The President of the Basque Autonomous Community will discuss his "Road Map to bring an end to the Basque Conflict," including his offer of a political agreement already made to Madrid, based on a rejection of violence and an embrace of democratic principles and a Basque society plebiscite.

Synopsis

In a visit marked by controversy and protesting, President Ibarretxe clearly delivers his view on how the Basque country can establish sustainable human development. President Ibarretxe quickly stresses, however, that two challenges stand in the way of this goal. The first is securing peace from the violence of ETA, and the second is attaining political normalization through agreement with Spain. Citing dialogue as key, he explains that this conflict, lasting since the 19th century, must be resolved through political and democratic means based on the principle of self-determination. President Ibarretxe sets out the history of the Basque people, possibly the oldest in Europe, while revealing its openness to universal art and culture, as well as the Basque region’s top level social welfare. The Basque country, which has been ranked third in the UN’s Human Development Index, places emphasis on identity and innovation in striving forward. President Ibarretxe explains that 30 years after the 1979 Basque statute of autonomy, a clear majority demand a new framework for relations with Spain.

Therefore, President Ibarretxe reveals the “roadmap” he has formulated for the Basque country to achieve political normalization, as he puts it. His approach begins with four preliminary considerations. The first consideration is that the problems of the violence of ETA should not be confused with the political conflict between the Basque government and Spain. Secondly, President Ibarretxe argues that a key prerequisite to any solution is that the violence of ETA ceases immediately regardless of the state of the political conflict. Thirdly, stressing the importance of a necessary maxim to be used as a point of reference in the struggle for justice, President Ibarretxe emphasizes the defense of human rights without exception as fundamental to success. The fourth consideration that President Ibarretxe puts forward is that the right to self-determination is central to adopting a solution.

However, President Ibarretxe’s “roadmap” also offers concrete action through five specific steps. The five-step process begins with an offer of a political agreement based on ethics and democracy to Spain, something which President Ibarretxe has already extended to the Spanish government. Subsequently, President Ibarretxe offers a plenary session of the Basque parliament to either ratify any agreement reached with the Spanish government and call for a popular vote for Basque society to ratify the agreement as well or call for a popular vote to break a deadlock in the negotiation process. After the popular vote, President Ibarretxe reveals further negotiations will follow to end the violence of ETA and establish a new framework for Basque political parties to work under. Finally, President Ibarretxe offers a referendum in 2010 for the Basque people to vote on the result of this process. In concluding his talk, President Ibarretxe calls for any steps forward to be centered around “dialogue, democratic respect, and the liberty to decide.”

President Ibarretxe kindly takes the time to answer numerous questions on a variety of challenging issues. This question-and-answer session, where the questions are asked in English and President Ibarretxe replies in Spanish, is included in the recording. Unfortunately however, the translation of President Ibarretxe's responses cannot really be heard.

China's Harmonious Society colloquium series

co-sponsored by the Stanford China Program and the Center for East Asian Studies

Since 2006, the official doctrine of China's Communist Party calls for the creation of a "harmonious society" (HeXieSheHui). This policy, identified with the Hu Jintao leadership, acknowledges the new problems that have emerged as China continues its amazing economic growth. The economy is booming but so are tensions from rising inequality, environmental damage, health problems, diverse ethnicities, and attempts to break the "iron rice bowl." In this series of colloquia, leading authorities will discuss the causes of these tensions, their seriousness, and China's ability to solve these challenges.

Nancy Shulman's talk topic will be posted soon.

Nancy Shulman conducts laboratory and clinical research in the area of HIV therapeutics, with focus on antiretroviral resistance and treatment strategies of experienced patients, the impact of antiretroviral treatment on HIV co-receptor utilization, and HIV in China. she received her MD from Kansas University Medical School and holds a BA in biochemistry from University of Texas, Austin. She is a doctor specializing in internal medicine, pediatrics, and infectious diseases.

"Healthcare Coverage for 1.3 Billion: China's Odyssey"

Karen Eggleston

Media coverage as well as the academic literature give conflicting appraisals of China's reality: Is China's healthcare system on the verge of collapse? Why is healthcare so expensive and difficult to access in contemporary China? Have reforms 'marketizing' healthcare drastically undermined progress in assuring affordable access for all? Or do hospitals and other providers constitute a last bastion of state control and bureaucratized monopoly in the name of equal access? Chinese analysts and policy advisers have engaged in a sometimes acrimonious debate; some champion a government-led, National Health Service-like model, while others passionately argue that market forces should play a greater role. In this talk, Karen Eggleston will present a brief overview of China's health system reforms and current developments.

