Graduate Seminar
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Seminars
Inside the Five-Sided Box
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This event is co-sponsored with The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Seminar Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vHBvzWHcpw&feature=youtu.be
Abstract: The world’s largest organization is also one of its most mysterious. The Department of Defense (DOD) employs more men and women than Amazon, McDonald’s, FedEx, Target, and General Electric combined. Yet most Americans know little about it beyond its $700 billion budget and iconic five-sided headquarters. Now, the leader who knows the Pentagon best pulls back the curtain on an institution that many regard with a mix of awe and suspicion, revealing not just what it does but why, and why it matters. Former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter will offer an insider’s account of how America’s military works—and how it should work. It is also a timely reassessment of U.S. foreign policy and national security strategies in a rapidly changing world, and a timeless reflection on the leadership qualities essential to not only run but also reform a dauntingly complex organization.
Speaker's Biography:
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Ash Carter
25th Secretary of Defense
Seminars
North Korea's Economic Openness: Implications for Inter-Korea and U.S. Cooperation
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North Korea’s international trade has increased by more than three times since mid-1990's. Using various data sources and a frontier theory of international trade, North Korea's economic gains from trade can be quantified to show the gains are substantial. This implies that the opportunity cost of abandoning economic openness is high, thus, this is an important leverage to promote North Korea’s political openness and denuclearization. However, the current economic openness of North Korea has a fundamental limitation because of its heavy reliance on China. The China-dependence pattern of its trades has only recently emerged. It is worth noting that North Korea’s trades were much more diversified before 2008. The comparative advantage analysis shows that North Korea’s trades can be diversified as before; and cooperation among North Korea, South Korea, and the United States can play an important role for the diversification if it is shaped from global perspectives rather than by the bilateral relations.
Hyeok Jeong (PhD, University of Chicago) is a professor at the Graduate School of International Studies (GSIS), Seoul National University. His main research interests include economic growth and development, productivity and inequality dynamics in relation to financial deepening and labor market issues such as human capital and demographic transition. His recent research agenda also includes the influences of firm and product dynamics on international trade, higher education reform, Korea’s long-term development process, evolution of Korea’s demographic dividends, North Korean economy, and international development cooperation on issues such as knowledge sharing and development finance. Prior to joining the faculty of GSIS in 2015, he was a professor of economics at the University of Southern California and Vanderbilt University; National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Japan; and the KDI School of Public Policy and Management in Korea.Image
Hyeok Jeong
<i>Professor, Seoul National University</i>
Seminars
Return of the Pontianak: Popular Cinema, Decolonization, and Malay Identities in the 21st Century
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The pontianak, or female vampire, is one of the most significant supernatural creatures, or hantu, in Malay cinema. A series of pontianak films were among the most successful made in the studio system in Singapore between 1957 and the city-state’s independence in 1965. Although the pontianak appeals to discourses of Malay cultural identity in particular, the films achieved something rare: they were popular across different races in late-colonial Singapore. In the 21st century, the pontianak genre has regained popularity in film and television by returning to the racialized politics of belonging in Malaysia and Singapore. The pontianak registers intersecting anxieties about femininity and modernity, race and nation, local and transnational cultural influences, and Islam in relation to indigenous beliefs. Prof. Galt’s talk will analyze the pontianak in recent Malaysian and Singaporean cinema and explore what the figure tells us about the role of film culture in shaping and contesting ideas of postcolonial Malay identity.
Rosalind Galt is Professor of Film Studies at King’s College London. She studies how geopolitics, cinematic style, history, and sexuality interact. She is the co-author with Karl Schoonover of Queer Cinema in the World (2016); the author of Pretty: Film and the Decorative Image (2010) and The New European Cinema: Redrawing the Map (2006); and co-editor of Global Art Cinema: New Theories and Histories (2010). Her advanced degrees are from Brown University (PhD) and the University of Glasgow (MA with Honours).Image
Rosalind Galt
2019-2020 NUS-Stanford Lee Kong Chian Fellow on Contemporary Southeast Asia
Seminars
Security in a Post-Nuclear Age
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Livestream: This event will not be live-streamed or recorded.
Abstract: Seventy-five years after the introduction of nuclear weapons, it is no longer clear that these tools of security remain the most effective means of holding an adversary at risk. This talk will examine whether there are alternatives to nuclear weapons for missions like deterrence, and asks whether policy attention ought to be rebalanced in view of a more modern understanding of risk.
