Stanford University

Democracy

The Supply and Demand of Nuclear Terrorism

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Paul Kapur (speaker) is a visiting professor at CISAC, on leave from the U.S. Naval War College, where he is an associate professor in the Department of Strategic Research. Before joining the War College in 2006, Kapur was visiting professor at CISAC and assistant professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College. He also served as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago, where he received his Ph.D. in political science. His research interests include the strategic effects of nuclear weapons proliferation, deterrence theory, and the international security environment in South Asia. Kapur is author of Dangerous Deterrent: Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and Conflict in South Asia (Stanford University Press, 2007). His work has also appeared in journals such as International Security, Security Studies, Asian Survey, and Asian Security.

Martha Crenshaw (discussant) is a senior fellow at CISAC and FSI and a professor of political science by courtesy. She was the Colin and Nancy Campbell Professor of Global Issues and Democratic Thought and professor of government at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., from 1974 to 2007. Her current research focuses on innovation in terrorist campaigns, the distinction between "old" and "new" terrorism, how terrorism ends, and why the United States is the target of terrorism.  She serves on the Executive Board of Women in International Security and chairs the American Political Science Association (APSA) Task Force on Political Violence and Terrorism. She has served on the Council of the APSA and is a former President and Councilor of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP). In 2004 ISPP awarded her its Nevitt Sanford Award for Distinguished Scientific Contribution and in 2005 the Jeanne Knutson award for service to the society. She serves on the editorial boards of the journals International Security, Orbis, Political Psychology, Security Studies, and Terrorism and Political Violence. She coordinated the working group on political explanations of terrorism for the 2005 Club de Madrid International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security. She is a lead investigator with the National Center for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism (NC-START) at the University of Maryland, funded by the Department of Homeland Security. She was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2005-2006. She serves on the Committee on Law and Justice and the Committee on Determining Basic Research Needs to Interrupt the Improvised Explosive Device Delivery Chain of the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science. She was a senior fellow at the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism in Oklahoma City for 2006-2007.

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Paul Kapur Speaker
Martha Crenshaw Speaker
Seminars
Strengthening Security and Stability in South Asia

Deference, Dissent, and Dispute Resolution: An Experimental Intervention Using Mass Media to Change Norms and Behavior in Rwanda

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Elizabeth Levy Paluck (speaker) received her PhD in 2007 from Yale University in Social Psychology. Her research focuses on the political psychology of prejudice and conflict reduction, in particular the role of mass media, community dialogue, and education. She has conducted the bulk of her fieldwork using field experiments and qualitative methods in Central Africa and in the US. She is currently an Academy Scholar at Harvard's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

Desha Girod (discussant) is a doctoral candidate at Stanford, where she researches the effects of international organizations on local institution-building. She is devoting her fellowship at CDDRL to completing her dissertation, "Why being poor helps postwar development." For her dissertation, Desha carried out field work in Mozambique and Uganda. In addition, she is conducting a study on democracy promotion after regime change by investigating the impact of US intervention in Panama, where she also did field work. Another study investigates the effects of remittances on access to public goods in Mexico. Desha's advisors at Stanford include Jim Fearon, Steve Krasner, David Laitin, and Jeremy Weinstein.

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Elizabeth Levy Paluck Academy Scholar Speaker Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University

Desha Girod

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CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow 2008-2009
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Desha Girod is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and Rule of Law at Stanford University where she manages the program Evaluating International Influences on Democratic Development.  Her research focuses on the influence of external actors on political and economic development.  In 2009, she will join the faculty of the Department of Government at Georgetown University.
Desha Girod Speaker
Seminars

Military-to-Military Contacts as Channels of Democratic Norm Diffusion: A Quantitative Analysis of a Constructivist Theory of Power

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Carol Atkinson (speaker) is a postdoctoral fellow at CISAC. She retired as a lieutenant colonel from the U.S. Air Force in 2005. While in the military she served in a wide variety of management and operational positions in the fields of intelligence, targeting, and combat assessment. During the Cold War she flew on the Strategic Air Command's nuclear airborne command post as a target analyst. During Operation Desert Storm (1991) she worked on the intelligence staff in Riyadh, and, subsequently, on the contingency planning staff in Dhahran/Khobar, Saudi Arabia. While in the military, she taught at the Air Force Academy and the Air Force's Command and Staff College. Atkinson holds a PhD in international relations from Duke University, an MA in geography from Indiana University, and a BS from the United States Air Force Academy (5th class with women). She is currently a post-doctoral research fellow at the Center for International Studies at the University of Southern California. Atkinson's primary research focuses on U.S. military-to-military contacts as channels of international norm diffusion. She is also working on a project examining the influence of educational exchange programs on democratization and a project on the social construction of the biological warfare threat in the United States.

