Institute for Global and International Studies

Welcome to the Institute for Global and International Studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs. This website will keep you up to date on what is happening at the Institute and affiliated faculty, staff, and student activities that relate to the Institute's mission.

Updates

Congratulations to student intern Meg Pierce

Meg Pierce, an Elliott School undergraduate with a double major in International Affairs and Women's Studies, has a part-time internship this summer with Vital Voices that is supported by a stipend award from the George Washington University. She will be working on their Global Ambassadors Conference to Brazil.

GGP's Kerry Crawford co-authors article in Air & Space Power Journal

Doctoral candidates in political science Kerry Crawford and Julia Macdonald published the article "Establishing a Marketplace of Women in Peacekeeping: An Analysis of Gender Mainstreaming and Its Viability in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations" in the most recent edition of Air & Space Power Journal.

Video available from event with Donald Steinberg

Event co-sponsored by IGIS and LAHSP, "From Donor-Centrism to Data Paloozas: The New World of Development Cooperation" with Donald Steinberg is now available online here.

GW alumna gives TEDx talk on girls and education in Ghana

GW BA alumna and member of the Global Women's Task Force at GW, Sally Nuamah, now a doctoral candidate in political science at Northwestern University, will give a TEDx talk in Chicago, streamed live, on Fri Apr 12, 2013 5:20pm EDT.

GGP's Ariana Leon Rabindranath participated at the 3rd Annual European Conference on Politics and Gender

On March 21-23, the European Standing Group on Politics and Gender convened the 3rd Annual European Conference on Politics and Gender at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain. GGP Associate Director Ariana Leon Rabindranath participated in the conference and presented her paper, "Finding a Voice: Pathways Women Take to Politics in the Asia-Pacific Region", in a panel discussion entitled "Access to Political Power: Women's Ambition and Routes to Office." The conference was attended by 500 academics and practitioners from Europe and abroad.

GGP hosted two major events in March

GGP held its first-year Spring Roundtable panel devoted to gender issues in migration and international development called "Migrant Care Work from Two Sides: Care Work in the U.S. and Families Care Workers Leave Behind." Our event for International Women's Day focused on ending violence against women. It included a keynote lecture by Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams. For more information on this event view our blog post "Jody Williams and the International Campaign to Stop Rape and Gender Violence in Conflict" or the Elliott School's March Briefing. A video of this event can be found here.

Congratulations to two faculty in the Africa Working Group for their new books

John Harbeson, co-editor Africa in World Politics: Engaging a Changing Global Order, Westview Press, 2013.

Paul Williams, co-editor:
Providing Peacekeepers: The Politics, Challenges, and Future of United Nations Peacekeeping Contributions, Oxford University Press, 2013.

Fare-thee-well to Evan Faber

Last month we said fare-thee-well to Evan Faber as he completed his position as Executive Associate with the Project on Forward Engagement and began to transition to the next stage of his career. "The past four-plus years working for Prof. Fuerth have been nothing short of life-changing; I'm proud of the work we accomplished together, and I am honored to have learned so much from him," Evan said in an email announcement to colleagues. "I expect that our work together on Anticipatory Governance will continue in new and even more interesting ways." Evan moves next to consult on a project with the Rockefeller Foundation in New York City, which he says is "a very exciting opportunity that ought to help me determine the best ways that I can exercise my commitment to foresight, technology and strategic thinking to make a positive social impact."

Western Hemisphere Working Group event coverage and blog launching

On March 26th at the Elliott School of International Affairs, Western Hemisphere Working Group launched it's initiative by presenting an informational panel entitled "Big Trucks, Pop Star Politics and Consensus Building: The Politics of Development in Haiti." The panel featured Raymond Joseph, former Haitian Ambassador to the US, Jonathan Katz, journalist and author and Mark Schneider of the International Crisis Group, who discussed their recent work on post-Earthquake Haitian development. Following the event the Western Hemisphere Working Group launched its new blog Focus on Haiti. View the official C-SPAN coverage here.

Today's event will stream live on C-SPAN from 5:30-7:00pm

The Western Hemisphere Working Group is sponsoring an event "Big Trucks, Pop Star Politicians and Consensus Building: The Politics of Development in Haiti" today, March 26, 2013, that will stream live from 5:30-7:00 on C-SPAN. Click here to watch. For more information about the event, see the Global Policy Forum.

Two additional working papers now online

"Explaining the Variation in Gender Composition of Personnel Contributions to UN Peacekeeping Operations" (by Kerry F. Crawford, James H. Lebovic, Julia M. Macdonald) examines how we account for the dearth of female contributions to UN peace operations.

