Anders Åslund is specializing on postcommunist economic transformation, especially the Russian and Ukrainian economies. In January 2006, he joined the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, DC, as a senior fellow. From 1994 till 2005, he worked at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, as a senior associate and Director of the Russian and Eurasian Program. He also teaches at Georgetown University. Dr. Åslund has served as a senior economic advisor to the governments of Russia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan. He has been a Professor at the Stockholm School of Economics and a Swedish diplomat, serving in Kuwait, Geneva and Moscow. He earned his doctorate from Oxford University.

Dr. Åslund is the author of eight books, including How Capitalism Was Built: The Transformation of the Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2007), Russia’s Capitalist Revolution (Peterson Institute, 2007), Building Capitalism (Cambridge University Press, 2002), How Russia Became a Market Economy (Brookings, 1995), Gorbachev's Struggle for Economic Reform (Cornell University Press, 1989), and Private Enterprise in Eastern Europe: The Non-Agricultural Private Sector in Poland and the GDR, 1945-83 (Macmillan, 1985). He has also edited twelve books, most recently, Europe After Enlargement, and he has published widely, including in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, National Interest, New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, and Wall Street Journal.

Before coming to CDDRL, Miriam Abu Sharkh was employed at the United Nation's specialized agency for work, the International Labour Organization, in Geneva, Switzerland. As the People's Security Coordinator (P4), she analyzed and managed large household surveys from Argentina to Sri Lanka. She also worked on the Report on the World Social Situation for the United Nation's Department of Economic and Social Affairs in New York. Previously, she had also been a consultant for the German national development agency (Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit, GTZ) in Germany where she focused on integrating core labor standards into German technical cooperation.

She has written on the spread and effect of human rights related labour standards as well as on welfare regimes, gender discrimination, child labour, social movements and work satisfaction.

Currently, she holds a grant by the German National Science Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) to study the evolvement of worldwide patterns of gender discrimination in the labor market, specifically the effects of international treaties. These questions are addressed in longitudinal, cross-national studies from the 1950´s to today.

This research builds on her previous work as a Post-doctoral Fellow at CDDRL as well as her dissertation on child labor for which she received a "Summa cum Laude" ( Freie Universität Berlin, Germany-joint dissertation committee with Stanford University). After discussing various labor standard initiatives, the dissertation analyzes when and why countries ratify the International Labour Organization's Minimum Age Convention outlawing child labour via event history models. It then examines the effect of ratification on child labor rates over three decades through a panel analyses. While her dissertation employed quantitative methods, her Diplom thesis (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany) builds on extensive fieldwork in South Africa examining the genesis, strategies, and structures of the South African women's movement.

This is a CDDRL's Special Event within our Democracy in Taiwan Program.

Dr. Jaushieh Joseph Wu arrived in Washington, D.C. on April 15, 2007 to assume his responsibilities as Taiwan's chief representative to the United States.

Representative Wu began his government career in 2002 as Deputy Secretary-General to President Chen Shui-bian, a position he held until May 2004. From 2004 to April 2007, Representative Wu was the chairman of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, a ministry-level organization that coordinates and implements Taiwan's policies toward the People's Republic of China.

Prior to his government career, Representative Wu held a number of academic positions at his alma mater, National Chengchi University, including the chairmanship of the First Division of the Institute of International Relations, an adjunct research fellowship at the Election Study Center and an adjunct professorship in the Department of Political Science.

Dr. Wu received his undergraduate education at National Chengchi University in Taipei. He did his graduate work in political science at the University of Missouri in St. Louis in 1982, obtaining a master's degree in Political Science, followed by a Ph. D. in the same field from Ohio State University in 1989. His areas of specialization include Taiwan's political development, cross-strait relations, international relations, and Middle East politics. Among Dr. Wu's academic publications, he has authored Taiwan's Democratization: Forces Behind the New Momentum (Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1995), and edited Divided Nations: The Experience of Germany, Korea, and China (Taipei, Institute of International Relations, 1995) and China Rising: Implications of Economic and Military Growth of the PRC (Taipei, Institute of International Relations, 2001).

