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.

What Determines Success and Failure of Cluster-Based Industrial Development?

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Industrial clusters are ubiquitous in history and the contemporary developing world. While many of them grow dynamically, others stagnate. This study explores factors affecting the success and failure of cluster-based industrial development based primarily on own case studies conducted in East Asia, South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa as well as historical studies in Japan and Europe. It is found that the key to the successful development is multi-faceted innovations, encompassing technical and managerial innovations or improvements. Since innovative ideas spill over, collective actions which attempt to internalize externalities often play a role in sustainable development of industrial clusters. An implication is that stagnant clusters can be vitalized if multi-faceted innovations can be stimulated by policy means.   

 

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Keijiro Otsuka is a Professor of Development Economics at the Graduate School of Economics at the Kobe University and a Chief Senior Researcher at the Institute of Developing Economies in Tokyo. He was a professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) from April 2001 to March 2016. He received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago in 1979.

He was a core member of World Development Report 2013: Jobs. He was also President of International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE) from 2009 to 2012. He received Purple-Ribbon Medal from the Japanese Government in 2010.

He has been conducting comparative analyses on cluster-based industrial development, poverty and income distribution, land reform and land tenure, and Green Revolution between Asia and Africa. He published 123 articles in refereed international journals and 23 coauthored and coedited books. He is Fellows of International, American, and African Association of Agricultural Economists.

Kei Otsuka Professor, Kobe University
Seminars
Japan Colloquium Series

Thailand’s China Policy: Succumbing to Soft Power or Bending with the Wind?

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Please note event's venue has changed to the Philippines conference room

Conditions of Entry:

Valid photo ID required all of attendees

No posters are allowed

No noise makers are allowed

On the surface, Thai-China relations have never been better, as the two countries work to raise their ties to a higher and broader plane. A five-year plan for strategic cooperation now under negotiation covers political, military, and security affairs; multi-sectoral trade and investment; health, education, information, technology, and culture; and regional and multilateral foreign policy. China is comfortable working with the military government that has ruled Thailand since 2014, and vice versa.

Beijing credits the exercise of Chinese “soft power” in Southeast Asia with having improved Thai views of China. Analysts characterize the warming as a new version of Thailand’s old habit of adapting to powerful outsiders by “bending with the wind.” Prof. Pavin will argue that, although the application of soft power has helped China’s cause in Thailand, it is not the main reason for the present warming of ties between the two countries. Indeed, in the long run, Chinese soft power could prove disastrous for Thailand.

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Pavin Chachavalpongpun is currently a visiting scholar at the University of California-Berkeley’s Center for Southeast Asia Studies. He was recently at Stanford as a Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Distinguished Fellow on Contemporary Southeast Asia (2015-16). His many publications include Good Coup Gone Bad: Thailand’s Political Development since Thaksin’s Downfall (edited, 2014); Reinventing Thailand: Thaksin and His Foreign Policy (2010); and A Plastic Nation: The Curse of Thainess in Thai-Burmese Relations (2005). He is the editor of the Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia. His PhD is from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (2003).

Pavin Chachavalpongpun Associate Professor, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University
Seminars

Dong Zhang

616 Serra StreetEncina Hall E301Stanford, CA94305-6055
(650) 724-5321 (650) 723-6530
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Dong Zhang is a 2016-2017 Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellows in Contemporary Asia at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.  He is a political scientist whose research interests include political economy of development, with focus on the economic and political consequences of elite politics, and on the historical origins of long-run economic development. His dissertation examines the political logic of sustaining state capitalism model in the developing world with a primary focus on China. He received his doctorate in political science from Northwestern University in June 2016. Zhang holds bachelor’s degrees in public policy and economics, and a master’s degree in public policy from Peking University, Beijing.

Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow in Contemporary Asia, 2016-17

Ke Wang

616 Serra StreetEncina Hall E301Stanford, CA94305-6055
(650) 725-2507 (650) 723-6530
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Dr. Ke Wang is visiting APARC for the fall semester in 2016-2017 school year during her sabbatical leave from her current post at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington D.C. where she serves as a Senior Economist in the Division of Banking Supervision and Regulation.