Speaker's Biography:
R. Scott Kemp is the MIT Class of '43 Associate Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering, and director of the MIT Laboratory for Nuclear Security and Policy. His research combines physics, politics, and history to identify options for addressing societal problems in the areas of nuclear weapons and energy. Scott received his undergraduate degree in physics from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his Ph.D. in Public Policy from Princeton University. He is the recipient of the Sloan Research Fellowship in Physics, and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society
Scott Kemp
Associate Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering
MIT
Seminars
Indonesian Foreign Policy 2019-2024: Promise vs. Practice
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On 20 October 2019, Indonesia’s president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo began his second five-year term in office. In his first successful presidential campaign in 2014, he promised to transform the country into a “Global Maritime Fulcrum”—a seemingly keystone role between the Indian and Pacific Oceans that comprise the now popular term “Indo-Pacific.” How has that vision fared, and what priority will it have in 2019-2024? How will Indonesia deal with Sino-American strategic competition? Will Indonesia’s national and regional security policies change or stay the same? In addressing these questions, the talk will feature not only the president but his new ministers’ political, bureaucratic, and personal goals and differences as well. Laksmana will argue that, in practice, the GMF’s promise of proactive centrality has not been to date and is unlikely to be met in future.
Evan A. Laksmana, in addition to his position at CSIS in Jakarta, is completing his doctorate in political science at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, where he has been a Fulbright Presidential Scholar. He has held visiting fellowships and research positions with the National Bureau of Asian Research, Sydney University’s Southeast Asia Centre, the Lowy Institute for International Policy, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Journals that have carried his scholarly work include Asian Politics & Policy, Asian Security, Contemporary Southeast Asia, Defense & Security Analysis, and the Journal of Contemporary Asia. Other writings have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, among other publications.Image
Stanford_GMF that never was
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Evan A. Laksmana
Senior Researcher, Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Jakarta
Seminars
Aging Japan as Global Opportunity? How Japan’s Extreme Demographics are Shaping Technological Trajectories
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The demographics of Japan’s aging society has galvanized a wide range of corporate efforts, supported both directly and indirectly by the government, to aggressively develop artificial intelligence-driven technologies and IT systems to perform work for which labor shortages are accelerating. We are beginning to see concrete corporate offerings to address shortages of specific types of skilled and unskilled labor, as well as numerous efforts underway to develop systems to cope with sparsely populated, elderly geographic regions and the logistics surrounding eldercare more generally.
In this talk, based on a forthcoming book chapter, Kushida examines specific corporate cases and government strategies suggesting how Japan’s population aging and shrinking has led to three primary interrelated drivers of significance to shaping technological trajectories: 1) Demographics as market opportunity of an entirely unprecedented scale to serve the needs of a rapidly aging society; 2) demographic change creating an acute labor shortage; and 3) favorable political and regulatory dynamics for pursuing the development and diffusion of new technological trajectories to solve social and economic challenges caused by demographic change. A critical implication is that if technologies developed or deployed within Japan to solve domestic demographic problems are applicable elsewhere, then Japan’s demographic challenge can be an opportunity to cultivate competitive products and services in global markets.
SPEAKER
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Kenji E. Kushida is a Japan Program Research Scholar at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and an affiliated researcher at the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy. Kushida’s research interests are in the fields of comparative politics, political economy, and information technology. He has four streams of academic research and publication: political economy issues surrounding information technology such as Cloud Computing; institutional and governance structures of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster; political strategies of foreign multinational corporations in Japan; and Japan’s political economic transformation since the 1990s. Kushida has written two general audience books in Japanese, entitled Biculturalism and the Japanese: Beyond English Linguistic Capabilities (Chuko Shinsho, 2006) and International Schools, an Introduction (Fusosha, 2008). Kushida holds a PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. He received his MA in East Asian studies and BAs in economics and East Asian studies, all from Stanford University.
PARKING
Please note there is significant construction taking place on campus, which is greatly affecting parking availability and traffic patterns at the university. Please plan accordingly. Nearest parking garage is Structure 7, below the Graduate School of Business Knight School of Management.
Kenji E. Kushida
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Former Research Scholar, Japan Program
Kenji E. Kushida was a research scholar with the Japan Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center from 2014 through January 2022. Prior to that at APARC, he was a Takahashi Research Associate in Japanese Studies (2011-14) and a Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow (2010-11).
Kushida’s research and projects are focused on the following streams: 1) how politics and regulations shape the development and diffusion of Information Technology such as AI; 2) institutional underpinnings of the Silicon Valley ecosystem, 2) Japan's transforming political economy, 3) Japan's startup ecosystem, 4) the role of foreign multinational firms in Japan, 4) Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster. He spearheaded the Silicon Valley - New Japan project that brought together large Japanese firms and the Silicon Valley ecosystem.