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a professor of political science, and sociology by courtesy, and coordinator of the Democracy Program at CDDRL. He is a specialist on democratic development and regime change and on U.S. foreign policy affecting democracy abroad. His research examines comparative trends in the quality and stability of democracy in developing countries and post-communist states, and public opinion in new democracies. As a core member of the scientific team of the East Asia Barometer, he is investigating attitudes and values toward democracy in eight East Asian political systems. His research and policy analysis also address the relationship between democracy, governance and development in poor countries, particularly in Africa. In the past two years he has served as consultant to the U.S. Agency for International Development and was a contributing author of its report, "Foreign Aid in the National Interest." He is also co-director of the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy, and founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy.

During the first three months of 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. He is now lecturing and writing about the challenges of post-conflict state-building in Iraq and other countries. He also recently served with a group of Europeans and Americans who produced a report on "Transatlantic Strategy for Democracy and Human Development in the Broader Middle East," published by the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Diamond has written extensively on the factors that facilitate and obstruct democracy in developing countries and on problems of democracy, development, and corruption, particularly in Africa. He is the author of Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation, Promoting Democracy in the 1990s, and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria. His recent edited books include Islam and Democracy in the Middle East (with Marc F. Plattner and Daniel Brumberg), Political Parties and Democracy (with Richard Gunther), The Global Resurgence of Democracy and The Global Divergence of Democracies (both with Marc F. Plattner), Consolidating Democracy in Korea (with Byung-Kook Kim), and Institutional Reform and Democratic Consolidation in Korea (with Doh Shin). Among his other 20 edited books are the series Democracy in Developing Countries (with Juan Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset); The Self-Restraining State: Power and Accountability in New Democracies (with Andreas Schedler and Marc F. Plattner); and Democratization in Africa and Democracy in East Asia (both with Marc F. Plattner).

Diamond has lectured in more than 20 countries on problems of democratic development. He taught sociology at Vanderbilt University from 1980 to 1985 before joining Stanford and the Hoover Institution. He was a visiting scholar at the Academia Sinica (Taiwan, 1997-98) and a Fulbright Visiting Lecturer at Bayero University (Kano, Nigeria, 1982-83). He received all of his degrees from Stanford University, including a BA in 1974, an MA in 1978, and a PhD in sociology in 1980.

Greg Domber received his A.B in History and Philosophy from Lafayette College in 1997 and recently completed his Ph.D. in History at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. His dissertation, "Supporting the Revolution: America, Democracy, and the End of the Cold War in Poland, 1981-1989,"utilized a multi-archival, international history research approach combined with numerous oral history interviews to take a sober accounting of American and Western influences on Poland's democratic transformation from the declaration of martial law in December 1981 through the creation of the Mazowiecki government in August 1989.

At CDDRL, Greg plans to continue this research on international influences on Poland's transformation during the 1980s, focusing further work on the role played by non-governmental actors, particularly labor unions, émigré groups, humanitarian organizations, and American business interests.

Jeffrey S. Kopstein is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at the University of Toronto. He holds a BA, MA, and PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. He has held fellowships at Harvard University, Princeton University, and has also been an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow. He has written extensively in the fields of European politics, transatlantic relations, and political economy. His publications include various books and edited volumes, including Growing Apart? America and Europe in the 21st Century (Cambridge 2007) Comparative Politics: Interests, Identities, and Institutions in a Changing Global Order (Cambridge, 2000, 2005), and The Politics of Economic Decline in East Germany, (Chapel Hill, 1997). Recent scholarly articles have appeared in World Politics, Comparative Politics, Theory and Society, Political Theory, German Politics and Society, Slavic Review and The Washington Quarterly. Jeffrey Kopstein's research has been supported by grants from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, The National Science Foundation, and the National Council for European and Eurasian Research. In 2006 he was the recipient of the University of Torontos Faculty of Arts and Science Outstanding Teaching Award.