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 Republic of China on Taiwan spent nearly four decades as a single-party state under dictatorial rule (1949-1987) before transitioning to liberal democracy. This talk is based on an ethnographic study of street-level police practices during the first rotation in executive power following the democratic transition (i.e. the first term of the Chen Shui-bian administration, 2000-2004). Summarizing the argument of a forthcoming book, Dr. Jeffrey T. Martin focuses on an apparent paradox, in which the strength of Taiwan's democracy is correlated to the weakness of its police powers. Martin explains this paradox through a theory of "jurisdictional pluralism" which, in Taiwan, is organized by a cultural distinction between sentiment, reason, and law as distinct foundations for political authority. An overt police interest in sentiment (qing) was institutionalized during the martial law era, when police served as an instrument for the cultivation of properly nationalistic political sentiments. Martin's fieldwork demonstrates how the politics of sentiment which took shape under autocratic rule continued to operate in everyday policing in the early phase of the democratic transformation, even as a more democratic mode of public reason and the ultimate power of legal right were becoming more significant.
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Jeffrey T. Martin is an assistant professor in the Departments of Anthropology and East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. He specializes in the anthropological study of modern policing, and has conducted research in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the USA. His research interests focus on historical continuity and change in police culture, especially as this culture reflects specific changes in the legal, bureaucratic, or technical dimensions of police operations. Prior to joining the University of Illinois, Dr. Martin taught in the Sociology Department at the University of Hong Kong, and in the Graduate Institute of Taiwan Studies at Chang Jung Christian University.
Jeffrey T. Martin
<i>Assistant Professor, Anthropology and East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign</i>
Even as Indian officials watch the rise of China and recent changes to its foreign policy with apprehension, they prefer to avoid having to choose sides between the United States and China.
That sentiment marked the keynote address by veteran journalist Siddharth Varadarajan, winner of the 2017 Shorenstein Journalism Award. Speaking on April 16 at the Award’s sixteenth anniversary panel discussion titled “India, the United States, and China: The New Triangle in Asia,” Varadarajan described a triangle where all three parties were in flux.
The award recognizes Varadarajan’s exemplary record of excellence in reporting on India’s domestic and foreign affairs in both traditional and new media. As founding editor of The Wire, Varadarajan combines innovative digital strategies with quality reporting that advances positive social, economic, and political change.
“Today we can see, across Asia as well as the United States, that journalism has been somewhat reinvigorated by… the growth of authoritarianism,” said Daniel Sneider, Shorenstein APARC visiting scholar, who chaired the noon panel. “I think we feel even more vindicated in hosting this award…and giving some attention to people who are making this kind of contribution.”
Thomas Fingar, a China specialist and a Shorenstein APARC fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute, and Nayan Chandra, the founder, former editor-in-chief, and current consulting editor of YaleGlobal Online magazine, joined Varadarajan on the panel.
The panelists addressed a host of questions related to Indian foreign policy under the geopolitical construct of a rising China and a retreating United States. Although the China-India-U.S. triangle has existed for some time, Varadarajan argued that present conditions make it an important topic for renewed discussion.
Pointing to recent internal changes by president Xi Jinping, India’s departure from the so-called Nehruvian consensus, as well as the unpredictability of U.S. foreign and trade polices under the Trump presidency, Varadarajan depicted a triangle comprised of shifting segment lengths and angles. He reviewed the India-U.S. and the India-China relationships and their evolution over the last decade-and-a-half; outlined significant changes in China’s foreign and economic policies over the last eight years; and elucidated the U.S.-India response to these changes.
Since 1998 and India’s declaration of its status as a nuclear power, U.S.-India relations have seen a succession of rises and falls under each presidency, with the present administration being no exception. “When the rest of the world was ambiguous, ambivalent, a bit worried about what the United States might do under Trump,” Varadarajan said, “Prime Minister Modi was one of the few world leaders to actually seek a doubling down of the relationship." Over the same period, India-China relations tended to follow a similar pattern of peaks and troughs, albeit in a reversed pattern. “If you look broadly at the India-China relationship,” Varadarajan summated, “it’s a textbook case of how improvements in economic relations and improvements in trade do not necessarily lead to improvements in political relations."
