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.

Killing the Chicken to Scare the Monkey: Explaining Coercion by China in the South China Sea

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Despite adverse implications for its image, when it comes to territorial disputes, China has been willing to employ coercion. But Beijing is selective regarding the timing, targets, and tools of coercion. Military coercion is rare and the forms and uses of coercion vary. In the face of what China sees as similar threats by different countries, for example, Beijing tends to tailor its responses, country by country, case by case. Dr. Zhang will focus on Chinese coercive behavior in the South China Sea. She will offer a new theory as to when, why, and how China coerces other states.  Leveraging a wealth of newly available primary documents and hundreds of hours of interviews with Chinese officials, she will trace the decision-making processes that result in coercion’s use or non-use.

Where others may view China as repetitively aggressive, Dr. Zhang sees a cautious bully that does not coerce frequently and has tended, as it has gained strength, to use non-kinetic kinds of coercion. She finds that protecting a reputation for resolve and calculating economic costs are critical elements in China’s decision-making regarding the (dis)advantages of coercing its neighbors. Nor is the intended target country necessarily clear. China often coerces one to deter another – “killing the chicken to scare the monkey.” Implications will also drawn from her research that can help in projecting China’s likely future foreign-policy behavior beyond Southeast Asia and in understanding the roles played by coercion in the strategies of states more generally.

To learn more about, watch a recent interview APARC filmed with Dr. Zhang.

ketian zhang 4x
Ketian Vivian Zhang will be an Assistant Professor of International Security in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University starting in September 2019. Her book project at Stanford and a forthcoming article in International Security are on the subject of her talk. Beyond its topic, another part of her research agenda explores how the globalized economy and its chains of manufacture and supply affect the foreign-policy behaviors of states. Her 2018 PhD in political science is from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is a proud Badger, having earned her BA in political science and sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Ketian Zhang 2018-2019 Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow on Contemporary Asia
Seminars

U.S.-China Trade Dispute Likely to Morph into Technology War, Says President of the U.S.-China Business Council

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Noa Ronkin
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U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators remain engaged in intensive talks, although it is yet to be seen whether and when they can strike a final deal. But even if they are able to reach an agreement, in the confrontation between Washington and Beijing “the trade part is incidental: it’s a technology war, not a trade war,” said Ambassador Craig Allen, president of the U.S.-China Business Council (USCBC), speaking at Shorenstien APARC on March 11.
 
Allen has spent much of his career in Asia and dealing with China-related issues from various posts within government, including serving as deputy assistant secretary for China at the U.S. Department of Commerce. As head of USCBC, he now leads an organization representing over 200 American companies doing business with China. He delivered his remarks at a seminar that is part of the China Program’s colloquia series about the future of U.S.-China relations.
 
Allen first brought the audience up to speed on the latest developments in the U.S.-China trade talks, where there are still outstanding questions such as whether the tariffs end now or later and whether a trade agreement will include a unilateral or bilateral enforcement mechanism. He expressed optimism that an agreement would bring significant progress on multiple fronts from the U.S. perspective, including enormous expansion in Chinese purchase of U.S. goods in various sectors; progress over IP rights; progress in eliminating forced technology transfers; improved market access to China; and even renewed commitment to reducing cybertheft. Yet Allen also suggested that these changes, which the Chinese are willing to make, are the ones that they know serve to make their markets more competitive in the end.
 

Structural vs. Cosmetic Changes

Allen was far less confident, however, about the prospects of addressing structural issues with China, that is, areas where the Chinese economy is an outlier to the global economy, violates WTO rules, and greatly differs from OECD norms. This is because these core dimensions touch on the role of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the government and in the economy.

He counted among these structural issues the enormous role of state-owned enterprises (SOEs); the scale of subsidies going to the technology sector and their lack of transparency; prohibitions on foreign investment in sensitive industries like telecommunications and media; the unequal treatment of foreign companies; discriminatory implementation of regulations and the lack of an appeals process; uneven implementation of IP rights; the outsized role of the CCP in the economy; the dominant role of industrial policy; Xi Jinping government’s aggressive techno-nationalism, which is manifested in its calls for indigenous innovation and for self-reliance; and its excessive control over the information space.

