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.

The Korean Peninsula: China's Opportunity or Challenge?

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Claude Barfield is a resident scholar and Director of Sciences and Technology Policy Studies at American Enterprise Institute. A former consultant to the office of the United States Trade Representative, Dr.. Barfield researches international trade policy (including trade policy in China and East Asia), the World Trade Organization, science and technology policy, and intellectual property.

Nam K. Woo is President of LG Electronics, Inc. (LGE), a $30 billion global leader in consumer electronics, home appliances and mobile phones. Over the past five years, as President and CEO of LGE's Digital Display and Media Company, Mr. Woo led the transformation of LG Electronics into a global consumer electronics brand, while establishing the company as a world leader in flat-panel plasma and liquid-crystal displays, optical storage devices and digital television.

Anne Wu is a joint International Security Program/Managing the Atom Project research fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Her current research focus is the cooperation among major powers in resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis. Prior to joining Harvard, she was a career diplomat in China, with focus on Asian Pacific security and political issues.

Scott Snyder is a Pantech Fellow at Walter H. Shorenstein Asia Pacific Research Center and Senior Associate with the Pacific Forum CSIS and a Senior Associate at the Asia Foundation. Snyder has written extensively on Korean affairs and has also conducted research on the political/security implications of the Asian financial crisis and on the conflicting maritime claims in the South China Sea.

Scott Rembrandt is the Director of Research and Academic Affairs at KEI, having joined the institute in October 2004 after four and a half years in Asia. Prior to joining KEI, Scott most recently served as a consultant in China and as the Business Manager for the Chief Country Officer Group - Asia for Deutsche Bank.

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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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Selected Multimedia

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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 Speaker Stanford University
Claude Barfield Speaker American Enterprise Institute
Nam K. Woo CEO Speaker LG Electronics
Scott Rembrandt Moderator Korea Economic Institute
Anne Wu Speaker Harvard University

Scott Snyder

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

(650) 723-6530
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Pantech Fellow
MA

Scott Snyder is a senior associate in the International Relations program of The Asia Foundation and Pacific Forum CSIS, and is based in Washington, DC. He spent four years in Seoul as Korea Representative of The Asia Foundation between 2000 and 2004. Previously, he served as a program officer in the Research and Studies Program of the U.S. Institute of Peace, and as acting director of the Asia Society's Contemporary Affairs Program. He has recently edited, with L. Gordon Flake, a study titled Paved With Good Intentions: The NGO Experience in North Korea (2003), and is author of Negotiating on the Edge: North Korean Negotiating Behavior (1999).

Snyder received his BA from Rice University and an MA from the Regional Studies East Asia Program at Harvard University. He was the recipient of an Abe Fellowship, administered by the Social Sciences Research Council, in 1998-99, and was a Thomas G. Watson Fellow at Yonsei University in South Korea in 1987-88.

Scott Snyder Speaker Stanford University
Symposiums

Issue Salience of Unemployment and Vote Switching

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Dr. Kwon will examine the electoral effects of issue salience of unemployment. While increasing employment volatility has spawned exciting research, evidence of how unemployment affects voter choice is inconclusive. Professor Kwon refines partisan voting theory by focusing on issue salience of unemployment and the dynamics of voter choice. Voters are more likely to make a transition to support Left parties when they identify unemployment as the most important and salient issue, while there is no effect of issue salience of unemployment on loyal Left voter behavior. His study also examines voter heterogeneity in the link between issue salience and the probability of transition to Left. Analysis of a transition model using the 1997 Korean presidential election survey finds supporting evidence.

Hyeok Yong Kwon (Ph.D., Cornell University) is an assistant professor in political science at Korea University. Before joining Korea University, he taught at Texas A&M University. His research interests include political economy, voting behavior and mass public opinion, and political methodology. His recent works explore economic insecurity and the dynamics of voter choice in comparative perspective. Also, he works on the relationship between government partisanship and welfare spending in OECD countries. Previous publications include "Targeting Public Spending in a New Democracy: Evidence from South Korea" British Journal of Political Science (2005) and "Economic Reform and Democratization: Evidence from Latin America and Post-Socialist Countries" British Journal of Political Science (2004).

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Hyeok Yong Kwon Speaker Texas A & M University
Seminars
Korea Program
Korean Studies Colloquium Series

Slowing at Sunset: Administrative Procedures and the Pace of Reform in Korea

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The pace of policy reform is important in new democracies, where the status quo policies, established by non-democratic regimes, may be far from the preferences of popular majorities. Slowing policy reform slows down governmental implementation of democratic policy mandates. This, in turn, may offset (at least partly) the positive effects of broader participation and greater accountability.

