PEOPLE

Barton L. Weller Professor of Political Economy Alice Amsden was appointed by the UN Secretary-General, Ban-Ki Moon, to a three-year tenure on the UN's Development Policy Committee. Amsden also addressed a conference on the new industrial policy sponsored by Brazil's development bank (BNDES) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB). She also participated in three South African cities in an annual project of APORDE on alternative approaches to economic development and sponsored by three French Ministries in summer 2009. 

Ph.D. Candidate Nathan Black presented his paper, "Change We Can Fight Over: The Relationship Between Arable Land Supply and Substate Conflict," at the International Security and Arms Control / International Security Studies Section (ISAC/ISSS) Annual Conference in Monterey, California. He was also selected to participate in the December 2009 Tobin Project national security conference, "America and the World: Power Through Its Prudent Use," in Charlotte, North Carolina. 
 

Andrea Campbell

Professor of Political Science Andrea Campbell has been named Program Co-Chair of the 2010 American Political Science Association annual meeting, which will be held in Washington DC. 

Assistant Professor of Political Science Fotini Christiaprovided commentary on "Symbolizing Afghanistan's Candidates" on The World, a radio co-production of the BBC, PRI and WGBH Boston. She also provided commentary on the McChrystal Strategy in Afghanistan on The Takeaway, a co-production of WNYC Radio and Public Radio International in collaboration with BBC World Service, the New York Times and WGBH Boston. Most recently, she provided commentary on "Obama Considering Afghanistan Options" on The Takeaway on October 12, 2009. 

SSP Associate Director Owen Cote and SSP Principal Research Scientist Cindy Williams developed and conducted an interagency simulation for the Executive Course of the National Security Studies Program of the Department of Defense. The simulation, "Complex Crisis in Mexico," took place at the Elliott School of International Affairs of the George Washington University in Washington, DC, on August 28-30, 2009. 

Professor of Political Sociology and Head of the International Development GroupDiane Davis presented a talk, "Crime, Insecurity, Fear: Ethnographic Approaches to Contemporary Mexico," at Columbia University in November 2009. In October 2009, she presented "Violence in Mexico: Beyond Sensationalism" at the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Brown University. In October, she presented two talks at Princeton University, "State Building in the Developing World" and "The Role of the State in Development: Old Patterns, New Challenges?" She presented a talk, "The Socio-Spatial Reconfiguration of Middle Classes and their Impact on Politics in the Rapidly Urbanizing Global South at Princeton University's Symposium on "Middle Classes in Emerging Economies," on April 9, 2009. 
 

Michael Fischer

Professor of Anthropology and Science and Technology Studies Michael M.J. Fischer received the 2009 GAD Award for Exemplary Cross-Field Scholarship for his 2007 essay, "Four Genealogies for a Recombinant Anthropology of Science and Technology." The General Anthropology Division of the American Anthropological Association has long supported innovative scholarship that transcends boundaries between the various fields of anthropology. The GAD Award for Exemplary Cross-Field Scholarship is awarded annually to a peer-reviewed journal article demonstrating exemplary cross-field scholarship from any theoretical or methodological perspective, including applied research that encompasses two or more subfields of anthropology, or that is interdisciplinary in nature. 

Ph.D. Candidate Francisco Flores-Macias presented a paper, "Who Votes Strategically?" at the American Political Science Association Conference in September 2009. 

Ph.D. Candidate Keren Fraiman was awarded a grant from the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism, which is a joint project of the University of Chicago and the Carnegie Corporation of New York. 

Ph.D. Candidate Benjamin Friedman was a guest speaker at the Yale Political Union in November. He argued in favor of the proposition: "U.S. should Slash Defense Spending." In September, he was also on an APSA panel on threat inflation since 9-11. 

Ph.D. Candidate Brendan Green presented a paper, "Visions of Liberalism," at the American Political Science Association Conference in September. 

Ph.D. Candidate Kelly Grieco was named Graduate Student Affiliate at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University. Grieco also presented a paper, "Windows of Power: North Vietnamese Military Doctrine and Asymmetric Warfare," at the American Political Science Association Conference in September. Grieco served as discussant on the "Future of Warfare" and "Counterinsurgency" panels at APSA. 

Senior Advisor to MIT's Security Studies Program Jeanne Guillemin spoke at the UK Wilton Park Conference on "Preventing and Mitigating the Next Use of Chemical and Biological Weapons" on September 26, 2009. She spoke about local and federal responses to the 2001 anthrax letter attacks. 

Ph.D. Candidate Tony Hill presented a paper, "Runoff Elections in Canada," at the American Political Science Association Conference in September. 