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Varadarajan closed his remarks by arguing against the existing viewpoint of the triangle as a zero-sum game. “You cannot, on the one hand, talk of the need for a free and open Indo-Pacific region and, on the other hand, create forums or architecture that in some ways are designed to keep the Chinese out… India's interests lie perhaps in an architecture that is genuinely inclusive.”
The Shorenstein Journalism Award, which carries a cash prize of $10,000, recognizes accomplished journalists committed to critical reporting on and exploring the complexities of Asia through their writing. It alternates between honoring recipients from the West, who mainly address American audiences, and recipients from Asia, who pave the way for freedom of the press in their countries. Established in 2002, the award honors the legacy of Mr. Walter H. Shorenstein. A visionary businessman, philanthropist, and champion of Asian-American relations, Shorenstein was dedicated to promoting excellence in journalism and deeper understanding of Asia.
Varadarajan called the award a “boost to those of us in India who are fighting the good fight of keeping independent journalism alive-and kicking under difficult circumstances.”
Watch Varadarajan’s keynote speech:
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Siddharth Varadarajan, the 2017 Shorenstein Journalism Award winner, speaks to an audience of Stanford faculty, students and community members, part of the award's 16th anniversary, April 16, 2018.
Please note: RSVP's are full for this event. Please email PLABOON@STANFORD.EDU to add your name to the waitlist.
During its March 2018 National People’s Congress (NPC) meeting, the PRC’s national delegates voted nearly unanimously to eliminate term limits for China’s president and vice president. Alongside this dramatic announcement, the NPC further announced drastic re-organization of Party and state such that the Chinese state administration saw significant cuts, consolidation and centralization of power under the CCP.
At this watershed moment, leading experts on Chinese politics will examine what these Constitutional changes bode for China’s future and Xi Jinping’s rule. Are these game changers? Is China abandoning key parts of Deng Xiaoping’s legacy? How will these affect China’s authoritarian resilience or governance system going forward? What are the short- and long-term implications of this decision for China’s continuing stability, sustained economic growth and foreign policy?
Please join us for this special panel event with top China experts as they discuss the significance and implications of the recent NPC decisions and Constitutional amendments.
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Joseph Fewsmith is professor of international relations and political science at the BU Pardee School. He is the author or editor of eight books, including, most recently, The Logic and Limits of Political Reform in China (January 2013). Other works include China since Tiananmen (2nd edition, 2008) and China Today, China Tomorrow (2010). Other books include Elite Politics in Contemporary China (2001), The Dilemmas of Reform in China: Political Conflict and Economic Debate (1994), and Party, State, and Local Elites in Republican China: Merchant Organizations and Politics in Shanghai, 1890-1930 (1985). He is one of the seven regular contributors to the China Leadership Monitor, a quarterly web publication analyzing current developments in China. Fewsmith travels to China regularly and is active in the Association for Asian Studies and the American Political Science Association. His articles have appeared in such journals as Asian Survey, Comparative Studies in Society and History, The China Journal, The China Quarterly, Current History, The Journal of Contemporary China, Problems of Communism, and Modern China. He is an associate of the John King Fairbank Center for East Asian Studies at Harvard University and the Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer Range Future at Boston University.
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Mary Gallagheris professor of political science at the University of Michigan as well as the director of the Kenneth G. Lieberthal and Richard H. Rogel Center for Chinese Studies. She received her Ph.D. in politics in 2001 from Princeton University and a B.A. from Smith College in 1991.In 1989, she was a foreign student in China at Nanjing University. Gallagher later taught at the Foreign Affairs College in Beijing from 1996-1997 and was a Fulbright Research Scholar from 2003 to 2004 at East China University of Politics and Law in Shanghai, China. In 2012-2013, she was a visiting professor at the Koguan School of Law at Shanghai Jiaotong University. Her book, Authoritarian Legality in China: Law, Workers, and the State is out from Cambridge University Press this year. Gallagher have also written/edited several other books, including Contagious Capitalism:Globalization and the Politics of Labor in China (Princeton 2005), Chinese Justice: Civil Dispute Resolution in Contemporary China (Cambridge 2011), From Iron Rice Bowl to Informalization:Markets, Workers, and the State in a Changing China (Cornell 2011), and Contemporary Chinese Politics: New Sources, Methods, and Field Strategies (Cambridge 2010).
