PrintSpotlight on USIP Grantees and Fellows Working Around the World
Institute fellows and grantees are doing important fieldwork in many parts of the world. Here is a snapshot of their projects.
Haiti
JR Senior Fellow Robert “Bob” Maguire (2008–10) came to USIP to analyze past international policy toward Haiti. Events quickly thrust him into a more active policy consulting role as Haiti endured devastating tropical storms and the effects of the global financial crisis, which sparked riots over rising food costs in the deeply impoverished and unstable country. Maguire addressed the Haiti Donor’s Conference in April 2009. He became an invited member of the ‘kitchen cabinet’ of the U.S. secretary of state’s chief of staff and the point person for the current review of all U.S. government Haiti policies and programs. The senior fellow traveled to Haiti, where he presented his research in Creole.
Latin America
Patricia Vasquez, a journalist and long-time expert on oil and gas issues in Latin America, joined USIP’s 2009–10 class of Jennings Randolph senior fellows on October 1. Vasquez will analyze the development of oil and gas and its relationship to conflict in Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru. She will map these conflicts, analyze the mechanisms by which localized conflicts around hydrocarbons exploration and development are reopening old social, economic and political tensions,
and recommend actions and policies for their mitigation.
and recommend actions and policies for their mitigation.
Rwanda
USIP grantee Anne Aghion has been honored with many prizes for her groundbreaking film, “My Neighbor, My Killer”. The documentary about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2009 and was featured in a New York Times article quoting USIP Associate Vice President Sheldon Himelfarb on the power of film to change lives.
Lebanon
David Tolbert, a JR Senior Fellow at the Institute this past year, has been appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to be the registrar of the special tribunal for Lebanon. The position, which is at the assistant secretary-general level, heads the Registry, the organ of the court responsible for the administration and servicing of the court, including all aspects of court management, witness protection services, the detention facilities, and press and outreach activities. Tolbert’s fellowship focused on relationships between international and domestic prosecutions and trials and the complementarity principle established in the Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Sri Lanka and Ethiopia
USIP grantee Neil Boothby presented major new findings on gender and peacebuilding in June at an Institute event on “Sexual Violence in Conflict.” In pilot studies in Sri Lanka and Ethiopia, Boothby and a team of researchers found that the majority of perpetrators who commit violence against women and children are well known to their victims. The USIP grantee and his colleagues have recently published “Care and Protection of Children in Crisis Affected Countries: A Good Practice-Policy Change Initiative” which highlights new ways to determine the incidence of human rights violations, such as gender-based violence, separated children and child soldiers.
The Philippines
Despite continuing insecurity in Mindanao, the HOPE International Development Agency, a USIP grantee, has made steady progress in its effort to develop 52 model peace communities through the delivery of trainings in leadership, governance and value formation. Among myriad planned activities, the grantee recently convened a peace forum that featured intercultural dialogue among Muslim, Lumad and Christian participants.
Civil Resistance
Civil resistance, an increasingly salient but inadequately understood feature of international politics, is the focus of a new USIP-funded study co-edited by Professor Timothy Garton Ash and Professor Sir Adam Roberts. Civil Resistance & Power Politics: The Experience of Non-violent Action from Gandhi to the Present (Oxford University Press, 2009) documents and analyzes 19 cases of nonviolent resistance. Based on research conducted by academic experts on the particular cases and a conference at Oxford University, the initiative engaged participants in those nonviolent campaigns, journalists and writers who had reported on them and officials who had been involved in responding to them. The volume draws important lessons about the use of organized nonviolence as an instrument of social and political change, the role of external actors and the relationship between violence and nonviolence. It also sheds new light on the complex relationship between civil resistance and the various dimensions of power.
In recognition of the important contributions to the intellectual and policy communities in Britain, the project director, Sir Adam, was recently elected president of the British Academy.
