Stanford University

Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy

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This book originated in a conference on "Liberation Technology in Authoritarian Regimes" held at Stanford University in Oct. 2010. 

The revolutions sweeping the Middle East provide dramatic evidence of the role that technology plays in mobilizing citizen protest and upending seemingly invulnerable authoritarian regimes. A grainy cell phone video of a Tunisian street vendor’s self-immolation helped spark the massive protests that toppled longtime ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and Egypt’s "Facebook revolution" forced the ruling regime out of power and into exile.

While such "liberation technology" has been instrumental in freeing Egypt and Tunisia, other cases—such as China and Iran—demonstrate that it can be deployed just as effectively by authoritarian regimes seeking to control the Internet, stifle protest, and target dissenters. This two-sided dynamic has set off an intense technological race between "netizens" demanding freedom and authoritarians determined to retain their grip on power.

Liberation Technology brings together cutting-edge scholarship from scholars and practitioners at the forefront of this burgeoning field of study. An introductory section defines the debate with a foundational piece on liberation technology and is then followed by essays discussing the popular dichotomy of "liberation" versus "control" with regard to the Internet and the sociopolitical dimensions of such controls. Additional chapters delve into the cases of individual countries: China, Egypt, Iran, and Tunisia.

This book also includes in-depth analysis of specific technologies such as Ushahidi—a platform developed to document human-rights abuses in the wake of Kenya’s 2007 elections—and alkasir—a tool that has been used widely throughout the Middle East to circumvent cyber-censorship.

Liberation Technology will prove an essential resource for all students seeking to understand the intersection of information and communications technology and the global struggle for democracy.

Contributors: Walid Al-Saqaf, Daniel Calingaert, Ronald Deibert, Larry Diamond, Elham Gheytanchi, Philip N. Howard, Muzammil M. Hussain, Rebecca MacKinnon, Patrick Meier, Evgeny Morozov, Xiao Qiang, Rafal Rohozinski, Mehdi Yahyanejad

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The Johns Hopkins University Press
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Larry Diamond
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978-1421405681

Research assistantships available for health economics research on China and Japan

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The Asia Health Policy Program (AHPP) of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center announces the availability of two 2012–13 pre-doctoral research assistantships in health economics research on evidence-based health policy in East Asia. The assistantships support masters or pre-doctoral students with excellent econometrics skills who are interested in microeconomic analysis of recent health policy reforms in Japan or China. Student research assistants (RAs) will receive salary and tuition allowance for up to 10 units (depending on the time commitment) in the Autumn, Winter, and Spring quarters of the 2012–13 academic year.

Two positions are open until filled. One RA would support research by Jay Bhattacharya and Karen Eggleston on hospital payment reforms in Japan; ability to read and write Japanese would be ideal. A second RA position will support research by Karen Eggleston and Kate Bundorf on maternal and child health in China; knowledge of Chinese would be ideal. Both positions require excellent microeconomics and data analysis skills. We seek a student who is able to start on an hourly basis in July or August 2012 and continue with RA-ship support beginning Autumn quarter.

Applicants should send the following materials to the research assistantship coordinator, Lisa Lee:

  • CV
  • Description of research interests, previous RA experience, and relevant skills (one page).
  • Copy of transcripts.
  • One letter of recommendation, sent directly to AHPP.

Deadline for receipt of all materials is July 20, 2012. Please address all materials to:

Lisa Lee
Administrative Associate for AHPP and SEAF

Shorenstein APARC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, Room E301
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

llee888@stanford.edu
(650) 725-2429 (voice)
(650) 723-6530 (fax)

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Arch and column detail in the Stanford University Main Quadrangle.
Linda A. Cicero / Stanford News Service
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New Stanford report revisits Fukushima, suggests reform

