Stanford University

Governance

FSI's research on the origins, character and consequences of government institutions spans continents and academic disciplines. The institute’s senior fellows and their colleagues across Stanford examine the principles of public administration and implementation. Their work focuses on how maternal health care is delivered in rural China, how public action can create wealth and eliminate poverty, and why U.S. immigration reform keeps stalling. 

FSI’s work includes comparative studies of how institutions help resolve policy and societal issues. Scholars aim to clearly define and make sense of the rule of law, examining how it is invoked and applied around the world. 

FSI researchers also investigate government services – trying to understand and measure how they work, whom they serve and how good they are. They assess energy services aimed at helping the poorest people around the world and explore public opinion on torture policies. The Children in Crisis project addresses how child health interventions interact with political reform. Specific research on governance, organizations and security capitalizes on FSI's longstanding interests and looks at how governance and organizational issues affect a nation’s ability to address security and international cooperation.

Does Xi Jinping Teach Us Anything New About Chinese Politics?

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Joseph Fewsmith is the author of four books:  China Since Tiananmen:  The Politics of Transition(2001), Elite Politics in Contemporary China (2001), The Dilemmas of Reform in China:  Political Conflict and Economic Debate (1994), and Party, State, and Local Elites in Republican China:  Merchant Organizations and Politics in Shanghai, 1980-1930 (1985).  He is very active in the China field, traveling to China frequently and presenting papers at professional conferences such as the Association for Asian Studies and the American Political Science Association.  His articles have appeared in such journals as Asian Survey, Comparative Studies in Society and History, the China Journal, the China Quarterly, Current History, The Journal of Contemporary China, Problems of Communism, and Modern China.  He is also a research associate of the John King Fairbank Center for East Asian Studies at Harvard University.

Alice Lyman Miller is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and teaches in the Departments of History and Political Science at Stanford. She is also a senior lecturer in the Department of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Miller's research focuses on foreign policy and domestic politics issues in China and on the international relations of East Asia. She is editor and contributor to the Hoover Institution’s China Leadership Monitor, which has since 2001 offered online authoritative assessments of trends in Chinese leadership politics to American policymakers and the general public. Miller has published extensively on policy issues dealing with China, including several articles and book chapters, as well as two books: Science and Dissent in Post-Mao China: The Politics of Knowledge (University of Washington Press, 1996), and, with Richard Wich, Becoming Asia: Change and Continuity in Asian International Relations Since World War II (Stanford University Press, 2011).  She is currently working on a new book, tentatively entitled The Evolution of Chinese Grand Strategy, 1550–Present, that brings a historical perspective to bear on China's rise in the contemporary international order.

China’s Conflicting Policy Directions

A climate of uncertainty marks the Xi administration’s second year in power. The unfurling of a nationwide anti-corruption campaign, including high-profile domestic and international targets, may have unintended effects on economic growth. But will these effects be short- or long-lived? Can this campaign build confidence, domestically and internationally, in the party’s governing capacity? Questions also swirl around the motivations for reviving Mao-era language in the political realm while maintaining a relentless urbanization drive in the social and economic realms. In foreign affairs, centrifugal regional forces and suspicion of US intentions in the Pacific must be reconciled with China’s deepening engagement with global institutions and commitment to “opening up” to the world. To address these issues, this series will bring together experts to share research and insights on the underlying logic for the seemingly contradictory policy paths recently chosen by China’s leaders. 

Please note: this talk is off the record.

Philippines Conference RoomEncina Hall616 Serra St., 3rd floorStanford UniversityStanford, CA 94305
Alice Lyman Miller Research Fellow Hoover Institution
Joseph Fewsmith Professor, Political Science Boston University
Lectures
China’s Conflicting Policy Directions

Stanford scholars talk APEC 2014

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Asia-Pacific leaders recently met in Beijing at the annual APEC summit, and after two days of discussion, concluded with some significant pledges and remarkable moments. President Xi Jinping of China and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan held a landmark meeting, and the United States and China discussed two agreements that are both symbolic, and lay groundwork for regional progress, say Stanford scholars.

