor a crisis of democracy for South Korea. Rather, it shows that Korean democracy has progressed since it accelerated its democratic transition in the late 1980s. Throughout Park’s case, democratic procedures were followed by the National Assembly, special prosecutor and the Constitutional Court – and that’s a good sign. Nonetheless the real test for Korean democracy may yet have to come, as some supporters of Park and perhaps she herself have indicated that the verdict is unfair and unconstitutional. Going forward, I am still optimistic that these events will encourage the government to be more careful with exercise of power and more attentive to societal issues.
 
What are the main issues that the government now faces?
 
National unity and stability will be the main priorities of the next president of South Korea. He or she will have to find a way to bridge the deep divide between progressives and conservatives, and work on the issues that have motivated such wide unrest across the country. An orderly presidential election and transfer of power from the Park administration to the next are equally essential. The next president faces a unique circumstance, however, in that the new administration will begin its work the day following the election, without the typical transition period.
 
These events also underscore the limitations of the current single five-year term presidential system in South Korea. While the Korean presidency is still powerful, the current system has proved to be ineffective as the president becomes a 'lame duck' after 3 or 4 years into office, making it difficult to pursue any long-term policy agenda. Korea needs constitutional reform to enact a greater balance of power and policy continuity.

Read more about this topic in a paper featured in the academic journal Asian Survey and an analysis piece in The Diplomat by Gi-Wook Shin and Rennie J. Moon, or watch a video featuring a panel discussion from earlier this year.

 

Hero Image
seoul protest candle
Activists of all ages gather in Seoul city center for a candlelight rally on Dec. 10, 2016. | Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images
All News button
1
Paragraphs

South Korean President Park Geun-hye faced a leadership crisis after revelations that she relied on a confidant with no official position for key decision-making in state affairs. Heavy industry met with serious financial difficulties, and a strong anti-corruption law was enacted. North Korea tested more nuclear weapons and missiles. Controversy over the deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense strained South Korea’s relations with China.

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Journal Articles
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Asian Survey
Authors
Gi-Wook Shin
Rennie Moon
Number
1

Damian Collins MP is a member of the House of Commons, and Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee for Cuture, Media and Sport. He graduated in modern history from the University of Oxford, and 'Charmed Life, the phenomenal world of Philip Sassoon'Damian Collins MP is a member of the House of Commons, and Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee for Culture, Media and Sport. He graduated in modern history from the University of Oxford, and Charmed Life, the Phenomenal World of Philip Sassoon is his first book.

 

 

 

No RSVP required.  For more information, please contact jewishstudies.stanford.edu.

This event is co-sponsored by The Taube Center for Jewish Studies, the Department of History, and The Europe Center.
 

 

Lane History Corner (Building 200)
Room 302

 

Damian Collins Member of Parliament, UK
Lectures
-

Torun Dewan is a political scientist at the London School of Economics. His main research is in political economy and in the formal and empirical analysis of decision making in political parties, legislatures and executives. Amongst other issues he has looked at how cabinets structure the incentives of ministers, how leadership acts as a coordinating focal point, how political parties aggregate dispersed information, and how elections provide incentives for policy experimentation.

 

This seminar is part of the Comparative Politics Workshop in the Department of Political Science and is co-sponsored by The Europe Center.

Torun Dewan London School of Economics
Workshops
-

Image
Ma Ying-jeou KMT

The eight-year presidency of Ma Ying-jeou (2008-2016) in Taiwan left a complex legacy of political achievements, confrontations, and disappointments that defies easy characterization. It began with President Ma and the Kuomintang’s (KMT) commanding electoral victories in the 2008 elections, and ended with the KMT’s overwhelming loss to the resurgent Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and its leader Tsai Ing-wen in 2016.

It featured rapid conclusions to a broad set of agreements on cross-Strait cooperation with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). But worries about closer ties with the PRC also triggered a popular backlash against growing mainland Chinese influence in Taiwan’s economy and culminated in a student-led occupation of the Legislative Yuan.

It coincided with contradictory trends in public opinion, including both the consolidation of a separate Taiwanese identity and support for the status quo in cross-Strait relations, as well as the increasing salience of divisions over social and environmental issues such as same-sex marriage and green energy at the same time as rising concerns about economic inequality.

It also marked a return to unified government after the acrimonious partisan fights of the Chen Shui-bian years, but long-standing intra-KMT divisions and the decentralized organization of the legislature continued to frustrate the administration, especially in President Ma’s second term.        

