Air pollution is a silent and invisible killer more lethal than violence, diseases, and smoking.  More than 95 percent of the global population lives in areas with unhealthy air by WHO standards.  Moreover, long-term exposure to polluted air can increase the probability of succumbing to COVID-19.  

Scientific solutions to contain air pollution are available, but limited progress has been made in implementing them.  Temporally, there has been an uneven success in reducing pollution even in the same locality over time, as exemplified by the exercise of political power to change the color of the sky leading up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics (aka Olympic Blue).  

In this talk, Professor Shen will discuss her new book, The Political Regulation Wave: A Case of How Local Incentives Systematically Shape Air Quality in China (Cambridge University Press, 2022).  Departing from extant works, which focus on air data manipulation or the effect of campaigns, the book asks, what explains the systematic temporal variation in actual and reported air quality after controlling for top-down implementation campaigns?  Making use of new data, approaches, and techniques from across social and environmental sciences, the book shows that local leaders ordered different levels of regulation over time based on what their political superiors desired, leading to the titular “waves” of regulation and pollution.  However, the effectiveness of their regulatory efforts depends on the level of ambiguity in controlling a particular pollutant.  When ambiguity dilutes regulatory effectiveness, having the right incentives and enhanced monitoring is insufficient for successful policy implementation.

You can read and download her book in pdf format here.

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You can learn more about her work at http://svshen.com and follow her on Twitter @SVictoriaShen.

The Hoover Project on China's Global Sharp Power invites you to Guarding Dictatorship: The organization, tactics, and scale of China's surveillance state on Tuesday, April 12, 2022, from 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm PT, in partnership with CDDRL and the China Program at APARC.

China has built an extensive, sophisticated, and highly effective apparatus to monitor the activities of its population and target, in particular, perceived threats to regime security. China's "whole-of-nation" approach has produced a surveillance apparatus few dictatorships can match. The country's rapid economic growth also allows the Communist Party to upgrade the technological capabilities of this apparatus and strengthen its political monopoly. Featuring Minxin Pei (Senior Fellow, Claremont-McKenna College). Followed by a conversation with Larry Diamond (Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, and Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at FSI), Jean Oi (Senior Fellow at FSI, Director of the China Program at APARC), and Glenn Tiffert (Research Fellow, Hoover Institution).

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Minxin Pei is the Tom and Margot Pritzker '72 Professor of Government and chairman of the Government Department at Claremont McKenna College. He specializes in Chinese domestic politics, economic reform, and foreign policy. Dr. Pei is also a non-resident senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and was the inaugural Library of Congress Chair in U.S.-China Relations (2019).

FOLLOWED BY A CONVERSATION WITH

Jean C. Oi is the William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics in the Department of Political Science and a senior fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. She directs the China Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) and is the Lee Shau Kee Director of the Stanford Center at Peking University.

Glenn Tiffert is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a historian of modern China. He co-chairs the Hoover project on China’s Global Sharp Power and works closely with government and civil society partners to document and build resilience against authoritarian interference with democratic institutions. Most recently, he co-authored and edited Global Engagement: Rethinking Risk in the Research Enterprise (2020).

MODERATED BY

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, ​Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He co-chairs the Hoover Institution’s programs on China’s Global Sharp Power and on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region.

SCCEI Spring Seminar Series 

Wednesday, April 13, 2022      11:00 am -12:15 pm Pacific Time

Models of Bilateral Clean Energy Cooperation with China: A Tale of Three Clean Energy Research Centers

As global interest in clean energy technologies increases, we have seen countries around the world partner with China as the epicenter of clean energy deployment and an important location for learning-by-doing innovation. This paper presents three new case studies of the largest bilateral clean energy research centers developed in partnership with China over the past two decades. These cases facilitate an assessment of the political and technological benefits to international technology collaboration with China, as well as the substantial challenges.

