MELLON FELLOWS IN SECURITY AND HUMANITARIAN ACTION
Most of the fellowships that were awarded since 2003 were for field research. However at the end of 2005, one-time special fellowships were awarded for dissertation-writing. Research Fellows were required to submit their research to the IUCSHA for review. Research prepared for the IUCSHA and related works are available through this page. To locate materials produced by each fellow click on their name. (Adobe Acrobat Reader required.)
Senior Fellow, 2003-2005
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2003 Research Fellows Tatiana Carayannis |
2004 Research Fellows Nida Alahmad |
2005 Research Fellows James Cockayne |
2006 Dissertation Fellows Séverine Autesserre |
Peter J. Hoffman, Senior Fellow, 2003-2006 (phoffman@gc.cuny.edu)
IUCSHA and related materials:
“The Fog of Humanitarianism: Collective Action Problems and Learning-Challenge Organizations” (co-authored with Thomas G. Weiss), Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 1, #1 (2007) (forthcoming).
“Making Humanitarianism Work” (co-authored with Thomas G. Weiss) in Simon Chesterman, Michael Ignatieff, and Ramesh Thakur, eds., Making States Work: State Failure and the Crisis of Governance (Tokyo: UNU Press, 2005).
“Peace & Security in an Era of Privatization: The International Order of Ralph Bunche and Today's Private Military Companies,” (presented at International Studies Association, March 2004).
“UN on the Ground,” (December 2003) a project of the Stanley Foundation (report)
Biography:
Peter J. Hoffman is Research Associate at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, and a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York where he is writing a dissertation on the politics of contracting private military companies for humanitarian action and peace operations. He has written for both academic and practitioner audiences on the dynamics of war and international responses, including contributions to the The Responsibility to Protect: Research, Bibliography, and Background (2001) and the journal Ethics & International Affairs .
Tatiana Carayannis, 2003 Research Fellow (tcarayannis@gc.cuny.edu)
IUCSHA project title: “Demobilization & Reintegration of Irregular Forces in the DRC: Child Combatants in Equateur”
IUCSHA abstract:
This project proposes to conduct a study with UNICEF's country program in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that will assess the conditions for the successful reintegration of demobilized child soldiers in territory controlled by the rebel group Mouvement de Libération du Congo (MLC). It will survey communal attitudes in MLC-held rebel territory about child combatants, particularly regarding their demobilization and reintegration; and evaluate communal and institutional structures existing in the Equateur region that could assist in their long-term reintegration. UNICEF is one of the implementing partners in the disarmament, demobilization, reintegration (DDR) process led by the United Nations peacekeeping operation in the DRC (MONUC or Mission de l'Organization des Nations Unies en République Democratique du Congo).
IUCSHA sponsoring agency: UNICEF
IUCSHA and related materials:
“Child Recruitment Policy and Practice Within the Armed Forces of the Mouvement de Libération du Congo (MLC)” (memo for UNICEF)
Biography:
Tatiana Carayannis is completing a doctoral dissertation on Regional Conflict Networks and International Organizations: The Congo Wars, 1996-2003 at the Department of Political Science at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York . She also manages the oral history and publication series research of the United Nations Intellectual History Project, a project of the Graduate Center 's Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies. Her publications include research on the Democratic Republic of Congo, the theory and practice of conflict resolution and irregular forms of war, and the role of ideas at the United Nations. She has lived in Central and West Africa, and resides in New York City.
Ghassan Shabaneh, 2003 Research Fellow (gshabaneh@hotmail.com)
IUCSHA project title: “The Role of the United Nations in State Building: The Case of Palestine”
IUCSHA abstract:
This study explores the role of the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in Palestinian state-building since the early 1970s. How has UNRWA been influenced from below by the refugees rather than from above by the sovereign states that have hosted it and others that have financed it and in turn started the process of state building undeterred by local and international constraints? Why has UNRWA changed its agenda, from an agency that was created to reintegrate and resettle refugees into other countries in the Middle East to an agency that started the process of Palestinian state-building since the early 1970s? Why has Washington been pumping millions of dollars into UNRWA? Why does Israel continue to allow all UNRWA materials duty-free into its ports and continued to honor to Comay-Michaelmore agreement that compromised its sovereignty?
