Stanford University

Science and Technology

The Promise of Information and Communications Technology

-

On April 19, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies convened a special conference on Technology, Governance, and Global Development, to examine how technical innovation solves, or fails to solve, the problems of chronic global underdevelopment. Experts from business, medicine, philanthropy, academia, government and non-governmental organizations, along with young Stanford alumni, addressed technology’s ability to help secure gains in health, economic development, agricultural innovation, food security, and human development.

With a wealth of expertise and on-the-ground experience, panelists tackled central issues and engaged in spirited debate, animated by moderator Phil Taubman. “The Promise of Information and Communications Technology” examined whether technology can transform lives of individuals, even in poorly governed countries, finding encouraging evidence in health and economic development.

Frances C. Arrillaga Alumni Center

Philip Taubman Moderator
Megan Smith Speaker Google.org

Joshua Cohen

Program on Global Justice
Encina Hall West, Room 404
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305

(650) 723-0256
0
Marta Sutton Weeks Professor of Ethics in Society, and Professor of Political Science, Philosophy, and Law
cohen.jpg MA, PhD

Joshua Cohen is a professor of law, political science, and philosophy at Stanford University, where he also teaches at the d.school and helps to coordinate the Program on Liberation Technology. A political theorist trained in philosophy, Cohen has written extensively on issues of democratic theory—particularly deliberative democracy and the implications for personal liberty, freedom of expression, and campaign finance—and global justice. Cohen is author of On Democracy (1983, with Joel Rogers); Associations and Democracy (1995, with Joel Rogers); Philosophy, Politics, Democracy (2010); The Arc of the Moral Universe and Other Essays (2011); and Rousseau: A Free Community of Equals (2011). Since 1991, he has been editor of Boston Review, a bi-monthly magazine of political, cultural, and literary ideas. Cohen is currently a member of the faculty of Apple University.

CDDRL Affiliated Faculty
CV
Joshua Cohen Speaker
Jared Cohen Speaker US Department of State
Conferences

On the Idea of Human Rights

-

The Program on Global Justice is co-sponsoring this special workshop along with the Stanford Political Theory workshop and Philosophy and Public Affairs. We will have presentations on Beitz's book from four distinguished scholars. A first session, from 1:15-3PM, will feature presentations from Barbara Herman (UCLA philosophy) and Tim Scanlon (Harvard philosophy). The second session, from 3:30-5PM, will have presentations from Jim Fearon (Stanford political science) and Jenny Martinez (Stanford Law School).  
Apart from providing an occasion to discuss the book and the important issues it raises about human rights, the workshop is a celebration of Professor Beitz's work as editor of Philosophy and Public Affairs (2001-2010). Other editors from the journal will be present at the workshop, including Seana Shiffrin, Alan Patten, Arthur Ripstein, and Samuel Scheffler.

Professor Beitz's  philosophical and teaching interests focus on international political theory, democratic theory, the theory of human rights and legal theory. His main works include Political Theory and International Relations and Political Equality: An Essay in Democratic Theory as well as articles on a variety of topics in political philosophy. He coedited International Ethics and Law, Economics, and Philosophy. His current work includes projects on the philosophy of human rights and the theory of intellectual property.

Before coming to Princeton, Professor Beitz taught at Swarthmore College and Bowdoin College, where he was also Dean for Academic Affairs. He has received fellowship awards from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller and MacArthur Foundations, the American Council of Learned Societies and the American Council on Education.

Professor Beitz is the Editor of Philosophy & Public Affairs.

Philippines Conference Room

Barbara Herman Philosophy Panelist UCLA
Tim Scanlon Philosophy Panelist Harvard
Charles Beitz Political Science Speaker Princeton
Jenny Martinez Law Speaker Stanford
James Fearon Political Science Speaker Stanford
Conferences

Bill Thies on leveraging technologies for citizen journalism, education, and healthcare in India

News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

Bill Thies described his group's work to develop projects that utilize those technologies that are already present and familiar in poor Indian communities. He focused his talk on three current projects:

Citizen journalism: Chhattisgarh is a state in central India with very low levels of literacy and poor communications infrastructure.  It contains many Gondi speakers, a language that has no written literature. The challenge for Bill's group was to find way for people in Chhattisgarh to share and discuss news in their own language. Radio is not an option because news broadcasts are illegal for all but the government run stations in India.

The team designed a system for mobile phones to be used as a platform for citizen journalism. Working with local NGO media partner CGnet, project Swara provides a simple system whereby anyone can call in and record a news update from their area. Stories are moderated by CGnet's journalists and then can be heard by calling the same number. They are also posted on CGnet's website.

