Listen to the interview between Alex and Leslie Vinjamuri

Read Alex's latest article on the subject here

Means, not Ends: Why U.S. Foreign Policy Doesn't Change

Professor David Sylvan, Geneva Graduate Institute

7pm, Wednesday 25 November 2009, Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS

David Sylvan (Ph.D., Yale University 1979) has been a member of the faculty of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, since 1991 and is currently head of the IHEID political science unit; prior to that, he taught at Syracuse University and the University of Minnesota. Sylvan is the author of numerous articles in various journals, and the author or editor of several books, the most recent of which (U.S. Foreign Policy in Perspective [with Stephen Majeski]) was published in February 2009. His current research focuses on economic, covert, and military intervention; on sovereignty and gate-keeping in international relations; and on the international political economy of world cities. In addition, he works on issues of research design, epistemology, and formal models of qualitative theories. He has been the recipient of grants from the MacArthur Foundation, the Swiss and U.S. National Science Foundations, and the United Nations.

International Paternalism: A Reconsideration

Professor Michael Barnett, University of Minnesota

Respondent: Professor David Kennedy, Faculty Director of the Institute for Global Law and Policy, at Harvard University.

7pm, Wednesday 13 January 2010, Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre, SOAS

Michael Barnett is the Harold Stassen Chair of International Relations at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs and Professor of political science at the University of Minnesota. He previous taught at the University of Wisconsin, Macalester College, Wellesley College, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was a visiting scholar at the New School for Social Research and the Dayan Center at Tel-Aviv University, and was a Visiting Professor at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland.

Barnett teaches and does research on international relations, international organizations, humanitarian action, the United Nations, and the politics of the Middle East. His dissertation won the 1991 APSA's Gabriel Almond Award for Best Dissertation in Comparative
Politics and the book based on the dissertation, "Confronting the Costs of War: Military Power, State and Society in Egypt and Israel" (Princeton, 1992), won the ISA's Quincy Wright award. His other major books are "Dialogues in Arab Politics: Negotiations in Regional Order" (Columbia University Press, 1998); "Security Communities" (Cambridge University Press, 1998), which he co-edited with Emanuel Adler; "Eyewitness to a Genocide: The United Nations and Rwanda" (Cornell University Press, 2002), which was a Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Title ; and, with Martha Finnemore, "Rules for the World: International Organizations in World Politics" (Cornell University Press, 2004), which won both the ISA's Best Book of the Year Award and the Chadwick Alger Best Book on International Organizations Award; and, Humanitarianism in Question: Politics, Power, and Ethics (Cornell University Press, 2008), which he co-edited with Tom Weiss.

This lecture is co-sponsored by CISD, Royal Holloway, and the British International Studies Association.

Listen to the full lecture

India's Strategic Culture

Professor Kanti Bajpai, Oxford University

5pm, Wednesday 27 January 2010, Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS

Kanti Bajpai is Professor in the Politics and International Relations of South Asia at Oxford University. He is Director of Graduate Studies in the M.Sc. in Contemporary India and also teaches in the Department of Politics and International Relations. He is a Fellow of Wolfson College. Before coming to Oxford, he was Headmaster of the Doon School, India, and Professor in International Politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. He has taught at M.S. University of Baroda and held visiting appointments at Wesleyan University, the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, the University of Notre Dame, as well as the Australian Defence Force Academy, the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, and the Brookings Institution. Dr. Bajpai has written and published widely in the fields of India's foreign and national security policy, South Asia's international politics, Indian international thought, and international security. He is currently working on India's strategic thought.
 

Human Rights, Sovereignty and Military Intervention -

A Dialogue with J.S. Mill

Professor Michael Doyle, Columbia Law School

7pm, Monday 8 February 2010, Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS

Michael Doyle is Harold Brown Professor of International and Public Affairs, of Law, and of Political Science at Columbia Law School. Although he was trained as a political scientist, Prof. Doyle comes with scholarly experience in the legal field. A former teaching assistant of the late Leo Gross - an eminent professor of international law at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy - Prof. Doyle says that understanding international law and policy is more important than it has been in several generations, if not ever.

