Scott Sagan has several pieces of advice for young scholars coming up in the field of international security: pick worthy opponents, pick and invest in worthy friends, recruit and promote independent-minded students. And always be open to debate.

“You remember your jobs, your tenure, you remember your first book when it comes out and you hold it in your hands,” Sagan told some 300 scholars and former CISAC honors students and fellows as he was named the 2013 Distinguished Scholar in International Security Studies by the International Studies Association.

“You remember the times when sometimes, remarkably, you feel like you’ve had some policy impact. But among the things that I will always remember is tonight, because getting this award is wonderful,” Sagan said during the ceremony in San Francisco.

Sagan, a political science professor and senior fellow at CISAC and FSI, was praised during the ISA event for his contributions to the study of nuclear nonproliferation and his mentorship of many students who count him as a pivotal person in their professional lives.

“Scott is a truly outstanding and remarkably unusual mentor,” said George Perkovich, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “One of the greatest ways for a scholar to affect the world is to mentor very talented young people. They may go on to be scholars or go into government or business or the news media – all of these enterprises that combine, in messy ways, to produce real-world action.”

Sagan – who founded the CISAC Honors Program in 2000 when he was co-director – is known on campus for his simulation classes and field trips to American battlefields. He has written nine books, dozens of articles and has been cited in thousands of publications related to nuclear nonproliferation and weapons of mass destruction, the development of first-use norms and the management of hazardous technology and South Asia.

  Scott literally changed my professional life." - Vipin NarangA panel discussion at the ISA’s annual convention – the largest gathering of security scholars in the world – was convened to give an overview of Sagan’s contributions to scholarship and teaching. It was at times political, at times moving – and at times felt like a roast, with plenty of ribbing about Sagan’s seemingly perfect hair and owl-eyed glasses.

“He has the most perfect hair of any senior scholar,” said Vipin Narang, a former CISAC honors student. “He used to have these round glasses, such that when I first saw him in 2000, I thought, `This is what Harry Pottery will look like in 40 years.’”

Peter D. Feaver, a professor of political science and public policy at Duke University, recalled the first time he met Sagan. He was a poor graduate student living on macaroni and cheese, flying back from a research trip when he passed Sagan in first class.

“As I walked down the aisle, I see out of the corner of my eye this very distinguished guy with flecks of gray hair, probably a movie star, sitting up in first class,” Feaver said. “I was feeling a bit sorry for myself, but then I said to myself, `But I’m pursuing the life of the mind and those people up there, they are crass materialists who are working in Hollywood or whatever.’”

Feaver, who worked in both the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, said it finally came to him that the distinguished gentleman in first class was Sagan.

“He graciously came back for a little while to give me some words of encouragement – and he’s been giving me words of encouragement from first class ever since.”

Past winners of the annual prize have included such notable scholars as Jack Snyder, Robert Jervis, Thomas Schelling and Sagan’s renown writing partner, Kenneth Waltz. Sagan and Waltz argue for and against nuclear nonproliferation, respectively, in their landmark book, “The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate.”

     We’re all involved in the same enterprise: trying to find truth and trying to make an impact.” - SaganNina Tannenwald, a senior lecturer in political science at Brown University whose work focuses on international institutions, norms and global security issues, said she and Sagan don’t always agree on policy, but that she rarely disagrees with his methods. She credits Sagan with making great contributions to nuclear nonproliferation norms.

“Scott’s interest in norms is reflected in his policy work and I want to talk here about his article, “The Case for No First Use,” which was published in Survival in 2009,” said Tannenwald, author of “The Nuclear Taboo” and currently a Franklin Fellow in the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation in the U.S. State Department.

“His argument about no first-use has been made in the past by others, but Scott’s contribution is to make a very sophisticated case that declaratory policy matters,” Tannenwald said. “Now realists of course think that declaratory policy is cheap talk. But Scott makes the very constructivist argument that declaratory policy matters for both military planning domestically and internationally.”

Other scholars who spoke in praise of Sagan included Charles Perrow, a professor emeritus in sociology at Yale University and Todd Sechser, an assistant professor of politics at University of Virginia, as well as handful of former Stanford students.

Narang, a Stanton nuclear fellow at CISAC this academic year, gave a a moving tribute to Scott’s role as mentor. He was a Stanford senior in 2000, majoring in chemical engineering and bored by his lab work, when he took one of Sagan’s classes.

The proverbial light bulb went off in his head.

“Scott literally changed my professional life,” said Narang, recruited by Sagan for the first CISAC honors class. He recalled how Sagan taught him how to write his thesis about India’s chemical weapons program using the classic social science method: find a puzzle, come up with a theory to solve it, establish alternative explanations – and then test it.

