Stanford University

Emotional Labor and the Power of International Bureaucrats: The ASEAN Secretariat in Comparative Perspective

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Bureaucrats become powerful when they stage emotionally calibrated performances as “servants” before state principals, earn their trust, and carve out space for action through “whispering,” “propagating,” cultivating patrons, and building coalitions behind the scenes and on the sidelines of official interaction. These servant performances involve what sociologist Arlie Hochschild calls “emotional labor,” that is, the management of feelings when fulfilling the requirements of a job. Prof. Nair will develop a theory of emotional labor in international bureaucracies that explains why bureaucrats perform such work and how, if skilfully done, it can empower them. He will test the theory with an ethnography of the Secretariat of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Jakarta—a “hard” case that does not fit prevailing theorizations of bureaucratic power. Prof. Nair will also show how his theory can be applied to other, Euro-American bureaucracies.

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Deepak Nair researches the everyday practices and performances that produce international relations. His writings include ASEAN-related articles in journals such as International Political Sociology on topics that include golf, sociability, and diplomacy; on the practices of face-saving in diplomacy in the European Journal of International Relations; and on institutions, norms, and crisis in Asian Survey and Contemporary Southeast Asia. He earned his PhD and BA at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Delhi University, respectively.

Deepak Nair Assistant Professor of Political Science, National University of Singapore
Seminars

China's Risky Middle East Bet

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China is making a risky bet in the Middle East. By focusing on economic development and adhering to the principle of noninterference in internal affairs, Beijing believes it can deepen relations with countries that are otherwise nearly at war with one another—all the while avoiding any significant role in the political affairs of the region. This is likely to prove naive, particularly if U.S. allies begin to stand up for their interests.

In meetings I attended earlier this month in Beijing on China’s position in the Middle East, sponsored by the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center, Chinese officials, academics, and business leaders expressed a common view that China can avoid political entanglement by promoting development from Tehran to Tel Aviv. China may soon find, however, that its purely transactional approach is unsustainable in this intractable region—placing its own investments at risk and opening new opportunities for the United States.

Over the past three years, China has charted an ambitious future in the Middle East by forging “comprehensive strategic partnerships” with Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. This is the highest level of diplomatic relations China can provide, and Beijing believes these four countries anchor a neutral position that will prove more stable over the long term than that of the United States. China has also made massive investments in infrastructure throughout the region, including in Israel, where China is now the second-largest trading partner behind the United States.

China’s interests in the Middle East are both structural and strategic. Structurally, China needs the natural resources of the region, whereas the United States—now the world’s largest oil producer—does not. China is also seeking new markets to absorb its excess industrial capacity, and sees the Middle East poised for growth after decades of wars, woeful infrastructure, and popular discontent. Strategically, together with Russia, China is taking advantage of the uncertainty produced by ever-shifting U.S. policies, including zero-sum prescriptions for Iran and Syria that are unlikely to produce desired outcomes anytime soon. Regional governments in turn have welcomed China’s embrace, and its offer of investment without pressure to politically reform or respect human rights.

China’s President Xi Jinping previewed this more assertive Middle East strategy in a landmark address in Cairo three years ago. There, he declared that China does not seek a “sphere of influence” in the region—even while sinking nearly $100 billion in investments there through ports, roads, and rail projects. He alleged China rejects “proxy” contests—even while concluding a strategic partnership with Iran, the main sponsor of proxies in the region. And he warned against “all forms of discrimination and prejudice against any specific ethnic group and religion”—even while reportedly forcing 1 million Muslims into reeducation camps in China’s Xinjiang province.

Such contradictions can be maintained only so long as traditional U.S. allies in the region now welcoming Chinese investment allow them to be maintained. These U.S. allies do not shy from asserting their broader interests with Washington or expressing disagreement where policies diverge, and it is time they do the same with Beijing.

