The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs

GPIA Presents: Capitalism Hits the Fan

Economist and Professor Richard Wolff presented his film Capitalism Hits the Fan at the New School on March 3rd and responded to questions regarding the film and the crisis.

Current GPIA student, Megan Fingleton, began in Cambodia documenting the work of a medical non-government organization and have since traveled to Honduras and Brazil. Fingelton had been photographing in the medical field for two and a half years and found the desire to use photography and her experience in medical settings to make a greater impact. You can view her amazing work on her website.

Economist Max Fraad-Wolff writes about unemployment and productivity in his latest Huffington Post article, Doing More, Hiring Less.

GPIA Presents: Media in the Age of Obama

The New School graduate program in International Affairs hosts a conversation between Gary Younge and Ian Buruma that considers the medias coverage of the Obama White House. Has their coverage affected global perceptions of American politics, the War on Terror, or the meaning of American leadership? Buruma and Younge offer their views.

On February 9th, 2010, Dr. Erin McCandless presented her paper “In Pursuit of Sustainable Peacebuilding: Where the UN’s Peacebuilding Architecture Needs to Go” at a workshop on The Future of the United Nations Peacebuilding Architecture held at the Permanent Mission of Canada to the United Nations. The research is part of a project sponsored by the Center for International Policy Studies (CIPS) at the University of Ottawa, and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), designed to provide inputs into the UN Peacebuilding Commission’s 2010 review.

On February 23, GPIA Assistant Professor Nehal Bhuta will present at the London School of Economics Political and Legal Theory Colloquium, in London. His paper is entitled "A Jus Post Bellum of Constitutional Transformation."

GPIA Instructor's Max Fraad Wolff's latest Huffington Post article Burning Down the House

A White Paper written for the United Nations by a Spring 2009 Practicum team is being featured in The Drum Beat, the e-magazine of the Communication Initiative Network, an online space for people and organisations engaged in or supporting communication as a strategy for economic and social development and change. 

The paper, "Information Communication and Technology (ICT) in Education for Development," was written by GPIA students and now graduates Brian Gutterman, Shahreen Rahman, Jorge Supelano, Laura Thies, and Mai Yang, and faculty supervised by Ambassador Rafat Mahdi. The authors explore current ICT use in education and its potential benefits to current and future users, analyse examples worldwide, and share lessons learned and recommendations. The Practicum client was the UN Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technology and Development (GAID), which originally published the team's paper in June 2009, with a printing of 500 copies for distribution at the annual GAID conference in Monterrey, which team member Brian Gutterman also attended. The paper was also featured in the GAID monthly e-newsletter, posted on its website as well as that of the United Nations Public Administration Network, where it quickly became a top 10 download. In December 2009 the paper was also used as background documentation for participants in an ICT-for-MDGs workshop in Bangkok, and is expected to be circulated at roundtables this year at Santiago and Geneva.

Pens and Swords

What is the role of the writer in a conflict zone? Three authors and poets writing from three continents tackle this weighty question in the latest virtual roundtable offered by The Mantle. Started in 2009 by GPIAers, The Mantle provides a platform for young and emerging voices from the around the world to further dialogue on pressing political and social issues. Roundtables provide a venue for deep, prolonged conversation on issues that cannot be parsed in shorter essays. Pens and Swords can be read here.

GPIA student, Priyanka Rao, just secured an internship at Women's Refugee Commission, a division of the IRC. There she will work with the Reprodutive Health Program. Congrats Priyanka!

Professor Sakiko Fukuda-Parr has been appointed to the Committee on Development Policy, a body of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).  The committee, comprised of 24 internationally leading economists and social scientists, advises the Council on major global development challenges, and over the years has been the source of many innovative policy proposals.  

In this month's issue of Foreign Policy, find Professor Nina Kruscheva's "No Heads Are Better Than Two: Russia's double-headed eagle is not just a national emblem. It's a symbol of the national schizophrenia."