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A new account of the Fukushima nuclear disaster revisits events as they took place in March 2011. The report, by Kenji E. Kushida, delves into the politics and institutions of Japan’s energy industry and offers recommendations for reforming it with a view of preventing such a disaster from occurring again.
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Water is injected into one of the reactors at the Fukushima nuclear plant, March 20, 2011.
TEPCO; bit.ly/Mc2o1J
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Study examines school textbook information on malaria

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How well do textbooks educate school children about malaria prevention and treatment? AHPP's Siyan Yi took part in a study that examined textbooks from countries with high Malaria rates -- Laos, Cambodia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Zambia, Niger, Benin, and Ghana -- and recently published its findings in the open-access journal PLoS ONE.
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Malaria research at Cambodia's National Center for Malaria Control, May 2009.
Flickr / Talea Miller, Online NewsHour; http://bit.ly/LFACGl
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U.S.-Korea diplomatic exchange program

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This year, the U.S. State Department and Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT) established a new exchange program for their diplomats. Kim Hyejin, an IPS 244 student in 2009, is MOFAT's inaugural representative to the program and has been working alongside State Department colleagues in the Washington, D.C. headquarters. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently singled her out for high praise.
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Republic of Korea and United States flags blow side by side in the wind.
Flickr / U.S. Army photos by Edward N. Johnson IMCOM-Korea, Public Affairs Office; http://bit.ly/Mjq6rJ
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Intergenerational Living Arrangements in South Korea: Health and Economic Implications

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Population aging in Asian societies is accompanied by changes in intergenerational living arrangements, which can have substantial health and economic implications for the elderly parents and their adult children. Dr. Young Kyung Do will present some of his recent works related to elderly living arrangements in South Korea. These works include the effect of coresidence with an adult child on depressive symptoms among older widowed women; the relationship between adult children's coresidence with parents and their labor force participation; and interrelations between expectations about bequests and informal care with special emphasis on the role of intergenerational coresidence. In these studies, Dr. Do attempted to account for a common methodological issue: living arrangements are not always randomly assigned but may be jointly decided with the outcome of interest taken into account by either the elderly parents or their adult children. While this seminar will focus on the South Korean context, the significance and implications apply to many other Asian societies undergoing population aging and marked transitions in elderly living arrangements.

Dr. Young Kyung Do is an assistant professor at the Duke-National University of Singapore Graduate Medical School (Duke-NUS), Program in Health Services and Systems Research. His research interests include the economic and health system impact of population aging and noncommunicable disease; interactions between self-care, informal care, and formal care interfaces; and health, education, and labor market outcomes over the life course. He received his MD (1997) and master of public health (2003) degrees from Seoul National University, subsequently completing his PhD in Health Policy and Management (2008) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was the inaugural Asia Health Policy postdoctoral fellow at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center,(2008−9).

Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room

Young Kyung Do Assistant Professor Speaker the Duke-National University of Singapore Graduate Medical School Singapore (Duke-NUS)
Seminars

Afghanistan's Future

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"As President Obama said at last month's NATO Summit in Chicago, as Afghanistan stands up, it will not stand alone," said Karl Eikenberry, the Freeman Spogli Institute's Payne Distinguished Lecturer, in a speech in Singapore on June 18, "The Future of Afghanistan and US Strategy in Central and South Asia." Eikenberry traced the challenges entailed in the transition process by which the government of Afghanistan would assume full responsibility for the security of its country by the end of 2014. The lecture was part of the Institute for International Strategic Studies Lecture series.
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Commentary on "India 1960-2010: Structural change, the rural non-farm sector, and the prospects for agriculture"

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Commentary on Hans Binswanger-Mkhize's symposium on "India 1960-2010: Structural change, the rural non-farm sector and the prospects for agriculture". The symposium is part of a 2-year, 12-lecture series on Global Food Policy and Food Security.

Commentary on Hans Binswanger-Mkhize's symposium on "India 1960-2010: Structural change, the rural non-farm sector and the prospects for agriculture". The symposium is part of a 2-year, 12-lecture series on Global Food Policy and Food Security.

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