“I would have been an unhappy researcher in rural Pennsylvania playing with bacteria if not for Scott’s vision to found the honors programs and to take undergraduates and train them in a hands-on way about the social science process,” Narang said.

Today, Narang is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison focused on nuclear nonproliferation and South Asian security.

He said Sagan is know as “Scott Singh Sagan” in South Asia due to his pioneering book, “Inside Nuclear South Asia,” which is widely cited by Pakistani and Indian scholars.

“It has been probably the most foundational work in the study of South Asia nuclear weapons in the field,” Narang said. “And in addition to the scholarship and the influence he’s had on young scholars such as myself in this area, he has been responsible for bringing Indian and Pakistani military fellows to CISAC for sort of his own Track II discussions that have helped Indians and Pakistanis understand each other’s doctrines.”

Sagan, drawing the event to a close with his advice to young security scholars, said that choosing the right professional opponents and personal friends would impact their lives.

“Pick worthy opponents. Argue with them. Ken Waltz; what more worthy opponent to have?” Sagan said. “Pick and invest in worthy friends and some of the people who are the opponents intellectually will become the friends personally, because we’re all involved in the same enterprise: trying to find truth and trying to make an impact.”

The Program on Human Rights (PHR) at Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is looking forward to an exciting quarter with a continued focus on human trafficking and human rights education.  We encourage you to read our newsletter below to learn more about our exciting courses, research initiatives, and new staff on board for the spring quarter.  

Human Trafficking:

• • PHR Director Helen Stacy is co-teaching Human Trafficking: Historical, Legal, and Medical Perspectives, an interdisciplinary course that was developed over the last year in consultation with Faculty College. The course will explore all forms of human trafficking including labor and sex trafficking, child soldiers and organ harvesting. Professor Stacy’s office hours this quarter are Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2:30 – 4 p.m. at Encina Hall, room C148.

    

• • PHR has launched a new research project on human trafficking in Asia. The project started over spring break and was rolled out at Stanford’s campus in Beijing, China.  The new research project will focus on cross border trafficking between Burma, Thailand and China.  Look out for more news of this exciting new project in the weeks to come.

Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship:  PHR has selected four undergraduate fellows at Stanford who will complete internships this summer in Bihar, India (human trafficking education); Ahmedabad, India (the Self Employed Women’s Association-SEWA); Guatemala (KidsAlive International); and Amman, Jordan (Visualizing Justice).  The fellows are currently preparing for their summer positions. Look out for more details on our newest Human Rights Fellows next week!

Stanford Human Rights Education Inititative (SHREI), a partnership with International Comparative Area studies and Stanford Program in Inter-Cultural Education continues this quarter, with the community college fellows preparing their lesson plans.  This year’s topics are human trafficking and the media.  For more information please click here.

New Faces at PHR: The program is excited to welcome Jessie Brunner as the new PHR assistant, carrying out many of the tasks previously undertaken by Nadejda Marques, who departed PHR at the end of Winter quarter.  Following her undergraduate studies in journalism and Spanish at U.C. Berkeley, Brunner spent six years in the professional arena, first as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times and then in public relations/marketing for two nonprofit organizations.  She came to Stanford University this fall to undertake her master’s degree in international policy studies, concentrating in global justice. Her professional pursuits have long been coupled with passionate activism in the arenas of human rights advocacy, conflict resolution in Israel, and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and poverty reduction.  Brunner was an active participant in the winter quarter’s Sanela Diana Jenkins Human Rights Speaker Series: The International Criminal Court: The Next Decade.  Brunner recently returned from a study trip to Rwanda where she delved into issues of human rights, governance, and economic development through meetings with government officials, NGOs, and the business community.     

“The recent news of General Bosco Ntaganda’s surrender to the International Criminal Court where he is standing trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity certainly urges reflection on last quarter’s Sanela Diana Jenkins Human Rights Speaker Series, in which students and community members alike heard from renowned experts both within and outside the Court,” said Brunner.

Brunner can be contacted at jbrunner@stanford.edu.  She will hold office hours on Mondays and Wednesdays from 12 – 2 p.m. at Encina Hall, room C148.

For the latest in human rights news and to learn more about exciting events on campus, please follow us on Facebook.

We’re looking forward to engaging and interacting with you during the spring quarter!

China and India, neighboring countries and the undisputed global population giants, boast two of the world’s most rapidly growing economies.

With 1 billion-plus citizens and striking regional variation, both countries are racing to find policy solutions to two hallmarks of the demographic transformation under way in Asia: larger numbers of elderly citizens and decreasing fertility rates. How China and India resolve the challenge of supporting their elderly while maintaining economic advancement despite shrinking working-age cohorts will strongly shape their future and may provide valuable lessons for other developing countries, which will face similar issues in the coming decades.