Finally, the Ma era produced no consensus about how to move beyond Taiwan’s developmental state legacies. Plans for domestic economic liberalization and greater integration into the global economy were only partially carried out, and the Ma administration ignored or struggled to address rising inequality, stagnant wages, increasing economic dependence on the PRC market, and a skewed tax system favoring investors and corporations over salaried workers.

 

Conference Agenda

The 11th Annual Conference on Taiwan Democracy will bring together scholars from Taiwan, the US, and Europe to consider these political achievements, confrontations, and disappointments in depth, and to assess the strengths and weaknesses of Taiwan’s democracy at the end of the Ma Ying-jeou’s presidency. Conference participants will discuss trends in public opinion, party politics and elections, cross-Strait relations, governance and media, and the performance of political institutions. The conference papers will be revised and included in an edited volume covering democratic practice during the Ma Ying-jeou era in Taiwan.

The conference is free and open to the public. Those interested in attending are requested to RSVP at the link above. This event is organized by the Taiwan Democracy Project in the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.

 

Thursday, March 9

9:15-10:45. Panel I. Public Opinion and Elections

  • Min-hua Huang, "Why Young Voters Abandoned the KMT"
  • Ching-hsin Yu, "Trends in National Identity, Partisanship, and Attitudes toward Cross-Strait Relations"
  • Yun-han Chu, discussant

11:00-12:45. Panel II. Party Politics

  • Austin Wang, "Tsai Ing-wen and the DPP: The Path Out of the Political Wilderness"
  • Nathan Batto, "The KMT as a Presidentialized Party: Party Leaders and Shifts in China Discourse"
  • Kharis Templeman, "The Disruption that Wasn't: How 2016 Changed the Taiwanese Party System"
  • Ching-hsin Yu, discussant

12:45-1:45. Lunch

1:45-3:30. Panel III. Economics, Security, and Cross-Strait Relations

  • Szu-yin Ho, "Ma Ying-jeou's Cross-Strait Policy: Ambitions, Constraints, Results" 
  • Lang Kao, "Cross-Strait Agreements and Taiwan's Executive-Legislative Relationship, 2008-2016"
  • Dean Chen, "In the Shadow of Great Power Rivalry: The KMT Administration's Relations with America, China, and Japan, 2008-2016"
  • Larry Diamond, discussant

 

 

Friday, March 10

9:15-10:45. Panel IV. Governance, Media, and Civil Society

  • Eric Yu, "The Changing Media Environment and Public Opinion"
  • Yun-han Chu and Yu-tzung Chang, "The Challenge of Governability in Taiwan"
  • Kharis Templeman, discussant

11:00-12:30. Panel V. Political Institutions

  • Shih-hao Huang, w/ Shing-yuan Sheng, "Decentralized Legislative Organization and Its Consequences for Policy-making in the Ma Ying-jeou Era"
  • Christian Goebel, "Special Prosecutors, Courts, and Other Accountability Institutions under Ma YIng-jeou"
  • TJ Pempel, discussant

12:30-1:30. Lunch

 

 

 

Oksenberg Room, 3rd Floor, Encina Hall Central

CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C147
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 724-6448 (650) 723-1928
0
Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science and Sociology
diamond_encina_hall.png MA, PhD

Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford, where he lectures and teaches courses on democracy (including an online course on EdX). At the Hoover Institution, he co-leads the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and participates in the Project on the U.S., China, and the World. At FSI, he is among the core faculty of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, which he directed for six and a half years. He leads FSI’s Israel Studies Program and is a member of the Program on Arab Reform and Development. He also co-leads the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He served for 32 years as founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy.

Diamond’s research focuses on global trends affecting freedom and democracy and on U.S. and international policies to defend and advance democracy. His book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency, analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the United States and around the world at this potential “hinge in history,” and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad.  A paperback edition with a new preface was released by Penguin in April 2020. His other books include: In Search of Democracy (2016), The Spirit of Democracy (2008), Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (1999), Promoting Democracy in the 1990s (1995), and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria (1989). He has edited or coedited more than fifty books, including China’s Influence and American Interests (2019, with Orville Schell), Silicon Triangle: The United States, China, Taiwan the Global Semiconductor Security (2023, with James O. Ellis Jr. and Orville Schell), and The Troubling State of India’s Democracy (2024, with Sumit Ganguly and Dinsha Mistree).

