PEOPLE

Visiting Fellow Baktybek Beshimov spoke on "Ferghana Valley: The Heart of Central Asia" at Harvard University's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian studies Central Asia and Caucasus Seminar in October. He also spoke on "Security Risks in Central Asia" at the Ditchley Foundation's conference "The Central Asian Republics and their International Partners" in London and on a panel about the "EU-Central Asia: Humanitarian Perspective" at Suffolk University in November.
 

Jackee Budesta Batanda

CIS Elizabeth Neuffer Fellow Jackee Budesta Batandagave a talk "Stolen: Stories of a lost childhood" at CIS's Human Securities Working Group in November.

In September, PhD Candidate Nathan Black presented a chapter from his dissertation "The Puzzle of Substate Conflict Contagion" to the Tobin Project Graduate Student Forum.

PhD Candidate Christopher Clary served as rapporteur for a Council on Foreign Relations-Aspen Institute India report entitled, "The United States and India: A Shared Strategic Future," which was released in September. In October, he presented his paper, "Risky and Uncertain: India's Near-Term Military Options against Pakistan" to the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington, DC. 
 

Taylor Fravel

In July, Associate Professor Taylor Fravel presented "China and the South China Sea: American Perspectives" at the Institute of American Studies and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the China Contemporary Institutes of International Relations in Beijing. In August, he spoke on "Assessing the US Security Commitment to Taiwan" at a Tobin Project workshop and "China's Strategy in the South China Sea" at the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore. He also presented "Myths about China's Military Modernization and the Potential for US-China Conflict" at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at the Nanyang Technological University and "The PLA's Role in National Security Policymaking in Territorial Disputes" at the National University of Singapore. In September, he presented on "Maritime Security in the South China Sea and the Competition over Maritime Rights" at the Center for New American Security, "Conflict and Cooperation in the East China Sea" at the Center for Naval Analysis, and "China and National Security" at the President's Intelligence Advisory Board. At the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Taylor presented "China's Military Rise: Assessing Military Capabilities and National Influence" and "Explaining the Evolution of China's Military Strategy." 

In October, Security Studies Program Senior Advisor Jeanne Guillemin participated in "A Dialogue on American Anthrax" at the American Association for the Advancement of Science Center on Science, Technology, and Security Policy in Washington, DC. In September, she was also interviewed about her new bookAmerican Anthrax on National Public Radio's "On Point" and on AARP Radio by Mike Cuthbert. In October, she was interviewed by Barry Lynn on the radio show "Culture Shocks." 

PhD Candidate Joshua Itzkowitz Shifrinson presented "Life on the Downward Slope: Assessing the Security Consequences of Great Power Decline" at the Tobin Project's Graduate Student Forum in December.

Associate Professor Chappell Lawson was named Director of the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI) in May. In October, he spoke at a CIS Starr Forum event "Border Security in the 21st Century."

MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI) has launched its eleventh country program, MIT-Chile. Thanks to a partnership with the Chilean Ministry of Economy, Development and Tourism, the program will provide MIT undergraduate and graduate students with opportunities for all-expenses paid internships with Chilean companies and laboratories. The new MIT-Chile Seed Fund will encourage collaboration between faculty at MIT and their counterparts in Chile.

This June, Research Affiliate Thomas L. Neff gave the keynote address to the first Earth's Resources Conference sponsored by the Standard Chartered Bank in Hong Kong. 
 

Miranda Priebe

PhD Candidate Miranda Priebe presented her dissertation, "Managing the Rise of Regional Challengers: Assessing the Consequences of Mixing Conciliatory and Firm Policies," at the Tobin Project's Graduate Student Forum in December.

Ford International Professor of Political Science and director of the Center for International Studies Richard Samuels was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star by the government of Japan for his contributions to scholarship on Japan. He was also interviewed by the National Bureau of Asian Research in August on "Japan after Kan: Implications for the DPJ's Political Future."

Ford International Professor of Political Science Ben Ross Schneider gave a speech entitled "Hierarchical Capitalism: Business, Labor, and the Challenge of Equitable Development in Latin America" at the World Bank in Washington, DC, in May and at the IPEA in Brasília in June. 

PhD Candidate Kai Quek presented his paper "Rationalist Experiments on War" at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association in September.

