International Development

Current Challenges and Tensions in Israel's National Security

Tuesday, May 10, 2022 | 1:00 PM -Tuesday, May 10, 2022 | 2:00 PM

For spring quarter 2022, CISAC will be hosting hybrid events. Many events will offer limited-capacity in-person attendance for Stanford faculty, staff, fellows, visiting scholars, and students in accordance with Stanford’s health and safety guidelines, and be open to the public online via Zoom. All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

REGISTRATION

Zoom

(Open to all)

In Person

(Stanford faculty, visiting scholars, staff, fellows, and students only)

About the Event: This seminar will review key challenges facing Israel in the near term – such as the Iranian Nuclear Program and Iranian establishment in Syria - and will present the main dilemmas in formulating policy in the face of each challenge.

About the Speaker: Major General (ret.) Amos Yadlin joined the Middle East Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center as a Senior Fellow after 40 years of service in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). He served as a fighter pilot for 33 years, ultimately becoming Deputy Commander of the Israeli Air Force. He then earned the rank of Major General, served as a commander of the IDF Military Colleges and the National Defense College, Defense Attaché to the United States, and Chief of the Military Intelligence Directorate. He was Executive Director of the Institute for National Security Studies from 2011 to 2021; under his leadership it was named the number one think tank in the Middle East and North Africa by the University of Pennsylvania’s Global Go To Think Tank Index Report in 2020.

Views of Nuclear Risk by Non-Nuclear-Weapon States

Tuesday, May 17, 2022 | 1:00 PM -Tuesday, May 17, 2022 | 2:00 PM

REGISTRATION

Zoom

(Open to all)

In Person

(Stanford faculty, visiting scholars, staff, fellows, and students only)

About the Event: Mainstream accounts of nuclear politics tend to focus on the actions of nuclear-weapon states (NWS), offering incomplete interpretations of the participation of non-nuclear-weapon states (NNWS) in the global nuclear order. These approaches usually portray NNWS as potential sources of nuclear instability and proliferation, especially those with the technical capabilities to build nuclear arsenals. However, NNWS have actively designed mechanisms to manage nuclear risks and crafted institutions to enforce them. Thus, this panel explores the agency of NNWS in nuclear politics to build a more comprehensive and accurate interpretation of their role in the global nuclear order. The presentations will explore how NNWS with developing economies balanced security and development in the negotiations of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, how NNWS in various latitudes built regional mechanisms to manage nuclear risks with different levels of success, and how NNWS address fears that NWS might drag them into precipitous nuclear conflicts.

About the Speakers:

Dr. Ryan A. Musto is the Director of Forums and Research Initiatives with the Global Research Institute at William & Mary. He holds a Ph.D. in history from The George Washington University, master’s degrees in international and world history from Columbia University and the London School of Economics, and a B.A. in history from New York University. Dr. Musto has served as a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at MIT and as a MacArthur Nuclear Security fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. He is a Cold War and nuclear historian with concentrations in U.S. and Latin American diplomatic history. Dr. Musto is currently writing a book on the international history of nuclear weapon free zones.

Dr. J. Luis Rodriguez is a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. He holds a Ph.D. and M.A. from the Department of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. His research studies how the Global South builds and maintains limits on the use of force in international law and organization. Dr. Rodriguez focuses primarily on the negotiations to codify nuclear arms controls and humanitarian-intervention norms. Before joining the Ph.D. program at Johns Hopkins, he was a junior advisor to the Mexican Vice-Minister for Latin American Affairs, working on international security cooperation.

Dr. Lauren Sukin is currently a MacArthur Nuclear Security Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. In September 2022, she will join the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science as an Assistant Professor of International Relations. Dr. Sukin holds a Ph.D. and M.A. from the Department of Political Science at Stanford University. She also holds A.B.s from the Departments of Political Science and Literary Arts at Brown University (2016). Dr. Sukin’s research examines issues of international security, focusing on the role of nuclear weapons in international politics.