IUCSHA sponsoring agency: Palestinian American Congress
IUCSHA and related materials:
“Policy Recommendations for Palestinian American Congress” (memo for Palestinian American Congress)
“The Role of the United Nations in State Building: The Case of Palestine”
Biography:
Ghassan Shabaneh is a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he is currently writing his dissertation, “the Role of The United Nations in State Building: The Case of Palestine.” Mr. Shabaneh is also Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern and International Studies at Marymount Manhattan College in New York. Mr. Shabaneh has a Master's degree in International Relations from Rutgers the State University of New Jersey. Mr. Shabaneh has lectured widely on the Middle East in the last three years.
Julie Stewart, 2003 Research Fellow (julie.stewart@nyu.edu)
IUCSHA project title: “Globalization Grounded: Land Disputes and Agrarian Reform in Guatemala ”
IUCSHA abstract:
Guatemala currently faces a critical juncture. After a civil war that left 200,000 civilians dead ended, there was guarded optimism that the peace accords reached between the military and the guerrillas would address this country's legacy of poverty and violence. But old problems soon re-emerged. Currently, there are over 1,000 land disputes in Guatemala - many of them violent. This study explores the spectrum of peasant resistance in Guatemala in the context of democratization and development. Utilizing a range of qualitative research methods, this project seeks to better understand if and how land reform can facilitate the inclusion of rural subjects into the democratic polity. Further, it explores whether peasant mobilization for land reform is obsolete as the twentieth century begins, with the increasing prominence of commercial agriculture and the growing centrality of information as the commodity that drives economic growth.
IUCSHA sponsoring agency: Rights Action
IUCSHA and related materials:
“Evaluation of the Sahomax Farm: Problems and Potential in the Post-Conflict Era” (memo for Rights Action)
“Globalization Grounded: Land Disputes and Agrarian Reform in Guatemala ” (paper)
Biography:
Julie Stewart graduated summa cum laude from Cornell University in 1993. After working as a human rights activist in Guatemala in the mid-1990s, she received a M.A. in Latin American Studies from Tulane University. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. at the Department of Sociology at New York University. Her research interests include state theory, social movements and the political economy of development.
Maja Turniski, 2003 Research Fellow (mturniski@yahoo.com)
IUCSHA project title: “Participation and Identity Development in Adolescents and Young Adults in Croatia”
IUCSHA abstract:
The purpose of this study is to examine the role of participation in the formation of identity among young people in Croatia whose lives have been affected by war and forced relocation. Recognizing that reconstruction and reconciliation are simultaneously personal, social, and structural processes, the research is examining the multiple contexts within which youth live, participate, and develop the competence to effect the necessary transformation from a war-ravaged country to a peaceful, democratic society. This study utilizes a sociocultural constructionist approach, and takes a non-pathologizing stance that seeks to define a culturally appropriate psychology, rather than adopting a PTSD framework that ignores political and cultural concerns and locates the trauma within the individual. As part of this research I will be participating in a community wide reintegration and revitalization project run by the NGO Suncokret in Croatia. Through the initiating of different activities, the goal is the reintegration of the population and the improvement of life quality in the entire area of the county of Gvozd. It is expected that this research will contribute to an understanding of the processes that make up the successful transition to a peaceful postwar society. Insights from the experience of Croatia may then be applicable to other nations in which similar social transformations are taking place. In addition, the strengths and weaknesses of local responses to reconstruction will be evaluated. From this analysis, opportunities for appropriate non-local input from NGOs, foreign aid, and psychological interventions can be identified, allowing a more efficient and effective distribution of limited resources.
