Increasingly in scholarly descriptions of state responses to power ascendancy, the classic distinction between “balancing” and “bandwagoning” has been superseded by the less dichotomous term “hedging” as a name for what is really going on. Few, however, have tried to clarify what distinguishes hedging from other strategies, what causes weaker states to hedge, and why they hedge in different ways.

Prof. Kuik will focus on Southeast Asian states’ responses to China.  Hedging occurs, he will argue, when one country pursues contradictory policies toward two or more competing powers in order to prepare a fallback position should circumstances change.  Hedging is likely when two conditions are present:  when threats are neither immediate nor straightforward, and when sources of vital support are uncertain.  At the domestic level, hedging is often the most viable approach because its contradictory attributes allow ruling elites to optimize multiple policy tradeoffs and thereby to enhance their legitimacy at home.  The hedging behaviors of ruling elites are a function of their respective strategies of legitimation.  

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Speaker Bio

Tshering Tobgay is a Bhutanese politician who has been Prime Minister of Bhutan since 2013. He is also leader of the People’s Democratic Party and was Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly from March 2008 to April 2013. Tobgay co-founded the People’s Democratic Party and was responsible for establishing the Party as Bhutan’s first registered political party. Prior to politics, Tobgay was a civil servant, beginning his career in 1991 with the Technical and Vocational Education Section under the Department of Education. In 1998 he established and headed the National Technical Training Authority and served as a director in the Ministry of Labour and Human Resources from 2003 to 2007.

Tobgay received a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering in 1990 and later received a master’s in public administration from Harvard University in 2004. He received his secondary schooling in India, at Dr. Graham’s Homes School in the city of Kalimpong, near Darjeeling, in the eastern Himalayas.

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Abstract:

Billions of citizens around the world are frustrated with their governments. Political leaders struggle to honour their promises and officials find it near impossible to translate ideas into action. The result? High taxes, but poor outcomes. Cynicism, not just with government, but with the political process. Why is this? How could this vicious spiral be reversed? Michael Barber’s ground-breaking book draws on his experience of working for and with government leaders the world over to present a blueprint for how to run a government, delivering much better results for citizens without excessive taxes. The first book to bring a global perspective to this issue, and using contemporary cases from every continent alongside classic examples from history, anecdote and hard evidence, Barber makes a compelling case for a new approach, arguing that, without massive improvements in delivery, trust in government, already low, will fall further putting democracy at risk.

Speaker Bio:

Sir Michael Barber

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Ernst Röhm (1887-1934) was an early member of the Nazi Party and Hitler’s closest friend.  As head of the Nazi SA (Sturmabteilung), Röhm was one of the most powerful men in the Third Reich, at least until his execution during the “Night of Long Knives” in the summer of 1934.  Röhm was also openly homosexual.   This talk considers Röhm’s rise, the disclosure of his homosexuality in 1931 in two widely-publicized trials (for violation of the anti-sodomy statute), his role in the consolidation of Nazi control, and his downfall.  The talk also considers how Hans Blüher’s theory of the Männerbund (male association) might help analyze not only Röhm and the Nazis but also contribute more broadly to the historical sociology of nationalist revolution.

Co-sponsored by the Department of History, The Europe Center and the Department of German Studies.

Abstract

A peculiar construction boom is in progress worldwide: border walls are being installed at an unprecedented rate in order to control unwanted immigration by poor people into wealthy countries. This paper asks why, almost a quarter of a century after the Iron Curtain came down, the walls are now going up again. It provides a provocative answer: I suggest that these separation barriers are a logical response of states to the way in which human rights law has been enforced in cases bearing on immigration. In other words, and counter-intuitively, the recent boom in border wall construction signals the success of the human rights tradition, rather than its failure to establish an alternative to territorial sovereignty.

Next, I use the case study of walls to make a larger point on the intractability of the human rights regime that bears on immigration. Building on a systematic analysis of jurisprudence, the paper argues that human rights courts and quasi-judicial bodies utilize an arbitrary category – territory – to balance the policy interests of the individual non-national and the state. The result is essentially random from the perspective of both these stake holders. Walls make concrete a perverse side effect of this compromise: because the regime conflates access with territory, it disproportionately rewards strong young men who already have sufficient capacity (in age, gender, or resources) to scale the barrier, even if their predicament may not actually call for protection. But it privileges them only after they have risked themselves, and if they survive that risk. And so, at least when it comes to immigration, the human rights regime operates in effect as a natural selection mechanism. This is fundamentally unstable and unjust.

