Stanford University

International Relations

FSI researchers strive to understand how countries relate to one another, and what policies are needed to achieve global stability and prosperity. International relations experts focus on the challenging U.S.-Russian relationship, the alliance between the U.S. and Japan and the limitations of America’s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.

Foreign aid is also examined by scholars trying to understand whether money earmarked for health improvements reaches those who need it most. And FSI’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center has published on the need for strong South Korean leadership in dealing with its northern neighbor.

FSI researchers also look at the citizens who drive international relations, studying the effects of migration and how borders shape people’s lives. Meanwhile FSI students are very much involved in this area, working with the United Nations in Ethiopia to rethink refugee communities.

Trade is also a key component of international relations, with FSI approaching the topic from a slew of angles and states. The economy of trade is rife for study, with an APARC event on the implications of more open trade policies in Japan, and FSI researchers making sense of who would benefit from a free trade zone between the European Union and the United States.

CANCELED: Gandhi's Gift: Successful Mass Nonviolence and India's Decolonization

-

IMPORTANT EVENT UPDATE:

In keeping with Stanford University's March 3 message to the campus community on COVID-19 and current recommendations of the CDC, the Asia-Pacific Research Center is electing to postpone this event until further notice. We appreciate your understanding and cooperation as we do our best to keep our community healthy and well. 

 

Co-sponsored by Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) and Center for South Asia (CSA).

When does mass nonviolent mobilization for political change occur, what prevents it from degenerating into violence, and when does it succeed in extracting concessions? We examine these questions in the context of India's movement for independence from Britain, and point to the key roles played by economic shocks and organization in the success of nonviolence.

Rikhil Bhavnani

Rikhil R. Bhavnani is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and a faculty affiliate at the La Follette School of Public Affairs, the Elections Research Center and the Center for South Asia.

Professor Bhavnani’s research and teaching focus on inequalities in political representation, the political economy of migration, and the political economy of development. His research is particularly concerned with causal identification, and is focused on South Asia. Bhavnani is the co-author, with Bethany Lacina, of a book on the backlash against within-country migration across the developing world, published by Cambridge University Press. His articles have been published or are forthcoming in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, World Politics, the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, and other outlets. 

Prior to starting at UW–Madison, Professor Bhavnani was a visiting fellow at the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton University. He has worked at the Center for Global Development and the International Monetary Fund, and received a PhD in political science and an MA in economics from Stanford University, and a BA in political science and economics from Yale University.

Rikhil Bhavnani, <i>Associate Professor, Department of Political Science</i> University of Wisconsin–Madison
Seminars
South Asia Colloquia

Victor Cha

Shorenstein APARCStanford UniversityEncina Hall E301Stanford, CA 94305-6055
0
Koret Fellow, 2019-20
Visiting Scholar at APARC, Winter 2020
victor_cha-koret_fellow.jpg Ph.D.

Victor Cha, professor of government and international affairs at Georgetown University, joined the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Korea Program as the Koret Fellow for the winter quarter of 2020. He is the author of five books, including The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future (Harper Collins, 2012) and Powerplay: Origins of the American Alliance System in Asia (Princeton University Press, 2016). He holds Georgetown's Dean's Award for teaching for 2010, the Distinguished Research Award for 2011, and a Distinguished Principal Investigator Award for 2016.

Professor Cha left the White House in 2007 after serving since 2004 as Director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council, where he was responsible for Japan, the Korean peninsula, Australia/New Zealand, and Pacific Island affairs. He serves as Senior Advisor at CSIS, and is a non-resident Fellow in Human Freedom at the George W. Bush Institute in Dallas, Texas. He received a Ph.D. from Columbia University, M.A. from the University of Oxford, and MIA and B.A. from Columbia University.

