China and the United States both have public needs that far outstrip the abilities of their governments alone to deliver.  Zeckhauser and Donahue will discuss their book (joint with Karen Eggleston) exploring an important, and perhaps surprising, shared feature of efforts by policymakers in China and the United States to forge prosperous, stable futures for their citizens:  public-private collaboration to accomplish some of each society’s most vital collective purposes. Collaborative governance entails private engagement in public tasks on terms of shared discretion. Zeckhauser and Donahue will discuss the two countries’ collaborative approaches to health policy and elder care, comparing and contrasting with approaches to other activities ranging from education and infrastructure to hosting the Olympics.

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Richard Zeckhauser is the Frank P. Ramsey Professor of Political Economy, Kennedy School, Harvard University. He graduated from Harvard College (summa cum laude) and received his Ph.D. there. He is an elected fellow of the Econometric Society, the Institute of Medicine (National Academy of Sciences), and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2014, he was named a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association. His contributions to decision theory and behavioral economics include the concepts of quality-adjusted life years (QALYs), status quo bias, betrayal aversion, and ignorance (states of the world unknown) as a complement to the categories of risk and uncertainty. Many of his policy investigations explore ways to promote the health of human beings, to help markets work more effectively, and to foster informed and appropriate choices by individuals and government agencies. Zeckhauser has published over 300 articles and several books.

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John D. Donahue is the Raymond Vernon Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, Kennedy School, Harvard University. He is also Faculty Chair of the Master in Public Policy (MPP) Program and the SLATE Curriculum Initiative Co-Chair for Cases and Curriculum. His teaching, writing, and research mostly deal with public sector reform and with the distribution of public responsibilities across levels of government and sectors of the economy, including extensive work with the HKS-HBS joint degree program. He has written or edited twelve books, most recently Collaborative Governance (with Richard J. Zeckhauser, 2011) and Ports in a Storm (with Mark H. Moore, 2012). He served in the first Clinton Administration as an Assistant Secretary and then as Counselor to the Secretary of Labor. Donahue has consulted for business and governmental organizations, including the National Economic Council, the World Bank, and the RAND Corporation, and serves as a trustee or advisor to several nonprofits. A native of Indiana, he holds a BA from Indiana University and an MPP and PhD from Harvard.

Abstract: Many believe that President Donald J. Trump lacks a coherent worldview informing his foreign policy decisions. Critics of the Trump administration's foreign policy point to the president's erratic behavior, early-morning tweets, and bluster as proof of underlying incoherence in Trump's approach to the world. But this sells Trump short. Whether one approves of Trump's foreign policy or not, it is not driven by pure instinct. Rather, it is rooted in deeply held views about the world, including an obsession with the security of the homeland, beliefs about the threats posed by terrorism, immigration, and unfair trade, and a conviction that the alliances and international institutions that the United States helped construct after World War II are fundamentally rigged against American interests. Trump has subscribed to many of these ideas for three decades.

The paper discusses the concept of grand strategy, outlines the core ideas defining Trump's worldview and situates them within longstanding traditions in American foreign policy. It then assesses how Trump’s grand strategic beliefs have shaped his foreign policy as president. 

Speaker bio: Colin H. Kahl is co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation, the inaugural Steven C. Házy Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and a Professor, by courtesy, in the Department of Political Science at Stanford University. He is also a Strategic Consultant to the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement.

From October 2014 to January 2017, he was Deputy Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor to the Vice President. In that position, he served as a senior advisor to President Obama and Vice President Biden on all matters related to U.S. foreign policy and national security affairs, and represented the Office of the Vice President as a standing member of the National Security Council Deputies’ Committee. From February 2009 to December 2011, Dr. Kahl was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East at the Pentagon. In this capacity, he served as the senior policy advisor to the Secretary of Defense for Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel and the Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, and six other countries in the Levant and Persian Gulf region. In June 2011, he was awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service by Secretary Robert Gates. 

