ACADEMIC PAPERS & REPORTS
Spring 2013
"Correspondence: Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect"
International Security, issue 4, volume 37
By Gareth Evans, Ramesh Thakur and Robert Pape, Editorial Board Member, Quarterly Journal: International Security
Gareth Evans and Ramesh Thakur respond to Robert A. Pape's summer 2012 International Security article, "When Duty Calls: A Pragmatic Standard of Humanitarian Intervention."
AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell
Spring 2013
"Climate Change and Insecurity: Mapping Vulnerability in Africa"
International Security, issue 4, volume 37
By Joshua Busby, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2004-2005, Todd G. Smith, Kaiba L. White and Shawn M. Strange
Many experts argue that climate change will exacerbate the severity and number of extreme weather events. Such climate-related hazards will be important security concerns and sources of vulnerability in the future regardless of whether they contribute to conflict.
Ed Wray - AP Images
February 2013
Wartime Sexual Violence: Misconceptions, Implications, and Ways Forward
By Dara Kay Cohen, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School, Amelia Hoover Green and Elisabeth Jean Wood
Wartime rape is neither ubiquitous nor inevitable. The level of sexual violence differs significantly across countries, conflicts, and particularly armed groups. Some armed groups can and do prohibit sexual violence. Such variation suggests that policy interventions should also be focused on armed groups, and that commanders in effective control of their troops are legally liable for patterns of sexual violence they fail or refuse to prevent.
October 2012
"South Korea's Counterpiracy Operations in the Gulf of Aden"
By Terence Roehrig, Research Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom
In March 2009, the South Korean National Assembly approved the first foreign deployment of South Korea's naval forces to join the U.S.-led Combined Task Force (CTF-151). The purpose of CTF-151 is to conduct antipiracy operations in the Gulf of Aden and off Somalia's east coast by the Horn of Africa. South Korea joined the navies of twenty four other countries that participate in the Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) through one of three combined task forces, CTF-150, CTF-151, and CTF-152, to help ensure maritime security in this region. The CMF is an international effort to conduct maritime security operations in the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea, and the Indian Ocean.
October 2012
Global Korea: South Korea's Contributions to International Security
By Scott Bruce, John Hemmings, Balbina Y. Hwang, Terence Roehrig, Research Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom and Scott Snyder
Given the seriousness of the ongoing standoff on the Korean peninsula, South Korea's emergence as an active contributor to international security addressing challenges far from the Korean peninsula is a striking new development, marking South Korea's emergence as a producer rather than a consumer of global security resources. This volume outlines South Korea's progress and accomplishments toward enhancing its role and reputation as a contributor to international security.
AP Images
Fall 2012
"The Psychology of Threat in Intergroup Conflict: Emotions, Rationality, and Opportunity in the Rwandan Genocide"
International Security, issue 2, volume 37
By Omar S. McDoom, Former Research Fellow, Intrastate Conflict Program/International Security Program, 2004-2007; Former Associate, Intrastate Conflict Program/International Security Program, 2007-2008
Group emotions, fear in particular, play an important role in how security threats polarize social groups. The case of the Rwanadan genocide demonstrates that four psychosocial mechanisms (boundary activation, outgroup derogation, outgroup homogenization, and ingroup cohesion) play an important role in group polarization, and that fear is a crucial driver of these mechanisms. A more thorough understanding of how security threats activate group polarization could help policymakers to minimize intergroup conflict.
AP Photo
September 2012
"Measuring the Impacts of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions: Placing the Global 'Success' of TRCs in Local Perspective"
Cooperation and Conflict, issue 3, volume 47
By Michal Ben-Josef Hirsch, Research Fellow, International Security Program, Megan Mackenzie, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program/Women in Public Policy Program, 2008–2009 and Mohamed Sesay
"Truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs) have emerged as an international norm and are assumed to be an essential element of national reconciliation, democratization, and post-conflict development. Despite the increase in the number of TRCs being initiated around the globe and the international consensus regarding their positive effects, there is little understanding of the longterm effects and consequences of TRCs. Specifically, currently there are no established methods or mechanisms for measuring the impacts of TRCs; furthermore, the few examples of efforts to measure these impacts have serious limitations. This article explores both the rise in TRCs as an international norm and the contradictions and inadequacies in existing efforts to measure the impacts and successes of commissions."
AP Photo
Spring 2012
"Agenda for Peace or Budget for War? Evaluating the Economic Impact of International Intervention in Somalia"
International Journal, issue 2, volume 67
By Aisha Ahmad, Former Research Fellow, Initiative on Religion in International Affairs/International Security Program, 2011–2012
This article shows how international humanitarian aid, particularly food aid, has played an instrumental role in perpetuating chronic civil war and state collapse in Somalia from 1992–2012. During the 1992 famine, food aid created lucrative opportunities for criminal elements of the Somali business community, who partnered with local warlords to create an enduring system of corruption and aid dependence. International aid financed this elite pact between business and warlords, which subsequently undermined domestic processes of order-making and reduced the bargaining power of local communities in the peace-building process.
AP Photo/John Giles
July 2012
"Post-Durban Climate Policy Architecture Based on Linkage of Cap-and-Trade Systems"
By Robert N. Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government; Member of the Board; Director, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements and Matthew Ranson
The outcome of the December 2011 United Nations climate negotiations in Durban, South Africa, provides an important new opportunity to move toward an international climate policy architecture that is capable of delivering broad international participation and significant global CO2 emissions reductions at reasonable cost. This paper addresses an important component of potential climate policy architecture for the post-Durban era: links among independent tradable permit systems for greenhouse gases.
May 2012
"The Politics of Psychology in the British Empire, 1898–1960"
Past & Present, issue 1, volume 215
By Erik Linstrum, Former Ernest May Fellow in History and Policy, International Security Program, 2011–2012
"This article first considers the ways in which experimental psychology and psychoanalysis hastened the obsolescence of ideas about the so-called 'primitive mind' and, in some cases, served the purposes of overtly anti-colonial politics. It then surveys the history of intelligence testing in the British Empire, which originated in the aftermath of the First World War, expanded in scale after the Second, and ultimately contributed to post-colonial development. Finally, it asks how far the case of psychology puts the very concept of 'colonial science' into question."