IUCSHA sponsoring agency: Suncokret
IUCSHA and related materials:
“Observations of the grassroots project in Gvozd” (memo for Suncokret)
“The Place of Participation in the Recovery of Identity in Adolescents and Young Adults Affected by War and Displacement in Croatia: Focus Field research in Gvozd” (paper)
Biography:
Maja Turniski's academic specialty is youth and young adults in war torn and postwar countries. She was born in Sweden, to Croatian parents, and has studied in the United States as an international student for the past 8 years. The title of her dissertation research is “The Place of Participation in the Recovery of Identity in Adolescents and Young Adults Affected by War and Displacement in Croatia”.
David Vine, 2003 Research Fellow (davidsvine@hotmail.com)
IUCSHA project title: “Exile in the Indian Ocean: Documenting the Injuries of Involuntary Displacement”
IUCSHA abstract:
This project will document and analyze the injuries suffered by the indigenous people of the Indian Ocean's Chagos Archipelago since their forced expulsion from Chagos as part of the creation of the U.S. military base at Diego Garcia. This study, systematically modeling economic, social, psychological, cultural, and other injuries, will assist the people, known as Chagossians, in lawsuits in U.S. and UK courts to win return to Chagos and compensation. Analysis of the injuries suffered by the Chagossians and others to improve the design and delivery of rehabilitative services for the group. My analysis and the rehabilitation proposal will also improve scholarly understandings of involuntary displacement and humanitarian efforts to prevent and redress injuries caused by involuntary displacement. Finally, in looking at some of the negative effects of U.S. militarization, my project will raise questions about the costs of national security—e.g., whose security is ensured and who bears the costs?
IUCSHA sponsoring agency: Chagos Refugee Group
IUCSHA and related materials:
“How We Will Estimate Compensation and Document Problems Faced by Chagossians in Exile” (memo for Chagos Refugee Group)
“Exile in the Indian Ocean : Documenting the Injuries of Involuntary Displacement” (paper)
Biography:
David Vine is a student in the Ph.D. Program in Anthropology at the City University of New York's Graduate Center . Since August 2001, he has been researching the forced expulsion of an indigenous people in the Indian Ocean , expelled from their islands as part of the construction of the U.S. military base at Diego Garcia. David's other main research examines gentrification and development issues in and around Downtown Brooklyn. He received his M.A. in anthropology in January 2003 from the City University of New York and graduated with a B.A. from Wesleyan University in 1997.
Tobias Vogel, 2003 Research Fellow (TKVogel@Mac.com)
IUCSHA project title: “The State of State Building in Bosnia and Herzegovina ”
IUCSHA abstract:
This project concerns the quasi-state functions that international organizations and NGOs assumed in post-conflict recovery in Bosnia and Herzegovina . The main focus is the way in which the wartime substitution of humanitarian action for political engagement - "humanitarianism as foreign policy" - was perpetuated in the post-war period. The imperatives of peacemaking trumped the imperatives of effective institution-building, contributing to a dysfunctional polity and further undermining the legitimacy of the desiccated central state.
For international organizations and NGOs, this has created a host of problems - problems that are becoming more acute as these organizations are contemplating their exit strategies. This research aims to address some of the conceptual issues and to provide operational solutions.
IUCSHA sponsoring agency: United Nations Development Program
IUCSHA and related materials:
“State Building and the Challenges of Ownership in Bosnia and Herzegovina ” (memo for United Nations Development Program)
“The State of State Building in Bosnia and Herzegovina ” (paper)
Biography:
T.K.Vogel has worked as a consultant for the United Nations Development Programme, the Cooperative Housing Foundation, the European Centre for Minority Issues, and a number of other development agencies and think tanks in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia / Montenegro, Eritrea, and elsewhere. He previously worked for several years with the Open Society Institute and the International Rescue Committee in Vienna, New York, and Sarajevo. Vogel holds Master's degrees in philosophy from the University of Zurich and in comparative politics from the New School for Social Research in New York. He is a Research Associate of the New School 's International Center for Migration, Ethnicity and Citizenship, where he is currently writing his dissertation on the dynamics of humanitarian intervention. He has published essays and book reviews in International Journal, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the Times Literary Supplement, Ethics & International Affairs, and a number of other journals.