From 2007 to 2017 (when not serving in the U.S. government), Dr. Kahl was an assistant and associate professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. From 2007 to 2009 and 2012 to 2014, he was also a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a nonpartisan Washington, DC-based think tank. From 2000 to 2007, he was an assistant professor of political science at the University of Minnesota. In 2005-2006, Dr. Kahl took leave from the University of Minnesota to serve as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where he worked on issues related to counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, and responses to failed states. In 1997-1998, he was a National Security Fellow at the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University.

Current research projects include a book analyzing American grand strategy in the Middle East in the post-9/11 era. A second research project focuses on the implications of emerging technologies on strategic stability.

He has published numerous articles on international security and U.S. foreign and defense policy in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, International Security, the Los Angeles Times, Middle East Policy, the National Interest, the New Republic, the New York Times, Politico, the Washington Post, and the Washington Quarterly, as well as several reports for CNAS.

His previous research analyzed the causes and consequences of violent civil and ethnic conflict in developing countries, focusing particular attention on the demographic and natural resource dimensions of these conflicts. His book on the subject, States, Scarcity, and Civil Strife in the Developing World, was published by Princeton University Press in 2006, and related articles and chapters have appeared in International Security, the Journal of International Affairs, and various edited volumes.

Dr. Kahl received his B.A. in political science from the University of Michigan (1993) and his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University (2000).

Recent scholarship suggests that, under authoritarian regimes, quasi-democratic institutions such as elections and legislatures—the velvet gloves of autocratic rule—actually enable political stability and economic growth. The political economies of China and Vietnam are indeed remarkably stable and dynamic, and compared with China’s ostensibly democratic institutions, those in Vietnam are open and raucous. That makes Vietnam a likely place to find election and legislatures performing their hypothetically salutary functions.  But are they?

Even in Vietnam, Prof. Schuler will argue, the legislature’s main function is to convey regime strength and cow possible opposition.  Using evidence drawn from more than ten years of fieldwork, survey research, and close readings of legislative debates and the debaters’ lives, he finds that electoral and legislative activity reflect intra-party debates rather than genuine citizen opinion. His results should temper expectations that such institutions can serve either as safety valves for public discontent or as enablers of tangibly better governance. Single-party legislatures are more accurately seen as propaganda tools that reduce dissent while increasing disaffection. That said, Schuler will acknowledge that opponents of authoritarian rule may manage, under certain conditions, to repurpose seemingly democratic institutions toward undermining the regime whose longevity they were developed to prolong.

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Abstract:

Today, nearly 9% of people in Latin America identify as Indigenous, ranging from 2% in Argentina to 30% in Guatemala with high within-country variation. Levels of Indigenous self-identification have also increased in the last decades in the region. Using a multi-method approach that combines surveys, archival research, text analysis, and machine learning, I study how different institutional frameworks have shaped the persistence of language, Indigenous last-names, and local governance from the colonial times to the 21st century. I also provide a novel theoretical framework to understand Indigenous agency and their capacity to resist, survive and adapt to colonial rule.

Speaker Bio:

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2018 S.T. Lee Lectureship

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In NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART, Ambassador Sherman takes readers inside the world of international diplomacy and into the mind of one of our most effective negotiators—often the only woman in the room. She shows why good work in her field is so hard to do, and how we can apply core skills of diplomacy to the challenges in our own lives. 

But it’s important to remember that deals can be undone. Following Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, Ambassador Sherman updated NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART to better articulate how our governmental structures are failing our diplomatic ones. 

In the dark political era we’ve entered since Ambassador Sherman first put pen to paper, she’s come to realize how increasingly important it is to understand the deeper nature of negotiation. Leaders talk about the art of the deal and discredit the art of diplomacy—while achieving neither and misunderstanding both. The fact is, whether you’re in politics or business, the world has become so increasingly complex that the diplomatic perspective has become indispensable to deal making. 