Whether the net impact of procedural reform is to accelerate or to slow policy reform depends on the particular procedures involved, and the political context. In this paper, the authors consider a procedure that, on the surface, appears likely to accelerate reform, thereby promoting change in the policy status quo. This is a sunset rule.

This paper focuses on the sunset rule adopted in South Korea, at the end of the Kim Young Sam administration. Kim's support for the sunset rule at the end of his term is puzzling. Why would a lame duck president support a rule that would seem to limit the life of the regulations passed in his own term?

Jeeyang Rhee Baum, is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego. She earned her Ph.D. in political science at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research interests include comparative political institutions, administrative law, and bureaucracies with a particular emphasis on East Asia. Her most recent publications include: "Presidents Have Problems Too: The Logic of Intra-branch Delegation in East Asian Democracies", British Journal of Political Science (forthcoming) and "Breaking Authoritarian Bonds: The Political Origins of the Taiwan Administrative Procedure Act", Journal of East Asian Studies.

Philippines Conference Room

Jeeyang Baum Assistant Professor Speaker University of California, San Diego
Seminars
Korea Program

Taiwan Democracy

The Taiwan Democracy project and event series invites leading scholars and diplomats from the United States and Asia to discuss a variety of topics related to cross-strait relations and greater democracy in East Asia as a whole.

Most events are open to the public.

The project has also in the past funded two scholars from Taiwan to pursue their research at Shorenstein APARC.

North Korea in 2005 and Beyond

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Congressman Weldon represents the Seventh Congressional District of Pennsylvania. He is in his tenth term and is the most senior Republican in the Pennsylvania delegation. He is a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee and a leading House supporter of a national missile defense program. The Congressman has worked to strengthen the dialogue between the US and North Korea for the past three years. He has worked closely with Ambassador Han of North Korea as well as former Secretary Powell and Ambassador Pritchard to urge both sides to continue their participation in the six-party talks.

General Cha achieved the rank of Lieutenant General in the Army of the Republic of Korea. He has had a distinguished career, serving both in the public and the private sector, including as policy advisor to the Ministry of Unification, director general of the Policy Planning Bureau and deputy minster for Policy, and as an assistant professor in international relations. He has a B.A. in political science from Seoul National University, a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the Korea Military Academy, and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Paris. He is the author of several books and articles on Korean security issues, published in both Korean and English.

Bechtel Conference Center

Congressman Curt Weldon United States House of Representatives
General Young Koo Cha Senior Executive Advisor Pantech Co., Ltd.
Seminars

A New Spirit of Bandung?

Authors
Donald K. Emmerson
News Type
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Donald K. Emmerson reflects on the fiftieth anniversary of a landmark meeting held in Indonesia in April 1955, which became a global icon of anti-colonial solidarity.

Fifty years ago, in April 1955 in Bandung, Indonesia, the country's then-president Sukarno hosted a meeting that became a global icon of anti-colonial solidarity. The 29 African and Asian states represented at that first Bandung Conference swore their support for sovereignty and self-determination. Their priority was on national not individual freedom. The final declaration mentioned human rights. But it ignored the danger that foreign colonialists might be replaced with indigenous dictators. Democracy, corruption, and good governance were issues for the future.

This year in Indonesia, from 18 to 24 April, some 87 delegations, including 40 heads of state or government and more than 100 ministers, celebrated the "golden jubilee" anniversary of the Bandung Conference. In a series of summit, ministerial, and other meetings they sought to "reinvigorate the Bandung spirit" and forge "a new Asian-African strategic partnership" for the 21st century. The week climaxed on 24 April on the same day and in the same hall where the original conferees had launched the "Bandung spirit" of solidarity against imperialism half a century before.

Some of the leaders gathered for the celebration -- Bandung II -- were content to repeat the nationalist pieties of the past, or to redirect them from European colonialism to American unilateralism as the enemy of the day. But the current president of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, known as SBY, struck a different note. His theme was not independence but introspection, not sovereignty but self-reform. He gently urged his fellow rulers to replace the old dogma of national liberation with a commitment to "good governance" as the latest and highest priority for developing countries -- in effect, self-reform as the new spirit of Bandung. At that moment, in Blitar, East Java, where he is buried, the nationalist firebrand Sukarno must have rolled in his grave.

