Security

FSI scholars produce research aimed at creating a safer world and examing the consequences of security policies on institutions and society. They look at longstanding issues including nuclear nonproliferation and the conflicts between countries like North and South Korea. But their research also examines new and emerging areas that transcend traditional borders – the drug war in Mexico and expanding terrorism networks. FSI researchers look at the changing methods of warfare with a focus on biosecurity and nuclear risk. They tackle cybersecurity with an eye toward privacy concerns and explore the implications of new actors like hackers.

Along with the changing face of conflict, terrorism and crime, FSI researchers study food security. They tackle the global problems of hunger, poverty and environmental degradation by generating knowledge and policy-relevant solutions.

Eikenberry, Walder join American Academy of Arts and Sciences

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Sun, 10/07/2012 - 12:00

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Karl Eikenberry and Andrew G. Walder were inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on Oct. 6.

Eikenberry is the William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Walder, a senior fellow at FSI, is the Denise O'Leary and Kent Thiry Professor in the sociology department.

They join eight Stanford professors and a university trustee who were elected this year as members of the organization, which is one of the nation’s most prestigious honorary societies and a leading center for independent policy research. Members contribute to academy publications and studies of science and technology policy, energy and global security, social policy and American institutions, the humanities and culture, and education. In all, 220 people were newly elected to the academy this year.

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Ajay Verghese

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Walter H. Shorenstein
Asia-Pacific Research Center
Encina Hall, Room C331
616 Serra St.
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 724-5656 (650) 723-6530

ajayv@stanford.edu

Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow

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Ajay Verghese joined the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) during the 2012–13 academic year from The George Washington University, where he received his PhD in political science in August 2012.

His research interests are broadly centered on ethnicity, conflict, and South Asia. His doctoral dissertation, Colonialism and Patterns of Ethnic Conflict in Contemporary India, examines why ethnic conflicts in multi-ethnic states revolve around one identity rather than another. He argues that British colonial rule is the key determinant of contemporary patterns of ethnic violence in India. During his time at Shorenstein APARC, he converted his dissertation into a book manuscript.

Verghese has been published in Qualitative & Multi-Method Research, and has received funding for language training and fieldwork in India from a variety of sources, including the U.S. State Department, the American Institute of Indian Studies, the Sigur Center for Asian Studies, and the Konosuke Matsushita Memorial Foundation.

Verghese also holds a BA in political science and French from Temple University.

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Africa's Food Systems in 2030

Tuesday, February 5, 2013 | 3:00 PM -Tuesday, February 5, 2013 | 5:00 PM

Paul Collier will talk about how to manage the difference between helpful and damaging commercialisation, and puts forth three arguments. First, we need to face the tough reality that African food production has failed to keep pace with demand over the course of several decades, suggesting that there is a deep problem with respect to innovation and investment given the way African agriculture has been organised. Second, we need to accept that climate change, population growth, and income gains from natural resources will all stress this imbalance further: the prospect is for widening food deficits with business as usual. Third, two major changes are afoot. Globally, the model of commercial tropical agriculture pioneered in Brazil has demonstrated that output can be raised very substantially by changing the mode of organisation. Africa is now starting to open land markets to large foreign management. Superficially this looks like Brazil2, but it may instead be a wave of speculative acquisitions triggered by the price peaks of 2008.

Collier is the Director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies and Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University. He is currently Advisor to the Strategy and Policy Department of the IMF, advisor to the Africa Region of the World Bank; and he has advised the British Government on its recent White Paper on economic development policy. He has been writing a monthly column for the Independent, and also writes for the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. His research covers the causes and consequences of civil war; the effects of aid and the problems of democracy in low-income and natural-resources rich societies.

Derek Byerlee's talk will lay out a number of models of inclusive agribusiness growth, grouped into three categories (i) institutional arrangements for improving productivity of smallholders operating in spot markets, (ii) various types of contract farming arrangements, and (iii) large-scale farms that generate jobs and/or include community equity shares. The institutional and policy context as well as commodity characteristics that favor these models are discussed within a simple transactions cost framework. He will also discuss cross-cutting policy priorities to enable the growth of commercial agriculture and agribusiness. These include continuing reforms to liberalize product and input markets, access to technology and skills, stimulating financial and risks markets, securing land rights, and investment in infrastructure through public-private partnerships.