The Decline of the “Singapore Model” and the Fate of Authoritarian Reformism in China

-

In the eyes of China’s neo-authoritarian reformers, Singapore, despite being a tiny city-state, long exemplified a state of affairs for which the PRC should strive: resilient authoritarianism alongside but unweakened by liberalizing steps conducive to economic growth.  On behalf of Beijing’s effort to learn from Singapore, tens of thousands of officials visited the city-state and thousands of articles and books were written about it. Today, however, Xi Jiinping has derided foreign templates and relegated adopting the “Singapore model” to a path not taken by China’s current hard-line leadership and unavailable for authoritarian reformers to pursue. Although the demotion was triggered by Xi’s anti-reformism and China’s rise, Singapore’s loss of “model” character was also path-dependent. Chinese academics studying Singapore had long misunderstood fundamental institutional differences between the two countries that went back to the city-state’s colonial past and China’s Stalinist-Maoist revolution. Efforts to model reforms on the Singaporean “state-party” ran into the prerogatives of the Chinese party-state. Proposals to strengthen market forces, impose limited legal constraints on the party, and introduce semi-competitive elections were seen as threatening the institutional foundations of the CPC. Moreover, despite a (partial) revival of Confucianism in China that imitated the city-state’s attraction to “Asian values,” Singapore’s neo-liberal “pragmatism” and multi-racialism contradicted the CPC’s self-portrayal as an engine of Marxist socialism embodying the Han-Chinese nation.

mark thompson 0120
Mark R. Thompson heads the Southeast Asia Research Centre at the City University of Hong Kong. He is president of the Hong Kong Political Science Association (HKPSA) and a former president of the Asian Political and International Studies Association (2013-14). A comparativist specializing in Southeast Asian politics, his publications include China’s “Singapore Model” and Authoritarian Learning, ed. with Stephan Ortmann (forthcoming 2020); Authoritarian Modernism in East Asia (2019); The Routledge Handbook of the Contemporary Philippines, ed. with Eric Batalla (2018); Dynasties and Female Political Leaders in Asia, ed. with Claudia Derichs (2014); Democratic Revolutions: Asia and Eastern Europe (2004); and The Anti-Marcos Struggle (1995).

Mark Thompson

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

(650) 725-6459 (650) 723-6530
0
MarkThompson[1].JPG PhD

Professor Thompson builds on Barrington Moore's insight that there are different "paths to the modern" world. Thompson's manuscript explores alternatives to the familiar South Korean-and Taiwan-based model of "late democratization." According to that model, political pluralism follows a formative period of economic growth during which labor is demobilized and big business, religious leaders, and professionals depend upon and are co-opted by the state.

Thompson argues that even when these preconditions are in place, democratization need not follow. Singapore is an illuminating case in point. The autocratic growth model pays insufficient attention to politics, including the sometimes crucial role of student activists in challenging developmental authoritarianism and triggering a democratic transition, as in Indonesia. As political actors, students (rather than a progressive bourgeoisie) may fill the oppositional vacuum created by the preconditions that characterized predemocratic South Korean and Taiwan.

In his critique of Northeast Asian-style, post-authoritarian "late democratization" and its emphasis on economic growth as the driver of political change, Professor Thompson uses evidence drawn from paired comparisons of Vietnam with China, Hong Kong with Singapore, and between South Korea and Taiwan on the one hand and other major Southeast Asian cases on the other.

Mark R. Thompson is a professor of political science at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany.  A Chicago native, he took his first degree in religious studies at Brown University followed by postgraduate work at Cambridge University and the University of the Philippines.  Fascinated by Philippine people power, he wrote his dissertation at Yale University on the anti-Marcos struggle (Yale University Press, 1996). After moving to Germany, he witnessed popular uprisings in East Germany and Eastern Europe, inspiring him to conceptualize democratic revolutions in essays later published as a book (Routledge, 2004).  He is in residence at Stanford as Lee Kong Chian Distinguished Fellow in Southeast Asian Studies from February through April 2009.

Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Distinguished Fellow on Southeast Asia
Head and Professor of Politics, Department of Asian and International Studies, City University of Hong Kong
Seminars

The US, China, and the Technology Cold War: How Washington and Beijing are Shaping the Future of Technology

-

IMPORTANT EVENT UPDATE: 

In keeping with Stanford University's March 3 message to the campus community on COVID-19 and current recommendations of the CDC, the Asia-Pacific Research Center is electing to make this event available through live stream only. We appreciate your understanding and cooperation as we do our best to keep our community healthy and well. 

Please join the live stream via Zoom by clicking here at the scheduled time, 4:30 PM, on March 4 to view Adam Segal's talk.

 

Analysts on both sides of the Pacific have described an escalating “technology cold war” between Beijing and Washington. Chinese hackers attack American technology companies and Beijing is reportedly planning on the removal of foreign software and hardware from government offices. Washington is blocking Chinese investments, using punitive measures against Huawei and Chinese surveillance companies, and scrutinizing research collaboration with Chinese universities as well as scientists and students. Both sides believe they are in and have to win a race to dominate 5G, AI, quantum, and other emerging technologies. What are the weapons of the tech cold war, and are the US and China doomed to ever more competition, or can they find common ground for cooperation? What does increasing competition between China and the United States mean for the rest of the world?

Portrait of Adam Segal
Adam Segal is the Ira A. Lipman Chair in emerging technologies and national security and Director of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). An expert on security issues, technology development, and Chinese domestic and foreign policy, Segal was the project director for the CFR-sponsored Independent Task Force reports titled Innovation and National Security: Keeping Our Edge. His most recent book, The Hacked World Order: How Nations Fight, Trade, Maneuver, and Manipulate in the Digital Age (PublicAffairs, 2016), describes the increasingly contentious geopolitics of cyberspace. His work has appeared in the Financial Times, the New York Times, Foreign Policy, the Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Affairs, among others. He currently writes for the blog, “Net Politics.”

 

Image of red flag over the Shanghai Bund
This event is part of the 2020 Winter/Spring Colloquia series, The PRC at 70: The Past, Present – and Future?, sponsored by APARC's China Program.

 

Adam Segal Director Digital and Cyberspace Policy Program, Council on Foreign Relations
Seminars
The PRC at 70: Past, Present -- and Future?

Active Defense: China’s Military Strategy Since 1949

-

Portrait of M Taylor Fravel
Since 1949, China has adopted nine national military strategies, known as “strategic guidelines.” The strategies adopted in 1956, 1980, and 1993 represent major changes in China's military strategy or efforts by the People's Liberation Army to wage war in a new way. This talk examines why major changes in strategy have been pursued at these periods and not at other times, highlighting the role of shifts in the conduct of warfare in the international system and unity among the top leaders of the Chinese Communist Party.

M. Taylor Fravel is the Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science and Director of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  Taylor studies international relations, with a focus on international security, China, and East Asia.  His books include Strong Borders, Secure Nation: Cooperation and Conflict in China's Territorial Disputes (Princeton University Press, 2008) and Active Defense: China's Military Strategy Since 1949 (Princeton University Press, 2019).  His other publications have appeared in International Security, Foreign Affairs, Security Studies, International Studies Review, The China Quarterly, The Washington Quarterly, Journal of Strategic Studies, Armed Forces & Society, Current History, Asian Survey, Asian Security, China Leadership Monitor, and Contemporary Southeast Asia. Taylor is a graduate of Middlebury College and Stanford University, where he received his PhD.  He also has graduate degrees from the London School of Economics and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.  In 2016, he was named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow by the Carnegie Corporation.  Taylor serves on the board of directors of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and as the Principal Investigator for the Maritime Awareness Project.

 

Image of red flag over the Shanghai Bund

This event is part of the 2020 Winter/Spring Colloquia series, The PRC at 70: The Past, Present – and Future?, sponsored by APARC's China Program.
 

M. Taylor Fravel Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science, MIT
Seminars
The PRC at 70: Past, Present -- and Future?

Shorenstein APARC Center Overview 2018-19

Paragraphs

Shorenstein APARC's annual overview for academic year 2018-19 is now available.

