Stanford University

International Relations

FSI researchers strive to understand how countries relate to one another, and what policies are needed to achieve global stability and prosperity. International relations experts focus on the challenging U.S.-Russian relationship, the alliance between the U.S. and Japan and the limitations of America’s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.

Foreign aid is also examined by scholars trying to understand whether money earmarked for health improvements reaches those who need it most. And FSI’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center has published on the need for strong South Korean leadership in dealing with its northern neighbor.

FSI researchers also look at the citizens who drive international relations, studying the effects of migration and how borders shape people’s lives. Meanwhile FSI students are very much involved in this area, working with the United Nations in Ethiopia to rethink refugee communities.

Trade is also a key component of international relations, with FSI approaching the topic from a slew of angles and states. The economy of trade is rife for study, with an APARC event on the implications of more open trade policies in Japan, and FSI researchers making sense of who would benefit from a free trade zone between the European Union and the United States.

An Alliance That Really Works

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Michael A. McFaul
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%people1% - The celebration in Prague should have been more raucous. The most successful alliance in world history has extended to corners of Europe unimaginable just a few years ago. The military capacity gained for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization from expansion is minimal but the political returns will be fantastic. More than any other institution, NATO has helped make Europe democratic, peaceful and whole. What is particularly striking about the new members -- Slovenia, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia -- is how many of them emerged from Communist rule with no democratic traditions. The pull of NATO, the desire to join this Western club, created real incentives for democratic consolidation.
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A Blurred Vision

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Michael A. McFaul
Larry Diamond
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One group of Washington-based pundits and exiled Iranians wants to push the United States into increasingly hostile and direct confrontation with the Islamic regime, using coercive diplomacy and even military pressure if necessary. This group also wants to encourage demonstrators inside Iran to rise up and confront the regime as quickly and boldly as possible, even if this would prompt violence, revolution or civil war. Some members of this group -- following in the footsteps of the Iraqi exiles and U.S. policymakers who favored installing exiled banker Ahmad Chalabi as leader of Iraq -- are determined to handpick Iran's next leader. Their choice is Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of the last shah to rule in Iran.

A second group in Washington is pushing for a completely different U.S. policy toward Iran: detente. Increasingly, Iranian hard-liners have hinted that they might be willing to restrain Islamic radicals based in Iran who are stirring things up in Iraq. But in exchange, they've suggested, they would want guarantees that the U.S. will not support opponents of the Iranian regime. Desperate to hold onto power, Iran's leaders seem suddenly willing to deal with the U.S. in exchange for stability.

These proponents of engagement inside Iran have allies in the U.S. Since Hashemi Rafsanjani was elected president of Iran 15 years ago, a group of U.S. scholars, retired diplomats and businessmen (especially oil company executives) has acted as de facto lobbyists for the Islamic regime. They considered Rafsanjani to be Iran's great hope: a "moderate mullah" who wanted rapprochement with the West. When reformer [Mohammad Khatami] was elected to replace him in 1997, they changed horses, but not their recommended strategy of engaging with the existing regime.

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Cross-strait Development and Taiwan's Security Dilemma: a New Strategy for 2008

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This is a CDDRL's Special Seminar, co-sponsored with Shorenstein APARC.

Dr. Fu-Kuo Liu is currently a Visiting Fellow at Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, Foreign Policy Studies, Brookings Institution and is an Associate Research Fellow and Adjunct Associate Professor at National Chengchi University's Institute of International Relations. Additionally, he serves as the Executive Director of the National Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP) Taiwan.

Previously, Dr. Liu was Chairman of the Research and Planning Board at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2002-2004) and a Consultative Advisor for the Mainland Affairs Council (2004-2006). He has taught at the Chinese Culture University and National Chung Shing University. He was a Visiting Fellow at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo and Georgetown University. His research mainly covers Taiwan security and foreign policy, regional security, and the cross-strait development. He received a Ph.D. in Politics from the University of Hull in the United Kingdom in 1995.

