This book focuses upon three core questions. Is democratic governance good for economic prosperity? Has this type of regime accelerated progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals, social welfare, and human development? Does it generate a peace-dividend and reduce conflict at home? This book advances the argument that both liberal democracy and governance capacity need to be strengthened in parallel for effective development, within the constraints posed by structural conditions. The argument is demonstrated using systematic evidence gathered from countries worldwide during recent decades and selected cases illustrating the effects of regime change on human security.
About the speaker:
Pippa Norris is the McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics at Harvard University and ARC Laureate Fellow and Professor of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. She is the author of a dozen related books published by Cambridge University Press, including Driving Democracy (2008) and Democratic Deficit (2011). Her contribution to the humanities and social science has been recognized most recently by the award of the 2011 Johann Skytte prize (with Inglehart) and the 2011 Kathleen Fitzpatrick Australian Laureate Fellowship.
CISAC Conference Room
Pippa Norris
McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics
Speaker
the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Francis Fukuyama is Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a faculty member of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). He is also Director of Stanford's Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy Program, and a professor (by courtesy) of Political Science.
Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on issues in development and international politics. His 1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man, has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. His most recent book, Liberalism and Its Discontents, was published in the spring of 2022.
Francis Fukuyama received his B.A. from Cornell University in classics, and his Ph.D. from Harvard in Political Science. He was a member of the Political Science Department of the RAND Corporation and of the Policy Planning Staff of the US Department of State. From 1996-2000 he was Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University, and from 2001-2010 he was Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. He served as a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics from 2001-2004.
Dr. Fukuyama holds honorary doctorates from Connecticut College, Doane College, Doshisha University (Japan), Kansai University (Japan), Aarhus University (Denmark), and the Pardee Rand Graduate School. He is a non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Rand Corporation, the Board of Trustees of Freedom House, and the Board of the Volcker Alliance. He is a fellow of the National Academy for Public Administration, a member of the American Political Science Association, and of the Council on Foreign Relations. He is married to Laura Holmgren and has three children.
(October 2024)
Global Populisms
A new project examining the global surge in populist movements and what it means for established democratic rules and institutions.
Education has provided the critical foundation for Asia’s rapid economic growth. However, in an increasingly globalized and digital world, higher education faces an array of new challenges. While the current strengths and weaknesses of educational systems across Asia differ considerably, they share many of the same fundamental challenges and dilemmas.
The fourth annual Stanford Kyoto Trans-Asian Dialogue examined challenges and opportunities in reforming higher education in Asia. At its core, the challenge facing every country is how to cultivate relatively immobile assets—national populations—to capture increasingly mobile jobs with transforming skill requirements. This raises fundamental questions about skills needed for fast-paced change, domestic inequality, the role of government, and choices of resource allocations.
Scholars and top-level administrators from Stanford University and universities across Asia, as well as policymakers, journalists, and business professionals, met in Kyoto on September 6 and 7, 2012, to discuss questions that address vital themes related to Asia’s higher education systems. These included:
Can higher education meet the challenges of economic transformations?
As skill requirements change with the increasing use of IT tools that enable manufacturing and service tasks to be broken apart and moved around, how can higher education systems cope? How can education systems address the increasing need for global coordination across languages and cultures? How can countries deal with demographic challenges, with developed countries facing overcapacity and developing countries with younger populations facing an undercapacity of educational resources?
How are higher education systems globalizing?
What are the strategies for the globalization of higher education itself? How are universities positioning themselves to attract top talent from around the world, and what are their relative successes in achieving this? What are the considerations when building university campuses abroad? Conversely, what are the issues surrounding allowing foreign universities to build within one’s own country?
How can higher education play a greater role in innovation?
What is the interplay between private and public institutions and research funding across countries, and what are the opportunities and constraints facing each? What is the role of national champion research initiatives? For developed East Asian countries, a focus on producing engineers raised the economic base, but many are discovering that they are still not at the leading edge of innovation. What are ways to address this dilemma? For developing countries, the challenge is how to improve basic education from the level of training basic factory workers to creating knowledge workers. How might this be accomplished? Is there room for a liberal arts college model?