Nida Alahmad, 2004 Research Fellow (alahn409@newschool.edu)
IUCSHA project title: “Iraq : Citizens, State, and Justice”
IUCSHA abstract:
Along with the processes of state-building, Iraqis have to deal with transitional justice questions, including that of reparations and compensation for the Ba'th regime's victims. Working with ICTJ's Research and the Middle East and North Africa programs, this research links the question of compensation and reparations to that of Iraqi conceptions of citizenship. Using ICTJ and HRC's data collected in 2003, this research will address Iraqi's views of reparations and compensation as transitional justice measures: the desirability of these processes, their targeted population, details of their administration, and sources of their funding. At a less direct level, answers to these questions are also good indicators for how Iraqis perceive their membership in the Iraqi state as well as their perceptions of a proper state role.
IUCSHA sponsoring agency: International Center for Transitional Justice
IUCSHA and related materials:
“Conducting Transitional Justice in Iraq ” (memo to International Center for Transitional Justice)
“Consistency and contingency in reconfiguration of power networks” (paper)
Biography:
Nida Alahmad is a PhD Candidate in the Political Science Department at the Graduate Faculty of the New School University. Her dissertation research focuses on the intersection between negotiating citizenship and state-building in modern Iraq. She worked as a consultant with the International Center for Transitional Justice and Human Rights Center at the University of California / Berkeley (HRC) conducting research in Iraq during the summer of 2003. She also worked as a consultant with the United Nations Development Program and the World Bank. Currently she is a teaching fellow at the New School.
Séverine Autesserre, 2004 Research Fellow (sa560@nyu.edu)
IUCSHA project title: “The Politics of the Peace Process in the Eastern Congo ”
IUCSHA abstract:
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), why do international peace builders succeed in imposing peace only at the international and national level and not at the subnational level? The paucity of research on the impact of local violence on the viability of peace processes constitutes a significant gap in the scholarly literature on conflict resolution. It also poses significant hurdles for humanitarian agencies. Organized in partnership with Medicos Sin Fronteras (Doctors Without Borders' / MSF's Spanish section) and based on fieldwork in Kinshasa, Goma, and the provinces of Katanga and the Kivus, this project examines the relationship between local, national, and international violence, and how the main actors conceptualize local violence. It seeks to illuminate key problems of settlement in the DRC and provide guidance to NGOs and UN agencies engaged in humanitarian action.
IUCSHA sponsoring agency: Medicos Sin Fronteras
IUCSHA and related materials:
“The DRC, One Year Into the Transition” (memo to Medicos Sin Fronteras)
“Update on First Report & Analysis on Nyunzu Territory” (memo to Medicos Sin Fronteras)
“Local violence, internacional indifference?” (paper)
Biography:
Séverine Autesserre has worked with MSF in the DRC in 2001 and 2003. She holds a MA from Sciences-Po and a MIA from Columbia University, and is currently completing a Ph.D. at New York University on the politics of the peace process in the Eastern Congo. She worked with humanitarian and development organizations in Kosovo, Afghanistan, India, and Nicaragua. Her publications include research on humanitarian aid in South Sudan and on the civil war in the DRC.