In utilizing her first-hand knowledge, Ambassador Sherman distinguishes between the diplomat and the autocrat. The former is inclusive and expansive, understanding that every decision is grounded in present and past history, with an obligation to the future; the latter is impulsive and reckless, and sees only what’s in front of him and what’s at stake right now. 

We need leaders who are tough, blunt, and realistic, it’s true—but those same leaders must understand the nature of power if they hope to use it effectively. They have to learn from loss and let go of the things they can’t control; learn how to build a team and recognize adversaries as partners in making real change; and, above all, they have to bring their authentic selves to the negotiation table. As Ambassador Sherman writes in the introduction to NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART: “When we are ourselves, even if that means letting our tears flow, we can be our most powerful.” 

Through personal stories drawn from a lifetime of public service, Ambassador Sherman has written a necessary text for today’s leaders. But NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART is so much more than a behind-the-curtain political memoir: it is a nuanced, revealing, and practical guide for any woman or man who wants to improve their negotiation game. 

 “A powerful, deeply personal, and absorbing book written by one of America’s smartest and most dedicated diplomats.”—MADELEINE K. ALBRIGHT, 64th U.S. Secretary of State 

“Wendy doesn’t just write about the value of courage, power, and persistence, she lives it. She’s an example that a strong negotiator can also be a humane mentor.”—JOHN KERRY, 68th U.S. Secretary of State 

“An indispensable insider’s account of America’s negotiations with Iran and North Korea and a timely reminder of the importance of diplomacy… This book is also the personal saga of a woman navigating a generation of change in American politics. At an inflection point in our national conversations about diplomacy and gender, this book is illuminating on both fronts.” —RONAN FARROW, contributing writer, New Yorker, and author of The War on Peace 

“A compelling narrative, never needed more than today.”—ANDREA MITCHELL, chief foreign affairs correspondent, NBC, and news anchor, MSNBC 

Books will be available for sale 

Wendy R. Sherman is Senior Counselor at Albright Stonebridge Group and former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.  In January 2019, Ambassador Sherman will join Harvard Kennedy School as a professor of the practice in public leadership and director of the School’s Center for Public Leadership.  She serves on the boards of the International Crisis Group and the Atlantic Council, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Aspen Strategy Group.  Ambassador Sherman led the U.S. negotiating team that reached agreement on a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between the P5+1, the European Union, and Iran for which, among other diplomatic accomplishments, she was awarded the National Security Medal by President Barack Obama.  Prior to her service at the Department of State, she was Vice Chair and founding partner of the Albright Stonebridge Group, Counselor of the Department of State under Secretary Madeleine Albright and Special Advisor to President Clinton and Policy Coordinator on North Korea, and Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs under Secretary Warren Christopher.   Early in her career, she managed Senator Barbara Mikulski’s successful campaign for the U.S Senate and served as Director of EMILY’S list.  She served on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, was Chair of the Board of Directors of Oxfam America and served on the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Policy Board and Congressional Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Proliferation and Terrorism.  Ambassador Sherman is the author of Not for the Faint of Heart: Lessons in Courage, Power and Persistence published by PublicAffairs, September 2018.

The S.T. Lee Lectureship is named for Seng Tee Lee, a business executive and noted philanthropist. Dr. Lee is director of the Lee group of companies in Singapore and of the Lee Foundation.

Dr. Lee endowed the annual lectureship at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies in order to raise public understanding of the complex policy issues facing the global community today and to increase support for informed international cooperation.

The S.T. Lee Distinguished Lecturer is chosen for his or her international reputation as a leader in international political, economic, social, and health issues and strategic policy-making concerns.