Ph.D. Candidate Peter Krause presented a paper, "The Political Effectiveness of Terrorism: Strategic and Organizational Approaches," at the annual START conference at the University of Maryland in September. His article, "The Last Good Chance: a Reassessment of U.S. Operation at Tora Bora,” Security Studies, Vol. 17. 2008 was featured in a November 2009 report to the members of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. 

Ph.D. Candidate Gabrielle Kruks-Wisner received a Fulbright-Nehru Award, an NSEP Boren Fellowship, and a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant to carry out field research in India for the 2009-2010 academic year. 

Ph.D. Candidate Sameer Lalwani presented a guest lecture, "U.S. Foreign Policy in the Broader Afghan Region," at the U.S. Institute on U.S. Foreign Policy and hosted by the University of Florida in July 2009. He also provided commentary on a number of radio programs, including: "What are the Consequences of a Pakistani Military Attack?" on WTOP-Washington DC, "What to Do In Afghanistan?" on New England Cable News, and "Discussing US Counternarcotics Policy in Afghanistan," on CBC Newsworld. 

Ph.D. Candidate Justin B. Liang was awarded a 2009 David L. Boren National Security (NSEP) Fellowship earlier this year. 

Ph.D. Candidate Evan Liaras presented a paper, "Revisiting Electoral Engineering," at the American Political Science Association Conference in September. 

Gabi Logan joined MISTI as Administrative Assistant. 
 

Tara Maller

Ph.D. Candidate Tara Maller was selected to participate in the December 2009 Tobin Project national security conference, "America and the World: Power Through Its Prudent Use," in Charlotte, North Carolina. She was also named Graduate Student Editor of précis, the CIS newsletter. 

Ph.D. Candidate Topher McDougal has been hired at the University of San Diego's Kroc School of Peace Studies as an Assistant Professor of Economic Development and Peacebuilding. In October 2009, he presented his paper, "The Best Defense: Production Network Dispersal & the Economic Geography of Maoist Insurgency in India's Red Corridor," at the Workshop on Globalization, Social Movements, and Peacebuilding, at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame. 

Research Affiliate Thomas L. Neff presented on the changing nature of the global nuclear fuel market at the Annual Symposium of the World Nuclear Association in September. 

Professor Karen R. Polenske became the Peter de Florez Professor of Regional Political Economy in June 2009. At the recent Associated Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) conference in Washington, DC, the Karen R. Polenske award of $1,000 was given to Christine Boyle from the University of North Carolina, for the best student paper: "Evening the Divide In China's Countryside: An Examination of the Determinants of Surface Water Irrigation Investment In Northern China´s Villages." Funding for this award was obtained by the International Association of Chinese Planners (IACP) from contributions by DUSP and other alums who had worked with Professor Polenske at MIT. The Economic Geography of Innovation, edited by Karen R. Polenske, is available in English from Cambridge University Press, and has been published this fall in Chinese by Higher Education Press (Beijing). Dr. Apiwat Ratanawaraha assisted with the book and is co-author with Professor Polenske of one of the chapters 

Ford International Professor of Political Science at MIT and Director of SSP Barry Posen presented on "Rethinking US Grand Strategy" at the September 2009 "Rethinking the Foundations of the National Security Strategy" and the QDR seminar series organized by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. 

Ph.D. Candidate Andrew Radin presented a paper, "Politics as War by Other Means," at the American Political Science Association Conference in September. 

Ford International Professor of Political Science at MIT and Director of CIS Richard Samuels spoke on "Grand Strategies of the Great Powers" at the European University Institute in Florence. He also spoke on "Kidnapping Politics" at a conference on modern Korean politics at the University of Southern California. Next month he will be in Korea and China as a Fellow of the East Asian Institute, where he will complete field research for an article comparing the Japanese, South Korean, and Chinese foreign policy responses to North Korean abductions. 

Ford International Professor of Urban Development Bish Sanyal is co-leading an effort with Ford Professor of Urban Design and Planning Lawrence Vale to create the curriculum for a new university in India. The new university will be called The Indian Institute of Human Settlements and is sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation. Sanyal is also editing a volume called Hidden Success, which is based on an international competition of case studies of relatively good public sector performance in the management of cites in India. 
 

Serenella Sferza

Co-Director of the MIT-Italy Program Serenella Sferzawas made Cavaliere della Repubblica Italiana—Ordine della Stella—by Italy's President of the Repubblica, Giorgio Napolitano, for her work promoting Italian culture and research and cross-cultral understanding. She received the insignia from the Liborio Stellino, Italy's general Consul, in Boston in June 2009. 

