Donald E. Stokes Professor of Public and International Affairs Larry Bartels participated in conferences on “Obama’s America” at the University of Padua and on “Tax Policy in the Obama Era” at UCLA.  He was a keynote speaker at an April conference marking the 40th anniversary of Northwestern University’s Institute for Policy Research and at a May conference hosted by the Election Study Center of the National Chengchi University in Taipei.

A new book by Associate Professor of Politics and International Affairs Gary Bass, Freedom’s Battle: The Origins of Humanitarian Intervention, was named one of the 100 notable books of 2008 by The New York Times, and one of the best books of 2008 by The Washington Post. 

Gordon S. Rentschler Memorial Professor of Economics and Public Affairs Alan Blinder has contributed several op-eds related to the financial crisis to The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal recently, including most recently “The Next 100 Days” in the April 26 issue of The Washington Post and “Restore Order and Win a Financial War” in the April 12 edition of The New York Times. On February 26, Blinder presented testimony to the U.S. House Financial Services Committee on “Federal Reserve Policy in the Current Economic Situation.” 

Carles Boix, Professor of Politics and Public Affairs presented talks on the topic “State Formation and the Origins of Inequality” at the Santa Fe Institute in February, at Duke University in March, and at Yale University in April. In 2009-10, he will direct the Program in European Politics and Society at the University’s Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies.

George L. Bustin, Visiting Lecturer in Public and International Affairs attended a meeting at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington in November with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, hosted by Madeline Albright. On January 22, Bustin participated in a conference on U.S.-Russia relations at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, In February, April, and May, he spoke about current issues in relations between the U.S., the European Union, and Russia at the annual meetings of the Princeton alumni associations in northern New Jersey, in Wilmington, Delaware and in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, (May).  He also gave a presentation in April 3 on the European Union, Russia and, Energy for the University’s European Union program.

In early January, Professor of Politics and International Affairs Tom Christensen traveled to Taiwan with a scholarly entourage from Harvard University’s Fairbank Center to discuss trends in relations between mainland China and Taiwan. The group met with key players involved in relations across the Taiwan Strait, including Taiwan’s President Ma Ying-jeou; Director General of the National Security Council Su Chi; the leadership of the Mainland Affairs council and the Straits Exchange Foundation; scholars; and a range of government experts on mainland China and international relations. The trip took place during an interesting juncture in relations between China and Taiwan, as it followed an important New Year’s speech given by PRC President Hu Jintao, which held out hope for significant improvement in cross-Strait relations. Also in January, Christensen addressed the Washington, D.C. Area Princeton Alumni Club, discussing trends in U.S.-China relations and made recommendations for the incoming Obama Administration. He spoke at the Taiwan Studies Workshop of Harvard University’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies on “Cross-Strait Relations After Chen Shui-bian” and participated at a conference at MIT on “Assessing China’s Rise: Power and Influence in the 21st Century” in late February. In March, he presented the keynote address for the Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois. His talk was entitled “U.S. Policy Toward a Rising China: Some Recent Lessons for a New Administration.”

Director of the Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination Wolfgang Danspeckgruber chaired and presented at the sub-committee on Afghanistan at the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ 50th Anniversary Conference The Global Strategic Review in Geneva, Switzerland in September 2008. Danspeckgruber, along with Ambassador Francesc Vendrell (the Frederick Shultz Class of 1951 Visiting Professor), Ambassador Robert Finn (a Lecturer of Public and International Affairs), and Leanne Smith MPP ’08, presented the results of LISD’s Afghanistan Review Conference Petersberg at a roundtable on “A New Strategy for Afghanistan” at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. in October. In November 2008 and February 2009 Danspeckgruber served as a Deputy and Advisor to the Liechtenstein Delegation for the 7th Session of the Assembly of State Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court; the field of concentration concerned the crime of aggression and the discussion about the international review conference of the ICC in 2010. January 2009, Danspeckgruber taught the section “EU Involvement and Experiences in Afghanistan and Central Asia” at the European Security and Defense College, held at the National Defense Academy in Vienna, Austria. March he chaired the third LCM, Liechtenstein Colloquium on Iran in Triesenberg, Liechtenstein, and April he offered a talk on “Economic dimensions of Afghanistan’s reconstruction” at the Conference Emerald Express 2009 of the United States Marine Corps in Quantico. Danspeckgruber has been appointed advisor to the Austrian Mission at the United Nations for the duration of Austria’s term membership at the United Nations Security Council.

