Clear evidence suggests the importance of health service provider payment incentives for achieving efficiency, equal access, and quality, including attention to primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention. “Pay for performance” may be on the cusp of significant expansion in Asia, and reform away from fee-for-service has been underway for several years in several economies. Yet despite the policy relevance, the evidence base for evaluating payment reforms in Asia is still very limited.

China in particular has been undertaking significant reforms to its health care system in both rural and urban areas. With the expansion of insurance coverage and need to resolve incentive problems like “supporting medical care through drug sales,” there is an urgent need for evaluating alternative ways of paying health service providers. Evidence from policy reforms in specific regions of China, as well as other economies of the Asia-Pacific, can provide valuable evidence to help inform policy decisions about how to align provider incentives with policy goals of quality care at reasonable cost.

To illuminate these questions, the Asia Health Policy Program and several collaborating institutions are planning to convene a conference on health care provider payment incentives on November 7-8, 2008 in Beijing. The conference will highlight and seek to distill “best-practice” lessons from rigorous and policy-relevant evaluations of recent reforms in China and elsewhere in the Asia Pacific.

The organizing committee – including health economists from Shorenstein APARC, Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Seoul National University – reviewed submissions in June 2008 and accepted sixteen. The conference papers cover payment issues in Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Tajikistan, the Philippines, and the US, and the disciplines of economics, health services research/health policy, public health, medicine, and ethics. Topics include institutionalized informal payments; the impact of global budget policies on high-cost patients; public-private partnerships; public-sector physicians owning private pharmacies; evidence-informed case payment rates; payment and hospital quality; bonuses and physician satisfaction; physician prescription choice between brand-name and generic drugs; and differences in pharmaceutical utilization across insurance plans that pay providers differently (fee-for-service versus capitation).

Policymakers from China’s National Development and Reform Commission and Ministry of Health will also speak at the conference. Selected research papers will be published through the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center either in a special volume or in a special issue of an English-language health policy journal.

Interest in democracy, economic development, and the rule of law is clearly on the rise. Just as global attention in 2005 remained riveted on establishing and protecting the fundamentals of democracy in transitioning societies—the parliamentary elections in Afghanistan, the constitutional vote in Iraq, the threat to civil liberties in Russia—these issues took on increasing prominence on the Stanford campus, for policymakers and students alike.

STANFORD SUMMER FELLOWS PROGRAM

The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), the Freeman Spogli Institute’s newest research center, hosted its first annual Summer Fellows Program on campus in August. This innovative program is designed to help emerging and established leaders of transitioning countries in their efforts to create the fundamental institutions of democracy, fight the pernicious problem of corruption, improve governance at all levels of society, and strengthen prospects for sustainable economic development. In contrast to other programs of democracy promotion, which seek to transfer ready-made models to countries in transition, the Stanford program provides a comparative perspective on the evolution of established democratic practices, as well as theoretical and practical background on issues of democracy and good governance, to assist with needed economic, political, and judicial reform.

The three-week 2005 leadership seminar attracted 32 participants from 28 countries for specialized teaching, training, and outreach, including leaders from the Middle East, North and Sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, and parts of the former Soviet Union, whose stability is so vital to the international system. The curriculum draws on the combined expertise of Stanford scholars and practitioners in the fields of political science, economics, law, sociology, and business and emphasizes the dynamic linkages among democratization, economic development, and the rule of law in transitioning countries.

DEMOCRACY, DEVELOPMENT, AND THE RULE OF LAW

In the fall quarter of 2005, a new undergraduate course, titled %course1% (PS/IR 114D), examining the dynamic and interactive linkages among democratic institutions, economic development, and the framework of law proved to be an all-star attraction for Stanford students. Conceived by the research faculty and staff at CDDRL as an important introduction to fundamental concepts and team-taught by a number of prominent Stanford scholars—including University President Emeritus Gerhard Casper (Stanford Law School), Larry Diamond (Hoover Institution), CDDRL Director Michael A. McFaul (Hoover Institution and Department of Political Science), and Peter B. Henry (Graduate School of Business), the course attracted a record number of students this fall. Encina Columns recently interviewed Kathryn Stoner, associate director of research and senior research scholar at CDDRL, the course convener, to glean a few highlights.

Q. WHY DID YOU CHOOSE TO OFFER THE COURSE AT THIS TIME?

A. CDDRL research staff and faculty decided to offer the course in the fall of 2005 as a launch for what we hope will become an honors program. We wanted to use PS/IR 114D as a gateway course into other courses taught by our faculty, as well. For example, Larry Diamond teaches a very popular course on democracy, and we thought our course would be a good way to introduce undergraduates to some of the basic themes of that course, while also introducing them to connections between democracy and economic development and the interplay of these with the rule of law.

Q. DID YOU ENVISION A QUARTER-LONG OR YEAR-LONG COURSE? WHY?

A. The course was always envisioned as just a quarter-long course. This is to provide a launch into the menu of other courses that are offered by our faculty.

Q. WERE YOU SURPRISED BY THE STUDENT RESPONSE?

A. We were very surprised to have 130 students in the course this fall. We ran the course as a “beta test” in the spring of 2005 with just 25 students, but apparently the buzz among undergraduates was good and our enrollment numbers jumped in September when we offered the course again. The political science department was caught a little off guard and we had to hustle to find enough teaching assistants to staff the course.

Q. WHO WERE YOUR MAIN LECTURERS AND WHAT WERE THEIR TOPICS?

A. We had 13 lecturers in all including Gerhard Casper, on what rule of law means and why people choose to follow law or not; Larry Diamond, on meanings of democracy and Iraq; Avner Greif, on how economic institutions are established historically; and Jeremy M. Weinstein, on international aid and development in Africa, to name but a few.

Q. WHAT TOPICAL THEMES HAVE YOU EXPLORED WITH YOUR STUDENTS?

A. The Iraq lecture by Larry Diamond was particularly topical and the students clearly learned a lot from him. They also enjoyed Jeremy Weinstein’s lecture on debates on aid policy in Africa. He set it up in an engaging way so that students had to decide whether “conditionality” was a good idea in providing aid to Africa or not.

Q. DID YOU FIND THAT PARTICULAR ISSUES HAD SPECIAL "RESONANCE" FOR STANFORD STUDENTS?

A. I think that there is growing interest among Stanford undergraduates in how democracy can be promoted and to what extent the United States should be involved in this project. Many students in our course are interested in doing some sort of work in the development field, so they wanted to explore cases of when democracies have become consolidated versus situations where they slid back into dictatorship. They are also particularly interested in when or whether force is appropriate in promoting or establishing democracy in the Middle East and Afghanistan, for example.

Q. WHAT PROVED MOST GRATIFYING TO YOU? DID YOU GAIN NEW INSIGHT?

A. I always gain new insights when I interact with smart students who are deeply interested and engaged in these issues. I also find it a real privilege to actually sit down and listen to my colleagues deliver lectures on areas of their expertise. That is truly a treat.

Q. WHAT'S NEXT? WILL YOU OFFER THIS COURSE AGAIN?

A. Yes, we intend to offer the course every fall quarter. We are also currently planning to launch an honors program, perhaps this spring. As part of that we will offer a seminar for juniors interested in writing theses on the general themes of democracy, development, and the rule of law in the developing world.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s inauguration as the president of Liberia marks a watershed in the country’s tumultuous history.

