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.
Thitinan Pongsudhirak was selected in a campus-wide competition to spend two months--March and April 2010--at Stanford as an FSI-Humanities Center International Visitor. He is a Professor of International Political Economy in the Faculty of Political Science at Chulalongkorn University. Stanford units facilitating or co-sponsoring his stay at Stanford include the Southeast Asia Forum (SEAF), the Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS), and the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL).
Robert D. Hormats is the Under Secretary of State for Economic, Energy, and Agricultural Affairs.
Formerly, Mr. Hormats was the Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs International from 1982 to 2009.
Mr.
Hormats served as Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and
Business Affairs from 1981 to 1982, as Ambassador and Deputy U.S. Trade
Representative from 1979 to 1981, and as Senior Deputy Assistant Secretary
for Economic and Business Affairs at the Department of State from 1977
to 1979. He served as a Senior Staff Member for International Economic
Affairs on the National Security Council from 1969 to 1977, where he
was Senior Economic Advisor to Dr. Henry Kissinger, General Brent
Scowcroft, and Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski. Mr. Hormats was a recipient of
the French Legion of Honor in 1982 and Arthur Fleming Award in 1974.
Mr.
Hormats has been a visiting lecturer at Princeton University and is a
member of the Board of Visitors of the Fletcher School of Law and
Diplomacy and the Dean's Council of the John F. Kennedy School of
Government at Harvard University. He is a member of the Council on
Foreign Relations and a board member of the Irvington Institute for
Immunological Research, Engelhard Hanovia, Inc., The Economic Club of
New York, and Freedom House.
Mr. Hormats' publications include The Price of Liberty: Paying for America's Wars from the Revolution to the War on Terror; Abraham Lincoln and the Global Economy; American Albatross: The Foreign Debt Dilemma; and Reforming the International Monetary System. Mr. Hormats' articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, American Banker, and The Financial Times.
Mr.
Hormats earned a B.A. from Tufts University in 1965 with a
concentration in economics and political science. In 1966 he earned an
M.A. and, in 1970, a Ph.D. in international economics from the Fletcher
School of Law and Diplomacy.
CISAC Conference Room
Robert Hormats
Under Secretary of State for Economic, Energy, and Agricultural Affairs
Speaker
The Koret Workshop is organized by the Korea Program to bring together an international panel of experts in Korean affairs. The Korea Program established the Koret Fellowship in 2008 with generous funding from the Koret Foundation.
The impact of global warming on food prices and hunger could be large over the next 20 years, according to a new Stanford University study. Researchers say that higher temperatures could significantly reduce yields of wheat, rice and maize - dietary staples for tens of millions of poor people who subsist on less than $1 a day. The resulting crop shortages would likely cause food prices to rise and drive many into poverty.
But even as some people are hurt, others would be helped out of poverty, says Stanford agricultural scientist David Lobell.
Lobell discussed the results of his research on Feb 19 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego.
"Poverty impacts depend not only on food prices but also on the earnings of the poor," said Lobell, a center fellow at Stanford's Program on Food Security and the Environment (FSE). "Most projections assume that if prices go up, the amount of poverty in the world also will go up, because poor people spend a lot of their money on food. But poor people are pretty diverse. There are those who farm their own land and would actually benefit from higher crop prices, and there are rural wage laborers and people that live in cities who definiztely will be hurt."
Lobell and his colleagues recently conducted the first in-depth study showing how different climate scenarios could affect incomes of farmers and laborers in developing countries.
Household incomes
In the study, Lobell, former FSE researcher Marshall Burke and Purdue University agricultural economist Thomas Hertel focused on 15 developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Hertel has developed a global trade model that closely tracks the consumption and production of rice, wheat and maize on a country-by-country basis. The model was used to project the effects of climate change on agriculture within 20 years and the resulting impact on prices and poverty.
Using a range of global warming forecasts, the researchers were able to project three different crop-yield scenarios by 2030:
"Low-yield" - crop production is toward the low end of expectations.
"Most likely" - projected yields are consistent with expectations.
"High-yield" - production is higher than expected.
"One of the limitations of previous forecasts is that they don't consider the full range of uncertainties - that is, the chance that things could be better or worse than we expect," Lobell said. "We provided Tom those three scenarios of what climate change could mean for agricultural productivity. Then he used the trade model to project how each scenario would affect prices and poverty over the next 20 years.