“China is willing to make cosmetic changes to these problems,” said Allen, “even muscular changes, but no changes to the skeleton, the core, the system under which the CCP has complete control.”

A trade deal might remove the immediate threat of tariffs as a source of friction between the United States and China, noted Allen, but the essence of the conflict is not about trade: rather, it has to do with technology. “The trade war will morph into a technology war,” he predicted, and 2019 will mark a change in that direction, making life much more complicated for both American—especially Silicon Valley—and Chinese companies.

A Security Dilemma

Both the United States and China are now locked in a “security dilemma,” noted Allen. “One side takes defensive measures which the other side perceives as aggressive measures,” and “we are ratcheting up on national security.” The U.S. Department of Commerce, for instance, is looking to change the ways of dealing with Chinese companies and to expand export controls, extending their scope to a whole new category of “emerging technologies,” regarding whose definition there is intensive debate in Washington. Depending on its scope, a broad definition could jeopardize hundreds of thousands of projects and disrupt investment and global supply chains.

On the Chinese side, Allen noted, there is a parallel process going on. In 2019, we should expect China to similarly impose tightened export controls, he cautioned, cybersecurity law, personal identification information law, data localization requirements, and a strengthened national security law that, among other requirements, will ratchet up audit requirements of American companies seeking market access and the type of companies allowed to have only Chinese-origin equipment.

Both countries have given in to exaggerated security concerns that threaten the global commons, argued Allen. “American and Chinese companies have worked together in the innovation space for years in a beautiful manner. It has been a remarkably productive exercise over the last four decades that brought tremendous benefit for everyone. You can't imagine a company like Apple without China, and you can't imagine China without a company like Apple. Now all this is being put into question.”

The heightened security measures on both sides are fraught with threats to research institutions, businesses, and the innovation ecosystem at large. Academic exchanges, students, and professors will be deemed exports of knowledge subject to technology licensing laws, cautioned Allen. He asked: “How many thousands of collaborative research ventures will be impacted?”

We are entering the technology war at the wrong time, said Allen, just as China is becoming a middle-income country with hundreds of millions of middle-class citizens who want to buy American-made goods and services that U.S. companies want to sell to them. Now is the time to take advantage of China’s transitioning to a consumption-led economy, he claimed, and “become a good friend of Chinese middle-class consumers.”

China is also forging ahead with its innovative economy, particularly in areas such as AI, 5G, and aspects of the life sciences. “This isn’t a one-way street,” emphasized Allen. “We need their brains as much as they need ours […] China will remain an innovative country, and we need to deal with that.”

“This is not a time to panic,” he pointed out, “but a time to reset and ask: ‘What are the rules of the road for technology cooperation and competition? What are the rules for enforcement and how do we enforce the new rules fairly?”

“If China follows its WTO obligations then we would get there,” Allen claimed. “But if President Xi is going to be single-minded about self-reliance and cutting foreign influence on the Chinese economy, then we’re up for rough sledding and 2019 will be a definitive year in determining the course forward.”

Trade deal or no deal, in the U.S.-China race for technology supremacy, he concluded, trust is a commodity in short supply.

 

 

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U.S. and Chinese officials meeting in the White House as part of ongoing trade negotiations.
U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin (2nd L) speaks as U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer (3rd L) and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross (L) listen during a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He (R) in the Oval Office of the White House February 22, 2019 in Washington, DC.
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On the Brink: A New Cold War with China

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RSVP required

NOTE: THIS EVENT IS CLOSED TO THE MEDIA 

No recording will be allowed during the program. RSVP required for admission. No walk-ins.

