Stanford University

Negotiation

A Proposal to Transform the Basque Conflict

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The President of the Basque Autonomous Community will discuss his "Road Map to bring an end to the Basque Conflict," including his offer of a political agreement already made to Madrid, based on a rejection of violence and an embrace of democratic principles and a Basque society plebiscite.

Synopsis

In a visit marked by controversy and protesting, President Ibarretxe clearly delivers his view on how the Basque country can establish sustainable human development. President Ibarretxe quickly stresses, however, that two challenges stand in the way of this goal. The first is securing peace from the violence of ETA, and the second is attaining political normalization through agreement with Spain. Citing dialogue as key, he explains that this conflict, lasting since the 19th century, must be resolved through political and democratic means based on the principle of self-determination. President Ibarretxe sets out the history of the Basque people, possibly the oldest in Europe, while revealing its openness to universal art and culture, as well as the Basque region’s top level social welfare. The Basque country, which has been ranked third in the UN’s Human Development Index, places emphasis on identity and innovation in striving forward. President Ibarretxe explains that 30 years after the 1979 Basque statute of autonomy, a clear majority demand a new framework for relations with Spain.

Therefore, President Ibarretxe reveals the “roadmap” he has formulated for the Basque country to achieve political normalization, as he puts it. His approach begins with four preliminary considerations. The first consideration is that the problems of the violence of ETA should not be confused with the political conflict between the Basque government and Spain. Secondly, President Ibarretxe argues that a key prerequisite to any solution is that the violence of ETA ceases immediately regardless of the state of the political conflict. Thirdly, stressing the importance of a necessary maxim to be used as a point of reference in the struggle for justice, President Ibarretxe emphasizes the defense of human rights without exception as fundamental to success. The fourth consideration that President Ibarretxe puts forward is that the right to self-determination is central to adopting a solution.

However, President Ibarretxe’s “roadmap” also offers concrete action through five specific steps. The five-step process begins with an offer of a political agreement based on ethics and democracy to Spain, something which President Ibarretxe has already extended to the Spanish government. Subsequently, President Ibarretxe offers a plenary session of the Basque parliament to either ratify any agreement reached with the Spanish government and call for a popular vote for Basque society to ratify the agreement as well or call for a popular vote to break a deadlock in the negotiation process. After the popular vote, President Ibarretxe reveals further negotiations will follow to end the violence of ETA and establish a new framework for Basque political parties to work under. Finally, President Ibarretxe offers a referendum in 2010 for the Basque people to vote on the result of this process. In concluding his talk, President Ibarretxe calls for any steps forward to be centered around “dialogue, democratic respect, and the liberty to decide.”

President Ibarretxe kindly takes the time to answer numerous questions on a variety of challenging issues. This question-and-answer session, where the questions are asked in English and President Ibarretxe replies in Spanish, is included in the recording. Unfortunately however, the translation of President Ibarretxe's responses cannot really be heard.

Frances C. Arrillaga Alumni Center

Juan Jose Ibarretxe President of the Basque Government Speaker
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Phillip Lipscy

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Former Thomas Rohlen Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Former Assistant Professor of Political Science
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PhD

Phillip Y. Lipscy was the Thomas Rohlen Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University until August 2019. His fields of research include international and comparative political economy, international security, and the politics of East Asia, particularly Japan.

Lipscy’s book from Cambridge University Press, Renegotiating the World Order: Institutional Change in International Relations, examines how countries seek greater international influence by reforming or creating international organizations. His research addresses a wide range of substantive topics such as international cooperation, the politics of energy, the politics of financial crises, the use of secrecy in international policy making, and the effect of domestic politics on trade. He has also published extensively on Japanese politics and foreign policy.

Lipscy obtained his PhD in political science at Harvard University. He received his MA in international policy studies and BA in economics and political science at Stanford University. Lipscy has been affiliated with the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies and Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, the Institute of Social Science at the University of Tokyo, the Institute for Global and International Studies at George Washington University, the RAND Corporation, and the Institute for International Policy Studies.

For additional information such as C.V., publications, and working papers, please visit Phillip Lipscy's homepage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summit: right idea at wrong time?

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Daniel C. Sneider
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The opportunity to engage Kim Jong-il, the leader of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK), in serious dialogue is inherently attractive. A face-to-face meeting with Kim has the potential to break through a fog of misperception and mistrust.

Given the nature of the DPRK system, the key decisions can only be made at the very top of the pyramid of power. One summit encounter is therefore potentially more valuable then scores of ministerial meetings or talks among senior officials.

These opportunities have unfortunately been extremely rare. Despite some 35 years of intermittent dialogue going back to the South-North talks held in 1972, this would mark only the second time the top leaders of divided Korea have met each other.

