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.

COVID-19: The Economic Impact in China

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Co-sponsored by the King Center on Global Development and Shorenstein APARC, this virtual panel discusses the impacts of the coronavirus pandemics on China's urban and rural employment and its health care sectors. Karen Eggleston, Hongbin Li, Scott Rozelle, and Xueguang Zhou will share their expertise during this critical time as China lifts its lockdown and U.S. cases of COVID-19 ramp up.

Dr. Karen Eggleston
Karen Eggleston is a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University, and director of the Stanford Asia Health Policy Program and deputy director of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at FSI. She is also a fellow with the Center for Innovation in Global Health at Stanford University School of Medicine, and a faculty research fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Eggleston earned her PhD in public policy from Harvard University and has MA degrees in economics and Asian studies from the University of Hawaii and a BA in Asian studies summa cum laude (valedictorian) from Dartmouth College. Eggleston studied in China for two years and was a Fulbright scholar in Korea. Her research focuses on government and market roles in the health sector and Asia health policy, especially in China, India, Japan, and Korea; healthcare productivity; and the economics of the demographic transition. She served on the Strategic Technical Advisory Committee for the Asia Pacific Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, and has been a consultant to the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the WHO regarding health system reforms in the PRC.

 

Dr. Hongbin Li
Hongbin Li is the James Liang Director of the China Program at the Stanford King Center on Global Development, and a senior fellow of Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). Hongbin Li obtained a PhD in economics from Stanford University in 2001 and joined the economics department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), where he became full professor in 2007. He was also one of the two founding directors of the Institute of Economics and Finance at the CUHK. He taught at Tsinghua University in Beijing 2007-2016 and was C.V. Starr Chair Professor of Economics in the School of Economics and Management. He also founded and served as the executive associate director of the China Data Center at Tsinghua. He also co-directs the China Enterprise Survey and Data Center at Wuhan University, which conducts the China Employer-Employee Survey (CEES).

 

Dr. Scott Rozelle
Scott Rozelle is the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and the co-director of the Rural Education Action Program in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He received his BS from the University of California, Berkeley, and his MS and PhD from Cornell University. Previously, Rozelle was a professor at the University of California, Davis and an assistant professor in Stanford’s Food Research Institute and department of economics. He currently is a member of several organizations, including the American Economics Association, the International Association for Agricultural Economists, and the Association for Asian Studies. Rozelle also serves on the editorial boards of Economic Development and Cultural Change, Agricultural Economics, the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, and the China Economic Review.

 

Dr. Xueguang Zhou
Xueguang Zhou is the Kwoh-Ting Li Professor in Economic Development, a professor of sociology and a Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies senior fellow. His main area of research is institutional changes in contemporary Chinese society, focusing on Chinese organizations and management, social inequality, and state-society relationships. One of his current research projects is a study of the rise of the bureaucratic state in China. He works with students and colleagues to conduct participatory observations of government behaviors in the area of environmental regulation enforcement, in policy implementation, in bureaucratic bargaining, and in incentive designs. With colleagues and students, he also studies patterns of career mobility and personnel flow among different government offices to understand intra-organizational relationships in the Chinese bureaucracy.

 

Via Zoom webinar.

Register at: https://bit.ly/3apHvgG

Karen Eggleston

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

(650) 723-9072 (650) 723-6530
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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Center Fellow at the Center for Health Policy and the Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research
Faculty Research Fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research
Faculty Affiliate at the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
karen-0320_cropprd.jpg PhD

Karen Eggleston is a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University and Director of the Stanford Asia Health Policy Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at FSI. She is also a Fellow with the Center for Innovation in Global Health at Stanford University School of Medicine, and a Faculty Research Fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Her research focuses on government and market roles in the health sector and Asia health policy, especially in China, India, Japan, and Korea; healthcare productivity; and the economics of the demographic transition.

Eggleston earned her PhD in public policy from Harvard University and has MA degrees in economics and Asian studies from the University of Hawaii and a BA in Asian studies summa cum laude (valedictorian) from Dartmouth College. Eggleston studied in China for two years and was a Fulbright scholar in Korea. She served on the Strategic Technical Advisory Committee for the Asia Pacific Observatory on Health Systems and Policies and has been a consultant to the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the WHO regarding health system reforms in the PRC.