Speaker Bio

Moria Paz focuses her scholarship on the intersection of minorities, immigrants, international law, and human rights. Paz is a visiting scholar at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a Fellow at Stanford Law School. Before joining FSI, she was a Law and International Security Fellow at CISAC, a Lecturer in Law and Teaching Fellow of the Stanford Program for International Legal Studies (SPILS) at Stanford Law School. Paz received her S.J.D. doctoral degree from Harvard Law School. While at Harvard, she was awarded a number of fellowships, including at the Hauser Center for Non-Profit Organizations, The European Law Research Center, and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. Before Harvard, she attended The University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and Beijing Normal University.

She is currently working on two books, Network or State? International Law and The History of Jewish Self-Determination (under contract, Oxford University Press) and The Law of Strangers – Critical Perspectives on Jewish Lawyering and International Legal Thought (co-edited with James Loeffler). In 2007 she was awarded the Laylin Prize for most outstanding paper in international law awarded by Harvard Law School. In 2013 she was selected by the American Society of International Law (ASIL) for the New Voices Panel at the Society’s Annual Meeting. In 2014 was a winner of the Law & Humanities Junior Scholar Interdisciplinary Writing Competition. Her papers appear in multiple journals, including the Harvard International Law Journal and the European Journal of International Law.

 

Abstract: Chevaline was the codename given to a highly-secret program begun in 1970 to improve the performance of the UK's force of Polaris submarine-launched ballistic missiles in order to give them the capability to overcome Soviet ABM defenses deployed around Moscow. After much technical difficulty, delays in project timescale and cost escalation the new system was finally introduced in 1982, but it had already attracted major criticism for the expenditure involved, claims of project mismanagement, the rationale that underpinned its development, and its concealment from proper parliamentary scrutiny. This lecture will explore the background to the program, why it ran into so many problems, and how it became one of the most controversial episodes in post-war British defense policy. An understanding of the problems confronted by the attempt to improve Polaris illuminates a number of key themes and issues that are of relevance to policymakers concerned with strategic weapons programs and project management.

About the Speaker: Matthew Jones’ current research focuses on British nuclear history during the Cold War. He has also written on many different aspects of US and British foreign and defense policy in the 20th century, and has a long-standing interest in empire and decolonization in South East Asia. Jones’ first book, Britain, the United States and the Mediterranean War, 1942-44 (Macmillan, 1996), examined strains in the Anglo-American relationship by strategic issues and command problems in the Mediterranean theater. His book, Conflict and Confrontation in South East Asia, 1961-1965: Britain, the United States, Indonesia, and the Creation of Malaysia (Cambridge University Press, 2002), looks at the federation of Malaysia during British decolonization in the early 1960s. After Hiroshima: The United States, Race, and Nuclear Weapons in Asia, 1945-1965 (Cambridge University Press, 2010) addresses US nuclear policies in Asia in the period of the Korean War, confrontation with China, and early engagement in Vietnam. His current project on UK nuclear policy encompasses the development of nuclear strategy within NATO, the Anglo-American nuclear relationship, and European responses to strategic arms control. In 2008, Jones was appointed by the Prime Minister to become the Cabinet Office official historian of the UK strategic nuclear deterrent and the Chevaline program, a commission that will lead to the publication of a two-volume official history exploring British nuclear policy between 1945 and 1982. Jones’s journal articles have appeared in Diplomatic History, Historical Journal, Journal of Cold War Studies, and English Historical Review. He gained his DPhil in Modern History at St. Antony’s College, Oxford, in 1992.

Abstract: Why do states provide nuclear weapons support to other states? This paper analyzes this question by examining China’s nuclear cooperation with Pakistan. Based on an original framework for explaining nuclear weapons support, I argue that two main factors drove China’s decision. First, China did not have to worry about cascade effects because India had already crossed the nuclear threshold. Second, Pakistan had major strategic value to China, and enjoyed a reputation for being a reliable partner. By arming Pakistan, China could maintain a favorable power balance in the region and prevent India from dominating South Asia. 

The paper also criticizes existing supply-side theories of nuclear proliferation. These theories also describe the strategic incentives for helping other states to develop nuclear weapon, but they have largely overlooked the disincentives. I also challenge some of the case-specific literature. This literature claims that China halted its support of Pakistan from the mid-1990s because it finally recognized the dangers of nuclear proliferation. In contrast, I argue that China has continued, albeit more subtly, to support Islamabad’s weapons program.

