Stanford University

Society

FSI researchers work to understand continuity and change in societies as they confront their problems and opportunities. This includes the implications of migration and human trafficking. What happens to a society when young girls exit the sex trade? How do groups moving between locations impact societies, economies, self-identity and citizenship? What are the ethnic challenges faced by an increasingly diverse European Union? From a policy perspective, scholars also work to investigate the consequences of security-related measures for society and its values.

The Europe Center reflects much of FSI’s agenda of investigating societies, serving as a forum for experts to research the cultures, religions and people of Europe. The Center sponsors several seminars and lectures, as well as visiting scholars.

Societal research also addresses issues of demography and aging, such as the social and economic challenges of providing health care for an aging population. How do older adults make decisions, and what societal tools need to be in place to ensure the resulting decisions are well-informed? FSI regularly brings in international scholars to look at these issues. They discuss how adults care for their older parents in rural China as well as the economic aspects of aging populations in China and India.

Video: Karen Eggleston Advises Proactive Preparation for COVID-19 Spread in US

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Deputy Director of APARC and Director of the Asia Health Policy Program Karen Eggleston recently spoke to Bloomberg Markets about the new cases and the further spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus in the United States.

"There has been widespread international collaboration on the scientific side to try and get ready for a vaccine and for therapies, but that takes time. In the meantime, you have to rely on tried and true public health measures."

Eggleston stressed the importance of people remaining calm and avoiding both complacency and panic in response to the growing public health crisis. Instead, being proactive, science-based, and utilizing clear, organized communications channels are the keys to protecting individuals and communities and in making timely, informed, effective decisions about future steps as the outbreak continues. Typical practices for flu season such as frequent handwashing, staying away from public spaces when ill, and following recommended self-quarantine guidelines are all measures people can take to support their well-being and the health of those around them.

"It's important to remember that both the transmissibility and the fatality rate [of COVID-19] can be changed by the way we respond. The way we trace the contacts and isolate can reduce the transmissibility. And the resilience of our public health system and investment in prevention and supporting our healthcare workers — and having the right equipment in place for the severe cases — can affect the fatality rate and protect people."

Watch the full interview below to hear more recommendations on how to prepare.

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Karen Eggleston on Bloomberg Market news.
Bloomberg Market
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CANCELED: Reorienting U.S. Policy toward Great Power Competition and Russia

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CISAC will be canceling all public events and seminars until at least April 5th due to the ongoing developments associated with COVID-19.

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About this Event: The Trump administration's National Security Strategy, released in December 2017, put the economic, military and political challenges posed by peer competitors--Russia and China--at the top of its list of national security concerns.  What was the process that led the Trump administration to this conclusion, particularly regarding Russia, and what policies did the National Security Strategy advocate that the United States accordingly pursue toward Russia?  Our speaker, Nadia Schadlow, served on the National Security Council from 2017 to 2018 and was the principal author of the National Security Strategy.

 

About the Speaker: Dr. Nadia Schadlow has served in leadership positions in government and the private sector for over 25 years. Dr. Schadlow’s U.S. government experience includes senior leadership positions at the National Security Council and the Department of Defense. She was the principal author of the Trump Administration’s National Security Strategy (NSS) which  identified the return of great power rivalry as a central feature of global geopolitics.

Prior to her most recent  government service,  Dr. Schadlow served as a Senior Program Officer at the Smith Richardson Foundation where she invested in  research and policy solutions to improve the security and strategic competitiveness of the United States. Dr. Schadlow has written frequently on national security matters.  Her 2017  book, War and the Art of Governance, addressed the problems of political and economic consolidation during and following war. Dr. Schadlow received a B.A. degree in Government and Soviet Studies from Cornell University, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

 

 

Nadia Schadlow Hoover Institution
Seminars
European Security Initiative

CANCELLED: Book Talk: Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment

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Abstract:

Ahmet T. Kuru will talk about his new book  Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison (Cambridge University Press, 2019). Why do Muslim-majority countries have high levels of authoritarianism and low levels of socio-economic development in comparison to world averages? Kuru elaborates an argument about the ulema-state alliance as the cause of these problems in the Muslim world from the eleventh century to the present. Criticizing essentialist, post-colonialist, and new institutionalist alternative explanations, Kuru focuses on the relations between intellectual, economic, religious, and political classes in his own explanation.

 

Speaker Bio:

ahmet kuru
Ahmet T. Kuru is Professor of Political science at San Diego State University. Kuru received his PhD from the University of Washington and held a post doc position at Columbia University. He is the author of award-winning Secularism and State Policies toward Religion: The United States, France, and Turkey (Cambridge University Press) and the co-editor (with Alfred Stepan) of Democracy, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey (Columbia University Press). Kuru’s works have been translated into Arabic, Chinese, French, Indonesian, and Turkish.

