Merging Theory and Practice...

Institute News and Events

Hendrix and Glaser receive Journal of Peace Research award

by Beth Stefanik | 04/10/2012

Assistant Professor of Government Cullen Hendrix and Sarah Glaser, visiting assistant professor of Biology and Marine Science, have been awarded the Nils Petter Gleditsch Journal of Peace Research Article of the Year Award for 2011 in recognition of their article, "Civil Conflict and World Fisheries, 1952-2004."

The jury, composed of three international scholars, assessed all research articles published in Volume 48 of the Journal of Peace Research for "theoretical rigor, methodological sophistication, and substantive relevance."

In selecting "Civil Conflict" for the award, the jury noted its important contribution to the understanding of economic consequences of civil conflict, and the suggested role for the international community in mitigating the strong negative relationship between civil conflict and total fish catch. >> Read More

To read their full article, "Civil Conflict and World Fisheries, 1952-2004", click here.

Institute Welcomes Bruce Bueno De Mesquita, Professor of Political Science at NYU

Friday, February 10, 2012, at 4pm | Tidewater A, Sadler Center, The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA

On Friday February 10th Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Professor of Political Science at NYU, will lecture and take questions on his new book entitled, "The Dictator's Handbook:  Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics."  The event will be held in Tidewater A in the Sadler Center at 4pm.

Bueno de Mesquita will employ the models in the book to discuss current and historical cases where authoritarian rulers used foreign and domestic policy tools to maintain their power.  Topics will include cases from the Arab Spring, the Green Revolution in Iran, and a series of cases in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Bueno de Mesquita is both well-known and controversial within political science for using formal models and statistical methods to predict political outcomes.  He has written numerous books and articles and has worked as a consultant for the U.S. government and private industry.  Copies of his recent books will be available for purchase.

This event is sponsored by the Institute for the Theory and Practice of International Relations, the Government Department, and the Reves Center for International Studies.  It is free and open to the public.

For a copy of the flyer, please click here.

"Ideas, Interests, and Foreign Aid" by Maurits van der Veen

December 26, 2011

September 2011, Cambridge University Press published "Ideas, Interest, and Foreign Aid" by Maurits van der Veen, an Assistant Professor of Government at the College of William & Mary and a Researcher at AidData. His book seeks to answer the question, "Why do countries give foreign aid?"

Although many countries have official development assistance programs, this book argues that no two of them see the purpose of these programs in the same way. Moreover, the way countries frame that purpose has shaped aid policy choices past and present. The author examines how Belgium long gave aid out of a sense of obligation to its former colonies, The Netherlands was more interested in pursuing international influence, Italy has focused on the reputational payoffs of aid flows and Norwegian aid has had strong humanitarian motivations since the beginning. But at no time has a single frame shaped any one country's aid policy exclusively. Instead, analyzing half a century of legislative debates on aid in these four countries, this book presents a unique picture both of cross-national and over time patterns in the salience of different aid frames and of varying aid programs that resulted.

Introducing AidData 2.0

December 16, 2011

AidData launched its new and improved website last month, featuring more content and new data and marking an expansion in the program's mission and scope. What began as a project to build a new kind of development assistance database has evolved into a broader initiative that aims to increase the accessibility and relevance of development finance information for a wide range of stakeholders. The new website highlights innovative projects to find new ways of gathering, managing, and visualizing development finance information, such as geocoding and crowdsourcing. Maps that show the geographical distribution of specific donor-funded activities offer a powerful way to help decision makers and citizens ask the right questions about aid allocation and effectiveness.

Those looking for data will find many new resources on the AidData site. AidData Raw is a new repository of stand-alone datasets that have not yet been vetted for inclusion in the main AidData database. It includes geo-location, project evaluation, and non-DAC donor datasets, as well as links to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) registry of aid activities. AidData 2.0 also includes a new collection of replication datasets associated with influential aid allocation and effectiveness studies, and many other new datasets for researchers. Soon, dashboards for key sectors will be added to the site, highlighting key trends and actors, and connecting activity-level data with other relevant resources.

