Dr. von Vacano’s teaching and research interests are in political philosophy and the history of political thought. He is especially interested in modern European and Latin American political theory. His current research for a monograph focuses on the problem of racial identity in relation to citizenship in the Hispanic tradition, focusing on the themes of Empire, Nation, and Cosmopolis in various thinkers. The ancillary aim of The Color of Citizenship: Race, Modernity and Latin American Political Thought (Oxford University Press, forthcoming) is to develop a normative conceptualization of race for modern multicultural societies.
Professor von Vacano is also beginning research on a book project that defends globalization through an examination of the development of immigrant identity. This uses the dialectical tradition in German political philosophy and empirical evidence from immigrants in global cities such as New York, Paris, Tokyo, and Buenos Aires.
Much of the debate over Japan's historical disputes with neighboring countries treat unresolved issues from World War II as an intra-Asian problem. In recent years, however, there is a growing view that the United States can hardly afford to stand outside these disputes, particularly since it was intimately involved in their formation immediately after the war. The U.S. was the undisputed leader of the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, which failed to address Japanese war crimes against Asian victims. The U.S. also brokered the San Francisco Peace Treaty, which laid the legal framework to deter Asian victims from filing suits against the Japanese government and corporations for wartime grievances. The United States should address its responsibility in contributing to Japan's "history problem," while playing a constructive role in facilitating historical reconciliation in Northeast Asia.
Professor Gi-Wook Shin is the director of Shorenstein APARC; the Tong Yang, Korea Foundation, and Korea Stanford Alumni Chair of Korean Studies; the founding director of the Korean Studies Program; senior fellow at FSI; and professor of sociology at Stanford University. As a historical-comparative and political sociologist, his research has concentrated on areas of social movements, nationalism, development, and international relations. Dr. Shin has served as editor of the Journal of Korean Studies, a premier journal in the field of Korean studies.
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Professor of Sociology
William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea
Professor, by Courtesy, of East Asian Languages & Cultures
Gi-Wook Shin_0.jpg
PhD
Gi-Wook Shin is the William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea in the Department of Sociology, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the founding director of the Korea Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) since 2001, all at Stanford University. In May 2024, Shin also launched the Taiwan Program at APARC. He served as director of APARC for two decades (2005-2025). As a historical-comparative and political sociologist, his research has concentrated on social movements, nationalism, development, democracy, migration, and international relations.
In Summer 2023, Shin launched the Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab (SNAPL), which is a new research initiative committed to addressing emergent social, cultural, economic, and political challenges in Asia. Across four research themes– “Talent Flows and Development,” “Nationalism and Racism,” “U.S.-Asia Relations,” and “Democratic Crisis and Reform”–the lab brings scholars and students to produce interdisciplinary, problem-oriented, policy-relevant, and comparative studies and publications. Shin’s latest book, The Four Talent Giants, a comparative study of talent strategies of Japan, Australia, China, and India to be published by Stanford University Press in the summer of 2025, is an outcome of SNAPL.
Shin is also the author/editor of twenty-seven books and numerous articles. His books include The Four Talent Giants: National Strategies for Human Resource Development Across Japan, Australia, China, and India (2025); Korean Democracy in Crisis: The Threat of Illiberalism, Populism, and Polarization (2022); The North Korean Conundrum: Balancing Human Rights and Nuclear Security (2021); Superficial Korea (2017); Divergent Memories: Opinion Leaders and the Asia-Pacific War (2016); Global Talent: Skilled Labor as Social Capital in Korea (2015); Criminality, Collaboration, and Reconciliation: Europe and Asia Confronts the Memory of World War II (2014); New Challenges for Maturing Democracies in Korea and Taiwan (2014); History Textbooks and the Wars in Asia: Divided Memories (2011); South Korean Social Movements: From Democracy to Civil Society (2011); One Alliance, Two Lenses: U.S.-Korea Relations in a New Era (2010); Cross Currents: Regionalism and Nationalism in Northeast Asia (2007); and Ethnic Nationalism in Korea: Genealogy, Politics, and Legacy (2006). Due to the wide popularity of his publications, many have been translated and distributed to Korean audiences. His articles have appeared in academic and policy journals, including American Journal of Sociology, World Development, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Political Science Quarterly, Journal of Asian Studies, Comparative Education, International Sociology, Nations and Nationalism, Pacific Affairs, Asian Survey, Journal of Democracy, and Foreign Affairs.
