End Notes

  • Spring 2012
May 1, 2012

PEOPLE

Erin Baumgartner has been promoted to Managing Director of the MIT-France Program.

Visiting Fellow Baktybek Beshimov presented "The Rivalry of the US, Russia and China in Central Asia" at the Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations conference on "Security and Diplomacy in Asia" in February. He spoke at Boston University on "Human Rights in Post-Soviet Central Asia" at Boston University in March. In April, he spoke at Beloit College in April on "Post-9/11 Policies in Central Asia" and at Suffolk University on "The USA, China and Russia's Competition and Cooperation in Central Asia after 9/11." He was also interviewed for the Boston Review, the Journal of Turkish Weekly, and The Boston Globe.

PhD candidate Nathan Black presented "The Spread of Violent Civil Conflict: Rare, State-Driven, and Preventable" at the International Studies Association Annual Convention in San Diego. Nathan also accepted a postdoctoral fellowship at the Harvard University Center for the Environment for 2012-2014.

In January, Associate Professor Taylor Fravel presented "China's Changing Approach to the South China Sea" at the Department of State and "China's Territorial Disputes: Past, Present, and Future" at the US-Japan Kanazawa Conference in Ishikawa, Japan. In February, he presented "China and Sudden Instability in North Korea: Interests, Priorities, and Likely Responses" at the United States Institute of Peace. This winter, he also presented "From Assertiveness to Moderation: Explaining China's Behavior in the South China Sea" at Harvard's Kennedy School and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. In March, he was a witness at the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on "Investigating the Chinese Threat, Part One: Military and Economic Aggression" and in April, he presented "Explaining the Evolution of China's Military Strategy" at the International Studies Association Annual Conference.

Caroline Fickett, MISTI Communications Assistant, received a 2012 SHASS Infinite Mile Award for her outstanding achievements.

Alicia Goldstein has been promoted to Managing Director of the MIT-Spain program.

Security Studies Program Senior Advisor Jeanne Guillemin's book, American Anthrax, was selected as a 2012 "Must-Read" by the Massachusetts Center for the Book. Her book was also reviewed in The FASEB Journal and Brandeis Magazine.

Kersti Larsdotter has joined SSP as a research scholar with support from the Ryochi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund.

Lynne Levine has been promoted to Administrative Assistant II in recognition of the increased complexity of her job and was awarded a 2012 SHASS Infinite Mile Award for her outstanding achievements.

The Class of 1922 Professor of Political Science and Management and Head of the MIT Political Science Department Richard Locke's work was featured in "When the Jobs Inspector Calls" in The Economist.

Susan Luvisi joined CIS as an administrative assistant for the MISTI Global Seed Funds program and other MISTI programs.

Robert E. Wilhelm Fellow Abbas Maleki served as a discussant at the Starr Forum "A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama's Diplomacy with Iran."

The 2011-2012 MISTI Global Seed Funds Competition awarded $1,708,290 for seventy-one faculty research projects. The projects involve international collaboration and include undergraduate, graduate or postdoctoral student participation. The new grant process will open in May with an early fall deadline.

Roger Petersen, the Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science, has been awarded the ASN (Association for the Study of Nationalities) 2012 Joseph Rothschild Prize for his book, Western Intervention in the Balkans: The Strategic Use of Emotion in Conflict

PhD Candidate Miranda Priebe was awarded a predoctoral fellowship with the International Security Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. She was also selected as a Tobin Project National Security Fellow.

PhD Candidate Kai Quek presented "Discontinuities in China's Signaling Behavior upon Its Decision For War" and "Nuclear Proliferation and the Risk of Nuclear War: Experimental Tests" at the International Studies Association Annual Convention and the Midwest Political Science Association National Conference. He presented these papers and "Using Mechanical Turk as a Subject Pool in Developing Countries" (with Adam Berinsky and Michael Sances) at MPSA.

In February, Associate Professor of Law and Development Balakrishnan Rajagopalgave a lecture on "Beyond 'Rights' and 'Development' for tackling the Sanitation Challenge: Lessons from Gujarat, India" at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard's Kennedy School. In March, he spoke at a conference on "Law: Between Theory and Critique" in Paris. He delivered the annual Hansen/Hostler Distinguished Lecture on Global Justice at San Diego State University and participated on a panel, "Effectuating Socio-Economic Rights in India" at Yale Law School in April. He was also a presenter and plenary speaker at the "Conference on the 20th Anniversary of the Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies," University of Indiana Law School at Bloomington. 