Large Japanese firms have a long history of having offices in Silicon Valley, mostly starting in the 1980s and 1990s in the heyday of semiconductors, early computing, software, and communications industries. In the past couple decades, as the Silicon Valley ecosystem produced firms that become global giants with new technologies and disruptive business models, the question has become how to most effectively “harness” the Silicon Valley ecosystem. There is currently a surge of large Japanese companies into Silicon Valley, the latest of several surges and retreats. This time around, most firms are aiming to identify new opportunities to collaborate with the startup ecosystem in order to understand future technological and industry trajectories, to facilitate new forms of “open” innovation within the company, and in some cases to even redefine how to add value to their core offerings. However, given a vast differently economic context from their core operations in Japan, many of the large Japanese firms’ initial forays tend to fall into patterns of “worst practices” that are ineffective. Yet, a small but growing number of innovative Japanese companies are producing novel and valuable collaborations with a variety of Silicon Valley firms, investors, and ecosystem players. This talk will introduce the strategies, structures, and activities of Komatsu, Honda, Yamaha, and several other Japanese companies that are undertaking new forms of collaboration with Silicon Valley companies. The talk will survey a range of strategic options available to Japanese companies, with implications for how to better adapt companies from Japan to Silicon Valley, and more broadly from different political economic systems.

SPEAKER:

Kenji Kushida, Research Scholar, Shorenstein APARC Japan Program and Stanford Silicon Valley-New Japan Project Leader

BIO:

Kenji E. Kushida is the Japan Program Research Scholar at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University (APARC), Project Leader of the Stanford Silicon Valley – New Japan Project (Stanford SV-NJ), research affiliate of the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy (BRIE), International Research Fellow at the Canon Institute for Global Studies (CIGS), and Visiting Researcher at National Institute for Research Advancement (NIRA). He holds a PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, an MA in East Asian studies and BAs in economics and East Asian studies, all from Stanford University.

Kushida’s research streams include 1) Information Technology innovation, 2) Silicon Valley’s economic ecosystem, 3) Japan’s political economic transformation since the 1990s, and 4) the Fukushima nuclear disaster. He has published several books and numerous articles in each of these streams, including “The Politics of Commoditization in Global ICT Industries,” “Japan’s Startups Ecosystem,” “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).

He has appeared in media including The New York Times, Washington Post, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Nikkei Business, NHK, PBS NewsHour, and NPR.

He is also a trustee of the Japan ICU Foundation, a fellow of the US-Japan Leadership Program, an alumni of the Trilateral Commission David Rockefeller Fellows, and a member of the Mansfield Foundation Network for the Future.

AGENDA:

4:15pm: Doors open
4:30pm-5:30pm: Talk and Discussion
5:30pm-6:00pm: Networking

RSVP REQUIRED:

Register to attend at http://www.stanford-svnj.org/92719-public-forum

PARKING ON CAMPUS:

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.

Abstract:

In electoral autocracies, why do some citizens view the state as autocratic, while others see it as democratic and legitimate? Traditionally, indicators such as income and education have been the most important factors to explaining why different types of citizens understand politics. This paper argues that in electoral autocracies, we must also take into account the role of political geography. Opposition parties are often one of the only actors that provide information about the authoritarian nature of the regime, but their message tends to get quarantined within their strongholds. I argue that regardless of income, education, ethnicity, or access to government spending, citizens living in opposition strongholds should be far more likely to view the state as autocratic and illegitimate than citizens living in ruling party strongholds. I find evidence for this theory using Afrobarometer survey data paired with hand-coded constituency-level electoral returns from five electoral autocracies in sub-Saharan Africa.

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Abstract:

State repression is used in many countries by unpopular regimes. Why does repression deter dissent in some cases, but encourage it in others? I argue that repression is most effective against the poor because they are both physically and psychologically more vulnerable to violence. I test this prediction using data on pre-election repression in Zimbabwe and two empirical strategies at the constituency and individual level that draw on exogenous variation in poverty and exposure to repression. Across multiple analyses, I find evidence that the poor are less likely to dissent after repression. I also rule out several important alternative explanations including changes in preferences, differences in the type of repression, or differences in the effectiveness of clientelism. These results may help explain why poverty is associated with authoritarian, non-responsive institutions, and why we see little redistribution to the poor in non-democratic states.

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