Ford Professor of Political Science Kathleen Thelen and Bruno Palier's article "Institutionalizing Dualism" was awarded the Stanley Hoffmann Award for the best English-language article on French Politics published in any peer-reviewed journal over the past two years by the French Politics Group of the American Political Science Association and the Association Française de Science Politique. Kathleen was also elected President of the Comparative Politics Section and as a member of the Executive Council of the American Political Science Association. She was also appointed as a research fellow at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin fuer Sozialforschung (Social Science Research Center, Berlin) for 2012-2014.

In November, Ford International Professor Steve Van Evera moderated a CIS Starr Forum event on "The Republican Party and American Foreign Policy." 

This fall, PhD Candidate David Weinberg was a visiting fellow at UCLA's Center for Middle East Development. 

In May, Principal Research Scientist Cindy Williams spoke on "US Budgets for Defense and National Security" at the University of Oregon Political Science Department. This summer, she lectured at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and the Summer Workshop on Analysis of Military Operations and Strategy (SWAMOS) program run by Columbia University for young scholars in international relations on "US Budgets and Resource Allocation Processes for National Security and International Affairs." In October, she gave lecture on "The Future of U.S. National Security Budgets," at the National Security Studies Program Executive Management Course at the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University. Cindy also spoke on Capitol Hill in October at the Tobin Project's sustainable national security strategy seminar on "How Much Can the United States Afford to Spend on National Security?" Cindy was also interviewed several times on this subject.
 

PUBLISHED

Barton L Weller Professor of Political Economy Alice Amsden, "Firm Ownership and Entrepreneurship" in Adam Szirmai, Wim Naudé, and Micheline Goedhuys (eds),Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Economic Development (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

Elizabeth Neuffer Fellow Jackee Budesta Batanda, "Museveni's grip on Uganda,"Boston Globe, October 3, 2011. 

_____________, "Ugandans wonder: Is US after Kony, or oil?," Boston Globe,November 19, 2011. 

PhD Candidate Christopher Clary and Mara Karlin, "Saudi Arabia's Reform Gamble,"Survival, Volume 53, Issue 5, October-November 2011, pp. 15-20. 

Associate Professor Taylor Fravel, "China Views India's Rise: Deepening Cooperation, Managing Differences," in Ashley Tellis, Travis Tanner, and Jessica Keough, ed, Strategic Asia 2011–12: Asia Responds to Its Rising Powers—China and India (Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2011). 

_____________, "China's Assertive Behavior—Part Two: The Maritime Periphery,"China Leadership Monitor, No. 35 (Summer 2011) (with Michael D. Swaine).

_____________, "Why 'Non-Combat' PLA Operations Are Vital for China's Regime Stability," Global Asia, Vol. 6, No. 2 (Summer 2011). 

_____________, "Economic Growth, Regime Insecurity, and Military Strategy: Explaining Rise of Non-Combat Operations in China," Asian Security, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Fall 2011).   
 

American Anthrax, written by Jeanne Guillemin

Security Studies Program Senior Advisor Jeanne Guillemin,American Anthrax: Fear, Crime, and the Investigation of the Nation's Deadliest Bioterror Attack (New York: Times Books and Henry Holt and Company, 2011). 

PhD Candidates Joshua Itzkowitz Shifrinson and Sameer Lalwani presented their paper "The Command of the Commons and the Future of American Grand Strategy" at the New America Foundation in September.

Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science Roger D. Petersen, Western Intervention in the Balkans: The Strategic Use of Emotion in Conflict (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011).  

Ford International Professor of Political Science and Director of CIS Richard Samuels, “Tokyo’s Transformation: How Japan is Changing—and What it Means for the United States,” Foreign Affairs, Sept/Oct. 2011. (with Eric Heginbotham and Ely Ratner).

Principal Research Scientist and Executive Director of CIS John Tirman, Deaths of Others: The Fate of Civilians in America's Wars (Oxford University Press, June 2011).

Security Studies Program Research Associate Jim Walsh, "A Weakened Ahmadinejad in New York," cnn.com, September 26, 2011.

PhD Candidate David Weinberg, "American Intervention in Israeli Politics: Past Experience, Future Prospects," Strategic Assessment, Vol. 14, No. 3, October 2011.

Principal Research Scientist Cindy Williams, “The Future Affordability of US National Security,” Security Studies Program report, November 2011.