Frank Smith (discussant) is a PhD candidate in political science at the University of Chicago and a predoctoral fellow at CISAC. His research examines military and civilian decisions about biological warfare and tests different theories about the sources of military research, development, and doctrine, as well as the rise of civilian biodefense. In addition, he has worked on a variety of projects that address technology and national security at the RAND Corporation, Argonne National Laboratory, and the Defense Intelligence Agency. He earned his BS in biological chemistry from the University of Chicago in 2000.

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Carol Atkinson Speaker
Frank Smith Speaker
Seminars

The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World

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In his new book, The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World (Times Books 2008), Larry Diamond intensely scrutinizes the global effort on democracy promotion. By both exploring the sources of progress as well as the locations and reasons for failure, Diamond presents a comprehensive assessment that is realistic but also hopeful. Diamond presents his arguments through a world of examples, citing the negative Putin's Russia and Musharraf's Pakistan; the unsuccessful politically but nevertheless exemplary Toledo's Peru; and even the more difficult places like Nepal, Iran, and Thailand.

By comparing the progress of today with that of the mid 1970s, when he was a Vietnam War protester, Diamond expresses hope. At that time, Diamond notes, barely a quarter of all independent states were using free and fair elections. But times have changed since then: "by the mid-1990s," he writes, "it had become clear to me, as it had to many of my colleagues involved in the global struggle for democracy, that if some three-fifths of the world's states, many of them poor and non-Western, could become democracies, there was no intrinsic reason why the rest of the world could not do as well."

Jessica Tuchman Mathews, president, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, notes that "no one has thought harder or more broadly about the past and future of democracy than Larry Diamond. A passionate treatment, infused with optimism and eminently readable, The Spirit of Democracy is a must for anyone who cares about the toughest challenge of balancing national values and national interests."
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Larry Diamond
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McFaul urges new engagement with Iran in Wash Post Op-Ed

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Michael A. McFaul
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As the year draws to a close, write Michael A. McFaul and Abbas Milani in the Washington Post, it's important to note that the U.S. debate on Iran is stalled, trapped between "regime changers" vs. "arms controllers," "hawks" vs. "doves," and "idealists" vs. "realists." The National Intelligence Estimate released this month offers an opportunity to escape this straitjacketed debate by embracing a new strategy that would pursue both the short-term goal of arms control and the long-term goal of democracy in Iran.

Reprinted with permission from Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Company and The Washington Post

As the year draws to a close, it's important to note that the U.S. debate on Iran is stalled, trapped between "regime changers" vs. "arms controllers," "hawks" vs. "doves," and "idealists" vs. "realists." The National Intelligence Estimate released this month offers an opportunity to escape this straitjacketed debate by embracing a new strategy that would pursue both the short-term goal of arms control and the long-term goal of democracy in Iran.

The NIE's "key judgment" that Iran suspended its nuclear weapons program has thrust the arms controllers onto center stage. Because the nuclear threat is no longer immediate, the arms controllers insist that the time is ripe for the United States to engage in direct diplomacy with Tehran as a way to change the regime's behavior, but not the regime itself -- specifically, to persuade the mullahs to suspend their nuclear enrichment program.

Those who profess to back regime change claim that the NIE changes nothing and that the United States should continue to use coercive power, potentially including military strikes, to counter Tehran.

Both sides have part of the strategy right, but on its own neither offers a long-term vision for dealing with Iran.

It is folly to assume that advocates of military strikes are in the same camp as those who advocate regime change. There is no better way to prolong the life of the autocratic regime in Tehran, to strengthen increasingly weakened radicals such as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, than bombing Iran. Thankfully, the NIE has made military strikes less likely.

But the estimate provides no evidence to suggest that Iran's regime has changed its ways to be more compatible with American national interests or the interests of the Iranian people. The regime continues to repress its own people; supports terrorist organizations that threaten Israel and destabilize the governments in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories; and still has not suspended its enrichment program, the key aspect of developing a nuclear weapon. Iran's suspension of its military nuclear program in 2003 was a tactical response to revelations about the clandestine operation, not a fundamental shift in strategic thinking.