The project is in its early stages, but initial analysis shows that around half the posts are in local languages, providing the very first news outlet in Gondi in any form. Content ranges from reports of social concerns and local news to singing.

Since the system is open to use by anyone, one inevitable concern is the reliability of reports. However, Bill argued that voice gives a level of authenticity that may make people more reluctant, or less able to lie convincingly in their reports. There are also distinct advantages of voice over text, for example the extra information that is gained by hearing the emotion that accompanies words.

Education: Only 14% of schools in India have a computer, and where they are present, they are often under-utilized due to a lack of expertise or familiarity. Older technologies have much higher penetration; 60% of Indian households have a television. Bill's group has begun working with DVD players, which have a penetration of 13% - this is expected to rise to 25% by 2013. They have developed DVDs that contain thousands of Wikipedia entries that can be navigated in a similar way to the chapters of a movie. The DVDs are being piloted with college students in Bangalore who want to do additional research but lack access to PCs.

Healthcare: A quarter of the two million people who die from Tuberculosis each year are Indian. While the disease is curable, treatment requires taking four different drugs, three times a week for a period of six to eight months. A system of directly observed therapy has been put in place in India to ensure that patients take medication. However, the current system means that health workers who perform the checks are only rewarded once a whole treatment cycle has been completed and their interaction with patients is not efficiently tracked. Bill's group has created a biometric terminal for TB clinics which uses a fingerprint reader to verify the interaction between health worker and patient. The day's reports can be uploaded via SMS and the data quickly visualized, enabling better measurement of health worker performance. This is currently being piloted in partnership with the NGO Operation ASHA in two clinics in Delhi.

All News button
1

Trends in the Strategic Triangle: U.S.-China-Taiwan Relations in the Coming Decade

The symposium will bring together scholars and current and former government officials from Taiwan, China, and US to take stock of cross-strait relations over the past decade. It will also assess the future development of cross-strait interactions from different angles including economic, political, and security perspectives.

Friday, May 28, 2010

8:00 am to 8:30 am

Registration & Reception
Continental Breakfast

8:30 am to 8:40 am

Introduction Larry Diamond, Director of CDDRL; Senior Fellow of Hoover Institution and FSI, Stanford University

8:40 am to 10:15 am

Session I: What Can We Learn from History: Looking Back on the Evolution of U.S.-China-Taiwan Relations

Chair: Hung-mao Tien, President of the Institute for National Policy Research, Taiwan

Speakers:

  • Steve Goldstein, Sophia Smith Professor of Government, Smith College, and Associate, Asia Center, Harvard University
  • Tom Christensen, Professor of Politics and International Affairs and Director of the Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program, Princeton University

  • Richard Bush, Director, Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, and Senior Fellow, the Brookings Institute

10:15 am to 10:30 am

Break

10:30 am to 12:00 pm

Session II: Cross-Strait Economic and Social Ties: Current Trends, and What Will They Look Like in 2025

Chair: Yun-han Chu, Distinguished Fellow of the Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica; Professor of Political Science, National Taiwan University

Speakers:

  • Cheng-shu Kao, Professor of Sociology, Tung-hai University, Taiwan
  • Charles Kao, Founder and Chairman, Commonwealth Publishing Group, Taiwan

Noon to 1:30 pm

Luncheon Address and Discussion—“Assessing the First Two Years of the Ma Ying-jeou Presidency: A Conversation with Dr. Su Chi,” former secretary-general of the National Security Council, Republic of China (Taiwan)

 

1:45 pm to 3:15 pm

Session III: The Changing Military Balance: Current Trends and Future Prospects

Chair: Larry Diamond, Director, CDDRL

Speakers:

  • Admiral (Ret.) Eric McVadon, Director, Asia-Pacific Studies, Institute of Foreign Policy Analysis, Cambridge MA, and Washington DC
  • Chong-Pin Lin, Professor of Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies, Tamkang University; Former Deputy Minister of Defense of ROC
  • Litai Xue, Research Associate, APARC, Stanford University

3:15 pm to 3:30 pm

Break

3:30 pm to 5:00 pm

Session IV: What kind of (Super) Power will China be in 2025? Political Scenarios and Implications for China’s Foreign Policy and Taiwan Policy

Chair: Tom Fingar, the Oksenberg/Rohlen Distinguished Fellow and Payne Distinguished Lecturer in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University

Speakers:

  • Mike Lampton, Dean of Faculty, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and Professor of Chinese Studies, Johns Hopkins University
  • Suisheng Zhao, Professor and Executive Director of the Center for China-US Cooperation at the Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver

 