Shin is not only the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, but also continues to actively raise funds for Korean/Asian studies at Stanford. He gives frequent lectures and seminars on topics ranging from Korean nationalism and politics to Korea's foreign relations, historical reconciliation in Northeast Asia, and talent strategies. He serves on councils and advisory boards in the United States and South Korea and promotes policy dialogue between the two allies. He regularly writes op-eds and gives interviews to the media in both Korean and English.
Before joining Stanford in 2001, Shin taught at the University of Iowa (1991-94) and the University of California, Los Angeles (1994-2001). After receiving his BA from Yonsei University in Korea, he was awarded his MA and PhD from the University of Washington in 1991.
Director, Korea Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC)
Director, Stanford Next Asia Policy Lab at APARC
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Gi-Wook Shin
Tong Yang, Korea Foundation, and Korea Stanford Alumni Chair of Korean Studies Professor, Department of Sociology Director, The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Speaker
Stanford Univesrity
Seminars
The American Role in Northeast Asian Reconciliation
In 2009-2010, the Program on Human
Rights will partner with FCE and DLCL to launch part 2 of the Contemporary History and the Future of Memoryseries by
adding "Reconciliation" to the mission. This
series will examine scholarly and institutional efforts to create new national
narratives that walk the fine line between before and after, memory and
truth, compensation and reconciliation, justice and peace. Some work examines communities ravaged by colonialism and
the great harm that colonial and post-colonial economic and social disparities
cause. The extent of external intervention creates discontinuities
and dislocation, making it harder for people to claim an historical narrative
that feels fully authentic. Another response is to set up truth-seeking
institutions such as truth commissions. Historical examples of truth
commissions in South Africa, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Morocco inform more
current initiatives in Canada, Cambodia, Colombia, Kenya, and the United
States. While this range of economic, social, political and legal
modalities all seek to explain difficult pasts to present communities, it is
not yet clear which approach yields greater truth, friendship, reconciliation
and community healing. The "History, Memory, and Reconciliation" series
will explore these issues.
The series will have its first event in
February 2010. Multiple international scholars are invited.
On July 31, 2009, the Education Economic Seminar Series held its first meeting at the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy (CCAP). Professor Linxiu Zhang moderated the meeting, while Doctor Yingquan Song jumpstarted the series by presenting his research on the "Information and Educational Choices of Junior High Students in Rural China."
The meeting was attended by various professors and graduate students from universities and research institutions in both China and America, including CCAP, Stanford University, The Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, Peking University, Beijing Normal University, and Renmin University. Doctor Song's presentation was followed by a heated and in-depth discussion. Attendees debated and brainstormed ideas for the next step in Song's research.
During the meeting, Professor Linxiu Zhang, the co-director of REAP and the deputy director of CCAP, introduced the idea behind the Seminar Series. Jointly founded by REAP, CCAP, Peking University's China Institute for Educational Finance Research, and Beijing Normal University's School of Economics and Business Administration, the goal of the Seminar Series is to foster creative dialogue among researchers on the development of Education Economics and its role in society. They plan to meet each quarter to discuss fresh ideas and exchange research results. Professor Scott Rozelle from Stanford University, also the co-director of REAP, stresses that once the Seminar Series has started, it needs to continue in order to provide a platform for continuous dialogue among those in the field.
Since the 1990's the US Department of Defense has been
pioneering the development of more coherent approaches to improve the
coordination of complex technologies, program, policies, and
institutions. Among the most significant and influential of these new approaches
is Systems of Systems, which is an interdisciplinary field that focuses on
organizing independent stand-alone components into more integrated solutions.
As one of the developers of this concept, Bill will draw on
his expertise to review the history of this emerging field, summarize its major
scientific and practical features, describe examples of its application in DoD
and other arenas, and explore its relevance to a variety of technical and
non-technical issues affecting security concerns.
Bill Reckmeyer is Professor of Leadership and Systems at San José State University, Faculty Chair of the International Study Program on Global Citizenship at the Salzburg Global Seminar, and a Visiting Professor at CISAC. A systems scientist/cybernetician whose work emphasizes collaborative approaches to problematic organizational, national, and global issues, his research and consulting have focused on leading multi-year strategic planning efforts in diverse institutional settings and conducting senior-level policy studies on national strategy for the US Department of Defense.