Experts talk about a new Cold War between China and the United States. The world’s two largest economies are in open trade conflict, engaged in technological competition and stoking geopolitical uncertainty. The Oksenberg Conference will explore the causes that underlie today’s intensified conflict between the United States and China. We ask: What has precipitated the confrontational approach that currently unites U.S. policy towards China? What is the future of our strategic competition in the technological, economic and security realms? If U.S.-China rivalry is allowed to escalate, what might its implications be for our international liberal order? If a “new” Cold War is forming, how might it follow or diverge from the “old” Soviet-era Cold War?

2019 Oksenberg Conference
The Oksenberg Conference, held annually honors the legacy of the late Professor Michel Oksenberg (1938–2001) who was a senior fellow at Shorenstein APARC and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Professor Oksenberg also served as a key member of the National Security Council when the United States normalized relations with China, and consistently urged that the United States engage with Asia in a more considered manner. In tribute, the Oksenberg Lecture recognizes distinguished individuals who have helped to advance understanding between the United States and the nations of the Asia-Pacific.
 
Agenda
 
2:35-3:05 PM    Conversation with Dr. Condoleezza Rice, former U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor
3:05-3:30 PM    Audience Q & A
3:30-3:45 PM    Break
3:45-4:25 PM    Panel discussion with Prof. David M. Lampton and Amb. Michael A. McFaul
4:25-5:00 PM    Audience Q & A
 
 
 
Speakers

David M. Lampton
David M. Lampton is Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow and Research Scholar at FSI and affiliated with Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC).  He also is the Hyman Professor of China Studies and Director of the China Studies Program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) Emeritus.  Dr. Lampton's current book project is focused on the development of high-speed railways from southern China to Singapore.  He is the author of a dozen books and monographs, including Following the Leader: Ruling China, from Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping (University of California Press, 2014, and second edition 2019) and The Three Faces of Chinese Power: Might, Money, and Minds (University of California Press, 2008).  He has testified at multiple congressional and commission sessions and published numerous articles, essays, book reviews, and opinion pieces in many venues popular and academic in both the western world and in Chinese-speaking societies, including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The American Political Science Review, The China Quarterly, The New York Times, The Washington Post,and many others.

Formerly President of the National Committee on United States-China Relations, Professor Lampton consults with government, business, and social sector organizations, and has served on the boards of several non-governmental and educational organizations, including the Asia Foundation for which he served as chairman.  The recipient of many academic awards, he is an Honorary Senior Fellow of the American Studies Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, former Gilman Scholar at Johns Hopkins, and the inaugural winner of the Scalapino Prize in 2010, awarded by the National Bureau of Asian Research and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in recognition of his exceptional contributions to America’s understanding of the vast changes underway in Asia.

 

Amb. Michael McFaul
Michael McFaul is the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in Political Science; Director and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI); and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, all at Stanford University.  He was also the Distinguished Mingde Faculty Fellow at the Stanford Center at Peking University from June to August of 2015.  He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995.  Professor McFaul is also an analyst for NBC News and a contributing columnist to The Washington Post.  

Dr. McFaul served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014).  He has authored several books, most recently TheNew York Timesbestseller, From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia.  Earlier books include Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should, How We Can; Transitions to Democracy: A Comparative Perspective(eds. with Kathryn Stoner); Power and Purpose: American Policy toward Russia after the Cold War (with James Goldgeier); and Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin.  

 

Jean Oi

Jean C. Oi is the William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics in the Department of Political Science and a Senior Fellow of FSI at Stanford University.  She is the founding director of the Stanford China Program at Shorenstein APARC and is the founding Lee Shau Kee Director of the Stanford Center at Peking University.  Professor Oi has published extensively on political economy and the process of reform in China.  Her books include Zouping Revisited:  Adaptive Governance in a Chinese County, co-edited with Steven Goldstein (2018); and Challenges in the Process of China’s Urbanization, co-edited with Karen Eggleston and Wang Yiming (2017); Rural China Takes Off (1999); Property Rights and Economic Reform in China (1999), co-edited with Andrew Walder; and State and Peasant in Contemporary China (1989).  Professor Oi also has an edited volume, China’s Path to the Future: Challenges, Constraints, and Choices, co-edited with Dr. Thomas Fingar (forthcoming, Stanford University Press).  Her recent articles include “Unpacking the Patterns of Corporate Restructuring during China’s SOE Reform,” co-authored with Xiaojun Li in Economic and Political Studies (2018); and “Reflections on 40 Years of Rural Reform,” in Jacques deLisle and Avery Goldstein, eds., Reform and Opening:  40 Years and Counting, forthcoming.  Her current research centers on fiscal reform and local government debt as well as continuing SOE reforms in China.