Paul DiMaggio, a Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs and Research Director of the Woodrow Wilson School’s Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies, has been named as a Fellow to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. According to a press release from the Academy announcing the 2009 Fellows, the scholars, scientists, jurists, writers, artists, civic, corporate and philanthropic leaders inducted this year come from 28 U.S. states and 11 countries, and represent universities, museums, national laboratories, private research institutes, businesses, and foundations. The new class will be inducted at a ceremony on October 10, at the Academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Ambassador Robert Finn, Lecturer of Public and International Affairs, spoke on “Afghanistan and the Region” in April at the Madison, Wisconsin Council on Foreign Relations and also discussed “Afghanistan: Security and Economy” at the Marine Corps University in Quantico, Virginia. Finn also presented talks on “The United States and Azerbaijan” at Baku Slavic University and on “Central Asia and Afghanistan” at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy, both in Baku, Azerbaijan in March. He published an article, “New Strategy for Afghanistan and Its Neighbors” in German (Neue Strategie fur Afghanistan und Seine Nachbarn,) in the March 26 issue of Die Presse, Vienna, Austria and contributed “Central Asia Redux” to the Berlin Journal, December 2008.

Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs Emilie M. Hafner-Burton recently published Forced to Be Good: Why Trade Agreements Boost Human Rights. The book is an account of how the United States and European Union have used preferential trade arrangements to protect human rights in foreign countries. She also authored articles for the journal International Organization; in October 2008 “Sticks and Stones: Naming and Shaming the Human Rights Enforcement Problem” and in Spring 2009, with Miles Kahler and Alexander H. Montgomery, “Network Analysis For International Relations.” She co-authored with James Ron, Seeing Double: Human Rights Impact Through Qualitative and Quantitative Eyes? (World Politics, 2009, 61(2)); and co-authored with Mark A. Pollack “Mainstreaming Gender in the European Union: Getting the Incentives Right” for the April 2009 issue of Comparative European Politics.

Director of the Policy Research Institute for the Region and Lecturer of Public and International Affairs Richard F. Keevey was appointed by Governor Jon S. Corzine to serve as a member of an oversight group, the New Jersey Recovery Accountability Task Force, to review the distribution and award of federal stimulus funds. The task force is charged with oversight of state implementation efforts to ensure that funds are directed efficiently and effectively to appropriate programs and to review the distribution and award of federal stimulus funds. Keevey was also appointed to the Board of Directors of the Center for Health Care Strategies, a non-profit policy resource center dedicated to improving the health care quality for low income children and families, He recently chaired the Revenue sub-Committee of the NJ Commission on Cancer Research’s strategic planning initiative. He also participated, with several New Jersey health care experts, in the development of a Health Care Improvement Issue Paper for submission to President-elect Obama’s transition team.

In a major international survey of over 2000 international relations specialists conducted in February 2009 by the Teaching, Research, and International Policy Project at The Institute for the Theory and Practice of International Relations, Professor of International Affairs Robert Keohane was selected as the individual who overall has had the greatest impact on the IR field over the past 20 years. 