"Defying Strategy: United States Non-Strategic Recognition of Wartime Sexual Violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo" (by Kerry F. Crawford) poses the following question: Do states devote valuable material resources and political capital to condemning atrocities when armed intervention is not imminent or when the perpetrator is not an adversary?

GGP's Second Occasional Report available now

We are happy to report that the Global Gender Program's second occasional paper is now live here. The paper, prepared by Milad Pournik, Jaeeun Chung, and Barbara Miller, offers a review of the concept of social resilience (particularly how it relates to women and girls), provides a summary of a conference that took place marking the United Nations International Day for Disaster Reduction and its 2012 theme, Women & Girls: The inVisible Source of Resilience, and summarizes how social resilience can create more secure societies in a changing world.

Congratulations to Casey McHugh

Casey McHugh (MA in Anthropology and International Development, GW, 2011), has been appointed as Education Program Support Specialist at USAID/Liberia. She will provide support on the conceptualization, design, documentation, and management of USAID education assistance projects in Liberia. Casey worked with IGIS's Global Gender Program as a research assistant for its Working Papers on Women, Security, and Development in 2011.

Report on Anticipatory Governance Recommends "Practical Upgrades" for 21st Century Government

If the United States is to remain a well-functioning republic and a prosperous nation, the government cannot rely indefinitely on crisis management, no matter how adroit. We must get ahead of events or we risk being overtaken by them. Responding to this need is the subject of the November 2012 report released by IGIS Professor Leon S. Fuerth (Director of the Project on Forward Engagement at the Elliott School, and former National Security Advisor to Vice President Gore), working with Evan M. H. Faber, titled: Anticipatory Governance Practical Upgrades. The report offers a three-part strategy for enabling policymakers to cope with accelerating change and complex challenges and proposes specific ways to do this using existing personnel and structures of government, without requiring new resources, legislation or major organizational rewiring.

New IGIS Faculty Affiliate: Stephen Kaplan

Stephen Kaplan, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs. His book Globalization and Austerity Politics in Latin America will be launched Thursday, February 28th at 4:00pm. Click here for more information on the event.

Welcome Tashi Rabgey, IGIS's new Research Professor of International Affairs

Tashi Rabgey, Ph.D., previously a CIGA Visiting Scholar, joins the team as a Research Professor of International Affairs. Dr. Rabgey's current research interests include legal pluralism; theories of recognition, autonomy and governance; and the politics of minority policy and multiculturalism in the People's Republic of China. Since joining IGIS, Dr. Rabgey has founded the Tibet Governance Project, an initiative devoted to advancing scholarship, research, and new perspectives on key issues of governance and public policy in contemporary Tibet.

Dina Abou El Seoud speaks on Women's Ground Experiences in Egypt

The Global Gender Forum hosted a conversation with Dina Abou El Seoud on Activism and Aspirations: Women's Ground Experiences in Egypt. An Egyptian activist, she is co-founder of the Women's Revolutionary Coalition, owner of Dina's Hostel, the only Egyptian women owned and run hostel in Cairo, which also holds cultural events and exhibitions and is a hub for travelers, artists, journalists, and activists. Sussan Tahmasebi, co-founder of ICAN (International Civil Society Action Network), was the interlocutor. The event was co-sponsored with ICAN.

Peter Chilson speaks about the current situation in Mali

Peter Chilson spoke to an overflow crowd on Jan 29, providing insights from his recent trip to Mali. Last May the north of the country fell to Tuareg rebels, whose separatist movement became co-opted by a faction of Al-Qaeda of the Islamic Magreb. As desert cities fell and troops and equipment were abandoned, the movement seemed to gain momentum until it was recently stopped by the French military. Professor Chilson reflected on the long history of the Malian territory and the lack of territorial integrity of the Malian state. He mentioned key players of the various splinter groups. A lively Q&A session followed.

GGP supported documentary on Burmese migrant women workers

The Global Gender Program supported the making of a short documentary, Stepping into Change: Migrant Women Workers in Thailand, produced by MAP Foundation. The 13-minute film highlights the conditions faced by Burmese migrant women workers in Thailand and the Women’s Exchange program that has helped them.

Cait O'Donnell, GGP
program coordinator,
at a USIP event.