The hope for momentum created by the historic meeting of President Kim Dae-jung with Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang in June 2000 swiftly dissipated, disappointing many Koreans.

This may appear to be the right moment to restore the impetus to the North-South summitry. Since the 2000 summit, the process of engagement between the Koreas has deepened dramatically, ranging from extended contacts among officials to the flow of tourists, at least from the South to the North, across the border.

Economic exchanges are widespread, from the Gaeseong industrial park to a growing trade in goods. And the six-party talks to reach an agreement to dismantle the DPRK's nuclear program are at least moving forward, in large part due to the resumption of direct diplomatic negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington.

There are serious reasons, however, to question whether this is the right time for a second inter-Korean summit.

First and foremost, President Roh Moo-hyun is, in every sense of the word, a lame duck. When the summit was scheduled to take place, it was less than three months until the presidential election.

The election campaign is unusually uncertain, with the ruling party and its allies still in the process of selecting their nominee. Polls indicate that a change in leadership --bringing the opposition Grand National Party to power -- is very possible.

While he remains in office, President Roh has every right to exercise his authority and leadership. But given the political uncertainties, and the vital nature of inter-Korean relations, it would seem imperative to secure bipartisan support not only for the summit but also for the policy outcome.

For any gains to be meaningful, there should be some assurance that these policies will continue in place whomever succeeds as president.

Without that broad support, charges that the summit meeting is motivated more by domestic political considerations gain credence.

Even worse, Pyongyang's decision to agree to hold the summit may also be a crude attempt on its part to try to influence the ROK election in favor of the progressive camp. Even if these charges are not true, they undermine the value that this summit may have to shape a long-term future for the peninsula.

The timing of the summit is also problematic because the nuclear negotiations with the DPRK have reached a very delicate moment.

The temporary halt to the operation of the nuclear reactor at Yongbyon and the reintroduction of international inspectors was an important gesture.

But the DPRK has not yet clearly decided to irreversibly disable its nuclear facilities and fully disclose its nuclear programs and arsenals.

The Roh administration claims this summit will reinforce this negotiation. But it also has declared that the nuclear issue will not be on the summit agenda. In the absence of a dismantlement deal, this summit may only serve to recognize the DPRK's claim to the status of a nuclear power.

But all of these problems of timing take a back seat, in my view, to the location of the inter-Korean summit. Kim Jong-il committed himself, in the 2000 joint declaration, to a return visit to Seoul. This was not a trivial matter -- it was perhaps the most difficult issue in the talks, as Kim Dae-jung said upon return to Seoul.

Everyone understands the historic significance of a visit by Kim to Seoul. It would finally signal the DPRK's acceptance of the legitimacy of the ROK and its leadership and the abandonment of its historic aim to force unification under its banner.

The DPRK leadership would be compelled to show its own people images of their leader in the glittering streets of Seoul. That visit alone could go much farther than any peace declaration, any agreement on boundaries, any military confidence-building measures, or any economic investment deals, toward bringing a permanent peace to the Korean Peninsula.

If this summit had occurred in the right place, then the issues of timing would be incidental. No one could object to a breakthrough of that magnitude. Unfortunately, Kim Jong-il was not pressed to live up to his commitment. If this meeting achieves anything, it should make it clear that the next summit will only be held in Seoul.

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Protest and Repression in South Korea (1970-1979)

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Chang's presentation seeks to understand the emergence and evolution of social movements during the 1970s in South Korea. During the authoritarian years when Korea was ruled by Park Chung-Hee, various social groups participated in the movement to restore democracy and ensure human rights. Their activism was instrumental to democratic changes that took place in the summer of 1987 and they continued to play an important role even after democratic transition. Utilizing the novel Stanford Korea Democracy Project Datasets, Chang traces the increasing diversification of South Korea's democracy movement in the 1970s.

Chang is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the department of sociology at Stanford University. Chang's paper "Differential Impact of Repression on Social Movements" won the Robert McNamara Paper competition from the Association for the Sociology of Religion and the Goldsmith Paper Award from the Stanford Center on Conflict and Negotiation. He has published papers in Sociological Inquiry, Journal for Korean Studies, and Asian Perspective. Chang graduated from University of California, Santa Cruz where he double majored in psychology and religious studies. He received masters degrees in Sociology from both UCLA and Stanford University, and in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School.

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Paul Y. Chang Ph.D. candidate in sociology, Stanford University Speaker
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After 60 years, Pakistanis struggle to find right course

Authors
Rafiq Dossani
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Two countries with a common and ancient civilization, India and Pakistan, celebrated 60 years of independence from colonial rule this week. At the time of independence, both countries were in danger of collapsing from internal and external threats. This greatly influenced both countries' subsequent turn toward centralism - in India's case, statism, and in Pakistan's case, army rule.