As the United States questions Chinese investment and intentions, particularly in the areas of technology and ports such as Israel’s Haifa, it can also challenge traditional allies as to whether they are granting China a free ride on what remains a largely U.S.-led security architecture. Such an arrangement should be as unacceptable to American partners in the region as it is to Washington. At the very least, these partners, together with Washington, can demand that Beijing utilize its emerging influence—particularly with Tehran and Damascus—to pursue measures that promote longer-term stability.

Read the rest at The Atlantic.

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Second Conference on "The Political Economy of Japan under the Abe Government"

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Second Conference on "The Political Economy of Japan under the Abe Government"

March 1 - 2, 2019

Philippines Conference Room

Sponsored by: Japan Society for Promotion of Science, Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership, and Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (Stanford University)

Organizers: Takeo Hoshi and Phillip Lipscy

 

 

Program

3/1/2019

8:45am   Breakfast

9:05am    Welcome Remark     Toru Tamiya (JSPS San Francisco Office)
                                                   Osamu Honda (Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership)

9:15am  "Abenomics and Japan's Entrepreneurship and Innovation: Is the Third Arrow Pointed in the Right Direction for Global Competition in the Silicon Valley Era?", Kenji Kushida (Stanford University)

Discussant:
Yong Suk Lee (Stanford University)

10:15am  Break

10:30am  "Abe’s Womanomics Policy: Did it have Effect on the closing of Gender Gap in Managers?", Nobuko Nagase (Ochanomizu University)

Discussant:
Curtis Milhaupt (Stanford University)

11:30am  Move to SIEPR Building for Lunch and Keynote Speech

11:45am  Lunch to conference participants

12:15pm  Lunch and Panel Discussion on Abenomics at SIEPR Building

Moderator: Takeo Hoshi
Panelists: Joshua Hausman
                   Takatoshi Ito
                  Nobuko Nagase
                  Steve Vogel

1:45pm   Panel ends and walk back to Encina Hall

2:00pm    "Abenomics, the Exchange Rate, and Markup Dynamics in Japanese Industries", Kyoji Fukao (Hitotsubashi University) and Shuichiro Nishioka (West Virginia University)

Discussant:
Yuhei Miyauchi (Stanford University and Boston University)

3:00pm  Break

3:30pm   "Abe's Reverse Course: How a Labor Shortage Transformed Labor Politics and Policy", Steven Vogel (University of California, Berkeley)

Discussant:
Kenji Kushida (Stanford University)


4:30pm   "The Crisis that Wasn’t: How Japan Has Avoided a Bond Market Panic", Mark T. Bamba and David E. Weinstein (Columbia University)

Discussant:
Johannes Wieland (University of California, San Diego)

5:30pm     Adjourn

 

3/2/2019

8:30am   Breakfast

9:00am   Welcome Remark
                 Moto Ono (Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership)

9:10am   "The Enduring Challenges of History Issues", Mary McCarthy (Drake Univesity)

Discussant:
Phillip Lipscy (Stanford University)

10:10am  Break

10:25am "Expansion of the Prime Minister's Power in the Japanese Parliamentary System", Harukata Takenaka (National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies)

Discussants:
Patricia Maclachlan (University of Texas)

11:25pm  "Abenomics: Est. in 2013, or 2007?", Takatoshi Ito (Columbia University)

                   Discussants:
                  Takeo Hoshi (Stanford University)

12:25pm  Lunch

1:30pm  "Abenomics, Monetary Policy, and Consumption", Joshua Hausman (University of Michigan), Takashi Unayama (Hitotsubashi University), and Johannes Wieland (University of California, San Diego)

Discussant:
Thuy Lan Nguyen (Santa Clara University)

2:30pm   "The Great Disconnect: The Decoupling of Wage and Price Inflation in Japan", Takeo Hoshi (Stanford University) and Anil Kashyap (University of Chicago)

Discussant:
Takashi Unayama (Hitotsubashi University)

3:30pm  Break

4:00pm   "Introduction", Takeo Hoshi (Stanford University) and Phillip Lipscy (Stanford University)

5:30pm  Adjourn

 

