Institutions and Organizations

The 4th annual conference of SPRIE-Stanford Project on Japanese Entrepreneurship (STAJE) will be a two-day event, exchanging ideas on entrepreneruship, institutions, and Japan such as emirical studies, case studies, political and social instituional studies in Japan, and new research methodology including experimental design.

This conference is approriate for working papers for those seeking high quality comments, as well as recently completed papers, and revisions to existing papers.

Knight Management Center
Stanford Graduate School of Business
Stanford University

Conferences
Paragraphs

The legacy of the late North Korean leader Kim Il Sung's decision in the early 1990s to pursue a strategic partnership with the United States has run its course. In its place, the focus of Pyongyang's policies has decisively shifted to Beijing. However wary the North Koreans may be of their neighbor, the fact is that from Pyongyang's viewpoint, the Chinese have delivered and the United States did not.

Any shards remaining from the North's previous, decades-long effort to normalize ties with the U.S. were swept away by current leader Kim Jong Il's trip in May to China, his third in barely a year. Based on our discussions with Chinese officials, we believe that during that visit, Pyongyang and Beijing came to an understanding that, in preparation for planned, major domestic political events in 2012, both sides require sustained political stability, a convergence of interests that provides the opportunity for expanding bilateral relations beyond anything enjoyed in the past. The North is building toward a "prosperous and powerful" nation in celebration of the Kim Il Sung centenary in April; the Chinese are looking toward their 18th Party Congress scheduled for late next year. In both cases, it was apparently decided, stability on the Korean peninsula would serve economic programs and the succession of a new generation of leaders.

In the arrangements — formal and informal — that emerged from Kim Jong Il's discussions with his hosts, Pyongyang agreed not to "make trouble" (as the Chinese described it to us) in the short term, presumably meaning no deliberate military provocations, no third nuclear test and no launch of another ballistic missile. Beyond that, the talks ended in a compromise that neither side found entirely satisfactory. Kim came away with less aid and a smaller Chinese commitment of support than he had sought, though Pyongyang typically asks for more than it can get.

The North did, however, receive increased access to both Chinese capital and technology in spite ofUnited Nations and other foreign sanctions. Kim also obtained, through the establishment of joint economic zones with China along the Yalu River, a locale to test adjustments necessary to economic development, adjustments that would fall short of what Beijing considers genuine economic reform. Chinese President Hu Jintao, we were told, had to settle for Kim's promise to cause less trouble but without a North Korean commitment to serious steps toward denuclearization.

We believe that this pivot toward Beijing is no routine oscillation in North Korean policy. The drive to normalize relations with the U.S. from 1991 to 2009 had been real, sustained and rooted in Kim Il Sung's deep concern about the regime's future in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Perhaps there was no better demonstration of the North's approach in those years than the situation on Oct. 25, 2000 — the 50th anniversary of the entry of the Chinese People's Volunteers into theKorean War. Who was in Pyongyang on that date meeting Kim Jong Il? The Chinese defense minister? No, he was cooling his heels while Kim met with the U.S. secretary of State. That was no accident of scheduling on Pyongyang's part; it would not happen again today.

If the paradigm shift is real, we expect the North in the near to medium term to make far less overt trouble. Less tension on the Korean peninsula? What could be wrong with that? Nothing, as long as it is understood that such tranquillity will also provide a veil for the North's continuing pursuit of nuclear weapons and increasingly sophisticated delivery systems. With the onset of stability and growing Chinese-North Korean cooperation, Pyongyang may well calculate that the outside world's focus on the North Korean nuclear program will become diffuse. Indeed, the North Koreans have long assumed that given enough time, the world would resign itself to their nuclear weapons, as happened with India and Pakistan.

To help things along, it isn't out of the question that Pyongyang might even agree to some U.S. efforts to contain the nuclear program through a series of what Washington calls "pre-steps." The North has repeatedly expressed willingness to consider discussion of its uranium enrichment program and moratoriums on missile and nuclear tests. As unilateral actions, these would have short-term benefits by further stabilizing the situation to provide additional room for discussions. But in the absence of long, serious negotiations between the two sides, they will turn out to be no more meaningful than the ill-considered agreements of the now moribund six-party talks.