What are the challenges and opportunities in reforming higher education?
What are effective ways of overcoming organizational inertia, policy impediments, and political processes that hinder reform? What are the debates and issues surrounding ownership, governance, and financing of higher education?
The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) established the Stanford Kyoto Trans-Asian Dialogue in 2009 to facilitate conversation about current Asia-Pacific issues with far-reaching global implications. Scholars from Stanford University and various Asian countries start each session of the two-day event with stimulating, brief presentations, which are followed by engaging, off-the-record discussion. Each Dialogue closes with a public symposium and reception, and a final report is published on the Shorenstein APARC website.
Previous Dialogues have brought together a diverse range of experts and opinion leaders from Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, India, Australia, and the United States. Participants have explored issues such as the global environmental and economic impacts of energy usage in Asia and the United States; the question of building an East Asian regional organization; and addressing the dramatic demographic shift that is taking place in Asia.
The annual Stanford Kyoto Trans-Asian Dialogue is made possible through the generosity of the City of Kyoto, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, and Yumi and Yasunori Kaneko.
Kyoto International Community House Event Hall
2-1 Torii-cho, Awataguchi,
Sakyo-ku Kyoto, 606-8536
JAPAN
The Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University is pleased to announce the 2013 class of undergraduate senior honors students.
Honors students will spend four quarters participating in research seminars to refine their proposed thesis topic, while working in consultation with a CDDRL faculty advisor to supervise their project. In September, the group will travel to Washington, D.C. for honors college where they will visit leading government and development organizations to witness policymaking in practice and consult with key decision-makers.
Please join CDDRL in congratulating the 2013 Senior Honors students and welcoming them to the Center.
Below are profiles of the nine honors students highlighting their academic interests, why they applied to CDDRL, and some fun facts.
Keith Calix
Keith Calix
Major: International Relations
Hometown: Astoria, NY
Thesis topic: What is the relationship between the coloured experience and youth involvement in gangsterism in Cape Town, South Africa?
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? Schools are one of the principal generators, justifiers and vehicles of radicalized thoughts, actions and identities. The challenge in a post-apartheid South Africa continues to be whether and how the roles, rules, social character and functioning of schools can reform to challenge the retrograde aspects of such formation and stimulate new forms of acknowledgement, social practice and acceptance. Ultimately, I hope my research will provide insight about how education reform can be used as a tool to promote democracy and improve human rights conditions.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? In many ways my personal and academic experiences have led me from a more general interest in education development to a more specific interest in post-apartheid education reform as a form of retrospective justice, the institutional, social and economic barriers to education reform, and understanding education reform as a means of promoting democracy and respect for human rights. Pursuing this in the work in the CDDRL community alongside talented and experienced faculty and students from a wide array of disciplines, interests, and experiences will ultimately enhance my understanding of development and one day, I can hopefully use these insights and experiences as a practitioner.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: Human rights lawyer/fieldwork in education development.
What are your summer research plans: During the summer I will be working on my thesis in Cape Town, South Africa.
Fun fact about yourself: I’ve recently appeared on Italian television for an interview, bungee jumped from the world’s highest commercial bridge, and rode an ostrich.
Vincent Chen
Vincent Chen
Major: Earth Systems & Economics
Hometown: Taipei, Taiwan
Thesis topic: How democratic and autocratic systems affect the formation and efficacy of their environmental policies.
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? As the importance of climate and energy issues continue to rise in the global political agenda, both developed and developing nations are in dire need to identify individually tailored policy routes for sustainable development. With a wide array of political systems across countries, my research aims to shed light on the difference of environmental policy creation between democratic and autocratic governments and hopefully provide real world applications for policy makers in charting the most appropriate development route. In particular, I hope to provide insights for developing democracies to leapfrog the environmental impacts associated with democratization and avoid mistakes mature democracies have committed in the past.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? My studies in environmental science ultimately manifested the important role social sciences play in solving our environmental challenges. In the center of this challenge lies the tricky balance between development and environmental stewardship. The CDDRL program serves as a great opportunity for me to explore the complex relationship between these concepts.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: Although I am interested in opportunities that span public, private and social sectors, I will definitely be working on issues pertaining to our environment.
