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The Problems of Social Order and Violence in Latin America

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This talk was given during the Stanford's "Disruption: Challenges of a New Era" conference organized by Fundacion RAP,  in March 2017. Beatriz Magaloni, a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, presents results of her work on social order and violence in Latin America, with a focus on her research in Brazil and Mexico.

 

Production: Roger Winkelman, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford. 

 

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Ideas for ASEAN going forward

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The Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a coalition of 10 Southeast Asian countries formed to promote regional development and security, will mark its 50th anniversary this year. While ASEAN’s longevity is a cause for celebration, it also calls for creative introspection regarding what it can and should do, according to Southeast Asia Program Director Donald K. Emmerson.

“There is a lot that ASEAN cannot do in its present form, under its present leaders, and in presently China-challenged conditions. Yet no one could objectively scan ASEAN’s first fifty years and conclude that the organization has remained the same – once a cow, always a cow.

“Whatever ASEAN does become, its alternative futures should be considered now, carefully and creatively, while there is still time to prefer one scenario over the others and to follow up with steps that make it more likely,” he writes in a paper featured in the February edition of TRaNS: Trans-Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia.

ASEAN, he says, needs to reexamine its goals and consider new means to achieve them, to brainstorm better ways of protecting its region from external control, and to reevaluate the nature and efficacy of the “ASEAN Way,” including its self-paralyzing commitment to unanimity as a precondition for collective action.

That commitment has already been breached for economic policy arrangements that allow a “two-speed ASEAN” to exist, where for less developed members, deadlines for economic reform are postponed, while for all other members, the deadlines remain unchanged. So, why not adapt that idea to regional security initiatives as well?

According to Emmerson, the Southeast Asia region is being threatened by China’s efforts to control land features in the South China Sea for the purposes of projecting coercive power. China uses the ASEAN Way’s requirement of consensus by promising economic support to specific ASEAN members in hopes of coopting them into vetoing any move by ASEAN to counter China’s campaign in the South China Sea.

Abetting China’s expansion, he says, are the rival claims to maritime sovereignty by some of ASEAN’s own members. Their failure to settle their own disagreements precludes the bargaining power that a unified ASEAN might bring to the table in talks with China.

Emmerson, who addressed these matters at Stanford in March, argues that a more innovative ASEAN will lead to a more secure region.

Regarding the South China Sea, for example, ASEAN could encourage an effort by its four claimant members to settle their own differences first by drafting an ASEAN agreement, signing it and presenting it to China to sign as well. Even if China refuses, at least ASEAN would have established a common position among the ASEAN countries most directly concerned.

In the paper, he discusses several ways of restructuring ASEAN. They include:

  • ASEAN minus X: A subset of ASEAN members would move ahead on economic or security arrangements with the understanding that the remaining subset would join later.
  • ASEAN Pacific Alliance: ASEAN would work with Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru to create a coalition that would strengthen ASEAN’s trans-Pacific ties.
  • East Asia Summit (EAS): ASEAN would try to elevate this annual gathering of leaders, including China and the United States, into a capstone venue for cooperation on regional security.

Emmerson also urges outside observers to generate innovative policy proposals related to ASEAN and present them for discussion informally or in Track II dialogue formats.

“It’s time for ASEAN watchers to generate ideas for the grouping to consider, including initiatives that could be pursued by one, two or more member countries,” he said in a later interview. “The creative involvement of scholars, journalists, businesspeople and other analysts inside member states could socialize such proposals in local policy circles to make them better known and more feasible.”

In line with this vision, Emmerson is co-organizing a trilateral workshop on ASEAN reform, regional security, infrastructure building and economic regionalism. Hosted by the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) and planned for this fall, it will evaluate proposals on these topics generated or compiled by Shorenstein APARC’s Southeast Asia Program and U.S.-Asia Security Initiative; the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore; and the Strategic and Defense Studies Centre in Canberra. Details about the conference will be posted in the coming months.