High-level intergovernmental meetings are often more theatre than substance, but this year the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the oldest trans-Pacific regional organization, delivered important messages and may spur actions by member governments.

“Any summit is a ‘hurry up, get this done’ motivator,” says Thomas Fingar, the Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. “The head of state goes to the meeting – and generally speaking – he doesn’t want to arrive and say ‘my guys were asleep for the last year.’”

Fingar says the APEC summit prodded countries to work on “deliverables,” particularly the goals and projects on the agenda from previous meetings. He recently returned from Beijing, and shared his perspectives with students in the Asia-Pacific Scholars Program.

Writing for the East Asia Forum, Donald Emmerson, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, said many of the commitments declared at the APEC summit, and at the subsequent meetings of the G20 in Australia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Myanmar, will have implications for global governance, particularly as China holds a more influential role in the region.

APEC countries account for over 40 percent of the world’s population and nearly half of global trade – and true to form, the grand vision of the summit is to advance regional economic integration.

Yet, “the ancillary things – things that went on in the margins – are in many ways more important,” Fingar says, referring to areas outside of the summit’s obvious focus, and what’s discussed on the sidelines of the public talks.

 

apec economic leaders meeting cropped

 

Key outcomes from the 2014 gathering include:

  • The leaders of Japan and China met for the first time since coming into office, afterward acknowledging that the two countries have “disagreements” in their official statements. Of the Xi-Abe meeting, Fingar says, “it helps clear the way for lower level bureaucrats to go to work on real issues."

 

  • The United States and China announced a proposal to extend visas for students and businesspeople on both sides. While the immediate effects would be helpful, the change is symbolically superior. “You don’t give 5-10 year visas to adversaries,” he says, it shows that “‘we’re in [the relationship] for the long-term.’”

 

  • China proposed the development of a new “Silk Road,” pledging $40 billion in resources toward infrastructure projects shared with South and Central Asian neighbors. “It’s tying the region together and creating economy-of-scale possibilities for other countries,” he says. “A real win-win situation.”

 

  • The United States and China, the world’s two largest energy consumers, announced bilateral plans to cut carbon emissions over the next two decades. “It’s significant because those two countries must be the ones to lead the world in this area. Unless we are seen to be in basic agreement, others will hold back.”

 

  • China codified the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), a global financial institution intended as an alternative to institutions like the World Bank. “China has been frustrated with its role in existing international institutions,” Fingar says, explaining a likely motivation behind the AIIB’s creation.

Emmerson said the outcomes of the APEC summit from the U.S.-China standpoint were better than expected, speaking to McClatchy News. The visa and climate deals, as well as their commitment to lowering global tariffs on IT products, will lessen chances of conflict between the two countries. 

However, the summit did leave some areas unsolved. One of the most important is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade pact proposed by the United States that includes 11 others countries in the region, but does not yet include China.

Leaders “made positive noises” coming out of the TPP discussions, Fingar says, but nothing was passed. The gravity and complexity of trade-related issues, especially agriculture and intellectual property, is likely to blame for slow action.

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Leaders pose for a group photo at the 22nd APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting in Beijing, China.
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Has China Outgrown or Abandoned Deng’s Path to Wealth and Power?

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Tom Fingar cropped
The pattern and logic of China’s interactions with other countries and the international system as a whole were clear and predictable for 35 years, but developments during the past few years suggest that Beijing may have concluded that it is no longer necessary to follow the strategy articulated by Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s.  Is the break with the past more apparent than real, or has Xi Jinping determined that China can (or must) be more demanding and less accommodating than it was when the country was less prosperous and less powerful?  Is what we are witnessing now a temporary aberration or the first indication that we have entered a new phase of China’s rise and integration into the global system?

 

Thomas Fingar is the inaugural Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He was the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford during January to December 2009. 