The Institute Welcomes Jennings Randolph Senior Fellows and Peace Scholars for 2009-2010
Senior Fellows
Imtiaz Ali
Independent Journalist, “Emergence of the Tribal Belt as a Fault Line in the War on Terror: The Growing Influence of Homegrown Pakistani Taliban and its Implications for Regional and Global Security”
Judith Asuni
Johns Hopkins University, “Niger Delta ‘Militants’: Victims or Perpetrators?; “Conflict and Violence in the Niger Delta”
Palwasha Hassan
Afghanistan fellow, “Women and the Rule of Law in Afghanistan.”
William Long
Georgia Institute of Technology, “Cross-Border Health Cooperation in Zones of Conflict: Deriving Lessons for Improving Regional Stability and Global Security”
George Lopez
University of Notre Dame, “Can Sanctions be Saved?”
Andries Odendaal
Conflict Transformation Support Services, “Local Peacebuilding Forums: Methodological Considerations”
Jeremiah S. Pam
Guest Scholar, “Strengthening Weak States in the Post-Nationbuilding Era”
Sammy Smooha
University of Haifa, “The Challenge of National Minorities to Ethnic Majority Hegemony: Comparative Study of Ethnic Democracies in Israel, Estonia, Slovakia, Macedonia, and Northern Ireland”
Marc Sommers
Tufts University, “Youth, Popular Culture and Terror Warfare: Insights from Sierra Leone”
Mohammed Masoom Stanekzai
Afghanistan fellow, “Security, Reconstruction and Reconciliation in Afghanistan”
Emmanuel Teitelbaum
George Washington University, “Putting Identity in Perspective: Economic Reform and Political Stability in the World’s Largest Democracy”
Patricia Vasquez
Energy Intelligence, “Untold Conflicts: Local Resistance to Oil and Gas Development in Latin America”
Col. J.M. “Matt” Venhaus
U.S. Army, “Before They Cross the Threshold: The Use of a Dissolution Strategy in Persuasive Media Campaigns to Reduce the Pool of Potential Recruits to Violent Extremism in the Middle East”
Andreas Wimmer
University of California, Los Angeles, “Understanding Ethnic Conflict”
Robin Wright
Independent journalist, “The Future of Islam”
Peace Scholars
Xanthe Ackerman
Tufts University, “After War in Africa: Can the Education Sector be Harnessed to Prevent a Return to Conflict? Case Study on Uganda, with Perspectives form South Sudan and Liberia”
Louis-Alexandre Berg
Georgetown University, “From Patronage to Public Good: The Political Economy of Post-Conflict Security Sector Reform”
Paola Castano-Rodriguez
University of Chicago, “ ‘The Time of Victims’: Institutional Practices and Understanding of Violence in the National Commission of Reparation and Reconciliation in Colombia”
Benjamin Coates
Columbia University, “Trans-Atlantic Advocates: American International Law and U.S. Foreign Relations, 1898–1919”
Neereda Jacob
American University, “Sanctions as a Cause of Nuclear Reversal: (When) Do They Work?”
Patrick Johnson
Northwestern University, “The Treatment of Civilians in Effective Counterinsurgency in Operations”
Janet Lewis
Harvard University, “Ending Conflict Early: Incipient States of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency”
James Long
University of California, San Diego, “Voting, Fraud and Violence: The Problem Elections in Emerging Democracies”
Tanya Pegahi
University of Chicago, “Dangerous Deterrent? Evaluating the Risk that Nuclear Acquisition Will Embolden Weak States”
Benjamin Schonthal
University of Chicago, “Regulating Religion: State Regulation of Religion in Post-Colonial Sri Lanka”
Paul Staniland
MIT, “Explaining Cohesion, Fragmentation and Control in Armed Groups”
Lorenzo Vidino
Tufts University, “Soft Approaches to Counterterrorism: Counter Radicalization in Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Italy”
Deadlines for Competitions
Grants: October 1, 2010.
JR Senior Fellowship: September 8, 2010
To apply online go here.
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