In addition, the main AidData database has been updated to include the latest release of the OECD's Creditor Reporting System data, and additional data sources, such as:

• African Development Bank (2009-2010)
• African Development Fund (2008-2010)
• Arab Fund for Economic & Social Development (2007-2010)
• India (2005-2010, Ministry of Finance & Ministry of External Affairs)
• Islamic Development Bank (1975-2008)
• Kuwait (2007-2009, Kuwait Fund for Economic Development)
• Latvia (2008-2010)
• Nigerian Trust Fund (2007-2010)
• Poland (2007-2010)
• Saudi Arabia (2005-2009, Saudi Fund for Development)
• United Arab Emirates (2008-2010, Abu Dhabi Fund for Development)

Please send any feedback and suggestions for improving the website to info@aiddata.org. We look forward to hearing from you.

Roessler and Verhoeven explore Sudan's "perfect storm"

December 8, 2011

On November 21, a standing room only crowd packed into the Reves Room at the Reves Center for International Studies to hear Professor Philip Roessler, assistant professor of government at the College of William & Mary, and Harry Verhoeven, a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) student of the University of Oxford, discuss Sudan's Perfect Storm: What Next?, a roundtable discussion sponsored by the College's Institute for the Theory and Practice of International Relations. To read the full article, click here.

AidData and World Development

October 6, 2011

In November 2011, World Development will publish a special journal issue featuring new research that relies upon AidData as its primary source of aid information. The special issue represents an effort to study aid allocation and aid impact with new evidence that was previously unavailable. It will feature twelve articles from scholars such as Homi Kharas from the Brookings Institution and William Easterly, author of The White Man's Burden. These articles included in the special issue explore a wide variety of topics, such as benchmarking donor transparency practices, the effectiveness of health and education assistance, and aid's impact on violent armed conflict. The introductory essay can be found here.

AidData names Brad Parks and Stephen Davenport as Executive Directors

September 16, 2011

AidData, now entering its third year, has appointed Brad Parks and Stephen Davenport as its new Executive Directors. This represents a shift towards a long-term partnership between Brigham Young University, the College of William and Mary and Development Gateway, from its origins as an informal partnership between the three institutions.

Brad Parks is based at the Institute for Theory and Practice and will oversee AidData's research initiatives and its data collection, coding and standardization activities. Stephen Davenport of Development Gateway will oversee AidData's work with partners on innovation, data visualization, and international standards for aid information and transparency.

Visiting Research Associate Daniel Gamboa Galvez

September 16, 2011

AidData welcomes Visiting Research Associate Daniel Gamboa Galvez. Daniel will be assisting with data collection and translation from South and Central American bilateral and multilateral donors, in an effort to increase the availability of data from donors in these regions. Daniel is currently pursuing his Masters Degree in International Cooperation for Development at Instituto Mora, Mexico City.

 

 

TRIP and AidData Research Presented at ISA Conference in Montreal

March 29, 2011

Two weeks ago, Professors Mike Tierney, Brad Parks, Christopher Marcoux and undergraduate researcher Alena Stern travelled to Montreal to attend the ISA conference. On Tuesday, March 15, the TRIP project hosted a data vetting workshop where 23 scholars from around the world used TRIP data in order to explore questions about the IR discipline and the relationship between theory and practice within the field of IR. The actual ISA conference started on the March 16th and research papers from both the TRIP project and the AidData project were presented on panels at the conference.

Chris Marcoux and William and Mary Alum Christian Peratsakis presented a paper that outlines AidData's new environmental aid database. The paper describes broad trends in environmental aid from 90 donors over the past three decades and shows that trends first identified in the book Greening Aid have been magnified over the past decade. With some interesting exceptions, donors are giving less "dirty aid," more "environmental aid" and much more "neutral aid" than they have in the past.