 

Secretary Condoleezza Rice

Secretary Condoleezza Rice is currently the Denning Professor in Global Business and the Economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business; the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution; and a professor of Political Science at Stanford University. She is also a founding partner of RiceHadleyGates, LLC.

From January 2005 to 2009, Rice served as the 66th Secretary of State of the United States, the second woman and first African American woman to hold the post. Rice also served as President George W. Bush’s Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (National Security Advisor) from January 2001 to 2005, the first woman to hold the position.

Rice served as Stanford University’s Provost from 1993 to 1999, during which she was the institution's chief budget and academic officer. As Provost, she was responsible for a $1.5 billion annual budget and the academic program involving 1,400 faculty members and 14,000 students. In 1997, she also served on the Federal Advisory Committee on Gender -­- Integrated Training in the Military.

From 1989 through March 1991, Rice served on President George H.W. Bush’s National Security Council staff. She served as Director; Senior Director of Soviet and East European Affairs; and, Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. In 1986, while an international affairs fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, Rice also served as Special Assistant to the Director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

As professor of Political Science, Rice has been on the Stanford faculty since 1981 and has won two of the highest teaching honors – the 1984 Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching and the 1993 School of Humanities and Sciences Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching.

She has authored and coauthored numerous books, including three bestsellers, Democracy: Stories from the Long Road to Freedom (2017); No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington (2011); and Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family (2010). She also wrote Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft (1995) with Philip Zelikow; The Gorbachev Era (1986) with Alexander Dallin; and Uncertain Allegiance: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army (1984).

In  1991,  Rice  cofounded  the  Center for  a  New  Generation  (CNG),  an  innovative,  after-­school academic enrichment program for students in East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park, California. In 1996, CNG merged with the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula (an affiliate club of the Boys and Girls Clubs of America). CNG has since expanded to local BGCA chapters in Birmingham, Atlanta, and Dallas. She remains an active proponent of an extended learning day through after school programs.

Since 2009, Rice has served as a founding partner at Rice Hadley Gates, LLC, an international strategic consulting firm based in Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C. The firm works with senior executives of major companies to implement strategic plans and expand in emerging markets. Other partners include former National Security Advisor Stephen J. Hadley and former Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates.

Rice currently serves on the boards of Dropbox, an online-­storage technology company; C3, an energy software company; and Makena Capital, a private endowment firm. In addition, she is vice chair of the board of governors of the Boys and Girls Clubs of America; a member of the board of the Foundation for  Excellence in Education; and a trustee of the Aspen Institute. Previously, Rice served on various additional boards, including those of: the George W. Bush Institute; the Commonwealth Club; KiOR, Inc.; the Chevron Corporation; the Charles Schwab Corporation; the Transamerica Corporation; the Hewlett-­Packard Company; the University of Notre Dame; the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; and, the San Francisco Symphony Board of Governors.

In 2013, Rice was appointed to the College Football Playoff Committee, formerly the Bowl Championship Series.

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Rice earned her bachelor's degree in political science, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Denver; her master’s from the University of Notre Dame; and her Ph.D. from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver.

Rice is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been awarded fifteen honorary doctorates. She currently resides in Stanford, California.

