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News Archive 2010

Open Society Advocates Urge Academic-Public Links

September 7, 2010

While knowledge is more accessible than ever before, it has not sufficiently seeped out of academic circles to benefit the public, according to two members of the Open Society Foundation who spoke at the Watson Institute last week. When it piles up in “ivory towers,” knowledge with huge potential for society is partially wasted, said Voldemar Tomusk and George Sharvashidze, who work for one of the foundations initially established by billionaire investor George Soros to facilitate countries’ transition to democracy. Their remarks sparked a larger debate about the diffusion of academia’s benefits in a rapidly evolving world, during the discussion titled “Knowledge Networks and Empowering Publics.”

Worshiping on the Altar of Technology

September 1, 2010

In the wake of the BP oil spill and Toyota brake scandal, Institute Professor Catherine Lutz pointed to America's worship of technology as a root cause of such catastrophes. "America is in dire need of behavioral and political change in areas ranging from public leadership to corporate responsibility to the individual choice to drive and consume less," she wrote in an op-ed in the UK newspaper, the Guardian.

IR Program Adds Seminars on Religion, Environment

August 30, 2010

Two new lecture classes have been added by the International Relations Program this fall: Religion and Global Politics (INTL1400) and The Political Economy of the Environment in Latin America (INTL 1450).

Science and Technology Class Connects with Global South

August 30, 2010

This fall, Brown's seminar on “Science and Technology Policy in the Global South” (PPAI 1701G) will expand its use of videoconferencing, blogging, and other media connecting students at the University with peers in classrooms in Brazil, India, and South Africa.

Cornel Ban Video Sets Stage for New Year in Development Studies

August 26, 2010

As the new academic year begins, a video of development studies concentration advisor Cornel Ban gives an insight into what DS seniors face in the coming year.

'Breaking Ranks:' Personal Perspectives on War

August 24, 2010

A new book co-authored by Brown anthropology professors Matthew Gutmann and Catherine Lutz brings a deeply personal perspective to the war in Iraq by looking into the lives of six veterans who turned against the war they helped to fight. Breaking Ranks: Iraq Veterans Speak Out against the War (University of California Press, August 2010) is based on extensive interviews with each of the six.

Der Derian: 'Now We Are All Avatars'

August 24, 2010

The films Avatar, The Hurt Locker, and Human Terrain are presented in a recent article by Institute Professor James Der Derian as critical intertexts for understanding how the cinematic aestheticisation of violence can glorify as well as vilify war, depending on how the spectator identifies with the protagonist and the filmmaker with the subject. Estrangement from and entanglement with the other become key variables for assessing the anti-war impact of a film.

DS Student Gets Fulbright for Sri Lanka Peace Work

August 17, 2010

Development studies concentrator Masumi Hayashi-Smith '10 will rejoin youth peace programs in Sri Lanka next year on a Fulbright scholarship. In Brown Alumni Magazine’s July/August issue, she described her previous work in this post-conflict nation and the development studies thesis she wrote about her experiences in Buddhist camps for teens from different sides of its civil war. “Because of these camps,” she said, “these kids all realized they have this common humanity and the capacity to love one another.”

Sweig Offers New Perspective on Historic Cuban-American Conflict

August 3, 2010

A holdover from a past era, the United States’ conflict with Cuba remains an issue for policymakers and the public alike. Julia E. Sweig, director for Latin American studies at the Council of Foreign Relations, has recently penned a concise history of US-Cuban relations to clarify the origins of the continued struggle. In a talk at the Institute in the spring, Sweig said her motivation for writing Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2009) lies in her belief that American foreign policy toward Cuba “might be on the cusp of change.” American policy makers, she said, must adapt to the 21st century and abandon the strategies of the Cold World era.

In Africa: An Intersection of Citizenship and Clientelism

August 3, 2010

Theoretical models cannot fully account for the diversity of West African political identities and experiences, argued Lauren MacLean, assistant professor of political science at Indiana University, during a talk at the Institute last semester. In Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, indigenous understandings of politics challenge the conventional opposition between “citizenship” and “clientelism,” MacLean said.

NPR Features 'Sex, Drugs & Body Counts;' Slate Posts Rave Review

August 2, 2010

Sex, Drugs, and Body Counts: The Politics of Numbers in Global Crime and Conflict was featured on Saturday by NPR's On the Media program. The on-air interview with Institute Professor Peter Andreas, a co-editor of the book, described several instances – involving the global drug trade, Bosnia death toll, and human trafficking – in which numbers used were highly political and equally suspect. Andreas's interview followed a review of the volume by Slate columnist Jack Shafer, who called it “a terrific new book [that] encourages all to be skeptical about statistics.”

Journal Analyzes Globalization's Impact on Workers of the World

August 2, 2010

The impact of globalization on workers in developing countries is analyzed in a new special issue of Studies in Comparative International Development (SCID), a journal edited at the Watson Institute.

On Video: The Future of Progressive Politics

July 26, 2010

Two major Institute events during the past academic year gauged the future of progressive politics. Now on video, they feature former Chilean President Ricardo Lagos and former Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer analyzing trends in the United States and Europe.

In the Times: Blyth Describes Public's Disillusion

July 20, 2010

The American public is suffering a crisis of confidence as it watches long-running debate over financial regulatory reform and the slow-motion solution of the BP oil spill, according to the New York Times’ Week in Review last Sunday. “There’s this feeling in both cases that you were forced to watch them make sausages for several months,” Watson Faculty Fellow Mark Blyth said in an interview.

Reflecting on the Impact of Environmental Training

July 1, 2010

Over the last decade, the Henry Luce Foundation has funded $30 million in environmental initiatives to enhance academic training and research as well as support ground-breaking projects of environmental organizations. The foundation has now turned to the Watson Institute to assess the overall impacts, lessons learned, and critical needs remaining from its initiative for those who would wish to mobilize environmental knowledge in the service of global public goods. Under a $150,000 grant, Watson will conduct research and host a conference including Luce grantees, among other activities.

Beyond Interrogation

July 1, 2010

In a recent interview, Alpert Medical School Associate Professor Scott Allen described how America may have lost its moral compass as it questioned suspected terrorists after 9/11.

The US and its Prisons

July 1, 2010

America leads the world in the practice of incarcerating its own citizens. Watch two Brown professors discuss why.

On Public Radio: Der Derian and "the Anthropologists' War"

June 29, 2010

Institute Professor James Der Derian recently discussed the use of civilian anthropologists and social scientists as on-the-ground advisors to the military on To the Best of our Knowledge, a public radio show, and in the Guardian, a major UK daily newspaper.

Team to Research Inequality and Democracy in Brazil

June 16, 2010

New research on “Cities against Poverty: Brazilian Experiences” will begin at the Institute in July, under a $1 million grant from the Research Council of Norway. Watson Associate Professor Gianpaolo Baiocchi is partnering in the research with the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research and the Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento.

Joint Paris Conference Explores Human Terrain

June 14, 2010

A joint Sciences Po-Watson Institute conference on “Counter-Insurgency and ‘Human Terrain’: The Contested Sites of Contemporary Warfare” is taking place this week in Paris, as part of an ongoing research collaboration between the two institutes on the transformation of war as waged in Afghanistan, Iraq, and beyond. A live video feed is available on Tuesday from 10am (Paris)/4am (US East Coast) through 7pm (Paris)/1pm (US East Coast).

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