This March, Stanford’s Asia Health Policy Program (AHPP) partnered with Harvard University to bring together experts from the United States and Asia for a results-oriented policy dialogue on the economic implications of aging in China and India. AHPP director Karen Eggleston describes the key issues in each country, and research findings presented during the conference, ranging from initial policy steps to the effects of gender inequality on aging.

Both China and India are rapidly developing countries with populations of over 1 billion. But there are also differences in the demographic landscape of each country, including the fact that China’s population is aging more rapidly. What can these countries learn from one another, and, what can we learn from their experience?

Since population aging shapes the future of almost everyone on this planet, and countries have experienced the process at different times and rates, there indeed is much that can be learned from other countries’ experiences. High-income countries began this demographic transition earlier. India and China are distinctive in that they together account for more than 1 in 3 people in the world, and are still developing countries. As a result of declining fertility, increasing life expectancy, and the progression of large cohorts to the older ages, both of them, like all other countries, have aging populations. 

The proportion of China’s population aged 60 and older is projected to grow from 13 percent today to 34 percent in 2050, as David Bloom and I noted in our call for papers for this conference. India’s 60-plus share is expected to increase from 8 percent to 19 percent over the same period. China’s total fertility rate began to fall much earlier and faster than India’s, and its life expectancy began to rise much earlier. As a result, China’s ratio of working-age to dependent population has recently peaked and will decline. In India, the ratio is still rising, and it will be several decades before the effect of population aging in lowering the ratio will be felt in a major way.

One might categorize India as “young Asia” and China as “maturing Asia,” as Sang-Hyop Lee of the University of Hawaii did in research presented at the conference. The challenge for India then is how to make the most of its current large cohorts in the working ages.

Demographic change can lead to a demographic dividend—a one-time boost in income per capita—when the working-age share of the population is relatively high, if that population is productively employed. Both countries will need to establish sustainable systems of old-age support to relieve the strains on the family support system, with that need more urgent in China. 

What are some of the policy steps the governments of China and India have already taken to help their countries adapt to the aging phenomenon? Why will they need to do more?

Both governments have begun to put in place policies to address various aspects of population aging, but both have considerable room to do more.

For example, health coverage remains limited in India; and although health coverage has improved dramatically in China, many people with chronic diseases like high blood pressure remain undiagnosed and untreated. India does not have health insurance or other medical cover for most of the population, although ambitious policy goals for universal coverage are being discussed. Indrani Gupta of the Institute of Economic Growth in Delhi shared research suggesting that fear of impoverishment from health expenditure results in the elderly in India foregoing medical care.

Some policies to improve old-age support, such as China’s new rural pension system, are so recent that little is known about their long-term effectiveness. During the conference, Bei Lu of the University of New South Wales and her colleagues discussed recommendations for strengthening China’s pension system.

The Brookings Institution’s Feng Wang and his colleagues shared new estimates of consumption and income by age in China. Their estimates for 2007 indicate a remarkably constant level of consumption across generations in China. On the one hand, this result could be considered a remarkable feat of intergenerational support, as Ronald Lee of University of California, Berkeley, pointed out at the conference. Even though the current elderly had much lower standards of living when they were working and limited opportunities for savings and investment, he said, they are nevertheless sharing in the higher level of consumption that their children and grandchildren are now enjoying.

On the other hand, relatively flat consumption by age could indicate a policy gap. National Transfer Account estimates show that consumption is fairly flat into old age for both China and India, compared to steeply increasing consumption by age in many higher-income countries like Japan or the United States, driven by large healthcare expenditures. The consumption profile by age in China and India suggests that many older adults may be foregoing the kind of medical care that those in higher-income countries regularly receive.

Another important policy arena is family planning. Demographers have long argued for China to relax its family planning policies. It is unclear whether the recent announcement of the merger of China’s Ministry of Health and its Family Planning Commission might bode relaxation (or even abandonment) of the unpopular “one child policy.”  

Indeed, almost all policies are inter-related with the phenomenon of population aging to some extent. For example, the current generation’s educational investments, financial burden, and labor market opportunities can benefit from improvements in old-age support and changes in the traditional pattern of support through co-residence (as research presented by Anjini Kochar and Ang Sun discussed for India and China, respectively). One interesting paper even explored the relationship between climate change and nutrient intake. Kimberly Singer Babiarz, Jeremy Goldhaber-Fiebert, and colleagues argue that as the Indian government develops policies to address climate change, it is important to consider how climate change will impact food insecurity—particularly through reductions in macro- and micronutrient intake—for different population groups, including the elderly.