Twenty-five years of misrule and civil war under Samuel Doe, Charles Taylor, and successive interim governments have left the country in ruins. Nearly 300,000 Liberians lost their lives, average income is one-eighth what it was in 1980, and large majorities of the population subsist in dire poverty.

Since United Nations and U.S. troops ousted Taylor in 2003, a fragile peace has taken hold, supported by 15,000 U.N. peacekeepers. With free and peaceful elections under their belts, Liberians are feeling new optimism and hope. Markets here are bustling, stores are freshly painted and open for business, and newspapers and radios feature lively debate.

The new government is a clear break from a past characterized by rule by force, extensive corruption, and a culture of impunity. Sirleaf, the first African woman elected head of state, has been an outspoken champion of accountability, transparency, and good governance for decades, a stance that landed her in jail twice and was a hallmark of her opposition to past governments and campaign for the presidency.

Already change is under way. She has instituted a code of conduct and full financial disclosure for senior officials, and endorsed a program that will install internationally recruited financial controllers in several state enterprises and create a strong anticorruption commission. Her government plans to publish financial accounts on the Web, make it easier for whistleblowers to report infractions, and rewrite Liberia’s outdated constitution to firmly establish participatory democracy, decentralize power, and install robust checks on the executive.

Recovery from deep conflict in Africa is not easy, but we know it is possible. Mozambique was destroyed by civil war in the 1980s, but its democratically elected government led the way to peace, stability, and a doubling of income in a dozen years. Sierra Leone suffered a blood bath in the 1990s, but the 1999 peace agreement and 2001 elections brought stability and economic growth of 7 percent a year. Rwanda’s genocide was followed by a recovery that few could have imagined.

But Sirleaf faces a daunting task. Liberia’s recovery will depend mainly on Liberians themselves, but it will require strong international support, just as in Mozambique, Sierra Leone, and Rwanda.

West Africa’s civil wars have spawned widespread smuggling of diamonds, transshipment of drugs, and easy money laundering opportunities for global terrorist groups. Liberia’s historic moment provides the U.S. administration a chance to show it is serious about supporting nascent democracies, creating stability in a volatile region, and providing economic opportunities for Africa’s poorest countries.

First, the United States must continue its crucial role in the demobilization of combatants and commit to long-term rebuilding of Liberia’s police and army. The new government must be able to maintain and enhance security to begin to recover.

Second, the administration should support rapid and comprehensive forgiveness of Liberia’s debts, which were mainly undertaken and wasted by the rapacious Doe government. It makes no more sense to stick today’s Liberians with the bill, including 20 years of accumulated interest, than to force today’s Iraqis to pay Saddam Hussein’s bills.

Third, and perhaps most urgent, Congress should approve supplemental funding of $50 million to $100 million to support the new government. Unfortunately, Congress recently cut the administration’s initial request for Liberia, a short-sighted step that sent the wrong signal to a struggling democracy and old ally at a crucial turning point. These funds would build critical infrastructure, put kids back into schools, and continue vital training for security forces. It would give Liberians their best chance of securing peace and basic freedoms.

Four years after the ouster of the extremist Taliban government , Afghanistan is moving ahead but needs investment and expertise to recover from 30 years of war, the country’s ambassador to the United States said during a Nov. 14 luncheon at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

“Afghanistan has come a long way but the journey has just started,” said Said Tayeb Jawad, a former exile who returned to work for his homeland in 2002. The one-time San Francisco-based legal consultant was named Afghanistan’s ambassador to Washington two years ago by then-Interim President Hamid Karzai. “We would like to join the family of nations once again and stand on our own feet as soon as possible,” he said.

In an address to about 100 faculty, students, staff, and donors, Jawad spoke of his country’s strategic role in the war on terrorism. “Global security is one concept,” he said. “In order to fight terrorism effectively, better investment in Afghanistan is needed to stabilize the country and make [it] a safer place for Afghans and, therefore, global security.”

Afghanistan has established all the institutions needed for the emergence of a civil society, Jawad said. A new constitution was approved in January 2004, presidential elections took place in October of that year, and elections for a new parliament were held two months ago. “The constitution we have adopted is the most liberal in the region,” he said. Although problems abound—Afghanistan is the poorest country in Asia, only 6 percent of its residents have access to electricity and only 22 percent have clean water—the ambassador expressed hope for the future. About 3.6 million refugees have returned home, he said, and 86 percent of Afghans think they are better off today than four years ago, according to an Asia Foundation survey.

Émigrés are the leading investors in the country, Jawad said, noting that an Afghan American recently pumped $150 million into the country’s nascent cell phone system. Many others, including Jawad himself, have heeded President Karzai’s call for émigré professionals to aid their homeland. Other international expertise is also moving in: Eleven foreign banks have opened for business and 60,000 skilled workers from Pakistan and Iran have moved to Kabul. “We are trying to reconnect the country by building roads and the communication system,” Jawad said. “Reconnecting the country is important for national unity but also for the fight against terrorism and narcotics.”

Tackling the profitable opium trade is a top challenge facing the government and its greatest obstacle to national reconstruction, Jawad said. “Its proceeds feed into terrorism and lawlessness,” he said. In the past, horticulture comprised 70 percent of Afghanistan’s exports. But 30 years of war decimated a generation of farmers and destroyed traditional farming. “If you have a vineyard or orchard, you have to have a prospect of 10 years,” the ambassador said. “If you don’t have a sense of hope, you grow poppy seeds. It takes three months to harvest poppy. You can put it in a bag, take it with you and become a refugee again.”

While terrorists and the Taliban are defeated in Afghanistan, Jawad said, they are not eliminated and they continue to attack what he described as soft targets: schools and mosques and aid workers. But in the last two days, a U.S. soldier and NATO peacekeepers were killed in attacks, which police blame on al-Qaida. To help counter this, efforts are under way to build a trained national army and police force. More than 36,000 soldiers already have been trained. While the country is grateful for foreign military assistance, the ambassador said, “It’s our job to defend our country.”

The country’s leadership also allowed lower-ranking Taliban to join the government; three former officials have been elected to the new parliament. “This was a decision that was difficult to take,” Jawad said. “But we want to deny terrorists a recruiting ground. We are trying to pursue a policy of reconciliation. We cannot afford to have another circle of violence and another circle of revenge.”

At the end of the address, FSI Director Coit D. Blacker reiterated a formal statement initially made in August inviting President Karzai to visit Stanford.

“Should the United States promote democracy around the world?” Stanford alumna Kathleen Brown, a former FSI advisory board member, former Treasurer of the State of California, and current head of public finance (Western region) Goldman Sachs

How are democracy, development, and the rule of law in transitioning societies related? How can they be promoted in the world’s most troubled regions? These were among the provocative issues addressed by faculty from the Freeman Spogli Institute’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, as part of Stanford Day in Los Angeles on January 21, 2006. Panelists included Michael A. McFaul, CDDRL director, associate professor of political science, and senior fellow, the Hoover Institution; Kathryn Stoner, associate director for research and senior research associate at CDDRL; and Larry Diamond, coordinator of CDDRL’s Democracy Program, a Hoover Institution senior fellow, and founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy.

