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.
RSVPs for this event are now closed. This event is open only to the Stanford community; a valid Stanford ID will be required to enter.
NOTE: THIS EVENT IS CLOSED TO THE MEDIA
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Han Kuo-yu was elected Mayor of Kaohsiung, Taiwan, in November 2018, becoming the first member of the Kuomintang (KMT) to hold that office since 1998. He served as a member of the Legislative Yuan from Taipei County from 1993-2002, and later became the general manager of the Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Corporation.
Mr. Han graduated from Soochow University (Taipei) with a degree in English literature, and earned a master’s degree in law from National Chengchi University’s Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies.
The volatile relationship between the United States and North Korea has left the American public questioning whether North Korea is a threat or not. Existing polls suffer from poor design and, thus, provide a confusing and often contradictory narrative of U.S. public opinion on North Korea. As a result, a number of critical questions remain unanswered: Are Americans willing to live with the North Korean nuclear threat? Under what conditions would the public support using military force to accomplish what sanctions and diplomacy have not? What are the characteristics of the individuals willing to risk war against North Korea today? Professor Scott D. Sagan will discuss the findings of a recent survey experiment and offer a unique perspective to the ongoing public debate.
Scott D. Sagan is the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science, the Mimi and Peter Haas University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, and Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University. Before joining the Stanford faculty, Sagan was a lecturer in the Department of Government at Harvard University. From 1984 to 1985, he served as special assistant to the director of the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon. Sagan has also served as a consultant to the office of the Secretary of Defense and at the Sandia National Laboratory and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. In 2017, he received the International Studies Association’s Susan Strange Award which recognizes the scholar whose “singular intellect, assertiveness, and insight most challenge conventional wisdom and intellectual and organizational complacency" in the international studies community. Sagan was also the recipient of the National Academy of Sciences William and Katherine Estes Award in 2015, for his pioneering work addressing the risks of nuclear weapons accidents and the causes of nuclear proliferation.
Francis Fukuyama tells News24 that South Africa must ensure that its institutions are protected and remain committed to its constitution if it is to overcome the last decade and become competitive in the global economy.
As a high school student in San Jose in the late 1960s and early 1970s, I used to see Norman Mineta on occasion in San Jose’s Japantown. Once at Fukuda Barber in Japantown, Mineta was on the barber chair. After he left, barbers Takeo and Atsuo Fukuda asked me if I knew who he was. I didn’t, and Takeo told me that he was Norman Mineta, vice mayor of San Jose. Since that day, I recognized Mineta whenever I saw him in Japantown, in the San Jose Mercury News, and on television. In 1971, Mineta became mayor of San Jose, and in 1974, he ran successfully for the U.S. House of Representatives. He was reelected ten more times. Mineta also served as President Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Commerce from July 2000 to January 2001 and President George W. Bush’s Secretary of Transportation from January 2001 to August 2006. Never did I imagine that our paths would cross professionally through my work at SPICE. From 2017, SPICE curriculum designer Rylan Sekiguchi assumed the responsibility of authoring lesson plans for a project called “What Does It Mean to Be an American?”—a free web-based curriculum toolkit inspired by Mineta’s life and career.
As a 10-year-old Japanese American boy in 1942, Norman Mineta was powerless when his country imprisoned him and his family in a fit of wartime hysteria. But nearly 60 years later, he sat at the highest levels of government as the United States reeled from 9/11 and began experiencing a new hysteria. In times of crisis like these, how has the institution of civil liberties been affected by individuals like Mineta whose voices guide government policy, and how have those changes impacted the lives of Americans? This was the central question that Mineta and Sekiguchi focused their comments on during their National Council of History Education session, “Civil Liberties in Times of Crisis,” on March 16, 2019.
"Civil Liberties in Times of Crisis" session at the 2019 NCHE conference, led by Rylan Sekiguchi and Secretary Norman Mineta.
The 30 teachers in attendance were first offered a preview by Sekiguchi of the soon-to-be released “What Does It Mean to Be an American?” The lesson plans, explained Sekiguchi, consist of six independent learning modules that examine a key theme from Secretary Norman Mineta’s life and career: immigration, civil liberties and equity, civic engagement, justice and reconciliation, leadership, and U.S.–Japan relations. The lessons were developed in consultation with Mineta and the Mineta Legacy Project team, including Dianne Fukami and Debra Nakatomi, who were also in attendance. Fukami and Nakatomi are the producers of the documentary film, Norman Mineta and His Legacy: An American Story.
Following the curriculum preview, Mineta reflected upon his life and highlighted the striking parallels between the hysteria following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and the hysteria following 9/11. His memories of the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor seemed to be seared in the back of his mind as he spoke, as he vividly recalled seeing his father cry for the first time and wondering where his neighbor of Japanese descent had suddenly been taken, and by whom. (He later learned it was the FBI.) A short time later, Mineta and his family were also evicted from their home in San Jose, California and incarcerated in Heart Mountain, Wyoming, as part of what is often called the mass internment of Japanese Americans.
Mineta also shared his memories of the morning of 9/11—being informed as Secretary of Transportation of the first plane hitting the twin towers, watching the live broadcast as the second plane hit, and then being called to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, a bunker-like underground structure that lies below the White House. He recalled how he had asked one of his chiefs to draw up the new flight security guidelines that would govern aviation henceforth, and the first bullet point was “No racial profiling will be used.” He also vividly recalled how President George W. Bush, in the aftermath of 9/11, firmly declared that the United States would not let what happened to Norm and his family (following the Pearl Harbor attack) happen again. “You could’ve knocked me off my chair with a feather!” Mineta reflected.