 

From May 2005 through December 2008, he served as the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and, concurrently, as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. He served previously as assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (2004–2005), principal deputy assistant secretary (2001–2003), deputy assistant secretary for analysis (1994–2000), director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific (1989–1994), and chief of the China Division (1986–1989). Between 1975 and 1986 he held a number of positions at Stanford University, including senior research associate in the Center for International Security and Arms Control.

 

Fingar is a graduate of Cornell University (AB in government and history, 1968), and Stanford University (MA, 1969 and PhD, 1977 both in political science). His most recent book is Reducing Uncertainty: Intelligence Analysis and National Security (Stanford University Press, 2011).

 
This event is off the record.

 

Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow
Philippines Conference RoomEncina Hall616 Serra St., 3rd floorStanford UniversityStanford, CA 94305See Map
Lectures
China’s Conflicting Policy Directions

New Approaches to China

The China Program’s "New Approaches to China" series features scholars and practitioners who are focused on policy-relevant research questions that offer a fresh examination of enduring themes in the study of contemporary China. These themes include the sustainability of China's growth model, resilience of the Chinese party-state, frictions in Chinese state-society relations, and China's evolving relationship with a dynamic region and global system.

China under Xi Jinping

The 3rd Plenum of the 18th Party Congress unveiled details of the reforms to come under Xi Jinping’s rule of China. But how significant are they? Are the proposed reforms sufficient to tackle the challenges that China faces? Can they be achieved? Are they contradictory? These questions are all the more pressing given Xi Jinping’s seemingly divergent policy directions in the economic and political realms.

China's Looming Challenges

The 'rise of China' has become the preoccupation of policymakers, academics, and business leaders from the United States and Japan to Europe. But as Bloomberg News argued in a recent editorial, "they should be more concerned about what happens if the country's growth falters." A China whose growth is slowing would mean a China with less capital to invest, at home and globally, and whose markets and economy would be less able to provide an engine of growth for others, close at hand in Asia and in North America and Europe.

China and the World

The Stanford China Program, in cooperation with the Center for East Asian Studies, will host a special series of seminars to examine China as a major political and economic actor on the world stage. Over the course of the autumn and winter terms, leading scholars will examine China’s actions and policies in the new global political economy. What is China’s role in global governance? What is the state of China’s relations with its Asian neighbors? Is China being more assertive both diplomatically as well as militarily? Are economic interests shaping its foreign policies?

Does Good Governance Lead to Growth Or Vice Versa? China’s Great Transformation

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Is it good governance that leads to growth or vice versa? Applying a "complexity" framework to China’s great economic and bureaucratic transformation, Professor Ang argues that governance and growth necessarily interact and coevolve. So-called good governance is not a universal set of institutions—its particular forms vary dramatically at early and late stages of development. Moreover, the adaptive processes of coevolution do not universally happen or work. Understanding how reformers tackled problems of adaptation illuminates the sources of China’s extraordinary dynamism and the new challenges in the 21st century. 

Yuen Yuen Ang is Assistant Professor in Political Science at the University of Michigan. Ang studies development and governance in developing countries, especially China, focusing on the coevolution of state and economy, bureaucracy, and corruption. Her research has appeared in The Journal of Politics, Comparative Politics, The China Quarterly, and other journals. Ang’s book project was supported by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS)/Andrew Mellon Foundation, Chiang Ching Kuo Foundation, Overseas Young Chinese Foundation/1990 Institute, APSA Paul Volcker Junior Scholar Grant, and grants from Stanford, Columbia, and Michigan. A summary essay of Ang's forthcoming book is available at this link. She was awarded the Eldersveld Prize for outstanding research by the UM Political Science Department in 2014. Before joining Michigan, she was an Assistant Professor at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). She obtained her PhD from Stanford University.

This event is part of the New Approaches to China series.