What are your summer research plans: I will be spending my summer in Washington, DC with the climate and energy team of the United Nations Foundation, as well as conducting interviews for my research back home in Taiwan.
Fun fact about yourself: Spent five weeks on a uninhabited island the size of four square miles in the middle of the Pacific Ocean during my sophomore summer.
Holly Fetter
Holly Fetter
Major: Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (B.A.), Sociology (M.A.)
Hometown: Dallas, TX
Thesis topic: The influence of U.S. funding on the development of China's civil society
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? Organizations and individuals from the U.S. are eager to support democracy, development, and the rule of law in foreign countries. Through my research on the U.S. presence in China, I hope to understand how we can do this work more ethically and effectively. How can we avoid imposing our values and priorities onto a nation's bourgeoning civil society? How can we promote indigenous modes of fundraising and management training, thus avoiding any potential expressions of neo-imperialism?
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? I wanted a challenge, and I knew that writing an honors thesis in a foreign discipline would be a rewarding intellectual experience. The apparent support from faculty as well as the connections to experts on my topic were also enticing. And I'm looking forward to the big D.C. trip.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: I'd like to practice community lawyering in the U.S.
What are your summer research plans: I'll be in Beijing, China, interviewing folks at NGOs and grant-giving organizations, reading lots of books and articles, and eating good food.
Fun fact about yourself: I like to write and cause a ruckus, so I started a blog for Stanford activists called STATIC. You should check it out!
Imani Franklin
Imani Franklin
Major: International Relations
Hometown: Atlanta, GA
Thesis topic: How Western beauty standards impact the preference for lighter skin in the developing world, with case-studies of India, Nigeria, and Thailand
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? This question matters for global development, in part, because it is an issue of public health. Researchers have long associated high rates of eating disorders and other mental health issues among American women with their continuous exposure to Western media’s narrow image of beauty. Given the unprecedented globalization of this image of beauty throughout much of the developing world, are non-Western women experiencing similar psychological health problems? From findings on skin bleaching cream in Tanzania to the rise of bulimia in Fiji in the late 1990s, a growing body of research attributes harmful body-altering practices to increased exposure to American consumerist media. I want to assess whether this causal link stands under empirical scrutiny, and whether this relationship shifts in different regional contexts of the world.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? I am drawn to CDDRL’s honors program because of the intimate scholarly community of peers and mentors it provides. I believe this program will empower me to think more critically and scientifically about how one social issue impacts another.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: In the future, I hope to work with international policy to improve human rights protections in the Middle East and North Africa.
What are your summer research plans: I am currently studying Arabic in Jordan and will conduct primary research for my honors thesis in Amman.
Fun fact about yourself: In my free time, I enjoy learning the dance moves from High School Musical movies and attempting to make peach cobbler from scratch.
Mariah Halperin
Mariah Halperin
Major: History
Hometown: San Francisco, CA
Thesis topic: The development of democracy in Turkey under the Justice and Development Party (AKP)
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? Turkey has taken a unique path to democracy, beginning with Ataturk, yet many scholars worldwide have presented Turkey as a model for the rest of the Islamic world. The AKP, the party in power for the last decade, has in many ways changed the path Turkey had been on previously. With these changes and the recent uprisings in the Middle East, my thesis will hopefully speak to the viability of other countries following Turkey's example.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? The CDDRL undergraduate honors program is an amazing opportunity to deepen my studies of a topic that interests me so much. Working with a small group of dedicated, like-minded students will be a great way get feedback to develop and strengthen my thesis. Additionally, the outstanding faculty (and staff!) of the CDDRL are so supportive and eager to help students pursue their interests in any way they can.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: Either diplomacy or journalism in Turkey and the Middle East.
What are your summer research plans: I will be in Turkey for over two months this summer, conducting interviews with a wide range of people who can lend their perspective on my topic.
Fun fact about yourself: I am an extreme San Francisco Giants baseball fan.