Evren Balta, 2004 Research Fellow (ebalta@gc.cuny.edu)
IUCSHA project title: “Uncovering Repression: State Response to Chechen and Kurdish Insurgency”
IUCSHA abstract:
This study explores the ways in which the international human rights regime contained and transformed the Kurdish and Chechen conflict in Turkey and Russia , respectively. On the one hand, international human rights regime is directly related to the scope of authority, which a state can exercise over individuals. On the other hand, political authorities frequently use repression and commit gross human rights violations when an opposition begins to threaten the state's control of society. How do states try to solve this dilemma of suppressing insurgents while projecting a legitimate image to domestic and international observers? How the military and counter-insurgency capacities of the states are related to international human rights regime? This study argues that, despite the presence of gross human rights violations, human rights norms still shaped states' calculations and tactics, inspired leaders' justifications and rationalizations, and, most fundamentally, appear to be a key reason why certain means of repression were selected.
IUCSHA sponsoring agency: Human Rights Foundation of Turkey
IUCSHA and related materials:
“Causes and Consequences of the Village Guard System in Turkey ” (paper)
Biography:
Evren Balta holds Master's degrees in sociology from the Middle East Technical University and in international affairs from Columbia University. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. at the Department of political science at CUNY- Graduate Center. Her research interests include state theory, civil wars and post-socialist politics.
Fred Cocozzelli, 2004 Research Fellow (cocof306@newschool.edu)
IUCSHA project title: “Social Welfare and Citizenship in Post-Conflict Kosovo”
IUCSHA abstract:
The research locates the development of social policy within the UN's efforts at "organizing and overseeing the development of provisional institutions for democratic and autonomous self-government" in Kosovo. The project focuses on the critical juncture in Kosovo marked by the intensification of the Albanian resistance to the Belgrade regime in the late 1980s through the present formation and implementation of provincial and municipal social policy. This period, from 1989 to the present, includes the breakdown of the previous Yugoslav system of social protection, the creation of a parallel Albanian civil society-based system, and the development of the current system sponsored by the international community. In effect, the research covers the dissolution of the prior policy paths and the determination of the new social policy paradigm, including the false starts rooted in the ethnic conflict of the 1990s.
Beyond the immediate subject of social policy in Kosovo, the research delves into larger questions of institutional development in post-conflict, multi-ethnic societies, and their impact on the definition of citizenship and the prospects for peace-building. Social protection is especially important for promoting peace in a post-conflict, multi-ethnic context in that it addresses the human security needs of the local population. More theoretically, social protection establishes the public boundaries of inclusion for redistribution of the common good. In this, social policy formation represents a complex realization of citizenship and is an ideal prism through which to examine comprehensive peace-building.
IUCSHA sponsoring agency: Mercy Corps International
IUCSHA and related materials:
“Preliminary Field Report on Kosovo” (memo to Mercy Corps International)
“The Political Situation in Kosovo in 2004 and the Challenges it Presents” (paper)
Bio:
Fred Cocozzelli is a PhD. Candidate in the Political Science Department at the Graduate Faculty at the New School University in New York City. His dissertation research examines the role of social policy in creating a unified citizenship regime in the post-conflict Kosovo. Prior to beginning his doctoral studies Fred worked in Kosovo as a humanitarian aid worker in 1999 and 2000. He completed his Masters of International Affairs from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs in May 1999. In 2003 he was a recipient of a Social Science Research Council - Consiglio Italiano per le Scienze Sociali (CSS) Balkans Exchange Fellowship.
Christiane Wilke, 2004 Research Fellow (wilkC097@newschool.edu)
IUCSHA project title : “A Belated Vindication of Rights: Trials for Human Rights Violations”
IUCSHA abstract :
How should a legacy of state-sponsored human rights violations be addressed? One key imperative is to prevent the recurrence of the violations, and to de-legitimize violence in political contestations. Criminal trials as part of a transitional justice strategy are often proposed but almost as often dismissed for the alleged divisiveness. Yet the contributions of trials for human rights violations sponsored by a predecessor regime are not well enough understood and theorized. This project examines the role of criminal trials in de-legitimizing past violence and building an inclusive citizenship in Argentina after the military dictatorship, post-communist Germany, and post-apartheid South Africa.