Philippines Conference Room

Fu-kuo Liu Visiting Fellow, Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, Foreign Policy Studies Speaker The Brookings Institution
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Ukraine's Victors

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Michael A. McFaul
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Since the 2004 Orange Revolution, most of the news from Ukraine has emphasized the failures of the "revolutionaries." President Viktor Yushchenko and his first prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, could not sustain the economic growth rates seen under the pre-Orange government. Analysts in Moscow, London, Kiev and Washington blamed Ms. Tymoshenko's alleged populism for declining exports and depressed investment. Mr. Yushchenko looked like a feckless leader who was then tainted with charges of corruption over a gas deal between Russia and Ukraine, which delivered windfall profits to a mysterious company in Switzerland.
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End of Partnership

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Michael A. McFaul
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U.S. Vice President criticized the policy of Russian authorities for cutting back civil rights and blackmailing its neighbors in his characteristically harsh manner. Kremlin sources referred to his speech as poorly informed and not objective. Others, both in Moscow and in the West, called it a return to the Cold War. Some denied that the vice president's speech represented the actual intentions of the Bush administration. Maybe all of those statements are nothing more than propaganda. But it is more likely that reflect a deep lack of understanding of American foreign policy and its foreign policy culture.
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First Drafts of Korea: The U.S. Media and Perceptions of The Last Cold War Frontier

In conjunction with Dr. Gi-Wook Shin's study of American and South Korean media coverage of the alliance and the peninsula, this conference will convene influential American journalists who covered momentous events and significant trends in the two Koreas. The macro-level, data-driven media study reveals how U.S. coverage of Korean issues has evolved over time as well as how perception gaps have grown up in the U.S.-ROK alliance. But how did American reporters and editors decide what to cover? What drove U.S. interest in Korea? And what were the challenges in covering Korea, both South and North? This conference will showcase the views of journalists on the front line who made key decisions about what to cover and why. These coverage decisions and the stories that followed shaped how Americans conceptualize both Koreas, the U.S.-ROK alliance, and the North Korean nuclear crises.

This one-day workshop will feature four panels: (1) democracy, anti-Americanism and the rise of Korean nationalism, (2) the challenges of covering North Korea, (3) the two North Korean nuclear crises, and (4) public diplomacy and the Korean peninsula.

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Philippines Conference Room

Karl Schoenberger Former foreign correspondent Panelist Los Angeles Times
Doug Struck Reporter Speaker Washington Post
Brian Myers Reporter Speaker Atlantic Monthly
Anna Fifield ReporterReporter Speaker Financial TimesFinancial Times
David Sanger ReporterReporter Speaker New York TimesNew York Times
Barbara Slavin Reporter Speaker USA Today
Balbina Hwang Senior Special Advisor Speaker Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, U.S. State Department
David Straub Former Director of Korean Affairs Panelist U.S. State Department
Daniel C. Sneider Associate Director for Research Panelist Shorenstein APARC, Stanford University
Donald Macintyre Pantech Fellow Panelist Shorenstein APARC at Stanford University, Time Magazine
Chris Nelson Editor Panelist The Nelson Report
Caroline Gluck Reporter Panelist BBC Taiwan
Martin Fackler Reporter Panelist New York Times, Tokyo
Conferences

Public Diplomacy, Counterpublics, and the Asia Pacific

The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, in cooperation with the Center for the Pacific Rim and its Kiriyama Chair for Pacific Rim Studies at University of San Francisco, is pleased to present an international conference on "Public Diplomacy, Counterpublics, and the Asia Pacific."

The conference challenges the dominance of U.S.-centric and state-centered conceptions of "public diplomacy" to better understand and practice this resurgent component of world affairs. The complex, shifting contours of our globalizing world demand a broader -- comparative, multi-track, and ethical -- perspective on public diplomacy and its importance today.

