Access to information has become one of the most promising tools to combat corruption, increase people’s participation in (self) governance and thus, to strengthen democracy.  Since the 1960s there has been a steady progress in the number of countries that have legislated access to information laws, and over eighty countries have such laws today.  There have also been several social developments and innovations which embrace access to information, such as open constitution reform process in Iceland, open innovation challenges by the United States government, participatory budgeting processes in Germany, Finland and Canada and social audits in India, just to mention few. As a parallel development, the open data movement is evolving in several countries, pushed forward by both civil society and governments, and incentivized by the global Open Government Partnership network. These practices are supported by open innovation and open design strategies, which the public sector is increasingly adopting.

These open and participatory practices give tools for citizens to monitor governments, to hold them accountable, and to practice agency in the public sphere. The right to information and transparency movements can be considerably strengthened by creative use of information technologies – but realizing this potential requires us to revisit the design of RTI policies, tools and practices to update them to serve citizens in the digital age. In re-evaluating the tools for accountability, we should be mindful that increased use of accountability technologies suggests re-articulations of the power structures in modern societies, including new forms of social control, new spaces for public deliberation and new conceptualizations of participation in democracy.

The workshop will convene both practitioners and academics to discuss their work in the area and to examine the theoretical and practical implications of these phenomena. We seek to bring together people engaged in law, policy, social movements, administration, technology, design and the use of technology for accessing information.  We propose to go well beyond the issue of accessing information by looking at the use of technology to record, store, process and disseminate public information, and to create interactive spaces in the public sphere so that the full potential of ICT for transparency can be realized.

For more information, please look at the Conference Website http://www.stanford.edu/group/libtech/cgi-bin/rtitech or contact Tanja Aitamurto at tanjaa@stanford.edu or Vivek Srinivasan at vivekdse@stanford.edu.

While we welcome participants who do not wish to present a paper or a project, we require registration at the Conference Website.

Conference Videos

This seminar will discuss the current issues surrounding the sovereignty of the Diaoyutai Islets and the East China Sea peace initiative of the government of the Republic of China, Taiwan, through which ROC president Ma ying-jeou is calling for dialogue to resolve disputes over the archipelago.

Prof. Edward I–Hsin Chen, who earned his Ph.D. from Department of Political Science at Columbia University in 1986, is currently teaching in the Graduate Institute of Americas (GIA) at Tamkang University. He was a Legislator from 1996 to 1999, an Assemblyman in 2005, and the director of the institute from 2001 to 2005. He specializes in IR theories, IPE theories, and decision-making theories of U.S. policy toward China and Taiwan. 

His recent English articles include U.S. Role in Future Taipei-Beijing Relation, in King-yuh Chang, ed., Political Economic Security in Asia-Pacific (Taipei: Foundation on International & Cross-Strait Studies, 2004); A Retrospective and Prospective Overview of U.S.-PRC-ROC Relations, in Views & Policies: Taiwan Forum, Vol. 2, No. 2, December 2005 (A Journal of Cross-Strait Interflow Prospect Foundation in Taipei); The Decision-Making Process of the Clinton Administration in the Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1995-96, in King-yuh Chang, ed., The 1996 Strait Crisis Decisions, Lessons & Prospects (Taipei: Foundation on International & Cross-Strait Studies, 2006); From Balance to Imbalance: The U.S. Cross-Strait Policy in the First Term of the Bush Administration, in Quansheng Zhao and Tai Wan-chin, ed.,Globalization and East Asia (Taipei: Taiwan Elite, 2007); The Role of the United States in Cross-Strait Negotiations: A Taiwanese Perspective, in Jacob Bercovitch, Kwei-bo Huang and Chung-chian Teng, eds.,Conflict Management, Security and Intervention in East Asia. (New York: Routledge, 2008), pp. 193-216; and The Security Dilemma in U.S.-Taiwan Informal Alliance Politics, Issues & Studies, Vol. 48, No. 1, March 2012, 1-50

Dr. Yann-huei Song is currently a research fellow at the Institute of European and American Studies, and joint research fellow at the Centre for Asia-Pacific Area Studies, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, the Republic of China. 

Professor Song received his Ph.D. in International Relations from Kent State University, Ohio, and L.L.M. as well as J.S.D. from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, the United States. He has broad academic interests covering ocean law and policy studies, international fisheries law, international environmental law, maritime security, and the South China Sea issues. He has been actively participating in the Informal Workshop on Managing Potential Conflicts in the South China Sea (the SCS Workshop) that is organized by the government of the Republic of Indonesia. 

Professor Song is the convener of Academia Sinica's South China Sea Interdisciplinary Study Group and the convener of the Sino-American Research Programme at the Institute of European American Studies. He is a member of the editorial boards of Ocean Development and International Law and Chinese (Taiwan) Yearbook of International Law and Affairs. He has frequently been asked to provide advisory opinions by a number of government agencies in Taiwan on the policy issues related to the East and South China Seas.