All of which brings us back to the deepening North Korean-Chinese ties, and the downgrading in Pyongyang's calculations of relations with the United States. There was considerable momentum behind the North's strategy for engaging the U.S. in past negotiations. That is no longer the case, with consequences we have only started to feel.

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Commentary
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Los Angeles Times
Authors
Robert Carlin
-

Despite the many benefits of democracy, some scholars believe that introducing elections in ethnically divided states can lead to the politicization of identity and to ethnic conflict. Yet few scholars have explored what compels politicians to mobilize around identity in the first place. In search of an answer, Jeremy Menchik and George Washington University doctoral student Colm Fox compiled the only known dataset of campaign advertisements—over 5,000 political banners, posters, and stickers—across hundreds of electoral districts in the world’s largest Muslim-majority democracy, Indonesia. They coded these advertisements for the use of religious, ethnic, nationalist, party, and regional symbols in order to then explain their variation. Their findings shed light on how “politics works” in a new Muslim democracy and suggest that parties, including Islamists, are strategic about their use of identity appeals. Menchik will illustrate this and other findings with ample recourse to visual images.

Dr. Jeremy Menchik is a 2011–12 Shorenstein Fellow. His PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison drew on two years of field research to explain variations in religious and political tolerance in Indonesia during the twentieth century. He has been a Luce Scholar at Columbia University and a visiting fellow at the State Islamic University Syarif Hidayatullah, Jakarta. He is working on a book manuscript based on his dissertation: Tolerance Without Liberalism: Islamic Institutions in Twentieth Century Indonesia.

Co-sponsored with the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, Stanford University.

Philippines Conference Room

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

(650) 724-5656 (650) 723-9741
0
Shorenstein Fellow (2011-2012)
MenchikJeremy.jpg PhD

Jeremy Menchik joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) from the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research is in the area of comparative politics and international relations with a focus on religion and politics in the Muslim world, especially Indonesia. At Shorenstein APARC, he is preparing his dissertation for publication as a book titled, Tolerance Without Liberalism: Islamic Institutions in Twentieth Century Indonesia, and developing related projects on the origins of intolerance, the relationship between religion and nationalism, and political symbolism in democratic elections.

Menchik holds an MA and a PhD in political science from UW-Madison and a BA, also in political science, from the University of Michigan. He will be an assistant professor in international relations at Boston University beginning in 2013.

Jeremy Menchik 2011-2012 Shorenstein Fellow, Shorenstein APARC Speaker Stanford University
Seminars
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

Asia’s demographic landscape is changing in a big way. Japan’s population is shrinking, as people are living longer, marrying later, and choosing to have fewer or no children. Korea is moving in the same direction, while China and the countries of South and Southeast Asia face similar issues in the coming decades. As this takes place, more people are moving to, from, and across Asia for job, education, and marriage opportunities.

These demographic changes present policymakers with new challenges and questions, including: What are the interrelationships between population aging and key macroeconomic variables such as economic growth? How will it impact security? What are the effects on employment policy and other national institutions? How have patterns of migration affected society and culture? What lessons can Asia, the United States, and Europe learn from one another to improve the policy response to population aging?

The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) focused its third annual Stanford Kyoto Trans-Asian Dialogue on addressing the possible economic, social, and security implications of Asia’s unprecedented demographic transition. Thirty scholars, government figures, journalists, and other opinion leaders from Stanford, the United States, and countries across the Asia-Pacific region gathered September 8–9, 2011, in Kyoto, Japan, to discuss key issues related to the question of demographic change.

Comparative Demographics and Policy Responses

Japan’s shrinking workforce calls for labor policy changes, stressed presenters during the opening Dialogue session. Stanford Center for Population Research director Shripad Tuljapurkar stated that Japan’s population could decrease by as much as 25 percent and that its government has a window of approximately 40 years in which to act. In describing Japan’s demographic shift, Ogawa Naohiro, director of the Nihon University Population Research Institute, also emphasized the importance of good financial education for individuals as life expectancy increases.