During the 1990s Bill co-authored several studies on Revitalizing America for OSD's Office of Net Assessment, which originated the ideas for systems of systems approaches to address hyper-complex concerns whose resolution require the integration of independent complex systems. From 2003-2006 he served as Chief Systems Scientist for the Systems of Systems Center of Excellence, which was established by Congress and funded by DoD to lead national efforts at developing more integrative solutions to interconnected challenges affecting defense acquisition and logistics, national security, homeland security, and international affairs.
Prior to joining Stanford Bill also held posts as a Visiting Professor or a Senior Fellow at Harvard, Southern California, Maryland, Stockholm, St. Gallen, Aveiro, and several other major universities in the United States and Europe. He currently serves as Strategic Advisor to the California Levees Roundtable and as a Core Faculty member in the CA Agricultural Leadership Program.
A former President of the American Society for Cybernetics in 1983-1985, Bill was a Kellogg National Leadership Fellow in 1988-1992 and a Salzburg Global Fellow on five occasions from 1995-2004. He earned his PhD in Russian Studies at American University in 1982 and completed several advanced leadership programs at Harvard University from 1990-1995.
Reuben W. Hills Conference Room
William Reckmeyer
CISAC Visiting Professor
Speaker
The Social Agenda for Democracy in Latin America is a policy-oriented research initiative of the Global Center for Development and Democracy, which was founded by former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo in 2006. Authored by a taskforce of 20 former Latin American Presidents, as well as development experts from academia, the private sector, and multi-lateral organizations, the Social Agenda comprises 16 pressing social issues and 63 specific public and private policy recommendations to the region's current heads of state.
From the Washington, D.C. launch of the Social Agenda for Democracy in Latin America:
The Global Center for Development and Democracy, founded and presided over by former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, along with The Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), the National Endowment for Democracy, the Brookings Institution, and the Inter-American Dialogue, is pleased to invite you to join us at the Falk Auditorium at the Brookings Institution on Tuesday, November 3, from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. for a presentation of The Social Agenda for Democracy in Latin America for the Next Twenty Years by Dr. Alejandro Toledo and the following former presidents: Vicente Fox of Mexico; Carlos Mesa, Bolivia; Nicolas Ardito Barletta, Panama; Ricardo Maduro, Honduras; and Vinicio Cerezo, Guatemala.
The Global Center for Development and Democracy has sponsored five Presidential Meetings over the last two years, at which a Presidential Task Force (including 20 former presidents of Latin American countries) has met with leading experts from policy-oriented academia, multilateral organizations, the private sector, and members of civil society to consider the innovative policy research of those experts and to discuss what the former heads of state consider to be the 15 most important social issues facing the region. The conclusions of their research and discussions at these meetings have been synthesized into a report that will be shared with the sitting presidents of Latin American nations at the Ibero-American Summit in Estoril, Portugal, on December 1, 2009 – as well as with President Obama, the Prime Minister of Canada, and the heads of state of the European Union. The report will present specific recommendations for actions to significantly reduce poverty, inequality, and social exclusion, as well as to strengthen democratic institutions in Latin America. The report will also include mechanisms for carrying out a twenty-year program of monitoring the results of the policy initiative.
In this third session of the Forum, former senior government officials and other leading experts from the United States and South Korea discussed current developments in North Korea and North Korea policy, the future of the U.S.-South Korean alliance, and a strategic vision for Northeast Asia. The session was hosted by Sejong Institute, a top South Korean think tank, in association with Shorenstein APARC.
This paper
presents data from six of the first countries incorporated into the
Agricultural Lives of the Poor project: Ghana, Guatemala, India, Malawi, Uganda,
and Vietnam. Datasets were selected
based on availability and depth of detail on consumption expenditures, sources
of income, and agricultural practices. Each of these survey components is necessary in order for ALP
to focus on net consumption/production at the household level, and to
understand expenditure and consumption behavior. Net consumption and production data of individual crops and
food groups is further disaggregated by subgroups formed on characteristics
that include economic status, household attributes, livelihood strategies,
calories available, landholding, tenure types, and agricultural input use.