IUCSHA sponsoring agency: International Center for Transitional Justice
IUCSHA and related materials:
“A Belated Vindication of Rights: Criminal Trials for Massive Human Rights” (paper)
Biography:
Christiane Wilke is a PhD Candidate in Political Science at the New School, where she is writing her dissertation, “A Belated Vindication of Rights: Criminal Trials for Mass Human Rights Violations and the Tasks of Democratization.” She is also completing a study on the vetting of the East German public sector after 1990 for the International Center for Transitional Justice. Her research interests include political and legal theory, especially international law, theories of justice and cosmopolitanism, and democratization processes.
James Cockayne, 2005 Research Fellow (james.cockayne@nyu.edu)
IUCSHA project title: “Commercial Violence & State Building: Lessons from Multilateral and Humanitarian Experiences”
IUCSHA abstract:
James' study examines how the on-the-ground practice of the international community towards commercial security providers affects the development of state institutions. What approaches do different humanitarian, reconstruction and post-conflict agencies take to working with and alongside armed groups providing protection for profit, and what are the consequences of those different approaches? Does the engagement of local security companies by humanitarian relief organizations have flow-on effects for the security sector and state-building? Do some forms of engagement of international security firms alter the local balance of power positively, and others negatively? The study aims to tap and map international humanitarian, reconstruction and post-conflict organizations' experiences with these issues, through an extensive interview program. It aims to provide a clearer picture of the state of the art of interaction with private, for-profit security providers by all those members of the international community that impact on state-building. In addition, it will provide recommendations for enhanced interaction with commercial security providers to ensure the fostering of sustainable public institutions.
IUCSHA sponsoring agency: Best Practices Unit, Department of Peacekeeping, United Nations
IUCSHA and related materials:
“Commercial Security in the Humanitarian Space” (paper)
Biography:
James Cockayne is a doctoral candidate at New York University School of Law, where he is studying the implications of the commercialisation of the state's monopoly on violence. He graduated with an LL.M. from NYU in 2005 (where he was a Hauser Scholar), and the University of Sydney in 2002 (LL.B. (Hons I)) and 2000 (B.A. (Hons I and University Medal)), and has also studied in France, the Netherlands and China. He has written and taught widely on international humanitarian and criminal law, human rights and UN peace operations, with publications in Global Governance, the International Review of the Red Cross, International Peacekeeping, the Journal of Human Rights, and numerous international law journals, and is an editor of the Journal of International Criminal Justice. In 2002 and 2003, James was head of the unit in the Australian Attorney-General's Department responsible for international criminal law advice on Iraq, the Bali bombings, ICC judicial elections and managed Australia's extradition practice. He is a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, and has interned in the Chambers of the ICTR and in Defence at the Special Court for Sierra Leone.
Hilla Dayan, 2005 Research Fellow (dayaH271@newschool.edu)
IUCSHA project title: “At the Borders: A Comparative Analysis of a New Regime Separation”
IUCSHA abstract:
State monopoly over citizenship and means of movement via travel documents and border controls is a tenet of modern sovereignty. But what happens when this monopoly is extended to non-citizens? This research examines mechanisms for internal disenfranchisement and spatial-political control by studying systems of restrictions of movement and their relation to the administration of multiple categories of citizenship and non-citizenship. Focusing in particular on a new separation regime in Israel/Palestine, it is nonetheless framed as an instance of a generic type. In a separation regime, borders regulate movement in between and within areas projected as political "outsides" which are in effect the "insides" of one sovereign space. The analysis of the new separation regime in Israel/Palestine reflects back on the South African Apartheid era logics and practices of internal passes and "influx control" administration, pointing at affinities as well as clear divergences. A novel instance of a generic type, the regime of separation in Israel/Palestine suggests the emergence of new means by which political space is organized. As such, it is likely to suffer chronic instability, political violence and humanitarian crisis that the international community will continue to grapple with.
