PEOPLE

PhD Candidate Mark Bell presented two papers at the ISA annual meeting in Atlanta: “What Do Nuclear Weapons Offer States? A Theory of State Foreign Policy Response to Nuclear Acquisition,” and “The Limits of Pax Pretoriana: Explaining South Africa's Cold War Grand Strategy, 1975-1990” (co-authored with PhD candidate Noel Anderson). In February, International Studies Quarterly held an online symposium on his article “Examining Explanations for Nuclear Proliferation,” available here.

Professor of Political Science Nazli Choucri was honored by the International Studies Association (ISA) at a panel discussion and reception at their annual conference in Atlanta on Friday, March 18. The Political and Geography section of the ISA sponsored a Political Demography and Geography Distinguished Scholar Panel in Honor of Nazli Choucri. The panel’s topic was “The Co-Evolution Dilemma: Cyberspace and International Relations.” The following panelists focused on different phases and facets of Professor Choucri’s research and contribution: Birol A. Yesilada (Portland State University), Peter M. Haas (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Urs Luterbacher (Graduate Institute of International Studies), Brandon Valeriano (Cardiff University) and Jon Lindsay (University of Toronto). Later that evening, three ISA sections hosted a “Poster Session and Distinguished Scholars Reception Honoring Cameron Thies and Nazli Choucri.” Professor Thies is a member of the Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) Section and Professor Choucri is a member of the Political Demography and Geography (PDG) Section. The Scientific Studies of International Processes Section of the ISA also hosted the reception at which the PDG awarded Professor Choucri the fourth annual Myron Weiner Distinguished Scholar Award.

PhD candidate Fiona Cunningham was awarded a 2016 World Politics and Statecraft Fellowship by the Smith Richardson Foundation. In January she participated in the German Marshall Fund of the United States Young Strategists Forum in Tokyo.

Associate Professor of Political Science M. Taylor Fravel has been named a 2016 Andrew Carnegie Fellow by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The highly competitive fellowship selected just 33 scholars in the social science and humanities for the prestigious award.

PhD candidate Mayumi Fukushima presented “China-Russia Relations and Their Implications for Japan’s Diplomacy” as an invited speaker at a symposium organized by the World Affairs Council of Atlanta and sponsored by the Consulate General of Japan in Atlanta in March.

Stanton Junior Faculty Fellow Brendan Green presented his research on “clandestine coercion” at RAND, in Santa Monica, California in January, and USSTRATCOM, in Omaha, Nebraska in March. The presentations were part of a grant funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, on which he works with SSP alumni Austin Long and Daryl Press. In May, he presented his chapter (co-authored with Austin Long) in the Stimson Center’s new edited volume, “The Lure and Pitfall of MIRVs,” at its Washington launch conference.

In January, SSP Senior Adviser Jeanne Guillemin taught a seminar on “Biosecurity and Bioterrorism” at the University of Oklahoma, Norman, as part of the Oklahoma Scholar-Leadership Enrichment Program, a series for academically gifted students sponsored by the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education.

PhD students Andrew Halterman and Sara Plana were both awarded the National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) Fellowship for the 2016-2017 year. The NSF GRFP recognizes and supports PhD students who show exceptional potential to contribute to scientific knowledge. Andy and Sara were two of only 16 PhD students in Political Science departments across the country to receive a fellowship this year.

PhD candidate Philip Martin presented “Patterns of Rebellion in Multi-Ethnic States: How Pre-War Elite Ties Drive Insurgent Mobilization” at the International Studies Association (ISA) conference in Atlanta in March. In April, he presented “Unsafe Havens: Re-examining Humanitarian Aid and Peace Duration after Civil Wars” in collaboration with PhD candidate Nina McMurry at the Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA) conference in Chicago. He also presented “Does ‘Irresponsible Rhetoric’ Cause Groups to Rebel? Evidence from the U.S. State Department, 1991-2008,” at the MIT-Harvard-Yale Political Violence conference in Cambridge in April.

PhD candidate Andrew Miller presented on the effectiveness of the International Criminal Court in deterring violence against civilians at the Judith Reppy Institute’s Interdisciplinary Graduate Workshop on Peace and Conflict, Cornell University in April.

PhD candidate Cullen Nutt was selected to be a 2016 Tobin Project fellow, which includes monetary support for research and participation in the Project’s graduate student workshop in the fall.

In March, PhD student Rachel Esplin Odell presented “Civilian Control, Civilian Nationalism: Differences in Chinese Military and Diplomatic Press Statements” with Tyler Jost of Harvard University at the International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Conference in Atlanta, GA. In her capacity as a resident tutor at Harvard College, she was also nominated for a 2016 Star Family Prize for Excellence in Advising in the sophomore advising category.