GGP at a USIP event celebrating the anniversary of the U.S. National Action Plan

The Global Gender Program of IGIS is a member of the U.S. Civil Society Working Group, convened by Kathleen Kuehnast of the United States Institute for Peace (USIP). The Working Group has been a strong advocate for a US National Action Plan in support of UNSCR 1325 and its implementation. On Wednesday January 30 USIP hosted a panel discussion, featuring Melanne Verveer, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues, celebrating the anniversary of the U.S. National Action Plan. The event also included a knowledge and resource fair, for which the GGP had a table at.

Leon Fuerth and Amb. Tom Pickering discuss Anticipatory Governance

Leon Fuerth and Ambassador Tom Pickering discussed aspects of Fuerth's recently released report entitled "Anticipatory Governance: Practical Upgrades; Equipping the Executive Branch to Cope with Increasing Speed and Complexity of Major Challenges." View video recording here.

Tibet Governance Project series launched with talk on language policy

Manla Kyi, the newly appointed regional associate director of the Tibet Governance Project's work in Tibet, spoke about China's changing policy toward minority languages. She focused on the case of the Tibetan language and policy about the language of instruction in schools. Kyi is a doctoral candidate at the University of Hong Kong.

Barbara Miller at the Canadian Embassy during the U.S. Presidential Inauguration

IGIS Director Barbara Miller blogs about her experience at the U.S. Presidential Inauguration from the perspective of a tailgate party at the Embassy of Canada. She comments on Canadian food, fun, and identity as well as the socially inclusive messages of the parade. Free mittens and Blackerry tablets were a highlight as well as Beaver Tails and Bloody Caesars.

Haiti three years after the earthquake

On the three year anniversary of Haiti's earthquake, Robert Maguire discusses the country's landscape today, in an interview on NPR.

Women and Water in South and Central Asia: Building International Social Capital for Sustainable Peace and Development

This project, funded by the State Department, will support Track II diplomacy (people-to-people relations) and enhance capacity on water resource management as a key element in enhancing stability and prosperity in Central and South Asia. It brings together young women social entrepreneurs and activists from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, to discuss their experiences, best practices, and innovative solutions related to community-level water management. It will also connect them to U.S. institutions and the policy community working on water management and women's participation. The project includes in-person and virtual exchanges in the Central and South Asian region and in Washington DC, video and web content production, and curriculum development. The award is for nearly $300,000 and extends from January 2013 to December 2015. The principal investigator is Marlene Laruelle, research professor of international affairs with the Central Asia Program of the Elliott School's Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies; the co-principal investigator is Ariana Rabindranath, associate director of the Global Gender Program of the Elliott School's Institute for Global and International Studies (IGIS). Two other affiliated faculty are Deepa Ollapally of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies and Barbara Miller of IGIS and the Global Gender Program.

Adam Chamy's Art Exhibited at the UN

Elliott School B.A. graduate and 2008 Cotlow anthropology grant recipient, Adam Chamy, had his art exhibited as part of a show called Palestine: Memories, Dreams, Perseverance that opened November 29 in the United Nations building in New York City.

The fellows, along with former
Clinton Secretary of Defense
William Perry.

Tashi Rabgey and US-China Relations

Tashi Rabgey, CIGA Visiting Scholar, participated in a workshop in San Francisco of the Public Intellectuals fellowship program of the National Committee on US-China Relations. She gave a presentation on The Governance Initiative: A Meta-Dialogue on the Sino-Tibetan Issue.

Bob Maguire at the MIPP/LAHSP/Ambassador Forum event on October 2nd

Bob Maguire, Director of the Latin American & Hemispheric Affairs Program (LAHSP), underscores the importance of the Organization of American States as a key player in hemispheric issues.

Moving on...

We wish to thank Professor Susan Sell for leading the Institute for the past four years, ably assisted by Mike Salamon. Susan is on sabbatical for the upcoming academic year and will be at the Woodrow Wilson Center conducting research towards her newest book project. Having completed his M.A. in International Affairs, Mike has accepted a position as a Regional Field Organizer with the ONE Campaign. Thanks and congratulations to both Susan and Mike!

Moving in...

The incoming director, Professor Barbara Miller, brings with her greater connection with two Elliott School research units: the Global Gender Program and the Culture in Global Affairs Program. She also is building a reconfigured community of core faculty and staff in and beyond the IGIS suite that will focus on: policy and aid effectiveness; governance and law; international development; gender and social equality and justice; migration, refugees, and population change; and socially informed responses to disasters and crises.

Starting this summer and in the early fall, IGIS welcomes several new post-doctoral and pre-doctoral fellows as well as our first Practitioner-in-Residence.