Macroeconomic Implications

Economists Masahiko Aoki and Cai Fang addressed changes to East Asia’s economic landscape. Aoki, an FSI senior fellow, spoke of the transition from agriculture to industry that has occurred at different stages in Japan, Korea, and China and of the increasing cost of human capital that has followed. Cai, a Chinese Academy of Social Sciences labor and population expert, stated that after several decades of industrial growth China is now at a turning point in terms of its global competitiveness.

Labor and Migration

Scott Rozelle, codirector of Stanford’s Rural Education Action Program (REAP), opened the next day with a discussion of China’s rural human capital investment. Offering Mexico’s situation after the mid-1990s peso crisis as a comparison, he emphasized the immediate need for allocating more health and education resources to China’s rural areas. Ton-Nu-Thi Ninh, president of Tri Viet University, discussed the socioeconomic and cultural aspects of labor migration—a growing trend in Asia—and advocated that governments factor it more into their foreign policy development.

Security

The security impact of Asia’s demographic transition will take several decades to understand, but it will eventually lead to the need for significant policy re-strategization, stated Yu Myung Hwan, Korea’s former minister of foreign affairs and trade, during the closing Dialogue session. He suggested focusing on impacts that could result from the major changes taking place in fertility, urbanization, and migration. Concurring with many of Yu’s views, Stanford’s Shorenstein Distinguished Fellow Michael H. Armacost also noted the current lack of literature on the link between security and demography. In addition, he emphasized the need for the United States to continue pursuing good relations with China and Russia during this time of transition.

“Low fertility rates are not because women are all out there working. In fact, a number of countries have lots of females in the labor force and have achieved a resurgence of fertility. Achieving work-life balance is important, not just for women, but for men as well, and might play a role in lessening the gap in life expectancy between men and women.”

-Karen Eggleston, Director, Asia Health Policy Program

Throughout the event, Dialogue participants unanimously acknowledged the serious challenges facing policymakers as they look for ways to meet the evolving needs of individuals, families, and organizations. The demographic outlook is not entirely gloomy, however. Numerous participants also pointed to the potential for exciting advances and innovations in technology and international cooperation.

As in previous years, the event concluded with a lively public symposium and reception attended by students from Stanford and local universities, Shorenstein APARC guests and affiliates, and members of the general public. Speaking during the reception, Kadokawa Daisaku, mayor of Kyoto, and Kim Hyong-O, member and former speaker of the Korean National Assembly, acknowledged the significance of the Stanford Kyoto Trans-Asian Dialogue as a forum for addressing issues of mutual importance to the United States and Asia.

The Dialogue is made possible through the generosity of the City of Kyoto, FSI, and Yumi and Yasunori Kaneko. To read the final report from this and previous Dialogues, visit the event series page below.

Hero Image
JakartaConstruction NEWSFEED
A worker stands on steel rods at a superblock construction site in Jakarta in February 2010. Increasing urbanization is one of many aspects of Asia's demographic change.
REUTERS/Beawiharta
All News button
1
Authors
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

Rural farmers in sub-Saharan Africa live under risky conditions. Many grow low-value cereal crops that depend on a short rainy season, a practice that traps them in poverty and hunger.

But reliable access to water could change the farmers' perilous situation. Stanford scientists are calling for investments in small-scale irrigation projects and hydrologic mapping to help buffer the growers from the erratic weather and poor crop yields that are expected to worsen with climate change in the region.

The potential for increased irrigation is there, said Jennifer Burneya fellow at Stanford's Center on Food Security and Environment at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

Burney's team partnered with the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) to measure economic and nutritional impacts of solar-powered drip-irrigated gardens on villages in West Africa's Sudano-Sahel region. Burney will present the group's work on small-scale irrigation Wednesday, Dec. 7, at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

"Irrigation is really appealing in that it lets you do a lot of things to break this cycle of low productivity that leads to low income and malnutrition," said Burney.