An interest in international affairs came naturally to Prof. Doyle, whose parents met in the counter intelligence corps during World War II and whose father served in embassies in Europe. Born in Hawaii, Prof. Doyle grew up in France and Switzerland. Before coming to Columbia, he was a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton, though for two years he was on leave to work as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's special advisor.

Professor Michael Doyle with Dr Leslie Vinjamuri, SOAS Politics Department and CISD (left) and Professor Matthew Craven, SOAS Law Department and Dean of the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences, SOAS. 

The Transformation of Civil Wars, 1800-2010

Professor Stathis Kalyvas, Yale University

6pm, Wednesday 10 March 2010, Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS

Stathis N. Kalyvas (Ph.D. University of Chicago, 1993), is Arnold Wolfers Professor of Political Science and Director of the Program on Order, Conflict, and Violence. He is the author of The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2006) and The Rise of Christian Democracy in Europe (Cornell University Press, 1996), and the co-editor of Order, Conflict & Violence (Cambridge University Press, 2008). He has received several awards, including the Woodrow Wilson Award for best book on government, politics, or international affairs (2007), the Luebbert Award for best book in comparative politics (2008), the European Academy of Sociology Book Award (2008), the J. David Greenstone Award for best book in politics and history (1997), and the Gregory Luebbert Award for best article in comparative politics (2001 and 2009). He has been awarded fellowships and grants by the European University Institute, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the United States Peace Institute, and the Folke Bernadotte Academy. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

This lecture is co-sponsored by CISD, Royal Holloway, and the British International Studies Association.

 

 

How Enemies Become Friends: The Sources of Stable Peace

Professor Charles Kupchan, Georgetown University

5pm, Wednesday 5 May 2010, Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS

Charles A. Kupchan is professor of international affairs at Georgetown University and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served on the National Security Council during the Clinton presidency and is the author of The End of the American Era (Knopf).

 

Is the world destined to suffer endless cycles of conflict and war? Can rival nations become partners and establish a lasting and 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.

This lecture is co-sponsored by the Institute for the Study of the Americas, School of Advanced Study, University of London

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Date TBA (Rescheduled lectures):

Intrastate Conflicts and Geopolitics of Peace in the 21st Century: Lessons from Sri Lanka

Professor Kristian Stokke, University of Oslo

Kristian Stokke is Professor of Human Geography in the Department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo, Norway, specialising in movement politics and democratisation in South Africa and conflict transformation and peace building in Sri Lanka. His most recent books include Democratising Development: The Politics of Socio-economic Rights in South Africa (edited with Peris Jones, 2005) and Politicising Democracy: The New Local Politics of Democratisation (edited with John Harriss and Olle Törnquist, 2004). He is a visiting Professor at the University of Cape Town, McGill University, the University of Washington, and the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Copenhagen University.

The lecture will discuss the attempt at internationalised and elitist crafting liberal peace and also touch on the new geopolitics of conflict resolution in the Indian Ocean that shaped the final war on LTTE.

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Obama's United Nations Policy

Professor Thomas Weiss, CUNY Graduate Centre

Thomas G. Weiss is Presidential Professor of Political Science at The CUNY Graduate Center and Director of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, where he is co-director of the UN Intellectual History Project. He is President (2009-10) of the International Studies Association, chair (2006-9) of the Academic Council on the UN System (ACUNS). His latest book is What's Wrong with the United Nations and How to Fix It (2009). 

As Research Professor at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies (1990-98), he also held university administrative posts (Associate Dean of the Faculty, Director of the Global Security Program, Associate Director), was the Executive Director of ACUNS, and co-directed the Humanitarianism and War Project. Earlier, he was the Executive Director of the International Peace Academy (1985-9); a Senior Economic Affairs Officer at the UN Conference on Trade and Development in Geneva (1975-85); and held professional posts in the Office of the UN Commissioner for Namibia, the University Program at the Institute for World Order, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, and International Labor Organization. He has been a consultant for foundations and numerous inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations and was editor of Global Governance (2000-5) and research director of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (2000-2). 

The 2008-09 IR Speaker Series schedule can be viewed here

 

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The 2007-08 IR Speaker Series schedule can be viewed here