Economics of Health and Aging in Asia

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Director of the Asia Health Policy Program, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Stanford Health Policy Associate
Faculty Fellow at the Stanford Center at Peking University, June and August of 2016
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Karen Eggleston APARC Deputy Director, Asia Health Policy Program Director Shorenstein APARC
Hongbin Li James Liang Director of the China Program , Senior Fellow (SIEPR) King Center on Global Development

Scott Rozelle

Encina Hall East, E404
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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Faculty Co-director of the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
Helen F. Farnsworth Endowed Professorship
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
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Scott Rozelle is the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and the co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University. He received his BS from the University of California, Berkeley, and his MS and PhD from Cornell University. Previously, Rozelle was a professor at the University of California, Davis and an assistant professor in Stanford’s Food Research Institute and department of economics. He currently is a member of several organizations, including the American Economics Association, the International Association for Agricultural Economists, and the Association for Asian Studies. Rozelle also serves on the editorial boards of Economic Development and Cultural Change, Agricultural Economics, the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, and the China Economic Review.

His research focuses almost exclusively on China and is concerned with: agricultural policy, including the supply, demand, and trade in agricultural projects; the emergence and evolution of markets and other economic institutions in the transition process and their implications for equity and efficiency; and the economics of poverty and inequality, with an emphasis on rural education, health and nutrition.

Rozelle's papers have been published in top academic journals, including Science, Nature, American Economic Review, and the Journal of Economic Literature. His book, Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise, was published in 2020 by The University of Chicago Press. He is fluent in Chinese and has established a research program in which he has close working ties with several Chinese collaborators and policymakers. For the past 20 years, Rozelle has been the chair of the International Advisory Board of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy; a co-director of the University of California's Agricultural Issues Center; and a member of Stanford's Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Center on Food Security and the Environment.

In recognition of his outstanding achievements, Rozelle has received numerous honors and awards, including the Friendship Award in 2008, the highest award given to a non-Chinese by the Premier; and the National Science and Technology Collaboration Award in 2009 for scientific achievement in collaborative research.

Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions

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Faculty affiliate at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
Faculty Affiliate at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
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Scott Rozelle Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow, Co-director of REAP Freeman Spogli Institute

Xueguang Zhou

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

(650) 725-6392 (650) 723-6530
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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Kwoh-Ting Li Professor in Economic Development
Professor of Sociology
Graduate Seminar Professor at the Stanford Center at Peking University, June and July of 2014
Faculty Affiliate at the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
Xueguang Zhou_0.jpg PhD

Xueguang Zhou is the Kwoh-Ting Li Professor in Economic Development, a professor of sociology, and a Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies senior fellow. His main area of research is on institutional changes in contemporary Chinese society, focusing on Chinese organizations and management, social inequality, and state-society relationships.

One of Zhou's current research projects is a study of the rise of the bureaucratic state in China. He works with students and colleagues to conduct participatory observations of government behaviors in the areas of environmental regulation enforcement, in policy implementation, in bureaucratic bargaining, and in incentive designs. He also studies patterns of career mobility and personnel flow among different government offices to understand intra-organizational relationships in the Chinese bureaucracy.

Another ongoing project is an ethnographic study of rural governance in China. Zhou adopts a microscopic approach to understand how peasants, village cadres, and local governments encounter and search for solutions to emerging problems and challenges in their everyday lives, and how institutions are created, reinforced, altered, and recombined in response to these problems. Research topics are related to the making of markets, village elections, and local government behaviors.

His recent publications examine the role of bureaucracy in public goods provision in rural China (Modern China, 2011); interactions among peasants, markets, and capital (China Quarterly, 2011); access to financial resources in Chinese enterprises (Chinese Sociological Review, 2011, with Lulu Li); multiple logics in village elections (Social Sciences in China, 2010, with Ai Yun); and collusion among local governments in policy implementation (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 2011, with Ai Yun and Lian Hong; and Modern China, 2010).

Before joining Stanford in 2006, Zhou taught at Cornell University, Duke University, and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He is a guest professor at Peking University, Tsinghua University, and the People's University of China. Zhou received his Ph.D. in sociology from Stanford University in 1991.

The Institutional Foundations of the Chinese Bureaucratic State

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Gi-Wook Shin Offers Analysis of 2020 Korean National Election

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On April 15, 2020, South Korea became the first country in the world to hold a national election amidst the coronavirus pandemic. Gi-Wook Shin, APARC's director, joined the Korea Society's Stephen Noerper and Jonathan Corrado for an open analysis of the election results and its implications.