Erin Schenck was named MIT-Germany Program Coordinator after serving as Assistant to the Program. 

Ph.D. Candidate Paul Staniland gave a presentation, "Explaining Insurgent Cohesion and Fragmentation: Trajectories of Militancy in Kashmir and Pakistan," at the APSA Annual Meeting in Toronto on September 4, the Duke/UNC Triangle Institute for Security Studies "New Faces in Security Studies" conference on September 12, Yale University's Program on Order, Conflict, and Violence on September 30, and the Lehigh University Department of International Relations Efron Lecture Series on October 13. 

Ph.D. Candidate Caitlin Talmadge has been named a Visiting Fellow at the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown for this academic year and has been recognized as one of 24 Next Generation National Security Leaders by the Center for a New American Security in Washington, DC. Talmadge presented a paper, "Developing and Testing a Theory of Battlefield Effectiveness," and participated in a roundtable, "Causes and Consequences of Nuclear Proliferation in the Middle East," at the APSA Annual Meeting in September. Talmadge presented a lecture, "Deterring Iranian Sponsorship of Nuclear Terrorism," to the Combating Terrorism Fellowship Program, a training program for foreign counter-terrorism officials at the Office of the Secretary of Defense in July 2009. 

Ford Professor of Political Science Kathleen Thelen was recently elected as President-Elect of Comparative Politics Organized Section, American Political Science Association. Thelen was also elected in June 2009 to the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Berlin. 
 

Ashutosh Varshney

CIS Visiting Fellow Ashutosh Varshney was elected chair of the Organized Section on Comparative Democratization for the American Political Science Association from 2009-11. He was also elected to the VKRV Rao Chair, a visiting professorship at the Institute of Social and Economic Change in Bangalore, India. 

Research Associate Jim Walsh has appeared on various media outlets including: NPR, Fox News, CNN, Press TV (Iran), Radio Australia, WHDH NBC-Boston and Al Jazeera TV. He also gave recent talks on Iran for a number of organizations, including the Council for the Livable World and MIT's Amnesty International. In October, he presented at a media dinner sponsored by the National Security Network and the American Foreign Policy Project. He presented a paper, "Re-conceptualizing Security Assurances: An Exploration Using the Case of Iran," at the Center for Contemporary Conflict's "Security Assurances Workshop," August 13-14, 2009. He also presented a paper, "Nostalgic for Bush? The Challenges and Opportunities Obama Poses for Iran's Political Leadership" at the Institute for National Strategic Studies, July 8, 2009. Walsh provided testimony to the Massachusetts Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight, as well as testimony for a hearing on H. 2474, H.3727, H3484, S. 1089 Acts Relating to Investments in Iran and Other Countries in July 2009. Walsh also participated at a number of high-level meetings, including meetings with Ambassador Khazaee of Iran and Iranian President Ahmadinejad. 

SSP Principal Research Scientist Cindy Williams was named the Shapiro Visiting Professor of International Affairs at the Elliott School of International Affairs of the George Washington University, Washington, DC. She is at the Elliott School for the fall 2009 semester, while on leave from CIS. She delivered a lecture in July, "U.S. Budgets and Resource Allocation Processes for National Security and International Affairs," to the Summer Workshop on Analysis of Military Operations and Strategy (SWAMOS) program, which is run by Columbia University. In August, Williams presented a talk, "U.S. Budgets for National Security," to Executive Course, National Security Studies Program at the Elliott School of International Affairs. In August, Williams also participated in a discussion with staff of Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, about establishing incentives for federal national security civilians to take up cross-agency rotations. As Chairman of the Committee on Science and Technology in the Department of Homeland Security of the National Academy of Public Administration, Williams gave a presentation on the committee's report to the National Academy of Sciences panel on performance measurement in DHS S&T. In September, she was the keynote speaker at the U.S. Army Accessions Research Symposium, where she presented "Filling the Ranks: An Update for Today's Realities." Williams is also serving as a member of the Committee on Naval Engineering in the 21st Century for the Transportation Research Board of the National Research Council. 

Karina Xavier has joined MISTI as Program Coordinator for the new MIT-Brazil Program. The program will be co-directed by Ben Ross Schneider, Professor of Political Science, and Richard Locke, Deputy Dean, Sloan School of Management; Alvin J. Siteman (1948) Professor of Entrepreneurship and Professor of Political Science. 

