Abstract:

     While the reelection of Taiwan’s president, Ma Ying-jeou, relieved concerns about an immediate deterioration in cross-Strait relations, the future of ties between Beijing and Taipei remain uncertain. Much will depend on the PRC’s policy. Moreover, calls in the United States either to abandon Taiwan or, conversely, to embrace it ever more closely as a hedge against the Mainland’s growing strength, have yet to play themselves out. Alan D. Romberg will address the implications of the election for these issues, as well as for Sino-American relations and for the region.

Speaker Bio:

     Alan Romberg is the director of the East Asia program at Stimson. 

     Before joining Stimson in September 2000, he enjoyed a distinguished career working on Asian issues, both in and out of government, including twenty years as a US Foreign Service Officer. Romberg was the principal deputy director of the State Department's Policy Planning staff and deputy spokesman of the department. He served in various capacities dealing with East Asia, including director of the Office of Japanese Affairs, member of the Policy Planning staff for East Asia, and staff member at the National Security Council for China. He served overseas in Hong Kong and Taiwan. 

     Additionally, Romberg spent almost ten years as the CV Starr Senior Fellow for Asian Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and was special assistant to the Secretary of the Navy. 

     Romberg holds an MA from Harvard University, and a BA from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

Despite the many benefits of democracy, some scholars believe that introducing elections in ethnically divided states can lead to the politicization of identity and to ethnic conflict. Yet few scholars have explored what compels politicians to mobilize around identity in the first place. In search of an answer, Jeremy Menchik and George Washington University doctoral student Colm Fox compiled the only known dataset of campaign advertisements—over 5,000 political banners, posters, and stickers—across hundreds of electoral districts in the world’s largest Muslim-majority democracy, Indonesia. They coded these advertisements for the use of religious, ethnic, nationalist, party, and regional symbols in order to then explain their variation. Their findings shed light on how “politics works” in a new Muslim democracy and suggest that parties, including Islamists, are strategic about their use of identity appeals. Menchik will illustrate this and other findings with ample recourse to visual images.

Dr. Jeremy Menchik is a 2011–12 Shorenstein Fellow. His PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison drew on two years of field research to explain variations in religious and political tolerance in Indonesia during the twentieth century. He has been a Luce Scholar at Columbia University and a visiting fellow at the State Islamic University Syarif Hidayatullah, Jakarta. He is working on a book manuscript based on his dissertation: Tolerance Without Liberalism: Islamic Institutions in Twentieth Century Indonesia.

Co-sponsored with the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, Stanford University.

Abstract:

Since the very beginning of the state formation, Angolan political elites of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) agreed that liberal democracy would be the form of government. However, in 1975 MPLA inaugurated a formal authoritarian regime that lasted until 1991. From 1991 to 2010, Angola had a democratic interim constitution and in 1992 had the first national multiparty elections as well as presidential ones of its history. In 2008, Angola held its second legislative elections and in 2010 a new and definite constitution was approved. Nevertheless, democratic development did not lead to the end of a successful democratic transition process started in 1991 or to the consolidation of democracy. The answer can probably be found in the politics of curbing democratic development, which constitutes the aim of this presentation by Professor Fernando Macedo of the Lusíada University of Angola.

Speaker Bio:

Fernando Macedo teaches political science and constitutional law at Law Faculty since 2007 and Angolan constitutional law and human rights in the department of international relations since 2006 at Lusíada University of Angola. He is currently the coordinator of the department of international relations of Lusíada University of Angola.

Fernando Macedo has co-authored with Pedro Franco Romão a book named Anotações à Lei da Prisão Preventiva em Angola, printed by Livraria Almedina of Portugal. He wrote three articles, the first one, Human Rights and Global Security, was published in Revista Brasileira de Estudos Constitucionais in 2008. The second, Civil Society and Political Power, in Sociedade Civil e Política em Angola, organized by Nuno Vidal and Justino Pinto de Andrade in 2008; and the third one, Advocacy and Citizenship, in Encontros, by the Angolan Bar Association in 2011.

Ambassador Joon-woo Park, the 2011–12 Koret Fellow and a former senior diplomat from Korea, will give a historical review of Korea-Vietnam bilateral relations, including the effects of Korea's participation in the Vietnam War; bilateral relations today including diplomatic, economic and cultural exchanges; and prospects for future developments and cooperation for East Asian integration.

As a career diplomat, Ambassador Park served in numerous key posts, including those of Ambassador to the European Union and to Singapore and Presidential Advisor on Foreign Affairs. Park worked closely for over 20 years with Ban Ki-moon, the former Korean diplomat who is now the United Nations Secretary-General.

This event is made possible by the generous support from the Koret Foundation.