 

 

Bechtel Conference Center
616 Serra Mall
Encina Hall, Central, 1st Floor
Stanford, CA 94305

David M. Lampton <br><i>Oksenberg-Rohlen Fellow, FSI, Stanford University</i><br><br>
Michael A. McFaul <br><i>Director, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI); Professor, Political Science, Stanford University; Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution </i><br><br>
Jean C. Oi (Moderator) <br><i>Director, Stanford China Program; William Haas Professor of Chinese Studies, Stanford University</i><br><br>
Secretary Condoleezza Rice <br><i>The Denning Professor in Global Business and the Economy, Stanford Graduate School of Business; The Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy, Hoover Institution; Professor of Political Science, Stanford University</i><br><br>
Lectures
Oksenberg Conference

U.S.-China Economic Tensions and Their Implications

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Rising US-China economic tensions are normal and were to be expected as China modernized. The current discussion of possible “disengagement” between the two was not foreordained, and results from relatively recent divergence in Chinese policy-making from the 40 year trend. The trend is not inevitable, but it will strengthen unless Beijing reverts to market liberalization: nations built on fundamentally different economic systems cannot be as linked as those with like-minded approaches. But China is far from locked-in to a non-market future, and any talk of US disengagement should be rigorously tested against three principles: provisional, partial and peaceful.   

drosen press

Daniel H. Rosen is a founding partner of Rhodium Group and leads the firm’s work on China, India and Asia.  Dan has twenty-six years of professional experience analyzing China’s economy, commercial sector and external interactions. He is widely recognized for his contributions on the US-China economic relationship. He is affiliated with a number of American think tanks focused on international economics, and is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia University. From 2000-2001, Dan was Senior Adviser for International Economic Policy at the White House National Economic Council and National Security Council. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and board member of the National Committee on US-China Relations. A native of New York City, Dan graduated with distinction from the graduate School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University (MSFS) and with honors in Asian Studies and Economics from the University of Texas, Austin (BA).

This event is part of the China Program’s Colloquia Series entitled "A New Cold War?: Sharp Power, Strategic Competition, and the Future of U.S.-China Relations " sponsored by Shorenstein APARC's China Program.

A New Cold War?: Sharp Power, Strategic Competition, and the Future of U.S.-China Relations

Trade conflict has exploded. The media is rife with stories of China’s unfair trade practices, cyber theft, IP theft and forced technology transfers. Who will first scale the commanding heights of technological supremacy? Who will be the first mover in AI, robotics and biotechnology? What are the implications of Beijing’s ambitious infrastructure projects, including its Belt and Road Initiative? How is China’s “sharp power” deployed, and what are its implications for political and civic life in the U.S.? Can the Trump administration and Beijing’s leadership reach agreement on our trade disputes? Are these just the beginning salvos of an increasingly turbulent future? As U.S. policy towards China sharply veers away from “constructive engagement” to “strategic competition,” the Stanford China Program will host a series of talks by leading experts to explore the current state of our bilateral relations, its potential future, and their implications for the world order.

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https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/china/research/new-cold-war-sharp-power-strategic-competition-and-future-us-china-relations

Philippines Conference Room Encina Hall, 3rd Floor 616 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305
Daniel Rosen <i>Rhodium Group</i><br><br>
Seminars
A New Cold War?: Sharp Power, Strategic Competition, and the Future of U.S.-China Relations

Japan in the Bay Area: From Competition to Collaboration

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The Bay Area Council Economic Institute and the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center Japan Program invite you to a forum on the critical transformations underway in Japan’s economy and the unique synergies that connect it to the Bay Area. The program will include a discussion of the high-level findings of a new report by the Bay Area Council Economic Institute on Japan’s economic engagement in the San Francisco/Silicon Valley Bay Area, and the role the region is playing as California and Japan look to expand trade and investment and accelerate innovation. Leading experts and practitioners from both Japan and the Bay Area will join us for this discussion. 

This event is brought to you by the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center Japan Program and the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, in cooperation with the Japan Society of Northern California.