Conferences

Pacific Settlement of Disputes in East Asia: Inter-State Arbitration and Judicial Diplomacy

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Resolution of economic disputes are well established in East Asia where economic growth and prosperity are common goals among the nations. However, other types of disputes have long plagued among East Asian countries. These include conflicts that have deep historical roots, or ones that involve state sovereignty, territorial disputes, and claims deriving from historical wrongs. These issues have harmed the regional security in East Asia for a long time, threatened its peace and security and hindered further progress, thus putting tension on the diplomatic relations among the East Asian countries. Attempts to resolve these disputes via politics or diplomacy have not been much successful. Compliance of the outcome of the dispute might prove to be challenging if the losing party decides that the benefit of resisting the unfavored outcome outweighs the cost of reputational harm.

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Eun-Young Park will present that, despite the difficulty, such disputes can be resolved fairly, provided that an independent neutral dispute resolution mechanism is securely in place. In this model, the states themselves voluntarily submit their disputes to a neutral third party capable of making fair and equitable decisions on the merits of the cases before it. There are advantages in opting for the region-wide system of independent and neutral dispute resolution in handling the Gordian Knot that is the complex and difficult problem of sovereignty and history of conflicts in East Asia. He will explore the possibility of establishing an inter-state arbitration system based on the fact that the East Asian countries already possess a good deal of social and legal capital that is readily applicable in resolving sensitive transnational disputes. He will also touch upon a permanent arbitral or claims tribunal in East Asia to deal with claims arising out of the Korean Unification; a monumental event after which much chaos—legal and otherwise—will most certainly ensue. Establishing a system of international dispute resolution system in East Asia is certain to pave the way in forming the East Asian legal community in which claims and grievances may be adjudicated fairly and brought without escalating political tensions among countries.

Eun-Young Park is Vice President of the London Court of International Arbitration and currently a visiting scholar at Stanford Asia-Pacific Research Center. Previously, he served as a Judge in the Seoul District Court of Republic of Korea. After leaving the bench, he has advised Korean Financial Supervisory Commission in establishing governance system in the public and private sector under the auspices of the World Bank and the IMF as a result of IMF bail-out of Korea during the Asian Financial Crisis. He has practiced law at Kim & Chang as a partner and Co-Chair of the International Arbitration and Litigation Practice Group, and focused on international dispute resolution including trade sanctions, transnational litigation, and international arbitration. He has served as a board member of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) and is currently a member of the Court of Arbitration of the SIAC. He has taught in various universities including Sungkyunkwan University School of Law as an adjunct professor. He holds a J.S.D. and L.L.M. from NYU School of Law, and is admitted to the New York Bar, the Korean Bar, and the Singapore International Commercial Court.

 

Eun Young Park Visiting Scholar, Shorenstein APARC, Stanford University
Seminars
Korean Studies Colloquium Series

Rights Make Might: Global Human Rights and Minority Social Movements in Japan

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EMERGING ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY ASIA

A Special Seminar Series

RSVP required by Tuesday, May 7, 2019

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ABSTRACT: Why have the three most salient minority groups in Japan - the politically dormant Ainu, the active but unsuccessful Koreans, and the former outcaste group of Burakumin - all expanded their activism since the late 1970s despite the unfavorable domestic political environment? My investigation into the history of the three groups finds an answer in the galvanizing effects of global human rights on local social movements. Drawing on interviews and archival data, I document the transformative impact of global human rights ideas and institutions on minority activists, which changed the prevalent understanding about their standing in Japanese society and propelled them to new international venues for political claim making. The global forces also changed the public perception and political calculus in Japan over time, catalyzing substantial gains for the minority movements. Having benefited from global human rights, all three groups repaid their debt by contributing to the consolidation and expansion of international human rights principles and instruments. The in-depth historical comparative analysis offers rare windows into local, micro-level impact of global human rights - complementing my other projects on the relationship between international human rights and local politics, which employ cross-national quantitative analyses - and contributes to our understanding of international norms and institutions, social movements, human rights, ethnoracial politics, and Japanese society. 
 