During a panel that highlighted four TRIP papers, Stern and Parks explained whether and to what extent exposure to the policy-making process affects the publication patterns of leading International Relations academics. The study used the TRIP Journal Database to define their sample of leading IR scholars, those who had published two or more articles in the top 12 IR journals from 1980-2008. Publication patterns were understood as whether an author chooses to publish in an academic journal, such as International Organization or APSR, or a policy journal, such as Foreign Policy or Foreign Affairs. One interesting finding from this study was that temporarily leaving academia to occupy a full-time policy making position does have a significant effect on the publication patterns of scholars, while holding a part time position while simultaneously working in the academy has no discernible effect. Similarly, and surprisingly according to Parks and Stern, tenure has no discernible effect on whether a scholar will choose to publish in policy journals.

Stern was the only undergraduate who participated in the TRIP workshop and she gave the formal presentation on the ISA panel. According to Professor Tierney, both the research and the presentation were excellent. "Alena wowed the discussant and the audience. She presented the paper like a pro. Following the panel I was approached by a professor who asked me 'when she was going to finish' and whether she would be going on the market soon. This made me smile for two reasons. First, Alena is only 19 and studying for her BA, rather than her PhD, which is what the professor assumed. Second, in the fall of 2003 at the APSA conference I had a very similar experience when someone asked me whether Brad Parks, Alena's mentor and co-author on this paper, would be going on the academic job market. He had just graduated from W&M a few months earlier."

As a Murray Scholar, Alena has been working on both TRIP and AidData since her freshman year. Alena reflects, "My personal experience performing undergraduate research has enhanced my undergraduate career and has provided me with skills that will certainly prove invaluable beyond graduation."

To read Alena and Brad's paper, click here.

To view Chris and Christian's presentation, click here.

Institute Welcomes Mark Suzman from the Global Development Program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

October 18, 2010 | The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA

On October 18, 2010, Mark Suzman, director of policy, advocacy, and special initiatives for the Global Development Program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, will visit the College of William and Mary as part of the George Tayloe Ross Memorial Lecture series. He will be presenting on "Development, Africa, and Millennium Development Goals: Why the world is getting better faster than you think and how we can accelerate progress" from 6-8pm at Miller Hall in 2025 Brinkley Commons Room. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Mark Suzman oversees the Foundation's global development policy and communications work, as well as relationships with governments, NGOs, and other key partners to increase awareness, action, and resources devoted to key international development priorities. Prior to working at the Gates Foundation, Suzman held several positions at the United Nations and was a correspondent for the Financial Times. Suzman received his doctorate in International Relations from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and earned his Bachelor's degree from Harvard.

AidData goes public at Conference in Oxford, UK

March 22-26, 2010 | University College, Oxford, UK

On March 22, 2010 the AidData team held the Aid Transparency and Development Finance Conference at University College in Oxford, UK to make the database available to the public for the first time. Nearly 30 papers were presented by individuals like Homi Kharas of the Brookings Institute, Steve Knack of the World Bank, and David Roodman of the Center for Global Development. You can read their papers on the AidData conference website. Throughout the conference, the AidData team gathered feedback on additional functionalities and changes that would enhance the ability of users to employ AidData in research, policy, and on the ground in developing countries. The team is looking forward to applying these insights as they continue the development process. You can search the data portal at AidData.

Iraq's National Elections 2010: The Parties, the Issues, and the Challenges for American Policy

February 25, 2010 | By Charles W. Dunne; Series Editor: Mitchell Reiss

Charles W. Dunne, a veteran of the White House, and State and Defense Departments, analyzes the upcoming Iraqi elections and worries that a policy of benign neglect could hinder the growth of a democratic Iraqi political sphere. He writes, "Iraq's elections in March 2010 will be the most important of the several held since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003. They will help determine whether Iraq will continue its current advance toward greater stability and political inclusiveness, or revert to the zero-sum politics of fragmentation and ethnic violence. ... The question is whether the United States will make the needed commitment to Iraq as the focus on U.S. withdrawal increasingly appears to be the aim of our policy toward Iraq in and of itself." Download.