To presume, therefore, that the NIE gives the United States license to bargain with Iran over its enrichment program and forgo any pressure on the regime is also folly. Focusing solely on enrichment would play into the hands of the mullahs, who see how the NIE has weakened the coalition in support of serious sanctions. They have every incentive to stretch out any negotiations -- while continuing to develop their enrichment program. Days after the NIE was made public, Ahmadinejad announced that Iran plans to have a cascade of 50,000 centrifuges, surely enough to make highly enriched uranium. American diplomatic tools to alter this behavior are extremely weak. Moreover, this strategy gives Iran a free pass on its support for terrorism and human rights abuses.

The United States and its allies must develop an Iran strategy that establishes both short- and long-term goals. Specifically, the United States must recommit to a policy of encouraging democratization inside Iran, because only a democratic regime will stop supporting terrorist groups abroad and repression at home. A democratic Iran is also less likely to restart a nuclear weapons program, especially if the United States and a new Iranian regime establish close military ties, a likely outcome.

Although counterintuitive to some, diplomatic engagement is required to pursue the long-term goal of democratization and, in parallel, the short-term goal of arms control. The first American offer of direct talks should include everything: the prospect of formal diplomatic relations and the lifting of sanctions; the potential supply and disposal of nuclear fuel (from a third-party organization or state); suspension of nuclear enrichment; an end to aid to Hezbollah and Hamas; and a serious discussion about stopping the arrests of students and human rights advocates and the persecution of union leaders and religious minorities. Discussion of new security institutions in the region should also be on the table. America's experience dealing with the Soviet Union during the Cold War demonstrates that we can engage a despotic regime without compromising our commitment to democracy and human rights.

Greater contact between Iranian and American societies will further undermine the regime's legitimacy, strengthen the independence of Iranian economic and political groups, and perhaps even compel some regime leaders to cash out and exchange their diminishing political power for enduring property rights. Over the past four decades, autocratic regimes have rarely crumbled as a result of isolation but more often have collapsed when seeking to engage with the West. Even the collapse of the Soviet Union occurred not when tensions between Moscow and Washington were high but during a period of engagement.

Will Iran follow a similar path? We will never know if we do not try. Of course, the mullahs might reject our overtures, but their refusal would embolden the opposition inside Iran. And a serious attempt to engage the Islamic republic now would strengthen the American case for more coercive diplomatic and economic pressure, should they be necessary in the future.

Michael McFaul is a professor of political science at Stanford University. Abbas Milani is director of the Iranian studies program at Stanford. Both are fellows at the Hoover Institution.

Copyright Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive and The Washington Post. All rights Reserved.

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Fighting for the Seats: Gender Quota and State Feminism in South Korea and Taiwan

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This is a CDDRL's Special Research Seminar within our Democracy in Taiwan Program.

Chang-Ling Huang is an associate professor of political science at the National Taiwan University. She received her Ph. D. from the University of Chicago. Her research interests are gender politics and labor politics. She has published in various journals including Developing Economies, Anthropology of Work Review, American Journal of Public Health and Issues & Studies. Her current research project is a comparative study on state feminism in South Korea and Taiwan. She examines how the newly democratized states in these two countries have been actively promoting gender equality.

Professor Huang received the Outstanding Teaching Award in 2007 at the National Taiwan University. In addition to her academic career, since 2000 she has been a board member of the Awakening Foundation, the earliest established feminist organization in post-war Taiwan. Between 2004 and 2007, she was the president of the foundation. She has also been a civilian member of various government committees and commissions in Taiwan.

Professor Huang is a visiting scholar at Stanford's Political Science Department in the academic year of 2007-2008.

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Chang-Ling Huang Associate Professor of Political Science Speaker National Taiwan University
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A Mandate with Caveats: Lee Myung Bak's Election, Politics, and Policy

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This is a slightly revised version of remarks from the December 20th panel discussion of "South Korea's Presidential Elections: Growing Pains of a Young Democracy," held by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in conjunction with the U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS, Johns Hopkins University.
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The Korean Presidential Election: A Special Edition of the Contemporary Asia Seminar Series

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2:00 - 3:00 p.m.

Panel 1: Review of the Presidential Election

Nae-Young Lee, director of the Asiatic Research Center and professor of political science, Korea University

Gi-Wook Shin, director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and professor of sociology, Stanford University

3:10 - 4:10 p.m.

Panel II: Korean Democracy

Hyuk-Baeg Im, professor of political science, Korea University

David Straub, Pantech Fellow, Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University

4:20 - 5:20 p.m.

Panel III: Foreign Policy of the New Korean Government

Shin Wha Lee, professor of political science, Korea University

Robert Carlin, Pantech Fellow, Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University

Alexander Versbow, United States Ambassador to the Republic of Korea

5:20 - 5:30 p.m.