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Program on Food Security and the Environment, Stanford University
Martha Crenshaw, a senior fellow at FSI's Center for International Security and
Cooperation, testified Thursday, November 19, before the House
Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing and Terrorism Risk
Assessment on the subject of "Reassessing the Evolving al-Qa'ida Threat
to the Homeland." Crenshaw, who recently launched a three-year effort
to build a global database of terrorist 'family trees,' was joined by
three terrorism experts at the hearing in Washington, D.C.
Berkeley and Stanford - Climate change could increase the likelihood of civil war in sub-Saharan Africa by over 50 percent within the next two decades, according to a new study led by a team of researchers at University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, New York University and Harvard University, and published in today's (Monday, Nov. 23) online issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The study provides the first quantitative evidence linking climate change and the risk of civil conflict. It concludes by urging accelerated support by African governments and foreign aid donors for new and/or expanded policies to assist with African adaptation to climate change.
"Despite recent high-level statements suggesting that climate change could worsen the risk of civil conflict, until now we had little quantitative evidence linking the two," said Marshall Burke, the study's lead author, a graduate student at UC Berkeley's Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, and research associate at the Program on Food Security and the Environment. "Unfortunately, our study finds that climate change could increase the risk of African civil war by over 50 percent in 2030 relative to 1990, with huge potential costs to human livelihoods."
"We were definitely surprised that the linkages between temperature and recent conflict were so strong," said Edward Miguel, professor of economics at UC Berkeley and faculty director of UC Berkeley's Center for Evaluation for Global Action. "But the result makes sense. The large majority of the poor in most African countries depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, and their crops are quite sensitive to small changes in temperature. So when temperatures rise, the livelihoods of many in Africa suffer greatly, and the disadvantaged become more likely to take up arms."
Understanding the causes and consequences of civil strife in much of the African continent has been a major focus of the social sciences for decades, said Miguel, given the monumental suffering has resulted from it.
In the study, the researchers first combined historical data on civil wars in sub-Saharan Africa with rainfall and temperature records across the continent. They found that between 1980 and 2002, civil wars were significantly more likely in warmer-than-average years, with a 1 degree Celsius increase in temperature in a given year raising the incidence of conflict across the continent by nearly 50 percent.
Building on this historical relationship between temperature and conflict, the researchers then used projections of future temperature and precipitation change to quantify future changes in the likelihood of African civil war. Based on climate projections from 20 global climate models, the researchers found that the incidence of African civil war could increase 55 percent by 2030, resulting in an additional 390,000 battle deaths if future wars are as deadly as recent wars.
All climate models project rising temperatures in coming decades, said David Lobell, study co-author and an assistant professor of environmental earth system science at Stanford and center fellow at Stanford's Program on Food Security and the Environment, a joint program of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the Woods Institute for the Environment.
"On average, the models suggest that temperatures over the African continent will increase by a little over 1 degree Celsius by 2030," he added. "Given the strong historical relationship between temperature rise and conflict, this expected future rise in temperature is enough to cause big increases in the likelihood of conflict."
To confirm that this projection was not the result of large effects in just a few countries or due to overreliance on a particular climate model, the researchers recalculated future conflict projections using alternate data. "No matter what we tried - different historical climate data, different climate model projections, different subsets of the conflict data - we still found the same basic result," said Lobell.
It's easy to think of climate change as a long way off, said the researchers, but their study shows how sensitive many human systems are to small increases in temperature, and how fast the negative impacts of climate change could be felt.
"Our findings provide strong impetus to ramp up investments in African adaptation to climate change, for instance by developing crop varieties less sensitive to extreme heat and promoting insurance plans to help protect farmers from adverse effects of the hotter climate," said Burke.
Applying findings from this study could prove useful to policy makers at the upcoming Copenhagen negotiations in December in determining both the speed and magnitude of response to climate change, the authors said.
"If the sub-Saharan climate continues to warm and little is done to help its countries better adapt to high temperatures, the human costs are likely to be staggering," said Burke.
"We were definitely surprised that the linkages between temperature and recent conflict were so strong," said Edward Miguel, professor of economics at UC Berkeley and faculty director of UC Berkeley's Center for Evaluation for Global Action. "But the result makes sense. The large majority of the poor in most African countries depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, and their crops are quite sensitive to small changes in temperature. So when temperatures rise, the livelihoods of many in Africa suffer greatly, and the disadvantaged become more likely to take up arms."