"Belfer In Brief"

Newsletter Article, Belfer Center Newsletter, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Winter 2005-06

In the Field

International Security Program (ISP) Fellow Paul Kane is advising a group mandated by the United Nations General Assembly to survey countries that contribute peacekeepers and to devise recommendations for a methodology on how best to reimburse these countries. He also recently published a report for the Ford Foundation on the results of a survey of American Veterans' views and involvement in foreign policy.

ISP Fellow Assaf Moghadam met in January with U.S. Ambassador to Israel and former Belfer Center Fellow Richard Jones and gave a presentation on suicide terrorism to the embassy staff in Tel Aviv. He also presented on the globalization of suicide attacks at a conference "Current and Future Trends of Terrorism" organized by the National Security Studies Center at the University of Haifa.

Laura Sjoberg, joint fellow with ISP and the Kennedy School's Women and Public Policy Program, will co-chair the 2006 International Studies Association-West conference "Just Responses to Challenging Times."

Belfer Center Lecturer in Public Policy Dorothy Zinberg participated in the Airlies House conference "The Promise and Challenges of Medical Technology" in late January.  With scientists and policymakers from the U.S. and EU countries, the meetings explored how nanotechnology would change the ways in which medical treatments would be delivered and the importance of planning joint regulatory procedures before new developments are in place.

New Publications

The Belfer Center has joined forces with the Kennedy School's Ash Institute and George Mason University's Center for Science and Technology Policy in developing a new journal, Innovations, which will be launched this spring. The quarterly publication, which will be published in Chinese as well as English, will focus on creative innovations to pressing societal challenges in science and technology. Science, Technology, and Public Policy Director John Holdren will chair the advisory board for Innovations with Belfer Center Director Emeritus Lewis Branscomb as senior editorial adviser. The journal can be accessed at: http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item /default.asp?ttype=4&tid=65

Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government Robert Stavins is editor of the new Review of Environmental Economics and Policy (REEP). REEP, which will be published bi-annually, will fill a gap between the popular press and scholarly environmental and resource economics journals.

Researchers Explore Vital International Issues

Belfer Center Fellows Hassan Abbas, Vanda Felbab-Brown, and Michael Mousseau contributed chapters to the book The Making of a Terrorist: Recruitment, Training, and Root Causes. Hassan Abbas wrote "A Failure to Communicate: American Public Diplomacy and the Islamic World" (Ch. 4); Vanda Felbab- Brown wrote "The Intersection of Terrorism and the Drug Trade" (Ch. 12); and Michael Mousseau wrote "Terrorism and Export Economies: The Dark Side of Free Trade" (Ch. 13).

Senior Fellow Rosemary Foot wrote "Prizes Won, Opportunities Lost: The U.S. Normalization of Relations with China, 1972-1979," a chapter in Normalization of U.S.-China Relations: An International History, published by Harvard University Press in January 2006.

Research Fellow Emily Oster published "Hepatitis B and the Case of the Missing Women" in the Journal of Political Economy in December 2005. The paper explores the reasons for the imbalanced male to female ratio in Asian countries, arguing that Hepatitis B in Asian women skews the birthrate toward males.

Research Associate Hui Zhang wrote "Action/ Reaction: U.S. Space Weaponization and China" published in Arms Control Today in December 2005. The paper focuses on the China-U.S. relationship related to an arms race in space.

Global Exchange

The Belfer Center was well-represented at the 36th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland in late January.

Belfer Center Director Graham Allison and Science, Technology, and Public Policy Director John Holdren took part in a panel titled "Could a Nuclear Bomb Go Off in Your City?" Other panel members included Counter-Terrorism Coordinator of the Council of the EU Gijs M. de Vries, International Atomic Energy Agency Director Mohamed ElBaradei, Senator John Kerry, and Artistic Director Peter Sellers. On a separate panel titled "Who Picks Up the Tab?" Allison discussed natural disasters and terrorist attacks.

Sultan of Oman Professor of International Relations Joseph Nye headed a workshop on global risk analysis and a session on whether Russia is turning East. Nye, who serves on the board of directors of the WEF's Young Global Leaders Foundation, participated in a meeting of the world's "most extraordinary" young leaders.

Belfer Center Director of Science, Technology and Globalization Calestous Juma took part in a panel titled "Digital Inclusion: To ‘e' or Not to ‘e'." The panelists discussed whether the private sector's efforts to bridge the digital divide have been successful.

Stephen Walt, Kennedy School academic dean and faculty chair of the Belfer Center's International Security Program, participated in a workshop "Shifting Sands: A New Balance of Power in the Middle East" and another on geopolitical risks. Prior to the WEF, Walt was in Budapest and Singapore where he discussed the global response to U.S. primacy and his book Taming American Power.

For more information about this publication please contact the Belfer Center Communications Office at 617-495-9858.

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