A new perspective must take into account public diplomacy initiatives emanating from various places throughout the world. (We begin by "mapping" public diplomacy initiatives originating in the Asia Pacific.)

It must capture the significance of not only state-sponsored programs tightly linked to foreign policy, but also private activities involving a wide range of actors and arenas (i.e., NGOs, international business, media old and new, pop culture) that perhaps more subtly but no less profoundly impact national interests and world affairs.

Ultimately, a new perspective must comprehend that public diplomacy can be more than an instrumental quest for "soft power." A pathway toward robust people-to-people interactions, public diplomacy in its myriad forms can help achieve reconciliation -- the overcoming of historical injustices and other troubling conflicts in our post-9/11 world.

A primary objective of the conference is to discuss and refine papers for a book manuscript (to be considered for publication via a new series of Stanford University Press and the Brookings Institution). The conference/book will cover the following four issue areas: (1) historical and conceptual perspectives; (2) country/region surveys examining significant public diplomacy institutions and initiatives throughout the Asia Pacific; (3) case studies of transnational, multi-track diplomatic efforts driven by civil societies; and (4) case studies of public diplomacy by marginalized groups and in emerging public spheres (e.g. "the blogosphere.")

Conference panels -- at Stanford the morning of April 19 and at USF all day April 20 -- will be in colloquium format for presenters to discuss their research. Limited spaces will be available for observers, and a reservation is required.

The first public talk is on April 18 (5:45-7:00 p.m.) at the University of San Francisco. Shorenstein APARC's Michael Armacost will be speaking on "Japanese Power and Its Public Faces." You can find more details about this event on the USF Center for the Pacific Rim website.

The second public talk is on April 19 (12:15-1:55 p.m.) at Shorenstein APARC. Stephen Linton, Ph.D. (Chairman, Eugene Bell Foundation; Associate, Korea Institute, Harvard University) will give a talk titled "Treating Tuberculosis in North Korea: Toward US-DPRK Reconciliation." Lunch will be served so an RSVP is required. You may reserve a seat by clicking the link to Dr. Linton's lecture.

The conference keynote address is on April (5:45-7:00 p.m.) at the University of San Francisco. Dr. Stephen Linton will deliver a talk titled "Treating Tuberculosis in North Korea: NGO Humanitarian Assistance as Public Diplomacy." The keynote address is free and open to the public. RSVP recommended. Please call the USF Center for the Pacific Rim Events RSVP Line at (415) 422-6828.

More information about this conference and the panel sessions can be found on the website for the USF Center for the Pacific Rim.

This conference is co-sponsored by The Asia Society Northern California; The Japan Society of Northern California; Business for Diplomatic Action; Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University; and the Taiwan Democracy Program in the Center on Democracy Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University.

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Philippines Conference Room and the Okimoto Conference Room in Encina Hall. Some sessions will be held at the University of San Francisco.

Conferences

The Missing Link: State-building and the Rule of Law in Afghanistan

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J. Alexander Thier is Senior Rule of Law Advisor at the United States Institute of Peace. Prior to joining USIP, Thier was Scholar-in-Residence at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, and a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution. From 2002 to 2004, Thier was legal advisor to Afghanistan's Constitutional and Judicial Reform Commissions in Kabul, where he assisted in the development of a new constitution and judicial system. Thier has also worked as a UN and NGO official in Afghanistan from 1993-1996, as well as in Iraq, Pakistan, and Rwanda. He has written extensively about Afghanistan and is a contributing author of the newly released "Twenty-First Century Peace Operations," edited by William Durch, and was lead project advisor on the PBS documentary, "Afghanistan: Hell of a Nation."