During 2002–03, Diamond served as a consultant to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and was a contributing author of its report, Foreign Aid in the National Interest. He has advised and lectured to universities and think tanks around the world, and to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other organizations dealing with governance and development. During the first three months of 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. His 2005 book, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, was one of the first books to critically analyze America's postwar engagement in Iraq.

Among Diamond’s other edited books are Democracy in Decline?; Democratization and Authoritarianism in the Arab World; Will China Democratize?; and Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy, all edited with Marc F. Plattner; and Politics and Culture in Contemporary Iran, with Abbas Milani. With Juan J. Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset, he edited the series, Democracy in Developing Countries, which helped to shape a new generation of comparative study of democratic development.

Download full-resolution headshot; photo credit: Rod Searcey.

Former Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Faculty Chair, Jan Koum Israel Studies Program
Date Label
Conferences
Authors
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs
The future of relations between China and the United States depends on the readiness of both governments to focus on resolving shared challenges, longtime journalist John Pomfret said at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) last Wednesday.
 
“The reality of the U.S.-China relationship is collaboration and competition,” said Pomfret, who served for 15 years as a foreign correspondent, describing the nature of interaction between the two countries that began to normalize relations in 1972.
 
Pomfret's remarks were delivered at a colloquium entitled, “The United States and China in the Era of Donald Trump,” which explored the unorthodox approach Donald Trump took during his campaign on a range of issues related to China, and implications for the bilateral relationship now that Trump has assumed the U.S. presidency.
 
Pomfret over the course of his journalism career spent seven years covering China, including during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and from 1998 through 2003 as the bureau chief for the Washington Post in Beijing, and recently authored the book, The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom, which examines U.S.-China relations from 1776 to the present. He won the 2007 Shorenstein Journalism Award, an annual honor conferred to a journalist who produces outstanding reporting on Asia.
 
“It’s clear that a new type of reciprocity is needed to right the balance in the U.S.-China relationship, but just whether Trump and his team have the wherewithal to do it…is very much an open question,” he said.
 
Trump continues to promise to restore manufacturing jobs in the United States, but fulfillment of that promise could come in conflict with its trade relationship with China, where much manufacturing of U.S. products takes place, he said.
 
Equally important in the U.S.-China relationship is how to address North Korea and its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles program, which remains an “extremely complicated” and pressing situation, he said.
 
Pomfret expressed uncertainty about the Trump administration’s capacity to change China’s position from the status quo, which has long supported the North Korean regime by way of trade and relaxed implementation of U.N. sanctions despite repeated provocations.
 
Yet, amidst the vague foreign policy positions projected by Trump toward China, “there is one positive, and that is that he has the Chinese off-balance,” Pomfret admitted.
 
For Pomfret, his appearance at Stanford was a bit of a homecoming; he spoke to an audience of 200 faculty, students and community members at the colloquium sponsored by the China Program and Center for East Asian Studies, the center from which he received his master’s degree in 1984.
 
Asked about the future of China and its governance, he noted that today’s China is markedly different than when he was there in the 1980s studying as a student, and later, working as a journalist. The generational changes are stark, said Pomfret, relaying a sense of optimism that the country would become more democratic over time.
 
“The amount of personal freedoms that the average Chinese person has has expanded exponentially. I think the desire of Chinese people to have more agency over their lives will continue to grow – that’s clear.”
 
Innovation will be a determinant of China’s future growth, said Pomfret, coupling the idea that societies that have knowledge-driven economies typically demand more freedoms. Without innovation, China will fall into the middle-income trap, he said, “I don’t think they want to be there; they are an incredibly proud nation.”
 
Hero Image
china uscapital reuters
Reuters/Hyungwon Kang
All News button
1
Paragraphs

Scholars at Stanford's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies assess the strategic situation in East Asia to be unsettled, unstable, and drifting in ways unfavorable for American interests. These developments are worrisome to countries in the region, most of which want the United States to reduce uncertainty about American intentions by taking early and effective steps to clarify and solidify U.S. engagement. In the absence of such steps, they will seek to reduce uncertainty and protect their own interests in ways that reduce U.S. influence and ability to shape regional institutions. This 23-page report entitled “President Trump’s Asia Inbox” suggests specific steps to achieve American economic and security interests.

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Policy Briefs
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Authors
Gi-Wook Shin
Takeo Hoshi
Thomas Fingar
Kathleen Stephens
Daniel C. Sneider
Donald K. Emmerson
Subscribe to Elections