The Korea Program is part of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.
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.
The Korean Studies Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) is pleased to announce that Peter M. Beck will join the Center for the 2009-2010 academic year. Beck's research will be on the impact of foreign media in North Korea. During his fellowship at the Center, he will hold seminars related to his research project and will be involved in various projects on Korea.
Beck teaches at American University in Washington, D.C. and Ewha University in Seoul. He also writes a monthly column for Weekly Chosun and The Korea Herald. Previously, he was the executive director of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and directed the International Crisis Group’s Northeast Asia Project in Seoul. He was also the Director of Research and Academic Affairs at the Korea Economic Institute in Washington. He has served as a member of the Ministry of Unification’s Policy Advisory Committee and as an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown and Yonsei universities.
He also has been a columnist for the Korean daily Donga Ilbo, an instructor at the University of California at San Diego, a translator for the Korea Foundation, and a staff assistant at Korea’s National Assembly and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has published over 100 academic and short articles, testified before Congress, and conducted interviews with the world’s leading media outlets. He received his B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley, completed the Korean language program at Seoul National University, and conducted his graduate studies at U.C. San Diego’s Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies.
Pantech Fellowships, generously funded by Pantech Co., Ltd., and Curitel Communications, Inc. (the "Pantech Group"), are intended to cultivate a diverse international community of scholars and professionals committed to and capable of grappling with challenges posed by developments in Korea. We invite individuals from the United States, Korea, and other countries to apply.
Although South Korea has democratized, the weakness of liberalism there as a major political ideology and value system has prevented the full flowering of democracy. This talk will examine the historical roots of liberalism's failure to take firm root in Korean politics and society. The causes of such weakness are to be found, in both of the two major social and political forces in Korean society, conservatives and radical/progressive forces; neither has been or is liberal. The resulting problems include a strong, highly centralized state and its authoritarian tendencies, the failure to create a stable party system, civil society's weak autonomy vis-à-vis the state, and inadequate constitutional checks-and-balances among the three branches of government exacerbated by a weak judiciary. With democratic practice falling ever farther behind the Korean people's aspirations, enhanced liberalism will not solve all problems. Nevertheless, Dr. Choi argues, it could point the way toward a richer Korean democracy.
Jang Jip Choi is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Korea University, Seoul, Korea, and currently a Visiting Professor in the Sociology Department at Stanford University. Specializing in contemporary political history in Korea, the theory of democracy, comparative politics and labor politics, professor Choi is the author of many books, scholarly articles and political commentaries on Korean politics, including Democracy after Democratization in Korea (2002), Which Democracy? (2007), and From Minjung to Citizens (2008). Professor Choi holds a B.A. in political science from Korea University, and an M.A. and a Ph.D in Political Science from the University of Chicago. He was a professor in the department of political science at Korea University until his retirement in 2008.
Philippines Conference Room
In these uncertain times, the new Obama administration has an important opportunity to transform our vitally important alliance with the Republic of Korea (ROK, or South Korea) into a broader and deeper regional and even global partnership. South Korean President Lee Myung- bak is committed to the concept, and he has four more years in office to work with President Obama on it. The South Korean public also feels considerable goodwill toward President Obama. South Korea is key to American interests in dealing with North Korea and China, and, as the world’s thirteenth-largest economy, it is a factor in all regions of the world.
The group's observations and recommendations on key U.S.-ROK issues:
Two decades ago, South Korea appeared on the path to greatly increased security. The Cold War was ending, fundamentally improving South Korea’s regional security environment. While retaining an alliance with the United States, South Korea was able to normalize relations with all of its neighbors except North Korea. It outpaced North Korea economically, technologically, politically, diplomatically, and militarily. Enjoying a dynamic democracy and firmly committed to the free market, South Korea seemed destined to grow only stronger vis-à-vis North Korea as the leading Korean state and to be well-positioned to preserve its security and integrity against much larger neighbors.
Today, however, South Korea unexpectedly faces a new constellation of significant threats to its security from both traditional and non-traditional sources.
This closed workshop will examine the above issues from the viewpoint of enhancing South Korea’s security in coming decades.
This workshop is supported by the generous grant from Koret Foundation.
Bechtel Conference Center
Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall E301
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
General (retired) Byung Kwan Kim is the inaugural Koret Fellow for 2008-09 academic year. He was the Deputy Commander of ROK-US Combined Forces Command and the Commander of Ground Component Command.
Koret Fellowship was established by the generous support from Koret Foundation to bring leading professionals in Asia and the United States to Stanford to study United States-Korea relations. The fellows will conduct their own research on the bilateral relationship, with an emphasis on contemporary relations with the broad aim of fostering greater understanding and closer ties between the two countries.
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.
No longer in residence.
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.
Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall E301
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Donald W. Keyser retired from the U.S. Department of State in September 2004 after a 32-year career. He had been a member of the Senior Foreign Service since 1990, and held Washington-based ambassadorial-level assignments 1998-2004. Throughout his career he focused on U.S. policy toward East Asia, particularly China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and the Korean Peninsula. Fluent in Chinese and professionally conversant in Japanese, Russian and French, he served three tours at the American Embassy in Beijing, two tours at the American Embassy in Tokyo, and almost a dozen years in relevant domestic assignments. In the course of his career, Keyser logged extensive domestic and foreign experience in senior management operations, conflict resolution, intelligence operations and analysis, and law enforcement programs and operations. A Russian language major in college and a Soviet/Russian area studies specialist through M.A. work, Keyser served 1998-99 as Special Negotiator and Ambassador for Regional Conflicts in the Former USSR. He sought to develop policy initiatives and strategies to resolve three principal conflicts, leading the U.S. delegation in negotiations with four national leaders and three separatist leaders in the Caucasus region.
Keyser earned his B.A. degree, Summa Cum Laude, with a dual major in Political Science and Russian Area Studies, from the University of Maryland. He pursued graduate studies at The George Washington University, Washington, D.C., from 1965-67 (Russian area and language focus) and 1970-72 (Chinese area and language focus). He attended the National War College, Fort McNair, Washington (1988-89), earning a certificate equivalent to an M.S., Military Science; and the National Defense University Capstone Program (summer 1995) for flag-rank military officers and civilians.
Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall E301
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Dr. Jong Seok Lee was the Minister of Unification, and the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National Security Council in Korea. He is currently a Senior Fellow at Sejong Institute in Korea. He has published books on North Korea-China relations, contemporary North Korea, and Korea unification.
