People

PhD Candidate Marsin Alshamary received a Predoctoral Research Fellowship at the Middle East Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School for 2019-2020.

Professor of Political Science Fotini Christia (with Erik Demaine and Constantinos Daskalakis from MIT CSAIL) received a grant award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for a project on “Serial Interactions in Imperfect Information Games Applied to Complex Military Decision-Making.”

CIS Research Fellow David Edelman was interviewed by NBC News, The Washington Post, Wired Magazine and Agence France Press to discuss various topics in cybersecurity. 

PhD Candidate Rachel Esplin Odell received a Predoctoral Fellowship from the International Security Program at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs for 2019-2020. She also received a travel grant from MIT-India, which she used to support dissertation field research in Delhi in March 2019 as an affiliate of Carnegie India, and a CIS Summer Study Travel Grant, which she will apply toward dissertation research in China in summer 2019. Odell presented “A Theory of Contestation Space in International Regimes” at the International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Conference in Toronto on March 27. A paper she co-authored with PhD Candidate Kacie Miura, “Second Image Squared: The Interactive Effects of Bureaucratic Politics in U.S.-China Relations, 2009-2016,” was presented at ISA by Miura. Odell participated in a panel discussion on AI, China, Russia and the Global Order, organized by the Pentagon’s Strategic Multilayer Assessment (SMA) Office on February 12. 

Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow Se Young Jang presented “The Second US-ROK Nuclear Conflict: President Carter, Withdrawal of US Forces, and South Korea’s Nuclear Hedging,” at the American Historical Association Annual Conference in Chicago on January 3.

Associate Professor of Political Science and CIS Policy Lab Faculty Director Chappell Lawson and CIS Policy Lab Managing Director Dan Pomeroy launched an online course on EdX entitled “Tools for Academic Engagement in Public Policy” in April.

MISTI MIT-Germany Program Manager Justin Leahey participated in the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies’ project “A German-American Dialogue of the Next Generation: Global Responsibility, Joint Engagement," which engages young Americans and Germans in discussions of global issues of concern for the transatlantic relationship.

PhD Candidate Andrew Miller presented research on citizen-police cooperation in Lagos, Nigeria at the Harvard Experimental Political Science Graduate Student Conference in April.

PhD Candidate Aidan Milliff presented “Facts Before Feelings: Theorizing Emotional Responses to Violent Trauma,” at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association in Chicago in April. Milliff was also awarded a 2019 CIS Summer Study Grant to support research on the determinants of civilian behavior during the Partition of India as part of his dissertation.

PhD Candidate Kacie Miura received a Predoctoral Research Fellowship from the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government for 2019-2020. At the March 2019 International Studies Association Conference in Toronto, she presented “Economic Coercion in an Interdependent Era: China Responds to the THAAD Crisis.” With Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science M Taylor Fravel, she presented “Stormy Seas: The South China Sea in US-China Relations” at a conference at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for the Study of Contemporary China on May 2. From May 13-17, she also participated in the China Institute of International Studies' China-US Young Leaders Dialogue in Beijing.

Associate Professor of Political Science Vipin Narang was interviewed by Bloomberg.com for a two part series on “Winning the Nuclear Game” against North Korea and Russia.

PhD Candidate Cullen Nutt received a grant for summer 2019 from the Charles Koch Foundation. Nutt presented “Alignment Instability and Covert Action: The Case of Portugal” at the International Studies Association annual conference in Toronto. In January, Nutt attended a seminar in Los Angeles hosted by the Charles Koch Foundation on grand strategy in East Asia.

PhD Candidate Sara Plana received a Smith Richardson World Politics and Statecraft Fellowship for 2019-2020. Plana was also a graduate student organizer for the Bridging the Gap Project’s New Era Workshop in Berkeley, CA, this February. Plana presented “If At First You Don’t Succeed: Explaining the Puzzle of Unchanging Russian Counterinsurgency Doctrine,” at the International Studies Association Annual Conference in Toronto in March.

Ford International Professor of Political Science and SSP Director Barry Posen received a Lifetime Achievement Award for Innovative Approaches to Grand Strategy from the University of Notre Dame in April. Posen also appeared on WBUR’s On Point in April to discuss the future of NATO.

Ford International Professor of Political Science and CIS Director Richard Samuels presented “Japan’s Strategic Choices” at the Barcelona Center for International Affairs, Open University of Catalonia, in January. In the same month, Samuels also presented “Japan’s 2018 National Defense Program Guidelines” at the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, in Berlin, Germany.