Thomas Alan Hendee
Thomas Alan Hendee
Major: Human Biology
Hometown: Sao Paulo, Brazil / Grand Rapids, Michigan
Thesis topic: I will be looking at the social determinants of health in Brazilian informal settlements and how they affect child health.
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? By 2050, seventy-percent of the world will be living in cities, and the World Bank estimates that 32.7% of urban dwellers in developing regions will be living in slums. These informal urban settlements pose a significant problem for economic development, governance, and public health.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? This program will allow me to spend my last year engrossed in a topic of interest, and put my Brazilian heritage and Portuguese language skills to academic use by adding to the dialogue of a field that I hope to enter. I look forward to being surrounded by a group of peers from whom I can learn, and at the same time have the chance to be mentored by some of Stanford’s most renowned faculty.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: I am still debating if medical school is a part of my future; however, I am confident that I will be involved with some kind of internationally focused health work.
What are your summer research plans: I will be doing a tremendous amount of reading in order to get a better understanding of what has already been said; furthermore, I plan to perform as many Skype interviews as possible with involved individuals in Brazil.
Fun fact about yourself: In the summer of 2011, I spent one-week on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) participating in an ecotourism consulting job.
Lina Hidalgo
Lina Hidalgo
Major: Political Science
Hometown: Bogotá, Colombia
Thesis topic: What allowed citizen resistance to turn against the state in Egypt in 2011, but not in China.
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? I hope that my project will offer some hints as to why citizens faced with economic and social grievances fail to challenge - through their protests - the state structure that perpetrates those grievances. This can provide a lens through which to study other developing societies that fail to rise against oppression.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? I have been able to see development challenges firsthand growing up and am honored to have the opportunity to learn from experts in the Center about the ideas and approaches taken to tackle these issues.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: I hope to learn more about development challenges globally by working in the Middle East or Asia, and eventually help implement better development policy worldwide through an international organizations, government work, or activism.
What are your summer research plans: I will be in China interviewing factory workers about their perceptions of inequality and speak with scholars about the broader issues I plan to address in my thesis. I will then travel to Egypt to interview political party leaders about how they saw long-standing grievances translated into the political sphere.
Fun fact about yourself: I've broken my two front teeth.
Kabir Sawhney
Kabir Sawhney
Major: Management Science and Engineering
Hometown: Morristown, NJ
Thesis topic: The effect of regime type on a country’s propensity to default on its sovereign debt obligations.
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? The link between a country’s regime type and its sovereign debt is crucial to further understanding the differences in the choices democracies and autocracies make in regards to their sovereign debt. Debt itself is important, because sovereign debt crises can have many negative consequences, including setting economic development back many years in some countries.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? I took Professor Diamond and Professor Stoner-Weiss’ class in my sophomore year, and I really loved the course content and wanted to engage more with these topics. For my honors thesis, I really wanted to have an interdisciplinary experience, combining my interests in democracy and development with my academic focus in finance and financial markets, and the CDDRL program was a great place to do that.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: I’d like to work in financial markets; my long-term career goal is to one day run my own hedge fund with a mix of investment strategies.
What are your summer research plans: Since my thesis doesn’t require any field work, I’ll be working on refining my quantitative analysis and gathering relevant data from databases and other sources, to be able to carry out my analysis in earnest starting in fall quarter.
Fun fact about yourself: Cooking is one of my favorite hobbies! I like making all sorts of different kinds of foods, but my favorites have to be Thai, Indian and Chinese.
Anna Schickele
Anna Schickele
Major: Public Policy and Economics
Hometown: Davis, CA
Thesis topic: Determinants of farmer participation in agricultural development projects in rural Peru.
Why is this topic important to the field of democracy, development, and the rule of law? If non-governmental organizations are to implement successful development projects, they must figure out how to effectively engage would-be participants.
What attracted you to the CDDRL undergrad honors program? I'm attracted to the academic community. Though writing a thesis is a solitary activity, I hope the other students and I will support each other and form friendships as we go through the process together.
Future aspiration post-Stanford: I'd like to find a way to perfect my Spanish, improve my French, and maybe learn Arabic.