"Good governance" did not and will not become the buzzword of Bandung II. The only other speaker who mentioned it, to my knowledge, was Singapore's prime minister Lee Hsien Loong. Fewer voices were raised in favor of self-reform than were aimed at American unilateralism. North Korea's Kim Yong Nam was among the latter. So was "Comrade R. G. Mugabe," as Zimbabwe's dictator called himself.

An Iraqi delegate, unable to insert in the ministers' communique a paragraph supporting his country's embattled transition to democracy, told me privately and bitterly, "The spirit of Bandung has not changed at all." In his view, most of the conferees in Bandung II preferred the odious sovereignty of Saddam Hussein to the induced democracy that followed, just as the leaders of the anti-colonial movement had tolerated tyrants in their ranks.

Yet SBY's speech did not fall on wholly deaf ears, and Iraq is not a good test case. More than a few delegates in Bandung supported democracy but opposed democracy-by-invasion. In developing countries, as representative government has spread, so has the desire to make it less corrupt and more effective. Over time, a new Asian-African agenda could give more prominence to democratization, religious moderation, the rule of law -- and honest, accountable governments as means to these ends.

But even if this does not happen, even if SBY's challenge is forgotten, the prestige of successfully hosting Bandung II already has strengthened his otherwise vulnerably "American" position inside a country whose future will help tip the balance of extremism and moderation in the Muslim world.

SBY is John F. Kennedy-esque: tall, handsome, young for a head of state, and able to project a democratic vision for Indonesia. A retired army general, he received American military and civilian training, including a master's in management from Webster University. No president before him has had more American exposure. This background will be in the spotlight when he pays his first presidential visit to the United States at the end of May.

Indonesia is the largest Muslim society, the third-largest democracy, and a tropical archipelago where defenders of the Bush administration are as scarce as snow. Indonesians will appreciate SBY's American experience if it enables him to deal with the world's only superpower in ways that help Indonesia. But if he is seen as too enamored of supposedly "American" values, he will create an opening for his political opponents.

In Bandung on the last day of the commemoration, crowds lined the streets, smiling and waving at the VIPs. Through the closed windows of air-conditioned limos and busses, the VIPs waved back. Compared with the week's grand abstractions -- sovereignty and self-reform -- this third spirit of Bandung was fleeting and local. But unless Asian-African solidarity becomes more than a slogan, or the vision of a better-governed Indonesia comes true, it may have been the most real.

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ITRI-SPRIE CONFERENCE: The Greater China Capital Market for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

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Among the different types of capital resources, venture capital as practiced in Silicon Valley is broadly acknowledged as being an important constituent of a high technology, entrepreneurial habitat. In the past two decades, policy makers from different regions have learned much from its experience.

The IT industry attributes its success partly to venture capital investments in early, risky, stages. Looking ahead, other industries will emerge in the knowledge economy. Within Taiwan and Mainland China, information related industries still dominate investment, yet in Silicon Valley emerging industries including biotechnology, medical instruments and nanotechnology have recently been attracting as much venture capital as the IT industry.

Today, venture capitalists from Silicon Valley and Taiwan are probing what they perceive as growing investment opportunities in Mainland China, On the other hand, the immaturity of its private equity market and the undeveloped state of exit mechanisms there is causing venture capitalists to hesitate to made large investments. Currently, Taiwan's venture capital faces low price-earnings ratios in its 1,400 publicly listed companies. This has contributed to a decline in VC investment. The Taiwan government expects to further liberalize the financing environment to bolster it as a regional center for domestic and international corporations.

This conference will address the influence of the system of capital on regional innovation and entrepreneurship in the United States, Taiwan, and Mainland China. The focus will be on the venture capital industry, corporate venturing and other institutions of capital related to regional industrial development.

Here are some questions to be addressed in this conference:

  • What is the pattern of venture capital investing in high-tech start-ups in the Greater China Area?
  • What are the trends in this industry?
  • How, specifically, does venture capital promote innovation and entrepreneurship?
  • What are the similarities among independent venture capital funds, corporate venture funds, angel funds, and commercial bank involvements?