Economist Max Fraad-Wolff's latest Huffington Post piece "Change is not Changing Enough" addresses the recent election in Massachusetts as well as the upcoming 2012 Presidental election through an economic lens.

Professor Nina Khrushcheva spoke with the Foriegn Policy Association on their GD2010 Episode: "Moscow's Long Reach" that will air as part of PBS's Great Decision Series.

Economics instructor Max Fraad-Wolff lends insight to the Obama administration's decision to commit 30,000 more troops to the war in Afghanistan on Russia Today.

GPIA's Nina Khurshcheva speaks with Brian Lehrer on WNYC on the collapse of communism.

GPIA Associate Professor, Nina Khrushcheva, published "The Memory Trap", part of a Foreign Policy Series 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall about "why remembrance of past imperial glory holds back Russia today" and spoke with Al Jazeera English about the Anniversary. (click image to view video)

Equity for Children, an online learning tool and resource sharing initiative, based out of the Graduate Program in International Affairs (GPIA) has just announced a partnership with Fordham University’s Graduate School of Social Service! Please join them at the launch of this collaboration.

Lessons of November, Economist and GPIA Instructor, Max Fraad-Wolff's latest Huffington Post entry.

GPIA economics instructor Max Fraad-Wolff lent his expert opinion to BBC ("What caused the Wall Street crash?") and Al Jazeera ("US economy exits recession") this past week.

Professor Sakiko Fakuda-Parr will be speaking at a 'Parallel Event to the 64h session of the UN General Assembly on Human Rights and Financing for Development: Towards realizing the Right to Development' on Monday, October 26.

GPIA Professor Nehal Bhuta and GPIA student Jenny Prewo, in conjunction with Canadian lawyers and professors from the University of Toronto, and Human Rights Watch, have filed a brief in the Supreme Court of Canada concerning the case of the Prime Minister v Omar Khadr.

Khadr has been detained in Guantanamo Bay since the age of 15 (he is now 22) and was subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques" (including sleep deprivation) as a child. Canadian intelligence agents interviewed him in 2003-2004 despite being informed that Khadr had been abused in this way in order to "make him more amenable" to talking to them.

In the Supreme Court filing, Bhuta, Prewo and others argue that Canada became complicit in the US's abuse of Khadr under international human rights law, and that the only effective remedy is for Canada to demand his repatriation to Canada.

The brief can be read here.

Professor Fukuda-Parr was a speaker at the launch of Amnesty International's Demand Dignity Campaign and the publication of Irene Khan's book "The Unheard Truth: Poverty and Human Rights".  The discussion, moderated by Teresa Rodriguez, the award-winning anchor from Univision also included: Larry Cox, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA Ina May Gaskin, Certified Professional Midwife, Activist and Author Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

Economist, author and journalist Max Fraad-Wolff sits down with RT's Anastasia Churkina to explain why it's too early for Americans to throw on the party hats - the worst for the economy is still to come. 

Economics Professor Richard Wolff and Max Fraad-Wolff will be discussing the current economic crisis on 99.5 WBAI radio show in a one hour special Monday, October 5th and October 12th at 10am. You can listen live here Monday morning or find it in the archive. Listen to the October 5th show.

The recently released issue of the Children, Youth and the Environment (CYE) journal, Vol 19, No. 2 (2009) features an introduction by Alberto Minujin and Sheridan Barlett, titled 'The Everyday Environments of Children's Poverty'. This volume features articles based on results from the 2008 GPIA-UNICEF International Conference "Rethinking Child Poverty: Making Policies That Work for Children."

To learn more, visit www.equityforchildren.org

GPIA Assistant Professor Max Wolff responded to President Obama's recent speech about financial regulatory reform on Pacifico Radio.

"Restoring Joseph Stalin’s image: History or heresy?" GPIA Associate Professor Nina Khruscheva joins Daljit Dhaliwal on PBS's World Focus to discuss Stalin's continuing appeal. 

