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PDFTuesday, November 2, 2010- 12:00 p.m. Iraq’s Development Challenges. Seven months after national elections, Iraq continues to face significant political, economic, health, sectarian, security, and rule-of-law challenges—as countless Iraqis struggle to meet basic needs. What will be the top priorities when a new government takes office, and how is the international community, including the United Nations, helping to meet them on the ground? The UNDP will be hosting this event at the Unviersity of California Washington Center at 1608 Rhode Island Avenue, NW, in Washington, DC 20036. To RSVP please go here.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010- 2:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m. Winds from the East: the People’s Republic of China Seeks to Influence the Media in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.
As Western news outlets have cut their overseas staffs and U.S. and European governments have allocated fewer resources for international training and support, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has made media aid a high priority in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. By using various components of public diplomacy to influence the media sector in these areas, the PRC is attempting to present China as a reliable friend and partner and to create a positive image for itself.
A new report from the Center for International Media Assistance, Winds From the East: How the People’s Republic of China Seeks to Influence the Media in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, examines the Chinese government’s efforts to reshape much of the world’s media in its own image. The authors argue that such activities shift the media’s role away from a watchdog stance toward the government to one where the government’s interests are the paramount concern in deciding what to disseminate. The report calls on media development implementers and those who fund them to take note, as China’s efforts also often result in helping authoritarian governments expand control over their local media, while working to undermine the democratic model of a free and independent media. The speakers will include Douglas Farah and Andrew Mosher, the authors of Winds from the East, Deborah Brautigam from American University, and Louisa Coan Greve from the National Endowment for Democracy. The event will take place at 1025 F Street, NW, Suite 800, Washington, DC 20004. To RSVP please contact cima@ned.org.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010- 2:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m. Has Turkey Lost Europe? President Barack Obama expressed his concern about the deteriorating EU-Turkey relations and the uncertain future of Ankara’s EU membership aspiration. If Turkish people do not feel part of the European family, he said,“ then obviously they are going to look elsewhere for alliances and affiliations.
In an attempt to reaffirm the EU’ s commitment to Turkey, the European Commission’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, went to Istanbul in July 2010, announcing that negotiations on a new accession chapter will be opened. Can the European Union and Turkey revive their partnership? Does Turkey’ s new foreign policy line and growing self-assertiveness provide a burden or an asset for its membership aspirations? What role can the United States play to push forward and ensure that Turkey is firmly anchored in Europe? The event will take place at the SETA DC Conference Room, 1025 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 1106, Washington, DC 20036. For more information please go here.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010- 2:30 p.m.-4:00 p.m. Guinea: Challenges and Prospects for a Democratic Transition. In the years since independence in 1958, Guinea’s history has been one of political intimidation, harassment and oppression. Despite Guinea’s adoption of multiparty politics in 1993, the country’s democratic transition never effectively took place. Now, after the death of President Lansana Conte and the end of the transitional military-led administration, many argue that Guinea has a chance to finally embark on a democratic transition. What challenges does Guinea face? How can ethnic tensions and grievances be successfully managed? What role can civil society play in consolidating the democratic transition? How can the international and regional stakeholders effectively ensure the success of the democratic transition? The event will take place at the US Institute of Peace, 2nd Floor conference room, 1200 17th Street, NW. For more information please email sbessell@usip.org.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010- 6:00-7:45 p.m. Fighting Corruption in the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Institute for Security and Conflict Studies is hosting a discussion on: Fighting Corruption in the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with Stuart W. Bowen, Jr. and Stephen Biddle, moderated by Sean R. Roberts, on Tuesday, November 2, 2010, from 6:00-7:45pm at 1957 E Street, NW, 6th floor, Lindner Family Commons. To RSVP please go here