The capstone of a day devoted to “Addressing Global Issues and Sharing Ideas,” the CDDRL panel was attended by more than 850 alumni, Stanford trustees, and supporters as part of the nationwide “Stanford Matters” series. Moderated by Stanford alumna Kathleen Brown, a former FSI Advisory Board member, former treasurer of the State of California, and current head of public finance (western region) Goldman Sachs, the panel looked at some of the toughest trouble spots in the world, including Iraq, Russia, and other parts of the former Soviet Union.

“Should the United States promote democracy around the world?” Brown began by asking Center Director Michael McFaul. “The President of the United States has said that the United States should put the promotion of liberty and freedom around the world as a fundamental policy proposition,” McFaul responded, noting “it is the central policy question in Washington, D.C., today.” It is not a debate between Democrats and Republicans, he continued, but rather between traditional realists, who look at the balance of power, and Wilsonian liberals, who argue that a country’s conduct of global affairs is profoundly affected by whether or not it is a democracy. The American people, McFaul noted, are divided on the issue. In opinion polls, 55 percent of Republicans say we should promote democracy, while 33 percent say no. Among Democrats, only 13 percent answer unequivocally that the United States should promote democracy.

“The President of the United States has said that the United States should put the promotion of liberty and freedom around the world as a fundamental policy proposition, and it is the central policy question in Washington, D.C., today.” CDDRL Director Michael McFaulAsserting that the United States should promote democracy, McFaul offered three major arguments. First is the moral issue—democracies are demonstrably better at constraining the power of the state and providing better lives for their people. Democracies do not commit genocide, nor do they starve their people. Moreover, most people want democracy, opinion polls show. Second are the economic considerations—we benefit from open societies and an open, liberal world trade system, which allows the free flow of goods and capital. Third is the security dimension. Every country that has attacked the United States has been an autocracy; conversely, no democracy has ever attacked us. The transformation of autocracies, including Japan, Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union, has made us safer.

It is plausible to believe that the benefits of transformation in the Middle East will make us more secure, McFaul argued. “It would decrease the threats these states pose for each other, their need for weapons, and the need for U.S. intervention in the region,” he stated. Democratic transformation would also address a root cause of terrorism, as the vast majority of terrorists come from autocratic societies. There are, however, short-term problems, McFaul pointed out. Free elections could lead to radical regimes less friendly to the United States, as they have in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and now in Palestine. U.S. efforts to promote democracy, he noted, can actually produce resistance.

Having advanced a positive case, McFaul asked FSI colleague Stoner-Weiss, “So, how do we promote democracy?” Stoner-Weiss, also an expert on Russia, said it is instructive to see how Russia has fallen off the path to democracy. In 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, it seemed to be an exciting time, rife with opportunity. “Here was an enemy, a major nuclear superpower, turning to democracy,” she stated. Despite initial U.S. enthusiasm, the outcome has not been a consolidated democracy. Russia, under Vladimir Putin, is becoming a more authoritarian state, a cause for concern because it is a nuclear state and a broken state—with rising rates of HIV and unable to secure its borders or control the flow of illegal drugs.

“So can we promote democracy?” Stoner-Weiss asked. The answer is a qualified yes, from Serbia to Georgia, and the Ukraine to Kyrgyzstan. But Russia has 89 divisions, 130 ethnicities, 11 time zones, and is the largest landmass in the world, she noted. Moving from a totalitarian state to a democracy and an open economy is enormously complicated. As Boris Yeltsin said in retiring as president on December 31, 1999, “What we thought would be easy turned out to be very difficult.”

Where is Russia today? It ranks below Cuba on the human development index; it is moving backward on corruption; and its economic development is poor, with 30 percent of the public living on subsistence income. Under Putin’s regime, private media have come under pressure, television is totally stated controlled, elections for regional leaders have been canceled, troops have remained in Chechnya, and Putin has supported controversial new legislation to curb civil liberties and NGO’s operating in Russia.

“How did Russia come to this?” she asked. In retrospect, the power of the president has been too strong. Initial “irrational exuberance” in the United States and Europe about what we could do has given way to apathy. Under Yeltsin, rule was oligarchical and democracy disorganized. Putin came to office promising a “dictatorship of law” to rid the country of corruption. Yet Russia under Putin, who rose through the KGB and never held elective office, has become far less democratic. He has severely curtailed civil liberties. The economy, dependent on oil and natural gas, is not on a path of sustainable growth.

“What can the United States do?” Stoner-Weiss asked. We have emphasized security over democracy, she pointed out, and invested in personal relations with Russia’s leaders, as opposed to investing in political process and institutions. We do have important opportunities, she noted. Russia chairs the G-8 group of major industrial nations this year, providing major opportunities for consultation, and wants to join the World Trade Organization. The United States should advance an institutional framework to help put Russia back on a path to democracy, a rule of law, and more sustainable growth, she argued.

Diamond, an expert on democratic development and regime change, examined U.S. involvement in the Middle East, noting that it is difficult to be optimistic at present. “Democracy is absolutely vital in the battle against terrorism,” he stated. The United States has to drain the swamp of rotten governments, lack of opportunity for participation and the pervasive indignity of human life. “The dilemma we face,” he pointed out, “is getting from here to there in the intractable Middle East.” There is not a single democracy in the Arab Middle East. This is not because of Islam, but rather the authoritarian nature of regimes in the region and the problem of oil.

“Can we promote democracy under these conditions?” Diamond asked. We need to get smart about it, he urged, noting that success depends on the particular context of each country. “If we want to promote democracy, the first rule is to know the country, its language, culture, history, and divisions,” he stated. We need to know, he continued, “who stands to benefit from a democratic transformation and, conversely, who stands to lose?” Rulers of these countries need to allow the space for freedom, for civic and intellectual pluralism, for open societies and meaningful participation. The danger is that there could be one person, one vote, one time. A second rule is that “academic knowledge and political practice must not be compartmentalized.” “To succeed,” Diamond stated, “we need to marry academic theories with concrete knowledge of these countries’ traditions, cultures, practices, and proclivities.”

In the lively question-and-answer session, panelists were asked, “Under what conditions is it appropriate to use force to promote democracy?” McFaul answered that we cannot invade in the name of democracy—we rebuilt Japan in that name but we did not invade that nation. We invaded Iraq in the name of national security. We know how to invade militarily, but still must learn how to build democracy. Effectiveness in the promotion of democracy, Diamond pointed out, requires the exercise of “soft” power—engagement with other societies, linkages with their schools and associations, and offering aid to democratic organizations around the world. Stoner-Weiss concurred, noting that we have used soft power effectively in some parts of the former Soviet Union, notably the Ukraine. People-to-people exchanges definitely help, she added.

To combat Osama bin Laden and the threat of future attacks in the United States, Diamond stated, we must halt the proliferation of nuclear weapons. North Korea and Iran are two of the most important issues on the global agenda. And we have got to improve governance in the Middle East in order to reduce the chances that the states of the region will breed and harbor stateless terrorists. A democratic Iran is in our interest, McFaul emphasized. Saudi Arabia must change as well—the only issue is whether change occurs with evolution or revolution. Democracy, economic development, and the rule of law, McFaul concluded, are inextricably intertwined.