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Flags of member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
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Reputation in the Anti-Abuse Regime

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Abstract: Recently, Twitter, Netflix, Spotify, Airbnb, Reddit, Etsy, SoundCloud, and The New York Times were knocked out by a botnet driven by the Mirai malware. Mirai is a contemporary case of a more general phenomenon: the illegitimate appropriation of online resources for prestige, economic, and/or political gain. Historically participants in the anti-abuse regime have used reputation indicators to characterize subsets of this illegitimate activity as abuse: any traffic---spam, malware communications, DDOS traffic---that is not explicitly consensual, is abusive. Participants in this regime use decentralized, transnational monitoring to aggregate and vet credible reputation indicators, then redistribute these indicators to participants enforcing anti-abuse norms. This work explains how these reputation indicators have functioned over the course of their evolution within this regime, from products of supposedly “vigilante blacklists” into credible mechanisms based on graduated sanction as a remediative signaling mechanism rather than a punitive sanction. Returning to Mirai, this work concludes by evaluating the potential for this regime to tackle contemporary IoT security challenges. In particular, can the anti-abuse regime discipline a market projected to grow from $900M in 2015 to $3.7B in 2020, or will it need help from conventional authorities?

About the Speaker: Jesse is the 2016-2017 Cybersecurity Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and holds a PhD in Technology, Management, and Policy from MIT.  Jesse focuses on understanding the institutions and political economy of Internet operations vis a vis conventional modes of domestic and inter-state governance mechanisms. This work includes studies on infrastructure resource management and policy, infrastructure security, credible knowledge assessment, and operational epistemic communities’ role informing public policy. Jesse’s dissertation evaluates the common resource management institutions that sustain the integrity and security of the Internet’s numbers and routing system. The dissertation documents how the roles of these institutions, comprising diverse transnational operator communities, managing the complex of physical and information resources supporting the integrity of global Internet connectivity. Concluding analyses narrow the focus from operational authority to the character of political authority in these communities, rooted in the family of consensus processes used to adapt resource policy and institutions apace with Internet growth and development.  Jesse is currently working on a number of papers from his dissertation: reputation and security in the numbers and routing system, contrasting consensus as a decision-making process with conventional mechanisms for credible knowledge assessment, and the challenges in comity between substantive-purposive authority in operational institutions with governments’ conventional, formal-legalistic modes of authority. Ongoing work is developing a theory of epistemic constructivism and case work on developing joint capabilities between operational security regimes and law enforcement/national security actors.

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Womenomics, the Workplace, and Women Final Report

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The Japan Program at Stanford’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), with the generous support of the United States-Japan Foundation and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, held a conference in November 2016 titled “Womenomics, the Workplace, and Women.” The report, which is an outcome of the conference, offers an analysis of the state of women’s leadership and work-life balance in Japan and the United States, and specific actions that Japanese government stakeholders, corporations, start-ups, and educational institutions can take to address gender inequality in Japan.

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Theories of Development and External State-Building

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Abstract: Both the academic and policy making worlds have been dominated by three explanations for development, understood broadly as democratization and rising levels of per capita income. The first argument is modernization theory which assumes that if polities are provided with adequate resources, especially investment, they will develop. The second argument is institutional capacity approaches which focus on the ability of the state to maintain order. The third argument is rational choice institutionalism which sees deveopment as a rare event resulting from the self interested calculations of elites.  Happenstance and path-dependence play major roles for rational choice instititoinalism. All three of these approaches suffer from major gaps. All three, however, are consistent with the view that external state-building efforts will only be successful if the objectives of external and internal elites are complmentary. This suggests that for most polities the best that external actors can accomplish is Good Enough Governance: security, some service provision, some economic growth.

About the Speaker: Stephen Krasner is the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations, the Senior Associate Dean for the Social Sciences, School of Humanities & Sciences, and the deputy director of FSI. A former director of CDDRL, Krasner is also an FSI senior fellow, and a fellow of the Hoover Institution.

From February 2005 to April 2007 he served as the Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department. While at the State Department, Krasner was a driving force behind foreign assistance reform designed to more effectively target American foreign aid. He was also involved in activities related to the promotion of good governance and democratic institutions around the world.

At CDDRL, Krasner was the coordinator of the Program on Sovereignty. His work has dealt primarily with sovereignty, American foreign policy, and the political determinants of international economic relations. Before coming to Stanford in 1981 he taught at Harvard University and UCLA. At Stanford, he was chair of the political science department from 1984 to 1991, and he served as the editor of International Organization from 1986 to 1992.

He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (1987-88) and at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2000-2001). In 2002 he served as director for governance and development at the National Security Council. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

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Stephen D. Krasner

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Stanford University
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Stanford, CA 94305-6055

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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Emeritus
Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations
Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Emeritus
krasner.jpg MA, PhD

Stephen Krasner is the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations. A former director of CDDRL, Krasner is also an FSI senior fellow, and a fellow of the Hoover Institution.