While the safe execution of the election is certainly a success, Shin cautions that the real challenge for Moon Jae-In's reelected administration will now be to bolster the Korean economy.

“Even before the health crisis, the Korean economy was going through a very tough time . . . My worry is that the [Moon administration] might interpret the election outcome as a confidence vote on their policy, and they might push forward more aggressively even though the performance of the last three years has not been that great.”

Watch Dr. Shin's full analysis and commentary with the Korea Society below.

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The Korea Society hosts APARC's director for a timely discussion of the recent South Korean national election.

Data-intensive Innovation and the State: Evidence from Facial Recognition AI Firms in China

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This is a virtual event. Please click here to register and generate a link to the talk. 
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Data-intensive technologies such as AI may reshape the modern world. We propose that two features of data interact to shape innovation in data-intensive economies: first, states are key collectors and repositories of data; second, data is a non-rival input in innovation. We document the importance of state-collected data for innovation using comprehensive data on Chinese facial recognition AI firms and government contracts. Firms produce more commercial software and patents, particularly data-intensive ones, after receiving government public security contracts. Moreover, effects are largest when contracts provide more data. We then build a directed technical change model to study the state's role in three applications: autocracies demanding AI for surveillance purposes, data-driven industrial policy, and data regulation due to privacy concerns. When the degree of non-rivalry is as strong as our empirical evidence suggests, the state's collection and processing of data can shape the direction of innovation and growth of data-intensive economies.

Portrait of David Yang
David Yang’s research focuses on political economy, behavioral and experimental economics, economic history, and cultural economics. In particular, David studies the forces of stability and forces of changes in authoritarian regimes, drawing lessons from historical and contemporary China. David received a B.A. in Statistics and B.S. in Business Administration from University of California at Berkeley, and PhD in Economics from Stanford. David is currently a Prize Fellow in Economics, History, and Politics at Harvard and a Postdoctoral Fellow at J-PAL at MIT. He also joined Harvard’s Economics Department as an Assistant Professor as of 2020.

Via Zoom Webinar.
Register at: https://bit.ly/2VlhaMm

David Yang Prize Fellow in Economics, History, and Politics; Department of Economics, Harvard University
Seminars

"You're Fired": A Comparative Analysis of Presidential Impeachment in the United States and South Korea

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Presidential impeachment is becoming increasingly common in democracies around the world; however, the public’s understanding of impeachment both as a legal and a political process and how it fits into the overall political picture is relatively low.

In February this year, the United States Senate voted to acquit President Donald Trump on both articles of impeachment, bringing the three-week long impeachment trial to an end. Three years earlier in March 2017, the South Korean Constitutional Court made a unanimous decision to remove then President Park Geun-hye from office, putting an end to its three-month long trial. The fate of the two impeached presidents was in part influenced by the different political systems and impeachment mechanisms in the U.S. and South Korea.

Mira Yoo, a senior rapporteur judge, served as a spokesperson during the impeachment inquiry and trial in South Korea. In this talk, Yoo will share her assessment of the two impeachment cases in the U.S. and South Korea by discussing both the legal and the political factors that helped shape how the impeachment process and proceedings played out in the two impeachment regimes. Drawing on the similarities and differences in several important dimensions, she will discuss the broader implications of presidential impeachment, both the process and its legacy, to promote a better understanding of the historical gravity of the issue.

Mira Yoo joined the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) as a visiting scholar for the winter and spring quarters of 2020 from the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Korea, where she serves as rapporteur judge, as well as director of the Basic Rights Research Team at the Constitutional Court's Research Institute.  At APARC, she is conducting research on Korea's international relations in politics through the lens of the constitutional adjudication.

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Mira Yoo <i>Visiting Scholar</i>, APARC, Stanford University
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Korean Studies Colloquium Series

U.S.-China Relations in the Era of COVID-19

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This is a virtual event. Please click here to register and generate a link to the talk. 
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China’s role in the COVID-19 outbreak has elicited a growing global backlash, including dueling Republican and Democratic campaign ads, alongside praise for China’s success in curbing the coronavirus and sending medical assistance overseas. How will the pandemic reshape China’s domestic and international standing, and what lies ahead for U.S.-China relations? Weiss will discuss the Chinese government’s pandemic response and what it reveals about the CCP’s domestic and international intentions.