Wednesday, November 3, 2010- 12:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. Women and War. In October 2000, the United Nations Security Council passed landmark Resolution 1325 on women, peace, and security, which linked women’s experiences of conflict to the international peace and security agenda, acknowledging their peacemaking roles as well as the disproportionate impact of violent conflict on women. Ten years later the U.S. Institute of Peace will co-host a three-day conference celebrating the landmark resolution. With an eye toward translating the promise of Resolution 1325 into concrete action, this event will focus on the varied experiences of women during wartime and how to make sustained progress toward greater global peace and security. The event will feature an extraordinary coalition of national and international participants, including UN and US government officials, the international diplomatic communities, military personnel, academics, civil society leaders, and practitioners in the fields of security, development, and conflict resolution. To RSVP please go here.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010- 12:30 p.m. Pulling Nigeria from the Brink. The Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies will be holding a discussion onPulling Nigeria from the Brink. Tunde Bakare, convener at the Save Nigeria Group will be speaking. The event will take place at SAIS, Rome building, 1619 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Room 200, Washington DC. For more information please contact Felisa Neuringer Klubes at 202-663-5626, or at fklubes@jhu.edu.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010- 2:30 p.m.-4:00 p.m. Religion as a Conversation Starter: Interreligious Dialogue for Peacekeeping in the Balkans. Religion as a Conversation Starter is the first comprehensive analysis of the present state of interreligious dialogue for peacebuilding in Southeast Europe. It is based on empirically grounded and policy-oriented research, carried out throughout the Balkans. The study maps recent interreligious relations in this part of the world, throwing light on both the achievements and challenges of interreligious dialogue for peacebuilding in particular, and offering a set of up-to-date policy recommendations, whilst contributing to a greater understanding of the local particularities and how they relate to broader trends transnationally. Interreligious dialogue has been a central tool in the continuous international efforts to promote peaceful living together in multicultural and multireligious societies. To RSVP please go here.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010- 6:30 p.m.-8:00 p.m. A Special Briefing on Religion and Politics. The World Affairs Council Distinguished Speakers will be holdingA Special Briefing on Religion and Politics. The guest speakers will include Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, and Ibn Khaldun, Chair of Islamic Studies, American University, and First Distinguished Chair of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, US Naval Academy, and Dr. Bernard Lewis, Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University. The event will take place on Wednesday, November 3, 2010, 6:30-8:00PM, at Charles Sumner School 1201 17th Street NW, Washington, DC 20036. For more information please go here.
Thursday, November 4, 2010- 10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m. Taking Action: Implementing Education Reform in Pakistan. Last year, the government of Pakistan with the support of the United Kingdom and United States established the Pakistan Education Task Force to improve access and quality in Pakistan’s schools. On November 4, the Center for Universal Education at Brookings will host a discussion of education in Pakistan, focusing on the obstacles and prospects for reform since the summer’s devastating floods. Having returned from a recent visit to Pakistan, Sir Michael Barber, co-chair of the Pakistan Education Task Force, will offer a real-time assessment of the progress of education reform in the country. Teresita Schaffer, director of the South Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and Brookings Senior Fellow Rebecca Winthrop, director of the Center for Universal Education, will provide responses based on their extensive work and expertise in the region. Steve Inskeep, host of NPR’s Morning Edition, will provide introductory remarks and moderate the discussion. After the program, the panelists will take audience questions. The event will take place at The Brookings Institution 1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, DC. To RSVP please contact events@brookings.edu
Thursday, November 4, 2010- 3:30 p.m.-5:00 p.m. How Enemies Become Friends: The Sources of Stable Peace. How Enemies Become Friends provides a bold and innovative account of how nations escape geopolitical competition and replace hostility with friendship. Through compelling analysis and rich historical examples that span the globe and range from the thirteenth century through the present, foreign policy expert Charles Kupchan explores how adversaries can transform enmity into amity—and he exposes prevalent myths about the causes of peace. The nature of regimes matters much less than commonly thought: countries, including the United States, should deal with other states based on their foreign policy behavior rather than on whether they are democracies. The event will take place in the 6th floor boardroom. For more information please go here.
Thursday, November 4, 2010- 6:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m. Sacred Spaces: Religious and Political Faultlines in Pakistan. Shrines and mosques in Pakistan have been frequently targeted by Islamic militant groups, whose interpretations of Islam leaves no room for Sufi mystical practices that are common in this Muslim nation. Join us in an evening reception with renowned author Samina Quraeshi and Ambassador H.E. Husan Haqqani to explore these critical issues. Samina Quraeshi, an educator, designer, artist, urban advocate and the award-winning author of Sacred Spaces: A Journey with the Sufis of the Indus, will examine the role of sacred spaces in mystical Sufi traditions and how they act as profound expressions of both faith and culture. The event will take place at the Asia Society in Washington, in the Cinnabar Room, at Whittemore House, 2nd Floor, 1526 New Hampshire Ave, NW Washington, DC 20036. For more information please go here.