About the Speaker 
 

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Joanna Lewis is Provost’s Distinguished Associate Professor of Energy and Environment and Director of the Science, Technology and International Affairs Program (STIA) at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. She has two decades of experience working on international climate and clean energy policy with a focus on China. At Georgetown she runs the Clean Energy and Climate Research Group and leads several dialogues facilitating U.S.-China climate change engagement. Lewis is also a faculty affiliate in the China Energy Group at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She is the author of the award-winning book Green Innovation in China, and was a Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report. Lewis has worked for a number of governmental and non-governmental organizations including the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, the Asia Society and the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and has been a visiting scholar at Tsinghua University, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the East-West Center. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Center for Security and Emerging Technologies, among others. Lewis holds a Master’s and Ph.D. in Energy and Resources from the University of California, Berkeley and a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science and Policy from Duke University.

Seminar Series Moderators

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Scott Rozelle is the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and the co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University.  For the past 30 years, he has worked on the economics of poverty reduction. Currently, his work on poverty has its full focus on human capital, including issues of rural health, nutrition and education. For the past 20 year, Rozelle has been the chair of the International Advisory Board of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Most recently, Rozelle's research focuses on the economics of poverty and inequality, with an emphasis on rural education, health and nutrition in China. In recognition of this work, Dr. Rozelle has received numerous honors and awards. Among them, he became a Yangtse Scholar (Changjiang Xuezhe) in Renmin University of China in 2008. In 2008 he also was awarded the Friendship Award by Premiere Wen Jiabao, the highest honor that can be bestowed on a foreigner. 

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Hongbin Li is the Co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions, and a Senior Fellow of Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). Hongbin obtained his Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University in 2001 and joined the economics department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), where he became full professor in 2007. He was also one of the two founding directors of the Institute of Economics and Finance at the CUHK. He taught at Tsinghua University in Beijing 2007-2016 and was C.V. Starr Chair Professor of Economics in the School of Economics and Management. He founded the Chinese College Student Survey (CCSS) in 2009 and the China Employer-Employee Survey (CEES) in 2014.

Hongbin’s research has been focused on the transition and development of the Chinese economy, and the evidence-based research results have been both widely covered by media outlets and well read by policy makers around the world. He is currently the co-editor of the Journal of Comparative Economics.

Register once to receive the Zoom meeting link that will be used for all lectures in this series.

Questions? Contact Debbie Aube at debbie.aube@stanford.edu

The Web of Power: How Elite Networks Shaped War and China

Scholars have argued that powerful individuals can influence the path of a nation's development. Yet, the process through which individuals affect macro-level political economy outcomes remains unclear.  This study uses the deadliest civil war in history, the Taiping Rebellion (1850--1864), to elucidate how one individual---Zeng Guofan---employed his personal elite networks to organize an army that suppressed the rebellion, and how these networks consequently affected the power distribution of the nation. Two findings stand out: (i) counties with more elites in Zeng's pre-war networks experienced more soldier deaths after he took power; and (ii) the post-war political power shifted significantly toward the home counties of these very elites, which created a less-balanced national-level power distribution.  Our findings highlight the role of elite networks that propagate individual-level influences to shape national politics and the distribution of power in a society. 

About the Speaker

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Ruixue Jia is a Visiting Senior Fellow at London School of Economics and an Associate Professor of Economics at the School of Global Policy and Strategy, UC San Diego. She is interested in the interplay of economics, history and politics. One stream of her research focuses on understanding elite formation and elite influence, in both historical and modern contexts. A second focus of her work is the deep historical roots of economic development. More recently, she started following the ongoing transformation of the manufacturing sector in China and expanded her interest to labor and technology issues. For more information, please visit her personal site.

This event will be held in-person at Stanford University, however, the lecture will be recorded. If you are interested in viewing the recording, please contact Debbie Aube.

