The period from the arrest of the “gang of four” in October 1976 to the final step in the removal of Hua Guofeng in mid-1981 saw CCP rural policy go through a number of phases. The initial emphasis on a moderate version of the Dazhai model gave way to “traditional policies” (luoshi zhengce) by mid-1978; these policies were supplemented in 1979 by “responsibility systems,” the most radical of which, household contracting (baochan daohu), became a sharply divisive issue in 1980, but still not the main aspect of agricultural policy. The tide was moving strongly toward household contracting by mid-1981, but had not yet achieved unambiguous endorsement as the Party policy.

A number of inadequate approaches have dominated the literature, notably 1) a power/policy struggle between Hua Guofeng's neo-Maoists and Deng Xiaoping's reform coalition; 2) the power of the peasants; and 3) the leading role of provincial reformers. The first has no validity, the second and third must be viewed through more complex lenses. The talk will explicate the key factors and present an alternative explanation of the success of rural reform.

Frederick C. Teiwes is Emeritus Professor of Chinese Politics at the University of Sydney. He received his B.A. from Amherst College and his Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University. He is the author of various books on Chinese elite politics including Politics and Purges in China (1979, 1993), Leadership, Legitimacy, and Conflict in China (1984), and Politics at Mao's Court (1990). Some of his most important work has been jointly authored with Warren Sun including The Politics of Agricultural Cooperativization: Mao, Deng Zihui, and the "High Tide" of 1955 (1993), The Tragedy of Lin Biao: Riding the Tiger during the Cultural Revolution, 1966-1971 (1996), China’s Road to Disaster: Mao, Central Politicians and Provincial Leaders in the Emergence of the Great Leap Forward, 1955-1959 (1999), and The End of the Maoist Era: Chinese Politics during the Twilight of the Cultural Revolution, 1972-1976 (2007).

In the immediate postwar period, when very real limits on the power of the party-state remained and the population was still recovering from the dislocations of the war, the socialist promise of what in North Korea came to be known as the ‘new living’ became the subject of much ideological and material investment on the part of a wide spectrum of actors. Yet the construction of such ‘new living’ was certainly not straightforward. This paper analyzes political anxieties that emerged over worker dormitory life, tensions surrounding consumption in a growing economy, and worries about the comforts of family life offered by new fangled apartments.

RSVP required at http://ceas.stanford.edu/events/event_detail.php?id=3713

Debate upon the status of colonial buildings in South Korea today has swirled around the public buildings most symbolic of colonial authority. Yet the most prevalent remaining buildings are much smaller in scale; they are the houses abandoned by or appropriated from Japanese residents upon the defeat in war and a chaotic withdrawal from the colonies. This talk turns to the “enemy house” to ask how the homely figures in the domestication of colonial history.

RSVP required at http://ceas.stanford.edu/events/rsvp.php

José Manuel Durão Barroso, President of the European Commission, will be visiting Stanford to deliver his talk, "Global Europe, from the Atlantic to the Pacific."  President Barroso's political career began in 1980 when he joined the Social Democratic Party (PSD). He was named President of the party in 1999 and re-elected three times. During the same period, he served as Vice President of the European People's Party. As State Secretary for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation he played a key role as mediator in the signing of the peace accords for Angola in Bicesse in 1991, and as Minister for Foreign Affairs he was a driving force in the self-determination process in East Timor between 1992 and 1995. Under his leadership, the PSD won the general election in 2002 and he was appointed Prime Minister of Portugal in April of that year. He remained in office until July 2004 when he was nominated by the European Council and elected by the European Parliament to the post of President of the European Commission. In June 2009 the European Council unanimously nominated him for a second term as President of the European Commission, and he was re-elected to the post by an absolute majority in the European Parliament in September 2009.

Please note:  this event is open to Stanford students, faculty, staff and invited guests.

Co-sponsored by the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, The Europe Center and the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.