At the Fed, Dr. Wang is responsible for policy analysis and regulation oversight of U.S. bank holding companies as well as conducting academic research in economics and finance fields. In her five-year tenure as a Fed staff economist, she participated in international Basel framework of capital regulation, quantitative credit model assessment for U.S. Stress Testing practice, and policy initiatives on liquidity regulation for Systemically Important Financial Institutions.

Dr. Wang’s research interests span from credit analysis to monetary policy. She has published in top academic journals such as Journal of Financial Economics and has wide citations for her previous works which covered topics such as corporate bond default prediction, impact of banking structure on monetary policy, and relationship banking in pre-war Japan.

Her current working papers focus on how liquidity in Over-The-Counter market is impacted by broker-dealers’ funding costs and information asymmetry. She provides empirical evidence using comprehensive bond transaction data that broker-dealers’ own financial health will quantitatively impact the liquidity and price discovery process of distressed assets. At Stanford, Dr. Wang will collaborate with other APARC research fellows on studies about both U.S. and Japan banking regulations, particularly the impact of regulation on systemic risk of financial institutions. 

Dr. Wang holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University and a B.A. in International Economics from Peking University. She once worked as an Assistant Professor in Finance in the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tokyo, teaching graduate courses on Money and Banking as well as Corporate Finance. 

Visiting Scholar
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Walder receives award for Cultural Revolution research

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Portrait of Prof. Andrew Walder

Stanford professor Andrew Walder has been awarded the Founder’s Prize from the journal Social Science History for his paper, “Rebellion and Repression in China, 1966-1971.” The journal’s editorial board selects one recipient annually for exemplary scholarly work.

Using data from 2,213 historical county and city annals, the paper charts the breadth of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, its evolution through time and the repression through which state structures were rebuilt in the post-Mao era.

Walder, who is a senior fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and director emeritus of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, has long studied the sources of conflict, stability and change in communist regimes. He recently published China under Mao, a book that explores the rise and fall of Mao Zedong’s radical socialism.

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Portrait of Prof. Andrew Walder
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The Arbitral Court’s Ruling on the South China Sea: Pros and Cons, Contexts and Consequences

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Conflicting views of international law versus national interest are churning the South China Sea. In The Hague on 12 July 2016, an Arbitral Tribunal ruled in favor of the Republic of the Philippines and against the People’s Republic of China regarding the latter’s claims and behavior in the South China Sea. Beijing has denounced the decision and refuses to abide by it. The Philippines’ new and outspoken president has refused to press China toward compliance, seemingly preferring to seek economic benefits from China instead. The US and Japan, among other countries, have supported the ruling, but in a muted fashion, as if to avoid antagonizing China. 

Did the Arbitral Court do the right or the wrong thing? Did the judges (in)correctly interpret the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)? Has the unwillingness of Manila and Washington to champion the court’s decision made the prospect of Beijing’s eventual dominance in Southeast Asia more likely? Has China’s self-assigned and so far successful impunity undermined global compliance with UNCLOS? Or does Beijing’s pragmatic emphasis on realpolitik over moralpolitik point the way toward a practical alleviation of tensions that global jurisprudence cannot achieve? And what if the court’s ruling were applied to other sweeping maritime claims to land features in the Pacific, including the exclusive economic zones drawn by Tokyo around Okinotorishima or by Washington around its mid-ocean “Minor Outlying Islands”? Would the US comply? And lastly: What next?

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Jay L. Batongbacal and Yann-huei Song are internationally regarded experts on the Law of the Sea with extensive knowledge of and experience in maritime affairs. Prof. Batongbacal’s many publications include a recent chapter in Power, Law, and Maritime Order in the South China Sea (2015). His doctorate in Jurisprudential Science is from Dalhousie University (2010). Prof. Song’s many publications include a recent volume, The United States and Maritime Disputes in the South China Sea (2016). His doctorate in the Science of Law is from the University of California-Berkeley (2000).