Jessica Chen Weiss
Jessica Chen Weiss is an associate professor of Government at Cornell University, China/Asia political science editor at the Washington Post Monkey Cage blog and a nonresident Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.  She is the author of Powerful Patriots: Nationalist Protest in China’s Foreign Relations (Oxford University Press, 2014).  Her research appears in International Organization, China Quarterly, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Security Studies, Journal of Contemporary China, and Review of International Political Economy, as well as in the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, and Washington Quarterly.  She was previously an assistant professor at Yale University and founded FACES, the Forum for American/Chinese Exchange at Stanford, while an undergraduate at Stanford University.  Born and raised in Seattle, Washington, she received her Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego in 2008, where her dissertation won the 2009 American Political Science Association Award for best dissertation in international relations, law and politics.  Weiss is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Image of red flag over the Shanghai BundThis 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.

 

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Register at: https://bit.ly/3erPfSn 

Jessica Chen Weiss Associate Professor of Government, Cornell University
Seminars
The PRC at 70: Past, Present -- and Future?

Tom Wright, Coauthor of Bestseller 'Billion Dollar Whale' and Longtime Asia Reporter, Wins 2020 Shorenstein Journalism Award

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STANFORD, CA, April 8, 2020  — Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) is pleased to announce that journalist and author Tom Wright is the recipient of the 2020 Shorenstein Journalism Award for excellence in coverage of the Asia-Pacific region. Wright, who over the past twenty-five years has worked mainly in South and Southeast Asia, is the coauthor of the New York Times bestseller Billion Dollar Whale, which unravels the story of one of the world's greatest financial scandals involving the multibillion-dollar looting of the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB). The book builds on Wright’s multiyear investigative reporting for the Wall Street Journal, where he most recently served as Asia economics editor. In the coming fall quarter, Wright will receive the award at a ceremony and headline a panel discussion at Stanford.

Wright started his career with Reuters in Indonesia in the 1990s at a time when Gen. Suharto’s military dictatorship was crumbling. During the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, he joined Dow Jones Newswires in Bangkok, later moving to the Wall Street Journal. He has investigated corruption in Indian companies, the failure of the U.S.’s civilian aid program for Pakistan, and was one of the first journalists to arrive at the scene of the raid in which Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden. His 2013 award-winning series on the Rana Plaza factory disaster in Bangladesh, which killed over 1,000 people, exposed how international garment manufacturers turned a blind eye to safety violations to reduce costs.

In 2015, he began investigations into the 1MDB scandal, one of the largest financial frauds of all time in which bankers at Goldman Sachs helped a young Malaysian financier steal at least $4 billion from Malaysian state fund 1MDB. The three-year investigation revealed the degree to which Western institutions, from Wall Street banks, law firms, auditors, and even Hollywood film companies, ignore malfeasance in the pursuit of profits. Wright’s work sparked investigations by law enforcement and regulators in multiple countries and outrage in Malaysia, where the ruling coalition, after 61 years in power, suffered a landslide defeat in a shocking 2018 election.

“Throughout his career, Tom Wright’s consummate reporting and persistent investigations have repeatedly shone a light on major Asian affairs and the complicity of Western institutions in the affliction of corruption in Asia,” said Gi-Wook Shin, Shorenstein APARC director. “His work embodies an unwavering commitment to the pursuit of truth and to advancing a critical consideration of both Asian and Western societies. We are delighted to recognize him with the Shorenstein Journalism Award.”

Presented annually by APARC, the Shorenstein award, which carries a $10,000 cash prize, honors the legacy of APARC’s benefactor, Mr. Walter H. Shorenstein, and his twin passions for promoting excellence in journalism and understanding of Asia. “We are grateful to the Shorenstein family for its support of our Center and its mission and to the members of the award selection committee for their expertise and service,” noted Shin.

The selection committee for the Shorenstein Journalism Award, which unanimously chose Wright as the 2020 honoree, includes Wendy Cutler, vice president and managing director, Washington, D.C. Office, Asia Society Policy Institute; James Hamilton, Hearst Professor of Communication, chair of the Department of Communication, and director of the Stanford Journalism Program, Stanford University; Raju Narisetti, global publishing director-elect, McKinsey & Company; Philip Pan, weekend editor, former Asia editor, the New York Times; and Prashanth Parameswaran, senior editor, the Diplomat. 