Asked by alumnus and former Stanford trustee Brad Freeman what needs to happen to re-democratize Russia, McFaul pointed out that inequality has been a major issue in Russia—a small portion of the population controls its wealth and resources and, therefore, the political agenda and the use of law. Russia has been ruled by men and needs the rule of institutions, said Stoner-Weiss. We should insist that Putin allow free and fair elections, freedom of the press, and freedom of political expression, and re-focus efforts on developing the institutions of civil society, she stated.

Reform is a generational issue, McFaul emphasized. We need to educate and motivate the young so they can change their country from within. The Stanford Summer Fellows Program, which brought emerging leaders from 28 transitioning countries to Stanford in the program’s inaugural year of 2005, provides an important venue for upcoming generations to meet experienced U.S. leaders and others fighting to build democracies in their own countries. Such exchanges help secure recognition that building support for democracy, sustainable development, and the rule of law is a transnational issue.

As the world’s most dynamic and rapidly advancing region, the Asia-Pacific has commanded global attention. Business and policy leaders alike have been focused on the rise of China, tensions on the Korean peninsula, Japan’s economic recovery and political assertiveness, globalization and the outsourcing of jobs to South Asia, Indonesia’s multiple transitions, competing forces of nationalism vs. regionalism, and the future of U.S.-Asia relations.

What is the near-term outlook for change in the region? How might developments in the economic, political, or security sphere affect Asia’s expected trajectory? And how will a changing Asia impact the United States? These were among the complex and challenging issues addressed by a faculty panel from the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) and the Eurasia Group at the Asia Society in New York on January 23, 2006.

Moderated by director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies Coit D. Blacker, the Olivier Nomellini Family University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, the panel included Michael H. Armacost, the Shorenstein Distinguished Fellow, former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, and former Ambassador to Japan and the Philippines; Donald K. Emmerson, the director of the Southeast Asia Forum at Shorenstein APARC and noted expert on Indonesia; Harry Harding, the director of research and analysis at the Eurasia Group in New York and University Professor of International Affairs at George Washington University; and Gi-Wook Shin, the director of Shorenstein APARC, founding director of the Korean Studies Program, and associate professor of sociology at Stanford.

Q. COIT BLACKER: WHAT IS THE MOST DIFFICULT, CHALLENGING ISSUE YOU SEE?

A. HARRY HARDING:

In China, we are seeing a darker side of the Chinese success story. Millions of people have been lifted out of poverty, China's role in international affairs is on the rise, and China is an increasingly responsible stakeholder in an open, liberal global economy. Yet, the world is now seeing the problems China's reform program has failed to resolve. China's new five-year plan seeks to address a number of these issues, providing a plan for sustainable economic development that is environmentally
responsible and addresses chronic pollution problems, for a harmonious society that
addresses inequalities and inadequacies in the provision of medical care, insurance
and pension systems, and for continuing technological innovation, as part of China's
quest to become an exporter of capital and technology.

A. GI-WOOK SHIN:

The world should be deeply concerned about developments on the Korean peninsula. Two pressing issues are U.S. relations with South Korea and the nuclear crisis with the North. It is not clear when or whether we will see a solution. Time may be against the United States on the issue. China and South Korea are not necessarily willing to follow the U.S. approach; without their cooperation, it is difficult to secure a successful solution. The younger generation emerging in South Korea does not see North Korea as a threat. Our own relations with South Korea are strained and we are viewed as preoccupied with Iraq and Iran, as North Korea continues to develop nuclear weapons.

A. DONALD EMMERSON:

In Southeast Asia, a key problem is uneven development, both in and between the political and economic spheres. Potentially volatile contrasts are seen throughout the region. Vietnam is growing at 8 percent per year, but will it become a democracy? It has not yet. Indonesia has shifted to democracy, but absent faster economic growth, that political gain could erode. Indonesia's media are among the freest in the region;
multiple peaceful elections have been held--a remarkable achievement--and nearly all Islamists shun terrorism. Older Indonesians remember, however, that the economy
performed well without democracy under President Suharto. Nowadays, corruption
scandals break out almost daily, nationalist and Islamist feelings are strong, and the
climate is not especially favorable to foreign investment. While Burma's economy
lags, its repressive polity embarrasses the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN). How long can the generals in Rangoon hold on? Disparities are also
international: dire poverty marks Laos and Cambodia, for example, while the
Malaysian and Thai economies have done well.

A. MICHAEL ARMACOST:

Japan is a "good news/bad news" story. The good news is that Japan has found a new security niche since the end of the Cold War. Previously, when a security problem loomed "over the horizon," they expected us to take care of it while, if prodded, they increased their financial support for U.S. troops stationed in Japan. During the first post-Cold War conflict in the Persian Gulf, Japan had neither the political consensus nor the legal framework to permit a sharing of the risks, as well as the costs, and this cost them politically. Since then, they have passed legislation that permits them to participate in U.N. peacekeeping activities, contribute noncombat, logistic, and other services to "coalition of the willing" operations, and even dispatch troops to join reconstruction activities in Iraq. Clearly, their more ambitious role is helping to make the U.S.-Japan alliance more balanced and more global.The bad news is a reemergence of stronger nationalist sentiment in Japan and more generally in Northeast Asia. In part this is attributable to the collapse of the Left in Japanese politics since the mid-1990s. This has left the Conservatives more dominant, and they are less apologetic about Japanese conduct in the 1930s and 1940s, more inclined to regard North Korea and China as potential threats, more assertive with respect to territorial issues, less sensitive to their neighbors’ reactions to Prime Ministerial visits to Yasukuni Shrine, and more eager to be regarded as a “normal” nation. Many Asians see the United States as pushing Japan to take on a more active security role and, in the context of rising Japanese nationalism, are less inclined to view the U.S.-Japan alliance as a source of reassurance.

Q. COIT BLACKER: WHAT ARE THE COMPETING AND CONFLICTING TENSIONS BETWEEN REGIONALISM AND NATIONALISM?

A. HARRY HARDING:

In China, there has been a resurgence of nationalism over the past 10 to 15 years. Since the end of the Maoist era and the beginning of the reform movement, the leadership has embraced nationalism as a source of legitimacy, but this is a double-edged sword. It places demands on the government to stand up for China’s face, rights, and prestige in international affairs, especially vis-à-vis Japan, the United States, and Taiwan, at times pushing Beijing in directions it does not wish to go.

A. DONALD EMMERSON:

In Indonesia, it is important to distinguish between inward and outward nationalism. Outward nationalism was manifest in Sukarno’s policy of confrontation with Malaysia. ASEAN is predicated on inward nationalism and outward cooperation. Nationalist feelings can be used inwardly to motivate reform and spur development. But there are potential drawbacks. Take the aftermath of the conflict in Aceh. The former rebels want their own political party. Hard-line nationalists in the Indonesian parliament, however, are loath to go along, and that could jeopardize stability in a province already exhausted by civil war and damaged by the 2004 tsunami.