What are your summer research plans: I'll be in Peru at the end of August. If all goes well, I plan to make a second trip in December.
Fun fact about yourself: I've eaten alpaca, camel, guinea pig, and snails.
International Scholars in Residence at the Humanities Center 2012-2013
Distinguished scholars from Egypt, New Zealand, South Africa, and Turkey have been chosen as joint Stanford Humanities Center/FSI international visitors.
The Stanford Humanities Center and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) are pleased to announce that four international scholars have been chosen to come to Stanford in 2012-13 as part of a jointly sponsored international program entering its fourth year. Nominated by Stanford departments and research centers, the international scholars will be on campus for four-week residencies. They will have offices at the Humanities Center and will be affiliated with their nominating unit, the Humanities Center, and FSI.
A major purpose of the residencies is to bring high-profile international scholars into the intellectual life of the university, targeting scholars whose research and writing engage with the missions of both the Humanities Center and FSI.
The following scholars have been selected for the upcoming academic year:
Maha Abdel-Rahman (April 2013) is a Lecturer in Development Studies at the University of Cambridge, and an Egyptian academic and activist. She holds a PhD from the Dutch Institute of Social Studies. While at Stanford, she will research the relationship between social movements and civil society in Egypt, and will give seminars based on her book project, On Protest Movements and Uprisings: Egypt’s Permanent Revolution. She was nominated by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies.
Mohamed Adhikari (May 2013) is an Associate Professor in the Historical Studies Department at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Mohamed Adhikari (May 2013) is an Associate Professor in the Historical Studies Department at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He will explore the relationship between European settler colonialism and genocide in hunter-gatherer societies, and will bring to campus a comparative perspective on genocide, race, identity and language. His latest publication, The Anatomy of a South African Genocide: The Extermination of the Cape San Peoples (2010) was the first to deal with the topic of genocide in the South African context. He will also present from his edited book, Invariably Genocide?: When Hunter-gatherers and Commercial Stock Farmers Clash, due for publication in 2013. He was nominated by the Center for African Studies.
Nuray Mert (October 2012) is an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Istanbul University. She is a political observer and contributor to Turkey’s major newspapers (Milliyet and Hûrriyet Daily News), one of the few contemporary Turkish public intellectuals with an academic background and a journalist’s investigative mind. An outspoken critic on sensitive issues in the Turkish context such as rights of minorities (the Kurdish Question), freedom of religion and of press, she will lecture on the geopolitical implications of the Arab Spring for Turkey and the Middle East, and on Turkey’s accession to the European Union in light of the financial crisis of the Euro-zone. She was nominated by the Mediterranean Studies Forum.
Te Maire Tau (February 2013) is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.
Te Maire Tau (February 2013) is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. His work explores the role of myth in Maori culture, the resolution of boundaries between the Maori and the New Zealand government, and where tribal/indigenous knowledge systems fit within the wider philosophy of knowledge. During his residency, he will examine how Pacific peoples adapted western knowledge systems, not just with regard to western technology but in more theoretical areas such as the pre-Socratic philosophers and the 19th century scientists. He will also focus on the migration of traditions from the Tahitian-Marquesas Island group to the outer lying island of Polynesia (New Zealand, Hawaii). He was nominated by the Woods Institute for the Environment.
In addition to the jointly-sponsored program with FSI, the Humanities Center will also bring international visitors from France and India as part of the international programs at the Humanities Center.
Denis Lacorne (January 2013) is a prominent French public intellectual and Professor of Political Science at CERI (Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales) Sciences Po in Paris. Lacorne will give presentations on French and American notions of religious toleration, deriving from his latest book on US and French secularism which demonstrates that, despite some striking similarities between US secularism and French laïcité, the secularization of French society has followed a different path from that of American society. He was nominated by the French Culture Workshop, and the History Department.
Himanshu Prabha Ray (April 2013) is an historian of Ancient India at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, where she works in the fields of ancient India and maritime archaeology. During her residency, she will discuss and finalize her current book project, Return of the Buddha: Ancient symbols for modern India, as well as her research on the creation of a public discourse around Buddhism in the colonial and post-colonial period in India. The Buddha, in her account, is not statically located in history, but rather contested within settings of colonialism, post-colonialism and nation-building. She was nominated by the Classics Department, with the support of the Department of Religious Studies, the Center for South Asia, the Ho Center for Buddhist Studies, and the Archaeology Center.