Eighteen journalists have previously received the Shorenstein award, including most recently Maria Ressa, CEO and executive editor of Rappler; Anna Fifield, the Washington Post’s Beijing bureau chief and long-time North Korea watcher; Siddharth Varadarajan, founding editor of the Wire; Ian Johnson, a veteran journalist with a focus on Chinese society, religion, and history; and Yoichi Funabashi, former editor-in-chief of the Asahi Shimbun.

Information about the 2020 Shorenstein Journalism Award ceremony and panel discussion featuring Wright will be forthcoming in the fall quarter.

Find out more at aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/events/shorenstein-journalism-award.

Media Contact:

Noa Ronkin
Associate Director for Communications and External Relations
Shorenstein APARC
noa.ronkin@stanford.edu

 

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Japan's Response to Covid-19: Political Leadership and Crisis Response

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In keeping with the State of California's shelter-in-place orders, this event is available through livestream only. Please register in advance for the webinar by using the link below.

REGISTRATION LINK: https://bit.ly/3e1r7FZ

The time of this event has changed to 4:30pm-5:30pm PDT.

 

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread throughout the world, Japan is experiencing its second wave of coronavirus outbreak, following a first wave early on, just as it had become clear that the virus was spreading rapidly from Wuhan. In late February, travel restrictions were followed by Prime Minister Abe’s call for school closures. But as the pandemic raged through parts of Europe and then the United States, and as a growing number of countries issued shelter-in-place orders and lockdowns, Japan seemed relatively unscathed. Concerns then escalated and calls for voluntarily restricting peoples’ movement started in earnest following the decision to postpone the 2020 Olympics. On April 6, Prime Minister Abe declared a state of emergency for seven prefectures.

This panel brings together expertise on Japan’s political leadership with experience in Japan’s crisis management. Professor Harukata Takenaka has long studied how Japan’s political leadership has evolved, while Mr. Akihisa Shiozaki, an expert on crisis management, was a core member of Japan’s first private-sector investigative report after the Fukushima nuclear crisis.

This is the first in an APARC-wide series of virtual seminars that explore Asian countries’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Held throughout the spring quarter, each event is led by one of APARC’s programs.

PANELISTS

Aki Shiozaki Headshot

Akihisa Shiozaki, Partner, Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu

Akihisa Shiozaki is widely recognized for his expertise in corporate crisis management, including regulatory investigations, white collar defense, product recall, labor/employment disputes, import/export control, cyber security, media interaction and various corporate governance issues, especially those with multi-jurisdictional or parallel civil and criminal components. In recent years, he has advised both domestic and foreign clients in resolving a number of the most high profile corporate crises cases relating to Japan, including the LIBOR/TIBOR manipulation investigation, FX manipulation investigation, global product recall by a Japan auto-parts manufacturer, international trade secret theft in the semiconductor industry, government investigations against a global pharmaceutical corporation operating in Japan, and his representation of the former CEO of Olympus Corporation who brought light to the company's recent accounting scandal. He is recognized by Legal 500 as a Leading Individual in the field of Risk Management and Investigations. In 2017, Akihisa was awarded the Compliance / Investigations Lawyer of the Year at the Asian Legal Awards hosted by The American Lawyer, in association with The Asian Lawyer, China Law & Practice and Legal Week.

Akihisa worked in the Prime Minister’s office as senior policy advisor from 2006 to 2007 and is knowledgeable in Japanese regulations /rules and governmental procedures, as well as having rich experience dealing with the media. He also serves as the vice-chairman of the Anti-Yakuza Committee at the Daiichi Tokyo Bar Association and has authored many related publications. He graduated from the University of Tokyo (LL.B.), holds an M.A. in international policy from Stanford University, and completed his MBA at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where he served as class president.

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Harukata Takenka, Professor of Political Science, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS)

Harukata Takenaka is a professor of political science at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo.  He specializes in comparative politics and international political economy, with a particular focus on Japanese political economy. His research interests include democracy in Japan, and Japan's political and economic stagnation since the 1990s.  He received a B.A. from the Faculty of Law of the University of Tokyo and an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University.  He is the author of Failed Democratization in Prewar Japan: Breakdown of a Hybrid Regime, (Stanford University Press, 2014), and Sangiin to ha [What is House of Councillors], (Chuokoron Shinsha, 2010).

