The Woodrow Wilson School will host a panel discussion titled, "Pakistan: Dilemmas of a Troubled Democracy" at 4:30 on Monday, December 14, in Bowl 016, Robertson Hall on the Princeton University campus. Panel participants include Ambassador Robert Finn, Senior Research Associate at the Woodrow Wilson School's Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination (LISD) and former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan; Zia Mian, a Research Scientist and director of the Project on Peace and Security in South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson School's Program on Science and Global Security; and Paula Newberg, Director of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University. Stanley Katz, a Lecturer with rank of Professor of Public and International Affairs and Director of the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies at the School, will moderate the panel.

This event is being held in conjunction with an exhibit in the Bernstein Gallery titled, “The Other Pakistan.” The exhibit will be on display from December 5 through January 21.

In addition to his role at LISD, Ambassador Finn is a Lecturer in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton. Prior to this he was the Ertegun Visiting Professor of Turcology at Princeton from 2003-2005. He served as the first U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan in more than 20 years, from March 2002 until August 2003 and as U.S. Ambassador to Tajikistan from 1998-2000. His other diplomatic postings include Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, Turkey; Lahore, Pakistan; and Zagreb, Croatia. Ambassador Finn opened the U.S. Embassy in Azerbaijan in 1992. He is the author of the book “The Early Turkish Novel,” which has been published both in English and Turkish. His poems and translations have appeared in the United States, Turkey, France and Pakistan.

Zia Mian's research interests include nuclear weapons and nuclear energy policy in South Asia, and issues of nuclear disarmament and peace. Previously, he has taught at Yale University and Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. He has worked at the Union of Concerned Scientists, Cambridge (Mass.), and at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad. He is Associate Editor of Science & Global Security, an international journal for peer-reviewed scientific and technical studies relating to arms control, disarmament and nonproliferation policy. In addition to his scholarly articles, he is the editor of several books and has helped make two documentary films on peace and security in South Asia.

Paula Newberg has covered Pakistan for almost 30 years, and is the author of  “Judging the State: Courts and Constitutional Politics in Pakistan.” and “Double Betrayal: Repression and Insurgency in Kashmir.” In addition to her position at Georgetown University, she is an international consultant and former special advisor to the United Nations.  She also served as Dean of Special Programs at Skidmore College. 

Stanley Katz is president emeritus of the American Council of Learned Societies. His recent research focuses upon the relationship of civil society and constitutionalism to democracy, and upon the relationship of the United States to the international human rights regime. He is also a commentator on higher education policy. Formerly Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor of the History of American Law and Liberty at Princeton University, Katz is a scholar of American legal and constitutional history, and on philanthropy and non-profit institutions. The author and editor of numerous books and articles, he has served as president of the Organization of American Historians and the American Society for Legal History and as vice president of the Research Division of the American Historical Association.  He is a commissioner of the National Historic Publications and Records Commission. He also currently serves as chair of the American Council of Learned Societies/Social Science Research Council Working Group on Cuba.

This event is sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and is free and open to the public.