Questions? Contact Debbie Aube at debbie.aube@stanford.edu

News on China dominates the headlines. In this panel program, however, panelists dig beneath the headlines to discuss research findings rarely discussed by mainstream media. Organized in collaboration with Michigan State University’s (MSU’s) Office of China Program, speakers highlight China’s monumental conservation efforts, based on their years of collaboration. Faculty from Stanford, MSU, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences will discuss the impact and implications of their own and related research in this field.

OPENING REMARKS

Scott Rozelle, Co-Director, Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions

Douglas Gage, Vice President, Office of Research and Innovation, Michigan State University

SPEAKERS

Gretchen Daily is Bing Professor of Environmental Science in the Stanford Department of Biology and a Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment. She is also Co-founder and Faculty Director of the Stanford Natural Capital Project. Daily’s work is focused on understanding human dependence and impacts on nature and the deep societal transformations needed to secure people and nature. She has published several hundred scientific and popular articles, and a dozen books. She has received numerous international honors. Daily is also a fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.

Zhiyun Ouyang is a professor of ecology and the Director of the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is the president of the Ecological Society of China and the vice-president of the Ecological Economic Society of China. He has played an active role in conservation policy innovation in China since 2000. His research is notable for its influence on policymaking for ecosystem conservation, restoration, and land management from local to national levels in China. He has published 11 books and hundreds of peer-reviewed papers.

Hua Zheng is a professor at the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research focuses on the relationships between and policy applications of ecosystem structure-process, ecosystem services, and ecosystem service assessment. His past research has explored how forest ecosystem structures and processes impact ecosystem services through long-term ecological research. He has coauthored numerous peer-reviewed papers in international journals in his field.

Tong Wu is the Co-director of the China & Environment Program at the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions. His scientific and policy interests focus on the achievements, challenges, and prospects for sustainable development in China. He has conducted research on the mainstreaming of ecosystem services in management and planning, the role of nature in improving public health outcomes, and strategies for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Wu has coauthored numerous peer-reviewed papers in international journals.

Jiaguo Qi is the Director of the Asia Hub Network which features over 20 partner institutions across Asia, focusing on Water-Energy-Food nexus research. He is also Co-Director of MSU’s Office of China Programs. His research focuses on two main areas: 1) integrating biophysical and social processes and methods in understanding land use and land cover change, and 2) transforming data into information and knowledge. Understanding the coupling of nature and human systems is important in his global change research. Dr. Qi directed the Center for Global Change and Earth Observation for many years.

Peilei Fan is the interim director at Center for Global Change and Earth Observation and professor of Urban and Regional Planning at Michigan State University. Dr. Fan has served as a consultant/economist for the United Nations University –World Institute of Development Economics Research and the Asian Development Bank. She is the Secretary General of International Association of Landscape Ecology (IALE), the Deputy of Landscape Ecology Working Party of International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO), and a Public Intellectuals Program Fellow of the National Committee on US-China Relations. She is passionate about achieving sustainability for cities and regions through efficient, just, and green processes and outcomes. Her work focuses on environment, innovation, and human well-being.

Jianguo "Jack" Liu, a human-environment scientist and sustainability scholar, holds the Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability, is a University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University, and director of the Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability. Liu takes a holistic approach to addressing complex human-environmental challenges through systems integration, such as the integration of ecology with social sciences, policy and advanced technologies. He is particularly keen to connect seemingly unconnected issues such as telecoupling (human-nature interactions over distances, e.g., among China, US, and Brazil).

Steve Pueppke is a faculty member in the Center for Global Change and Earth Observations, the Center for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, and Professor of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences at MSU. Dr. Pueppke was trained as a plant scientist and spent much of his professional career as a laboratory researcher/research administrator, including several years as Director of MSU AgBioResearch and Associate Vice-President for Research and Graduate Studies at MSU. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the National Center for Food and Agricultural Policy in Washington and is Section Editor for Water, Agriculture, and Aquaculture for the journal Water.