From 18 to 20 November 2012 Phnom Penh in Cambodia will be the summit capital of the world. President Obama and the heads of nearly 20 other countries will gather there for a series of high-level meetings organized by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Events will include the ASEAN Summit, the ASEAN Plus Three Summit, and the East Asia Summit (EAS). Obama will attend the EAS and the US-ASEAN Leaders Summit as well.

Here at Stanford the issues at stake in these summits will be assessed in conversation among the ambassadors to the United States from five ASEAN member countries—Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Viet Nam—and the president of the US-ASEAN Business Council. How will the ASEAN Community planned for 2015 affect economy, security, and democracy in Southeast Asia? What are China’s intentions in East Asia?  How should ASEAN respond to Chinese behavior? Will a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea be announced in Phnom Penh? What can we expect from Indonesia’s leadership of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in 2013? Is protectionism in Southeast Asia on the rise? Has Europe’s recent experience discredited economic regionalism? Is the US-backed Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (TPP) good or bad for Southeast Asia? Should the controversial American “rebalance” toward Asia be rebalanced? How reversible are the reforms in Myanmar (Burma)? What changes inside ASEAN will make the organization more effective? What is the single change in US policy that each ambassador would most like to see?

Since Thailand’s coup of September 2006, which forced the controversial government of billionaire businessman Thaksin Shinawatra out of office, pro- and anti-Thaksin forces have waged an intense battle for control of the government. Rural people in Thailand have played an important role in this struggle, but the nature of their politics is poorly understood. On the one hand there are breathless accounts of agrarian class struggle, while on the other hand rural protest is dismissed as the product of elite manipulation and financial inducement. These paradigms are unhelpful because they ignored the emergence of a new political relationship between the state and the rural population. Sustained economic growth since the 1960s had lifted rural households to levels of income and consumption previously unimagined. They are no longer mainly challenged by food insecurity but by the need to diversify economically and improve productivity. The state plays a key role in addressing these challenges through an array of subsidy, welfare, and community development schemes. Modern peasant politics in Thailand are motivated not by an antagonistic relationship with the state but by a desire to draw the state into mutually beneficial transactions. The classic frameworks for explaining peasant political behavior, based on rebellion or resistance, are impediments to understanding this new style of political behavior. Prof. Walker will propose instead an alternative model of rural “political society” based on the relationship between a persistent peasantry and a subsidizing state.  Copies of Thailand's Political Peasants will be available for signing and sale by the author following his talk.

Andrew Walker is an anthropologist who has worked in northern Thailand since the early 1990s. His latest book is Thailand’s Political Peasants: Power in the Modern Rural Economy (2012). His many earlier publications include “Royal Succession and the Evolution of Thai Democracy,” in Montesano et al., eds, Bangkok May 2010: Perspectives on a Divided Thailand (2011); Tai Lands and Thailand: Community and State in Mainland Southeast Asia (edited, 2009); Forest Guardians, Forest Destroyers: The Politics of Environmental Knowledge in Northern Thailand (co-authored, 2008); and The Legend of the Golden Boat: Regulation, Trade and Traders in the Borderlands of Laos, Thailand, China and Burma (1999). He also co-founded and co-convenes New Mandala, a widely read and highly regarded blog that offers fresh perspectives, both analytic and anecdotal, on mainland Southeast Asia.

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Min Zin is a Burmese journalist, and a regular contributor to The Foreign Policy’s Transition. He also serves as Burma’s country analyst for several research foundations including Freedom House. He took part in Burma’s democracy movement in 1988 as a high school student activist, and went into hiding in 1989 to avoid arrest by the junta. His underground activist-cum-writer life lasted for nine years until he fled to the Thai-Burma border in August 1997. His writings appear in The Journal of Democracy, The Foreign Policy, The Irrawaddy, The Bangkok Post, Far Eastern Economic Review, Wall Street Journal, and other publications. He is now  pursuing a PhD in the political science department at UC Berkeley.

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At Stanford University, Diamond is also professor by courtesy of political science and sociology. He teaches courses on comparative democratic development and post-conflict democracy building, and advises many Stanford students. In May 2007, he was named "Teacher of the Year" by the Associated Students of Stanford University for teaching that "transcends political and ideological barriers." At the June 2007 Commencement ceremony, Diamond was honored by Stanford University with the Dinkelspiel Award for Distinctive Contributions to Undergraduate Education. He was cited, inter alia, for fostering dialogue between Jewish and Muslim students; for "his inspired teaching and commitment to undergraduate education; for the example he sets as a scholar and public intellectual, sharing his passion for democratization, peaceful transitions, and the idea that each of us can contribute to making the world a better place; and for helping make Stanford an ideal place for undergraduates."

During the first three months of 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. Since then, he has lectured and written extensively on U.S. policy in Iraq and the wider challenges of post-conflict stabilization and reconstruction, and was one of the advisors to the Iraq Study Group. His 2005 book, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, was one of the first books to critically analyze America's postwar engagement in Iraq. He has also participated in several working groups on the Middle East. During 2004-5, was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations' Independent Task Force on United States Policy toward Arab Reform. With Abbas Milani, he coordinates the Hoover Institution Project on Democracy in Iran.

Professor Jang-Jip Choi argues that South Korean politics are characterized by extreme uncertainty and that this is exemplified by the campaign for the presidential election on December 19. Succeeding generations of politicians have failed to organize parties on a new social basis, to represent the interests and passions of the voters, or to develop their own competence in dealing with urgent social and economic problems. Professor Choi seeks to explain this phenomenon from historical and structural perspectives.

Specializing in the contemporary political history of Korea, the theory of democracy, comparative politics and labor politics, Professor Choi is the author of numerous books, scholarly articles and political commentaries on Korean politics, including Democracy After Democratization: The Korean Experience (forthcoming), From Minjung to Citizens (2008), and Which Democracy? (2007). He holds a BA from Korea University, and an MA and a PhD, both in political science, from the University of Chicago, and was a professor in the department of political science at Korea University until his retirement in 2008.

The fall of Bo Xilai is the most serious political crisis in China since Tiananmen in 1989. The leadership succession process was nearly derailed and a deep rift has opened up at the top of the Communist Party. While many critical details of this power struggle remain unknown, the effects of this incident are certain to be far-reaching. Many key questions have been raised, including: How will the fall of Bo affect the new leadership line-up and its policies? How will the rift affect the party's ability to maintain control over a society showing growing signs of defiance and tensions? What does the incident tell us about the systemic corruption at the core of the party's leadership? Professor Minxin Pei will address these and other issues during this timely seminar.

About the Speaker

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He is a frequent commentator for BBC World News, Voice of America, and National Public Radio; his op-eds have appeared in the Financial Times, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek International, the International Herald Tribune, and other major newspapers.

Pei received his PhD in political science from Harvard University. He was on the faculty at Princeton University from 1992 to 1998, and he has received numerous prestigious fellowships, including the National Fellowship at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, the McNamara Fellowship at the World Bank, and the Olin Faculty Fellowship of the Olin Foundation.