From February 2005 to April 2007 he served as the Director of Policy Planning at the US State Department. While at the State Department, Krasner was a driving force behind foreign assistance reform designed to more effectively target American foreign aid. He was also involved in activities related to the promotion of good governance and democratic institutions around the world.

At CDDRL, Krasner was the coordinator of the Program on Sovereignty. His work has dealt primarily with sovereignty, American foreign policy, and the political determinants of international economic relations. Before coming to Stanford in 1981 he taught at Harvard University and UCLA. At Stanford, he was chair of the political science department from 1984 to 1991, and he served as the editor of International Organization from 1986 to 1992.

He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (1987-88) and at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2000-2001). In 2002 he served as director for governance and development at the National Security Council. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

His major publications include Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investment and American Foreign Policy (1978), Structural Conflict: The Third World Against Global Liberalism (1985), Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy (1999), and How to Make Love to a Despot (2020). Publications he has edited include International Regimes (1983), Exploration and Contestation in the Study of World Politics (co-editor, 1999),  Problematic Sovereignty: Contested Rules and Political Possibilities (2001), and Power, the State, and Sovereignty: Essays on International Relations (2009). He received a BA in history from Cornell University, an MA in international affairs from Columbia University and a PhD in political science from Harvard.

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Stephen D. Krasner Professor of International Relations Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University
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Reflections on Journalism Across Asia

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Emerging technologies, stemming from the heart of Silicon Valley and extending to Asia and beyond, have pushed the bounds of how stories are told by journalists and the way in which readers interact with them. The Shorenstein Journalism Award, an annual prize given by the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), celebrates 15 years of recognizing distinguished journalists for their innovative and responsible journalism amid social and technological change.

The prize began with “the idea of a media award for a person who has the most significant impact on the relationship with Asia-Pacific nations in the United States,” according to Walter H. Shorenstein, who spoke about his twin interests of Asia and the press in a 2010 oral history project interview and was the benefactor after whom the center is named.

Shorenstein APARC and Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy jointly presented the award for six years. Shorenstein APARC has continued the initiative, and each year, brings the award winner to Stanford to talk with the broader campus community, and since 2011, has alternated between a recipient from the West, who has mainly addressed an American audience, and a recipient from Asia.

The prize seeks to inspire the next generation of U.S. journalists focused on Asia, as well as Asian journalists, who pave the way for press freedom in their countries.

Award winners have explored a multitude of topics over the years, from human rights in North Korea to the rise of democracy in Indonesia and from the U.S.-Japan alliance to gender equality in India. And this year adds an additional view on China; veteran journalist Ian Johnson will address religion and value systems in a panel discussion on May 1 with Xueguang Zhou, Stanford professor of sociology, and Orville Schell, director of the Asia Society's Center on U.S.-China Relations, moderated by Daniel C. Sneider, Shorenstein APARC associate director for research.

To mark the award’s tenure, Shorenstein APARC asked award alumni to answer the question, “What do you think the future holds for journalism in/about Asia?” Their responses are below.


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Asia is big, with 60 percent of the world's people and a third of its land. The conditions in which journalists work go to the extremes, from the longstanding establishment press of Japan or India to the blanket repression of it in Laos or China. But if there is one word to describe Asian journalism of the future, it is Youth. Creative, energetic young people, armed with connectivity, pack Internet cafes and journalism classes, where they can find them. Their interests are broad, they are open-minded and well informed. Western reporters will benefit from their guidance as colleagues.

Barbara Crossette is the U.N. correspondent for The Nation and a columnist for India Abroad. She received the Shorenstein Journalism Award in 2010.

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Journalism in Asia has had a long history of covering revolutions and wars. However, peace has reigned over Asia for near on 40 years. Yet, the peace and stability in Asia looks increasingly precarious. Asia too is not immune to populist nationalism. In this climate, Asia could yet again become the battleground for dislocation, revolution and war. Journalism, on top of reacting to potential crises, will be critical for proactively finding ways to prevent and defuse crises in the region.

Yoichi Funabashi is the chairman of the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation. He received the Shorenstein Journalism Award in 2015.

