Bobst Center

Experimental Research Workshop, cosponsored with the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance, Center for the Study of Democratic Politics, and The Program for Quantitative and Analytical Political Science (Q-APS)

Friday September 28 - Saturday September 29, 2012
Robertson Hall Bowl 016

Workshop on Arab Political Development
Bernard Haykel, Department of Near Eastern Studies and director, Institute for Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia

"Is Yemen a Failed State?"

Tuesday October 2, 2012, 4:30 p.m., Location: Robertson Hall Bowl 2

Panel Discussion: Digital Pathways to Peace? Online Dialogues in the Middle East

Monday October 15, 4:30 p.m., Robertson Hall (WWS) Bowl 16

Can virtual communities forge bonds of trust and understanding among groups separated by political boundaries and cultural conflict?  YaLa-Young Leaders is an online, Facebook-based movement dedicated to empowering young Middle Easterners to lead their generation to a better future.  A 2011New York Times article characterized YaLa’s early success as “suggesting that the Facebook-driven revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt may offer guidance of coexistence efforts as well.”  Members of YaLa will join leading scholars for a discussion of whether and how online initiatives can help to build civic networks and institutions that will provide a foundation for peace.

Moty Cristal
Peace Negotiator & CEO, Negotiation Strategies LTD 

Mahdee Jaber Abu-Zehriya & Megan Hallahan
Ya-La–Young Leaders

Mitchell Duneier
Maurice P. During Professor of Sociology, Princeton University

Office of Religious Life
Program in Law and Public Affairs
Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice
Woodrow Wilson School     

Latinos in the 2012 Elections: An Expert Discussion on Research and Politics
Thursday October 25, 2012, 4:30 p.m., Robertson Hall Bowl 016

Marisa Abrajano, Department of Political Science, University of California~San Diego
Daniel Hopkins, Department of Government, Georgetown University
Gary Segura, Department of Political Science and Chair, Program in Chicana/o Studies, Stanford University

Panel moderated by Ali Valenzuela, Department of Politics, Princeton University

Political scientists will give their expert analysis of the 2012 Election and the role of Latinos in local or national races this November and beyond.  Panelists will be asked to discuss their particular research expertise so that we might better understand some aspect of the election dynamic that is not typically discussed in the mainstream media.

Co-sponsored by the Bobst Center for Peace and Justice, the Program in Latino Studies and the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics

Free and Open to the Public

Workshop on Arab Political Development
Kahlil Shikaki, Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research
Daniel Kurtzer, WWS
Amaney Jamal, Politics; Director, Workshop on Arab Political Development; Director, Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice

"U.S. Election Outcome and Its Impact on the Palestinian-Israeli Peace Plan"
November 15, 2012, 4:30 p.m., Location: Robertson Hall Bowl 2

Film Screening of Jai Bhim Comrade with Anand Patwardhan, leading Indian documentary film maker
Thursday December 6, 6 p.m., Location: Aaron Burr Hall 219 

Co-sponsored by the Program in South Asian Studies (PIIRS) and the Bobst Center for Peace and Justice

Grant Proposal Professional Development Workshop for Politics Graduate Students with Professors Mark Beissinger, Kosuke Imai, Jake Shapiro; Politics Grants Manager Bobbie Zlotnik; and ORPA's Electronic Research Coordinator Kyle Burkhardt.

Tuesday January 8, 2013, 12 - 2:30 p.m., Location: Corwin 127

Lunch will be served.

POL Graduate Students and Faculty Only.

Co-sponsored by the Bobst Center for Peace and Justice and the Politics Department Graduate Office

Film Screening of Promises: A Hope for Peace in the Children of Israel and Palestine with Director Justine Shapiro

Monday December 10, 6:30-8:30 pm, Location: Whig Hall, Senate Chamber

Wednesday February 6, 4:30 p.m., 127 Corwin Hall
Comparative Politics Colloquium
More People = More Democracy
John Gerring, Boston University

Tuesday February 12, 4:30 p.m., Dodds Auditorium
How Not to Write a Constitution: Lessons from Egypt
Marina Ottaway, Senior Scholar, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Dodds Auditorium
Cosponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs; the Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice; the Institute for the Transregional Study of the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia; the Department of and Program in Near Eastern Studies, and the Workshop on Arab Political Development.

Wednesday February 20, 4:30 p.m., 216 Aaron Burr Hall
Democracy and Development Workshop
Why Nations Fail
James Robinson, Harvard University

Friday February 22, 10 a.m., Bobst Hall (83 Prospect Avenue) Room 101
Book Discussion 
Ways Out of War: Peacemakers in the Middle East and Balkans, edited by Mona Fixdal, Department of History, University of Oslo

Ambassador Peter Galbraith, Former Ambassador to Croatia

Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer, Former Ambassador to Israel and Egypt and Woodrow Wilson School Lecturer and S. Daniel Abraham Visiting Professor in Middle East Policy Studies

Ambassador Samuel Lewis, Former Ambassador to Israel, Former Director of Policy Planning Staff and past President and CEO of the United States Institute of Peace

Professor Brendan O'Leary, Lauder Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania

The Honorable Harold Saunders ‘52, Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs and current Director of International Affairs, Kettering Foundation

The Honorable Tamara Cofman Wittes, Former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs and current Director, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution

How do peacemakers end wars? This book explores the work of ten diplomats who were charged with negotiating conclusions to intractable conflicts in the Middle East and Balkans. The first study to combine the outlooks of practitioners and academics, Ways out of War shows how peacemaking has struggled to respond to new forms of war, especially asymmetrical warfare between state and non-state actors. It shows these diplomats straining to solve major challenges, such as negotiating with war criminals, balancing peace against justice, handling spoilers, setting the timing of peace initiatives, and building or rebuilding state structures. By focusing on these questions from individual peacemakers' points of view, Ways out of War paints a vivid picture of peacemaking, one with full scope for the play of personalities—but one, too, that is critical, comparative, and fully informed by theoretical literature. It makes compelling and essential reading for all students of negotiation and conflict resolution, as well as for any reader who takes an interest in the Balkans, the Middle East, or the ten notable diplomats at its heart.