About the Speaker: Henrik Hiim is a Stanton Nuclear Security Predoctoral Fellow at MIT. His main research interests are Chinese foreign policy, East Asian security, and nonproliferation and arms control. His dissertation examines the evolution of China’s approach to nuclear nonproliferation, with a special emphasis on policies towards North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan. Henrik holds an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Oslo. He has also studied at Renmin University and Huazhong Normal University in China. During spring 2013, he was a visiting scholar at the School of International Studies at Beijing University. Henrik has worked as a journalist for several Norwegian newspapers.

Abstract: The first Snowden disclosure was that Verizon was providing daily updates of telephony metadata to the NSA. This caused great consternation, and resulted in two government studies, one by the President's NSA Review Committee and one by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.  Both concluded the collection should be ended. The President asked Office of the Director of National Intelligence to produce a report "assessing the feasibility of creating software that would allow the intelligence community more easily to conduct targeted information acquisition rather than bulk collection."  This talk reports on that work, which considered the issue from the angle of technical alternatives, and concluded that there is no technical replacement for bulk data collection, but that software can enhance targeted collection and automate control of data usage. This talk will discuss that report, conducted by the National Research Council, explaining what the report says — and what it doesn't say.

About the Speaker: Susan Landau is Professor of Cybersecurity Policy in the Department of Social Science and Policy Studies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Landau has been a senior staff Privacy Analyst at Google, a Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems, a faculty member at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and at Wesleyan University. She has held visiting positions at Harvard, Cornell, and Yale, and the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute. Landau is the author of Surveillance or Security?  The Risks Posed by New Wiretapping Technologies (MIT Press, 2011), and co-author, with Whitfield Diffie, of Privacy on the Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption (MIT Press, 1998, rev. ed. 2007). She has written numerous scientific and policy research papers, and has also published in other venues, including Science, Scientific American, and the Washington Post. Landau has testified in Congress on cybersecurity and on electronic surveillance. Landau currently serves on the Computer Science Telecommunications Board of the National Research Council.  A 2012 Guggenheim fellow, Landau was a 2010-2011 fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the recipient of the 2008 Women of Vision Social Impact Award, and also a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Association for Computing Machinery.  She received her BA from Princeton, her MS from Cornell, and her PhD from MIT.

About the Speaker:

Harvey Koh is a Managing Director at FSG where he co-leads the Inclusive Markets approach area.

Based in Mumbai, Harvey works with both enterprises and philanthropic donors to develop and scale inclusive business models that benefit the poor, with a particular focus on India. His experience spans a number of sectors including housing, water and healthcare, and has ranged from deepening understanding of low-income consumers to helping entrepreneurs refine their business models.

Harvey also directs the research program of the Inclusive Markets area, which aims to advance global thinking and practice in inclusive business and market-based solutions in development. He has lead-authored influential reports on inclusive business and impact investing, and speaks regularly around the world on these topics. These reports include From Blueprint to Scale (Monitor Group with Acumen Fund, 2012), which introduced the notion of the ‘pioneer gap’ in the development of new market-based solutions for the global poor, and Beyond the Pioneer (Monitor Deloitte), which described the scaling barriers facing market-based solutions and makes the case for the practice of ‘industry facilitation’.

Until 2014, Harvey was co-leader of Monitor Inclusive Markets (MIM), a social action unit of Monitor Deloitte. Prior to that, he was the founding head of programs at Private Equity Foundation (now Impetus-PEF), a London-based venture philanthropy organization established by leading US and European private equity firms. He has also worked with The One Foundation and New Philanthropy Capital. Harvey started his career as a consultant with Monitor Group in London where he focused on competitive and growth strategy for multinational corporate clients.

Harvey was born and raised in Malaysia, and holds an MA Cantab from the University of Cambridge, where he read law, economics and resource management.

Abstract: Jason Payne, Palantir's Philanthropy Engineering Lead and Stanford Computer Science BS 2005, will discuss how the fusion and analysis of data sets, including open and public data, can shed light on transnational criminal enterprises. Examples will include human trafficking, weapons trafficking, environmental crime to include ivory poaching, and human tissue trafficking. The talk will also include a discussion on how governmental, commercial, and social sector entities can collaborate, while respecting privacy and civil liberties, to address pressing problem sets around the world.