Philippines Conference RoomEncina Hall616 Serra St., 3rd floorStanford UniversityStanford, CA 94305
Yuen Yuen Ang Assistant Professor in Political Science, University of Michigan
Seminars
New Approaches to China

The Paradoxes Of Post-Mao Rural Reform: Initial Steps Toward A New Countryside, 1976-81

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The period from the arrest of the “gang of four” in October 1976 to the final step in the removal of Hua Guofeng in mid-1981 saw CCP rural policy go through a number of phases. The initial emphasis on a moderate version of the Dazhai model gave way to “traditional policies” (luoshi zhengce) by mid-1978; these policies were supplemented in 1979 by “responsibility systems,” the most radical of which, household contracting (baochan daohu), became a sharply divisive issue in 1980, but still not the main aspect of agricultural policy. The tide was moving strongly toward household contracting by mid-1981, but had not yet achieved unambiguous endorsement as the Party policy.

A number of inadequate approaches have dominated the literature, notably 1) a power/policy struggle between Hua Guofeng's neo-Maoists and Deng Xiaoping's reform coalition; 2) the power of the peasants; and 3) the leading role of provincial reformers. The first has no validity, the second and third must be viewed through more complex lenses. The talk will explicate the key factors and present an alternative explanation of the success of rural reform.

Frederick C. Teiwes is Emeritus Professor of Chinese Politics at the University of Sydney. He received his B.A. from Amherst College and his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University. He is the author of various books on Chinese elite politics including Politics and Purges in China (1979, 1993), Leadership, Legitimacy, and Conflict in China (1984), and Politics at Mao's Court (1990). Some of his most important work has been jointly authored with Warren Sun including The Politics of Agricultural Cooperativization: Mao, Deng Zihui, and the "High Tide" of 1955 (1993), The Tragedy of Lin Biao: Riding the Tiger during the Cultural Revolution, 1966-1971 (1996), China’s Road to Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians and Provincial Leaders in the Emergence of the Great Leap Forward, 1955-1959 (1999), and The End of the Maoist Era: Chinese Politics during the Twilight of the Cultural Revolution, 1972-1976 (2007).

Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room

Encina Hall, 3rd floor, East Wing

616 Serra St.

Stanford University

Stanford, CA 94305

Frederick C. Teiwes Emeritus Professor of Chinese Politics Speaker University of Sydney
Lectures

Leniency in Chinese Criminal Law? Everyday Justice in Henan

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In recent years Chinese courts, in particular those in Henan Province, have begun to place a vast quantity of court options online.  This talk examines one-year of publicly available criminal judgments from one basic-level rural county court and one intermediate court in Henan in order to better understand trends in routine criminal adjudication in China.  The result is an account of ordinary criminal justice that is both familiar and striking:  a system that treats serious crimes, in particular those affecting state interests, harshly while at the same time acting leniently in routine cases.  Most significantly, examination of more than five hundred court decisions shows the vital role that settlement plays in criminal cases in China today.  Defendants who agree to compensate their victims receive strikingly lighter sentences than those who do not.  Likewise, settlement plays a role in resolving even serious crimes, at times appearing to make the difference between life and death for criminal defendants.  These findings provide insight into a range of debates concerning the roles being played by the Chinese criminal justice system and the functions of courts in that system.  Examination of cases from Henan also provides a base for discussing the future of empirical research on Chinese court judgments, demonstrating that there is much to learn from the vast volume of cases that have in recent years become publicly available.

Benjamin L. Liebman is the Robert L. Lieff Professor of Law and the Director of the Center for Chinese Legal Studies at Columbia Law School. His recent publications include “Malpractice Mobs: Medical Dispute Resolution in China,” Columbia Law Review (2013); “A Return to Populist Legality? Historical Legacies and Legal Reform,” in Mao’s Invisible Hand (edited by Sebastian Heilmann and Elizabeth Perry, 2011); and “Toward Competitive Supervision?  The Media and the Courts,” China Quarterly (2011).

Philippines Conference Room

Benjamin L. Liebman Robert L. Lieff Professor of Law and Director, Center for Chinese Legal Studies Speaker Columbia Law School
Seminars
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