Dr. Lawrence Saez addresses two critical issues in comparative federalism, namely the issues of economic growth and fiscal policy. Drawing on data from twelve prominent emerging market federations (Argentina, Brazil, China, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, and Venezuela), Dr. Saez will examine the impact that globalization has had on economic growth at the national level and whether there has been a convergence or divergence at the sub-national level. The impact of globalization on fiscal policy and its "offloading" of fiscal deficits onto the subnational governments will be analyzed.

Lawrence Saez is concurrently assistant research political scientist at the Institute of East Asian Studies and visiting scholar at the Center for South Asia Studies, University of California, Berkeley. He is also the associate editor for South Asia at Asian Survey. His research is focused on comparative political economy and fiscal federalism in developing countries. He is currently working on trying to understand how globalization has affected subnational economic growth and the provision of public goods in emerging markets. He is the author of Federalism without a Center: The Impact of Political Reform and Economic Liberalization on India's Federal System (Sage, 2002). His book manuscript entitled, Repairing Heaven: Banking Reform in India and China, will be published later this year by Palgrave/St. Martin's Press. He holds a BA in political science from the University of California, Berkeley; an MA from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy; and a PhD in political science from the University of Chicago.

THE PAPER ACCOMPANYING THIS TALK MAY BE DOWNLOADED AT

http://Shorenstein APARC.stanford.edu/docs/Saez_seminar_paper.pdf

Professor Wang Jisi is director and a senior researcher of the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in Beijing. He is concurrently director of the Institute of International and Strategic Studies at the Party School of the Central Committee, the Communist Party of China, a guest professor of Peking University and Tsinghua University, and president of the Chinese Association for American Studies. He is also a member and advisor to many prestigious research institutions in the United States. He is now teaching a course on "China Under Reform" for the fall semester, 2001, as a Freeman Professor of Asian Studies at Claremont McKenna College in California. Wang Jisi's formal education was interrupted by the Cultural Revolution. In the ten years between 1968 and 1978 he did various sorts of labor as a herdsman, peasant, and factory worker in Inner Mongolia and central China. He entered Peking University in 1978 and obtained his MA degree in 1983. Professor Wang's scholarly interests cover international relations theory, U.S. foreign policy, Chinese foreign policy, and China-U.S. relations. He has published numerous works in these fields, including a recent volume in Chinese entitled "Lonely at the Top: U.S. Global Strategy and Position in the Post-Cold War World." His articles in English include "Building a Constructive Relationship between the United States, China, and Japan" (1998), "China's New Identity and Peace in Northeast Asia" (2000), "The Internet in China: A New Fantasy?" (2000), and "Hot Peace - Not a New Cold War - between China and the United States" (2001).

Four months into Megawati Sukarnoputri's presidency, many of the same ills continue to plague Indonesia Ð economic and legal reforms are at a standstill, corruption is rampant and Indonesia's 220 million still lack the democratic freedoms promised when Suharto stepped down three years ago. Home to the world's largest Muslim population, Indonesia, as much as or more than Pakistan, is subject to serious destablization in light of the events of September 11th and October 7th. Please join us for a timely and informative briefing on the current political, economic and social situation in Indonesia today.

Indonesian poet, essayist and journalist Goenawan Mohamad is the former editor of Tempo, the weekly news magazine once banned by Suharto because of its penetrating articles and expos?s. He has long been known for his reasoned, articulate criticism of government policies and as an advocate of democracy and free speech in Indonesia. He has spent the last semester as a Visiting Fellow at UCLA. Donald Emmerson is a leading authority on the politics and international relations of Southeast Asia, with particular concentration on Indonesia. He is currently a senior fellow in Stanford University's Institute for International Studies, where he also heads the Asia/Pacific Research Center's Southeast Asia Forum. Prior to this, Dr. Emmerson was a professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Department of Political Science. In June 1999, he helped monitor the Indonesian election for the National Democratic Institute and the Carter Center.

How has the largely American war in Afghanistan--the terrorist attacks of 11 September, the counterattack that began on 7 October, and the retreat of Taliban forces since 13 November--affected the foreign policy environment now facing Northeast and Southeast Asian states? Is this the beginning of Cold War II? Has terrorism replaced communism as the enemy of a new and enduring global alliance led by the United States? How do East Asian governments see themselves in relation to this anti-terrorist coalition? As enthusiasts eager to defend or promote democracy in politics and moderation in religion? As joiners hoping to elicit American support for the repression of "terrorism" inside their own countries, e.g., in Tibet, Aceh, and the Sulu archipelago? As bystanders skeptical of American motives and resentful of American influence, but resigned to their inability to curb American hegemony? As balancers eager to organize East Asia into a region able to defend itself against unchecked American power? Matters relevant to the answering of such questions include: disappointing economic trends in much of East Asia; the likely impact of the compromises reaching at the recent World Trade Organization meeting in Qatar; the status and implications of the proposed free trade area between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN); changing affinities and tensions among ASEAN members; military progress or failure in the effort to destroy Al Qaeda; and the possible involvement of East Asian contingents in a UN-brokered arrangement for the stabilization of Afghanistan. Simon SC Tay teaches international law at the National University of Singapore. He was selected for three terms as a Nominated Member of the Singapore Parliament. His many publications include A New ASEAN in a New Millennium (2000); Preventive Diplomacy and the ASEAN Regional Forum (1999); and "Towards a Singaporean Civil Society," in Southeast Asian Affairs 1998. He also writes stories and poems; his 1991 book, Stand Alone, was short-listed for the Commonwealth Prize. In 2000 the World Economic Forum named him a "global leader of tomorrow."