A. GI-WOOK SHIN:

Korea is a nation of some 70 million people, large by European standards, but small in comparison to the giants of Asia, especially China, India, and Russia, making Korea very concerned about what other countries are doing and saying. Korea is currently undergoing an identity crisis. Until the 1980s, the United States was seen as a “savior” from Communism and avid supporter of modernization. Since then, many Koreans have come to challenge this view, arguing that the United States supported Korean dictatorship. Koreans are also rethinking their attitudes toward North Korea, seeing Koreans as belonging to one nation. This shift has contributed to negative attitudes toward both the United States and Japan

Q. COIT BLACKER: GENERATIONAL CHANGE IS ALSO A MAJOR ISSUE IN CHINA, THE DPRK, AND JAPAN. WHAT DOES IT BODE FOR POLITICAL CHANGE?

A. MICHAEL ARMACOST:

Japan has had a “one and a half party system” for more than half a century. Yet the Liberal Democratic Party has proven to be remarkably adaptive, cleverly co-opting many issues that might have been exploited by the opposition parties. It is clearly a democratic country, but its politics have not been as competitive as many other democracies. As for the United States, we have promoted lively democracies throughout the region. But we should not suppose that more democratic regimes will necessarily define their national interests in ways that are invariably compatible with ours. In both Taiwan and South Korea, to the contrary, democratic leaderships have emerged which pursue security policies that display less sensitivity to Washington’s concerns, and certainly exhibit little deference to U.S. leadership.

A. GI-WOOK SHIN:

In both North and South Korea, a marked evolution is under way. In the South, many new members of the parliament have little knowledge of the United States. Promoting mutual understanding is urgently needed on both sides. In the North, the big question is who will succeed Kim Jong Il—an issue with enormous implications for the United States.

A. DONALD EMMERSON:

Indonesians have a noisy, brawling democracy. What they don’t have is the rule of law. Judges can be bought, and laws are inconsistently applied. The Philippines enjoyed democracy for most of the 20th century, but poverty and underdevelopment remain rife, leading many Filipinos to ask just where democracy has taken their nation.

A. HARRY HARDING:

China has seen a significant increase in rural protests. There has been an increase in both the number of incidents and the level of violence. People are being killed, not just in rural areas, but also in major cities like Chengdu. We are seeing a new wave of political participation by professional groups, such as lawyers and journalists, galvanizing public support on such issues as environmental protection, failure to pay pensions, confiscation of land, and corruption. A new generation has been exposed to the Internet, the outside world, and greater choice, but it is not yet clear at what point they will demand greater choice in their own political life.

 

WHAT WOULD YOU ADVISE THE PRESIDENT ON U.S. POLICY TOWARDS ASIA?

In the lively question-and-answer session, panelists were asked, "Given the chance to talk to the U.S. President about change and improvement in U.S.-Asia policy, what would you say?"

MICHAEL ARMACOST: I am struck by a mismatch between our interests and our strategy in Asia. In some respects our Asia policy has become something of an adjunct of our policy toward the Middle East-where we confront perhaps more urgent, if not more consequential, concerns. Asia is still the most dynamic economic zone in the world; it is the region in which the most significant new powers are emerging; and it is where the interests of the Great Powers intersect most directly. Also, it is an area where profound change is taking place swiftly. We are adapting our policies in Asia to accommodate current preoccupations in the Muslim world, rather than with an eye to preserving our power and relevance in Asia.

HARRY HARDING: It is striking how much Asian nations still want us around- as an offshore balancer and a source of economic growth. Yet they want us to understand the priorities on their agenda as well as our own. We are seen as obsessed with terrorism and China. We should exhibit more support for Asian institution building, as we have with the European Union. We also need to get our own economic act together-promoting education, stimulating scientific research and technological innovation, and reducing our budget deficits-and quit resting on past laurels. Requiring Japan to accept U.S. beef exports and then sending them meat that did not meet the agreed-upon standards has been a setback for our relations, since the Japanese public regards the safety of its food supply as critically important.

DONALD EMMERSON: Most opinion-makers in Southeast Asia are tired of Washington's preoccupation with terrorism. To be effective in the region, we must deal-and appear to be dealing-with a wider array of economic, social, and political issues, and not just bilaterally. The United States is absent at the creation of East Asian regionalism. For various reasons, we were not invited to participate in the recent East Asia Summit. Meanwhile, China's "smile diplomacy" has yielded 27 different frameworks of cooperation between that country and ASEAN. We need to be more, and more broadly, engaged.

MICHAEL ARMACOST: The establishment of today's European community began with the historic reconciliation between France and Germany. I doubt that a viable Asian community can be created without a comparable accommodation between China and Japan. Some observers believe that current tensions between Tokyo and Beijing are advantageous insofar as they facilitate closer defense cooperation between the United States and Japan. I do not share that view. A drift toward Sino-Japanese strategic rivalry would complicate our choices as well as theirs, and I hope we can find ways of attenuating current tensions.

In a 1999 article profiling six of “China’s bright young stars,” the New York Times described Junning Liu as “one of China’s most influential liberal political thinkers.” Today, sitting in a delegate-style conference room, Liu wants to add a point to Thomas C. Heller’s discussion of risk assessment and the role of law in doing business. If assets are not protected by legal institutions, Heller argues, foreign direct investment becomes a riskier prospect and economic growth suffers as a result. Except, he points out, in China. The legal system doesn’t manage risk but China is growing extremely fast.

“There are more businesspeople in Chinese prisons than dissidents,” Liu says evenly, with a suggestion of a smile. “So you see … Chinese people mind the situation more than you [the foreign investors] do.”

Liu is one of 26 change-makers from developing democracies who were selected from more than 800 applicants to take part in this year’s Stanford Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development Program, which is offered by FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). His colleagues in the program are presidential advisors and attorneys general, journalists and civic activists, academics and members of the international development community. They traveled to Stanford from 21 countries in transition, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, China, Russia, Egypt, and Nigeria. And like their academic curriculum during the three-week program, which examines linkages among democracy, economic development, and the rule of law, their professional experiences and fields of study center on these three areas, assuring that each fellow brings a seasoned perspective to the program’s discussions.

“For most of the fellows … democracy is seen not as a luxury or an option, but rather as a necessity for achieving broad-based development and a genuine rule of law.”The curriculum for the first week focused on democracy, with leading comparative democracy scholars Michael A. McFaul, Larry Diamond, and Kathryn Stoner team-teaching the morning seminars. Using selected articles and book chapters as starting points for discussion, McFaul, Diamond, and Stoner-Weiss began the weeklong democracy module with an examination of what democracy is and what definition or definitions might apply to distinguish electoral democracy, liberal democracy, and competitive authoritarianism. Another question discussed was whether there was such a thing as Islamic democracy, Asian democracy, Russian democracy, or American democracy.

As the week progressed, fellows and faculty discussed institutions of democracy, electoral systems, horizontal accountability, development of civil society, democratic transitions, and global trends in democracy promotion. Fellows led sessions themselves in the afternoons, comparing experiences and sharing insights into how well political parties and parliaments constrained executive power and how civil society organizations contributed to democratic consolidation and/or democratic transitions.