 

Agenda

 

1:00pm          Welcome

     Jim Wunderman, President & CEO, Bay Area Council

     Hon. Tomochika Uyama, Consul General of Japan

     Takeo Hoshi, Director, Shorenstein APARC Japan Program

1:10pm          Introduction of Bay Area Council Economic Institute Report: High-Level Findings

     Sean Randolph, Senior Director, Bay Area Council Economic Institute

1:30pm          Observations and Silicon Valley Overview

     Kenji Kushida, Research Scholar, Stanford University

1:45pm          Panel 1: The Emerging New Japan 

     Kanetaka Maki, Associate Professor, Waseda Business School

     Mio Takaoka, CFO, Medical Note and Partner, Arbor Ventures

     Takeshi Ebihara, Founding GP, Rebright Partners

     Emre Yuasa, Principal, Globis Capital Partners

     Sean Randolph, Senior Director, Bay Area Council Economic Institute (Moderator)

2:45pm          Panel 2: Japanese Companies in Silicon Valley Creating Value in New Ways

     Hiroshi Menjo, Managing Partner, Net Service Ventures

     Tsunehiko Yanagihara, Executive VP, Mitsubishi Corp M-LAB

     Gen Isayama, General Partner & CEO, World Innovation Lab

     Dennis Clark, Managing Director, Honda Innovations

     George Saikalis, SVP & CTO, Hitachi America, Ltd.

     Kenji Kushida, Research Scholar, Stanford University (Moderator)

4:00pm         Closing Remarks 

Bechtel Conference Center
Encina Hall
616 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305

Panel Discussions

Shorenstein APARC Names 2019-20 Postdoctoral Fellows

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Shorenstein APARC is pleased to announce the selection of two scholars as postdoctoral fellows for the 2019-20 academic year. They will begin their appointments at Stanford in the coming Autumn quarter.

The Center offers the Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellowship on Contemporary Asia to recent doctoral graduates dedicated to research and writing on contemporary Asia, primarily in the areas of political, economic, or social change in the Asia-Pacific region, or international relations and international political economy in the region. The Center’s Asia Health Policy Program sponsors the Asia Health Policy Postdoctoral Fellowship, supporting young scholars who pursue original research on contemporary health or healthcare policy of high relevance to low- and middle-income countries in the Asia-Pacific region

Fellows develop their dissertations and other projects for publication, present their research, and participate in the intellectual life at the Center and at Stanford at large. Our postdoctoral fellows often go on to pursue careers at top universities and research organizations around the world and continue to contribute to APARC research and publications.

Meet our new postdoctoral scholars:

Portrait of Radhika Jain
Radhika Jain
Asia Health Policy Postdoctoral Fellow

What are the conditions necessary to ensure the effectiveness of public health insurance programs?

Radhika Jain is completing her doctorate in the Department of Global Health at Harvard University. She studies the role of the private sector in the health system, frictions in health care markets, and the incidence of public health policy benefits.

Radhika’s dissertation examines the extent to which government subsidies for health care under insurance are captured by private hospitals instead of being passed through to patients, and whether accountability measures can help patients claim their entitlements. Radhika’s research has been supported by grants from the Weiss Family Fund and the Jameel Poverty Action Lab (JPAL). She has worked on impact evaluations of health programs in India and on the implementation of HIV programs across several countries in sub-Saharan Africa. She also held a doctoral fellowship at the Center for Global Development.

At Shorenstein APARC, Radhika will refine her dissertation research for publication in academic journals and start new work on the structure of health care markets in India and the impacts of measures to increase the effectiveness of public health insurance.  

Portrait of Hannah June Kim
Hannah June Kim
Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow on Contemporary Asia

How does modernization influence cultural democratization in East Asia?

Hannah June Kim is completing her doctorate in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine. She researches public opinion, political behavior, theories of modernization, economic development, and democratic citizenship, focusing on East Asia.

Hannah’s dissertation examines how and why people view democracy in systematically different ways in six countries: China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Developing unique categories of democratic citizenship that measure the cognitive, affective, and behavioral patterns of individuals, she finds that state-led economic development limited the growth of cultural democratization among middle class groups in all three dimensions. The results imply that the classic causality between modernization and democratization may not be universally applicable to different cultural contexts.