GPIA Professor Nehal Bhuta will present a paper at the University of Maryland School of Law's International Comparative Law Colloquium on September 23, 2009. The title of the paper is "New Modes and Orders: Is a Jus Post Bellum of Constitutional Transformation Possible or Desirable?" Details of the event and the paper.

GPIA Professor Nehal Bhuta and GPIA student Jenny Prewo are coordinating an intervention (amicus curiae) application for Human Rights Watch in the Canadian case of The Prime Minister of Canada and Others v Omar Khadr, a Guantanamo Detainee. more

Professor Sean Jacobs co-wrote the op-ed Two men, two countries, two minorities published in today's Globe and Mail.

GPIA student, Aarti Virani's article Nowhere Man, was published today by the Wall Street Journal. Virani is a freelance journalist.

Professor Rick Wolff's latest article published in Monthly Review, The Reality Behind Economic "Recovery", looks at implications of disparities in what some are calling the economic comeback.

Economist and New School Professor, Max Fraad-Wolff, "cuts through the numbers to expose the deepening long-term inequality in the United States" on Democracy Now this morning.

GPIAer Shaun Randol is the founding editor of The MANTLE, an online journal that reviews the books, film, art and societal elements making waves in international discourse. The MANTLE encourages emerging voices from various backgrounds and experiences to reflect on the world around them. The flagship element is the virtual roundtable wherein multiple people debate a topic of global socio-political importance. In the first roundtable (available late August) participants tackle the merits of the underlying philosophy of the UN's doctrine on the Responsibility to Protect.

"I've had the pleasure of studying and working with some excellent young progressive thinkers," says Randol, "but we lacked a forum where we could come together to promote fresh and creative ideas. So I created The MANTLE." Please visit www.mantlethought.org for more information.

Director Michael Cohen speaks to the Paris paper, Le Figaro, about the situation in Honduras in the August 3rd article Les embarras de Washington face au Honduras.

Economist and New School faculty, Max Fraad-Wolff, hosted a chat on Firedoglake's Book Salon series with Matt Taibbi about his recent recent Rolling Stone articles Great American Bubble Machine & The Big Takeover.  Max and Matt discussed "the growing role and power of well connected and influential bankers, financiers and there allies atop the American political structure".

Nina Khrushcheva was a guest on the PBS's "World Focus" on July 6th and "World Focus Week in Review" on July 10th to speak about President Obama's recent visit to Russia. 

Equity for Children mourns the loss of Professor Peter Townsend, a giant among men. "Peter Townsend changed the way the world viewed poverty with his research on relative poverty, which contradicted the prevailing view that poor people were biologically pre-determined, or that their problems could be explained in psychiatric terms." To read more about Professor Townsend and his work, click here. Equity for Children is a web initiative based out of the Graduate Program in International Affairs (GPIA) at The New School.

Watch as GPIA Professor Richard Wolff breaks down the root causes of today's economic crisis, showing how it was decades in the making and in fact reflects seismic failures within the structures of American-style capitalism itself. Wolff traces the source of the economic crisis to the 1970s, when wages began to stagnate and American workers were forced into a dysfunctional spiral of borrowing and debt that ultimately exploded in the mortgage meltdown.  Full preview version available on Professor Wolff's website.

The work of this semester's PIA groups, Asch Harwood, Mariluz Lopez, William Post, Bradley Seelig, Christian Sempere and Jon Wallach, is featured on the Financing for Development website. Their work examined proposals of CS advocates for strengthening global economic governance and promoting the role of the United Nations in global economic and financial policy-making.

GPIA alumni Matt Simonds and Hitomi Akiyama have been working this year for the International Trade Union Confederation UN Office on a grant from the German Development Agency (BMZ) to facilitate civil society participation in the intergovernmental discussions at the UN on Financing for Development and the current financial crisis. They currently operate the Global Social Economy/Global Crisis list serves, among other things and now maintain the Financing for Development: Civil Society Engagement web site to a more permanent platform based in Barcelona.