Press reports of rising anti-Americanism and Muslim militance in several Southeast Asian countries have fueled speculation that the United States may be planning to intervene against terrorist groups in that part of the world. How credible are these reports? In Indonesia, which has more Muslim citizens than any country with the possible exception of India, Islamist activists have demanded the severing of U.S.-Indonesian relations and threatened to expel Americans. There has been speculation that American advisers may soon arrive in the southern Philippines to help Manila root out ostensibly Islamist rebels operating there. While criticizing the bombing of Afghanistan, Malaysian Premier Mahathir Mohamad has accused his Muslim opposition of links to Islamist subversion. Meanwhile, Malaysian jihadist elements are alleged to have been in touch with Osama bin Laden's network. How real are these perceived dangers? What do they imply for stability and democracy in Southeast Asia, and for the future of America's global coalition against terror? Bambang Harymurti has long been associated with Tempo, the leading newsweekly in Indonesia. He served on its editorial board from 1987. When the magazine was banned in 1994, he moved to the daily newspaper Media Indonesia. He returned to Tempo following its reappearance in printed form in 1998. He has held fellowships at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and the East-West Center, among other institutions. He was also a finalist in Indonesia's astronaut program. Fortunately for journalism, he did not make the cut. Don Emmerson convenes the Southeast Asia Forum in the Asia/Pacific Research Center, a unit of Stanford's Institute for International Studies.

Physically aligned as they are toward Mecca, the daily prayers and lifetime pilgrimages of Muslims around the world--hundreds of millions of spokes of religious practice--surround and sustain the Arabian hub of Islam as religious practice. Yet the demographic center of gravity of the Muslim world could hardly be farther from the Middle East. For it is in the vast arc of Asia, in countries such as Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Malaysia, that the great majority of the world's Muslims live. How, if at all, does this striking difference between ritual focus and social fact affect the outlooks and actions of Asian Muslims? What, roughly, is the balance of militancy and toleration in this Asian context, especially in ethnically and religiously plural societies such as Malaysia? Is it realistic to think that Asian attitudes and behaviors could form the basis for a 21st-century reformation and renaissance of Islam in which the jihadist passions of Al Qaeda and the purist strictures of the House of Saud would be refuted and shunned in favor of intercultural cooperation and liberal democracy? Or has the American-Afghan crisis, on the contrary, ignited a chain reaction of sympathy for Arab (and Pashtun) resentments that will inflame Asian Muslims against unbelievers? Finally, what relevance do these questions have for the people and policies of the United States? Karim Raslan is one of Southeast Asia's leading public intellectuals. His diverse interests run from constructing fictional plots to restructuring all-too-real bankruptcies. When he is not writing short stories and newspaper commentaries, or appearing on CNN or the BBC, he partners a highly regarded Malaysian law firm, Raslan Loong. His first novel, Desire--the first of four planned volumes about a family of Malay Muslims--will be published next fall. A third collection of his short stories should be out next spring. His syndicated column, "Eye in Asia," appears weekly in newspapers in Malaysia and Singapore, and is often reprinted elsewhere in Asia and Australia. The specialties of his law firm include corporate finance, capital markets, and information technology. He is presently a visiting scholar at Columbia University. When he is not traveling, Mr. Raslan lives in Malaysia.

In August 1997, after financial crisis had broken out in Thailand, Japanese officials proposed the establishment of an Asian Monetary Fund (AMF). The proposal encountered a number of obstacles, the most formidable of which was opposition by the United States and the IMF. Consequently, Japanese officials aborted the initiative. However, the notion of an AMF resurfaced in a variety of forms thereafter,. Most recently, a network of bilateral currency swap arrangements has begun to emerge among the ASEAN + 3 nations under the auspices of the May 2000 Chiang Mai Initiative. This talk will examine the political dynamics surrounding the Japanese Government's initial proposal for the creation of an AMF in 1997, and the arrangements that have emerged in its place. In doing so, the talk will attempt to draw out the significance of the AMF idea, its institutional evolution for the U.S.-Japan bilateral relationship, and for U.S. and Japanese roles in multilateral financial institutions today.

The Kingdom of Bhutan, an independent country in the Himalayas, has designed its own theory and practice of socioeconomic development, which it calls "Gross National Happiness." Bhutan entered into relations with the outside world only in the early 1960s; since then it has pursued development in a way that is consonant with its own Buddhist values. An intrinsically interesting experiment in itself, Bhutan's experience now assumes broader relevancy as its pursuit of development must take account of the problems small nations and cultures confront in the face of the powerful impact of globalization. The Ambassador will discuss these problems and answer questions. His Excellency Om Pradhan, the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of Bhutan to the United Nations, was born in 1946 and was educated in India, England, and Hawaii. As Minister for Trade, Industry, Power, and Tourism in the Royal Government of Bhutan, he has been a central figure in Bhutan's economic and social development. He has also served as Bhutan's Ambassador to India, Nepal, and the Maldives, has led the Bhutanese delegation in several rounds of boundary talks with the People's Republic of China, has been a member of the National Assembly of Bhutan, and has participated in innumerable international and regional conferences.