PLAID and Development Gateway's AiDA Project Merge to Form AidData

December 1, 2009 | Washington, DC

Project-Level Aid (PLAID) and Development Gateway have merged their efforts to track development finance and cooperation. They are working together, in cooperation with the Secretariat of OECD's Development Assistance Committee, to create a joint, easily accessible and independent repository of aid activities. This tool will combine all of the aid data in PLAID and AiDA as well as utilize innovative analytical tools developed at both institutions to provide users with an accurate and up-to-date picture of development information.

The new partnership will continue to provide development practitioners, researchers, country governments, and individuals interested in development finance with access to complete and high-quality information on aid activities worldwide. Through our combined effort, the PLAID and AiDA teams hope to increase effectiveness and transparency by providing easy access to aid information through a shared online source. AidData is committed to transparency in development finance, and will be free and accessible to the public through an easy to use web portal. AidData is currently in production and will be launched in spring 2010.

Institute Welcomes Professor G. John Ikenberry

October 4, 2009 | The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA

Last week John Ikenberry, Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, visited William and Mary to deliver several talks to William and Mary faculty and students and the Williamsburg community. Ikenberry is a renowned scholar of international relations and an author of many influential books in the field of international relations including After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order after Major Wars which won the 2002 Schroeder-Jervis Award presented by the American Political Science Association for the best book in international history and politics each year. Ikenberry also has extensive experience in the policy world holding posts at the State Department (Policy Planning staff) from 1991-92 and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Senior Associate) from 1992-93.

He drew from both his policy and academic experience to deliver a public talk Thursday night at the Williamsburg Public Library entitled "Is the global system in crisis?" On Friday, Ikenberry had breakfast with a group of William and Mary students to answer their questions on careers in academia and share his own experience. Later Ikenberry had lunch with a group at the Institute for the Theory and Practice of International Relations to review a chapter in his upcoming book, Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American System.

PLAID Holds Data-Vetting Workshop

September 17-18, 2009 | Stimson Center, Washington, DC

Last week, the PLAID project hosted a successful data-vetting workshop at the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington, DC. Researchers and development practitioners from the U.S., Europe, and Africa provided the PLAID team with feedback on data quality in a beta version of the PLAID database. Further, the PLAID team demonstrated a preview version of what will soon be the public interface of the PLAID database. Several prominent scholars presented research based on the PLAID dataset. UVA's David Leblang presented a paper entitled, "Knockin' on Heaven's Door: International Aid Flows and the Demand for Asylum," Georgetown's James Vreeland presented a paper entitled, "Buying influence at the IMF," and Duke's Sarah Bermeo presented a paper entitled, "The Curse of Aid? Re-Examining the Impact of Aid on Regime Change." Stu Hamilton, of William and Mary's Center for Geospatial Analysis, provided workshop participants with a taste of the sort of data visualizations that PLAID data can be used to produce (his presentation is available for download here). Hamilton compiled a number of these visuals into a time-lapse video:

 

Also during the conference, PLAID announced that the PLAID database will soon merge with Development Gateway's AiDA database to form a new database and website called the AidData portal. The Development Gateway website has more details on the merger. PLAID researchers at William and Mary, Brigham Young University, and Development Gateway are now working to address the issues raised by workshop participants and are eagerly anticipating the public launch of the database in March 2010.