Atul Kohli’s new book Democracy and Development in India: From Socialism to Pro-Business was published in April 2009 by Oxford University Press.  He was also a guest of India’s Ministry of Rural Development, where he participated in a conference on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in New Delhi in January 2009 and presented a paper based on field work in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

S. Daniel Abraham Professor in Middle Eastern Policy Studies Daniel Kurtzer co-authored, with Canadian Ambassador Michael Bell, an article for Foreign Policy entitled “The Missing Peaces: How to Govern Jerusalem and Strike an Israeli-Syrian Deal.” In February, he presented a paper on Jerusalem and religious pluralism at the Toledo Center in Seville, Spain.

In January, the Century Foundation published Visiting Lecturer and Senior Education Policy Expert Gordon MacInnes’ book, In Plain Sight: Simple Difficult Lessons from New Jersey’s Expensive Effort to Close the Achievement Gap, which explores the focused effort by many of New Jersey’s poorest school districts to introduce effective early literacy practices that led to the state’s fairly dramatic improvement in test scores. MacInnes also spoke in February at ETS, WWS, and the Eagleton Institute at Rutgers on the book’s themes. 

In October, 2008 Katherine Newman, the Forbes ‘41 Professor of Sociology & Public Affairs, published an edited volume entitled Laid Off, Laid Low: Political and Economic Consequences of Employment Insecurity. The book provides a portrait of the American labor system and the social and political consequences of increasing job insecurity. In the book economists, sociologists, and public policy and political scientists reveal how the American labor market has grown particularly problematic for new job-seekers, trends that are not obvious when averaging the entire population. Newman’s chapter looks at the rising risks of employment instability for white collar, managerial workers. The book was published by Columbia University Press in collaboration with the Social Science Research Council.

In January 2009 she gave a presentation to the MacArthur Foundation Network on an Aging Society that focused on the increasing tendency for adults in their twenties to live with their parents in the U.S., Italy, Spain, and Japan and the implications of this “stall” for social policy in those countries.

Weinberg/Sachs Visiting Professor Hugh Price delivered the keynote address at the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development Regional Conference at Bowie State University in October 2008. He also gave a presentation at the New York Urban League board meeting in New York City in December 2008. He also delivered the keynote addresses at Princeton University’s Dr. Martin Luther King Day Celebration on January 19; at the Policy Research Institute for the Region conference on “The ‘E’ in Thorough and Efficient” on February 6; at the American Association of School Administrators National Conference on Education in San Francisco on February 21; and at the National Association of Elementary School Principals Annual Conference in New Orleans on April 4. Price also published a book for the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development: Mobilizing the Community to Help Students Succeed in July 2008, and his article “The Search for Nero Hawley” appeared in the Fall 2008 issue of American Legacy Magazine.

Assistant Professor of Politics and Public Affairs Markus Prior has been awarded the 2009 Goldsmith Award Book Prize for the best academic book on press, politics, and public policy. The award is given annually by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard University, and the 2009 prize honors Prior’s book, Post-Broadcast Democracy: How Media Choice Increases Inequality in Political Involvement and Polarizes Elections. In the book Prior addresses the impact of television and the Internet on politics in the U.S. during the last half-century. The study shows that the degree of choice among different media content affects political learning, turnout, and the polarization of elections.

Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Public Affairs and the University Center for Human Values Kim Lane Scheppele was a featured speaker at the Association of American Law Schools meeting in San Diego in January, with a presentation on social rights in comparative constitutional law. She also served on a plenary panel at the American Society of International Law meetings in Washington, D.C. in March on the subject of the United Nations Security Council and the Rule of Law.  She was a principal organizer and a commentator for the Fourth Annual Comparative Law Works in Progress Workshop of the American Society of Comparative Law hosted by Princeton in February.

Visiting Lecturer of Public and International Affairs Eric P. Schwartz has been nominated for the post of Assistant Secretary for Population, Refugees and Migration, with the U.S. State Department, according to a recent White House press release. Schwartz is also the Executive Director of the Connect U.S. Fund, a foundation/NGO initiative focused on foreign and international affairs.