Are there investments that can be made in childhood health and education that can help make a significant difference later?

Certainly. A growing body of evidence shows the importance of early life investments for life-long wellbeing. For example, Mark McGovern and colleagues presented research showing that early life conditions impact “frailty” in old age in China, and that size at birth in India is correlated with later health as well. As they note, investments in improved child health could have large pay-offs in terms of better health throughout the life course. Related research by David Bloom and colleagues showed how costly non-communicable diseases are for both China and India, and how some policies to prevent non-communicable diseases among children and young adults could provide large social and economic benefits. Moreover, improved educational attainment of young people can make them more productive and resilient, helping to offset the social and economic challenges associated with a smaller workforce. Some have suggested a “second demographic dividend” could arise for economies that invest sufficiently in their young people, encouraging education, savings, and investment.

What are some of the impacts of gender inequality on aging?

Gender inequality and population aging interact in several ways in India and China; these interactions were an important sub-theme for the conference discussions. While it is complicated to fully capture the resource allocations and power dynamics within households, new datasets are increasingly providing a window into these important dimensions. For example, research presented by Ajah Majal and colleagues using the Longitudinal Aging Study in India (LASI) data suggested the need to focus on female elderly and elderly residents in poorer states, and to use multi-dimensional approaches to assessing wellbeing. Similarly, Jinkook Lee and James P. Smith of the RAND Corporation use the LASI to study gender differences in late-life cognition. They note that greater access to education among girls and women could significantly reduce gender disparities in India, and that greater access to education will benefit not only those who receive the education directly, but also their parents and children.

David Weir of the University of Michigan and colleagues combined data from numerous sources to document large gender differences in human capital and in cognitive capacity of individuals that are now over age 50 in China and India. Elderly women lag particularly in cognitive capacities involving numbers, and in India more so than China, while gender gaps go beyond education.

China has made dramatic progress in reducing gender disparity in education, as James Smith emphasized. It is quite common for illiterate grandmothers—who themselves had many fewer opportunities than men—to have college-educated granddaughters with educational opportunities comparable to that of young men. Of course, both China and India are large and diverse countries, with significant regional differences in son preference and gender disparities, as well as large income and wealth disparities for both genders.

Revised papers from the conference will be considered for a special issue of a new academic periodical, the Journal of the Economics of Aging. The special issue will be co-edited by David Bloom (co-editor of the Journal of the Economics of Aging and professor of economics and demography at the Harvard School of Public Health) and Karen Eggleston (director, Asia Health Policy Program, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University).

Image: A Kashmiri boy touches the hand of his grandmother, November 2005. (REUTERS/Kimimasa Mayama Pictures)

Image: An elderly couple dances in a public park in Kunming, July 2005. (Flickr user maverick2003)

Nearly $370,000 has been awarded to Stanford researchers trying to improve conditions in some of the world’s poorest places.

The money comes from the Global Underdevelopment Action Fund, which was established four years ago by the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies to provide seed grants to faculty designing interdisciplinary research experiments.

“It’s money that we can deploy quickly and that we can use in a very flexible way,” says Stephen D. Krasner, deputy director of FSI and chair of the Action Fund awards committee. “We can target specific kinds of activity that we’re interested in — not just because we think the activities themselves are worthwhile, but because we think they can really contribute to the interdisciplinary community that we’re building at FSI.”

The 12 Action Fund grants range from projects with immediate social impact to those designed to build an academic foundation for future work. The seed grants provided by the fund often are the first steps toward a sustainable research project funded by other sources, as well. Krasner says the grants are also awarded in part to impact policy and help solve problems that benefit from a multifaceted approach.

One such project comes from Stephen P. Luby, a professor of medicine and new senior fellow at FSI and the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. His project aims to curb pollution from Bangladeshi brick kilns, which may seem like a strange topic for Luby, who studies infectious diseases. But by broadening the viewpoint, the issue is more complex than only replacing the kilns with more efficient models. Solving the problem requires an understanding of social pressures and government regulations as well.

“I’m interested in working with people who want to solve real problems,” Luby says, explaining what brought him to Stanford. “FSI collaboration can really convene the group.” The “intensely interdisciplinary” nature of the project made it perfect for FSI, he says.

“That kind of project can have a real impact on health,” says Krasner, who adds that interdisciplinary research is key. “It typifies the kind of work that we like to support with the Action Fund.”