Friday, November 5, 2010- 9:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m. Foreign Policy Priorities for the New Congress. In addition to addressing unprecedented voter anger and a lingering economic recession, the freshman members of the 112th Congress will need to get up to speed quickly on the national security questions absent from the midterm electoral debates. The war in Afghanistan, the terrorist threat against the homeland, a proto-nuclear Iran, a rising China, and the proper level of defense spending are among the front-burner issues. Will the new Congress challenge the Obama administration’s foreign and defense policies? And, if it does, will it do so in the name of strengthening and preserving American global leadership, or not? Join Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, former senator Jim Talent (R-Mo.), and director of AEI’s Center for Defense Studies Thomas Donnelly for a lively discussion. The event will take place at Wohlstetter Conference Center, Twelfth Floor, AEI 1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036. To RSVP please go here.
Friday, November 5, 2010- 12:30 p.m. India, Pakistan and Democracy: Solving the Puzzle of Divergent Paths. The John Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies will be holding a discussion onIndia, Pakistan and Democracy: Solving the Puzzle of Divergent Paths. Philip Oldenburg, the associate director of the Southern Asia Institute at Columbia University will be discussing the topic. The event will take place at SAIS, Rome Building, 1619 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington DC. For more information please contact Felisa Neuringer Klubes at 202-663-5626.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010- 6:00 p.m.-7:15 p.m. Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power. From Pakistan’s uncertain future, the growth of Chinese military power, African states teetering on the edge of failure, violent Islamic extremism and piracy, this region will be the true nexus of power and conflict in the coming years. In Monsoon, Kaplan shows how crucial the Indian Ocean area has become to American power in the 21st century. He argues it is in that region – volatile, nuclearized, and plagued by weak infrastructure and young populations tempted by extremism – that the fight for democracy, energy independence, and religious freedom will be lost or won, and where the United States must focus in order to remain relevant in this ever-changing world. On November 9, 2010, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) will hold the first Washington, D.C. book launch for Monsoon featuring best-selling author Robert Kaplan and NPR’s award-winning correspondent Tom Gjelten. Please join us for an engaging conversation on one of the most thought-provoking books of 2010. The event will take place at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel’s Crystal Room, 1401 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, D.C. 20004. RSVP online here. Or, call 202.457.9427.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010- 12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m. Grand Strategies: Literature, Statecraft, and World Order. The education of American statesmen has changed quite a lot since John Adams read Thucydides in Greek and Thomas Jefferson spent hours translating Virgil’s Aeneid from Latin. In his new book, Grand Strategies: Literature, Statecraft, and World Order, Charles Hill challenges those who aspire to be statesmen to broaden their knowledge and the sources of their inspiration. The social sciences, and especially political science, address only a narrow range of problems—leaving the biggest questions beyond its reach. But in the 21st century, the insights available in great literature remain invaluable for those at the levers of power, at any level. Literature spans the disciplines and addresses the fundamentals of human nature. Without imagination, a grasp of history, andliterary insight, students of statecraft are left impoverished.A purely rational or technocratic approach is likely to lead one astray, Hill writes. Our Founding Fathers would most assuredly agree. Charles Hill, a career minister in the U.S. Foreign Service, is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution as well as Brady-Johnson Distinguished Fellow in Grand Strategy, Senior Lecturer in International Studies, and Senior Lecturer in Humanities at Yale University. To RSVP or for more information please go here.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010- 2:00 p.m.-3:30 p.m. Roads Not Taken: AKP Trajectories Since 2007. Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) seems to be a bundle of contradictions. Once an impassioned advocate of EU accession, the AKP today has mixed democratizing discourses with religious metaphors while pursuing domestic and foreign policies animated by realpolitik. For some, this suggests that the AKP is simply opportunistic. Others believe the party’s is moved, above all, by an underlying fundamentalist agenda. To better understand the apparent inconsistencies in AKP positions and their ramifications for Turkey’s domestic trajectory and relations with the West, this lecture will distill four strands of discourse from the party repertoire: liberal-democratic, religious-conservative, power political, and Ottomanist. It will seek to identify the factors which appear to determine when and why a particular strand is favored over (or paired with) others in any given situation. Cases will include the series of political ‘openings’ towards traditionally marginalized groups, and debates over constitutional reform, as well as the recent flotilla debacle and its impact on relations with Israel. To RSVP please go here.
Friday, November 12, 2010- 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. Remembrance, History, and Justice: Coming to Terms with Traumatic Pasts in Democratic Societies. The Woodrow Wilson Center’s History and Public Policy Program, in cooperation with the Romanian Cultural Institute and the University of Maryland, College Park, will co-host Remembrance, History, and Justice: Coming to Terms with Traumatic Pasts in Democratic Societies a two day conference which is the fourth such event in a series that began in 2007. The keynote speakers of the event are: Vladimir Tismaneanu, Director, Center for the Study of Post-Communist Societies, University of Maryland; Daniel Chirot, Job and Gertrud Tamaki Professor of International Studies, University of Washington; Timothy Snyder, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Yale University. The first day of the conference, November 11, will be held at the Embassy of Romania. Day two will be held at the Woodrow Wilson Center. The conference will feature renowned scholars, journalists, and policy-makers from Europe and the United States. To RSVP please go here.