Ford International Professor of Political Science and director of the Center for International Studies Richard Samuels has spent his leave writing a book on the political impact and policy implications of Japan's March 2011 catastrophes in Japan and as a Visiting Professor at LUISS in Rome.

Ford International Professor of Urban Development and Planning Bishwapriya Sanyal received the Distinguished Alumni award from Indian Institute of Technology. He also received a five year grant from the Hubert Humphrey Fellowship Program (a Fulbright exchange program) to host mid-career urban planners at MIT.

Carol R. Saivetz, Research Affiliate in the Security Studies Program, spoke at a State Department conference about Russian foreign policy toward Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.

In November, Ford International Professor of Political Science Ben Ross Schneiderpresented "Business Groups, the State, and Industrial Policy" at the Harvard Kennedy School. In December, he presented "Business Groups, Politics, and the State in Latin America" at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In January, he presented "New and Old Developmental States in Brazil" at the Workshop on Democracy and Development Policy, IPEA, Brasilia. In February, he presented "Hierarchical Capitalism: Business, Labor, and the Challenge of Equitable Development in Latin America" at Tulane University and Princeton University.

PhD Candidate Joshua Itzkowitz Shifrinson was awarded a predoctoral fellowship at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University and an O'Donnell grant from the Scowcroft Institute at Texas A&M University. He was also selected as a Tobin Project National Security Fellow.

Associate Professor of Political Science David Andrew Singer presented a working paper on banking crises at faculty seminars at the London School of Economics and Washington University in St. Louis. He will present chapters from his book manuscript entitled "Migration and Global Finance" at Yale University in June.

Sarah Jane Vaughan has been promoted to Administrative Assistant II in recognition of the increased complexity of her job.

In April, Security Studies Program Research Associate Jim Walsh gave a lecture "My 5 Dinners with Ahmadinejad: Iran, Nuclear Weapons, the Middle East" at MIT.

In April, PhD Candidate David Weinberg presented his paper "Pharaoh's Lament: Civil-Military Relations and the Fall of Egypt's Mubarak Regime" at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the International Studies Association, in San Diego, California. 
 

PUBLISHED

Professor Nazli Choucri, "Lost in Cyberspace: Harnessing the Internet, International Relations, and Global Security," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 68(2), pp. 70–77 with Daniel Goldsmith.

Postdoctoral Fellow Jerome Klassen, "Methods of Empire: Nation-building, Development and War in Afghanistan," in Jerome Klassen and Greg Albo, eds,Empire's Ally: Canada and the War in Afghanistan, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012).

Willa Michener "The Individual Psychology of Group Hate" will appear in the Fall 2012 issue of The Journal of Hate Studies.

Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science Melissa Nobles participated in the New York Times Room for Debate "Brazil's Racial Identity Challenge."

PhD candidate Andrew Radin, "Enlisting Islam for an Effective Afghan Police,"Survival, Vol. 54, No. 2 (April-May 2012), 113-128 with Austin Long.

Ford International Professor of Political Science Ben Ross Schneider, "Business Politics in Latin America: Investigating Structure, Preferences, and Influence" in Peter Kingstone and Deborah Yashar, eds., Handbook of Latin American Politics (London: Routledge, 2012) (with Sebastian Karcher).

Ford International Professor of Political Science Richard Samuels, "Japan's Roiling Struggle Forward," Boston Globe, March 10, 2012. 

Ford International Professor of Urban Development and Planning Bishwapriya Sanyal, ed., Planning Ideas that Matter: Sustainability, Livability, Territoriality, and Governance (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, Forthcoming August 2012) with Lawrence J. Vale and Christina D. Rosan.

Security Studies Program Research Affiliate Carol R. Saivetz, "Playing to Lose? Russia and the 'Arab Spring'," Problems of Post-Communism, January 2012 (with Stephen Blank).

Principal Research Scientist and Executive Director of CIS John Tirman, "The Forgotten Wages of War," New York Times, January 3, 2012, A23.

Professor of History Elizabeth Wood, "Russia's Anti-Putin Protests are more than just a Generational Temper Tantrum," Boston.com, January 18, 2012.