"The impacts we're talking about are mainly driven by warmer temperatures, which dry up the soil, speed up crop development and shut down biological processes, like photosynthesis, that plants rely on," he added. "Plants in general don't like it hotter, and in many climate forecasts, the temperatures projected for 2030 would be outside the range that crops prefer."
Results
The study revealed a surprising mix of winners and losers depending on the projected global temperature. The "most likely" scenario projected by the International Panel on Climate Change is that global temperatures will rise 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) by 2030. In that scenario, the trade model projected relatively little change in crop yields, food prices and poverty rates
But under the "low-yield" scenario, in which temperatures increase by 2.7 F (1.5 C), the model projects a 10 to 20 percent drop in agricultural productivity, which results in a 10 to 60 percent rise in the price of rice, wheat and maize. Because of these higher prices, the overall poverty rate in the 15 countries surveyed was expected to rise by 3 percent.
However, an analysis of individual countries revealed a far more complicated picture. In 11 of the 15 countries, poor people who owned their own land and raised their own crops actually benefited from higher food prices, according to the model. In Thailand, for example, the poverty rate for people in the non-agricultural sector was projected to rise 5 percent, while the rate for self-employed farmers dropped more than 30 percent - in part because, as food supplies dwindled, the global demand for higher-priced crops increased.
"If prices go up and you're tied to international markets, you could be lifted out of poverty quite considerably," Lobell explained. "But there are a lot of countries, like Bangladesh, where poor people are either in urban areas or in rural areas but don't own their own land. Countries like that could be hurt quite a lot. Then there are semi-arid countries - like Zambia, Mozambique and Malawi - where even if prices go up and people own land, productivity will go down so much that it can't make up for those price increases. In the 'low-yield' scenario, those countries would see higher poverty rates across all sectors."
Under the "high-yield" scenario, in which global temperatures rise just 0.9 F (0.5 C), crop productivity increased. The resulting food surplus led to a 16 percent drop in prices, which could be detrimental to farm owners. In Thailand, the poverty rate among self-employed farmers was projected to rise 60 percent, while those in the non-agriculture sector saw a slight drop in poverty. In Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi and Uganda, poverty in the non-farming sector was projected to decline as much as 5 percent.
Risk management
Lobell said that, although the likelihood of the "low-yield" or "high-yield" scenario occurring is only 5 percent, it is important for policymakers to consider the full range of possibilities if they want to help countries adapt to climate change and ultimately prevent an increase in poverty and hunger.
"It's like any sort of risk management or insurance program," he said. "You have to have some idea of the probability of events that have a big consequence. It's also important to keep in mind that any change, no matter how extreme, will benefit some households and hurt others."
The Program on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford is an interdisciplinary research and teaching program that generates policy solutions to the persistent problems of global hunger and environmental damage from agricultural practices worldwide. The program is jointly run by Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.
Southeast
Asian identity is thought to be far more elite-political than mass-cultural in
nature. Is this conventional wisdom true? Audiovisual flows of popular culture across national borders have
proliferated. Malaysia, for
example, is flooded with Indonesian music and films, while there are a number
of Malaysian actors in the Indonesian TV industry. Specifically Muslim culture has a growing presence in both
countries’ soap operas, novels, songs, and cinema. In their films, Malaysian directors Yasmin Ahmad and Hatta
Azad Khan reflect on notions of Islamic primacy and Malay supremacy in their
country, while Arabo-Muslim-centered cinema draws audiences in Indonesia. These themes are associated in both
countries with the spread of Islamic ethics, the implementation of Islamic laws,
and the associated jockeying of Islamist groups for greater political leverage. Dr. Clark will use this evidence to
highlight and explore the intersection of culture and politics in Southeast
Asian regionalism—a dynamic, participatory, on-the-ground process that does not
depend on what ASEAN diplomats say or do.
Marshall
Clark is a lecturer in Indonesian studies in the School of International and Political
Studies at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia. Future and recent publications include Maskulinitas:
Culture, Gender and Politics in Indonesia (forthcoming in 2010); a monograph on
Indonesian literature, Wayang Mbeling (in Indonesian, 2008); and a chapter on
Indonesian cinema in Popular Culture in Indonesia (2008). Before moving to Deakin, he taught at
the University of Tasmania. His
doctorate in Southeast Asian studies is from the Australian National
University. At Stanford in Spring
2010 he will work on a joint research project with Dr. Juliet Pietsch on “Indonesia-Malaysia
Relations: Culture, Politics and Regionalism in Southeast Asia.”
Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room
Marshall Clark
Visiting Scholar, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Speaker
President Barack Obama is reading What Is the What and has recommended that all his staff read it as well.
Valentino Achak Deng's life has been described by The New York Times as a testament "to human resilience over tragedy and disaster." Born in
the village of Marial Bai, in Southern Sudan, he was forced to flee in
the 1980s, at the age of seven, when civil war erupted. As one of the
so-called Lost Boys, he trekked hundreds of miles, pursued by animals
and government militias, and lived for years in refugee camps in Kenya
and Ethiopia. He eventually resettled in America, to a new set of
challenges. Deng's life is the basis of Dave Eggers' epic book What Is
the What, which Francine Prose calls "an extraordinary work of witness,
and of art." In 2009, as part of his Valentino Achak Deng Foundation,
he opened the Marial Bai Secondary School, the region's first proper
high school. Read Nicolas Kristof's glowing New York Times Op-ed about
the Marial Bai School in Sudan.
Valentino Deng spent his formative years in refugee camps, where he
worked as a social advocate and reproductive health educator for the UN
High Commission for Refugees. He has toured the United States and
Europe, telling his story and becoming an advocate for social justice
and the universal right to education. In 2006, Deng collaborated with
Dave Eggers on What Is the What, an international bestseller that is
now required reading on college campuses across America. With Eggers,
Deng is co-founder of the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation, which helps
rebuild Sudanese communities by providing educational opportunities and
facilities.
Professor Anne Bartlett received her Ph.D. from the Sociology Department at
the University of Chicago. She is a director of the Darfur Centre for
Human Rights and Development based in London. Since 2002, Bartlett has
worked with tribes and rebel groups from Darfur as part of a research
project on insurgent politics. At the invitation of the Darfur
delegation, Bartlett was the chair of the United Nations hearing on the
Darfur crisis, UN commission on Human Rights, 60th Session, Geneva,
Switzerland, April 2004. She was also a guest speaker at "The Human
Rights and Humanitarian Crisis in Darfur (Western Sudan): Challenges to
the International Community," UN Commission on Human Rights, 61st
session, April 2005, Geneva, Switzerland. Bartlett has published
extensively on the crisis and has given numerous talks on the Darfur
crisis worldwide. She is currently working on a project that examines
the effect of humanitarian intervention in the region.
Co-Sponsored by
The Billie Achilles Fund and the Bechtel
International Center, Programs in International Relations, SAGE, Six
Degrees & Human Rights Forum, STAND, Stanford Amnesty
International, UNICEF, Program on Human Rights: CDDRL, Center for
African Studies, & The Black Community Services Center
Annenberg Auditorium
Stanford, CA
Valentino Deng
co-founder, Valentino Achak Deng Foundation
Speaker
Anee Bartlett
Speaker
Darfur Centre for Human Rights and Development based in London
Long before the current global economic crisis, Japan adopted important reforms in commerce, corporate governance, finance, and education. These changes stemming from the 1990s "lost decade" have created new opportunities for entrepreneurial activity. Following a presentation of new cross-sectional data on 60,000 operating Japanese corporations started in the last decade, the panel will discuss the state of Japanese entrepreneurship. What companies are forming? Who is behind them? What are their potential fates?
This discussion is part of continuing research being undertaken by SPRIE's Stanford Project on Japanese Entrepreneurship and is presented in conjunction with Entrepreneurship Week at Stanford.
About the Panelists
Richard Dasher
Richard Dasher is Director of the US-Asia Technology Management Center at Stanford University and has been with the Center since 1993. Dr. Dasher maintains an active business consulting practice on international strategy and planning, technology trend and opportunity analysis, and Japan market entry and performance improvement.
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Robert Eberhart is the SPRIE Researcher at the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship and leads the SPRIE-Stanford Project on Japanese Entrepreneurship. He researches comparative corporate governance of growth companies with emphasis on Japan and the role of institutions in fostering entrepreneurship. Previously, he founded and served as CEO of WineInStyle, a VC-funded start-up Japanese company.