Modern irrigation often means multi-billion-dollar projects like damming rivers and building canals. But Burney says that these projects have not reached sub-Saharan Africa because countries lack the capital and ability to carry out big infrastructure projects.

A different approach, gaining popularity in sub-Saharan Africa, involves cooperation. Individuals or groups, called smallholders, organize to farm small plots and ensure their access to irrigation. These projects allow farmers to grow during the dry season and produce profitable, high-nutrition crops like fruits and vegetables in addition to the cereal crops they already grow.

Still, only 4 percent of cropland in sub-Saharan Africa is irrigated.

Smallholder irrigation

Burney and her colleagues' work in two northern Benin villages is an example of successful investment in smallholder irrigation. They worked with women's cooperative agricultural groups to install three solar-powered drip irrigation systems. Drip irrigation conserves water by delivering it directly to the base of plants. The technique also reduces fertilizer runoff.

The team surveyed 30 households in each village and found that solar drip irrigation increased standards of living and increased vegetable consumption to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's recommended daily allowance. By selling the vegetables, households were able to purchase staples and meat during the dry season.

Successful smallholder irrigation projects have high investment returns, said Burney. Her team has seen real success from irrigation projects – like those in Benin – that provide enough returns for women to send kids to school or buy small business equipment like a sewing machine or market stall.

"That's when I think it really becomes a ladder out of poverty," Burney said.

Lessons for success

For solar technology projects to be successful, Burney said, just dropping in and giving people irrigation kits doesn't work. Communities need access to a water source and need to see the benefits of a project.

"You need the technology and management and the water access, all together," said Burney. "Our solar project incorporates all of that."

According to Burney, smallholders need not limit themselves to solar irrigation systems. "Solar is great if you have an unreliable fuel," she said. "But if you're someplace that's connected to the grid, an electrical pump would more economical."

"There are a lot of different solutions that involve many different kinds of water harvesting," Burney said. "Groundwater, rainwater, surface water, and there are a lot of places in the Sahel, like Niger, for example, where there are artesian wells." The Sahel is a transition zone between the Sahara Desert and the savannas further south.

Given the diversity of water resources in West Africa, Burney suggests that nongovernmental organizations and governments prioritize detailed hydrologic mapping in the region. Otherwise, the cost of geophysical surveys and finding water sources, especially unseen groundwater, could become an insurmountable barrier for farm communities.

"It needs to be really detailed, comprehensive, usable information that's out there for everybody to be able to take advantage of," she said.

Burney says that both of the benefits that farmers get from irrigation systems –growing outside of the rainy season and producing more diverse, profitable crops – are important for adapting to climate change.

"You can produce more value on less land in most cases and not be as beholden to the whims of the rainy season," she said. Having more disposable income also will reduce vulnerability to hunger and malnutrition. "Economic development can be a form of adaptation," she said.

Rosamond L. Naylor, director of Stanford's Center on Food Security and the Environment, and Sandra Postel of the Global Water Policy Project were collaborators on the project.

Sarah Jane Keller is a science-writing intern at the Stanford News Service.


 

Jennifer Burney is scheduled to speak at the fall meeting of the AGU in San Francisco on Dec. 7 in Room 2008 (Moscone West), in Session B32B, Feeding the World While Sustaining the Planet: Building Sustainable Agriculture Within the Earth System II, which runs from 10:20 a.m. to 12:20 p.m. Her talk, "Smallholder Irrigation and Crop Diversification Under Climate Change in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence and Potential for Simultaneous Food Security, Adaptation and Mitigation," is scheduled from 12:04 to 12:17 p.m.

 

Hero Image
woman panel crops2 Marshall Burke
All News button
1
-

Ten years into the war in Afghanistan, Payne Distinguished Lecturer Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, the former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and the former Commander of the American-led Coalition Forces there, set out to examine the transition to Afghan sovereignty.   Eikenberry laid out  three broad sets of questions: How well are we doing in the campaign in Afghanistan, what are the significant challenges we’ll face in achieving our goals and objectives, and what are the implications for American power and influence in the 21st century.