For four decades, both statism and army rule seemed irreversible. This was despite failures across the board: In both countries, territory was lost and the economy stagnated. Resources were spent on developing nuclear weaponry and on dealing with the Kashmir insurgency, which was fostered by Pakistan and repressed by India. What was left was often wasted through corruption. By 1990, it was common for Pakistan to be labeled a failed state and India, perhaps more damningly, a failed democracy.

Pakistan's army and feudal landlords, who shared political power via an informal coalition throughout the first 40 years, deserve most of the blame for Pakistan's failures. They carved up the economy among themselves, and let the poor survive by growing food and providing simple services to the rich. India's greater failures hid these strategies from national or global attention. Pakistan even overtook India for a while until Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's nationalizations of the 1970s brought them on par again.

Pakistan, a day older than India, but with an even younger population, seems to have aged more poorly over the past two decades. As the Indian economy picks up speed on the back of the 1991 reforms, India is on its way to becoming a global player in services and acquiring as formidable a reputation as China for job creation. The IT sector alone creates three new jobs every minute of each working day. In the four statistics that really matter - literacy, life expectancy, infant mortality rates and the female-to-male ratio - only in the last does Pakistan perform better than India and that, too, marginally. In the others, it is substantially worse.

There is no single reason for Pakistan's poorer performance. It turned as reformist as India in the 1990s. This has benefited some parts of its economy. For instance, the country adds over 2.5 million new cell phone users each month, or 1 for every second of the day. Though below India's rate of 2.7 new cell phone users per second, it is a much better ratio to the population.

Religious fervor is often accused, but has not - in either the subcontinent's history or in Pakistan's shorter one - been a barrier to development. Despite incidents such as led to the recent siege of the Red Mosque in Islamabad, theocratic parties have never received more than 15 percent of the popular vote - and that was three decades ago. Evidence within all the countries of South Asia provides proof of the proposition that the poor, regardless of faith or ethnicity, seek the means of development, particularly the acquisition of education. Muslims are no exception to this proposition. For instance, the first administrative district to reach 100 percent literacy in the subcontinent was the Muslim-majority district of Malappuram in the Indian state of Kerala.

Finally, one cannot simply blame performance on Pakistan not being a full democracy. The world abounds with more failed than successful democracies, while China provides the most stunning counterexample of a successful dictatorship. Pakistan's current state of governance - in which the military, the courts and parliament share power and the press is relatively free - has been achieved through decades of negotiation and may well be the best framework given its current stage of political maturity.

Yet, there is one difference that may be the real reason for Pakistan's backwardness, and it is now becoming evident - again, by comparison with India. It is linked to bad governance but does not always follow from the democratic tradition. The difference is, in a word, freedom. India provides a good example: The government used to decide how resources were spent, leaving citizens with few choices on careers, education and lifestyles - on participation in their nation's growth. Since the 1990s, the Indian state has worked hard to give its citizens more freedom. The result is an invigorated India.

Pakistan, meanwhile, has moved slowly on freedom. The state has withdrawn from the economy, but now grants favors selectively to the private sector, with the inevitable corollary of massive corruption and loss of freedom of action.

This suggests that Pakistan is only a crucial freedom step away from success. In reality, the immediate future does not look promising because the country's citizens do not have the political will to achieve real change. It is a sad commentary that Pakistan's choices for the next cycle of political rule look like bad ones: the continuation of the present system of quasi-military rule or its replacement with the destructive feudal forces that Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif represent. Surely, Pakistan's citizens deserve much better - something worth pondering as their nation celebrates turning 60.

Reprinted with permission by The San Jose Mercury News.

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Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation (SCICN)

The Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation is an interdisciplinary center for the study of international and intergroup conflict and negotiation. Our primary foci are:

  • The identification and analysis of the barriers - strategic, psychological, legal, and structural - to management or resolution of conflict.

  • The development of strategies to overcome these barriers.

    • New U.S.-India Nuclear Agreement Delayed: Indefinitely?

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    There have been serious disagreements between India and the United States in negotiation of the proposed nuclear-cooperation agreement between the two countries described at this website on Dec. 20, 2006 and Jan. 17, 2007. Our December article reported the President George W. Bush administration's hope of submitting a final agreement with India to the international Nuclear Suppliers' Group for approval at the Group's April meeting this year, 2007. That hope was not achieved. Indeed, India's objections to provisions of the U.S.-drafted agreement designed to meet Congressional requirements have raised questions as to whether a U.S. nuclear agreement with India that meets Congressional requirements is likely. Given the new Democratic majority in the House and Senate, achieving acceptance by Congress in 2007 or 2008 of an agreement with India that satisfies the statute adopted in 2006 by a Republican-controlled Congress seems unlikely.