Closing Comments

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Hyuk-Baeg Im Professor of Political Science Speaker Korea University

Robert Carlin

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C245 - Desk 2
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

(650) 736-0290
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Carlin_Robert.jpg MA

Bob Carlin is a Visiting Scholar at CISAC. From both in and out of government, he has been following North Korea since 1974 and has made 25 trips there. He recently co-authored a lengthy paper to be published by the London International Institute of Strategic Studies, entitled "Politics, Economics and Security: Implications of North Korean Reform."

Carlin served as senior policy advisor at the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) from 2002-2006, leading numerous delegations to the North for talks and observing developments in-country during the long trips that entailed.

From 1989-2002, he was chief of the Northeast Asia Division in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, U.S. Department of State. During much of that period, he also served as Senior Policy Advisor to the Special Ambassador for talks with North Korea, and took part in all phases of US-DPRK negotiations from 1992-2000. From 1971-1989, Carlin was an analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, where he received the Exceptional Analyst Award from the Director of Central Intelligence.

Carlin received his AM in East Asian regional studies from Harvard University in 1971 and his BA in political science from Claremont Men's College.

Affiliate
Robert Carlin Pantech Fellow, Shorenstein APARC Speaker Stanford University

Nae Young Lee

Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, Room E301
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 773-7239 (650) 723-6530
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Lee,_Nae_Young.jpg PhD

Nae-Young Lee is a Professor of the Department of Political Science and Director of Asiatic Research Center at Korea University. He also serves as Director of Center for Public Opinion Research at the East Asia Institute, and an Executive Board Member of the Korean Political Science Association. Professor Lee received his Ph. D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was a professor at Kyung Hee University, a research fellow at the Sejong Institute, and a member of the Presidential Policy Planning Committee.

As an expert on Korean and Comparative Politics, Electoral Studies, East Asian Political Economy, he has coauthored and edited various books and published numerous articles in international and Korean scholarly journals. His recent works include 5.31 Local Elections and Changing Korean Voters (2007), Is Rising China Threat or Opportunity?: Analysis of Cross-National Opinion Survey (2007), Changing ROK-US Alliance and Public Opinion (2005), Democratization and Historical Rectification in East Asia: Comparison of South Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand (2004), 2002 Presidential Election and Tasks of Roh Moo-hyun Government (2003), Dilemma and Choice of Roh Moo-hyun Government (2003), "Issues and Partisan Realignment in South Korea" (2007), "Changes in Korean Public Perception of the U.S. and Korea-U.S. Relations" (2005) and "Fluctuating Anti-Americanism and the Korea-U.S. Alliance" (2004).

Nae Young Lee Director of the Asiatic Research Center and Professor of Political Science Speaker Korea University
Shin Wha Lee Professor of Political Science Speaker Korea University

Gi-Wook Shin

Shorenstein APARC
Encina Hall E301
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
(650) 724-8480 (650) 723-6530
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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Professor of Sociology
William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea
Professor, by Courtesy, of East Asian Languages & Cultures
Gi-Wook Shin_0.jpg PhD

Gi-Wook Shin is the William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea in the Department of Sociology, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the founding director of the Korea Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) since 2001, all at Stanford University. In May 2024, Shin also launched the Taiwan Program at APARC. He served as director of APARC for two decades (2005-2025). As a historical-comparative and political sociologist, his research has concentrated on social movements, nationalism, development, democracy, migration, and international relations.

In Summer 2023, Shin launched the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab (SNAPL), which is a new research initiative committed to addressing emergent social, cultural, economic, and political challenges in Asia. Across four research themes– “Talent Flows and Development,” “Nationalism and Racism,” “U.S.-Asia Relations,” and “Democratic Crisis and Reform”–the lab brings scholars and students to produce interdisciplinary, problem-oriented, policy-relevant, and comparative studies and publications. Shin’s latest book, The Four Talent Giants, a comparative study of talent strategies of Japan, Australia, China, and India to be published by Stanford University Press in the summer of 2025, is an outcome of SNAPL.

