Institutions for Fragile States

 The Woodrow Wilson School and the Bobst Center for Peace & Justice team up each year to support two to three policy workshops. These courses place between six and twelve MPA students, mid-career MPP students, and WWS or Politics Ph.D. candidates under the tutelage of a distinguished practitioner. The workshops respond to questions posed by a client, such as the United Nations. The workshop refines the topic in consultation with the client and the student team. The workshops then develop their knowledge base, generally drawing on working papers identified by the practitioner-leader and on conversations with visiting experts. The students travel to conduct fieldwork for roughly ten days, and develop a reply to the question negotiated with the client. They present their work to a blue ribbon panel for review. These resources become part of the knowledge archive for the program and provide the platform for the oral histories and natural experiments. Past workshops have helped us assemble materials on civilian policing, community-corporate partnerships in managing mineral resources, building legislatures, managing elections amid violence, and education in emergencies. In 2008-9, two Policy Workshops will meet.

^{Policy workshop advisor Gordon Peake (center) with WWS student member of the policy workshop “Measuring Police Performance in Post- Conflict Settings” and members of the police force of Timor-Leste.}