Bobst Center

In conjunction with Princeton's Law and Public Affairs Program, the Bobst Center supports the study of constitution writing as part of conflict resolution.

Since 1975, over 195 new constitutions have appeared in countries emerging from civil war or prone to violence.  This Bobst Program engages scholars and practitioners in deciphering what we have learned about drafting procedures that help convince people to lay down arms, as well as aspects of constitutional design that aggravate or dampen conflict. 

In 2006-7, the Bobst Center co-sponsored a workshop for drafters and academics.  Please visit the proceedings for details.

In 2007-8, the Bobst Center co-sponsored three conferences on constitution writing.  These sessions involved high-level mediators and drafters.  Please visit the proceedings for details.

This workshop will respond to one or more of the challenges associated with managing elections in fragile states and post-conflict settings. Topics may include civic education prior to elections, development of independent electoral commissions in polarized communities, strategies to enable candidates to reach voters without fomenting violence, management of party youth wings (often the source of violence), provision of ballots in insecure and remote settings, and security on polling day. The practitioner-leader in charge of this workshop is Jeff Fischer.

Jeff Fischer is currently senior director of the Center for Transitional and Post-Conflict Government at the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES). Previously he served as IFES’s Senior Advisor for Elections & Governance and as Vice President in charge of IFES’s operations in Albania, Armenia, Bosnia, the DRC, Kyrgystan, Mali, the Palestinian Territories, and the Ukraine, among other places. In 2005, he served as Senior Advisor to the International Election Commission, Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq. In 2000, he served as Director of Election Operations in Kosovo. And in 1999, he was Chief Electoral Officer associated with the United Nations Assistance Mission in East Timor.

Managing Elections in Fragile States Report

Too often policy makers assume that elections bring more accountable government. To check the power of the executive branch and develop sensible statutes, however, we depend on legislatures, which are often neglected in efforts to strengthen failing states. The potential for using legislatures to help build compromise in post-conflict settings often also remains under-developed. This workshop will focus on ways to enhance the functioning of legislatures in fragile states.

The workshop will be led jointly by two people. Joel Barkan is currently with the National Endowment for Democracy and previously served on the faculty of the University of Iowa. He has written extensively about legislatures in developing countries, especially Africa, and currently provides advice on this subject to the World Bank, where he is Senior Consultant on Governance, Public Sector Reform, and Capacity Building. Ludovic Hood has just completed four years as Project Manager for the Democratic Governance Group at UNDP. In this capacity he coordinated a global initiative on strengthening the role of parliaments in post-conflict situations. He has experience in East Timor. He is moving to the State Department this summer but will help direct the workshop before he travels to a post abroad.

This workshop will explore one or more of the challenges associated with re-building education systems in the aftermath of civil war or humanitarian disaster. The topics may include building “safe havens” in divided communities, developing curricula and school management to reduce community violence, budgeting to ensure the ability to staff new facilities on a sustained basis, and emergency teacher training programs to expand the supply of teachers. The practitioner-leader of this workshop is Gonzalo Retamal.

Dr. Retamal was Senior Research Specialist at the UNESCO Institute for Education in Hamburg until 2005. In this position he was responsible for developing education systems for displaced children in Sierra Leone and Kosovo, for evaluating informal provision of education in Latin America and the Middle East, and for advising the governments of Botswana and Tunisia on the modernization of their youth and adult learning systems. Previously he was head of the Department of Culture for the Joint Interim Administration of the United Nations in Kosovo (UNMIK), where he was in charge of the development of the performing and visual arts and the reconstruction of libraries. He has also worked as Senior Education Advisor for Humanitarian Assistance at the UNESCO International Bureau of Education in Geneva and with UNESCO in Eastern Africa, where he created the Programme for Education in Emergencies and Reconstruction (PEER) in response to the crises in Somalia, Rwanda, Djibouti, and Ethiopia. He has also served as chief of a program for remedial education and trauma healing for Palestinian children during the Intifada and has worked as a social services/education officer during the crises in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Haiti. Together with Pilar Aguiar, he is author of Education in Complex Emergencies. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Hull in the UK and a B.A. from the Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso in Chile. He is currently in New York, where he is writing a book on education in emergencies.

Led by Robert Perito, Visiting Lecturer in Public and International Affairs, nine graduate students spent the fall semester of 2007 researching Provincial Reconstruction Teams, meeting with experts and academics that have studied and worked in PRTs, and conducting field research interviews outside of the United States.

In addition to interacting with visiting speakers familiar with the United States’ PRT experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, workshop members traveled to the capitals of Canada, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Lithuania, and the United Kingdom to speak with representatives from government, NGOs, think tanks, and the media. The purpose of the field research was to understand how each country has approached its PRT mission at strategic, interagency, and tactical levels. The workshop has collectively developed conclusions and recommendations on our findings, to offer advice to the United States and other countries with PRTs on how best to utilize these organizations.

Provincial Reconstruction Teams: Lessons and Recommendations Report