Kiyoteru Tsutsui
PROFILE:   Kiyoteru Tsutsui is Professor of Sociology, Director of the Center for Japanese Studies, and Director of the Donia Human Rights Center at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His research on globalization of human rights and its impact on local politics has appeared in American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, Social Problems, Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and other social science journals. His book publications include Rights Make Might: Global Human Rights and Minority Social Movements in Japan (Oxford University Press 2018), and a co-edited volume (with Alwyn Lim) Corporate Social Responsibility in a Globalizing World (Cambridge University Press 2015). He has been a recipient of National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, National Science Foundation grants, the SSRC/CGP Abe Fellowship, Stanford Japan Studies Postdoctoral Fellowship, and other grants as well as awards from American Sociological Association sections on Global and Transnational Sociology (2010, 2013), Human Rights (2017), Asia and Asian America (2018), and Collective Behavior and Social Movements (2018).
 

 

McClatchy Hall, Building 120, Studio 40
450 Serra Mall
Stanford University

Kiyoteru Tsutsui Professor of Sociology, University of Michigan
Seminars

SCPKU announces its newest fellows

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Faculty Fellow:

  • Gerald Fuller - Professor, School of Engineering, Chemical Engineering, July-August, 2019

Pre-Doctoral Fellows:

  • Yunxin Li - History, August – September, 2019
  • Kyueun Lee – Medicine/Health Research and Policy, July – September, 2019
  • Jaemin Jee – Political Science, March 2019 – March 2020
  • Robert Xu - Linguistics, March – April, 2019

 

Graduate Seminars:

Title: " Chinese Corporations:  A Case Study Workshop "

  • Dates: June 17-July 5, 2019
  • Instructor: Andrew Walder, Professor of Sociology and FSI Senior Fellow
  • Eligibility: Enrolled Stanford University students in good academic standing
  • Stanford student application deadline: April 15, 2019
  • Read more and apply here

 Title: " Rheology of Complex Liquids"

  • Dates: July 15- August 2, 2019
  • Instructor: Gerald Fuller, Professor of Chemical Engineering, the School of Engineering
  • Eligibility:  Enrolled Stanford University students in good academic standing (class is full)
  • Read more here
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Marriage, Fertility and Rapid Population Aging: Japan’s Distinctive Demographic Landscape

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EMERGING ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY ASIA

A Special Seminar Series

RSVP required by Friday, April 29, 2019

RSVP Now

 

ABSTRACT:  Japan’s population is the oldest in the world and will continue to shrink for the foreseeable future. My first goal in this talk is to provide an overview of Japan’s distinctive demographic landscape, focusing on rapid population aging and its policy implications while also emphasizing the role that declining rates of marriage have played in accelerating population aging via their impact on fertility. After describing the centrality of marriage behavior to our understanding of demographic and societal trends in Japan, my second goal is to present results of new research documenting an unexpected reversal in educational differences in women’s marriage. For decades, highly-educated women have married later and more often remained unmarried than their less-educated counterparts – a pattern thought to reflect the high opportunity costs of marriage in Japan’s gender inegalitarian society. However, my analyses of recent data show that women with a university degree are now more likely than high school graduates to marry, a shift that hints at the possibility of changing norms and expectations regarding women’s employment and economic contributions to the family. Concurrent trends toward continued decline in marriage among low-educated men and women are consistent with emphases on the deteriorating economic circumstances of this group.
 
James Raymo
PROFILE:   Jim Raymo is Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also the current Director of Graduate Training of the Center for Demography of Health and Aging and the former Director of the Center for Demography and Ecology. Raymo’s research focuses primarily on evaluating patterns and potential consequences of major demographic changes in Japan. He has published widely on key features of recent family change, including delayed marriage, extended co-residence with parents, and increases in premarital cohabitation, shotgun marriages, and divorce. In other lines of research, he has examined health outcomes at older ages in Japan and their relationship with family, work, and local area characteristics and has examined multiple dimensions of well-being among the growing population of single mothers and their children in Japan. He is currently involved in a new project that explores explanations for low fertility in Japan and another that examines inequalities in children’s development in Japan. His research has been published in top U.S. journals such as American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Demography, and Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences as well as in Japanese journals. 
 
