Reception to follow from 5:00pm - 6:30pm in the lobby in front of the William J. Perry Conference Room

About the event: Thirty years ago, the idea that China could challenge the United States economically, globally, and militarily seemed unfathomable. Yet today, China is considered a great power. How did China manage to build power in international system that was largely dominated by the United States? What factors determined the strategies Beijing pursued to achieve this feat? Using authoritative Chinese sources and granular data, this book demonstrates that China was able to climb to great power status through a careful mix of emulation, exploitation, and entrepreneurship on the international stage. This “upstart” strategy—determined by where and how China chose to compete—allowed China to rise economically, politically, and militarily without triggering a catastrophic international backlash that would stem its rise. China emulated the United States (pursued similar strategies in similar areas) when its leaders thought doing so would build power while reassuring the United States of its intentions. China exploited (adopted similar approaches in new areas of competition) when it felt that the overall US strategy was effective but didn’t want to risk direct confrontation. China pursued entrepreneurial actions (innovative approaches to new and existing areas of competition) when it believed a more effective approach was available that would better enable Communist Party control. Beyond explaining the unique nature of China’s rise, this book provides insights into the next twenty-five years of Chinese power as well as policy guidance on how the United States can maintain a competitive edge in this new era of great power competition.

About the speaker: Oriana Skylar Mastro is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Courtesy Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University where her research focuses on Chinese military and security policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, war termination, and coercive diplomacy. She is also a Non-Resident Scholar, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She continues to serve in the United States Air Force Reserve for which she currently works at the Pentagon as Deputy Director of Reserve China Global Strategy. For her contributions to U.S. strategy in Asia, she won the Individual Reservist of the Year Award in 2016 (CGO) and 2022 (FGO). She has published widely, including in International Security, Security Studies, Foreign Affairs, Journal of Strategic Studies, The Washington Quarterly, the Economist and the New York Times. Her most recent book, Upstart: How China Became a Great Power (Oxford University Press, 2024), evaluates China’s approach to competition. Her book, The Costs of Conversation: Obstacles to Peace Talks in Wartime, (Cornell University Press, 2019), won the 2020 American Political Science Association International Security Section Best Book by an Untenured Faculty Member. She holds a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University. Her publications and other commentary can be found at www.orianaskylarmastro.com and on twitter @osmastro.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

About the event: Histories of political science and of the laws of war identify the nineteenth-century scholar Francis Lieber as their modern founder. His 1863 General Orders 100 codified the modern laws of war, internationalizing his political thought. Yet relatively unremarked is that Lieber wrote his foundational texts during U.S. settler colonization, which he justified in whole. I argue that GO100 facilitated settler colonial violence by defining modern war as a public war, arrogating it to sovereign states; distinguishing revenge from retaliation, attributing revenge to the “savage”; and elevating a certain racialized/gendered governance, ascribing it to the Cis-Caucasian race. Producing Native peoples and Native wars as lacking in the proper characteristics of sovereign belligerency resulted in a subordination of status and a legitimation of exterminatory tactics that were subsequently universalized and (re)internationalized through GO100’s determinative influence on the laws of war. Tracing GO100 further exposes the founding of the discipline in Native peoples’ dispossession and extermination.

About the speaker: Helen M Kinsella is a Professor of Political Science & Law, Affiliate Faculty of the Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies, the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, the Human Rights Center, and the Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change and a Visiting Scholar, The Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, Queens University, Belfast, Northern Ireland.  

She writes on gender and armed conflict and on the histories of international humanitarian law and humanitarianism. She has published in the American Political Science Review, Review of International Studies, International Theory, Political Theory, International Studies Quarterly, Feminist Review, among others.
She is the author of the award winning book The Image before the Weapon: A Critical History of the Distinction between Combatant and Civilian (Cornell University Press) and recently  “Settler Empire and the United States: Francis Lieber on the Laws of War,” in the American Political Science Review.

She is currently writing on two longer projects on U.S. Native peoples and Native wars the the development of the laws of war, and on sleep in war.

https://www.helenmkinsella.com

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

Across Southeast Asia, as in many other regions of the world, politicians seek to win elections by distributing cash, goods, jobs, projects, and other material benefits to supporters. But they do so in ways that vary tremendously—both across and within countries. This project presents a new framework for analyzing variation in patronage democracies, developed through examination of distinct forms of patronage and different networks through which it is distributed. We draw on a large-scale, multi-country, multi-year research effort involving not only interactions with hundreds of politicians and vote brokers but also surveys of voters and political campaigners across the region. At the core of the analysis is the concept of electoral mobilization regimes, used to describe how key types of patronage interact with the networks that politicians use to organize and distribute these material resources: political parties in Malaysia, local machines in the Philippines, and ad hoc election teams in Indonesia. In doing so, we show how and why patronage politics varies, and how it works on the ground.

Meredith Weiss is Professor of Political Science in the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy at the University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY) and inaugural Director of the SUNY/CUNY Southeast Asia Consortium (SEAC). Her work, which draws on extensive field research, addresses mobilization, identity, and civil society; electoral politics and parties; institutional reform; and subnational governance in Southeast Asia, especially Malaysia and Singapore. Her most recent books are The Roots of Resilience: Political Machines & Grassroots Politics in Southeast Asia (Cornell, 2020), and the co-authored Money & Machines: Mobilizing for Elections in Southeast Asia (Cambridge, 2022). These join two prior monographs, several dozen journal articles and chapters, and over a dozen edited/co-edited volumes. She also co-edits the Cambridge Elements series, Politics & Society in Southeast Asia. As a Lee Kong Chian NUS–Stanford fellow this year, she is completing a book on Malaysian sociopolitical development.