Ph.D. Candidate, Sarah Zukerman presented her work, "Explaining Armed Organizations' Post-war Trajectories: Evidence from Colombia," at APSA in September 2009. She also presented her work at the Belfer Center's International Security seminar, Stanford's CISAC seminar and Yale's "Patterns of Order and Violence in Civil Wars" workshop. 
 

PUBLISHED

Alice Amsden, Barton L. Weller Professor of Political Economy 
"Nationality of Firm Ownership in Developing Countries: Who should 'Crowd Out' Whom in Imperfect Markets?" in J. Stiglitz, G. Dosi and M. Cimoli, Industrial Policy and Development (Oxford University Press, 2009). 

"Does Firm Ownership Matter? FOEs vs. POEs in the Developing World," in R. Ramamurti and J.V. Singh, Emerging Multinationals from Emerging Markets(Cambridge University Press, 2009). 
 

Fotini Christia 's Publication Cover

Fotini Christia, Assistant Professor of Political Science "Flipping the Taliban," Foreign Affairs, New York: July/August 2009. Vol. 88, Issue 4: 34, with Michael Semple. 

"Sartorial Stumping," Op-ed, The New York Times, August 18, 2009, with Thalia Chantziara. View text version 

"Co-opt the Commanders," in "Is It Time to Negotiate With the Taliban? Room for Debate, A Running Commentary on the News," The New York Times, September 1, 2009, with Michael Semple. 

Diane Davis, Professor of Political Sociology and Head of the International Development Group 
"Non-State Armed Actors, New Imagined Communities, and Shifting Patterns of Sovereignty and Insecurity in the Modern World," Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 30, No. 2 (August 2009): 221-245. 

"The Political and Economic Origins of Violence and Insecurity in Contemporary Latin America: Past Trajectories and Future Prospects." In Desmond Arias and Daniel Goldstein (eds.), Violent Democracies in Latin America: Toward an Interdisciplinary Reconceptualization, (Durham: Duke University Press), 2009. 

"From Avenida Reforma to the Torre Bicentenario: The Clash of "History" and "Progress" in the Making of Modern Mexico City." Pp. 55-84 in Linda A. Newson and John P. King (eds.), Mexico City Through History and Culture, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. 

"Divergent Epistemologies in the Search for Co-Existence: The Jerusalem 2050 Project" In Moshe Moaz (ed.), The Meeting of Civilizations: Muslim, Christian, and Jewish. (Brighton, UK and Portland,US: Sussex Academic Press), 2009. 
 

Michael Fischer's Anthropological Futures

Michael M.J. Fischer, Professor of Anthropology and Science and Technology Studies 
Anthropological Futures. Duke University Press (July 2009). 

Benjamin Friedman, Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science
"Restraining Order: For Strategic Modesty," World Affairs Journal (Washington DC: Heldref Publications), Fall 2009, with Professor of Public Policy and Organization Harvey Sapolsky and Professor Daryl Press. 

"Obama's Disappointing Secrecy," Christian Science Monitor, July 21, 2009 

Orit Kedar, Associate Professor of Political Science 
"Coalition-Targeted Duvergerian Voting: How Expectations Affect Voter Choice under Proportional Representation," American Journal of Political Science, with Matias A. Bargsted. 

Sameer Lalwani, Ph.D. Candidate 
"Pakistani Capabilities for a Counterinsurgency: A Net Assessment," Counterterrorism Strategy Initiative Publication, New America Foundation, September 2009. 

"Putting the 'I' in Aid," New York Times, October 2, 2009, with Peter Bergen. 

"Obama's Pakistan Problem," ForeignPolicy.com, August 13, 2009 

Jon Lindsay, Ph.D. Candidate 
"Lost in Transition: Khobar Towers and the Ambiguities of Terrorism in the 1990s," inA New Understanding of Terrorism: Case Studies and Analysis, Ed. Maria Haberfeld and Agostino von Hassell (Springer, 2009) with Staci Strobl. 

Richard Locke, Professor of Political Science, Matthew Amengual, Ph.D. Candidate, and Akshay Mangla, Ph.D. Candidate 
"Virtue out of Necessity? Compliance, Commitment, and the Improvement of Labor Conditions in Global Supply Chains," Politics & Society, Vol. 37, No. 3 (September 2009). 
 

Tara Maller's Studies in Conflict Terrorism Cover

Tara Maller, Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science 
"The Dangers of Diplomatic Disengagement in Counterterrorism," Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Vol. 32, No. 6 (June 2009): 511-536 

Topher Mcdougal, Ph.D. Candidate 
"How Production Firms Adapt to War" appeared in Economists for Peace and Security Quarterly, Volume 21, Issue 2 (July 2009). 