He has published several books and numerous articles in each of these streams, including “The Politics of Commoditization in Global ICT Industries,” “Japan’s Startup Ecosystem,” "How Politics and Market Dynamics Trapped Innovations in Japan’s Domestic 'Galapagos' Telecommunications Sector," “Cloud Computing: From Scarcity to Abundance,” and others. His latest business book in Japanese is “The Algorithmic Revolution’s Disruption: a Silicon Valley Vantage on IoT, Fintech, Cloud, and AI” (Asahi Shimbun Shuppan 2016).
Kushida has appeared in media including The New York Times, Washington Post, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Nikkei Business, Diamond Harvard Business Review, NHK, PBS NewsHour, and NPR. He is also a trustee of the Japan ICU Foundation, alumni of the Trilateral Commission David Rockefeller Fellows, and a member of the Mansfield Foundation Network for the Future. Kushida has written two general audience books in Japanese, entitled Biculturalism and the Japanese: Beyond English Linguistic Capabilities (Chuko Shinsho, 2006) and International Schools, an Introduction (Fusosha, 2008).
Kushida holds a PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. He received his MA in East Asian Studies and BAs in economics and East Asian Studies with Honors, all from Stanford University.
Seminars
Diabetes Health Policy in Thailand
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Diabetes is a significant problem worldwide and especially for developing countries including Thailand, where the disease has increased in prevalence rapidly, resulting in high healthcare expenditure and loss of productivity due to illness and premature death. Thailand has adopted multiple policies to control diabetes, such as screening through annual health checkups for people aged 35 and over, increasing healthcare access in rural communities, and developing diabetes clinical practice guidelines to improve the quality of care. However, multiple national health surveys still showed a rising pattern of diabetes in the country. To help understand and tackle the problem, we created a 10-year cohort using data from the national health exam survey (NHES) as a starting point and followed the population by linking to healthcare utilization and expenditure data from the universal health coverage scheme, the main health insurance program in Thailand. With this cohort, we study 3 topics. The first is to understand the burden of diabetes in the Thai health service system by calculating incidence of diabetes and its complications. Furthermore, we will identify factors which affect diabetes incidence and therefore can be used to create evidence-based control policies. Second, we seek to identify the bottleneck between each step in the “cascade of care” (screening, starting and adhering to treatment, and controlling disease). Finally, we will compare healthcare utilization patterns, expenditure, and outcomes related to diabetes between the overall population and vulnerable subgroups to identify factors that prevent vulnerable populations from obtaining better health outcomes.
Wasin Laohavinij is a physician at King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital and a research assistant at Department of Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University. His research focus on non-communicable disease prevention policies and economic evaluation of health promotion and prevention. Wasin Laohavinij completed his MD at Chulalongkorn University. Image
Wasin Laohavinij
2019-2020 Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center Visiting Scholar
Seminars
Research in Progress: Kyu Lee & Jeremy Goldhaber-Fiebert (Advisor)
Age- and Time-trend in heavy drinking among Chinese Men: Modeling Approach
Kyu Lee, MS
Pre-Doctoral Student, Stanford Health Policy
Advisor: Jeremy Goldhaber-Fiebert, PhD
Kyueun is a PhD student in the Department of Health Research and Policy at Stanford University. She received her BS in Life Science from Pohang University of Science Technology, South Korea in 2012. During her training in basic science, she participated in a medical research to evaluate the efficacy of anti-cancer drug targeting ovarian cancer. After the graduation, she discovered her interest in the health policy and studied health services and research at the University of Minnesota during her MS degree. Prior to joining Stanford University, Kyueun worked as an research assistant at Harvard Center for Health Decision Science. She has worked on projects related to evaluating cervical cancer screening strategies in developing countries.
CHP/PCOR Conference Room
Encina Commons, Room 119
615 Crothers Way, Stanford, CA 94305
Seminars
Last Days of the Mighty Mekong
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Celebrated for its natural beauty and its abundance of wildlife, the Mekong River runs thousands of miles through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Its basin is home to more than 70 million people and has for centuries been one of the world's richest agricultural areas and a biodynamic wonder. Today, however, it is undergoing profound changes. Development policies, led by a rising China in particular, aim to interconnect the region and urbanize the inhabitants. A series of dams will harness the river's energy. But they will also disrupt its natural cycles and cut off food supplies for swathes of the population. Based on conversations with the diverse people he has encountered from the Mekong’s headwaters in China to its delta in southern Vietnam, Eyler will review and assess the urgent struggle to save the Mekong and its unique ecosystem. Copies of his latest book, Last Days of the Mighty Mekong (2019), will be available for sale.
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Brian Eyler
Director, Southeast Asia Program, and Senior Fellow, Stimson Center, Washington, DC
Seminars