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Princeton Principles conference participants
News July 24, 2023
Seeking a Set of Principles to Rebuild the World Order
In 1787, with the nascent United States of America in danger of going broke and falling apart, a group of delegates met in Philadelphia to revise the Articles of Confederation, the young country’s governing document. The Constitutional Convention instead resulted in an entirely new system of governance, one that markedly increased power at the federal level. Almost 240 years later, a group of international scholars and public intellectuals, deeply concerned by the state of the world, convened at Princeton for a kind of latter-day constitutional convention, this one aimed at fostering unity on a global level. The COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion…
Matthew Mleczko
News July 17, 2023
Ph.D. Student Wins Horowitz Foundation’s Most Outstanding Project Award
A School of Public and International Affairs doctoral student’s dissertation on residential integration earned him the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy’s Irving Louis Horowitz Award for most outstanding project. Matthew Mleczko’s work was one of just 25 proposals recognized with a grant out of the more than 550 applications submitted. “I’m proud, honored, and grateful to be a Horowitz Foundation award winner, especially considering all of the worthy candidates,” said Mleczko, a Ph.D. candidate in Population Studies and Social Policy. “I am sincerely grateful for the validation that others believe in the importance of my dissertation and my…
Layna Mosley
News July 12, 2023
New Report: Threats to Democracy in the U.S. Pose Financial and Economic Risks for Investors
Today, the States United Democracy Center and the Brookings Institution released a new report cautioning that the erosion of democratic practices and norms in the United States pose risks for investors. The report outlines a series of steps investors can take to protect American democracy as well as their own portfolios. Report author Layna Mosley, a professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University with a focus on the politics of the global economy, argues that U.S. institutional investors have a fiduciary duty to monitor political risks associated with threats to democracy in the United States, especially as election deniers…
Tokyo workshop participants
News July 10, 2023
Workshop with the University of Tokyo Focuses on the International Relations of East Asia
For the second straight year, students and faculty from the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) and the Department of Politics joined those from the University of Tokyo for an international workshop in the Japanese capital. This year’s event focused on international alliances, with a particular emphasis on the heightened geopolitical tension among the United States, China, and other allies. G. John Ikenberry, the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs, organized the event with help from his counterpart abroad, Kiichi Fujiwara, Professor Emeritus of Graduate School for Law and Politics and Visiting Professor of…
Niehaus workshop speaker
News July 07, 2023
Niehaus Workshop Examines the Role of Diplomats and Bureaucrats in International Relations
Much of the work of interstate relations is ultimately carried out by bureaucrats. Individual officers within diplomatic, military, and intelligence bureaucracies, trade and investment agencies, and international organizations play vital roles in global commerce, cooperation, and governance. Yet, despite their ubiquity in the conduct of international politics, foreign policy bureaucrats have only recently become a major focus of international relations scholarship. Last month, SPIA’s Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance welcomed several dozen scholars to Wallace Hall for a two-day workshop exploring bureaucratic agents and institutions. …
Arvind Narayanan
News June 28, 2023
Tech Expert Arvind Narayanan Takes the Helm at Princeton Center for Information Technology
About a decade ago — back when he was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University and Silicon Valley was rebounding from the dot-com bust — computer scientist Arvind Narayanan co-founded a startup, pursuing what he thought was his career path. “It was just very intellectually exciting,” said Narayanan, a Princeton University professor of computer science and expert on algorithmic fairness, artificial intelligence and privacy. “To a large extent, I believed back then that you can save the world with tech.” But after four years embedded in Silicon Valley’s tech culture, he said, “I also started to recognize how some aspects of the culture then lead…
afghan flag in the sky
News June 26, 2023
SPIA’s Afghanistan Policy Lab Speaks on Taliban-Controlled Region During U.N. Counter-Terrorism Week
On June 22, the Afghanistan Policy Lab (APL) at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) organized an important event at the United Nations that brought Afghanistan to the international spotlight, as delegates from across the world convened in New York to discuss the pressing world security issues in the region during Counter-Terrorism Week. In their opening remarks, Naseer Faiq, Chargé d'Affaires of the Permanent Mission of Afghanistan to the United Nations and Richard Arbeiter, Deputy Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations, stressed the importance of continued international attention to the situation in…
Leonard Wantchekon (center) received the Kiel Institute's Global Economy Prize on June 19, 2023. Image courtesy of the Kiel Institute.