Byerlee has dedicated his career to agriculture in developing countries, as a teacher, researcher, administrator and policy advisor. He has lived and worked for a total of 20 years in the three major developing regions-Africa, Asia, and Latin America. After beginning in academia at Michigan State University, he spent the bulk of his career at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). There as a economist and research manager he made notable contributions in forging a new spirit of collaboration between scientists, economists and farmers. He also published widely on efficiency of research systems, spillovers, and sustaining productivity in post green revolution agriculture. After joining the World Bank in 1994, he has applied his experience of research systems to finding innovative approaches to funding and organizing agricultural research, including emerging challenges in biotechnology policy. Since 2003, he has provided strategic direction and led policy world for the agricultural and rural sector in the World Bank.

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Paul Collier Director, Centre for the Study of African Economies, Oxford University Speaker

Derek Byerlee Independent Scholar, Director, 2008 World Development Report Speaker

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China and Africa: Are there Lessons for Development?

Wednesday, April 17, 2013 | 3:30 PM -Wednesday, April 17, 2013 | 5:30 PM

The lost decades for China in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s look remarkably like the lost decades of Africa in the 1980s and 1990s. Poor land rights, weak incentives, incomplete markets and inappropriate investment portfolios. However, China burst out of its stagnation in the 1980s and has enjoyed three decades of remarkable growth. In this talk Rozelle examines the record of the development of China’s food economy and identifies the policies that helped generate the growth and transformation of agriculture. Incentives, markets and strategic investments by the state were key. Equally important, however, is what the state did not do. Policies that worked and those that failed (or those that were ignored) are addressed. Most importantly, Rozelle tries to take an objective, nuanced look at the lessons that might be learned and those that are not relevant for Africa. Many parts of Africa have experienced positive growth during the past decade. Rozelle examines if there are any lessons that might be helpful in turning ten positive years into several more decades of transformation.

Scott Rozelle (main speaker). Scott Rozelle is the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and the co-director of the Rural Education Action Program in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. His research focuses almost exclusively on China and is concerned with: agricultural policy, including the supply, demand, and trade in agricultural projects; the emergence and evolution of markets and other economic institutions in the transition process and their implications for equity and efficiency; and the economics of poverty and inequality, with an emphasis on rural education, health and nutrition.

Alain de Janvry (commentator). Alain de Janvry is an economist working on international economic development, with expertise principally in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle-East, and the Indian subcontinent. Fields of work include poverty analysis, rural development, quantitative analysis of development policies, impact analysis of social programs, technological innovations in agriculture, and the management of common property resources. He has worked with many international development agencies, including FAO, IFAD, the World Bank, UNDP, ILO, the CGIAR, and the Inter-American Development Bank as well as foundations such as Ford, Rockefeller and Kellogg. His main objective in teaching, research, and work with development agencies is the promotion of human welfare, including understanding the determinants of poverty and analyzing successful approach to improve well-being and promote sustainability in resource use.

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Scott Rozelle

Encina Hall East, E404
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

rozelle@stanford.edu

Faculty Co-director of the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions

Helen F. Farnsworth Endowed Professorship

Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research

scott_rozelle_new_headshot.jpeg PhD

Scott Rozelle is the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and the co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University. He received his BS from the University of California, Berkeley, and his MS and PhD from Cornell University. Previously, Rozelle was a professor at the University of California, Davis and an assistant professor in Stanford’s Food Research Institute and department of economics. He currently is a member of several organizations, including the American Economics Association, the International Association for Agricultural Economists, and the Association for Asian Studies. Rozelle also serves on the editorial boards of Economic Development and Cultural Change, Agricultural Economics, the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, and the China Economic Review.

His research focuses almost exclusively on China and is concerned with: agricultural policy, including the supply, demand, and trade in agricultural projects; the emergence and evolution of markets and other economic institutions in the transition process and their implications for equity and efficiency; and the economics of poverty and inequality, with an emphasis on rural education, health and nutrition.

Rozelle's papers have been published in top academic journals, including Science, Nature, American Economic Review, and the Journal of Economic Literature. His book, Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise, was published in 2020 by The University of Chicago Press. He is fluent in Chinese and has established a research program in which he has close working ties with several Chinese collaborators and policymakers. For the past 20 years, Rozelle has been the chair of the International Advisory Board of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy; a co-director of the University of California's Agricultural Issues Center; and a member of Stanford's Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Center on Food Security and the Environment.