 

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The scope for independent journalism, checking the powers that be, is shrinking everywhere, not least in Asia. China's rise as a major political and commercial power will be a growing challenge to the freedom of the press. The best thing journalists writing about Asian affairs can do, especially those who are lucky enough to work for free and independent media, is to continue to write as honestly as they can, without bowing to political or commercial pressures. This very much includes pressures at home, in countries that still have liberal democratic institutions. Good journalism on Asia, or anywhere else, will continue to be produced as long as the critical spirit remains undaunted.

Ian Buruma is a writer and the Paul W. Williams Professor of Democracy, Human Rights, and Journalism at Bard College. He received the Shorenstein Journalism Award in 2008.

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The frontier in the battle for press freedom in Southeast Asia has moved into cyberspace, where independent voices have presented a new challenge to government control of information. In Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and newly open Myanmar, upstart websites and blogs have proliferated. But it hasn't taken long for those in charge to gain the upper hand, and following the example of China, all have found ways to bring these open forums under varying degrees of control, from censorship to harassment to prison terms. The flamboyant Philippines remains the exception, and the future there too has become uncertain.

Seth Mydans is a contributing writer for the New York Times. He received the Shorenstein Journalism Award in 2009.

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The United States tends to export its best and worst fashions elsewhere in the world. An example of the latter is President Trump’s tendency to denounce any media coverage he dislikes as “fake news.” The Chinese Communist Party has picked up on that trick, earlier this month using the “fake news” defense to deny a story that a human rights lawyer was tortured, a practice all too common in China. The implications are chilling for the Chinese domestic press and for foreign correspondents covering China. While our own president is denouncing us as “enemies of the people,” we can hardly expect the U.S. government to stand up for us when the intolerant regime in Beijing tries to muzzle our reporting.

Barbara Demick is the Los Angeles Times’ bureau chief in New York and was formerly bureau chief in Beijing and in Seoul. She is the author of Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea and Logavina Street: Life and death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood. She received the Shorenstein Journalism Award in 2012.

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In some parts of Asia, the space for freedom of expression has shrunk immensely and there are challenges for all of us covering sensitive issues in countries where journalists increasingly face the Computer Crime Act, censorship, tight space, intimidation and threats – moreover, they also continue to face authoritarian rulers’ unjustified clampdown and high-handed attitudes. Asia is complex – in some corners of our region, many diverse ethnic minorities live in conflict zones and in war without peace – for decades journalists travel there to report stories. But it is our job – isn’t it? Journalists here ought to tell stories and unearth many untold news to readers across Asia. While facing prison walls, threats and lawsuits, journalists also face media tycoons and cronies who want them to be a mouthpiece of commercial conglomerates – they must resist them. Commercial media kills independent journalism. Long before journalists in Asia realized that objectivity alone doesn’t work in Asia but courage, independent reporting and searching the truth are more important than ever before. Last but not least, Asia has the fastest growing economies in the world thus an independent media is needed to keep voices from Asia alive.

Aung Zaw is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Irrawaddy. He received the Shorenstein Journalism Award in 2013.

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Donald Trump is challenging many long-held, American consensus policies – including those toward Asia. Trade, diplomacy and security relationships between the United States and Asia – and among Asian nations – are now all in flux. The challenge for journalists on both sides of the Pacific will be sorting out the noise, understanding the concrete actions and reactions, and explaining the implications for a global audience. That mission will be made more difficult – and more vital – by the growing hostility toward journalism from many of the leaders unleashing this transformation.

Jacob Schlesinger is a senior Washington correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. He received the Shorenstein Journalism Award in 2014.

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I am very pessimistic about the ability of thoughtful and informative journalism to survive anywhere in the world given the gale force winds of state propaganda, commercial market pressure and "fake news" that now buffet it. And no where is such reporting more urgently needed than in regard to Asia where China's different value and political pose a stark challenge. To keep a well-informed public, we may well have to finally recognize here in the United States that good and independent reporting cannot be entirely a purely commercial process any more than are our great universities.

Orville Schell is the Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York, and former dean of the School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. He received the Shorenstein Journalism Award in 2003.

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I am very optimistic about the future of journalism in Asia because I am optimistic about the future of Asia writ large. I am especially optimistic about the future of journalism in China. Despite the dark days that my Chinese colleagues face today, there is no shortage of well-trained, hungry reporters in China who will ultimately help push China in a more positive direction. I think this is, to use the Chinese Communist Party's verbiage, "the historical trend." Just think about the scoops to be had when China begins to open the vast archives of the Chinese Communist Party? Obviously, this won't happen tomorrow, but I am confident that this day is less far off than it sometimes seems.