News June 23, 2023
Leonard Wantchekon Awarded Kiel Institute’s 2023 Global Economy Prize
Leonard Wantchekon, the James Madison Professor of Political Economy and Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, has been awarded the Kiel Institute for the World Economy’s 2023 Global Economy Prize in the science category. The Global Economy Prize is presented to individuals who have contributed to society by proposing unique and creative solutions to global problems. The award, which has been presented to 11 Nobel laureates over the years, honors individuals from politics, business, and economic science who have made an outstanding contribution to a socially responsible society. The theme of this year’s award…
Afghanistan flag in cloth
News June 21, 2023
SPIA’s Afghanistan Policy Lab Organizes Event During U.N. Counter-Terrorism Week
Since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan almost two years ago, security scholars and counter-terrorism professionals have debated how the group’s relations with foreign terrorist groups and transnational organized crime networks have impacted the country, the region, and beyond. On June 22, members of the Afghanistan Policy Lab (APL) at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) will join international dignitaries at the United Nations to further address the topic. “We’re putting Afghanistan into the international spotlight during this important U.N. event,” said Arian Sharifi, a lecturer and associate research scholar at SPIA. …
Miguel Centeno
News June 21, 2023
New Book Looks to Apply Lessons of Past Societal Falls
A new book co-edited by SPIA researchers and alumni examines the rise and fall of prior societies and their relation to our own seemingly precarious times. How Worlds Collapse: What History, Systems, and Complexity Can Teach Us about Our Modern World and Fragile Future (Routledge) presents more than 20 essays from scholars around the world giving readers a wide range of viewpoints and disciplines. “Everyone writes from their own perspectives,” said Zia Mian, senior research scholar and co-director of SPIA’s Program in Science and Global Security, who contributed a chapter on the nuclear weapons age as a self-destruct system. “That’s what makes it so…
Susan L. Marquis
News June 21, 2023
New Report Highlights Benefits of Worker-Driven Social Responsibility
Myriad solutions within the social responsibility sector have emerged in response to the increased attention around human rights abuses facing low-wage workers around the globe. These corporate social responsibility campaigns, multi-stakeholder initiatives, and transparency legislation. Among many such social responsibility approaches to addressing workers’ rights violations, however, one program has stood out. The worker-driven social responsibility (WSR) approach, first championed by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) in the tomato fields of Florida, has garnered acclaim for its successes in mitigating abuses within the agricultural and other…
Waves from sea erode road
News June 20, 2023
Assessment of How Climate Scientists Communicate Risk Shows Imperfections, Improvements
Scientists have long struggled to find the best way to present crucial facts about future sea level rise, but are getting better at communicating more clearly, according to an international group of climate scientists, including Michael Oppenheimer, director of SPIA’s Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment and the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs. The consequences of improving communications are enormous, the scientists wrote in a paper in Nature Climate Change, as civic leaders actively incorporate climate scientists’ risk assessments into major planning efforts to counter some of the effects of…
LISD Seminar on Tanks
News June 19, 2023
American, German Experts Speak at LISD Seminar on Tanks
Wolfgang Danspeckgruber, the founding director of the Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination, hosted a two-day long seminar on tanks, armored fighting vehicles, related technologies, tactics, and warfare at the end of April with experts from the United States and Germany. The seminar introduced participants to the complexities and capabilities of tanks, their role in crisis diplomacy and peace-making, and the practicalities of land and urban warfare. Recognizing that the best defense against a tank is another tank, the seminar also examined trade-offs among firepower, speed, appropriate protection, and weight, as well as the challenges of…
Riley Owen ’23
News June 15, 2023
Recent SPIA Alumnus Named an Eisenhower Global Scholar
Riley Owen was in sixth grade when his mother suggested they visit their local YMCA for the Model United Nations meeting being held there. Owen reluctantly went with her. But while he was there, he found himself attracted to the dynamic environment of policy and international relations. This newly discovered passion for policy altered the course of his life, with Owen setting his sights on becoming a positive agent of change for the future. “I am so grateful for that day,” he said.
The skyline of modern buildings in Bogota, Columbia during sunset.
News June 13, 2023
ESOC Convenes First Latin American Conference
Last month, for the first time, SPIA’s Empirical Studies of Conflict (ESOC) project convened a conference in Latin America, gathering in Bogotá, Colombia, for more than a dozen presentations of working papers on conflict, crime, state legitimacy, political participation, and migration employing experimental studies, empirical data, and formal models. Policy panel on negotiating peace with the FARC. The location of the gathering was intentional. The Colombian peace process stands out in the policy and academic literatures as a successful multilateral and inclusive peace effort. Each academic presentation tackled issues relevant for policy…