Reducing Nuclear Danger

Tuesday, May 17, 2022 | 4:00 PM -Tuesday, May 17, 2022 | 5:30 PM

SEMINAR RECORDING

YouTube

About the Event: Many scholars and policy-makers have stated that the war in Ukraine, the spread of nuclear weapons to new states, and the lack of arms control agreements outside of the New Start treaty make the world extremely dangerous. Indeed, the Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists currently stands at 100 seconds to midnight, the closest to doomsday since the clock was invented in 1947. Is this estimate true and, if so, what can the leaders and people of the world do to reduce the risks? Following Dr. Perry's lecture will be a panel discussion with Governor Jerry Brown, Dr. Scott Sagan, Dr. Martin Hellman, and Ambassador Rose Gottemoeller. Dr. Perry will also be honored with the Cranston Peace Prize. This event is cosponsored by the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and the Global Security Institute (GSI).

About the Speaker: William Perry is the Michael and Barbara Berberian Professor (emeritus) at Stanford University. He is a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and the Hoover Institution, and serves as director of the Preventive Defense Project. He is an expert in U.S. foreign policy, national security and arms control. He was the co-director of CISAC from 1988 to 1993, during which time he was also a part-time professor at Stanford. He was a part-time lecturer in the Department of Mathematics at Santa Clara University from 1971 to 1977.

Perry was the 19th secretary of defense for the United States, serving from February 1994 to January 1997. He previously served as deputy secretary of defense (1993-1994) and as under secretary of defense for research and engineering (1977-1981). Dr. Perry currently serves on the Defense Policy Board (DPB). He is on the board of directors of Covant and several emerging high-tech companies. His previous business experience includes serving as a laboratory director for General Telephone and Electronics (1954-1964); founder and president of ESL Inc. (1964-1977); executive vice-president of Hambrecht & Quist Inc. (1981-1985); and founder and chairman of Technology Strategies & Alliances (1985-1993). He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

From 1946 to 1947, Perry was an enlisted man in the Army Corps of Engineers, and served in the Army of Occupation in Japan. He joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps in 1948 and was a second lieutenant in the Army Reserves from 1950 to 1955. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1997 and the Knight Commander of the British Empire in 1998. Perry has received a number of other awards including the Department of Defense Distinguished Service Medal (1980 and 1981), and Outstanding Civilian Service Medals from the Army (1962 and 1997), the Air Force (1997), the Navy (1997), the Defense Intelligence Agency (1977 and 1997), NASA (1981) and the Coast Guard (1997). He received the American Electronic Association's Medal of Achievement (1980), the Eisenhower Award (1996), the Marshall Award (1997), the Forrestal Medal (1994), and the Henry Stimson Medal (1994). The National Academy of Engineering selected him for the Arthur Bueche Medal in 1996. He has received awards from the enlisted personnel of the Army, Navy, and the Air Force. He has received decorations from the governments of Albania, Bahrain, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Korea, Poland, Slovenia, and Ukraine. He received a BS and MS from Stanford University and a PhD from Pennsylvania State University, all in mathematics.

The Glass Ceiling: Women and Political Power in Southeast Asia

Tuesday, May 10, 2022 | 5:00 PM -Tuesday, May 10, 2022 | 6:30 PM

The Philippines is but one of eleven countries in Southeast Asia and Prof. Ferrer is not the only woman in the region whose ascent has shattered the glass ceiling. But rather than offer a broad but necessarily shallow overview of the gains and frustrations of female professionals across the region, this webinar features an in-depth conversation with one Southeast Asian woman who has risen to prominence and influence in national security and the resolution of violent conflicts between insurgents and governments—visceral policymaking fields that have long been dominated by men.

Miriam Coronel Ferrer is unique among high-achieving women worldwide. She is the first female in any country to have led successful negotiations with a rebel group. In 2014, on behalf of the Philippine government, she co-signed with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front a Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB). The agreement led to a further step toward conflict resolution when a Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao was finally established in 2019. In 2020 she co-founded the Southeast Asian Network of Peace Negotiators and Mediators. Professor Ferrer also advises the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders. As a member of the UN Standby Team of Senior Mediators from 2018-2021, she helped fashion mediation initiatives not only in Southeast Asia but in Afghanistan, Georgia, Kosovo, and other countries as well. Her latest book, Region, Nation and Homeland (2020), examines discourses of resistance in Mindanao and Luzon. Her degrees are from the University of Kent and UP Diliman.

This event is part of the 2022 Spring webinar series, Negotiating Women's Rights and Gender Equality in Asia, sponsored by the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.

Donald K. Emmerson

Via Zoom Webinar.

Miriam Coronel Ferrer Professor of Political Science, University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman

Seminars

What Does China Have to Do to Achieve Carbon Neutrality by 2060?

Wednesday, May 11, 2022 | 5:00 PM -Wednesday, May 11, 2022 | 6:00 PM

With a population of 1.4 billion people in the midst of industrialization and urbanization, the role of China in tackling climate change will be critical to the success of human species in facing up to the world's greatest existential challenge. Based on the newly published book -- Climate Mitigation and Adaptation in China: Policy, Technology and Market, FU Jun will discuss the parameters, policies and prospects of China's role in meeting the global crisis. In particular, in light of the country's regional heterogeneity and aided by simulation modeling, he will discern the philosophical nuances between particular justice and general justice in Chinese strategic thinking toward equitable, inclusive and sustainable growth, and focus on how different sets of technologies -- low carbon, zero carbon, negative carbon, as well as institutional technology -- will likely configure in an adaptive and dynamic fashion in China's pathways toward carbon peak prior to 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060, and with implications for green financing and international cooperation.

FU Jun is Professor of Political Economy and Public Policy at Peking University. He has authored, co-authored, and edited five books, including Institutions and Investments (Studies in International Economics, The University of Michigan Press), Pathways to Prosperity: A China Narrative in Metaheuristic Growth Theory (in Chinese, Peking University Press), and Climate Mitigation and Adaptation in China: Policy, Technology, and Market (Springer Nature). Graduated with Ph.D. from Harvard University, he is the first Chinese national to have been elected as Foreign Academician in 2020, together with Anthony Giddens and Jurgen Harbermas, by the Bologna Academy of Sciences in its time-honored history. Inter alia, he has been an invited reviewer for PNAS, served on the 11-Member Visiting Committee for Area Studies and International Programs across Harvard University, and on the Advisory Board of Economia Politica. Outside academia, he has served as Member of the Listing Committee of Shenzhen Stock Exchange, Executive Board Member of SOS Village (China), Vice Chair with A. Michael Spence as Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on New Growth Models, Board Member of Peking University Educational Foundation, and Advisor to the Chairman of the Executive Council of UNESCO.

This event is co-sponsored by Stanford Center at Peking University

Jean C. Oi

Fu Jun

Seminars

Date Label

Wed, 10/08/2025 - 09:04

Kawasaki City Mayor Norihiko Fukuda Delivers Inspirational Comments to Students

Read more about Kawasaki City Mayor Norihiko Fukuda Delivers Inspirational Comments to Students

Authors

Gary Mukai

News Type

Blogs

Date

Tue, 04/26/2022 - 12:00

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Mayor Norihiko Fukuda of Kawasaki City—the sixth most populous city in Japan—spoke during the closing ceremony of Stanford e-Kawasaki on March 29, 2022. The ceremony marked the end of the third-year offering of Stanford e-Kawasaki, which is taught by Instructor Maiko Tamagawa Bacha. Nineteen students representing Kawasaki High School and Tachibana High School successfully completed the course and each received a certificate from Mayor Fukuda as Bacha announced each student’s name.

Stanford e-Kawasaki focuses on two themes, entrepreneurship and diversity. In Mayor Fukuda’s comments to students, he noted that with people coming from across and outside of Japan to Kawasaki, the city has developed to become a city of 1.54 million people and one of the most diverse cities in Japan. Given this, Fukuda underscored the importance of having students value diversity, and stated, “I want young people in Kawasaki to appreciate this core value.” He continued,

I also want students to foster entrepreneurial mindsets as they pursue their future careers… With the English and critical-thinking skills that they have gained in this program, they have taken off from a starting line to make their way into the world.

This year’s course featured a diverse group of speakers, including a panel of Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program alumni who spoke about diversity in the United States. The panelists included Jeffrey Fleischman, Cerell Rivera, and Kai Wiesner-Hanks, who spoke on topics such as ethnic diversity, gender equality and identity, religious diversity, and cultural diversity. Bacha is a former Advisor for Educational Affairs at the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco and one of her major responsibilities was overseeing the JET Program. She commented, “It was particularly gratifying for me to provide a platform for JET alumni to continue to offer their support to students in Japan.” Other sessions were led by Dr. Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu who addressed the central question, “What is diversity?,” and also discussed diversity issues in Japan, and Stanford graduate student Alinea Tucker, who spoke on “Black Lives Matter.”

In the area of entrepreneurship, Miwa Seki, General Partner, M Power Partners, provided perspectives as an investor, and Sukemasa Kabayama, Founder and CEO of Uplift Labs, shared his journey as an entrepreneur in Japan and in the United States.

A highlight of the closing ceremony was the announcement of the two honorees of Stanford e-Kawasaki. They are Sayaka Kiyotomo from Kawasaki High School and Anne Fukushima from Tachibana High School.

Reflecting on the three years of teaching the course, Bacha noted, “Since the inception of Stanford e-Kawasaki, Mayor Fukuda’s unwavering commitment has without a doubt contributed greatly to the success of the course. The students and I have always felt his support.” After the ceremony, Mayor Fukuda brought the students to one of his meeting rooms and engaged them in informal discussions. His formal and informal comments were very inspirational to the students.

I am most grateful to Mayor Norihiko Fukuda for his vision and for making this course possible. I would also like to express my appreciation to Mr. Nihei and Mr. Katsurayama from the Kawasaki Board of Education; and Mr. Abe, Mr. Tanaka, Mr. Kawato, and especially Mr. Inoue from Kawasaki City for their unwavering support. Importantly, I would like to express my appreciation to Principal Iwaki and his staff of Kawasaki High School and Principal Takai and his staff from Tachibana High School for their engagement with Stanford e-Kawasaki. An article in Japanese about the closing ceremony that was published by Kawasaki City can be found here.

Maiko Tamagawa Bacha

Instructor, Stanford e-Kawasaki

Full Bio

SPICE Director Dr. Gary Mukai with Mayor Norihiko Fukuda

Blogs

Stanford e-Kawasaki: The Vision of Mayor Norihiko Fukuda

Stanford e-Kawasaki students and instructors

Blogs

Opening Ceremony Held for Stanford e-Kawasaki

Kawasaki Mayor Norihiko Fukuda makes welcoming comments.

Opening Ceremony Held for Stanford e-Kawasaki

Photo of student honorees holding plaques

News

SPICE Honors Top Students from 2020–2021 Regional Programs in Japan

Congratulations to the eight student honorees from Hiroshima Prefecture, Kawasaki City, Oita Prefecture, and Tottori Prefecture.

SPICE Honors Top Students from 2020–2021 Regional Programs in Japan

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Students with Mayor Fukuda; photo courtesy Kawasaki City

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Stanford e-Kawasaki closing ceremony held.

Stanford University’s Korea Program Celebrates 20th Anniversary with Conference Spotlighting South Korean Wave, North Korean Geopolitics

Read more about Stanford University’s Korea Program Celebrates 20th Anniversary with Conference Spotlighting South Korean Wave, North Korean Geopolitics

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News

Date

Wed, 04/20/2022 - 12:00

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The Korea Program at Stanford's Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) will mark its 20-year anniversary with a conference focused on North Korea’s geopolitics and South Korea’s pop culture wave (Hallyu), two aspects of Korea that continue to intrigue the public. Exploring how to translate this public attention into an increased academic interest in Korea, the conference will be headlined by Ban Ki-moon, former United Nations Secretary-General, and Soo-Man Lee, Founder and Chief Producer of SM Entertainment, who will join a lineup of speakers including SUHO, leader of K-pop group EXO. The two-day event will take place on May 19 and May 20, 2022, at Stanford’s Bechtel Conference Center, and is free and open to the public.

Breaking with the format of a traditional academic conference, the event will bring together scholars and experts to envision new horizons for the field of Korean Studies. It will include panel discussions on issues such as security on the Korean peninsula, North Korean human rights, U.S.-DPRK relations, and the rising global popularity of South Korea’s soft power, with a focus on K-dramas and K-pop. Scholars from Stanford and other prestigious North American universities will join on-stage conversations with leading practitioners including Joohee Cho, Seoul Bureau Chief at ABC News, and Angela Killoren, CEO of CJ ENM America, as well as government officials including Kim Sook, the former South Korean Ambassador to the UN, and Joon-woo Park, the former South Korean Ambassador to the EU, both former visiting fellows at the Korea Program.

Kim Hyong-O, the former speaker of South Korea’s National Assembly as well as a Korea Program alum, and Geun Lee, the president of the Korea Foundation, will deliver remarks at a private dinner event, which will recognize major donors and supporters of the Program.

“We are delighted to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Korea Program with such an outstanding lineup of speakers,” says Gi-Wook Shin, William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea at Stanford and the Program’s founding director. “For the past two decades, the Program has produced exceptional research on pressing issues, fostered connection between scholars and policymakers, and nurtured numerous students,” Shin notes. These accomplishments will be on display in the Korea Program’s new digital archives, which will be unveiled at the conference.

The event will also feature previews of two brand new documentaries, one on K-pop and the other on North Korean human rights, directed by Hark Joon Lee. “It is our hope that these documentaries will deepen global understanding of these issues and be used to help teach the next generation of students about Korea,” says Shin, who provided input on the films along with his research team at the Korea Program.

“We are incredibly grateful to those who have helped the Korea Program thrive over the past two decades,” notes Shin. “This conference will be an opportunity to share our thanks and reflect on our achievements while looking forward to the Program’s future.”

For conference registration, as well as the full agenda and speaker list, please visit the event page. Registration will open on Monday, May 2, 2022, at 9:00 a.m. PDT.

The conference will be live-streamed on APARC's YouTube channel.

About the Korea Program

The Korea Program at Stanford’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center is a West Coast hub of scholarship on contemporary Korea and the issues shaping the future of the Korean Peninsula and U.S.-Korea relations. Our work examines these topics from regional and comparative perspectives through cultural, political, and economic lenses. We train and support emerging Korea scholars and convene experts from academia, government, business, and civil society for dialogue, research, and publishing activities that inform policymakers in the United States and Korea and strengthen the bonds between the two countries. For more information, visit our website.

Media Advisory and Press Contact

Journalists interested in covering the conference should contact Shorenstein APARC’s Associate Director for Communications and External Relations Noa Ronkin at noa.ronkin@stanford.edu by May 17 at 9:00 a.m. PT to register. At the venue, they will be required to present a press credential from an established news organization. Freelance reporters should email a letter from the news organization for which they work to Noa Ronkin by the May 17 deadline. The press area is limited and press seating is not guaranteed.

Visit the conference webpage

Media Coverage - Yonhap News

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Media Coverage - VOA Korean

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Bukchon Hanok village and text about Stanford's Korea Program 20th anniversary conference on May 19-20, 2022.

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The Korea Program at Stanford’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center will commemorate its 20-year anniversary with a two-day conference, convening eminent speakers from the K-pop industry, academia, and government, and unveiling two new documentary films.

Postdoc Fellow Spotlight: Mary-Collier Wilks Explores Power Dynamics and Development Imaginaries in International Organizations

Read more about Postdoc Fellow Spotlight: Mary-Collier Wilks Explores Power Dynamics and Development Imaginaries in International Organizations

Authors

Michael Breger

Noa Ronkin

News Type

Q&As

Date

Thu, 03/31/2022 - 12:00

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U.S.-based donors and international organizations have long dominated the development sector, but their Asian peers are increasingly challenging Western hegemony in the field, argues APARC Postdoctoral Fellow in Contemporary Asia Mary-Collier Wilks.

Wilks is currently at work on a book project that examines variation in ‘aid chains,’ or the links through which programs travel from donors to international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), and finally to implementing partners. Her ethnographic research examines two aid chains focused on the delivery of women’s health services in Cambodia. After completing her residency at APARC this summer, she will head to the University of North Carolina Wilmington to start a tenure track position at the Department of Sociology.

In the following Q&A, Wilks discusses her research and fellowship experience at Stanford. The interview was slightly edited for length and clarity.

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Your research centers on meaning-making and power dynamics in international organizations. What drew you to this topic?

Before going to graduate school, I worked at a Cambodian NGO, Social Services of Cambodia, that implemented social welfare programs for women and children. While there, I observed conversations between the foreign director, local staff, donors, and beneficiaries, and noticed how these interactions shaped SSC’s work. I was particularly struck by how differently donors from various nations defined gender empowerment. These questions evolved into a desire to go to graduate school and study how donor differences impact international development programs in Southeast Asia.

East Asian nations are increasingly vying for influence and offering new, alternative models for development.

Mary-Collier Wilks

You are working on your first book. Can you tell us a bit about what to expect from it?

During my postdoctoral fellowship at APARC, I’m focusing on transforming my dissertation into a book. Learning to write a book is a difficult, unique, and rewarding process in and of itself! It’s still a work in progress, but the book argues that the global development sector is shifting. Donors and international organizations based in the United States, Europe, and Australia have long been dominant actors, producing prevailing global norms around “good development.” However, East Asian nations are increasingly vying for influence and offering new, alternative models for development. As a case study of these transformations, I conduct a multi-sited ethnography of two INGOs, one from the United States and the other from Japan, that implement development programs in Cambodia.

I see Cambodian practitioners render the above geopolitical transformations meaningful in their own lives by discussing two “development imaginaries” or narratives about the best way for society to develop, one “Asian” and the other “Western.” Consequently, I contend Cambodia is a case of a larger phenomenon in which Asian donors and development organizations are playing a more prominent role, challenging Western hegemony in the development sector and producing new development norms. This book is therefore trying to tell a dual story about the macro-level geopolitical transformations taking place in the development space in Cambodia, and Asia more generally, and the micro-level meanings, practices, and contradictions that these changes create in the lives of the people living through them.

Health screening in a Cambodia primary school

You have mentioned your interest in how people encounter international development and foreign aid in their everyday lives. What are some aspects of those encounters that you find revealing about the dynamics of global development?

Cambodia is a nation where international donors have a lot of power. But, that’s never the whole story. Development is never just donor-driven. In my work, I try to center the ways Cambodian practitioners make sense of, adapt, or resist donor visions of their nation’s development.

For instance, during my fieldwork, I met an NGO director who I’ll call Rith and whose career trajectory can provide us with some insights. Rith was born in 1979, at the very end of the Khmer Rouge regime. In his twenties, he decided to become a monk to bring merit to his family. In the late 1990s, Rith started noticing the influx of foreign aid funding and the proliferating numbers of international and local NGOs in his country. In 2000, he decided to quit being a monk to open an NGO. He turned out to be a savvy fundraiser, securing funding for his NGO to implement multiple health, education, and economic empowerment projects. However, when I met him in 2019, Rith told me he thought “it might be time to change paths” because NGO funding from Western donors “is not like it was ten years ago.” Two years later, he became the co-CEO of a private construction and sourcing company that takes advantage of the numerous infrastructure development loans China provides to Cambodia.

You can therefore observe how the larger geopolitical changes Cambodia undergoes play out in a micro-way in Rith’s strategic career choices as he shifts from being a monk to an NGO director to a CEO.

I believe that projects that support a strong state and those that encourage the market and nonprofit actors could be synchronized for more effective aid.

Mary-Collier WIlks

What do you see as some of the biggest challenges to delivering aid via INGOs?

There are several answers to this question floating around in my data. One that immediately comes to mind is synchronization. Despite a shared aim of improving women’s health, INGOs from the United States and Japan implement very different kinds of programs in Cambodia. Japanese INGOs focus on strengthening government-provided maternal health services in Cambodia. In contrast, U.S. organizations are more likely to promote a diverse maternal and reproductive healthcare sector, including private providers and civil society advocacy. I’ve also found that INGOs that originate in the United States and Japan are unaware of each other’s distinctive projects. Often, U.S. INGO directors and donors don’t even know Japanese NGOs exist!

While they work with different stakeholders, I believe that projects that support a strong state and those that encourage the market and nonprofit actors could be synchronized for more effective aid. To start with, U.S.-based INGOs sometimes try to upgrade private clinics, provide education, and refer beneficiaries to women’s health services in the same regions where Japanese INGOs support public clinics. On a basic level, if you could just get the INGO directors from Japan and the U.S. organizations that are working in the same areas to sit down together, U.S. INGO health educators might be able to do things like referring to improved private and public clinics if they know which public clinics the Japanese INGO works with, or collaborate on healthcare provision training for private and public clinic doctors.

Beyond your book project, what are you working on while at APARC? How has your time here advanced your research?

The main thing a postdoctoral fellowship affords is the privilege of time to read and write. Outside of the book project, I have been able to work on two other papers while here at Stanford. One article proposes to theorize the process of “script decoupling” and why INGOs might formally adopt the same global script but enact it very differently in implementation. The second paper investigates how the meanings of aid money in NGOs is shaped by the business cultures of donor and recipient nations. I plan to have both papers under review before I leave APARC at the end of July.

Being at APARC has provided me with numerous opportunities to discover insightful, new perspectives on my research projects and career prospects from my postdoctoral advisor, Kiyoteru Tsutsui, as well as various other faculty, fellows, and associates here. For instance, Kiyo is starting a Japanese studies lunch-and-learning session where fellows get to meet and discuss their research. I’m particularly interested in the policy-oriented lectures and learning how to articulate that side of my research since that’s something I wasn’t taught to do in graduate school. Overall, my time at Stanford has been invigorating for my research and writing process. I’ve enjoyed being part of the learning community at FSI and the university at large, and have greatly benefited from connecting with different scholars and working groups across campus.

Has the Covid-19 pandemic affected your ability to travel and do research? How have you adapted?

I was incredibly lucky because I completed my international fieldwork in the fall of 2019. So I was able to collect all the data I needed for my dissertation before the pandemic hit us hard. But, due to Covid, I was not able to do the follow-up field visits that I wanted to do in order to find out what happened when the two INGOs I studied completed their projects. Also, continuing connections in the field for new ideas and the next research project is important for an ethnographer. I have done what I could to catch up with Cambodian friends and practitioners over Zoom. Now that Cambodia has lifted its quarantine requirements, I may be able to return this summer.

What is on the horizon for you? What's next?

As I have wanted to be a college professor since I was 19 (after I gave up my dream of being a pop singer), I’m extremely happy to share I was offered a tenure track position in the Department of Sociology at the University of North Carolina Wilmington! I’ll be starting there in the fall and continuing my research on international development and Southeast Asia.

A health worker checks a patient's blood pressure at a clinic in Pokhara, Nepal.

News

New Cross-Country Study Underscores the Importance of Health Workforce Development and Socioeconomic Factors in Affecting Health Outcomes

Analyzing data from 191 World Health Organization member countries, a new study from APARC’s Karen Eggleston indicates that strengthening the health workforce is an urgent task in the post-COVID era critical to achieving health-related Sustainable Development Goals and long-term improvement in health outcomes, especially for low- and lower-middle-income countries.

New Cross-Country Study Underscores the Importance of Health Workforce Development and Socioeconomic Factors in Affecting Health Outcomes

Encina Commons, Stanford with text about APARC's 2022-23 predoctoral fellowship

News

APARC Invites 2022-23 Predoctoral Fellowship Applications

Up to three fellowships are available to Stanford Ph.D. candidates. Submissions are due by April 15, 2022.

APARC Invites 2022-23 Predoctoral Fellowship Applications

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Unpacking the Crisis in Xinjiang: James Millward on China's Assimilationist Policies and U.S.-China Engagement

APARC Visiting Scholar James Millward discusses PRC ethnicity policy, China's crackdown on Uyghur Muslims and other minorities in Xinjiang province, and the implications of the Xinjiang crisis for U.S. China strategy and China's international relations.

Unpacking the Crisis in Xinjiang: James Millward on China's Assimilationist Policies and U.S.-China Engagement

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Ethnographer and APARC Postdoctoral Fellow Mary-Collier Wilks unveils how distinct development narratives shape the dynamics of aid chains and international organizations’ delivery of services in Southeast Asia.

The War in Ukraine and the Prospects for Peace

Monday, April 4, 2022 | 4:00 PM -Monday, April 4, 2022 | 5:30 PM

Recording

YouTube

About the event: A panel of Stanford experts presents an update on the war in Ukraine. What are the costs of war and what are the prospects for peace?

Speakers:

Scott Sagan - Co-director of the Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation
Kathryn Stoner - Mosbacher Director of the Stanford Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Roman Badanin - Journalist, Researcher, and Founder of Proekt
Yuliia Bezvershenko - Visiting Scholar, Stanford Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program

Kinan Azmeh and Yo-Yo Ma: Art in a Time of Crisis

Read more about Kinan Azmeh and Yo-Yo Ma: Art in a Time of Crisis

Authors

Gary Mukai

News Type

Blogs

Date

Tue, 03/29/2022 - 12:00

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Yo-Yo Ma conceived Silkroad in 1998 “as a reminder that even as rapid globalization resulted in division, it brought extraordinary possibilities for working together. Seeking to understand this dynamic, he recognized the historical Silk Road as a model for cultural collaboration—for the exchange of ideas, tradition, and innovation across borders. In a groundbreaking experiment, he brought together musicians from the lands of the Silk Road to co-create a new artistic idiom: a musical language founded in difference, a metaphor for the benefits of a more connected world.”[1] The Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education has been collaborating with Silkroad since 2002.

On April 6, 2022, Silkroad will be performing at Stanford University. Silkroad Ensemble: Home Within will feature Syrian-born clarinetist and composer Kinan Azmeh and Syrian Armenian visual artist Kevork Mourad. Azmeh’s and Mourad’s bios on the Silkroad website read in part:

Hailed as a “virtuoso, intensely soulful” by The New York Times and “spellbinding” by The New Yorker. Syrian-born, Brooklyn-based genre-bending composer and clarinetist Kinan Azmeh has been touring the globe with great acclaim as a soloist, composer and improviser… He is a graduate of The Juilliard School, the Damascus High Institute of Music, and Damascus University’s School of Electrical Engineering. Kinan holds a doctorate in music from the City University of New York.

Kevork Mourad was born in Kamechli, Syria. Of Armenian origin, he received an MFA from the Yerevan Institute of Fine Arts and now lives and works in New York. His past and current projects include the Cirène project with members of Brooklyn Rider at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the multimedia play Lost Spring (2015) with Anaïs Alexandra Tekerian, at the MuCEM, Gilgamesh (2003) and Home Within (2013) with Kinan Azmeh in Damascus and at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, among others…

In 2016, SPICE developed a study guide to accompany Art in a Time of Crisis, a conversation between Kinan Azmeh and Yo-Yo Ma about what it means to create art in the face of crisis and violence at home. The interview and study guide are recommended for music, social studies, and language arts courses at the high school level and above. Please note that neither the interview nor study guide delves into the specifics of the Syrian uprising in March 2011 and the Syrian Civil War.

The focusing questions in the study guide are:

What is the meaning of “crisis”?
What are some examples of times of crisis?
What are some ways to deal with crisis?
What role can art play during times of crisis?
What can an individual do to help facilitate change?

Silkroad Ensemble Musicians Yo-Yo Ma (cello), Haruka Fujii (percussion), and Kinan Azmeh (clarinet)

I believe that comments from Kinan Azmeh and Yo-Yo Ma can inspire youth to consider the importance of these questions in their lives and the relevance of these questions to the events unfolding in the world today and to consider art as a form of soft power. I admire how they seek to empower and offer youth hope. During a segment of the interview, Yo-Yo Ma asks,

… I think [Leonard] Bernstein was once asked, ‘What do you do in the face of violence?’ I think his response was that you just continue to create even more passionately. Would you agree with that?

Kinan Azmeh replied, “Absolutely. But... the first thing on your mind is not ‘Let me create beauty.’ I think creating beauty or whatever moves people [is] the side effect of you being passionately involved in doing what you’re doing.” After students view the interview, I wonder how they might reply to Yo-Yo Ma’s question.

[1] Silkroad; https://www.silkroad.org/about [access date: March 22, 2022]