Saturday, May 29, 2010

8:30 am to 9:00 am

Continental Breakfast

9:00 am to 10:40 am

Session V: How will Taiwan (Re)Define Itself Politically, Economically and Internationally by 2025

Chair: Jean Oi, William Haas Professor in Chinese Politics, and Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University

Speakers:

  • Yun-han Chu, Distinguished Fellow of the Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica; Professor of Political Science, National Taiwan University; President of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange
  • Shelley Rigger, Brown Associate Professor of East Sian Politics, and coordinator of Asian Studies, Davidson College
  • Daniel Da-nien Liu, Research Fellow, Chung-hua Institution for Economic Research, Taiwan

  • Richard Bush, Director, Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies, and Senior Fellow, the Brookings Institute

10:40 am to 11:00 am

Break

11:00 am to 12:40 pm

Session VI: How will the U.S. Relate to China’s Rising Power and Taiwan’s Rising Vulnerability

Chair: Larry Diamond, Director, CDDRL

Speakers:

  • Tom Fingar, the Oksenberg/Rohlen Distinguished Fellow and Payne Distinguished Lecturer in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University
  • Su Chi, former secretary-general of the National Security Council, Republic of China (Taiwan)

12:40 pm to 1:45 pm

Lunch

1:45 pm to 3:15 pm

Roundtable Conclusion
Download pdf

Bechtel Conference Center

Symposiums

Assessing the First Two Years of the Ma Ying-jeou Presidency: A Conversation with Dr. Su Chi

-

In this conversation, former Secretary General of National Security Council, Republic of China (Taiwan), Su Chi, and Director of CDDRL, Larry Diamond, will engage in a conversation about the first two years of President Ma Ying-jeou's administration.  The topics to be explored will include President Ma’s performance in domestic, international and cross-strait policy; the trajectory of the complicated triangular relationship among Taiwan, China, and the United States; domestic political trends in Taiwan; and the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) Party’s future political prospects as Taiwan looks toward special municipal elections at the end of this year and then a presidential election in March of 2012.

Serving as Secretary General of National Security Council between May 2008 and February 2010, Dr. Su Chi was widely considered one of President Ma’s closest and most trusted advisers since the KMT returned to power in 2008.  A prominent political scientist, Dr. Su began his government career in 1989 as Secretary General of the President’s Office. In 1993-94, he was appointed Commissioner of the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission,  Executive Yuan. In 1993-96, he was Vice Chairman of the ministerial-level Mainland Affairs Council, Executive Yuan. He was then appointed Director-General of the Government Information Office in 1996-97. Between 1997 and 1999, Dr. Su was Deputy Secretary-General to President Lee Teng-hui. In 1999-2000, he served as the Chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council. Between 2005 and 2008, he was a KMT Legislator.

Dr. Su Chi obtained his MA and Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University, MA in International Studies from the Johns Hopkins University, and BA in National Chengchi University (Taiwan).

 

 

Oksenberg Conference Room

Su Chi Former secretary general of the National Security Council, Republic of China (Taiwan) Speaker

Larry Diamond

CDDRL
Stanford University
Encina Hall, C147
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 724-6448 (650) 723-1928
0
Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science and Sociology
diamond_encina_hall.png MA, PhD

Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford, where he lectures and teaches courses on democracy (including an online course on EdX). At the Hoover Institution, he co-leads the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region and participates in the Project on the U.S., China, and the World. At FSI, he is among the core faculty of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, which he directed for six and a half years. He leads FSI’s Israel Studies Program and is a member of the Program on Arab Reform and Development. He also co-leads the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He served for 32 years as founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy.

Diamond’s research focuses on global trends affecting freedom and democracy and on U.S. and international policies to defend and advance democracy. His book, Ill Winds: Saving Democracy from Russian Rage, Chinese Ambition, and American Complacency, analyzes the challenges confronting liberal democracy in the United States and around the world at this potential “hinge in history,” and offers an agenda for strengthening and defending democracy at home and abroad.  A paperback edition with a new preface was released by Penguin in April 2020. His other books include: In Search of Democracy (2016), The Spirit of Democracy (2008), Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (1999), Promoting Democracy in the 1990s (1995), and Class, Ethnicity, and Democracy in Nigeria (1989). He has edited or coedited more than fifty books, including China’s Influence and American Interests (2019, with Orville Schell), Silicon Triangle: The United States, China, Taiwan the Global Semiconductor Security (2023, with James O. Ellis Jr. and Orville Schell), and The Troubling State of India’s Democracy (2024, with Sumit Ganguly and Dinsha Mistree).