In addition to discussing their personal experiences with democracy promotion, fellows met with a broad range of practitioners, including USAID deputy director Maria Rendon, IREX president Mark Pomar, MoveOn.org founder Joan Blades, Freedom House chairman and International Center on Nonviolent Conflict founding chair Peter Ackerman, International Center on Nonviolent Conflict president Jack DuVall, Otpor cofounder Ivan Marovic, A Force More Powerful documentary filmmaker Steve York, and Advocacy Institute cofounder David Cohen. Guest speakers talked about their fieldwork, offered practical advice, and answered fellows’ questions. This component grounded the classroom discussions in a practical context. “It was important for our visiting fellows to interact with American practitioners, both to learn about innovative techniques for improving democracy practices but also to hear about frustrations and failures that Americans also face in working to make democracy and democracy promotion work more effectively,” explains McFaul. “We Americans do not have all the answers and have much to learn from interaction with those in the trenches working to improve governance in their countries.”

The following two weeks would focus in turn on development and the rule of law, but democracy continued to serve as the intellectual lynchpin of the program, with economies and legal institutions analyzed vis-à-vis their relationship to the development of democratic systems.

“For most of the fellows, who come from national circumstances which once suffered (or still do suffer) prolonged authoritarian rule, democracy is seen not as a luxury or an option, but rather as a necessity for achieving broad-based development and a genuine rule of law,” says Diamond. “Unless people have the ability to turn bad rulers out of office, and to hold rulers accountable in between elections through a free press and civil society, countries stand a poor prospect of controlling corruption, protecting human rights, correcting policy mistakes, and ensuring that government is responsive to the needs and aspirations of the people.”

Among the fellows, this idea of democracy as a “necessity,” a fundamental platform from which to pursue economic and legal reforms, was widely recognized. “It appears that like-minded people were selected to participate,” notes Sani Aliyu, a broadcast journalist and interfaith mediator from Nigeria. “Each of us is interested in the development of humanity, and it appears that we have accepted that democracy seems to be the vehicle through which human development can be accessed reasonably. We share this."

As the program’s curriculum shifted to development issues for week two, the all-volunteer assemblage of Stanford faculty expanded to include professors and professional research staff from Stanford Law School, the Graduate School of Business, and the Department of Economics. Avner Greif established the context for the development module with an overview of institutional foundations of politics and markets, followed by discussions of growth restructuring in transitional economies with GSB professor Peter B. Henry and Stanford Center for International Development deputy director Nicholas Hope. Terry L. Karl analyzed corruption in developing economies and the “resource curse,” and Carl Gershman, president of the National Endowment for Democracy, joined Diamond, McFaul, and Karl in discussing how the spectrum of democratic to autocratic systems of government affected a country’s development.

Another salient component of the development module centered on the role of media in promoting democracy and development. The field trip to San Francisco, which included a session with KQED Forum host Michael Krasny, a briefing on international reporting at the San Francisco Chronicle, and a discussion of media strategies at the Family Violence Prevention Fund, provided particularly rich practical content, as did the fellows’ roundtable on maintaining media independence in semi-autocracies.

At KQED Radio, Cuban-born Raul Ramirez, the executive producer of Forum, talked with fellows about the concept of “civic journalism” and KQED’s goal of creating space for civic discussion. Forum host Michael Krasny and Ramirez, who runs workshops on civic journalism at the European Journalism Centre in Maastricht, then fielded a barrage of questions from fellows: How does KQED maintain independence from government and commercial funding? If Rush Limbaugh attacked you, would you respond in your program? Is it possible to have neutral, nonpartisan public radio? How do you manage to deal with political issues, particularly when you start to affect the power structures with your programming? Are there any words, like “terrorist,” that you are banned from using on the air?

“Discussion of this kind is of great importance to both media professionals and the audience,” notes Anna Sevortian, a journalist and research coordinator at the Center for Development of Democracy and Human Rights in Moscow. “It helps you to clarify how a particular newspaper, TV, or radio station is dealing with matters of public policy or of political controversy.”

The third week’s curriculum layered rule-of-law issues onto the conceptual modules of democracy promotion and economic development, drawing on the teaching caliber of constitutional scholar and Stanford president emeritus Gerhard Casper, Erik Jensen, Helen Stacy, Allen S. Weiner, Tom Heller, and Richard Burt. After establishing a theoretical framework through discussions of the role of law, constitutionalism, human rights, transitional justice, the role of law in business and economic development, and strategies for promoting the rule of law, fellows compared experiences defending human rights, met with American immigration and civil liberties lawyers, and had a session with Circuit Court Judge Pamela Rymer on judging in federal courts. Field trips to Silicon Valley-based Google and eBay again put into practical context the free market, rule-of-law components discussed theoretically in the classroom.

Despite the intellectual rigor of the coursework and discussion, and the exploration of practical applicability with guest speakers and field trips, the Stanford Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development Program was designed as much to stimulate connections among field practitioners and to provide a forum in which to exchange ideas. Weekend dinners, stretching late into the evening at the homes of Diamond and Stoner-Weiss, helped to gel the collegiality developing in the classroom. Led by Violet Gonda, a Zimbabwean journalist living in exile in London, and Talan Aouny, director of a major Iraqi civil society development program, the fellows organized a multicultural party, a potluck-style affair in which guests made a dish from their home country to share with their colleagues and friends of the program.

Program directors McFaul and Stoner-Weiss hope this social network will endure well into the weeks and months after the program. “We envision the creation of an international network of emerging political and civic leaders in countries in transition who can share experiences and solutions to the very similar problems they and their countries face,” says Stoner-Weiss. To ensure they fulfill their goal of building a small but robust global network of civic activist and policymakers in developing countries, CDDRL recently launched its Summer Fellows Program Alumni Newsletter. The newsletter is based on an interactive website that will allow the center to strengthen its network of leaders and civic activists and facilitate more groundbreaking policy analysis across academic fields and geographic regions, the results of which will be promptly fed back to its activist alumni in a virtual loop of scholarship and policymaking.

Earlier this year, CDDRL also moved to professionalize the Stanford Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development Program by hiring a program manager, Laura Cosovanu, an attorney with experience in foundations and other nonprofit organizations, to oversee its advancement. The logistical acrobatics Cosovanu performed throughout the three weeks quickly became the object of good-natured teasing for some of the fellows, all of whom seemed to realize and appreciate the work required to get fellows and faculty into the same room.

As Kenza Aqertit, a National Democratic Institute for International Affairs field representative from Morocco, told program faculty at the graduation dinner, “You’ve done a great job and you should be proud of all your efforts. Plus you’ve won so many friends in so many autocracies and semi-autocracies.

On May 1, 2003, President Bush publicly declared an end to combat in Iraq. Four years later, the conflict had only intensified, fueled by a violent insurgency, sectarian strife, and a resurgent al-Qaeda in Iraq. More than 3,000 American servicemen and servicewomen had been killed and 790,000 Iraqi civilians were dead. What had gone so disastrously wrong? Charles Ferguson, an MIT-trained political scientist, determined to find out.

Drawing on shockingly frank interviews with U.S. government officials, military personnel, diplomats, journalists and Iraqi leaders and citizens, his first film, No End in Sight: The American Occupation of Iraq, examines comprehensively how the Bush administration constructed the Iraq war and subsequent occupation. The film won the Special Jury Prize, documentary competition, at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, as a “timely work that clearly illuminates the misguided policy decisions that have led to the catastrophic quagmire of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.”

“Overnight rendered unemployed and infuriated are 500,000 armed men,” one of many ill-advised moves that ignited resentment, desperation, and a still-raging insurgency.On May 23, the Freeman Spogli Institute hosted a special screening of the film, followed by a distinguished panel of experts. Among the film’s central themes was the failure to commit sufficient troops to maintain order, secure the borders, or protect government ministries, historic sites, or ammunition depots. The destruction of national treasures, depicted vividly, was heartbreaking.