While at Stanford, the scholars will offer informal seminars and public lectures and will also be available for consultations with interested faculty and students. For additional information, please contact Marie-Pierre Ulloa, mpulloa@stanford.edu.
In this session of the Shorenstein APARC Corporate Affiliate Visiting Fellows Research Presentations, the following will be presented:
Minoru Aosaki, "Banking System and Sovereign Risk in Japan"
After the financial crisis of 2008, European financial markets have experienced sharp increases of sovereign risk. This adversely affected the solvency of banking institutions as they suffered losses from their sovereign holdings and deterioration in their funding conditions. Meanwhile, Japan's sovereign market remained stable, but market participants were cautious as the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio is the highest in the world, and its banking sector holds as much as 44% of domestic sovereign debt. The question is how Japanese policy makers should address the sovereign risk in the banking system. In pursuit of this question, Aosaki compares the market environment in Japan and the Euro Area, examining the reasons banks hold sovereign bonds and the channels that connect sovereign risk with the banking system.
Prashant Pandya, "Cell-based Therapies -- Current Trends and Future Prospects"
Stem cells have been the subject of considerable excitement and debate over the last decade. Stem cell therapy is emerging as a potentially revolutionary new way to treat disease and injury, with wide-ranging medical benefits. Stem cell research provides the opportunity to advance our understanding of human biology and treatment of various diseases. In Pandya’s research, he shares his experience about major challenges related to the commercial development of stem cell therapies and key technology drivers. This research is based on consultations with several prestigious regulatory agencies—including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, European Medicines Agency, and Therapeutic Goods Administration of Australia—as well as interviews with 45 CEOs and senior scientists of large and small biotech companies and professors from leading universities across five countries. Pandya’s research reveals that there are many intriguing aspects of stem cells still remaining to be elucidated. Stem cells have the potential to treat an enormous range of diseases and conditions that plague millions of people and offer exciting promise for future therapies. But significant technical hurdles remain that will only be overcome through years of intensive research, and successful commercialization of cell-based therapies requires more than proving safety and efficacy to regulators. Ultimately the therapy must be commercially viable.
Ramnath Ramanathan, "Designing Toxicology Studies for Small Interfering Ribo Nucleic Acid"
The field of medicine has improved drastically over the period of time. Medical treatment has evolved from using plant extracts to chemical drugs to stem cell and gene therapies. Discovery of small interfering Ribo Nucleic Acid (siRNA) was one of the most important recent breakthroughs in the field of medicine. This was due to siRNA’s capability of posttranscriptional gene silencing by destruction of mRNA and thereby reducing the protein synthesis. Though the efficacy studies conducted in vitro and in animal models are promising, there have also been circumstances where there were adverse effects including mortality of animals treated with siRNA. Since RNA interference is a relatively new technique, it is very important to understand the toxicity involved before using it as a therapy. For this purpose, toxicology studies have to be designed in order to address all questions on the safety aspects of siRNA. In addition to the traditional toxicity studies, several other tests will have to be conducted. These additional studies will have to address issues specific to siRNA therapy such as immune activation, formation of tetraplex DNA, down regulation of non-target mRNA, interaction with cellular proteins, etc. Through Ramanathan’s work, he has designed a battery of toxicology studies to understand the side effects so that only relatively safe therapy is tried on humans during clinical trials. Ramanathan will present his findings.
In 2011 Yingluck Shinawatra became the 1st female prime minister of Thailand, the 3rd member of her family to become prime minister, and the 13th member of her extended family to gain a seat in parliament. Scholarship on family politics in advanced democracies has been scarce, perhaps because family politics are quasi-aristocratic and therefore do not align with the egalitarianism that informs democratic principles. What literature does exist tends to treat family politics in terms of political inheritance or occupational following, and as a legacy of the past that is certain to wane with modernization. When it comes to new democracies, in contrast, scholarship has been more abundant and has treated family politics in terms of corruption, “bossism,” hybridism, and closed games. Professor Ockey will discuss these differences and present some preliminary findings on the scope and nature of family politics in Thailand, drawing on a database of elected members of parliament since the overthrow of the absolute monarchy in 1932.