Ahmet Kuru Professor of Political Science at San Diego State University

POSTPONED: Democratic Discord: When Electoral Democracy Creates Social Conflict

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Abstract:

I label the phenomenon of democratic politicians mobilizing and exacerbating societal conflict to win votes “democratic discord.”  First, I demonstrate the concept of democratic discord with a pooled time series analysis showing that election years see greater polarization than non-election years in a range of European countries.  Second, I show that democratic discord may have been a factor in the rise of populism in Europe by using a regression discontinuity design on British Election Study data on the period immediately before and after the U.K. General Election of 2015.   I argue that the election results legitimized a grievance among the British public that would otherwise have remained dormant.  Finally, I discuss the role of democratic discord in the Republican Party's complicated history with xenophobic appeals over the last several decades, drawing on archival material from my book Starving the Beast.

 

Speaker Bio:
 
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Monica Prasad's areas of interest are political sociology, economic sociology, and comparative historical sociology. Her new book Starving the Beast asks why Republican politicians have focused so relentlessly on cutting taxes over the last several decades--whether the economy is booming or in recession, whether the federal budget is in surplus or deficit, and even though total taxes in the U.S. are already lower than in other developed countries. Drawing on archival documents that have never before been seen, Prasad traces the history of the famous 1981 "supply side" tax cut which became the cornerstore for the next several decades of Republican domestic economic policy. She argues that the main forces behind tax cuts are not business group pressure, racial animus, or a belief that tax cuts will pay for themselves. Rather, the tax cut movement arose because in America--unlike in the rest of the advanced industrial world--progressive policies are not embedded within a larger political economy that is favorable to business, a situation whose origins she explored in a prior book
Monica Prasad Professor of Sociology, Northwestern University
Seminars

Lunch Seminar Series | Societal Concerns in Targeted Advertising

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Abstract: The enormous financial success of online advertising platforms is in large part due to the advanced targeting features they offer. WiSE Gabilan Assistant Professor of Computer Science at USC, Aleksandra Korolova will discuss recent findings showing how implementations of targeted advertising create new societal concerns related to privacy, manipulation of the vulnerable, and discrimination. Furthermore, Korolova will demonstrate that the ad delivery optimization algorithms run by the platforms can lead to skew in delivery along gender and racial lines, even when such skew was not intended by the advertiser. Korolova will conclude by introducing a new fairness notion, preference-informed fairness, that could serve as a novel step towards formally studying fairness in scenarios such as targeted advertising, where individuals have complex and diverse preferences over possible outcomes.

Based on joint work with I. Faizullabhoy (ConPro 2018), M. Ali, P. Sapiezynski, M. Bogen, A. Mislove, A. Rieke (CSCW 2019), and M. P. Kim, G. Rothblum, G. Yona (ITCS 2020, FAT* 2020).  

Aleksandra Korolova
Bio: Aleksandra Korolova is a WiSE Gabilan Assistant Professor of Computer Science at USC, where she researches algorithms and technologies that enable data-driven innovations while preserving privacy and fairness. Prior to joining USC, Aleksandra was a research scientist at Google. Aleksandra received her PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University. Her PhD thesis, which focused on protecting privacy when mining and sharing user data, has been recognized by the Arthur L. Samuel Thesis Award 2011-2012, for the best PhD thesis in the Computer Science Department at Stanford. Aleksandra is also a co-winner of the 2011 PET Award for outstanding research in privacy enhancing technologies for exposing privacy violations of microtargeted advertising and a runner-up for the 2015 PET Award for RAPPOR, the first commercial deployment of differential privacy. Aleksandra's most recent work, on discrimination in ad delivery, has received CSCW Honorable Mention Award and Recognition of Contribution to Diversity and Inclusion, was cited in Facebook's Civil Rights Audit Report, and invited for a briefing for Members of the House Financial Services Committee.

Spring 2020 Session of Stanford e-Japan Online Course Begins

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The Stanford University Scholars Program for Japanese High School Students or “Stanford e-Japan” is an online course sponsored by the Yanai Tadashi Foundation and the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE), Stanford University. This online course teaches Japanese high school students about U.S. society and underscores the importance of U.S.–Japan relations. Through Stanford e-Japan, ambassadors, top scholars, and experts throughout the United States provide web-based lectures and engage Japanese high school students in live discussion sessions called “virtual classes.” Stanford e-Japan is now in its 6th year and 10th session overall.