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Kenji Kushida, Research Scholar, Shorenstein APARC Japan Program (Moderator)

Kenji E. Kushida is a Japan Program Research Scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and an affiliated researcher at the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy. Kushida’s research interests are in the fields of comparative politics, political economy, and information technology. He has four streams of academic research and publication: political economy issues surrounding information technology such as Cloud Computing; institutional and governance structures of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster; political strategies of foreign multinational corporations in Japan; and Japan’s political economic transformation since the 1990s. Kushida has written two general audience books in Japanese, entitled Biculturalism and the Japanese: Beyond English Linguistic Capabilities (Chuko Shinsho, 2006) and International Schools, an Introduction (Fusosha, 2008). Kushida holds a PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. He received his MA in East Asian studies and BAs in economics and East Asian studies, all from Stanford University.

Via Zoom Webinar. Register at https://bit.ly/3e1r7FZ

Akihisa Shiozaki, Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu
Harukata Takenka, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies
Kenji Kushida, Shorenstein APARC Japan Program
Panel Discussions
Japan Colloquium Series

APARC Announces New Fellowship and Internship Opportunities for Stanford Students

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To support Stanford students working in the area of contemporary Asia, the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center is offering up to ten research assistant internships for summer 2020 and up to three predoctoral fellowships for the 2020-21 academic year. The Center will review applications starting April 15 and expects to fill the positions by April 30, 2020. 

Amid the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, students are facing summer internship cancelations and hiring freezes. They are left wondering about the long-term implications of the current crisis for their academic careers and their access to future jobs and valuable work experience.

At Shorenstein APARC, we want to do all we can to support Stanford students. That’s why we are announcing new internship and fellowship opportunities for current students working in the area of contemporary Asia: research assistant internships for the summer quarter of 2020 and predoctoral fellowships for the 2020-21 academic year.

The summer internships are all remote: research assistants will work as telecommuters. Regarding the predoctoral fellowships, we hope we can all have a normal 2020-21 academic year, in which case we expect the fellows to be in residence, but we will reassess the evolving COVID-19 situation closer to the appointment start dates and shift to flexible, online options as needed.

APARC will review applications for both opportunities on a rolling basis starting April 15, 2020. The Center will select up to ten research assistants and up to three predoctoral fellows by April 30, 2020.

Read on to learn more about these offerings and the application requirements, and follow the guidelines below to submit your candidacy.

Summer 2020 APARC Research Assistant Internships

Shorenstein APARC is seeking highly motivated and dedicated undergraduate and graduate students to join our team as paid research assistant interns for the summer quarter of 2020. Research assistants will work with assigned APARC faculty members on projects focused on contemporary Asia, studying varied issues related to the politics, economies, populations, security, foreign policies, and international relations of the countries of the Asia-Pacific region.

All positions will be for eight weeks starting late June or early July 2020. The hourly pay rate is $17 for undergraduate students, $25 for graduate students.

Research assistant positions are open to current Stanford students only. Undergraduate- and graduate-level students are eligible to apply.

Apply Now

  • Complete the application form and submit it along with these two (2) required attachments:
    • CV;
    • A cover letter (up to 1 page).
  • Arrange for a letter of recommendation from a faculty to be sent directly to APARC. Please note: the faculty members should email their letters directly to Kristen Lee at kllee@stanford.edu.

We will consider only complete applications that include all the abovementioned supporting documents.  

2020-21 Shorenstein APARC Predoctoral Fellowships

APARC is inviting applications from current Stanford students for the 2020-21 Shorenstein APARC Predoctoral Fellowship. The fellowship supports predoctoral students working within a broad range of topics related to contemporary Asia. 

Up to three fellowships are available to Ph.D. candidates who have completed all fieldwork and are nearing the completion of their dissertation. The Center will give priority to candidates who are prepared to finish their degree by the end of the 2020-21 academic year.

Shorenstein APARC offers a stipend of $36,075 for the 2020-21 academic year, plus Stanford's Terminal Graduate Registration (TGR) fee for three quarters. We expect fellows to remain in residence at the Center throughout the year and to participate in Center activities.