Monday, November 15, 2010. Preventing Genocide and Mass Atrocities: Goals and Challenges of International Cooperation. The Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Committee on Conscience will be hosting a symposium, Preventing Genocide and Mass Atrocities: Goals and Challenges of International Cooperation, to be held on November 15, 2010, in Paris, France. If you are planning to attend, please contact by September 27, Nadia Ficara at nficara@ushmm.org<mailto:nficara@ushmm.org.
Monday, November 15, 2010- 9:00 a.m. Restoring America’s Leadership of a Democratic World. In past decades, there has been no question as to where America stood in the hierarchy of world powers, but in today’s era of financial crises, terrorism, and rising autocratic states, American leadership is being questioned. Given the rise of globalization, advances in communications, and the new, interwoven global economy, the implications of a U.S. retreat from its global responsibilities in the face of threats at home and abroad could be severe. The Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) invites you to the 2010 FPI Forum on November 15 and 16, to hear leading experts weigh in on the theme of Restoring America’s Leadership of a Democratic World. Panels will discuss the impact of China’s rise on U.S. foreign policy, U.S. policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, the fight for the promotion of democracy & human rights, and recent developments in the Middle East. Members of Congress and other speakers will discuss foreign policy in the 112th Congress, the challenge to the West, and prospects for success in Afghanistan. The event will take place at W Hotel, 515 15th Street NW. To RSVP please go here.
Monday, November 15, 2010- 12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m. Book Discussion: Russia’s Peacetime Demographic Crisis. The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars will be hosting a book discussion on Russia’s Peacetime Demographic Crisis. The author, Nicholas Eberstadt, a Henry Wendt Scholar in Political Economy and from the American Enterprise Institute will be speaking. For more information please go here.
Monday, November 29, 2010- 12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m. Book Discussion: The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin. The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars will be hosting a book discussion on The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin. Stephen F. Cohen, the author, and Professor of Russian Studies and History, New York University will be speaking. The event will be held in the 6th floor Flom Auditorium. For more information please go here.
March 1 and 2, 2011-Belarus in the 2010s: Challenges of Change, and Pathways to Success. March 1-2, 2011, Minsk, Belarus. Twenty years after its independence Belarus society and the governing elite faces qualitatively new challenges of development. While Belarus is aiming to join the ranks of the most developed countries in the world with the best business climate and the highest level of human development, which institutions and policies, foreign engagements and patterns of state-society relations would suit these goals the best? Can the country reach these ambitious goals only slightly modifying the political and economic systems? Is balancing between East and West sustainable, particularly in reflection how Russia’s position, and policy, has changed? Which of the Belarus’s neighbors (i.e., Russia and the European Union) will have the leading to be the key partners in the country’s modernization and development? Or does Belarus want to be the European China?
The fourth BISS annual conference «Belarus in the 2010s: Challenges of Change, and Pathways to Success» will take place in March 1-2, 2011. Policy makers, experts, scholars from Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, the European Union, and North America, will reflect on the new economic, social, and geopolitical context Belarus found itself after the prolonged conflict with Russia and in the aftermath of the presidential elections held on December 19, 2010, and will measure how the ambitious developmental goals the country is striving to achieve will be framed and moderated by the new realities. The conference debates will be centered upon three policy areas: economic reform, education and human capital development, and energy security. The purpose of the conference discussions is to come up with the expert consensus on which institutions and policies, foreign engagements and patterns of state-society relations would suit these goals the best in each of these policy areas, and to approach the formulation of the reform agenda for Belarus that would enjoy both internal and international support. Please save the date and join us in Minsk on March 1-2, 2011.
Monday, March 7, 2011- 5:30 p.m.-7:00 p.m. Irving Kristol and the Neoconservative Persuasion. The American Enterprise Institute will be hosting the Bradley Lecture by William Kristol onIrving Kristol and the Neoconservative Persuasion on March 7, 2011 at the American Enterprise Institute, in the Wohlstetter Conference Center on the 12th Floor, 1150 Seventeenth Street, NW, Washington DC 20036. For more information please go here.
The listing was compiled by Hannah Egerton.