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Alice Miller is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and lecturer in East Asian studies at Stanford. Miller first joined the Hoover Institution in 1999 as a visiting fellow. She also served as a senior lecturer in the Department of National Security Affairs at the US Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, 1999-2014. Before coming to Stanford, Miller taught at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC. From 1980 to 1990, she was a professorial lecturer in Chinese history and politics at SAIS. From 1990 to 2000, she was an associate professor of China studies and, for most of that period, director of the China Studies Program at SAIS. She also held a joint appointment as adjunct associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Johns Hopkins from 1996 to 1999 and as adjunct lecturer in the Department of Government, Georgetown University, from 1996 to 1998. From 1974 to 1990, Miller worked in the Central Intelligence Agency as a senior analyst in Chinese foreign policy and domestic politics and as a branch and division chief, supervising analysis on China, North Korea, Indochina, and Soviet policy in East Asia. Miller has lived and worked in Taiwan, Japan, and the People’s Republic of China; she speaks Mandarin Chinese.
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Victor Shih is an associate professor of political economy at University of California, San Diego, and has published widely on the politics of Chinese banking policies, fiscal policies and exchange rates. He was the first analyst to identify the risk of massive local government debt, and is the author of Factions and Finance in China: Elite Conflict and Inflation. Prior to joining U.C. San Diego, Shih was a professor of political science at Northwestern University and former principal for The Carlyle Group.Shih is currently engaged in a study of how the coalition-formation strategies of founding leaders had a profound impact on the evolution of the Chinese Communist Party. He is also constructing a large database on biographical information of elites in China.
Joseph Fewsmith
<br><i>Professor of International Relations and Political Science, Boston University, Pardee School</i><br><br>
Mary Gallagher
<br><i>Professor of Political Science; Director, Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan</i><br><br>
Alice Miller
<br><i>Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University</i><br><br>
Victor Shih
<br><i>Associate Professor, School of Global Policy & Strategy, University of California, San Diego</i><br><br>
Japan is known to have an exceptionally low level of inward foreign direct investment (FDI). The promotion of inward FDI is one of the policy goals of Abenomics structural reforms. This present paper studies the accumulation of Japan's inward FDI stock during the first 3 years of Abenomics (2012–2015), and finds no evidence that Japan's inward FDI stock increased more than the trend before Abenomics started would have predicted. A comparison of the main policies for promoting inward FDI that have been implemented to the real and perceived impediments to inward FDI reveals that it may be advisable to shift the emphasis of the policy to address more regulatory and administrative issues and to reduce the cost of doing business in Japan.
Using a unique dataset on all major corporate restructuring events in Japan between 1981 and 2010, we assess changes in the role of the main bank in guiding corporate turarounds, and the economic consequences of these changes for distressed firms. We identify firms in distress among all listed firms based on accounting data, and we separately identify firms undergoing corporate restructuring based on a newspaper search for the Japanese term “saiken”. Even though the ratio of distressed firms has not declined, the incidence of saiken restructuring by such firms has become less frequent after the 1990s, indicating a decline in the governance and rescue role of the main bank. When firms undergo saiken, they adopt real adjustments in terms of labor, assets and finance. While the intensity of these adjustments has also declined over time, saiken firms make more significant adjustments than distressed firms that do not undergo restructuring. The role of saiken was an important part of corporate renewal in Japan, and it has declined. In line with existing research, these findings underscore changes in Japanese corporate governance, in particular regarding the decline of the monitoring and restructuring function of the main bank.
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What explains variation in access to citizenship rights in China? Why do some governments extend citizenship to migrants while others do not? This talk details the structural barriers to accessing citizenship rights in China through the household registration system, hukou, which treats domestic migrant workers as foreigners in their own country. Over the last twenty years, city governments erected local citizenship regimes, controlling who is allowed to become full citizens locally while keeping unwanted populations out. In this talk, Prof. Vortherms details the sub-national variation in these policies and explains the connection between economic growth and citizenship acquisition. When the local economy is exposed to foreign market forces, local governments are incentivized to open citizenship to high-skilled workers, who have greater marginal benefits for the local economy in the presence of foreign production. Protectionism leads to stricter policies for low-skilled and chain migrants, while lower local fiscal capacity can increase opportunities for buying citizenship through investment. This talk tests these hypotheses on an original database of local naturalization policies in 249 cities in China, and concludes with a discussion of the prospects and implications of recent reforms to the household registration system.
