260-113
Encina Hall E105
616 Serra Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Laust Schouenborg is a Carlsberg postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London. He is currently researching historical systems of international relations in Polynesia, Central Asia and Tropical Africa. However, he has also published on IR theory, democracy and Scandinavian international relations. Dr Schouenborg was a visiting fellow at The Europe Center in the Spring 2010.
Can anyone say that South Korean society and politics have become "transformed" since the 1987 democratic opening and transition? This statement is "admittedly ambitious" as a claim "because an endpoint of transformation can never be attained with certainty," the speaker argues. After a successful democratic transition, South Korea’s next challenge lies in consolidating its democratic gains and building durable political institutions, requiring full compliance with democratic norms by all major political forces and interest groups in civil society. This on-going quest for liberal democracy, not easy for South Korea’s Sixth Republic, will be explored in Professor Kihl's presentation.
Young Whan Kihl is currently a visiting scholar in the Korean Studies Program at APARC. He is Professor of Political Science, Emeritus, at Iowa State University. Professor Kihl taught courses on International Relations, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Behavior, and Comparative Foreign Policy at Iowa State University, 1974-2006, and served as Chair of the Department of Political Science, Juniata College, 1963-1974. He was editor-in-chief of The International Journal of Korean Studies from 2004 to 2008 and was on the editorial advisory board of International Studies Quarterly from 1998 to 2004. He has written numerous books on Korean politics, both North and South. Included in the list of his recent books are: North Korea: the Politics of Regime Survival, 2006 (coeditor) and Transforming Korean Politics: Democracy, Reform, and Culture, 2005.
Professor Kihl received a BA in Political Science and Economics from Grinnell College and a Ph.D. in International Politics and Organizations, Comparative Politics (Asia), and Political Behavior from New York University.
Philippines Conference Room
Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall E301
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Professor Kihl taught courses on International Relations, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Behavior, and Comparative Foreign Policy at Iowa State University, 1974-2006, and served as Chair at the Department of Political Science, Juniata College, 1963-1974. He was editor-in-chief of The International Jounal of Korean Studies, 2004-2008, and was on the editorial advisory board of The International Studies Quarterly, 1998-2004.
Prof. Kihl received a BA in Political Science and Economics from Grinnell College and a Ph.D. in International Politics and Organizations, Comparative Politics (Asia), and Political Behavior from New York University.
In 2005, a national referendum returned Uganda to multi-party competition, lifting a ban on the activities of political parties that had been in place since the National Resistance Movement took power in 1986.
The decision to restore formal pluralistic competition was arrived at in large part by international pressure on the government of President Yoweri Museveni.
However, five years later, as Uganda heads into its second round of elections under a multi-party system next year, the country is less “democratic” and has been described as a virtual one party state.
In some instances, observers have commented that the Ugandan parliament under the single-party “Movement” system had more bite than the current multiparty plebiscite, which is little more than a rubberstamp of the ruling National Resistance Movement.
What explains the apparent failure of the multi-party era to advance real democratic reforms in Uganda?
Angelo Izama is an investigative reporter at the Daily Monitor, Uganda's only independent newspaper, as well as a radio talk show panelist, researcher, consultant and analyst on security and governance in the Great Lakes Region of East Africa. In his 7-year career in the media he has also worked as a radio producer, host, news manager and multi-media journalist for the Nation Media Group in Uganda. He has been a frequent commentator on current affairs for international news agencies including the BBC, Reuters, Al-Jazeera, AFP and African-based organizations. Mr. Izama was a fall 2007 Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, where he proposed and assessed regional options for peace in Northern Uganda regarding the Lords Resistance Army. In 2008 he founded Fanaka Kwa Wote, a Ugandan-based think tank, to advance research on human security and democracy in the Great Lakes region.
In the course of his career, Mr. Izama has covered topics including national elections in 2001 and 2005, the conflict in Northern Uganda, internal security, corruption, and most recently, issues surrounding the discovery of oil in western Uganda. In 2009 he filed a case using Uganda's Access to Information Act to compel the government to make public the details of oil Production Sharing Agreements signed with foreign oil companies. The case was dismissed in February, on the same day Mr. Izama was arrested and charged with criminal libel in Ugandan courts over his critical writing.
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
Kim Scott, Director AdSense Online Sales & Operations at Google, explored the potential of new technology for both increasing decentralization and centralization.
Decentralization refers to the capacity of the internet to disperse power and influence to many more people. In the political context, this has (arguably) enabled greater citizen activism. In business, online advertising enables start-ups to get going without relying on venture capitalist funding. Individuals have greater capacity for personal expression now that they can bypass publishing power houses and distribute their own work at virtually no cost. Corresponding to these benefits are a number of negative impacts.
The same technology that allows pro-democracy groups to come together also enables terrorists and pedophile groups to organize and perpetrate harm on a greater scale.
Technology also allows for increasing centralization. The Internet provides a place for the world's information to be easily organized and accessed. But with this comes the risk that certain groups (particularly authoritarian governments) could deliberately misinform citizens.
Kim raised a number of dilemmas for discussion, including:
