Consider the paradox: Singapore's economy is well developed, yet civil society in the city-state has failed to generate significant pressure for greater openness and more democracy. Nor does Singapore appear to have been affected by the ?Third Wave? of democratization that has swept other parts of the world. Scholars have tried to account for the conundrum by noting the deterrent effect of extensive state power, including the Internal Security Act (ISA), which allows for detention without trial. The state in Singapore has been likened to a large banyan tree whose omnipresent foliage casts shadows so wide and deep that no other organisms can take root or grow.

In her talk, Prof. Kadir will challenge this explanation as overdrawn. She will question the extent to which the Sinagpore state has remained immune from societal pressures, and explore the increasingly complex dynamics of society-state interaction. Based on a review of different civil-society actors and actions, she will highlight two modes in which social groups are proactive toward the state: by engaging it through interest advocacy, and by resisting it through efforts to protect their own autonomous space. The conventional wisdom is partly correct: Civil society does suffer the stunting shadows of the banyan tree. Yet social pressures are being felt. Ironically, some of these pressures, far from undermining the state, have helped it to remain strong.

Suzaina Kadir, currently a fellow at the Asia Research Institute in Singapore, is writing a book on state power and religious authority in Indonesia.

Drell Lecture Recording: NA

Drell Lecture Transcript: 

Speaker's Biography: Richard Garwin is IBM Fellow Emeritus at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York. After three years on the faculty of the University of Chicago, he joined IBM Corporation in 1952, and was until June 1993 IBM Fellow at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York; Adjunct Research Fellow in the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; and Adjunct Professor of Physics at Columbia University. In addition, he is a consultant to the U.S. government on matters of military technology, arms control, etc. He has been Director of the IBM Watson Laboratory, Director of Applied Research at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, and a member of the IBM Corporate Technical Committee. He has also been Professor of Public Policy in the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. From 1994 to 2004 he was Philip D. Reed Senior Fellow for Science and Technology at the Council on Foreign Relations, New York.

He has made contributions in the design of nuclear weapons, in instruments and electronics for research in nuclear and low-temperature physics, in the establishment of the nonconservation of parity and the demonstration of some of its striking consequences, in computer elements and systems, including superconducting devices, in communication systems, in the behavior of solid helium, in the detection of gravitational radiation, and in military technology. He has published more than 500 papers and been granted 45 U.S. patents. He has testified to many Congressional committees on matters involving national security, transportation, energy policy and technology, and the like. He is coauthor of many books, among them Nuclear Weapons and World Politics (1977), Nuclear Power Issues and Choices (1977), Energy: The Next Twenty Years (1979), Science Advice to the President (1980), Managing the Plutonium Surplus: Applications and Technical Options (1994), Feux Follets et Champignons Nucleaires (1997) (in French with Georges Charpak), and Megawatts and Megatons: A Turning Point in the Nuclear Age? (2001) (with Georges Charpak).

He was a member of the President's Science Advisory Committee 1962-65 and 1969-72, and of the Defense Science Board 1966-69. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, of the IEEE, and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, the National Academy of Engineering, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the American Philosophical Society. In 2002 he was elected again to the Council of the National Academy of Sciences.

His work for the government has included studies on antisubmarine warfare, new technologies in health care, sensor systems, military and civil aircraft, and satellite and strategic systems, from the point of view of improving such systems as well as assessing existing capabilities. For example, he contributed to the first U.S. photographic reconnaissance satellite program, CORONA, that returned 3 million feet of film from almost 100 successful flights 1960-1972.

He has been a member of the Scientific Advisory Group to the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff and was in 1998 a Commissioner on the 9-person "Rumsfeld" Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States. From 1993 to August 2001, he chaired the Arms Control and Nonproliferation Advisory Board of the Department of State. On the 40th anniversary of the founding of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) he was recognized as one of the ten Founders of National Reconnaissance. In June, 2002, he was awarded la Grande Medaille de l'Academie des Sciences (France)-2002.

Daniel Scheinman is the senior vice president of Corporate Development at Cisco Systems. He is responsible for business development, strategic alliances, strategic technology policy, and corporate public relations. As head of corporate development, his role has grown to include responsibility for mergers and acquisitions, strategy, major partnerships and alliances, and advanced Internet projects. Dan, who joined Cisco in 1992, was a founder of the company's legal and government affairs departments. Dan is responsible for leading the company's acquisition and strategic partnership strategies. Cisco's acquisition strategy is among the most acclaimed in the industry and has resulted in the company's successful entry into several new arenas. Over the past ten years with Cisco, Dan has worked with organizations around the world to help redefine the way public and private sectors work together. He has helped facilitate an ongoing dialogue between government and private sector leaders about the Internet economy. A thought leader in the use of media within the corporate environment, Dan pioneered a Web-based multimedia news room called News@Cisco. In addition to his responsibilities at Cisco, Dan is a founding member of TechNet. TechNet's mission is to build bipartisan support for policies that strengthen America's leadership of the New Economy. The National Law Journal has named him one of the 100 most influential lawyers in the United States, and he is on the board of visitors at Duke University Law School. Dan holds a Juris Doctorate degree from Duke University Law School and a political science degree from Brandeis University.

Conflicting claims over Kashmir have been the main cause of hostility between India and Pakistan. The Kashmir dispute is complex. Although the area is predominantly Muslim, significant other religious minorities coexist in Indian Kashmir, while Pakistan Kashmir is linguistically divided from the rest of Kashmir. Nevertheless, both sides of the region are linked by common historical aspirations for a united Kashmir. India and Pakistan have fought several times over differences in their vision for Kashmir, which itself differs from the Kashmiri vision. During the late 1980s, an armed uprising in Indian Kashmir over independence resulted in the deaths of an estimated 60,000 people. A peaceable resolution should look at the region's history and culture even as it balances India and Pakistan's ambitions over Kashmir. It is not obvious, though, that such a resolution must be a "once-and-for-all-time" resolution or an agreed-to process without a committed timeline or, indeed, goals. The seminar will present and discuss these issues. Samina Ahmed is project director for South Asia at the International Crisis Group. She has worked previously as a research fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; the Institute of Regional Studies, Islamabad; and the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs, Karachi. Dr. Ahmed has a masters degree in international relations and a Ph.D. in political science from the Australian National University, Canberra. Dr. Ahmed is the author of several book chapters and articles in academic journals and the print media. Her publications include ?The United States and Terrorism in Southwest Asia: September 11 and Beyond,? International Security, Vol. 26, (Winter 2001/2002); ?Pakistan: Professionalism of an Interventionist Military? in Muthiah Alagappa, ed., Military Professionalism in Asia: Conceptual and Empirical Perspectives (Honolulu: East-West Center, University of Hawaii, 2001), and a co-edited book.

India?s national elections for its 14th parliament must take place by October 2004, and will probably happen by April. They will be held in the context of a new environment for the country: recognition of its nuclear capability, a new global order post 9/11, and its rising economic power. Yet many parts of the country still have very low levels of social development. Social divisiveness also continues to threaten civic stability. In the context of these opportunities and challenges, this seminar will discuss the electoral strategies of the main political parties and likely outcomes. Professor Pradeep Chhibber studies party systems, party aggregation, and the politics of India. His research examines the relationship between social divisions and party competition and the conditions that lead to the emergence of national or regional parties in a nation-state. Professor Chhibber received an M.A. and an M.Phil. from the University of Delhi and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles. He is currently the Indo-American Community Chair in India Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Tea and samosas will be served.