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Samantha Vortherms is a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine. Her research focuses on comparative political economy, development, social welfare, and survey research. Her current book project, Localized Citizenship in China, examines sub-national variation in access to citizenship rights in China. Prof. Vortherms research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Fulbright Program, and the Social Science Research Council. Before her time at Stanford, she received a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin—Madison and two Master’s degrees in International Relations and Public Policy at the University of Chicago.
Samantha Vortherms
<i>Postdoctoral fellow, Stanford Shorenstein APARC, Assistant Professor of Political Science, U.C. Irvine</i>
The 12th and 13th President (2008-2016) of the Republic of China (Taiwan)
Ma Ying-jeou was born in 1950 in Hong Kong, and emigrated in 1951 with his family to Taiwan, where he grew up. He graduated from National Taiwan University’s Department of Law in 1972, then served in the Marines and Navy for two years before earning an LL.M from New York University (1976) and an S.J.D. from Harvard University (1981). Dr. Ma began his political career as the deputy director of the Presidential Office’s First Bureau, and doubled as President Chiang Ching-kuo’s personal English interpreter. After President Chiang passed away in 1988, he held a series of other positions in government, including the Chairman of the Research, Evaluation, and Development Commission, Senior Vice Chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council, and Minister of Justice. In 1998, he was elected mayor of Taipei, an office he held until 2006. In 2008, he was elected President of the Republic of China (Taiwan) with 58% of the vote, the highest in history, and he was re-elected in 2012.
During President Ma’s two terms in office, Taiwan’s per-capita GDP (on a PPP basis) rose from US$34,936 to $48,095, passing the U.K., France, Denmark, Italy, Canada, Japan, and South Korea and advancing 10 places in eight years. Taiwan was able to maintain peaceful relations with the Chinese mainland, friendly relations with Japan, and close relations with the United States; relations with all three countries were the best they had been in many decades. In November 2015, President Ma met with the mainland Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Singapore, the first face-to-face meeting between leaders of the two sides in 70 years. President Ma left office on May 20, 2016.
Traitel Building, Hauck Auditorium
Ma Ying-jeou
Former President of the Republic of China (Taiwan)
Hate propaganda has been a feature of politics in India, Indonesia, and other Asian democracies long before the recent surge in interest in so-called “fake news” and intolerant populism in the West. This presentation dissects the political strategy of “hate spin,” which includes not only the use of hate speech or incitement, but also the creative manufacture of righteous indignation and popular mobilization framed as responses to victimhood. Examples include the “love jihad” conspiracy theory in India and blasphemy allegations in Indonesia, which have been used to devastating effect by religious nationalists. Existing religious-offense laws have backfired, while incitement laws, though necessary, are systemically incapable of dealing with hate propagandists’ highly sophisticated and distributed disinformation campaigns. The speaker's book on this topic, Hate Spin, will be available for sale at his talk.
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Cherian George is a professor of media studies at Hong Kong Baptist University. He is the author of Hate Spin: The Manufacture of Religious Offense and its Threat to Democracy (2016), which was named on Publishers Weekly’s list of the 100 best books of 2016. Prof. George’s PhD is from Stanford University’s Department of Communication (2003). He was previously a journalist with The Straits Times in his native Singapore. His latest book on Singapore is the self-published Singapore, Incomplete: Reflections on a First World Nation’s Arrested Political Development (2017).
Cherian George
Professor of Media Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University
Modern-day markets do not arise spontaneously or evolve naturally. Rather they are crafted by individuals, firms, and most of all, by governments. Thus "marketcraft" represents a core function of government comparable to statecraft and requires considerable artistry to govern markets effectively. Just as real-world statecraft can be masterful or muddled, so it is with marketcraft.
In his new book, Steven Vogel builds his argument upon the recognition that all markets are crafted then systematically explores the implications for analysis and policy. In modern societies, there is no such thing as a free market. Markets are institutions, and contemporary markets are all heavily regulated. The "free market revolution" that began in the 1980s did not see a deregulation of markets, but rather a re-regulation. Vogel looks at a wide range of policy issues to support this concept, focusing in particular on the US and Japan. He examines how the US, the "freest" market economy, is actually among the most heavily regulated advanced economies, while Japan's effort to liberalize its economy counterintuitively expanded the government's role in practice.