Learn about the research, events, and publications produced by the Center's programs over the last twelve months. Feature sections look at U.S.-China relations and the diplomatic impasse with North Korea, and summaries of current Center research on the socioeconomic impact of new technologies, the success of Abenomics, South Korean nationalism, and how Southeast Asian countries are navigating U.S.-China competition. Catch up on the Center's policy work, education initiatives, and outreach/events.

Read online:

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Annual Reports
Publication Date

Nominations Open for 2020 Shorenstein Journalism Award

Authors
Noa Ronkin
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

The annual award, which carries a US $10,000 cash prize, is sponsored by Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. It recognizes outstanding journalists and journalism organizations for excellence in coverage of the Asia-Pacific region. News editors, publishers, scholars, journalism associations, and organizations focused on Asia research and analysis are invited to submit nominations for the 2020 award through Friday, February 14.

STANFORD, CA, December 3, 2019 — The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), Stanford University’s hub for interdisciplinary research, education, and engagement on contemporary Asia, invites nominations for the 2020 Shorenstein Journalism Award. The award recognizes outstanding journalists who have spent their careers helping audiences around the world understand the complexities of   the Asia-Pacific region. The 2020 award will honor a journalist whose work has mostly been conveyed through American news media. The deadline for nomination submissions is Friday, February 14, 2020.

An annual tradition since 2002, the Shorenstein Journalism Award is sponsored by APARC and carries a cash prize of US $10,000. It honors the legacy of APARC benefactor, Mr. Walter H. Shorenstein, and his twin passions for promoting excellence in journalism and understanding of Asia. “In the face of a shifting geopolitical landscape and amid global declines of democracy, political rights, and civil liberties, it is more crucial than ever before to support independent journalism that seeks accuracy, deep reporting, and nuanced U.S.-Asia dialogue,” said APARC Director Gi-Wook Shin.

Over the course of its history, the award has recognized world-class journalists who push the boundaries of coverage of the Asia-Pacific region and help advance mutual understanding between audiences in the United States and their Asian counterparts. Recent honorees include Maria Ressa, Anna Fifield, Siddharth Varadarajan, Ian Johnson, and Caixin Media. The award alternates between recipients whose work has mostly been published through Asian news media and those whose work has mostly been conveyed through American news media. The 2020 award will recognize a recipient from the latter category.

For the award, the Asia-Pacific region is defined broadly to include Northeast, Southeast, South, and Central Asia and Australasia. Both individual journalists with considerable body of work and journalism organizations are eligible for the award. Nominees’ work may be in traditional forms of print or broadcast journalism and/or in new forms of multimedia journalism. The Award Selection Committee, whose members are experts in journalism and Asia research and policy, presides over the judging of nominees and is responsible for the selection of honorees.

APARC is seeking 2020 award nomination submissions from news editors, publishers, scholars, journalism associations, and entities focused on researching and interpreting the Asia-Pacific region. The Center will announce the winner by April 2020 and present the award at a public ceremony at Stanford in autumn quarter of 2020.

Nominations are accepted electronically through Friday, February 14, 2020 at 11:59 PM PST. For information about the nomination procedures and to submit nominations please visit the award nomination entry page.

Please direct all inquiries to aparc-communications@stanford.edu.

About the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) addresses critical issues affecting the countries of Asia, their regional and global affairs, and U.S.-Asia relations. As Stanford University’s hub for the interdisciplinary study of contemporary Asia, APARC produces policy-relevant research, provides education and training to students, scholars, and practitioners, and strengthens dialogue and cooperation between counterparts in the Asia-Pacific and the United States. Founded in 1983, APARC today is home to a scholar community of distinguished academics and practitioners in government, business, and civil society, who specialize in trends that cut across the entire Asia-Pacific region. Learn more about APARC and about the Shorenstein Journalism Award.