PhD Candidate Meicen Sun received a grant from the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy to support her dissertation research in April.

PhD Candidates Rachel Tecott and Sara Plana introduced the second annual Future Strategy Forum conference at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC in April. The conference series, co-created by Plana and Tecott in 2018 and co-sponsored by CSIS and the Kissinger Center, addresses emerging national security challenges, connects national security academics and practitioners across the country, and amplifies the voices of women in the field.

Ford International Professor of Political Science Kathleen Thelen was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem. This year, Thelen also held the Donald Gordon Fellowship at the Stellensbosch Institute for Advanced Study in South Africa.

Publications

PhD Candidate Matthew Cancian (with SSP alum Kristin Fabbe), “Informal Institutions and Survey Research in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq,“ PS: Political Science and Politics, (March 2019).

PhD Candidate Matthew Cancian (with Mark Cancian), “It’s Long Past Time to Stop Expanding NATO,“ War on the Rocks (March 1, 2019). 

Professor of Political Science Nazli Choucri (with David Clark), International Relations in the Cyber Age: The Co-Evolution Dilemma. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2019. 

SSP Associate Director and CIS Principal Research Scientist Owen Cote, “Invisible Nuclear-Armed Submarines, or Transparent Oceans? Are Ballistic Missile Submarines Still the Best Deterrent for the United States?” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 75, No. 1, pp. 30-335 (January 2019).

PhD Candidate Rachel Esplin Odell, “Chinese Regime Insecurity, Domestic Authoritarianism, and Foreign Policy,” in Nicholas D. Wright, ed., AI, China, Russia, and the Global Order: Technological, Political, Global, and Creative Perspectives,  A Strategic Multilayer Assessment Periodic Publication, 2018.

Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science Taylor Fravel, Active Defense: China’s Military Strategy since 1949. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019.

___________ “How the People’s Liberation Army does Military Strategy,” interview in The Diplomat (January 30, 2019).

Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow Se Young Jang, “US-South Korea Military Negotiations Could Cost the Alliance,” East Asia Forum (February 13, 2019).

___________ “The Hanoi Summit–We Asked Se Young Jang what Happens Next in US-North Korea Relations,”The National Interest (March 12, 2019).

PhD Candidate Kacie Miura, “The Implications of Increased Internal Control on China's International Behavior,” in Nicholas D. Wright, ed., AI, China, Russia, and the Global Order: Technological, Political, Global, and Creative Perspectives,A Strategic Multilayer Assessment Periodic Publication, 2018.

Associate Professor of Political Science Vipin Narang, “North Korea and America’s Second Summit: Here’s what Vipin Narang Thinks Will Happen,” The National Interest (February 6, 2019).

___________(with MIT Alum Christopher Clary), “India’s Counterforce Temptations: Strategic Dilemmas, Doctrine, and Capabilities,” International Security, Vol. 43, No. 3, pp. 7-52 (Winter 2018/19).

___________(with MIT Alum Nicholas Miller), “The Year of Living Dangerously with Nuclear Weapons: Three Crises Washington Could Face in 2019,” Foreign Affairs (January 11, 2019). 

SSP Security Studies Senior Advisor Carol Saivetz, “Russia Might Regret the US Drawdown in Syria” Lawfare (April 14, 2019).

Ford International Professor of Political Science Ben Ross Schneider (with Alejandra Mizala), “Promoting Quality Education in Chile: The Politics of Reforming Teacher Careers,” Journal of Education Policy, Vol. 14, pp. 1-27 (March 2019).

___________(with Pablo Cevallos Estarellas and Barbara Burns), “The Politics of Transforming Education in Ecuador: Confrontation and Continuity, 2006-17,”Comparative Education Review, Vol. 63, No. 2, pp. 259-280 (May 2019).

PhD Candidate Meicen Sun, “National Borders Don’t Stop in the Physical World – They’re in Cyberspace Too,” World Economic Forum (January 16, 2019). 

Ford International Professor of Political Science Kathleen Thelen, “Transitions to the Knowledge Economy in Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands,” Comparative Politics, Vol. 51, No. 2, pp. 295-315 (January 2019).

___________ “The American Precariat: U.S. Capitalism in Comparative Perspective,” Perspectives on Politics Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 5-27 [lead article] (March 2019).