Another project will study electricity in East Africa, headed by economics professor and FSI Senior Fellow Frank Wolak. Households powered by solar batteries are found throughout the region, but until recently it has been difficult to determine how the power is being used within the home. Wolak’s team will use iPad tools to track household appliance usage and investigate how households are making decisions about power consumption. The double-faceted approach will answer crucial questions related to the distribution and use of power in the developing area.

Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, co-director of FSI’s Center on International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and incoming director of FSI, was awarded an Action Fund grant to study refugee communities around the world. Cuéllar, a law professor, will focus on a renewed approach to refugee camps for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), at the U.N.’s request. In addition to Cuéllar’s background in law, the project will also employ students to help rethink camp logistics, architects focused on improving camp design and CISAC’s expertise in maintaining a collaboration with UNHCR.

In three previous rounds of funding since the Action Fund was established in 2010, $694,000 has been awarded to support 19 research projects.

Throughout the spring, past projects will be featured during Action Fund Fridays in Encina Hall. Topics will range from medical technology in India to poverty concerns in rural Africa. Events will be held at noon on March 22, April 26, May 10, May 24 and June 7. 

For more information, visit http://fsi.stanford.edu/events/series/2900 or contact Elena Cryst at 650.723.3369.

In the north Indian state of Rajasthan there are two neighboring districts named Jaipur and Ajmer, and if you traveled by bus from one to the other you would notice almost no difference between them. People in both cities speak the same language, have the same culture, and work in the same kinds of jobs. The demography of both regions is also extremely similar – both areas have roughly the same percentage of Hindus and Muslims, and members of high castes and low castes. Yet both of these cities responded very differently to a pair of events that occurred in the last several decades in India. 

In 1992 a mob of Hindu nationalists destroyed the Babri Mosque in the Indian city of Ayodhya. For years the Babri Mosque had attracted the ire of militant Hindu extremists, who believed that it had been built by Muslim invaders on the site of an ancient Hindu temple. The destruction of the mosque triggered massive Hindu-Muslim riots throughout India. In Jaipur, huge riots gripped the city and led to several deaths. In Ajmer, however, not a single individual was killed in religious rioting.

Flash forward a decade and a half. In 2008 the two cities became sites of another controversy, this time when huge clashes broke out over the Indian government's policy on reservations. In India, members of low castes and indigenous tribal groups are guaranteed a special number of reserved spots in higher education and government jobs, and controversy over the specific allotment in 2008 led to major protests in Rajasthan. This time, however, Ajmer was the city embroiled in serious violence whereas Jaipur remained peaceful.

In short: in Jaipur people fight over religion, and in Ajmer people fight over caste and tribal identities.

All individuals have multiple ethnic identities, and can presumably adopt different identities within different contexts. As the British historian Eric Hobsbawm once put it, someone named Mr. Patel could be an “Indian, a British citizen, a Hindu, a Gujarati-speaker, an ex-colonist from Kenya, [or] a member of a specific caste or kin-group...” Why is it, then, that people in Jaipur fight over religion whereas people in Ajmer fight about castes and tribes? Why do people choose one identity over another?

My research argues that the key factor driving patterns of ethnic conflict is history. The main reason why religion forms the foundation of ethnic conflict in Jaipur is because the state was controlled by a Hindu dynasty that brutally repressed Muslims. In Ajmer, on the other hand, British administrators who discriminated against low castes and tribal groups controlled the state. In Jaipur, this created religion as the main mode of ethnic identification, and everyone in the city today knows that religious identities are paramount. Right next door in Ajmer, however, a person's caste and tribal identity became salient, and everyone there today understands this fact. Historical legacies drive ethnic identification and, by extension, ethnic conflict.    

Determining why we see specific patterns of ethnic conflict is more than merely an academic exercise. First, not all forms of ethnic conflict are equal. In fact, there is a lot of evidence that conflict about language, for example, tends to be non-violent, but conflict about religion very often descends into bloodshed. Second, states have some ability to manipulate ethnic identity, so some policymakers are in the unfortunate position of having to actually prefer one kind of ethnic conflict to another. In India, any politician would prefer linguistic conflict because it will only lead to protests – but religious conflict will likely lead to rioting.

These facts should give pause to policymakers seeking to end ethnic bloodshed in any country around the world. Most major studies of ethnicity today assume that ethnic identities are fluid, constantly shifting, and easy to change. In many cases this may be true, but making this assumption with regards to conflict may end up being dangerous. Historical legacies in India have deeply embedded patterns of ethnic conflict in different regions. Those who wish to stop ethnic violence must first understand the history that lies behind it.

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Ajay Verghese, a Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow, joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center during the 2012–13 academic year from The George Washington University, where he received his PhD in political science in August 2012. His research interests are broadly centered on ethnicity, conflict, and South Asia.