During 2002–03, Diamond served as a consultant to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and was a contributing author of its report, Foreign Aid in the National Interest. He has advised and lectured to universities and think tanks around the world, and to the World Bank, the United Nations, the State Department, and other organizations dealing with governance and development. During the first three months of 2004, Diamond served as a senior adviser on governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad. His 2005 book, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, was one of the first books to critically analyze America's postwar engagement in Iraq.

Among Diamond’s other edited books are Democracy in Decline?; Democratization and Authoritarianism in the Arab World; Will China Democratize?; and Liberation Technology: Social Media and the Struggle for Democracy, all edited with Marc F. Plattner; and Politics and Culture in Contemporary Iran, with Abbas Milani. With Juan J. Linz and Seymour Martin Lipset, he edited the series, Democracy in Developing Countries, which helped to shape a new generation of comparative study of democratic development.

Download full-resolution headshot; photo credit: Rod Searcey.

Former Director of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Faculty Chair, Jan Koum Israel Studies Program
Hide publication sections
Off
Date Label
Larry Diamond Director Speaker Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
Seminars

Issues Raised by International Research and Public Service

-

Organized by the Haas Center and led by Professor emeritus David Abernethy (Political Science), this half-day interactive workshop will include a panel of returning students and small group discussions for students intending to travel abroad.

This workshop is particularly encouraged for students enrolled in History 299X Design and Methodology for Interational Field Research, Haas Center fellows, and any student planning public service trips abroad in the coming months.

The workshop will focus on such issues as

  • Managing stress, culture shock, and other unexpected turns of events
  • Handling delicate issues of reciprocity with professional coleagues
  • Confronting negative attitudes to you in your role and to the United States
  • Appropriately acknowledging the help and support you've received

The workshop will give students the opportunity to meets others heading out to the same part of the world and learn more about available resources.

http://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/haas/fellowships/workshop

Oak Lounge

David Abernethy Professor of Political Science, Emeritus Speaker
Workshops

Rebecca MacKinnon on the relationship between internet freedom and democratization in China

News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

Rebecca MacKinnon is Visiting Fellow at Princeton's Center for Information Technology.

Rebecca's presentation explored two key arguments: first, that China should challenge our assumptions about the inherent relationship between the internet and democratization; and second that existing democracies are currently legislating in ways that may jeopardize the empowering potential of the internet.

The emergence of the internet in China has enabled many people to engage in a more varied public discourse than ever before. The government has also begun to actively engage with its Netizens; for example, Wen Jiabao recently instigated an annual live web chat in which he takes questions on a wide range of social and political issues.

But we should not equate this more open discourse with a move towards democracy, for at least two reasons:

The government still largely controls the conversation: While Wen Jiabao may have been happy to engage in online debate, negative commentary by a prominent blogger (pointing out that this engagement is meaningless the absence of political structures) was swiftly removed. By putting the onus on providers such as blog platforms, China is successfully keeping more controversial content from ever appearing online. Attempts to openly criticize the government or to politically organize are still regularly met with arrest and imprisonment. And the government has adopted a much more sophisticated strategy for media coverage in recent years. Recognizing that press blackouts on controversial events are no longer viable in the age of the camera phone, it now allows these to be reported, saturating the public with its approved version of events, whilst squeezing out individual accounts by citizens.

The government is using the internet to argue that does not need democratic structures to engage its people: Far from signally the death of the Communist Party (as Rebecca and her CNN colleagues had predicted in the 90s), the internet may actually be prolonging its survival because it allows the regime to claim it can engage with its people without political structures. Many educated people in China buy into the idea that they can now be heard, and without a commitment to invest time and resources in circumventing censorship, they remain unaware of some of the most serious abuses. The internet may certainly serve a role in promoting deliberation, but China demonstrates that this deliberation can exist in an authoritarian context.

Meanwhile, in existing democracies, efforts to solve issues related to security and protection are causing governments to legislate in ways that move them closer to illiberal models of surveillance and censorship. In South Korea, the government has instigated a law requiring users of certain sites to create accounts that include their national ID number. This makes it extremely easy for authorities to identify authors who previously could have remained anonymous, and has already led to several arrests. In the UK, the Digital Economy Bill, aimed at preventing copyright infringements, will force ISPs to monitor customers' use of their networks and report suspicious activity to copyright groups. Concerns for child safety online have recently led some UK campaign groups to lend support to China's idea to pre-install all new PCs with censorship software.  These examples highlight the need for a renewed debate about the right balance between security and liberty online. As we come to rely on the internet more and more for understanding the world around us, governments need to think holistically about how their policies will shape its use and impact.

All News button
1
Subscribe to Science and Technology