Harold Shapiro, President Emeritus, Princeton University and Professor of Economics and Public Affairs received the 2008 Clark Kerr Medal for Distinguished Leadership in Higher Education at a private event in Berkeley, California in late January. The award recognizes an individual who has made an extraordinary and distinguished contribution to the advancement of higher education. It was established in 1968 by members of the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate as a tribute to the leadership and legacy of Clark Kerr, a former Berkeley chancellor and University of California president.

Jacob Shapiro, an Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs, will lead a consortium of researchers from Princeton, Stanford, and the University of California, San Diego to study the impact of various international development assistance programs on terrorism and insurgency. Shapiro and colleagues were awarded an $8.4 million grant for their study from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) as part of the agency’s Minerva Research Initiative, a university-based program focusing on “areas of strategic importance to U.S. national security policy,” and which “seeks to increase the department’s intellectual capital in the social sciences, improve its ability to address future challenges, and build bridges between the department and the social science community,” according to a DOD statement. The grant will support the development of new data sets on a number of historical and ongoing conflicts, as well as fund pre- and postdoctoral researcher associates who will study organizations – non-state actors – that have produced violence. These research projects aim to understand when and why non-state actors compete with governments to provide community services in exchange for community loyalty.

Maurice P. During ’22 Professor in Demographic Studies and Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs Marta Tienda and co-author Mark C. Long were the recipients of the American Education Research Association’s (AERA) 2009 Palmer O. Johnson Award for their article, “Winners and Losers: Changes in Texas University Admissions Post-Hopwood,” which appeared in the journal Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 30(3), 2008. This award is in recognition of the lifelong achievement of Palmer O. Johnson as a dedicated educator, and further in recognition of his pioneering work in educational research and methodology. His former colleagues and students founded this award to be given for an outstanding article appearing in an AERA-Sponsored publication. Tienda was also named as one of AERA’s inaugural Fellows in 2008. In March she delivered the Tomas Rivera Distinguished Lecture to the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education, and participated in a plenary session about migrant youth at the biennial meetings of the Society for Research on Child Development.

Professor of Ecology, Evolutionary Biology and Public Affairs David Wilcove, along with Bethany Bradley (WWS postdoctoral fellow), and Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs Michael Oppenheimer, published an article in the November 2008 issue of Global Change Biology entitled “Climate change and plant invasions: restoration opportunities ahead?” in which they model the impacts of climate change on invasive plants (weeds) in the western United States. With former WWS postdoctoral fellow Emily Nicholson, Wilcove recently published another paper in the journal Conservation Biology entitled “Assessing the Threat Status of Ecological Communities.” There is a well-established set of criteria by which to judge whether a particular species is in danger of extinction, which is used by governments and NGOs around the world, but it is less clear how one determines whether an entire ecosystem is in danger of extinction. The paper reviews the existing literature and numerous case studies on how the status of ecosystems has been assessed, and identifies the key stumbling blocks to developing a transparent and uniform set of criteria for determining whether ecosystems are in trouble, as well as propose a new framework for making those determinations.

In November, Lecturer of Public and International Affairs Thomas K. Wright spoke on a panel called “Urban Growth and Sprawl” at the World Urban Forum sponsored by the International Society of City and Regional Planners (ISOCARP) in Nanjing, China. 

Professor of History and Public Affairs Julian Zelizer published The Constitution and Public Policy in U.S. History (Penn State Press), which he co-edited with Bruce Schulman. He also published “What Makes an Election Historic . . . And Has That Happened in 2008?” in Perspectives on American History. Additionally, Zelizer published numerous articles about the media on CNN.Com, Politico, The Huffington Post, The Daily Beast, and The Washington Post and appeared frequently in the media to comment on the election.  He took part in a panel at the National Press Club about religion and politics. He also participated in several panels, including at the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, and Boston University. Zelizer also spoke to the United States Embassy in Egypt about President Obama’s First Hundred Days.