Soon after one watershed—the toppling of Saddam Hussein and the defeat of the military—there was another watershed, characterized by widespread looting, lawlessness, and a growing feeling among Iraqis that Americans could not protect them. The film chronicles three especially fateful decisions: to halt the formation of an Iraqi interim government (as Iraqi opposition leaders felt they had been promised) and impose an American occupation instead; a wide-ranging campaign of de-Baathification—the purging of higher-level Baath Party officials who ran the civil service and even staffed many schools and hospitals; and the hasty decision to disband the Iraqi military and intelligence services.

Said Col. Paul Hughes (Ret.), “We could have used Iraqi units to clean up, build roads, and rebuild their country.” Instead, the military were told they were going to be out of work, leaving millions of Iraqis suddenly without support. The film recounts, “Overnight rendered unemployed and infuriated are 500,000 armed men,” one of many ill-advised moves that ignited resentment, desperation, and a still-raging insurgency. Ambassador Barbara Bodine recalled, “When we were first starting the reconstruction, we used to joke that there were 500 ways to do it wrong and two to three ways to do it right. What we didn’t understand is that we were going to go through all 500.”

The riveting documentary was followed by a lively panel discussion among Stanford political scientists, historians, and experts on the war in Iraq. Moderating the panel was Larry Diamond, Hoover Institution senior fellow and coordinator of the Democracy Program at FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, who called the war “one of the greatest policy tragedies in American history.” Diamond served as an advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority and wrote a book about the experience, titled %publication1%.

Writer and director Charles Ferguson noted that the shooting to inclusion ratio was 100:1 and said he will release more than 100 hours of film and 3,000 pages of transcripts as a public archive for the historical record. Col. Christopher Gibson, a 2006–07 National Security Affairs fellow at the Hoover Institution, who served in both the Gulf and Iraq wars, observed in his opening remarks, “For this to work in a republic, soldiers have to be there to take the tough questions.” Drawing on his experience during two tours of duty supervising national elections, he underscored the Iraqi people’s desire for freedom and “their deep and sincere desire for democracy.”

David Kennedy, Stanford’s Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History and a 2000 Pulitzer-Prize winner, commended the film for making an important contribution to the historical record. Future historians will have to consider a number of major questions, Kennedy said, including these two: “What was the deep strategic rationale for this war and how was that rationale related to the declared reasons for going to war,” namely the now discredited claims that the regime possessed weapons of mass destruction and had verifiable links to al-Qaeda.

In a lively discussion among panelists, it was agreed that the calculus was complex and many factors converged—an Iraq believed both to be a menace and weakened by many years of sanctions under a brutal leader; a son wishing to redress the policy of the father and avenge a near assassination attempt. But the ideological factor was significant—the belief that we had the ability to effect political change in a country that would transform the character of an entire region.

The debate addressed other critical issues—could the outcome have been better had policy been better informed and more skillfully implemented? Could anything change the outcome now? Said Diamond, the only thing that could materially change the outcome now “would be to combine a military surge with a diplomatic surge,” involving the United Nations, the European Union, the United States, and a cooperative Iraqi leadership. The United States should let Iraq know we’ll leave, he stated, if Iraqi leaders fail to undertake the requisite political reconciliation and compromise. As the lively debate and discussion with more than 300 audience members ended, there was little doubt that all these questions would be debated for some time to come.

The Forum on Contemporary Europe (FCE) achieved two major goals in 2006–2007, by developing FCE into a trans-Atlantic hub for policy and academic leaders and guiding research affiliates to answer pressing questions about European Union membership. To do so the forum launched and greatly expanded research and public programs on Europe’s Eastern, Scandinavian, and Iberian regions and addressed dramatic change and instability in the west in governing coalitions and the social fabric of Europe’s traditional powers.

Forum projects addressed several important, interrelated questions. Can the EU integrate its members into a unified polity and civic society, or should it retreat to a sole project of a common market? Should and can the EU Commission form a European foreign policy? How far should Europe’s union extend—to Turkey, to the former Soviet republics, to the North African Maghreb? Answers to these questions have implications for trans-Atlantic and EU-NATO-UN relations and for postindustrial labor, immigration, and welfare policy, democratization and human rights initiatives, and regional crisis intervention. An engaging and productive year of analyzing Europe’s policy dilemmas has clarified the benefits and burdens of the emerging European model of political, social, and economic membership.

Western Europe: Elections and Uncertain Promise

On Jan. 1, 2007, Europe enlarged its union to 27 nations. As Europe extended its borders from Portugal to Bulgaria, and from Sweden to Greece, the EU Council of Ministers reiterated its commitment to shepherd seven more nations, including Turkey, to meet the Copenhagen Criteria for membership. However, elections, resignations, and new leaders in Europe’s traditional powers have clouded this optimistic vision, and the forum addressed pressing concerns along with the promise of expansion.

Four highly anticipated forum events—the French presidential election roundtable, a Europe Now: Integration, Society, and Islam in a New Europe lecture by Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a Payne Lecture by Ian McEwan, and an address by German Ambassador Klaus Scharioth—raised issues for all forum programs. Throughout the year, the forum invited a spectrum of research centers to co-sponsor its events, including CISAC, CDDRL, the Program on Global Justice, the Woods Institute, the France-Stanford Center, Humanities Center, Abbasi Program on Islamic Studies, Mediterranean Forum, Stanford Law School, and the Graduate School of Business.

On prospects for integrating Europe’s polity and society, Cohn-Bendit and McEwan spoke on separate occasions to overflow FSI audiences. Cohn-Bendit, head of the European Parliament Greens/New Alliance party, noted the diverse political cultures in Western and Eastern Europe, as well as the region’s significant Muslim community, and envisioned the EU as the institution to create a polity governed federally and based nevertheless on commonly agreed upon European values. McEwan, delivering a preview of a work to be published soon, characterized post-9/11 Western modernity by tracing a history of fundamentalism since the origin of the Christian West. Communalism and exclusive claims to truth, in McEwan’s reading, are organic to the West and may plague the rationalizing project of a new Europe. Scharioth discussed German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ambition to revive a European constitution. Merkel, the first German post-war leader to have been a citizen of the GDR, sees integration not as an option but as a necessity after 1989 and is brokering with a group of European partners to carry the project forward. The chancellor may gain support from new French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who proposes to move forward by avoiding popular referenda in favor of parliamentary treaties.

On post-election France, five affiliated researchers from Stanford and UC Berkeley, representing different disciplines across the humanities and social sciences, joined for a roundtable discussion of the conduct and consequences of the French presidential election. Speaking to a standing-room-only audience, the panel debated voting patterns and the future of the main parties and offered an insider’s early look at where France is headed and the implications of the Sarkozy presidency for Francophone, EU, and trans-Atlantic relations.