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Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

Alex Thier

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CDDRL Postdoctoral Fellow, 2004-05
Visiting Fellow and Campbell National Fellow, Hoover Institution 2004-05
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Alex Thier is Senior Advisor at Moby Media. He served as CEO of the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery; Co- Director of the Task Force on US Strategy to Support Democracy and Counter Authoritarianism; and Senior Democracy Fellow at Freedom House. He was the ninth Executive Director of the Overseas Development Institute in London, a leading global think tank on sustainable development, conflict, climate, and governance. He was appointed by President Obama to serve as chief of USAID’s Bureau for Policy, Planning, and Learning from 2013 to 2015, and as chief of Afghanistan and Pakistan Affairs from 2010 to 2013. He worked previously at the US Institute of Peace, the United Nations, and Oxfam. He was a CDDRL and Hoover Fellow in 2004-2005, and is a graduate of Stanford Law School.

J Alexander Thier Senior Rule of Law Advisor and Co-Director Speaker International Network to Promote the Rule of Law (INPROL)
Seminars

From the Fall of the Wall to September 11: The Struggle to Define a New Direction in American Foreign Policy in the 1990s

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About the Event:

President George W. Bush has called the decade before September 11 the "years of sabbatical." The popular misconception that America was too distracted to focus on foreign policy obscures the significant debates both inside and outside government to define a new purpose for the world's lone superpower. The end of the Cold War had a profound impact on the Democratic and Republican parties, and a reexamination of the efforts across the political spectrum to articulate a new grand strategy after containment is instructive for understanding how American elites think about issues like democracy promotion, the role of international institutions, and the use of force.

About the Speaker

James Goldgeier is a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Whitney H. Shepardson Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University. In 2005-06, he held the Henry A. Kissinger Chair at the Library of Congress. He taught previously at Cornell University, and he has been a visiting scholar at Brookings and Stanford. In 1995-96, he was a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow serving at the State Department and National Security Council Staff. His most recent book, Power and Purpose: U.S. Policy toward Russia after the Cold War, co-authored with Michael McFaul, received the 2004 Georgetown University Lepgold book prize in international relations. He is also the author of Not Whether but When: The U.S. Decision to Enlarge NATO (Brookings, 1999) and Leadership Style and Soviet Foreign Policy (Johns Hopkins, 1994), which received the Edgar Furniss book award in national and international security. He graduated magna cum laude in government from Harvard University and received his M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from U.C. Berkeley. He is currently co-authoring a book for Public Affairs on American foreign policy from 1989 to 2001.

Encina Ground Floor Conference Room

James Goldgeier Professor of Political Science and International Affairs Speaker George Washington University
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What Arabs Think and Does It Matter?

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Shibley Telhami holds the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, and is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Previously, he was the Director of the Near Eastern Studies Program at Cornell University and has taught at Ohio State University, the University of Southern California, Princeton University, Columbia University, Swarthmore College, and the University of California at Berkeley. His publications include Power and Leadership in International Bargaining: The Path to the Camp David Accords (Columbia University Press, 1990); International Organizations and Ethnic Conflict, ed. with Milton Esman (Cornell University Press, 1995); and Identity and Foreign Policy in the Middle East , ed. with Michael Barnett (forthcoming, Cornell University Press, 2001); and numerous articles on international politics and Middle Eastern affairs.

Professor Telhami has actively been bridging the academic and policy world. He served as advisor to the United States delegation to the United Nations during the Iraq-Kuwait crisis, and was on the staff of Congressman Lee Hamilton. He is the author of a report on Persian Gulf security for the Council on Foreign Relations, and the co-drafter of a Council report on the Arab-Israeli peace process. Professor Telhami is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the advisory committee of Human Rights Watch/Middle East. He has been a member of the American delegation of the Trilateral American/Israeli/Palestinian Anti-Incitement Committee mandated by the Wye River Agreement between Israel and the Palestinians and has a weekly radio commentary broadcasting widely over the Middle East.

He received his B.A. from the Queens College of the City University of New York (1974), M.A. from the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley (1978), and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley (1986).

Professor Telhami will be reporting on his latest poll of Arab public opinion and interpreting the results on key issues.

Daniel and Nancy Okimoto Conference Room

Shibley Telhami Senior Fellow Speaker Brookings Institution
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