Deborah Rowland with Secretary Norman Mineta
Following the session, comments from teachers underscored the success of the session. “A number of participants said they’d never seen anything like our lessons before. One teacher told us that even though she expected our session would be her conference highlight, she was still overwhelmed!” reflected Sekiguchi. “That was so heartening to hear. I hope everyone in our session felt that way. Even more than that, I hope they feel inspired to educate the next generation about the importance of civil liberties and share these lessons from Secretary Mineta’s life.” Deborah Rowland was among the teachers who attended the conference. She tweeted, “Such a privilege to visit with this incredible man today. Norman Mineta, former Secretary of Transportation, former Secretary of Commerce, former Congressman, former childhood detainee of Executive Order 9066, always an American.”
The documentary film Norman Mineta and His Legacy: An American Story will receive a national PBS airing on May 20. Fukami and Nakatomi hope that the film and lesson plans become widely used in U.S. schools and carry on the legacy of Norman Mineta. They noted, “They are important tools to help young students grapple with the divisiveness in U.S. society today and to underscore the critical importance of considering civil liberties-related issues in U.S. history as well as today.”
I had the privilege of attending several screenings of the film. At the San Jose screening, it was gratifying to listen to tributes to Mineta from people who represent San Jose’s diverse communities, and it was especially moving to witness them and numerous Japanese Americans in attendance give a standing ovation to Mineta following the screening. An old family friend in attendance used to also frequent Fukuda Barber and we boasted about how our barber used to also cut the hair of Norman Mineta.
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Secretary Norman Mineta with Debra Nakatomi (left) and Dianne Fukami (right) and Rylan Sekiguchi
Efforts are underway in South Africa to turn around a decade of governance reversal. But progress in addressing an underlying cause of the reversals remains very limited – extreme, racially-tinged inequality, with missing ladders of opportunity into the middle class. In this seminar, Brian Levy will explore some interactions between shortfalls in inclusion and institutional pressures, including an in-depth focus on one key challenge – improving the learning outcomes of South Africa’s poorly performing system of basic education. The findings from his recent co-authored book, The Politics and Governance of Basic Education: A Tale of Two South African Provinces suggest that a narrow focus on ‘fixing the bureaucracy’ can only go so far. Re-balancing focus away from narrowly top-down approaches towards the evocation of agency offers a variety of added possibilities for creative and constructive action.
Speaker Bio:
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Brian Levy is Professor of the Practice of International Development, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University; and Academic Director, Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, University of Cape Town. He worked at the World Bank from 1989 to 2012, including as head of the secretariat responsible for the design and implementation of the World Bank Group's governance and anti-corruption strategy. He has published widely on the interactions among institutions, political economy and development policy, including Working with the Grain: Integrating Governance and Growth in Development Strategies (Oxford U Press, 2014; info at www.workingwiththegrain.com) and, as lead editor and author, The Governance and Politics of Basic Education: A Tale of Two South African Provinces (Oxford U Press, 2018). He completed his Ph.D in economics at Harvard University in 1983.
Goldman conference room Encina Hall East, 4th floor Room E409
Brian Levy
Professor of the Practice of International Development, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University
Militaries around the world are racing to build robotic systems with increasing autonomy. What will happen when a Predator drone has as much autonomy as a Google car? Should machines be given the power to make life and death decisions in war? Paul Scharre, a former Army Ranger and Pentagon official, will talk on his new book, Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War. Army of None was named one of Bill Gates’ Top 5 Books of 2018. Scharre will explore the technology behind autonomous weapons and the legal, moral, ethical, and strategic dimensions of this evolving technology. Paul Scharre is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.
Paul's Biography: Paul Scharre is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. He is author of Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War. Mr. Scharre formerly worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) where he played a leading role in establishing policies on emerging weapons technologies. He led the working group that drafted DOD Directive 3000.09, establishing DOD’s policy on autonomy in weapon systems. He is a former infantryman in the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment and completed multiple tours to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Radha's Biography: Radha Iyengar is the head of Product Policy Research at Facebook and an adjunct economist at the RAND Corporation. Previously, she served in senior staff positions at the White House National Security Council, Department of Defense, and Department of Energy. Over the course of her government service, she was instrumental in executive actions on sexual assault and suicide prevention, budget and policy related to nuclear and energy infrastructure security and resilience, and security assistance and counterterrorism efforts in the the Middle East and North Africa. Her research has covered empirical evaluations of policies aimed at reducing violence including criminal violence, sexual assault, terrorist behavior, and sexual and intimate partner violence.
Jeremy's Biography: Jeremy is a Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He is also a non-resident fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C. His research focuses on civil wars and political violence; ethnic politics and the political economy of development; and democracy, accountability, and political change. He is the author of Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence (Cambridge University Press), which received the William Riker Prize for the best book on political economy. He is also the co-author of Coethnicity: Diversity and the Dilemmas of Collective Action (Russell Sage Foundation), which received the Gregory Luebbert Award for the best book in comparative politics. He has published articles in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Annual Review of Political Science, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Journal of Democracy, World Policy Journal, and the SAIS Review.
Stanford University CEMEX Auditorium (655 Knight Way, Stanford, CA 94305)
Paul Scharre
Senior Fellow and Director, Technology and National Security Program
Center for a New American Security
FSI researchers work to understand continuity and change in societies as they confront their problems and opportunities. This includes the implications of 
"Civil Liberties in Times of Crisis" session at the 2019 NCHE conference, led by Rylan Sekiguchi and Secretary Norman Mineta.
Deborah Rowland with Secretary Norman Mineta