Watch the video below.

Bechtel Conference Center

Karl Eikenberry Payne Distinguished Lecturer; Retired United States Army Lieutenant General; Former United States Ambassador to Afghanistan Speaker
Lectures
Authors
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

From November 14th to 22nd, the Stanford Program on Regions of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SPRIE) welcomed a delegation of leaders from Shanghai for intensive training on “Leading Innovative and Entrepreneurial Firms and Regions in the Global Economy”.  The 20-member delegation was composed of officials and senior managers with responsibilities over high tech parks, human resources, finance and urban planning in Shanghai, which has a total population over 20 million, and burgeoning investment in banking and finance, IT, bio science and media.

The weeklong program included more than 30 hours at the Stanford Graduate School of Business’ state-of-the-art Knight Management Center, the Bay Area Council and Department of Environment in San Francisco. The Chinese leaders engaged in dialogues and exchanged ideas with Stanford faculty, policy experts in the Bay Area, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and NGOs on the key strategies to drive innovation and entrepreneurship. 

Teaching sessions drew on the expertise and experience of 13 thought leaders who shared innovative strategies, current data, and lessons from Silicon Valley, and regions in the US, Europe and Asia.  From the GSB, Professor William F. Miller, Professor William P. Barnett and SPRIE Associate Director Marguerite Gong Hancock, each led sessions, ranging in focus from the ecosystem of Silicon Valley to strategies for discovering successful business models.

The classroom experience culminated in team presentations to translate what was learned into the context of the Chinese leaders’ own experiences and responsibilities in the Shanghai region.

“During the seven-day training program organized by SPRIE, we have learned several insights…especially under the theme of Engines of Innovation and Entrepreneurship,” said one group. The culture of innovation and entrepreneurship, the driving force of linking universities and industry, and the support of non-profit organizations could all play an increased role in Shanghai, another group concluded in a written report.

While appreciating the differences in cultures, systems, and the roles of government between Shanghai and the Valley, the Shanghai leaders also discussed how the Valley’s culture of risk taking and tolerating failure, and empowering creativity and productivity in talent had inspired them to apply lessons learned to Shanghai.

George Shultz, former U.S. Secretary of State, gave a keynote speech at Government Leader Program hosted by SPRIE in September 2011.
This program on “Leading Innovative and Entrepreneurial Firms and Regions in the Global Economy” is one of a series hosted by SPRIE to welcome international policymakers to Stanford at the heart of Silicon Valley to explore what leaders in successful high-tech regions around the world do to foster innovation and entrepreneurship and become engines for economic growth. Classes are offered by an interdisciplinary team of experts comprised of Stanford University faculty, Silicon Valley thought leaders, and other regional decision makers.  Previously, SPRIE hosted a three-day training program for 20 central, provincial and municipality government officials from China, featuring distinguished speakers such as George Shultz (right in the photo), former U.S. Secretary of State, and Burton Richter, a Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics.

All News button
1
-

Recent events in the U.S. have raised concerns about the safety and security of research with hazardous microbial agents, particularly with regard to the insider threat. The anthrax letters of 2001 and several technical surprises in legitimate infectious disease research, led to a series of high-level committee recommendations on safety and security of the ongoing work. When a scientist from a U.S. military high-containment laboratory was implicated in the anthrax letters case, the president and congress called for more regulation. Subsequently, a series of steps to reduce the risk have been proposed: from armed guards, pathogen accountability and medical and psychological exams for scientists to training, ethical frameworks, codes of conduct and standards of quality research. Franz will discuss the implications of these events on both security and productive research in support of public health and the life-sciences enterprise, and the important role of leadership and culture in enhancing both safety and security.