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Shigeo Kagami is Professor and General Manager of Science Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development (SEED) at the University of Tokyo. His responsibilities there include entrepreneurship education, management of incubation facilities for university start-ups, and relationship management with The University of Tokyo Edge Capital.
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Kenji E. Kushida is a Graduate Researcher at the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy (BRIE) and a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at University of California Berkeley.
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William Miller is Co-Director of the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Serving as Vice President and Provost of Stanford and President and CEO of SRI International are just two of the many highlights of Dr. Miller's illustrious career in business and academia. He currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Sentius Corporation and is a Founder and Chairman of Nanostellar, Inc.
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Allen Miner is a founder and General Partner of SunBridge Partners and founder and Director of SunBridge Corporation. After joining Oracle Corporation in 1986 he founded and helped lead Oracle Japan, and later served as Oracle's Vice President in charge of Linux/Open Source. He founded SunBridge Corporation in 1999 with the aim of creating a dynamic, collaborative environment in which Japanese information technology startups develop at a globally competitive pace.
From 2004, Dr. Dasher became the first non-Japanese person ever asked to join the governance of a Japanese national university, serving a term as a Board Director (理事) of Tohoku University . He continued as a member of the Management Council (経営協議会) until March 2010, and he now serves as Senior Advisor to the President (総長顧問) of Tohoku University. Dr. Dasher has been a member of the high-profile Program Committee of the World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI) of the Japanese Ministry of Education (MEXT) since 2007. He has served on the Multidisciplinary Assessment Committee of the C$500 million Canada Foundation for Innovation Leading Edge Fund in 2007 and again in 2010, and as a member of the Phase I and Phase II Review Panels of the C$200 million Canada Excellence Research Chairs Program in 2008 and again in 2010. He was a distinguished reviewer of the Hong Kong S.A.R. study on innovation in 2008–09, and since 2007 he has been a member of the Foresight Panel of the German Ministry of Education and Research. From 2001–03, Dr. Dasher was on the International Planning Committee advising the Japanese Minister of State for Science and Technology Policy in regard to the formation of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology.
As allowed by Stanford policy, Dr. Dasher maintains an active management consulting practice, through which he is an advisor to start-up companies and large firms in the U.S., Japan, and China. He has been a board director of Tokyo-based ZyCube Inc. since 2006, and he is founder and chairman of Pearl Executive Shuttle in Valdosta, Georgia, U.S.A. In the non-profit sector, he is a Board Director of the Japan Society of Northern California and the Keizai Society U.S. – Japan Business Forum, and he is an advisor to organizations such as the Chinese Information and Networking Association, the Silicon Valley – China Wireless Technology Association, and the International Foundation for Entrepreneurship in Science and Technology (iFEST). In 2010 he served as a consultant to The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) in regard to their establishment of a worldwide remote mentoring program for entrepreneurs. Dr. Dasher frequently gives speeches and seminars throughout Japan and Asia, as well as in the U.S. Recent appearances include the Nikkei Shimbun Business Innovation Forum, the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, speaking tours of Japan co-sponsored by METI and the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, and guest lectures at Chubu University, Kochi University of Technology, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, and the University of Tokyo.
From 1990–93, Dr. Dasher was a board director of two privately-held Japanese companies in Tokyo, at which he developed new business in international licensing of media rights packages and other intellectual properties. From 1986–90, he was Director of the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Service Institute advanced field schools in Japan and Korea, which provide full-time language and area training to U.S. and select Commonwealth country diplomats assigned to those countries. He received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Linguistics from Stanford University and, along with Prof. Elizabeth Closs Traugott, he is co-author of the often-cited book Regularity in Semantic Change (Cambridge University Press, 2002). He received the Bachelor of Music degree in clarinet and orchestra conducting from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he served on the faculty from 1978-85.
Richard Dasher
Panelist
Robert Eberhart
Panelist
Shigeo Kagami
Professor and General Manager
Panelist
Science Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development, University of Tokyo
Kenji Kushida
BRIE Fellow
Panelist
UC Berkeley
William F. Miller
Panelist
Allen Miner
Founder and General Partner
Panelist
Sunbridge Partners
Conferences
Stanford Project on Japanese Entrepreneurship (STAJE)
In the study, Lobell, former FSE researcher 
Richard Dasher