Iraq Moving Forward: Threats to its Sovereignty, Prospects for its Future Role in the Middle East

By Charles W. Dunne; Edited by Meghan L. O'Sullivan; Series Editor Mitchell B. Reiss

Tenuous internal conditions complicated by difficult relationships with Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Syria pose the greatest challenges to Iraq's future. So found a new report authored by Charles W. Dunne, former adviser to the Director for Strategic Plans and Policy at the Joint Staff in the Pentagon, and Director for Iraq at the National Security Council from 2005-2007, and edited by Meghan L. O'Sullivan, former Special Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan under President George W. Bush. Download

 

One Discipline or Many? 2008 TRIP Survey of International Relations Faculty in Ten Countries

By Richard Jordan, Daniel Maliniak, Amy Oakes, Susan Peterson, and Michael Tierney

To what extent is there national variation in how scholars teach IR, think about the discipline,view their role in the policy process, and approach critical contemporary foreign policy debates? Conversely, to what extent is there a single-perhaps American-driven-IR discipline? To begin to answer these questions, the Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) project has conducted the first cross-national survey of IR faculty in ten countries: Australia, Canada, Ireland, Israel, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, United Kingdom, and the United States. This report provides descriptive statistics and top line results for all 90 questions asked on the 2008 survey. Download | Marc Lynch Blog | Daniel Drezner's Blog | Duck of Minerva Blog | Think Progress

 

Foreign Policy: Inside the Ivory Tower 2009

By Daniel Maliniak, Amy Oakes, Susan Peterson, and Michael Tierney

To what extent is there national variation in how scholars teach IR, think about the discipline,view their role in the policy process, and approach critical contemporary foreign policy debates? Conversely, to what extent is there a single-perhaps American-driven-IR discipline? To begin to answer these questions, the Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) project has conducted the first cross-national survey of IR faculty in ten countries: Australia, Canada, Ireland, Israel, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, United Kingdom, and the United States. This report provides descriptive statistics and top line results for all 90 questions asked on the 2008 survey. Read More.

 

Institute Welcomes Peter Gourevitch

Thursday, Frebruary 26, 2009 | "The Great Economic Meltdown of 2008: Implications for the U.S. and the World"

Peter Gourevitch, Professor of Political Science at the University of California San Diego, visited the Institute Thursday to meet with students before giving a campus wide talk on the implications of the current economic crisis. Gourevitch is a specialist in political economy with a particular focus on international trade and economic globalization, trade disputes, regulatory systems, and corporate governance.

In his campus wide talk, Gourevitch gave his answer to the question: How does the current global crisis in the economy resemble earlier economic shocks, and what can we learn from those other episodes about issues that face U.S. and world policy makers? To Gourevitch, several themes appear striking: the interaction of "private bonding" arrangements and government regulation in shaping the trust that underlies economic life; the pattern of cycles vs. sequences in explaining how countries converge or diverge in what they do; the relationship between economic shock and political choices; the autonomy of the state; the role of ideology in shaping economic policy outcomes; the interaction of globalization and domestic politics.

The Virginia Gazette, "Enviro-activists"

February 21, 2009 | Opinion by Frank Shatz

"There was a time when the United States led the way on international environmental cooperation," writes Maria Ivanova in the prestigious academic journal SAIS Review, published by John Hopkins University Press. (...) In the article, co-authored with Daniel C. Esty, an environmental law professor, Ivanova describes the U.S. effort that was instrumental in launching the U.N. Environmental Program in 1972. President Richard Nixon pledged to contribute 40% of the $100 million that initially capitalized the environment fund." Read More.

PLAID on the Cover of Environment Magazine

January/February 2009 | "Has Foreign Aid Been Greened" By J. Timmons Roberts, Bradley Parks, Michael Tierney, and Robert Hicks

Since the first major international conference on environment and development in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1972, environmentalists, voters, and policymakers in the developed world have faced a vexing dilemma: with some of the richest stores of biodiversity, natural resources, and carbon located in developing countries, the greatest potential for damage to the global environment resides in places outside the sovereign control of the countries most able, financially speaking, to prevent it...

Read More | PLAID Project | PDF Version

 

 

 

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Last Updated: April 11, 2012