Apply Now

  • Complete the application form and submit it along with these three (3) required attachments:
    • CV;
    • A cover letter including a brief description of your dissertation (up to 5 double-spaced pages);
    • A copy of your transcripts. Transcripts should cover all graduate work and include evidence of recently-completed work.
  • Arrange for two (2) letters of recommendation from members of your dissertation committee to be sent directly to Shorenstein APARC. Please note: the faculty/advisors should email their letters directly to Kristen Lee at kllee@stanford.edu.

We will consider only complete applications that include all the abovementioned supporting documents. 

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Korean Democracy Is Sinking Under the Guise of the Rule of Law

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Gi-Wook Shin
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There is a Korean expression that means “to become soaked by a drizzle without noticing.” This metaphor is a timely warning against the gradual decline of democratic norms. Though some of the changes underlying this global phenomenon are subtle, they are producing creeping, piecemeal erosions of democracy and pluralism. The signs of democratic backsliding are now emerging everywhere in South Korean society, and a failure to recognize and robustly counter their effects may create future costs that prove unbearable. 

My new article, “Korean Democracy Is Sinking Under the Guise of the Rule of Law,” published in the April 2020 issue of the South Korean magazine Shindonga (New East Asia, the oldest monthly in Korea), examines how the Moon administration is sinking into a democratic recession and considers its actions as a case study with lessons for averting broader, global trends in democratic decline.

In all corners of the world, we witness freely elected leaders gradually dismantle democratic institutional safeguards, fuse political polarization with chauvinistic populism, and focus on narrow interpretations of the national interest just as China and Russia expand their scope of influence via “sharp power,” subversive means.

Chairman of the South Korean National Assembly Moon Hee-sang (second from the left of the chairman's seat) enacts a draft amendment to the election law amid vigorous resistance by members of the opposition –December 23, 2019.&nbsp;
South Korea is no exception to these currents. A politics of extreme confrontation and polarizing rhetoric of "us" and "them" are becoming the country’s new normal. The Moon administration’s aggressive assertion of a Manichean logic of good and evil that justifies their vitriolic attacks on perceived opposition is evidenced in its campaign of “eradicating deep-rooted evils” from Korean society and politics.

As my analysis shows, this crusading mindset has insinuated itself into more concrete actions by the Moon government, such as the calculated blurring of the separation of powers through political interference in the courts, deliberate changes to longstanding election laws that damage the spirit of democracy, and the blatant use of double standards and ideological loyalty in the execution of national policies. Similar patterns are taking hold in populist governments the world over, and – perhaps most disconcertingly – they transpire not through the strong-arming of a military coup or violent political disruption but through the legal procedures and policies meant to keep such canker in check.

To overcome its wave of democratic recession South Korea must cast away political polarization and demonstrate a firm resolve to act in accordance with democratic norms. The upcoming April 15 legislative election must sound a clear alarm against all actors who damage these core principles, regardless of their party affiliation and irrespective of their ideology. 

Read the complete English translation of my article or the original Korean version here:

English Version Korean Version
Korean readers may also be interested in my monthly column, “Korean Affairs Seen from the United States," which I write for the Korean paper Munhwa Ilbo. View it here.
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Opposing political rallies converge in South Korea
Pro- and anti-Moon protests in Seocho-dong, South Korea – October 5, 2019. | Dong-a Ilbo, Shindonga
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Heng Hu

Shorenstein APARC Stanford University Encina Hall E301 Stanford, CA 94305-6055
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Visiting Scholar at APARC
Ph.D.

Heng Hu joined the Walter H.Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center during January 2020 to January 2021 from Renmin University of China’s Institute of Qing History where he serves as Associate Professor and Vice Director of the institute.

His research focuses on the administrative jurisdictions and local organizations in Chinese history, with particular interest in the digital humanities related to the historical databases. During his visit in APARC, his research project intends to examine the spatial logic of local governance in China from 1644 to 1911, based on some new Database.

Heng Hu is a deputy editor-in-chief of Qing History Journal. He has published a book titled Imperial Power Stops at County Seats? The Administrative Districts and Social Governance Below the County Authority in the Qing Dynasty (2015), which won awards as The Top Ten Books of the Year in History and Biography (China Reading Weekly, 2015), The Puyin Humanities Award (5 award-winners, 2018), and the Youth Achievement Award of the 8th Humanities and Social Sciences Award of the Ministry of Education of China (2020).

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