France, of course, is one of the last of Europe’s major powers to elect a leader with no personal memory of World War II. Sarkozy, like Merkel, Blair, and Zapatero, also held government posts during Europe’s paralysis in the Balkan genocide. The boast that the EU eliminated war from Europe may therefore be increasingly less compelling for Europe’s new generation of leaders. Without articulating the origins of his policy, this new French president makes it difficult to divine his view of Europe. It has been noted that Sarkozy, in his inaugural speech, declared that “France is back in Europe”; however he confused both sides of the Atlantic on what “in Europe” means to him by categorically rejecting the EU Commission’s commitment to pursue Turkish accession. It remains to be explained how he understands what France is in a European polity and economy, who the French are in a post-colonial immigrant society, and how France will position itself as both a global actor and a trans-Atlantic partner.

The forum planned the faculty roundtable as the first pillar of a multi-year study of European elections, to continue in 2007–2008 with a major address on reform at the heart of European political culture. Next year, the forum will host an address by the president of France’s École Normale Supérieure on the vision of a new European liberalism—a political philosophy responding to European post-war socialism and U.S. neo-conservativism and labeled by some political theorists as “social liberalism.” This will coincide with programs on the United Kingdom and its run-up to elections and what could amount to a referendum on the earliest of the post-war generation governments—the Blair administration and Britain’s New Labor. Also planned is the forum’s 2007–2008 “Europe Now” lecture by Sweden’s former foreign minister Jan Eliasson, who currently serves as the U.N. special envoy for Darfur.

New Europe: Expansion and Global Reach

Finally, this author is conducting a study of European Union international intervention missions. The initiative to form a common European security and defense policy (ESDP), and to marshal member nation troops, is perhaps the greatest challenge confronting European ambition to address global issues. In 2007, the EU Council noted, “The idea that the European Union should speak with one voice in world affairs is as old as the European integration process itself.” Our study investigates case studies of EU missions in Kosovo, Congo, and Darfur, in which EU policies fluctuated between robust and tentative goals, revealing divisions on the goal of acting as one within and beyond Europe.

(Excerpted from Foreign Affairs, January/February 2008) The conventional explanation for Vladimir Putin’s popularity is straightforward. In the 1990s, under post-Soviet Russia’s first president, Boris Yeltsin, the state did not govern, the economy shrank, and the population suffered. Since 2000, under Putin, order has returned, the economy has flourished, and the average Russian is living better than ever before. As political freedom has decreased, economic growth has increased. Putin may have rolled back democratic gains, the story goes, but these were necessary sacrifices on the altar of stability and growth.

This conventional narrative is wrong, based almost entirely on a spurious correlation between autocracy and growth. The emergence of Russian democracy in the 1990s did indeed coincide with state breakdown and economic decline, but it did not cause either. The reemergence of Russian autocracy under Putin, conversely, has coincided with economic growth but not caused it (high oil prices and recovery from the transition away from communism deserve most of the credit). There is also very little evidence to suggest that Putin’s autocratic turn over the last several years has led to more effective governance than the fractious democracy of the 1990s. In fact, the reverse is much closer to the truth: To the extent that Putin’s centralization of power has had an influence on governance and economic growth at all, the effects have been negative. Whatever the apparent gains of Russia under Putin, the gains would have been greater if democracy had survived.

Bigger is not Better

The myth of Putinism is that Russians are safer, more secure, and generally living better than in the 1990s—and that Putin himself deserves the credit. The Russian state under Putin is certainly bigger than it was before. In some spheres, such as paying pensions and government salaries on time, road building, or educational spending, the state is performing better now than during the 1990s. Yet given the growth in its size and resources, what is striking is how poorly the Russian state still performs. In terms of public safety, health, corruption, and the security of property rights, Russians are actually worse off today than they were a decade ago.

Security, the most basic public good a state can provide for its population, is a central element in the myth of Putinism. In fact, the frequency of terrorist attacks in Russia has increased under Putin. The murder rate has also increased, and public health has not improved. Despite all the money in the Kremlin’s coffers, health spending averaged 6 percent of GDP from 2000 to 2005, compared with 6.4 percent from 1996 to 1999. Russia’s population has been shrinking since 1990, thanks to decreasing fertility and increasing mortality rates, but the decline has worsened since 1998. Noncommunicable diseases have become the leading cause of death (cardiovascular disease accounts for 52 percent of deaths, three times the figure for the United States), and alcoholism now accounts for 18 percent of deaths for men between the ages of 25 and 54.

In short, the data simply do not support the popular notion that by erecting autocracy Putin has built an orderly and highly capable state that is addressing and overcoming Russia’s rather formidable development problems.

A Eurasian Tiger?

The second supposed justification for Putin’s autocratic ways is that they have paved the way for Russia’s spectacular economic growth. As Putin has consolidated his authority, growth has averaged 6.7 percent. The last eight years have also seen budget surpluses, the eradication of foreign debt and the accumulation of massive hardcurrency reserves, and modest inflation so far. The stock market is booming, and foreign direct investment, although still low compared to other emerging markets, is growing rapidly. Since 2000, real disposable income has increased by more than 10 percent a year, consumer spending has skyrocketed, unemployment has fallen from 12 percent in 1999 to 6 percent in 2006, and poverty has declined from 41 percent in 1999 to 14 percent in 2006. Russians are richer today than ever before.

The correlations between democracy and economic decline in the 1990s and autocracy and economic growth in this decade provide a seemingly powerful excuse for shutting down independent television stations, canceling gubernatorial elections, and eliminating pesky human rights groups. These correlations, however, are mostly spurious.

Economic decline after the end of communism was hardly confined to Russia. It followed communism’s decline in every country throughout the region. Given the dreadful economic conditions, every postcommunist government was compelled to pursue some degree of price and trade liberalization, macroeconomic stabilization, and, eventually, privatization. During this transition, the entire region experienced economic recession and then began to recover several years after the adoption of reforms. Russia’s economy followed this same general trajectory—and would have done so under dictatorship or democracy.

Putin’s real stroke of luck came in the form of rising world oil prices. Growing autocracy inside Russia obviously did not cause the rise in oil and gas prices. If anything, the causality runs in the opposite direction: increased energy revenues allowed for the return to autocracy. With so much money from oil windfalls in the Kremlin’s coffers, Putin could crack down on or co-opt independent sources of political power; the Kremlin had fewer reasons to fear the negative economic consequences of seizing a company like Yukos and had ample resources to buy off or repress opponents in the media and civil society.

If there is any causal relationship between authoritarianism and economic growth in Russia, it is negative. Russia’s more autocratic system in the last several years has produced more corruption and less secure property rights. Asset transfers have transformed a thriving private energy sector into one that is effectively state-dominated and less efficient. Renationalization has caused declines in the performance of formerly private companies, destroyed value in Russia’s most profitable companies, and slowed investment, both foreign and domestic.

Perhaps the most telling evidence that Putin’s autocracy has hurt rather than helped Russia’s economy is provided by regional comparisons. Between 1999 and 2006, Russia ranked ninth out of the 15 post-Soviet countries in terms of average growth. Similarly, investment in Russia, at 18 percent of GDP, although stronger today than ever before, is well below the average for democracies in the region.

One can only wonder how fast Russia would have grown with a more democratic system. The strengthening of institutions of accountability—a real opposition party, genuinely independent media, a court system not beholden to Kremlin control—would have helped tame corruption and secure property rights and would thereby have encouraged more investment and growth. The Russian economy is doing well today, but it is doing well in spite of, not because of, autocracy.