Marketcraft demonstrates that market institutions need government to function, and in increasingly complex economies, governance itself must feature equally complex policy tools if it is to meet the task. In our era-and despite what anti-government ideologues contend-governmental officials, regardless of party affiliation, should be trained in marketcraft just as much as in statecraft.
SPEAKER
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Steven K. Vogel, Il Han New Professor of Asian Studies and a Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley
BIO
Steven K. Vogel is the Il Han New Professor of Asian Studies and a Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He specializes in the political economy of the advanced industrialized nations, especially Japan. He recently completed a book, entitled Marketcraft: How Governments Make Markets Work (Oxford, 2018), which argues that markets do not arise spontaneously but rather are crafted by individuals, firms, and most of all by governments. Thus “marketcraft” represents a core function of government comparable to statecraft. The book systematically reviews the implications of this argument, critiquing prevalent schools of thought and presenting lessons for policy. Vogel is also the author of Japan Remodeled: How Government and Industry Are Reforming Japanese Capitalism (Cornell, 2006) and co-editor (with Naazneen Barma) of The Political Economy Reader: Markets as Institutions (Routledge, 2008). His first book, Freer Markets, More Rules: Regulatory Reform in Advanced Industrial Countries (Cornell, 1996), won the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize. He edited his mother’s book, Suzanne Hall Vogel, The Japanese Family in Transition: From the Professional Housewife Ideal to the Dilemmas of Choice(Rowman & Littlefield, 2013), and a volume on U.S.-Japan Relations in a Changing World(Brookings, 2002). He won the Northern California Association of Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Excellence Award in 2002, and the UC Berkeley Faculty Award for Outstanding Mentorship of Graduate Student Instructors in 2005. He has been a columnist for Newsweek-Japan and the Asahi Shimbun, and he has written extensively for the popular press. He has worked as a reporter for the Japan Times in Tokyo and as a freelance journalist in France. He has taught previously at the University of California, Irvine and Harvard University. He has a B.A. from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley.
Steven K. Vogel, Il Han New Professor of Asian Studies and a Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley
No longer "estranged democracies," relations between the United States and India have been on a steady upward trajectory in recent years, though at times have fallen short of the lofty expectations set by others. As we look ahead, the significance of a true U.S.-India security and economic partnership is just now coming into focus, and it is clear the potential is enormous. Indeed, the positive ripple effects of a convergence between the world's two largest democracies would reverberate across Asia. This opportunity, however, comes amid uncertain times in Asia. China's march for primacy continues. Dangers from nuclear proliferation and rogue regimes loom large. The fractionalization of states and humanitarian crises are all too common. We must then ask – what role can the United States and India play together to promote peace and stability, uphold and reinforce the post-World War II order, and shape and build new institutions across Asia and beyond? These are some of the questions Ambassador Verma will tackle in his remarks, while also providing historical context on the issues that have limited U.S.-India ties to-date. He will also provide insight on the future trajectory of the relationship, looking at how the United States and India -- two non-allies -- can work together to promote peace, economic growth, and democratic values during these uncertain times.
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Richard Verma is Vice Chairman and Partner at The Asia Group. He previously served as the U.S. Ambassador to India from 2014 to 2017, where he led one of the largest U.S. diplomatic missions and championed historic progress in bilateral cooperation on defense, trade, and clean energy. Ambassador Verma also oversaw an unprecedented nine meetings between President Obama and Prime Minister Modi – leading to over 100 new initiatives and more than 40 government-to-government dialogues.
Ambassador Verma was previously the Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs, and also served for many years as the Senior National Security Advisor to the Senate Majority Leader. He was a member of the WMD and Terrorism Commission and a co-author of their landmark report, “World at Risk.” He is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, and his military decorations include the Meritorious Service Medal and Air Force Commendation Medal.
In addition to his role at The Asia Group, Ambassador Verma is a Centennial Fellow at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, and he co-chairs the Center for American Progress’ U.S.-India Task Force. Ambassador Verma is the recipient of the State Department’s Distinguished Service Award, the Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship, and was ranked by India Abroad as one of the 50 most influential Indian Americans. He holds degrees from the Georgetown University Law Center (LLM), American University’s Washington College of Law (JD), and Lehigh University (BS).