Shin is also the author/editor of twenty-seven books and numerous articles. His books include The Four Talent Giants: National Strategies for Human Resource Development Across Japan, Australia, China, and India (2025); Korean Democracy in Crisis: The Threat of Illiberalism, Populism, and Polarization (2022); The North Korean Conundrum: Balancing Human Rights and Nuclear Security (2021); Superficial Korea (2017); Divergent Memories: Opinion Leaders and the Asia-Pacific War (2016); Global Talent: Skilled Labor as Social Capital in Korea (2015); Criminality, Collaboration, and Reconciliation: Europe and Asia Confronts the Memory of World War II (2014); New Challenges for Maturing Democracies in Korea and Taiwan (2014); History Textbooks and the Wars in Asia: Divided Memories (2011); South Korean Social Movements: From Democracy to Civil Society (2011); One Alliance, Two Lenses: U.S.-Korea Relations in a New Era (2010); Cross Currents: Regionalism and Nationalism in Northeast Asia (2007);  and Ethnic Nationalism in Korea: Genealogy, Politics, and Legacy (2006). Due to the wide popularity of his publications, many have been translated and distributed to Korean audiences. His articles have appeared in academic and policy journals, including American Journal of Sociology, World Development, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Political Science Quarterly, Journal of Asian Studies, Comparative Education, International Sociology, Nations and Nationalism, Pacific Affairs, Asian Survey, Journal of Democracy, and Foreign Affairs.

Shin is not only the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, but also continues to actively raise funds for Korean/Asian studies at Stanford. He gives frequent lectures and seminars on topics ranging from Korean nationalism and politics to Korea's foreign relations, historical reconciliation in Northeast Asia, and talent strategies. He serves on councils and advisory boards in the United States and South Korea and promotes policy dialogue between the two allies. He regularly writes op-eds and gives interviews to the media in both Korean and English.

Before joining Stanford in 2001, Shin taught at the University of Iowa (1991-94) and the University of California, Los Angeles (1994-2001). After receiving his BA from Yonsei University in Korea, he was awarded his MA and PhD from the University of Washington in 1991.

Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab (SNAPL)

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Shin's Reflections on Korea

A monthly column in the Korean magazine Sindonga
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Reengaging North Korea

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Stanford Asia-Pacific Innovation

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Director of the Korea Program and the Taiwan Program, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Director of Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab, APARC
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Gi-Wook Shin Director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and Tong Yang, Korea Foundation, and Korea Stanford Alumni Chair of Korean Studies Speaker Stanford University

David Straub

No longer in residence.

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Associate Director of the Korea Program
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David Straub was named associate director of the Korea Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) on July 1, 2008. Prior to that he was a 2007–08 Pantech Fellow at the Center. Straub is the author of the book, Anti-Americanism in Democratizing South Korea, published in 2015.

An educator and commentator on current Northeast Asian affairs, Straub retired in 2006 from his role as a U.S. Department of State senior foreign service officer after a 30-year career focused on Northeast Asian affairs. He worked over 12 years on Korean affairs, first arriving in Seoul in 1979.

Straub served as head of the political section at the U.S. embassy in Seoul from 1999 to 2002 during popular protests against the United States, and he played a key working-level role in the Six-Party Talks on North Korea's nuclear program as the State Department's Korea country desk director from 2002 to 2004. He also served eight years at the U.S. embassy in Japan. His final assignment was as the State Department's Japan country desk director from 2004 to 2006, when he was co-leader of the U.S. delegation to talks with Japan on the realignment of the U.S.-Japan alliance and of U.S. military bases in Japan.

After leaving the Department of State, Straub taught U.S.-Korean relations at the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in the fall of 2006 and at the Graduate School of International Studies of Seoul National University in spring 2007. He has published a number of papers on U.S.-Korean relations. His foreign languages are Korean, Japanese, and German.

David Straub Pantech Fellow, Shorenstein APARC Speaker Stanford University
Alexander Vershbow United States Ambassador to the Republic of Korea Speaker
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Rafiq Dossani speaks on India's arrival in IT

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In 1990, India's information technology sector had only around $100 million in exports. Today, it has become a major force in IT. So how did India's arrival in information technology happen?

On November 27, on the release of his new book, India Arriving: How This Economic Powerhouse is Redefining Global Business, Rafiq Dossani presented a seminar for SPRIE entitled, "Is India a Knowledge Economy?"

India's success in IT has been variously attributed to its widespread knowledge of English, to Indian democracy, or to the Indian educational system. Dossani, using the IT sector as an illustration, posited that this transformation has been a result of political change in India, specifically the transition to a particular type of coalition government.

Dossani also detailed the evolution of how IT companies work in India--for example, how a shift to local managers became critical for success--and discussed the fascinating IT sector developments in cities like Indore, where constant power outages are only a minor obstacle to over fifty small firms exporting software, English language skills aren't a prerequisite for success and private schools are luring faculty away from universities.

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