Join us for a conversation with Lora Ho as she discusses the transformation of TSMC and its pivotal role in expanding the semiconductor supply chain from Taiwan to the global stage.

Lora will first share her experiences at TSMC, reflecting on the company’s evolution throughout her career and its impact on the global supply chain. She will also address the new challenges TSMC faces as it expands its industrial supply chain by establishing factories in the United States and Japan and consider how her leadership has helped navigate these challenges in the context of the AI-driven industrial revolution.

Attendees will gain a comprehensive understanding of AI-driven industrial changes and Taiwan's strategic position within the global supply chain.

Lora Ho joined TSMC in 1999 and has held several positions during her 25-year tenure. She currently serves as the Senior Vice President of Human Resources and the Chair of the ESG committee. Throughout her career, she has gained extensive experience, including serving as Senior Vice President for Europe & Asia sales at TSMC from 2019 to 2022, and as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at TSMC from 1999 to 2018. Prior to her time at TSMC, she was the Chief Financial Officer at TI-Acer Semiconductor Manufacturing from 1990 to 1999.

Lora Ho has been recognized for her contributions to the industry with several awards. In 2018, she was named one of the Nine Most Influential Women in Asia Tech by Nikkei Asian Review magazine. Between 2007 and 2019, she was recognized as the Best Companies’ Best CFO of Taiwan and Asia by FinanceAsia. In 1993, she was honored as an Outstanding Financial Executive by the Financial Executives Institute.

Yoshiko Herrera considers the relationship between national or imperial identities and conflict using the case of Russia’s war on Ukraine

One of the challenges for International Relations theory that has been brought up by Russia’s war on Ukraine is that we need to do a better job of understanding the role of identity in conflict and political violence. Identity is not the only factor in the causes of the war, and changes in identities are not the only, nor most important consequences, but for theories of war, the Russian invasion and war in Ukraine forces us take another look at how we understand the relationship between identity and conflict. In this paper I map out a theoretical framework for identity and conflict, and then I discuss relevant aspect of identity in both Ukraine and Russia, with an emphasis on how identities might have contributed to the war and been changed as a consequence.

Yoshiko M. Herrera is Professor of Political Science at University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research focuses on Russian & Eurasian politics, identity, and political economy. Herrera teaches courses on comparative politics, social identities and diversity, and a new course on the Russian war on Ukraine.  In 2021, she was a recipient of the Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award at UW-Madison. Her most recent article (with Andrew Kydd) is “Don't look back in anger: cooperation despite conflicting historical narratives” published in the American Political Science Review.

REDS: RETHINKING EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENT AND SECURITY

The REDS Seminar Series aims to deepen the research agenda on the new challenges facing Europe, especially on its eastern flank, and to build intellectual and institutional bridges across Stanford University, fostering interdisciplinary approaches to current global challenges.

REDS is organized by The Europe Center and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and co-sponsored by the Hoover Institution and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.

Learn more about REDS and view past seminars here.

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REDS: RETHINKING EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENT AND SECURITY

The REDS Seminar Series aims to deepen the research agenda on the new challenges facing Europe, especially on its eastern flank, and to build intellectual and institutional bridges across Stanford University, fostering interdisciplinary approaches to current global challenges.

REDS is organized by The Europe Center and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and co-sponsored by the Hoover Institution and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.

Learn more about REDS and view past seminars here.

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ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Egor Lazarev is an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science at Yale. His research focuses on law and state-building in the former Soviet Union. His first book, State-Building as Lawfare: Custom, Sharia, and State Law in Postwar Chechnya, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2023. The book explores the use of state and non-state legal systems by both politicians and ordinary people in postwar Chechnya. Egor’s other research has been published in World Politics, World Development, and Political Science Research & Methods. Currently, he conducts field research on legal reforms in the post-communist world. 

Virtual to Public. Only those with an active Stanford ID with access to the William J. Perry Conference Room in Encina Hall may attend in person.

REDS: RETHINKING EUROPEAN DEVELOPMENT AND SECURITY

The REDS Seminar Series aims to deepen the research agenda on the new challenges facing Europe, especially on its eastern flank, and to build intellectual and institutional bridges across Stanford University, fostering interdisciplinary approaches to current global challenges.

REDS is organized by The Europe Center and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and co-sponsored by the Hoover Institution and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.

Learn more about REDS and view past seminars here.

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About the Event: In recent years, a series of initiatives have emerged with the aim to advance women’s participation in the nuclear weapons field. These initiatives are informed by two assumptions. Women are missing, and women’s inclusion can bring change. Currently, empirical evidence is missing to support either of the two assumptions. Systematically collected data is lacking on the number of women working in the nuclear weapons field. Women's experiences have been recorded only anecdotally and the impact of women's increased participation remains unclear. The Women and the Bomb project collects the missing data. It studies the roles, experiences and views of women in various sectors of the US nuclear weapons field, including government departments and agencies, national nuclear laboratories, the military and non-governmental organizations.

About the Speaker: Jana Wattenberg is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow at Aberystwyth University (funded by UKRI). She is also a visiting scholar at American University (Washington DC), a Lecturer in Security at Aberystwyth University and a Senior Fellow with Women in International Security.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.