Karen Eggleston focuses her research on comparative healthcare systems during economic development and transition from central planning to market-based economies. Her interests include the impact of payment incentives on healthcare insurer and provider behavior; chronic disease management; and incentives surrounding health behaviors such as the spread of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, overuse of antibiotics, and smoking. She earned her PhD in public policy from Harvard University and has MA degrees in economics and Asian studies from the University of Hawaii.

China's Harmonious Society colloquium series is co-sponsored by the Stanford China Program and the Center for East Asian Studies

Since 2006, the official doctrine of China's Communist Party calls for the creation of a "harmonious society" (HeXieSheHui). This policy, identified with the Hu Jintao leadership, acknowledges the new problems that have emerged as China continues its amazing economic growth. The economy is booming but so are tensions from rising inequality, environmental damage, health problems, diverse ethnicities, and attempts to break the "iron rice bowl." In this series of colloquia, leading authorities will discuss the causes of these tensions, their seriousness, and China's ability to solve these challenges.

A key issue in political economy concerns the accountability that governance structures impose on public officials and how elections and representative democracy influences the allocation of public resources. In this talk, Rozelle discusses a unique survey data set from 2450 randomly selected villages. The data describe China's recent progress in village governance reforms and its relationship to the provision of public goods in rural China between 1998 and 2004.

Rozelle and his colleagues examined two sets of questions using an empirical framework based on a theoretical model in which local governments must decide to allocate fiscal resources between public goods investments and other expenditures. They discovered--both in descriptive and econometric analyses--that when the village leader is elected, the provision of public goods rises (compared to the case when the leader is appointed by upper level officials). Thus, one may conclude that democratization--at least at the village level in rural China--appears to increase the quantity of public goods investment. Further, they find that when village leaders who had been elected are able to implement more public projects during their terms of office, they, as the incumbent, are more likely to be reelected.

Ron E. Hassner (speaker) is an assistant professor of political science at University of California, Berkeley. He returns to CISAC as a visiting professor, having served as predoctoral fellow from 2000 to 2003. His research revolves around symbolic and emotive aspects of international security with particular attention to religious violence, Middle Eastern politics and territorial disputes. His publications have focused on the role of perceptions in entrenching international disputes, the causes and characteristics of conflicts over sacred places, the characteristics of political-religious leadership and political-religious mobilization and the role of national symbols in conflict.

Hassner was a fellow of the MacArthur Consortium on Peace and Security in 2000-2003. In 2003-2004 he was a postdoctoral scholar at the Olin Institute for International Security, Harvard University. He is a graduate of Stanford University with degrees in political science and religious studies.

Jacob Shapiro (discussant) is a CISAC postdoctoral fellow. His primary research interest is the organization of terrorism and insurgency. His other research interests include international relations, organization theory, and security policy. Shapiro's ongoing projects study the balance between secrecy and openness in counterterrorism, the impact of international human rights law on democracies' foreign policy, the causes of militant recruitment in Islamic countries, and the relationship between public goods provision and insurgent violence in Iraq and Afghanistan. His research has been published in International Security, International Studies Quarterly, Foreign Policy, and a number of edited volumes. Shapiro is a Harmony Fellow at the Combating Terrorism Center at the United States Military Academy. As a Naval Reserve officer he was assigned to the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Naval Warfare Development Command. He served on active duty at Special Boat Team 20 and onboard the USS Arthur W. Radford (DD-968). He holds a PhD in political science and an MA in economics from Stanford University and a BA in political science from the University of Michigan.

Professor Brown's fields of interest include the history of political theory, nineteenth and twentieth century Continental theory, critical theory, and cultural theory (including feminist theory, critical race theory, and postcolonial theory). She is best known for intertwining the insights of Marx, Nietzsche, Weber, Freud, Frankfurt School theorists, Foucault, and contemporary Continental philosophers to critically interrogate formations of power, political identity, citizenship, and political subjectivity in contemporary liberal democracies. Brown's current work focuses on the relationship of political sovereignty to global capital and other transnational forces, including those associated with religion, law, culture and moral discourse.

Professor Brown received her Ph.D in Political Philosophy from Princeton University in 1983. Prior to coming to Berkeley in 1999, she taught at the University of California, Santa Cruz and at Williams College. Brown's books include Manhood and Politics: A Feminist Reading in Political Theory (Rowman and Littlefield, 1988), States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity (Princeton, 1995), Politics Out of History (Princeton, 2001), Left Legalism/Left Critique, co-edited with Janet Halley (Duke, 2002), Edgework: Critical Essays in Knowledge and Politics (Princeton, 2005), and Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire (Princeton, 2006). She has lectured widely in Europe and North America, has held a number of distinguished visiting lectureships, and has recently been a Senior Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and a UC Berkeley Humanities Fellow.