Went to the conference today, and since I hadn't read the agenda in advance, I was surprised by seeing so many familiar faces; especially Steven Phillips and Lowell Dittmer. 

What a pleasant surprise! The two were here in Taiwan last year for legislative election observations and I was one of the students who took them for a field trip in Tainan and Kaohsiung. (series of related blogs are on the right side panel under title "2008 Legislative Election Observations") Professor Phillips later on helped me out tremendously with my applications and thus I owe him a huge debt. If I eventually end up at UVA, he would be one of the main factors that made it happen.

Last Friday, I attended the TRA conference and got to ask Professor Krasner for some advice regarding school decisions. We had a nice conversation and he offered some wonderful insights --perspectives from a top US political science professor is especially valuable here in Taiwan now.

If anyone would like a scanned text of Krasner's speech or the papers of other presenters, please let me know, I can e-mail them to you.

Picture from Theory Talks

Stephen Krasner will give speech at the conference "Taiwan Relations Act Entering Its 30th Anniversary: Continuities, Changes, and Challenges" held at the Academia Sinica during March 27-28.

Stephen Krasner is an international relations professor at Stanford University and is the former Director of Policy Planning at the United States Department of State.

Conference agenda here. Application form here. Website here. 

To understand more about Krasner's work, see Sovereignty, Failed States and International Regimes on Theory Talks.