Prof. Edward I–Hsin Chen, who earned his Ph.D. from Department of Political Science at Columbia University in 1986, is currently teaching in the Graduate Institute of Americas (GIA) at Tamkang University. He was a Legislator from 1996 to1999, an Assemblyman in 2005, and the director of the institute from 2001 to 2005. He specializes in IR theories, IPE theories, and decision-making theories of U.S. policy toward China and Taiwan. His recent English articles include “U.S. Role in Future Taipei-Beijing Relations” in King-yuh Chang, ed., Political Economic Security in Asia-Pacific (Taipei: Foundation on International & Cross-Strait Studies, 2004); “A Retrospective and Prospective Overview of U.S.-PRC-ROC Relations,” in Views & Policies: Taiwan Forum, Vol. 2, No. 2, December 2005 (A Journal of Cross-Strait Interflow Prospect Foundation in Taipei); “The Decision-Making Process of the Clinton Administration in the Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1995-96,” in King-yuh Chang, ed., The 1996 Strait Crisis Decisions, Lessons & Prospects (Taipei: Foundation on International & Cross-Strait Studies, 2006); “From Balance to Imbalance: The U.S. Cross-Strait Policy in the First Term of the Bush Administration,” in Quansheng Zhao and Tai Wan-chin, ed., Globalization and East Asia (Taipei: Taiwan Elite, 2007); “The Role of the United States in Cross-Strait Negotiations: A Taiwanese Perspective,” in Jacob Bercovitch, Kwei-bo Huang and Chung-chian Teng, eds., Conflict Management, Security and Intervention in East Asia. (New York: Routledge, 2008), pp. 193-216; and “The Security Dilemma in U.S.-Taiwan Informal Alliance Politics, Issues & Studies, Vol. 48, No. 1, March 2012, 1-50.

Prof. Yann-huei Song is currently a research fellow at the Institute of European and American Studies, and joint research fellow at the Centre for Asia-Pacific Area Studies, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, the Republic of China. 

Professor Song received his Ph.D. in International Relations from Kent State University, Ohio, and L.L.M. as well as J.S.D. from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, the United States. 

He has broad academic interests covering ocean law and policy studies, international fisheries law, international environmental law, maritime security, and the South China Sea issues. He has been actively participating in the Informal Workshop on Managing Potential Conflicts in the South China Sea (the SCS Workshop) that is organized by the government of the Republic of Indonesia. 

Professor Song is the convener of Academia Sinica’s South China Sea Interdisciplinary Study Group and the convener of the Sino-American Research Programme at the Institute of European American Studies. He is a member of the editorial boards of Ocean Development and International Law and Chinese (Taiwan) Yearbook of International Law and Affairs. He has frequently been asked to provide advisory opinions by a number of government agencies in Taiwan on the policy issues related to the East and South China Seas.

Abstract:

This talk will unveil the story of Taiwan’s economic transformation between 1949 and 1960, as Chiang Kai-shek and his Nationalist leaders turned away from a command economy to build a market economy more productive than any in Chinese history.

The talk gives special attention to how a small group ofpolitical and economic leaders began to formulate and later implement a bold new economic vision for Taiwan. In the process, they embraced institutional and organizational innovations that led to a dismantling of Taiwan's earlier centralized command economy and the growth of a new market system.

Much information in this research was obtained from historical papers that were recently made available at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University: the diaries of Chiang Kai-shek, Kuomintang party archives, and personal papers of Kuomintang leaders. It also makes use of first-hand oral interviews with former Nationalist officials and economists.

Speaker Bio:

Tai-chun Kuo is Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. She was a Visiting Lecturer at the Center for East Asian Studies, Stanford University (2003) and Associate Professor at the Graduate Institute of American Studies, Tamkang University (Taiwan, 1997-2000). Prior to these positions, she served as Press Secretary to the President of the Republic of China (1990-1995), Deputy Director-General of the First Bureau of the Presidential Office (1989-1997), and Director of the ROC Government Information Office in Boston (1987-1988).

Outside of her own research, since 2003 she has assisted the Hoover Institution Archives in developing its Modern China Archives and Special Collections, including Kuomintang (Nationalist) party archives, diaries of Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo, personal papers of T. V. Soong, H. H. K’ung, and other leading Chinese individuals.

Her major publications include Taiwan's Economic Transformation: Leadership, Property Rights, and Institutional Change; T. V. Soong in Modern Chinese History, China’s Quest for Unification, National Security, and Modernization; Breaking with the Past: China’s First Market Economy; Watching Communist China, 1949-79: A Methodological Review of China Studies in the United States of America and Taiwan; and The Power and Personality of Mao Tse-tung, among others.