 

 

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Jay L. Batongbacal Associate Professor, College of Law, and Director, Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea, University of the Philippines, Manila, Philippines
Yann-huei Song Research Fellow, Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica, and Adjunct Professor, School of Law, Soochow University, Taipei, Taiwan
Seminars

U.S.-Vietnam Relations Today and Tomorrow

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Ambassador Osius will make remarks on U.S.-Vietnam relations in the wake of President Obama’s May 2016 visit. He will focus on the unfinished task of reconciliation. Relations were normalized in 1995. Yet many in Vietnam’s diaspora community, especially those most affected by the legacies of the war, oppose rapprochement and engagement. Overseas communities can play important and constructive roles in relations between their countries of origin and the rest of the world. Ambassador Osius will argue that a fully engaged Vietnamese-American community could and would contribute a lot toward growing the U.S. partnership with Vietnam, including helping to shape a beneficial future of greater trade, improved regional stability, and an expanded role for civil society.

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Ted Osius is the sixth U.S. ambassador to Vietnam (December 2014-Present). Previously he was an associate professor and a senior fellow, respectively, at the National War College and the Center for Strategic and International Studies; deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta; and political minister-counselor at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi. His earlier career included service as regional environment officer for Southeast Asia and the Pacific in the U.S. State Department and as senior advisor on international affairs in the Office of the Vice President. 

This event is co-sponsored by the U.S. - Asia Security Initiative and the Southeast Asia Program
Ted Osius U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam
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U.S.-Asia Security Initiative

North Korea's nuclear ambition carries a strategic and military logic

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North Korea conducted its fifth nuclear test in the wake of the G20 summit earlier this month. The United States immediately condemned North Korea’s behavior in a statement delivered by the White House, and a few days later, flew a set of bombers near the U.S. military base in Osan, South Korea.

Writing for Toyo Keizai, Daniel Sneider, associate director for research at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, said a consistent strategic and military reasoning drives the North Korean regime’s decision to test nuclear missiles. His analysis piece can be viewed in English and Japanese.

Sneider also spoke with Slate about how the next U.S. administration could respond, suggesting that a deployment of additional nuclear-capable aircraft at U.S. bases in Asia would send a strong signal to Pyongyang. The Slate article is available at this link.

South Korea has been seeking stronger international sanctions against North Korea since the test. As the country’s biggest trading partner, China is considered an important actor in the ability to influence North Korea. In the Korea Times, Sneider said a way to motivate China to augment their role in sanctions against North Korea is to remind Beijing that a continuation of North Korea's nuclear program would only lead to greater scale and capability of American military presence in the region. The Korea Times article is available at this link.

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A television shows breaking news about North Korea's long-range rocket launch in February 2016, Seoul, South Korea.
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Taiwan's Democracy Challenged: The Chen Shui-bian Years

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Taiwan's Democracy Challenged

This discussion will be based on the authors' recently published book, Taiwan's Democracy Challenged: The Chen Shui-bian Years, Lynne Rienner Publishing (2016).

Abstract

At the end of Chen Shui-bian’s two terms as the president of Taiwan, his tenure was widely viewed as a disappointment, if not an outright failure. Today, the Chen years (2000-2008) are remembered mostly for relentless partisan fighting over cross-Strait relations and national identity questions, prolonged political gridlock, and damaging corruption scandals—as an era that challenged, rather than helped consolidate, Taiwan’s young democracy and squandered most of the promise with which it began.

Yet as Taiwan’s Democracy Challenged: The Chen Shui-bian Years documents, this conventional narrative obscures a more complex and more positive story. The chapters here cover the diverse array of ways in which democratic practices were deepened during this period, including the depoliticization of the military and intelligence forces, the ascendance of an independent and professional judicial system, a strengthened commitment to constitutionalism and respect for the rule of law, and the creation of greater space for civil society representatives in the policy-making process. Even the conventional wisdom about unprecedented political polarization during this era is misleading: while elite politics became more divided and acrimonious, mass public opinion on cross-Strait relations and national identity was actually converging.

Not all developments were so positive: strong partisans on both sides of the political divide remained only weakly committed to democratic principles, the reporting of news organizations became more sensationalist and partisan, and the Taiwanese state’s exceptional autonomy from sectoral interests and vaunted capacity for long-term planning deteriorated. But on the whole, the authors argue, these years were not squandered. By the end of the Chen Shui-bian era, Taiwan’s democracy was firmly consolidated. 

 

This event is sponsored by the Taiwan Democracy Project in the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. It is free and open to the public, and lunch will be served. Please RSVP by October 31.