 

McClatchy Hall, Building 120, Studio 40
450 Serra Mall
Stanford University

James Raymo <i>Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison</i>

A Pacific Air Forces Perspective: Challenges in the Indo-Pacific Region

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General Charles Brown, Commander, Pacific Air Forces, will discuss the strategic importance and complexity of the vast Indo-Pacific Region, and the increasing interstate competition for position and influence.  He will also address how U.S. national security priorities shape the development the Pacific Air Forces strategy and operational concepts.  Last, he will explain how his Command attempts to balance the requirements of U.S. joint forces and allied nations to produce combined airpower, and the importance of partner relationships in achieving comprehensive regional security.

General Charles Brown
General Charles Q. Brown Jr. is the Commander, Pacific Air Forces (PACAF); Air Component Commander for U.S. Indo-Pacific Command; and Executive Director, Pacific Air Combat Operations Staff, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii.  PACAF is responsible for Air Force activities spread over half the globe in a command that supports more than 46,000 Airmen serving principally in Japan, Korea, Hawaii, Alaska and Guam.

Philippines Conference Room
Encina Hall, 3rd Floor, Central (C330)
616 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305

Lectures

Fertility Behavior and Fertility in China: Past, Present and Near Future

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China possesses a large amount of historical demographic data showing that it has been a population giant in the world for at least two thousand years. Partly for this reason, a number of conclusions or suggestions about China’s past fertility regime have been widely accepted. Recent historical demographic investigations, however, have shown that many of these conclusions or suggestions are incorrect and need further consideration. This presentation reports these research findings and briefly examines China’s recent fertility changes. On the basis of that it makes some comments on major characteristics of China’s current fertility patterns and factors affecting fertility changes in the near future.

zhongwei
Zhongwei Zhao graduated from University of Cambridge with a PhD in 1993. Since then he has worked at the East-West Center, Hawaii, University of New South Wales, Australian National University, and University of Cambridge. Since 2008, he has been a professor at the School of Demography at the ANU. Zhao has been doing research in the following research areas: Historical demography, Computer microsimulation, Fertility, Mortality, Changes in kinship structure and household composition, Famine demography, Inequality in population health, Environmental impacts on mortality changes, and Population changes in Asia. He has co-edited three books (including recent Routledge Handbook of Asian Demography) and published many articles and book chapters by leading demography journals and academic publishers.  

Zhao, Zhongwei Professor, The School of Demography at the Australian National University
Seminars

China Is Pushing Back Against Taiwan for These Three Reasons

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Ketian Zhang
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On March 31, Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported that two Chinese Air Force (PLAAF) J-11 jets crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait. This violated the long-held tacit agreement between China and Taiwan that neither side should cross the median line.

Taiwan deemed this “an intentional, reckless & provocative action,” which triggered “a 10-minute standoff” in the air. As Asia security expert Bonnie S. Glaser notes that, if intentional, this would be the first PLAAF crossing of the median line in about 20 years. In this case, it’s likely that Taiwan, not the South China Sea, prompted Beijing’s actions.

An unresolved issue from the Chinese civil war, Taiwan has always been a “core interest” to party leaders in Beijing. Here are some key takeaways from my research on China-Taiwan relations…

Read the full article in The Washington Post.

To hear more from Ketian, don't miss her recently posted video Q&A. In addition, be sure to RSVP for her April 16 seminar "Killing the Chicken to Scare the Monkey: Explaining Coercion by China in the South China Sea."

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The marines of China navy participate in the annual military training on January 3, 2018 in Zhanjiang,
ZHANJIANG, CHINA - JANUARY 03: The marines of China navy participate in the annual military training on January 3, 2018 in Zhanjiang, Guangdong Province of China. | Pu Haiyang/VCG via Getty Images
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