Gautam Mukunda, Ph.D. Candidate 
"Caught in the Net: Lessons from the Financial Crisis for a Networked Future," Parameters, Vol. 39, No. 2 (2009), pp. 63-76, with Major General William J. Troy. 

"What Rough Beast: Synthetic Biology, Uncertainty, and the Future of Biosecurity," Politics and the Life Sciences, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Forthcoming), with Associate Professor of Political Science Kenneth A. Oye, and Scott C. Mohr. 

Barry Posen, Ford International Professor of Political Science and Director of SSP "Emerging Multipolarity: Why Should We Care?" Current History: A Journal of Contemporary World Affairs, Vol. 108, No. 721, (November 2009): 347. 

Gilles Rudaz, Postdoctoral Fellow, Program on Environmental Governance and Sustainability 
"Territorial Redefinitions and Governance of Mountain Areas," Journal of Alpine Research, Vol.97. No. 2. (July 2009): 27-37. 

"Les montagnes, un enjeu européen," in Yves Jean and Guy Baudelle (eds.),L'Europe: Aménager les territories (Paris, France: Armand Colin. 2009): 324-332. 

Ben Ross Schneider, Professor of Political Science 
"Hierarchical Market Economies and Varieties of Capitalism in Latin America." Journal of Latin American Studies, 41 (August 2009), pp. 553-75. 

"A Comparative Political Economy of Diversified Business Groups, or How States Organize Big Business." Review of International Political Economy, Vol. 16, No. 2 (May 2009), pp. 178-201. 

"Big Business in Brazil: Leveraging Natural Endowments and State Support for International Expansion." In Lael Brainard and Leonardo Martínez-Diaz, eds., Brazil as an Emerging Economic Superpower? (Washington DC: The Brookings Institution, 2009.) 

Josh Shifrinson, Ph.D. Candidate 
"Yearly Early Warning Watchlist," Project Memorandum, RAND Corporation, Sept. 2009, with RAND Senior Analyst Gregory Treverton (not online) 
 

Edward S. Steinfeld, Richard Lester and Edward A. Cunningham's Energy Policy Cover

David Singer, Assistant Professor of Political Science 
"Still broken," Foreign Policy, June 2009. 

"The Global Financial Crisis: Lessons and Opportunities for International Political Economy," International Interactions (November 2009) with Layna Mosley. 

Edward S. Steinfeld, Associate Professor of Political Science, Richard Lester, Professor and Head of the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering and Edward A. Cunningham, MIT Research Fellow 
"Greener plants, grayer skies? A report from the front lines of China's energy sector," Energy Policy, Volume 37, Issue 5, (May 2009), pp.1809-1824. 

Caitlin Talmadge, Ph.D. Candidate 
"Building Afghan security forces is not easy," Christian Science Monitor, October 1, 2009. 

Kathleen Thelen, Ford Professor of Political Science 
"Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies," British Journal of Industrial Relations 47: 3 (September 2009), 471-498. 
 

Susan Forbes Martin and John Tirman's Women, Migration, and Conflict Cover

John Tirman, CIS Executive Director and Principal Research Scientist 
Women, Migration, and Conflict: Breaking a Deadly Cycle. Susan Forbes Martin and John Tirman, eds. (Springer 2009). 

Stephen Van Evera, Professor of Political Science and Peter Krause, Ph.D. Candidate 
"Public Diplomacy: Ideas for the War of Ideas" Middle East Policy Journal, Vol. 16, No. 3, (September 2009). 

Ashutosh Varshney, CIS Visiting Fellow 
"Civil Society, Islam and Ethnocommunal Conflict", in Alfred Stepan, ed., Democracies in Danger (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). 

"Who Benefits from Conflict? Some Evidence from Assam" (with D. Narayan and B. Sen), in D. Narayan, ed., Moving out of Poverty: The Promise of Empowerment and Democracy in India (The World Bank, 2009). 

"Poverty and Famines: An Extension," in K. Basu and R. Kanbur, eds., Arguments for a Better World: Essays in Honor of Amartya Sen, Vol. 2, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). 

Jim Walsh, Research Associate 
"Sanctions Can't Be the Centerpiece," in "Can Sanctions Work?" Room for Debate,New York Times, September 25, 2009. 

Rachel Wellhausen, Ph.D. Candidate and Gautam Mukunda, Ph.D. Candidate "Aspects of the Political Economy of Development and Synthetic Biology," Systems and Synthetic Biology, Vol. 3, No. 1-4 (December 2009), pp. 115-123.