In January 2016, a delegation from the CIS Program on Emerging Technologies (PoET) working group on Synthetic Biology Policy was invited to meet with representatives of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), the U.S. Trade Representative and the Council on Environmental Quality at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. PoET wrote a white paper to treat issues of immediate concern regarding the White House’s desire to update the 1986 “Coordinated Framework on Regulation of Biotechnology.” Six workshops on synthetic biology applications with regulators, firms, NGOs, scientists, biological engineers informed the white paper. PoET also responded to a request for comment on the scope of inquiry for review of U.S. biotechnology policy. The white paper recommend a strategy of planned adaptation, with research designed to provide a scientific basis for public policy and with tools, procedures and schedules to foster systematic reevaluation of policies in light of changing understandings of benefits, risks, and social/economic context.

At the request of the White House, the delegation included UROP Jane Maunsell, a first year undergraduate who had prepared the analysis of public comments along with assorted attorneys, faculty, postdocs from MIT, Harvard and the Woodrow Wilson Center. In March 2016, Associate Professor of Political Science and Engineering Systems Kenneth Oye presented PoET’s white paper at a hearing conducted at the University of California at Davis.

In March, PhD candidates Reid Pauly and Philip Martin attended the Bridging the Gap New Era Foreign Policy Conference. The conference gives graduate students the skills to “bridge the gap” between academia and policy.

Ford International Professor of Political Science and Director of the MIT Security Studies Program Barry Posen was a participant at the RAND Corporation in Arlington, Virginia, for the “Workshop on International Order” in January. In February, he was quoted in “The Gulf War Victory That Never Was,” by James A. Warren, in The Daily Beast. Also in February, Professor Posen was the moderator of a Starr Forum entitled “With Friends Like These: America’s Allies and the Fight Against ISIS.” In March, he was a participant in “American Restraint, European Responsibility,” at the ISA Annual Meeting in Atlanta. At the end of March, Professor Posen chaired a panel entitled “Political Struggles in the Greater Middle East: The Organization and Sustainment of Violence” at the Pentagon. Later the same day, he chaired a similar panel at a special SSP seminar at the Ritz Carlton, Pentagon City. This event preceded the SSP alumni reception, which is held in Washington DC once every two years. In April, Professor Posen presented his work, Restraint, to the staff of the U.S. Senate Republican Steering Committee. A week later, he presented his work to the command group in J5, Plans and Policy, of the Joint Staff of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. At the end of April, Posen attended the senior conference at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The theme of the conference was “National Security Reform for a New Era: Reassessing the National Security Act of 1947.” He presented a paper on the changing security environment and the organization of the national security establishment. It was just announced that he received the 2017 Distinguished Scholar Award for Lifetime Achievement from the International Security Studies Section of the International Studies Association.

PhD candidate Amanda Rothschild received a National Fellowship from UVA’s Miller Center and was reappointed as a Belfer Center International Security Program Fellow for 2016-2017. In March, she was the invited speaker at the Pine Crest School Holocaust Awareness Symposium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida (March 2-3); she presented "'Courage First and Intelligence Second:' US Responsiveness to Mass Killing” at the ISA Annual Convention; and she was quoted in “BU Experts: Labeling Attacks as Genocide May Not Spur Change,” BU News Service.

Professor of Political Science Ben Ross Schneider presented “Corrosive Politics: State-Owned Enterprises and Industrial Policy in Brazil” in February at the University of Chicago and Harvard University. Also in February, he presented “Easy and Hard Redistribution: The Political Economy of Welfare States in Latin America” at King’s College London. In March, he gave a plenary presentation entitled “Managing the Politics of Education Reform: Lessons from Global Experience” at the annual conference of the Global Development Network in Lima, Peru.

PUBLISHED

SSP Research Affiliate Jonathan Caverley, "Sub-Optimal: The Pivot and Australia's New Fleet," Foreign Affairs, March 14, 2016.

________________"When Peacekeepers Come Home," New York Times, February 21, 2016.

SSP Research Affiliate Kelly M. Greenhill, "The Weaponization of Migration," in Mark Leonard (ed.), Connectivity Wars: An Essay Collection (London, UK: European Council on Foreign Relations, January 2016).

________________Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion and Foreign Policy (German language edition [Kopp-Verlag, January 2016]; (paperback in English, Cornell Studies in Security Affairs, February 2016).

CIS Principal Research Scientist Eric Heginbotham and CIS Director and Ford International Professor of Political Science Richard J. Samuels, "Poor Substitute," Foreign Affairs, May 3, 2016.

PhD candidate Reid Pauly, “Bedeviled by a Paradox: Nitze, Bundy, and an Incipient Nuclear Norm,” Nonproliferation Review, 2016.

PhD candidate Amanda Rothschild, “ISIS and Genocide: How the United States Talks about Atrocities,” Foreign Affairs, February 28, 2016.

________________"American Dream in ‘N.Y. Values,’" Boston Herald, February 7, 2016.

SSP Senior Advisor Carol Saivetz, "Putin's Pullout: A Failing Public Relations Campaign," Lawfare, May 8, 2016.

Political Science Emeritus Professor Harvey Sapolsky, "U.S. Navy Ships Shouldn't Be Floating Billboards for Democrats," The National Interest, April 26, 2016.

Professor of Political Science Ben Ross Schneider, New Order and Progress: Democracy and Development in Brazil. Edited volume. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).