Taiwan's Democracy Challenged presentation slides
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CISAC Central Conference Room, Encina Hall 2nd Floor

Larry Diamond Senior Fellow and Principal Investigator, Taiwan Democracy Project

Kharis Templeman, Ph.D.

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Kharis Templeman is the former project manager of the Taiwan Democracy and Security Project in the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC). He currently serves as advisor to the Taiwan Democracy and Security Project. A fluent Mandarin speaker, he has lived, worked and traveled extensively in both Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China.

His research includes projects on party system institutionalization and partisan realignments, electoral integrity and manipulation in East Asia, the politics of defense spending in Taiwan, and the representation of Taiwan’s indigenous minorities. His most recent publication is “The China Model: How Successful Is the Chinese Regime?” a review essay in the Taiwan Journal of Democracy. He is also the editor (with Larry Diamond and Yun-han Chu) of Taiwan’s Democracy Challenged: The Chen Shui-bian Years (2016, Lynne Rienner Publishing). Other work has appeared in Comparative Political Studies and the APSA Comparative Democratization Newsletter.

Dr. Templeman currently serves as coordinator of the American Political Science Association Conference Group on Taiwan Studies (CGOTS) and as a regional manager for the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project. He holds a BA (2003) from the University of Rochester and a PhD (2012) in political science from the University of Michigan.

Former Project Manager, Taiwan Democracy and Security Project
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Taiwan’s China Dilemma: Contested Identities and Multiple Interests in Taiwan’s Cross-Strait Economic Policy

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This talk will be based on Professor Lin's new book, Taiwan's China Dilemma: Contested Identities and Multiple Interests in Taiwan's Cross-Strait Economic Policy, Stanford University Press (2016). 

 

Abstract

China and Taiwan share one of the world's most complex international relationships. Although their similar cultures and complementary economies promoted an explosion of commercial ties since the late 1980s, they have not led to a stable political relationship, let alone progress toward the unification that both governments once claimed to seek. In addition, Taiwan’s economic policy toward China has alternated between liberalization and restriction. Most recently, Taiwan's Sunflower Movement succeeded in obstructing deeper economic ties with China. Why has Taiwan's policy toward China been so controversial and inconsistent?

Author Syaru Shirley Lin explains the divergence between the development of economic and political relations across the Taiwan Strait and the oscillation of Taiwan’s cross-Strait economic policy through the interplay of national identity and economic interests. She shows how the debate over Taiwanese national identity has been intimately linked to Taiwan’s economic policy during a turbulent time in cross-Strait relations. Using primary sources, opinion surveys, and interviews with Taiwanese opinion leaders, she paints a vivid picture of one of the most unsettled and dangerous relationships in the contemporary world.

As Taiwan grapples with the growing importance of the Chinese economy, it also experiences the uneven socio-economic consequences of globalization. This has produced a reconsideration of the desired degree of further integration with China, especially among the younger generations. Taiwan’s China Dilemma illustrates the growing backlash against economic liberalization and regional economic integration around the world.

 

Biography

Shirley Lin

Syaru Shirley Lin teaches political science at the University of Virginia and is a member of the founding faculty of the master’s program in global political economy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her book, Taiwan’s China Dilemma: Contested Identities and Multiple Interests in Taiwan's Cross-Strait Economic Policy, was published by Stanford University Press in 2016. She graduated from Harvard College and earned her masters and Ph.D. from the University of Hong Kong. Before starting her academic career, Prof. Lin was a partner at Goldman Sachs, where she was responsible for direct investment in Asia and spearheaded the firm’s investments in many technology start-ups such as Alibaba and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. Previously, she specialized in the privatization of state-owned enterprises in Singapore and China. Prof. Lin’s present board service includes Goldman Sachs Asia Bank, Langham Hospitality Investments and Mercuries Life Insurance. She also advises Crestview Partners and the Focused Ultrasound Foundation and is a member of the Hong Kong Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation.

 

This event is sponsored by the Taiwan Democracy Project in the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. It is free and open to the public, and lunch will be served. Please RSVP by October 17.

CISAC Central Conference Room, Encina Hall, 2nd Floor

Syaru Shirley Lin Professor of Political Economy Chinese University of Hong Kong and the University of Virginia
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