In recognition of his outstanding achievements, Rozelle has received numerous honors and awards, including the Friendship Award in 2008, the highest award given to a non-Chinese by the Premier; and the National Science and Technology Collaboration Award in 2009 for scientific achievement in collaborative research.

Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions

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Faculty affiliate at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law

Faculty Affiliate at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center

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Mon, 11/04/2024 - 14:49

Scott Rozelle Speaker

Alain de Janvry Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Goldman School of Public Policy, UC-Berkeley Speaker

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How can trade improve food security in sub-Saharan Africa?

Wednesday, January 23, 2013 | 3:30 PM -Wednesday, January 23, 2013 | 5:30 PM

For decades, earnings from farming in many developing countries, including in sub-Saharan Africa, have been depressed by a pro-urban bias in own-country policies, as well as by governments of richer countries favouring their farmers with import barriers and subsidies. Both sets of policies reduced global economic welfare and agricultural trade, and almost certainly added to global inequality and poverty and to food insecurity in many low-income countries. Progress has been made over the past three decades in reducing the trend levels of agricultural protection in high-income countries and of agricultural disincentives in African and other developing countries. However, there is a propensity for governments to insulate their domestic food market from fluctuations in international prices, and that has not waned. That action amplifies international food price fluctuations, yet when both food-importing and food-exporting countries so engage in insulating behaviour, it does little to advance their national food security. Anderson argues much scope remains to improve economic welfare and reduce poverty and food insecurity by removing trade distortions. He summarizes indicators of these trends and fluctuations in trade barriers before pointing to changes in both border policies and complementary domestic measures that together could improve African food security.

Kym Anderson is the George Gollin Professor of Economics, foundation Executive Director of the Wine Economics Research Centre, and formerly foundation Executive Director of the Centre for International Economic Studies at the University of Adelaide, where he has been affiliated since 1984. His also a Professor of Economics, Arndt-Corden Dept of Economics, Australian National University, Canberra. His research interests and publications are in the areas of international trade and development, agricultural economics, environmental economics, and wine economics. His most recent projects have focused on empirical analysis of such issues as the Doha Development Agenda of the World Trade Organization ; global distortions to agricultural incentives ; economics of agricultural biotechnology (GMO) policies globally ; and wine globalization .

Johann Swinnen (commentator). Johan Swinnen is Professor of Development Economics and Director of LICOS Center for Institutions and Economic Performance at the University of Leuven (KUL) in Belgium. He is also Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), Brussels, where he directs the programme on EU agricultural and rural policy. From 2003 to 2004 he was Lead Economist at the World Bank and from 1998 to 2001 Economic Advisor at the European Commission.

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Kym Anderson George Gollin Professor of Economics, School of Economics, University of Adelaide; Professor of Economics, Arndt-Corden Dept of Economics, Australian National University, Canberra Speaker

Johan Swinnen

LICOS Center for Transition Economics
K.U.Leuven
Deberiotstraat
34 3000 Leuven, Belgium

Jo.Swinnen@econ.kuleuven.be

Professor at the University of Leuven (KUL) in Belgium. Research Affiliate, Rural Education Action Project, FSE Visiting Scholar

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Johan Swinnen is Professor of Development Economics and Director of LICOS Center for Institutions and Economic Performance at the University of Leuven (KUL) in Belgium. He is also Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), Brussels, where he directs the programme on EU agricultural and rural policy. From 2003 to 2004 he was Lead Economist at the World Bank and from 1998 to 2001 Economic Advisor at the European Commission.

He is a regular consultant for these organizations and for the OECD, FAO, the EBRD, and several governments and was coordinator of several international research networks on food policy, institutional reforms, and economic development. He is President—Elect of the International Association of Agricultural Economists and a Fellow of the European Association of Agricultural Economists. He holds a Ph.D from Cornell University.

His research focuses on institutional reform and development, globalization and international integration, media economics, and agriculture and food policy. His latest books are “Political Power and Economic Policy” (Cambridge Univ Press), “The Perfect Storm: The Political Economy of the Reform of the Common Agricultural Policy” (CEPS), “Global Supply Chains, Standards, and the Poor” (CABI), “Distortions to Agricultural Incentives in the Transition Economies of Europe and Central Asia” (World Bank Publications), and “From Marx and Mao to the Market” (Oxford University Press -- and Chinese translation by Beijing University Press). He is the president of The Beeronomics Society and editor of the book “The Economics of Beer” (Oxford Univ Press).

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