Jim Ockey is associate professor (reader) and coordinator in the Department of Political Science at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. He is an expert on Southeast Asian politics, with a particular focus on democratization in Thailand.
Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room
James Ockey
2012 Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Distinguished Fellow, APARC
Speaker
Stanford University
Seminars
Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Initiative on Southeast Asia
The Asia Pacific Observatory of Health Systems and Policies (APO) is a new regional initiative to promote evidence-based health policymaking in the Asia-Pacific region. The Observatory represents a unique partnership of governments, development agencies, and the research community working together to support policymakers to develop health systems that are equitable, efficient, responsive, and transparent.
At the Steering Committee meeting in Bangkok in late January, the appointed members of the APO Research Advisory Group met for the first time, including Karen Eggleston, director of Stanford’s Asia Health Policy Program.
The APO has prepared two Health Systems in Transition reports providing in-depth profiles of the health systems of the Philippines and Fiji. Additional country health system profiles and policy briefs will be published in 2012. The research and analysis generated by the Observatory is considered as a public good and is freely available at the APO website.
Asia-Pacific and global competitiveness; national innovation and technology policies; foreign R&D investment; strategy and organization design for transnational firms.
Professional Biography
Joseph L. C. Cheng joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) in 2012 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he is currently professor of international business and director of the CIC Center for Advanced Study in International Competitiveness. CIC (Committee on Institutional Cooperation) is the nation’s primer consortium of top-tier research universities in the Midwest, including the Big Ten Conference members and the University of Chicago.
During his time at Shorenstein APARC, Cheng will conduct research on the international competitiveness of multinational firms from the Asia-Pacific, with a focus on the JACKS countries (Japan, Australia, China, Korea, and Singapore). The project has two main objectives: (1) to identify the key competitive advantages of the JACKS countries both individually and collectively as a cluster of economies; and (2) to investigate how indigenous firms from the JACKS countries internationalize and leverage home-based advantages to enhance their competitiveness overseas. The research findings will be reported in a forthcoming book that Cheng is currently writing: Asia-Pacific and the JACKS Multinationals: Economics, Culture, and International Competitiveness.
Cheng is a consulting editor for the Journal of International Business Studies and senior editorial consultant to the European Journal of International Management. He is also a guest editor for an upcoming special issue of Long Range Planning on “China Business and International Competitiveness: Economics, Politics, and Technology.” Additionally, he currently serves or has served on the editorial boards of several other journals, including Management International Review, Journal of World Business, Organizational Dynamics, and Journal of Engineering and Technology Management.
Cheng holds a PhD in business administration from the University of Michigan and a BS (with honors) in industrial engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
James Ockey is the Lee Kong Chian NUS-Stanford Distinguished Fellow on Contemporary Southeast Asia, and will be at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC) from January through March in 2012.
He is currently the coordinator of political science at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, where he is an associate professor (reader).
Ockey’s research interests cover many aspects of Thai politics, including democratization, civil-military relations, electoral politics, and political conflict. While at Shorenstein APARC he will be working on the manuscript for a book project, tentatively titled Trakun Kanmuang: Family Politics in Thailand. The book will analyze patterns of family relationships in the Thai parliament, outline the role of provincial political families in promoting or inhibiting the democratization process at local and national levels, and explore the place of political families in the social structures of provincial Thailand.
Ockey earned an MA and PhD in government at Cornell University, and a BA in political science from Brigham Young University.
Keith Calix
Vincent Chen
Holly Fetter
Imani Franklin
Mariah Halperin
Thomas Alan Hendee
Lina Hidalgo
Kabir Sawhney
Anna Schickele
Mohamed Adhikari (May 2013) is an Associate Professor in the Historical Studies Department at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Te Maire Tau (February 2013) is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.