Sponsored by Innovations for Successful Societies and the Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice
 

Friday February 22, 12 p.m., Aaron Burr Hall Room 216
PIIRS Director's Book Forum 
Of Empires and Citizens: Pro-American Democracy or No Democracy at All? (Princeton Univeristy Press, 2012)
Amaney Jamal, Associate Professor of Politics, Director of the Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice and of the Workshop on Arab Political Development
Lunch will be provided.

Wednesday February 27, 4:30 p.m., 127 Corwin Hall
Comparative Politics Colloquium
Daniela Campello, Princeton University 

Wednesday, March 6, 127 Corwin Hall

Comparative Politics Colloquium
Paul Sniderman, Stanford University

M. Hakan Yavuz, Professor of Political Science, University of Utah

Toward an Islamic Enlightenment: The Gülen Movement

Thursday March 7, 2013, 4:30 p.m.

Bobst Hall (83 Prospect Avenue) Room 101

**Attendees should read the book before the seminar discussion; no presentation will be given. Contact Kevin Mazur (kmazur@princeton.edu) or Sarah Kazaz (skazaz@princteton.edu) for more information.
 

A Panel Discussion with Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer, Lecturer in Public and International Affairs and S. Daniel Abraham Visiting Professor in Middle East Policy Studies and Yael Berda, Israeli Constitutional Lawyer and PhD Candidate in Sociology.  Moderated by Professor Amaney Jamal

Monday March 11, 4:30 p.m., Location: Robertson Hall Dodds Auditorium

Sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School, Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice and the Workshop on Arab Political Development

Thursday March 14, 2013, 12 p.m., 219 Aaron Burr Hall
Pakistan: Preventing State Failure
Pervex Hoodbhoy, Pakistani nuclear physicist, essayist, and defense analyst
Co-Sponsored with the Program in South Asian Studies (PIIRS)

Thursday March 14, 2013, 4:30 p.m., Bowl 016

Wednesday, March 27, 4:30 p.m., 216 Aaron Burr Hall
Democracy and Development Workshop
The Politics of Improving Cabinet Office Performance
Jennifer Widner, Princeton University

Wednesday March 27, 4:30 p.m.
McCormick Hall 101 (near Art Museum)

Dr. Eric Davis is a Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University and past director of the University's Center for Middle Eastern Studies. His research has included the study of the relationship between state power and historical memory in modern Iraq, the political economy of Egyptian industrialization, the ideology and social bases of religious radical movements in Egypt and Israel, and the impact of oil wealth on the state and culture in Arab oil-producing countries. Sponsored by the Princeton Middle East Society, the Bobst Center for Peace and Justice and the Workshop on Arab Political Development (PIIRS).

Wednesday, April 10, 4:30 p.m., 127 Corwin Hall
Comparative Politics Colloquium
Scott Straus, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Wednesday, April 17, 4:30 p.m., 216 Aaron Burr Hall
Democracy and Development Workshop
Responsiveness and Responsibility: Party-Voter Linkages in Argentina and Chile
Maria Victoria Murillo, Columbia University

Wednesday April 24, 12 p.m.

Comparative Politics Colloquium (co-sponsored with the European Union Program)
Interwar Fascism and the Origins of the Contemporary Radical Right in Sweden
Kare Vernby - Uppsala University 

Wednesday April 24, 7 p.m., 101 McCormick Hall

Remembering Virginia Tech: The Fight for a Safer America

Colin Goddard, a survivor of the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting and Assistant Director, Brady Campaign to End Gun Violence, will visit Princeton to give a public talk about gun violence and how he thinks gun laws can play a stronger role in creating a safer America. The event will include a screening of the film “Living for 32” – a powerful documentary about the Virginia Tech shooting, and closing remarks from Colin.

This event is co-sponsored by S.A.V.E. (the Student Anti-Violence Effort), NJ Million Mom March, College Democrats, and the Bobst Center for Peace and Justice.

Ideology and Humor in Dark Times: Notes from Syria
April 30, 4:30 P.M.– 6:30 P.M., Robertson Hall Bowl 02
Workshop on Arab Political Development
Lisa Wedeen, University of Chicago

Co-sponsored by Workshop on Arab Political Development, the Bobst Center for Peace and Justice, and the Institute for the Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia. 

Thursday May 9, 4:30 p.m., Aaron Burr Hall Room 219

Saskia Sassen is the Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology and Co-Chair, The Committee on Global Thought, Columbia University (www.saskiasassen.com). Her recent books are Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages ( Princeton University Press 2008), A Sociology of Globalization (W.W.Norton 2007), and the 4th fully updated edition of Cities in a World Economy(Sage 2012). Among older books is The Global City Princeton University Press 1991/2001). Her books are translated into over 20 languages. Currently she is working on Ungoverned Territories(Harvard University Press). She is the recipient of diverse awards and mentions, ranging from multiple doctor honoris causa to named lectures and being selected as one of the 100 Top Global Thinkers of 2011 by Foreign Policy Magazine.