Hero Image
Announcement of open nominations for the 2020 Shorenstein Journalism Award with a background image of Stanford main quad.
All News button
1

Engineering and Technology Expert Cautions Against U.S. Restrictions on Collaboration with Chinese Nationals

Authors
Noa Ronkin
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

As a U.S.-China trade deal hangs in the balance and the world’s two largest economies are locked in a race for technological supremacy, concerns have arisen about China’s counterintelligence threat to the United States. In July 2019, FBI Director Christopher Wray told members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee that China poses the most severe counterintelligence threat to the United States than any other country, and described that national security and economic espionage threat as “deep and diverse and wide and vexing.” He noted that the FBI has to contend not only with Chinese officials but also with “nontraditional collectors,” including Chinese scientists and students who are looking to steal American innovation. There are currently multiple legislative proposals in Congress, all of which, in one way or another, are aimed at limiting university collaboration with Chinese nationals and the education of Chinese nationals in “strategic” research fields by U.S. higher education institutions.

These legislative endeavors, however, argues Arthur Bienenstock, co-chair of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Committee on International Scientific Partnerships, may endanger the U.S. science and technology workforce and limit the effectiveness of U.S. academic research, thus weakening the very fields the nation is most anxious to protect.

Bienenstock is also a member of the National Science Board, the governing body of the National Science Foundation, and former associate director for science of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. At Stanford, he is special assistant to the President for federal research policy, associate director of the Wallenberg Research Link, and professor emeritus of photon science. At a recent lecture hosted by APARC’s China Program, Bienenstock discussed some of the proposed legislation and federal acts regarding international scientific collaboration with China and their implications for the U.S. scientific workforce. He cautioned U.S policymakers against an expansive interpretation of what constitutes “sensitive research” in strategic areas, such as artificial intelligence and quantum science, and offered a framework for determining when scientific research should be subject to greater control.

[To get more stories like this delivered to your inbox sign up for APARC newsletters]

Arthur Bienenstock and Gi-Wook Shin seated at a conference room.
Indeed, said Bienenstock, “China is the only nation in the world that can and plans to challenge U.S. economic, military and ideological leadership” – a challenge that is partly based on its becoming a major scientific and technological power. He agreed that the concerns of FBI Director Wray and others are valid and must be considered carefully, but noted, based on his observations at informative sessions and a meeting with an FBI officer, that the overall number of documented misdeeds involving Chinese nationals is over 100 – far from a deep and wide threat – and that he has not seen evidence of significant student participation in those misdeeds.

We must come to terms with reality, claimed Bienenstock, presenting evidence that the United States is no longer the dominant funder of science and technology research; that Chinese nationals constitute a very significant portion of the U.S. workforce in computer science, engineering, and mathematics; and that the U.S. science and technology workforce is highly dependent on Chinese graduate students.

The United States must maintain and strengthen its scientific and technological efforts if it is to maintain a leadership position, Bienenstock said. To do so, he emphasized, U.S. universities must maintain their openness, and lawmakers, in turn, must thoughtfully understand the benefits of collaboration with Chinese scientists and engineers as well as keep the country attractive for Chinese students.

Listen to highlights from Bienenstock’s presentation on our SoundCloud channel. A transcript is available below.

Photo: Arthur Bienenstock (right) and APARC DIrector Gi-Wook Shin (credit: Andrea Brown).

Hero Image
Concept of U,S.-China technology competition: brain-shaped boxing gloves covered in U.S. and China flags facing against each other on a background of a motherboard Just Super/ Getty Images
All News button
1

What U.S.-China Strategic Competition Means for the Korea-U.S. Relationship

-

Panelists:

Young-Sun Ha, Chairman, East Asia Institute, South Korea; Professor emeritus, Political Science and International Relations, Seoul National University

Wang Hwi Lee, Professor, Political Science, Ajou University, South Korea

Thomas Fingar, Shorenstein APARC Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University

Gi-Wook Shin (moderator), Director, Shorenstein APARC;  William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea, Stanford University

 

Panel Discussions
Korean Studies Colloquium Series
Subscribe to International Relations