On January 24, 2020, 29 high school students across Japan were notified of their acceptance to the Spring 2020 Stanford e-Japan Program. The 10th session of the online course kicks off today and runs until June 30, and will include students representing the following prefectures: Chiba, Fukuoka, Fukushima, Hiroshima, Hyogo, Ibaraki, Kanagawa, Okayama, Osaka, Saitama, Shizuoka, Tokyo, and Yamagata. In addition to a diverse geographical representation within Japan, the students themselves bring a diverse set of experiences to the program, many having lived overseas in places such as Myanmar, Thailand, Mexico, and the United States.

The selected Stanford e-Japan high school students will listen to lectures by renowned experts in the field including Professor Emeritus Peter Duus, Professor Kathryn Gin Lum, and Dr. Kenji Kushida (all at Stanford University) on topics such as, “The Atomic Bombings of Japan,” “The Attack on Pearl Harbor,” “Religion in the U.S.,” and “Silicon Valley and Entrepreneurship.” Live virtual classes include guest speakers such as Ms. Suzanne Basalla (Toyota Research Institute), Ms. Maiko Cagno (U.S. Consulate, Fukuoka), and Dr. Makiko Oku (Co-Founder, KiKO Japan).

Many Stanford e-Japan students in the current cohort (as well as past ones) have mentioned their desire to study in the United States. The Stanford e-Japan Program equips many students with the motivation and confidence to do so, in addition to many of the skills they will need to study at U.S. universities and colleges. In addition to weekly lectures, assignments, discussion board posts, and virtual classes, the program participants will complete a final research paper on a topic concerning U.S. society or the U.S.–Japan relationship.

“I’ve encouraged my students to seriously consider undergraduate studies in the United States and to look into opportunities like the Yanai Tadashi Foundation Scholarships,” commented Stanford e-Japan Instructor Waka Brown. “Many e-Japan alumni have gone on to study in the United States, either for their entire college experience or for shorter overseas study opportunities. A couple of them received full scholarships, thanks to The Yanai Tadashi Foundation.”

Stanford e-Japan is one of several online courses for high school students offered by SPICE, Stanford University, including the Reischauer Scholars Program, the China Scholars Program, the Sejong Korean Scholars Program, and Stanford e-China. For more information about Stanford e-Japan, please visit stanfordejapan.org.

To be notified when the next Stanford e-Japan application period opens, join our email list or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Related articles:

 

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Stanford e-Japan student honorees (spring 2018 session)
Spring 2018 Stanford e-Japan student honorees Naoya Chonan, Luana Ichinose, and Miki Fujito | Rylan Sekiguchi
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The Making of World Authorship

 

This workshop is co-sponsored by: Comparative Literature, The Contemporary, the Department of Sociology, Taube Center for Jewish Studies, and The Europe Center

 

McClatchy Hall A

Department of Sociology

Gisèle Sapiro École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Workshops

Topics in Health Policy in Korea and China

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This event is via Zoom Webinar. Please register in advance for the webinar by using the link below.

REGISTRATION LINK: https://bit.ly/2VUQmTJ

The prevalence of obesity for adults aged 19 and over in Korea has risen from 25.8% in 1998 to 35.5% 2016, while it is still low compared with other developed countries. Body mass index (BMI), focusing on weight for a given height, has traditionally been used to define obesity despite of its shortcomings of not distinguishing between muscle and fat, being inaccurate in predicting the percentage of body fat (PBF), and being not a good measure for the risk of heart attack, stroke, or death. Another measure of abdominal obesity, the z-score of the log-transformed A Body Shape Index (LBSIZ), has been recently introduced to focus on waist circumference for a given both weight and height. We examine their respective association with the risk of diabetes using a cohort data from the Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study.

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Wankyo Chung is a Professor in the Department of Public Health Science, Graduate School of Public Health at Seoul National University, Seoul Korea. His research interests include economic evaluation of health care programs, equity in health, health policy, and prevention. He has been active as a board member of the Korea Expert Committee on Immunization Practices at Korea CDC, the Information Disclosing Council at Korea HIRA, and an editorial board member of the Korean Journal of Health Economics and Policy and the KDI Journal of Economic Policy. His work has been published regularly in leading international journals. He is currently studying risk prediction models for diabetes at the CEAS, Stanford.

Last few years, China have implemented several national initiatives, for example, the National Healthcare Improvement Initiative (NHII) launched in 2015, to improve patient experiences in healthcare, harmonize the relationship between patients and healthcare workers (i.e., doctors and nurses), and decrease medical disputes in public hospitals. However, reports of medical disputes and violence (verbal abuse or physical violence) against healthcare workers in tertiary public hospitals are still making headlines in China. To help understand and tackle these problems, based on a three-year longitudinal study (2017-2019) conducted in six leading tertiary public hospitals in Shaanxi, a west province of China, we try to depict these problems’ changes, identify the healthcare workers who are at a high risk of medical dispute and violence from patients or their families, and explore the potential causes. These findings could help governments and hospitals protect healthcare workers with more pertinence and build a better medical environment in China.