Conference Organization

Conference Chairman

  • Dr. Chintay Shih, Dean of College of Technology Management, National Tsing Hua University, and Special Advisor, Industrial Technology Research Institute

Co-chairmen

  • Dr. Paul Wang, Chairman, Taiwan Venture Capital Association
  • Dr. Henry Rowen, Co-director, SPRIE
  • Dr. William Miller, Co-director, SPRIE

Executive Director

  • Dr. Sean Wang, Director General of Industrial Economics and Knowledge Center in Industrial Technology Research Institute

Conference Secretariat

  • Industrial Economics and Knowledge Center, Industrial Technology Research Institute (IEK/ITRI)

Conference Organizing Secretariat

  • ITRI: Yi-Ling Wei, Peter Lai, Frank Lin, Shu-Chen Huang
  • TVCA: Teresa Yang, Michael Chen, Riva Su
  • SPRIE: Marguerite Gong Hancock (Stanford)/Martin Kenney (UC Davis)
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Auditorium, The Grand Hotel,
1 Chung Shan N. Road, Sec. 4, Taipei, Taiwan

Conferences
Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE)

Inside ASEAN: Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, and the Non-Interference Controversy

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The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has long been based on the principle of national sovereignty, including a norm against interference by one member state in another's domestic affairs. But some members would like to set aside the prohibition in cases such as Myanmar, whose military junta continues to repress Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy to the detriment of ASEAN's image in the West. Opposed to this view are the group's newest, poorer, more continental, and politically more closed members: Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and of course Myanmar itself. They want ASEAN to uphold national sovereignty and reaffirm non-interference. The prospect of Myanmar assuming the chair of ASEAN in 2006-2007 makes this controversery even more acute. Is ASEAN splitting up? Will a compromise be reached? And with what implications for the nature and future of ASEAN and its conservative faction?

Carlyle A. Thayer is the 2004-2005 C. V. Starr Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington DC. He has written and lectured widely on Southeast Asian affairs. He has held positions at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (in Hawaii) and the Australian Defence College. His degrees are from the Australian National University (PhD), Yale University (MA), and Brown University (BA).

This is the 10th seminar of the 2004-2005 academic year hosted by the Southeast Asia Forum.

Okimoto Conference Room

Carlyle A. Thayer Professor of Politics Australian Defence Force Academy
Seminars
Southeast Asia Program

Kim Dae-jung speaks at Stanford on the future of the Korean peninsula

Authors
News Type
News
Date
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In December 1997, Kim Dae-jung, longtime opposition leader and survivor of multiple assassination attempts, imprisonment, exile and political persecution, was elected the eighth president of the Republic of Korea, marking the first transition of power from the ruling to the opposition party in Korea's modern history. President Kim was immediately faced with an unprecedented financial crisis and strained relations with North Korea. He devoted himself to economic recovery and reform, pulling Korea back from the brink of bankruptcy. In February 1998, he announced his intentions to pursue what he called the "sunshine policy" with North Korea in hopes of encouraging greater discussion and cooperation with Seoul's northern neighbor. In December 2000, the Norwegian Nobel Committee, in recognition of his "extraordinary and lifelong works for democracy and human rights in South Korea and East Asia in general, and for peace and reconciliation with North Korea in particular," awarded the him the Nobel Peace Prize.

On his first visit to the United States since leaving the presidency, his Excellency Kim Dae-jung, former President of the Republic of Korea and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, delivered a major lecture on inter-Korean relations and the future of the Korean peninsula. The lecture, which took place at Stanford on April 27, was sponsored by APARC's Walter H. Shorenstein Forum and the Asia Society.

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Inter-Korean Relations and the Future of the Korean Peninsula

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Please join the Walter H. Shorenstein Forum at the Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Asia Foundation for an evening with His Excellency Kim Dae-jung, Former President of the Republic of Korea and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

In December 1997, Kim Dae-jung, longtime opposition leader and survivor of multiple assassination attempts, imprisonment, exile and political persecution, was elected the eighth president of the Republic of Korea, marking the first transition of power from the ruling to the opposition party in Korea's modern history. President Kim was immediately faced with an unprecedented financial crisis and strained relations with North Korea. He devoted himself to economic recovery and reform, pulling Korea back from the brink of bankruptcy. In February 1998, he announced his intentions to pursue what he called the "sunshine policy" with North Korea in hopes of encouraging greater discussion and cooperation with Seoul's northern neighbor. In December 2000, the Norwegian Nobel Committee, in recognition of his "extraordinary and lifelong works for democracy and human rights in South Korea and East Asia in general, and for peace and reconciliation with North Korea in particular," awarded the him the Nobel Peace Prize.

On his first visit to the United States since leaving the presidency, Kim Dae-jung will address the challenges for the Republic of Korea in its continued engagement with North Korea and future of the Korean Peninsula.

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Stanford Faculty Club
439 Lagunita Drive
Stanford, CA

His Excellency Kim Dae-jung Former President of the Republic of Korea and Nobel Peace Prize Recipient Speaker
Lectures
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