Abstract:

     While the reelection of Taiwan’s president, Ma Ying-jeou, relieved concerns about an immediate deterioration in cross-Strait relations, the future of ties between Beijing and Taipei remain uncertain. Much will depend on the PRC’s policy. Moreover, calls in the United States either to abandon Taiwan or, conversely, to embrace it ever more closely as a hedge against the Mainland’s growing strength, have yet to play themselves out. Alan D. Romberg will address the implications of the election for these issues, as well as for Sino-American relations and for the region.

Speaker Bio:

     Alan Romberg is the director of the East Asia program at Stimson. 

     Before joining Stimson in September 2000, he enjoyed a distinguished career working on Asian issues, both in and out of government, including twenty years as a US Foreign Service Officer. Romberg was the principal deputy director of the State Department's Policy Planning staff and deputy spokesman of the department. He served in various capacities dealing with East Asia, including director of the Office of Japanese Affairs, member of the Policy Planning staff for East Asia, and staff member at the National Security Council for China. He served overseas in Hong Kong and Taiwan. 

     Additionally, Romberg spent almost ten years as the CV Starr Senior Fellow for Asian Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and was special assistant to the Secretary of the Navy. 

     Romberg holds an MA from Harvard University, and a BA from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

Abstract:

In developing countries, the efficacy of subsidized food delivery systems is particularly challenged by corruption that can disproportionately affect less powerful areas or less powerful households, thereby steering aid away from the most vulnerable beneficiaries. In this paper, Sriniketh Nagavarapu and others examine how the identity of food delivery agents affects the take-up of vulnerable populations.  Specifically, they investigate the take-up of subsidized goods in Uttar Pradesh, India, under the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS), a system undermined by widespread corruption. Using rich household survey data from the first year of the TPDS, they establish that households from the historically disadvantaged Scheduled Castes exhibit lower take-up when facing non-Scheduled Caste delivery agents. After showing that several potentially reasonable explanations (e.g. discrimination or elite capture) are not consistent with the data, they assess the quantitative impact of the most plausible remaining explanation, which involves monitoring and enforcement.

Speaker Bio:

Sriniketh Nagavarapu is an assistant professor of economics and environmental studies at Brown University. His research is focused on environmental and labor economics in developing countries.  Specifically, he is interested in understanding how local institutions manage natural resources and service delivery, and how management effectiveness is shaped by market incentives and the nature of the institutions. His recent work in this area examines the management of fisheries by cooperatives in Mexico and the delivery of food assistance by government-appointed authorities in India. In other work, he has examined how the labor market mediates the link between ethanol production expansion and deforestation in Brazil. Nagavarapu received his Ph.D., M.A., and B.A. from Stanford University. At Brown, he is a faculty associate of the Population Studies and Training Center, Spatial Structures in the Social Sciences, and the Environmental Change Initiative.

Abstract:

Aprajit Mahajan will describe findings from the first large-scale cluster randomized controlled trial in a developing country that evaluates the uptake of a health-protecting technology, insecticide-treated bednets (ITNs), through micro-consumer loans, as compared to free distribution and control conditions. Despite a relatively high price, 52% of sample households purchased ITNs, although coverage remained significantly lower than what is achieved with free distribution. Most strikingly, neither micro-loans nor free distribution led to improvements in malaria and anemia prevalence. Mahajan will examine several plausible explanations, and argue that insufficient ITN coverage was the most likely cause.

Speaker Bio:

Aprajit Mahajan is an assistant professor of economics at Stanford University with interests in development economics and econometrics. One focus of his work has been on the adoption of technologies in developing countries and he has worked on issues surrounding the adoption of health-improving technologies in rural India and the adoption of modern management practices by Indian textile firms. His methodological work has attempted to address common problems in empirical work. In particular, he has worked on problems of mismeasured data in social science settings as well as problems of model identification with limited data.

To view paper in advance of seminar, please reference: http://www.stanford.edu/~axl/RCT_short.pdf

Abstract
A global struggle for control of the Internet is now underway. At stake are no less than civil liberties, privacy and even the character of democracy in the 21^st century.

Many commentators have debated whether the Internet is ultimately a force for freedom of expression and political liberation, or for alienation, and repression. Rebecca MacKinnon moves the debate about the Internet’s political impact to a new level. It is time, she says, to stop arguing over whether the Internet empowers individuals and societies, and address the more fundamental and urgent question of how technology should be structured and governed to support the rights and liberties of all the world’s Internet users.

Rebecca MacKinnon is a Bernard L. Schwartz Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, where she conducts research, writing and advocacy on global Internet policy, free expression, and the impact of digital technologies on human rights. She is author of Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom (Basic Books, January 2012). MacKinnon is also cofounder of Global Voices, an international citizen media network. She also serves on the Boards of Directors of the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Global Network Initiative.

Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, MacKinnon worked as a journalist for CNN in Beijing for nine years and was Beijing Bureau Chief and Correspondent from 1998-2001, then served as CNN’s Tokyo Bureau Chief and Correspondent from 2001-03. From 2004-06 she was a Research Fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, where she began her ongoing research and writing about the Chinese Internet in addition to launching Global Voices with colleague Ethan Zuckerman. In 2007-08 she taught online journalism at the University of Hong Kong’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre. In 2009 she conducted research and writing as an Open Society Fellow, and in the Spring of 2010 she was a Visiting Fellow at Princeton’s Center or Information Technology Policy.

MacKinnon received her AB magna cum laude from Harvard University and was a Fullbright scholar in Taiwan in 1991-92.

Ten years into the war in Afghanistan, Payne Distinguished Lecturer Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, the former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and the former Commander of the American-led Coalition Forces there, set out to examine the transition to Afghan sovereignty.   Eikenberry laid out  three broad sets of questions: How well are we doing in the campaign in Afghanistan, what are the significant challenges we’ll face in achieving our goals and objectives, and what are the implications for American power and influence in the 21^st century.

Watch the video below.

Abstract:

There is a wide diversity in the provision of public services in India. In some states one can go for miles without seeing a functional school or public health centre, where roads are poorly maintained, and electricity has not yet been introduced. In other places, governments tend to function remarkably in extending basic public services to all, with tremendous consequences to human lives. In this talk, Vivek Srinivasen will explore why some parts of India have developed an impressive social commitment to such services unlike others. In this context, he will also discuss the remarkable changes in Bihar and other parts of North India in the recent years.

 Speaker Bio: 

Vivek Srinivasen joined the Liberation Technology Program as the manager in February 2011 after completing his Ph.D. in Social Sciences from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. Prior to this, Srinivasen worked with campaigns on various socio-economic rights in India, including the right to food, education and the right to information. Based on these experiences he has written (and co-authored) extensively on issues surrounding the right to food, including Notes from the right to food campaign: people's movement for the right to food (2003), Rights based approach and human development: An introduction (2008), Gender and the right to food: A critical re-examination (2006), Food Policy and Social Movements: Reflections on the Right to Food Campaign in India (2007).