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    The Second Korea-U.S. West Coast Strategic Forum

    The success of the 6-party negotiations has changed the dynamic of the situation in the Korean peninsula. How do we assess the status of the talks? What are the prospects for U.S.-DPRK relations? And what is the trend in inter-Korean relations?

    The ROK-US alliance is undergoing rapid change, symbolized by the decision to change the combined command structure in 2012 and the redeployment of U.S. troops. Both countries are heading toward important president elections and coping with strategic challenges in the world. How should we think about the role of the alliance as we look toward the future?

    What are the long-term trends in Northeast Asia? How will the rise of China as an economic power and the economic recovery of Japan impact the region? What is the role of Korea in the strategic architecture of Northeast Asia? How does the region fit into U.S. strategic priorities?

    In this second forum, current developments in North Korea, the future of the alliance, and strategic vision for Northeast Asia will be discussed.

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    CISAC scholar leads newly endowed, expanded International Policy Studies program

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    Starting next fall, Stanford's 25-year-old International Policy Studies (IPS) master's program will double in length and expand its interdisciplinary scope to train a new generation of graduates prepared for careers in international policy-making and advocacy.

    The two-year program is named in honor of Susan Ford Dorsey, president of the Sand Hill Foundation, who has made a gift of $7.5 million, which has been matched by university funds to create a $15 million endowment. According to program Director Stephen J. Stedman, the funding will be used to better integrate the program into the university's international policy research centers, increase access to courses in the law and business schools, use more full-time faculty to teach classes and introduce a practicum that involves solving real-world problems.

    Ford Dorsey's endowment fulfills one of the key priorities of Stanford's International Initiative, according to Stedman, which is to address global problems by leveraging the university's cross-disciplinary and collaborative research and teaching. Ford Dorsey and her husband, Mike, serve on volunteer committees of The Stanford Challenge, which is seeking to raise $4.3 billion in a broad effort to expand the university's role in addressing global challenges and educating the next generation of leaders.

    Stedman, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), was asked to lead the program because he has experience in both academic and policy work. In 2003, Stedman served as research director of the U.N. High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, which former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan established to analyze global security threats and propose reforms to the international system. Upon completion of the panel's report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility, Annan asked Stedman to stay on as a special adviser to help get support in implementing the panel's recommendations. Following the U.N. world leaders' summit in September 2005, during which more than 175 heads of state agreed upon a global security agenda developed from the panel's work, Stedman returned to the Center for International Security and Cooperation at FSI.

    According to Stedman, the revamped curriculum will give students the skills to understand the complex connections between poverty, deadly infectious disease, environmental degradation, resource depletion, food insecurity, interstate conflict, civil war, nuclear proliferation and terrorism.

    "In a world where problems cross borders and disciplines, where threats that were previously thought to be independent are found to be interconnected, where distinctions between what is domestic policy and what is foreign policy are becoming more and more tenuous, students need training and perspective to break down disciplinary silos," Stedman says in a statement on the program's website. "They need the tools and dexterity to work across issue areas and in diverse policy arenas. They need to see connections that others miss, and be able to describe and explain those connections so that others will then see them too."

    The program, which will be jointly administered by the School of Humanities and Sciences and FSI, will continue to admit about 30 students a year, with up to half coming from outside the United States. Students are required to have taken prerequisite courses in economics and statistics, and to speak a foreign language.

    At a Feb. 7 dinner celebrating the newly endowed program, Gareth Evans, president of the International Crisis Group and a member of the U.N. High-Level Panel, talked about the need to "make idealism realistic" and discussed the concept of a state's "responsibility to protect" civilians as a new international norm. "In just five years, which is short in the history of ideas, a brand new historical norm" was introduced and recognized by much of the international community, he said. "This was a historic breakthrough. It should reinvigorate our belief in the art of the possible." Concerning the Ford Dorsey IPS program, Evans said, "When it comes to making idealism realistic  there really could be no better place anywhere in the world that this new master's program at Stanford."

    The incoming fall cohort of IPS students will study writing and rhetoric and international economics. They will take core courses in Issues in International Policies, which introduces Stanford's policy research centers and provides analyses of current global issues, and Managing Global Complexity, which teaches concepts and theories of international relations while focusing on issues with competing policy concerns. "The goal is to understand that much of what we study today is marked by trade-offs among various goods that we seek to promote," Stedman says in the statement. "Globalization and interdependence creates opportunities for creative solutions to problems, while sometimes creating negative unintended consequences for policy solutions."

    IPS students will take a "gateway" course before selecting a concentration during the second year. These specialized fields include democracy, development and the rule of law; energy, environment and natural resources; global health; global justice; international negotiation and conflict management; international political economy; and international security and cooperation. Finally, students will complete a small group practicum in which they will be required to develop solutions to current global problems.

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