John Pomfret was a foreign correspondent with the Washington Post for many years. He is the author of The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China from 1776 to the Present. He received the Shorenstein Journalism Award in 2007.

 

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On the future of South Korea’s politics

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South Korea’s Constitutional Court upheld a parliamentary decision to impeach President Park Geun-hye on Friday. She becomes the country’s first democratically elected leader to be forcibly removed from power, following allegations of corruption that have incited widespread protests for months.
 
Gi-Wook Shin, director of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, answers some questions about the impact of Park’s impeachment and path ahead for South Korea.
 
What happens next?
 
The ruling declares that President Park is no longer president and that she must vacate Blue House, the official residence of the South Korean head of state. Indeed, she returned to the residence where she had lived before assuming the presidency. A presidential election will be held within 60 days, most likely on May 9. In the meantime, South Korean Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, who was appointed as acting president, will continue in that role until the election. 
 
The decision made by the court was only one part of the investigation into Park’s political scandals and alleged corruption. The verdict delivered on March 10 states that Park committed a grave violation of constitutional law. Park could still face charges for corruption and cronyism, as a separate legal process is ongoing, and she could be put into jail.
 
How are people in South Korea responding to the ruling so far?
 
Most people are accepting the ruling. The decision to confirm Park’s impeachment was largely expected. One noteworthy aspect of the ruling, though, was its unanimity – all eight judges on the court voted to confirm her impeachment. This collective stance aimed to message an agreement that ‘it’s time to move on’ and to minimize the potential for discord in government and society.
 
Following months of protests in Seoul, the reactions on the streets have been fairly restrained. However, there is a contingent that supported Park throughout the trial and they still refuse to accept the ruling. Park herself also expressed defiance, rather than accepting the verdict, reportedly saying, “It will take time, but the truth will eventually be revealed.” Political tensions will continue, perhaps even after the upcoming election.
 
What motivated the protests and impeachment process, and what does it represent?
 
Beyond the political scandals, the protests are more broadly an expression of popular discontent over a range of issues. Following two decades of rapid modernization, South Koreans are experiencing growing inequality, high youth unemployment, and fatigue over two presidential terms by conservative parties. Civic participation was a main driver behind the protests. The protests were large scale and prolonged but certainly not unusual for South Korea. Historically speaking, South Korea has a pattern of a strong state setting itself against a contentious civil society. As was evident in 2016-17, political parties, instead of addressing the issues and public opinion, were being led by the movements themselves.
 
The impeachment trial and civic activism represent neither a crisis of politics nor a crisis of democracy for South Korea. Rather, it shows that Korean democracy has progressed since it accelerated its democratic transition in the late 1980s. Throughout Park’s case, democratic procedures were followed by the National Assembly, special prosecutor and the Constitutional Court – and that’s a good sign. Nonetheless the real test for Korean democracy may yet have to come, as some supporters of Park and perhaps she herself have indicated that the verdict is unfair and unconstitutional. Going forward, I am still optimistic that these events will encourage the government to be more careful with exercise of power and more attentive to societal issues.
 
What are the main issues that the government now faces?
 
National unity and stability will be the main priorities of the next president of South Korea. He or she will have to find a way to bridge the deep divide between progressives and conservatives, and work on the issues that have motivated such wide unrest across the country. An orderly presidential election and transfer of power from the Park administration to the next are equally essential. The next president faces a unique circumstance, however, in that the new administration will begin its work the day following the election, without the typical transition period.
 
These events also underscore the limitations of the current single five-year term presidential system in South Korea. While the Korean presidency is still powerful, the current system has proved to be ineffective as the president becomes a 'lame duck' after 3 or 4 years into office, making it difficult to pursue any long-term policy agenda. Korea needs constitutional reform to enact a greater balance of power and policy continuity.

Read more about this topic in a paper featured in the academic journal Asian Survey and an analysis piece in The Diplomat by Gi-Wook Shin and Rennie J. Moon, or watch a video featuring a panel discussion from earlier this year.

 

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Activists of all ages gather in Seoul city center for a candlelight rally on Dec. 10, 2016.
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