IUCSHA sponsoring agency: Physicians for Human Rights
IUCSHA and related materials:
“Domesticated Borders in A Separation Regime” (paper)
Biography:
Hilla Dayan is a Ph.D candidate in the Sociology department at the Graduate Faculty at the New School for Social Research. Her dissertation research examines reconfigurations of sovereignty, citizenship and spatial-political control in Israel/Palestine as a novel application of a regime of separation. Prior to her doctoral studies she worked with Physicians for Human Rights and the Association for Civil Rights-Israel. She completed her Masters in the social sciences at the University of Chicago and has recently published her work in Ethics and Society, a Journal of Gent University, Belgium.
Ilisa Lam, 2005 Research Fellow (Ilam@gc.cuny.edu)
IUCSHA project title: “When Microstates and Superpowers Talk: Negotiating Kwajalein’s Place in the U.S. Missile Defense Testing Network”
IUCSHA abstract:
The United States missile defense program, which entails the large-scale development of an integrated, layered response to ballistic missile threat, is sustained by a global network whose principal test site is on Kwajalein Atoll, Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). Reagan Test Site has supported missile defense and space operations for nearly forty years, and may be considered part of a larger military history in the islands. It includes U.S. Trust Territoryship and postwar reconstruction following active combat between Japan and the U.S. during World War II, as well as the latter's nuclear weapons testing programs of the 1940's and 1950's. This project examines what is at stake for multiple parties in Kwajalein's contemporary use as a missile defense site, which RMI has allowed since achieving independence in Free Association with the U.S. in 1986. Ethnographic and other qualitative methods will shed light on how RMI and U.S. contingents have conceptualized negotiations, their key issues, and Kwajalein's place in a global military scientific network whose activities extend to outer space. The project is sponsored by Marshall Islands Roots Resources and Development.
IUCSHA sponsoring agency: Jined ilo Kobo/Roots (Republic of Marshall Islands)
IUCSHA and related materials:
The Future Use of Kwajalein for Missile Defense Testing” (memo to Roots Resources and Development)
A Post-Conflict Situation in the Long View: The Use of Kwajalein for US Missile Defense Testing” (paper)
Biography:
Ilisa Lam is a Doctoral Candidate in Anthropology at CUNY. Her research investigates how the social significance of United States missile defense testing has transformed since the Cold War's end, and is supported by a National Science Foundation Research Grant. The project entails fieldwork at sites in its global testing network linking the U.S. and Republic of the Marshall Islands, which she has visited since 1998. She has been a Writing Fellow, a Graduate Center Fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation Seminar on Human Security at the Center for the Study of Women and Society, and has taught at Hunter College and College of the Marshall Islands on Kwajalein Atoll.
Sumie Nakaya, 2005 Research Fellow (snakaya@gc.cuny.edu)
IUCSHA project title: “Exclusion and Violence in Post-Conflict States”
IUCSHA abstract:
This project will explore why exclusion and violence prevail in post-conflict states, despite increased international assistance, including even where UN involvement was deemed successful, such as in Cambodia, Guatemala, Haiti (1993-1996), and Tajikistan. To provide an alternative explanation for the failure of international transitional assistance which tends to focus on the reform of public institutions, such as the security sector, the legislatures (through elections), and the free market for the reorganization of post-war polity and economy, this project will study the transformation of war-time governance structures-or lack thereof-which exist at the time of civil war settlement. Composed of non-state actors with alternative sources of authority (e.g., customary laws) and capacities to control the distribution of resources (e.g., arising from a war economy), these alternative structures of governance, often called "local coping mechanisms," are increasingly relied upon in the distribution of international aid and local administration. Combined with the Washington Consensus policies which tend to reduce state capacity in the public sector, this study hypothesizes, these donor policies have had an unintended consequence of privileging the existing war-time governance structures over new, formal post-war state institutions being built. Consequently, these war-time structures will continue to control the distribution and redistribution of public resources and, based on the personalized and clientelistic network of patronage, are likely to extend resources only to the members of their own constituencies. Those who are not included in their definition of "community" or who belong to opposing or weaker associations will face exclusion from sources of livelihoods (including international aid itself) and, intensified competition over access to economic assets will lead to the rise of local violence. To test these arguments, the proposed study combines a survey of 5 peacekeeping episodes from the secondary sources, analyzing the patterns of international engagement with war-time governance structures in the process of post-conflict state building, and configurative field-based case study of Sierra Leone and Tajikistan.