About the speaker: Dave Franz is a Vice President and Chief Biological Scientist at MRIGlobal. He served in the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command for 23 of 27 years on active duty and retired as Colonel. He served as Commander of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) and as Deputy Commander of the Medical Research and Materiel Command. Prior to joining the Command, he served as Group Veterinarian for the 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne). Dr. Franz was Technical Editor for the Textbook of Military Medicine on Medical Aspects of Chemical and Biological Warfare released in 1997. He serves on numerous national committees and boards. Dr. Franz holds an adjunct appointment as Professor for the Department of Diagnostic Medicine and Pathobiology at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Kansas State University. The current focus of his activities relates to the role of international engagement in the life sciences as a component of national security policy.

CISAC Conference Room

Dave Franz Vice President and Chief Biological Scientist Speaker MRIGlobal
Seminars
-

Abstract:

Issues about “good governance” and anti-corruption have become central in the development and democracy agenda. While it’s clear that low-quality government institutions have negative effects on the health and wealth of societies, the criteria for what should count as good governance remain far from clear. In his new book “The Quality of Government: Corruption, Social Trust and Inequality in International Perspective”, Bo Rothstein argues that the dominant theories in this field represent serious mischaracterizations of the problem and that the standard definitions of the problem used in research as well as by many leading policy organizations are not helpful. This, he argues, has led to anti-corruption policies that are, at best, ineffective. 

Speaker Bio: 

Bo Rothstein holds the August Röhss Chair in Political Science at University of Gothenburg in Sweden where he is head of the Quality of Government (QoG) Institute. The QoG Institute consists of about twenty researchers studying the importance of trustworthy, reliable, competent and non-corrupt government institutions.

Rothstein took is PhD at Lund University in 1986 and served as assistant and associate professor at Uppsala University 1986 to 1994. He has been a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation in New York, Cornell University, Harvard University, Collegium Budapest Institute for Advanced Study, the Australian National University and the University of Washington in Seattle. In 2006, he served as Visiting Professor at Harvard University.

His latest book, The Quality of Government: Corruption, Inequality and Social Trust in International Perspective is published by University of Chicago Press in 2011. Among his earlier books in English are Social Traps and the Problem of Trust, and Just Institutions Matters: The Moral and Political Logic of the Universal Welfare State (both Cambridge University Press 1998) and The Social Democratic State (Univ. of Pittsburgh Press 1996). His articles have appeared in scholarly journals such as World Politics, Governance, Comparative Politics, Scandinavian Political Studies, American Behavioral Scientist, European Journal of Political Research and Comparative Political Studies. He is also a regular contributor to the Swedish debate about public policy and has published more than 100 op-ed articles in all major Swedish daily newspapers.

Beginning in January 2012, Rothstein will be in residence at Stanford and affilliated with the Scandinavian Consortium for Organizational Research (SCANOCOR) and the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences at Stanford. 

Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Bo Rothstein August Röhss Chair in Political Science Speaker University of Gothenburg
Seminars
-

Abstract:

There is a wide diversity in the provision of public services in India. In some states one can go for miles without seeing a functional school or public health centre, where roads are poorly maintained, and electricity has not yet been introduced. In other places, governments tend to function remarkably in extending basic public services to all, with tremendous consequences to human lives. In this talk, Vivek Srinivasen will explore why some parts of India have developed an impressive social commitment to such services unlike others. In this context, he will also discuss the remarkable changes in Bihar and other parts of North India in the recent years.

 Speaker Bio: 

Vivek Srinivasen joined the Liberation Technology Program as the manager in February 2011 after completing his Ph.D. in Social Sciences from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. Prior to this, Srinivasen worked with campaigns on various socio-economic rights in India, including the right to food, education and the right to information. Based on these experiences he has written (and co-authored) extensively on issues surrounding the right to food, including Notes from the right to food campaign: people's movement for the right to food (2003), Rights based approach and human development: An introduction (2008), Gender and the right to food: A critical re-examination (2006), Food Policy and Social Movements: Reflections on the Right to Food Campaign in India (2007).

Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Vivek Srinivasen Program Manager Speaker Program on Liberation Technology, Stanford University
Seminars
Subscribe to Institutions and Organizations