At Shorenstein APARC, Hannah will work on developing her dissertation into a book manuscript and make progress on her next project that explores democratization and gender empowerment in East Asia. Hannah received an MA in International Studies from Korea University and a BA from UCLA. Her work has been published, or is forthcoming, in The Journal of Politics, PS: Political Science & Politics, and the Japanese Journal of Political Science.

 

 

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Oral Democracy: Deliberation in Indian Village Assemblies

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EMERGING ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY ASIA

A Special Seminar Series

RSVP required by March 6, 2019

VALID STANFORD ID CARD MUST BE PRESENTED UPON ARRIVAL

Oral Democracy studies citizens' voices in civic and political deliberations in India's gram sabhas (village assemblies), the largest deliberative institution in human history. The book analyses nearly three hundred transcripts of gram sabhas, sampled within the framework of a natural experiment, allowing the authors to study how state policy affects the quality of discourse, citizens' discursive performances and state enactments embodied by elected leaders and public officials. By drawing out the varieties of speech apparent in citizen and state interactions, the authors’ analysis shows that citizens' oral participation in development and governance can be improved by strengthening deliberative spaces through policy. Even in conditions of high inequality and illiteracy, gram sabhas can create discursive equality by developing the “oral competence” of citizens and establishing a space in which they can articulate their interests. The authors develop the concept of 'oral democracy' to aid the understanding of deliberative systems in non-Western and developing countries. 

biju rao
Vijayendra (Biju) Rao, a Lead Economist in the Development Research Group of the World Bank, works at the intersection of scholarship and practice.  He integrates his training in economics with theories and methods from anthropology, sociology and political science to study the social, cultural, and political context of extreme poverty in developing countries. He leads the Social Observatory, an inter-disciplinary lab to improve the conversation between citizens and governments.  His research, published in leading journals in Economics, Political Science and Development Studies has spanned a variety of subjects including dowries in India, domestic violence, the economics of sex work, public celebrations, community development, and deliberative democracy.   He and Ghazala Mansuri co-authored  Localizing Development: Does Participation Work? He is speaking about his latest book (with Paromita Sanyal), Oral Democracy: Deliberation in Rural India (Cambridge University Press, 2019).  It be downloaded for free from here. He was a co-author of the 2006 World Development Report on Equity and Development, and has co-edited Culture and Public Action, History, Historians and Development Policy, and, Deliberation and Development.  He serves on the editorial boards of several journals and is a  member of the Successful Societies Program at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR).
 

Vijayendra (Biju) Rao World Bank

The 40th Anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act

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Brent Christensen is the Director of the American Institute in Taiwan’s Taipei office. Mr. Christensen has been in the United States Foreign Service for more than 29 years and has extensive experience in senior positions related to Taiwan and China.  Mr. Christensen previously served as Deputy Director of the American Institute in Taiwan’s Taipei office.  Prior to that, he was Director of the State Department’s Office of Taiwan Coordination, where he had a primary role in formulating U.S. policy toward Taiwan.  He has served three assignments at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, the most recent being Environment, Science, Technology and Health Counselor.

Mr. Christensen has also served as a Senior Level Career Development Advisor in the State Department’s Human Resources Bureau.  Prior to that assignment, he served as the Foreign Policy Advisor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (APCSS).  Other overseas postings include Hong Kong and South Africa.  Mr. Christensen also served as a Congressional Fellow on the staff of Senator Olympia Snowe.  Prior to joining the Foreign Service, he was a captain in the U.S. Air Force.

Mr. Christensen is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service and holds the personal rank of Minister-Counselor.  Mr. Christensen earned an M.A. in East Asian Studies from the George Washington University, a B.A. in Chinese language and literature from Brigham Young University, and a Doctor of Medical Dentistry degree from the Oregon Health and Sciences University.  Mr. Christensen is married to Brenda Barrus Christensen and has three children.  He is a native of Provo, Utah.

Oksenberg Conference Room Encina Hall, 3rd Floor 616 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305
Brent Christensen Director, American Institute in Taiwan
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