IUCSHA sponsoring agency: Best Practices Unit, Department of Peacekeeping, United Nations
IUCSHA and related materials:
“Ownership in Post-Conflict Statebuilding” (memo to UN Department of Peacekeeping)
“Politics of Resource Distributions in Post-Conflict State Building” (paper)
Biography:
Sumie Nakaya is a doctoral candidate in Political Science at the Graduate Center, The City University of New York, and currently writing a dissertation on post-conflict state building. She also works with the Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum (CPPF), a program of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC). Prior to joining SSRC, she was Program Specialist for Governance, Peace and Security at the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), Project Director for Policy Programs at the United Nations Association of the USA (UNA-USA), and has also worked in Mozambique and Cambodia with UN peacekeeping missions and non-profit relief organizations. Her publications include articles and book chapters on gender and peace-building (Global Governance 2003; United Nations University Press/University of Alberta Press, 2004). She holds M.A. in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School.
Deniz Sert, 2005 Research Fellow (dsert@gc.cuny.edu)
IUCSHA project title: “Problem of Reparations in Conflict Areas: The Exercise of Property Rights in Cyprus”
IUCSHA abstract:
This project proposes to conduct a comparative study in the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus on attitudes of members of the two communities about the problem of reparations and its effect on the exercise of property rights in Cyprus. The study will particularly analyze Cypriots' positions, both Greek and Turkish, to the problem of compensation to the owners of immovable property. The attitudes of the people to the property provisions of the UN Secretary-General's Annan Plan for Cyprus will be the starting point of the research, followed by more substantial questions on the problematic relation between property, security, and justice in ending civil wars. This project is an attempt to address problems relating to land or immovable property that cause or result from civil war, and present possible solutions in order to build a lasting peace.
IUCSHA sponsoring agency: International Peace Research Institute (Oslo)
IUCSHA and related materials:
“The Next Steps Forward on Property Issues in Cyprus” (memo to PRIO-Cyprus Center)
“The Problem of Reparations in Conflict Areas: The Exercise of Property Rights in Cyprus” (paper)
Biography:
Deniz Sert is a working on her dissertation proposal, "The Property Rights of Conflict-Induced IDPs: Ideals, Realities, Lessons, A Quantitative and Comparative Case Study of Property Rights of Internally Displaced Persons" at the Department of Political Science at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York. She also manages the database of younger scholars working on the post-war reconstruction issues and areas, a Carnegie Foundation of New York funded project of the Graduate Center 's Program on States and Security initiated and directed by Prof. Susan L. Woodward. She also teaches at the Department of Political Science at Brooklyn College. She has lived in Istanbul where she had her BA degree in International Relations from Koc University, and London where she received her MSc degree in EU Policy-Making from the LSE. She now resides in New York City and Istanbul.
DISSERTATION-WRITING FELLOWS
Séverine
Autesserre, 2006 Dissertation-Writing Fellow (sa560@nyu.edu):
“Local Violence, International Indifference? Post-War Settlement in the
Eastern DRC (2003-2006)”
Tatiana Carayannis,
2005 Dissertation-Writing Fellow (tcarayannis@gc.cuny.edu):
“Hybrid Wars, Conflict Networks, and Multilateral Responses: The Congo
Wars, 1996-2004”
Julie Stewart, 2005 Dissertation-Writing Fellow
(julie.stewart@nyu.edu):
“To Help or To Harm: How Transnational Ties Shape Communities in Post-War
Guatemala”