GPIA students in the IFP in Buenos Aires will meet former GPIA faculty member and New School Ph.D. in Economics, Martin Abeles, Secretary for Economic Policy of the Government of Argentina, on June 1 for a briefing on the Argentine Economy.

Teo Ballve's article Dark Side of Plan Colombia based on his thesis research will be published in the upcoming issue of The Nation. Teo is a recent GPIA graduate and recipient of the Distinguished Thesis Award. Next year he will begin pursuing a PhD in Geography at Berkeley. Congratulations to Teo for his accomplishments!

 Everita Silina, GPIA part-time faculty Member, has been selected as the co-recipient of the Kenneth E. Boulding Award for 2009, given by the Peace Studies Section of the International Studies Association/ISA. The Award Committee considered a score of outstanding submissions, and found her article, "Genocide and Information," to be empirically and theoretically grounded, analytically persuasive, and relevant to a continuing challenge in the field of Peace Studies. She will share this award with Shane Joshua Barter of the University of British Columbia.

The Peace Studies Section and ISA will recognize Prof. Silina's contribution to ISA, outstanding scholarship, and interest in the Peace Studies Section at its next annual convention in New Orleans, 17-20 February 2010.

On May 26, GPIA Director Michael Cohen, Associate Professor Margarita Gutman, and OLA Coordinator, Valeria Luzardo, a GPIA student from Uruguay, held meetings in Montevideo, Uruguay, to prepare the visit of Dr. Tabare Vazquez, President of Uruguay, to the New School in September 2009. They also met with Dr. Rodrigo Arocena, Rector of the Universidad de la Republica, and Professor Gerardo Caetano, to discuss collaboration between the OLA and the Universidad de la Republica.

Program Director Michael Cohen presented a paper at a research meeting in Buenos Aires on May 22-24, 2009 on "Beyond the Tipping Point: Latin American Development in an Urban World" organized by the United Nations' World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER).

On May 21 the Observatory on Latin America (OLA), based at the GPIA, received $100,000 to support its two programs in 2009-2010: Building Latin American Bicentennials and Latin America on the Move, from Julien Studley, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of The New School.

On May 19 the GPIA received a grant for $75,000 from the Cities Alliance, an organization of 25 governments from developed and developing countries, and NGOs, to plan for the launching of the University Urban Research Initiative (UURI) which will occur in Mumbai in January 2010. The objective of UURI is to encourage and fund university urban research on the impacts of policiers, programs, and projects in cities in developing countries. It grows out of the GPIA student IFP program to evaluate a World Bank-financed shelter and infrastructure project in Dakar, Senegal in 2006 which is the first international example of an evaluation of a project 34 years after it started. A UURI workshop with representatives of international agencies and universities will be held in Marseille, France on June 26-27, 2009. UURI is being coordinated by GPIA graduate Pamela Hershey.

Professor Fukuda-Parr co-authored an essay entitled "A Human Rights Analysis of the G20 Communique: Recent Awareness of the 'Human Cost' Is Not Quite Enough" published on May 4th by Carnegie On-Line of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International
Affairs.

Professor David Gold appeared on the television program Hearts and Minds on March 2nd to discuss the global economic crisis, along with Jeff Madrick and Michael Oppenheimer, who previously taught in GPIA. On April 19, he also appeared on the Leon Charney Report where he discussed the economics of terrorism, US defense spending, US-China relations and other topics.

 Josh Greenstein co-wrote a report on access to treatment for children with HIV/AIDS, I Will Fight to My Last Breath: Barriers to AIDS Treatment For Children in China published this month by Asia Catalyst. Josh interned with the organization in Beijing last summer. 

Jen Hill, along with a team of 3 students from the University of Washington, was awarded a $10,000 grant and 100 laptops from the OLPC for the OLCorps program to implement a laptop training program in Kenya at the East African Center's Junior School. Congratulations to Jen and the EAC!

Professor Lily Ling appeared on the television show Hearts and Minds where she discussed US-North Korea relations.