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Jinlin Liu joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center as visiting scholar during the 2019-2020 academic year from Xi'an Jiaotong University, where he serves as a researcher for the Research Center for the Belt and Road Health Policy and Health Technology Assessment. His research lies in the areas of health system and health policy in China, with emphasis on the public hospital governance and development of human resources for health. He obtains a Ph.D. in Public Administration from Xi'an Jiaotong University in 2018.

Via Zoom Webinar.

Register at https://bit.ly/2VUQmTJ

 

Wankyo Chung Professor in the Department of Public Health Science, Graduate School of Public Health, Seoul National University, Seoul Korea

Jinlin Liu

Shorenstein APARC Stanford University Encina Hall E301 Stanford, CA 94305-6055
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Visiting Scholar at APARC, 2019-20
jinlin_liu.jpg Ph.D.

Jinlin Liu joined the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) as visiting scholar during the 2019-2020 academic year from Xi'an Jiaotong University, where he serves as a researcher for the XJTU Research Center for the Belt and Road Health Policy and Health Technology Assessment.  His research focuses on public health services and healthcare governance and reform in China.  Dr. Liu obtained his Ph.D. in Public Administration from Xi'an Jiaotong University in 2018.

2019-2020 Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center Visiting Scholar
Panel Discussions

Regimes of Inequality: The Political Economy of Health and Wealth

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Inequality has become an intractable feature of the rich industrialized democracies, despite consensus among mass publics and experts that more social and economic equality is desirable. This book examines the political dynamics underlying the “new normal” of high and rising inequality since 1980. To do so, it traces the largely unsuccessful attempts of west European governments during this period to reduce socioeconomic inequalities in health. In England, France, and Finland, three quite different countries that span the range of European political economies, governments stated their intention to reduce inequalities in health — yet in all three cases, they were largely unable or unwilling to do what it would take to achieve this goal. Lynch finds that when center-left politicians take up the issue of socioeconomic inequalities in health, they do so in response to perceived taboos against redistribution, public spending and market regulation in a neoliberal era. Reframing inequality as a matter of health, rather than of the maldistribution of political or economic resources, is at best a partial solution, however: It reshapes the policy-making environment surrounding social inequality in ways that make it more difficult to reduce either socioeconomic inequality or health inequalities. Technocratic, medicalized inequality discourses result in shifting the Overton window around inequality away from tried-and-true policy remedies for inequality, and toward complex policy levers that are far more likely to fail. In short, inequality persists despite growing awareness of the harms it creates because of the way political leaders choose to talk about it — and not only because of economic necessity or demands from the electorate.
 
 
Julia Lynch

Julia Lynch is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania.  Her research focuses on the politics of inequality and social policy in the rich democracies, particularly the countries of western Europe. She has special interests in comparative health policy and the politics of health inequalities; the politics of aging; and the relationship between party systems and political economy in western Europe. Lynch serves as an expert advisor to the World Health Organization’s European regional office on issues of health equity, and is past chair of the Health Politics and Policy section of the American Political Science Association and past treasurer of the Council for European Studies. She is editor of Socio-Economic Review, a multi-disciplinary journal focusing on analytical, political and moral questions arising at the intersection of economy and society.  At Penn, Lynch is faculty director of the Penn In Washington Program and co-director of the Penn-Temple European Studies Colloquium. Lynch holds a BA from Harvard University, a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and has held visiting appointments at the European University Institute, Sciences Po, and Oxford.
 
Julia Lynch Speaker University of Pennsylvania
Lectures

Germany, Europe and Russia

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Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/BGjRsO0fKds

 

About this Event: Germany plays a key role in shaping European and Western policy toward Russia.  Berlin is a leading voice within the European Union on Russian issues, and Chancellor Angela Merkel co-chairs with the French president the "Normandy" effort that seeks to broker a setttlement between Ukraine and Russia to the conflict in Donbas.  Emily Haber, the German ambassador to the United States, will join us for a conversation on how Berlin sees the Russian challenge and how the West should respond.

 

About the Speaker: Emily Margarethe Haber has been German Ambassador to the United States since June 2018. 

Immediately prior to this, Haber, a career foreign service officer, was deployed to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, serving as State Secretary overseeing security and migration at the height of the refugee crisis in Europe. In this capacity, she worked closely with the US administration on topics ranging from the fight against international terrorism to global cyberattacks and cybersecurity. In 2009, she was appointed Political Director and, in 2011, State Secretary at the Foreign Office, the first woman to hold either post. 

Emily Haber is married to Hansjörg Haber. The couple has two sons. 

Emily Margarethe Haber German Ambassador to the United States
Seminars
European Security Initiative
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