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Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

Positioning Women in Conflict Studies: How Women's Status Affects Political Violence

Positioning Women in Conflict Studies book cover: A woman looks across the horizon at the tops of trees and buildings.

Author: Sabrina Karim and Daniel W. Hill, Jr.

By Our Faculty

The catch-all term “gender equality” can mask important discrepancies in women’s status that are correlated with more or less violent societies, Sabrina Karim, associate professor of government in the College of Arts and Sciences, argues in a new book, “

Book

110.00

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  • Book

Publication Details

Publication Year: 2024

ISBN: 9780197757932

How Donald Trump's Chances Compare to Past Elections at 50 Day Mark

September 16, 2024

Sabrina Karim, PACS

“Younger female voters might be more attracted to Vice President Harris, who stands in strong opposition to the hyper-masculine personality and policies of the Trump-Vance ticket. She appeals to younger women, who don't want to lose their rights and see in Harris someone who will fight for them,” says Sabrina Karim, associate professor of government.

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Incentivizing Nonproliferation: Theory, Policy, and Experience

David Cortright Portrait photo
September 19, 2024

One of the most significant inducements for nonproliferation compliance is the offer of sanctions relief. The chapter presents a typology of the multiple options available for easing or lifting sanctions pressure, giving policy makers a variety of means for encouraging nonproliferation compliance. These dynamics are illustrated in brief case analyses of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, attempts to constrain the nuclear program of North Korea, and Libya’s decision to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction. 

Abstract

The chapter in the book, Sanctions for Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Moving Forward, argues for a strategy that supplements the application of international sanctions by employing the full range of positive inducements and incentives associated with economic statecraft to persuade states to desist from or reverse policies of developing nuclear weapons. 

A comparative analysis of sanctions and incentives indicates the value of integrating negative and positive measures to achieve desired policy objectives. Studies of the reasons why states comply with nonproliferation norms identify the following factors: security guarantees, assurances of mutual constraint that result from broad international compliance with the global nonproliferation regime, and the presence within states of domestic constituencies that seek to benefit from more open societies and global economic engagement. 

David Cortright presented on this theme at the Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies weekly seminar on March 28 this year.

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Information Session: Global Internships with Universidad San Francisco de Quito

October 28, 2024

1:00 pm

Go global in summer 2025! Global Internships give you valuable international work experience in fields spanning global development, climate and sustainability, international relations, communication, business, governance, and more.

This session will discuss opportunities with the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, a Cornell Global Hubs partner in Ecuador.

Register for this virtual session.

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The Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies hosts info sessions for graduate and for undergraduate students to learn more about funding opportunities, international travel, research, and internships. View the full calendar of fall semester sessions.

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Einaudi Center for International Studies

Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

East Asia Program

Southeast Asia Program

Latin American and Caribbean Studies

Institute for African Development

Institute for European Studies

Migrations Program

Naomi Klein: Doppelganger Politics

October 23, 2024

5:00 pm

Biotechnology Building, G10

Bartels World Affairs Lecture

The bestselling author of Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World joins us for a personal journey down the conspiracy rabbit hole to explore why our political sphere has become dangerously warped.

When author and social activist Naomi Klein discovered a writer with the same first name but radically different political views was chronically mistaken for her, it seemed too ridiculous to take seriously—until suddenly it wasn’t. As the pandemic took hold, she absorbed a barrage of insults from her doppelganger’s followers.

Klein’s 2023 book Doppelganger follows Other Naomi into a digital underworld of conspiracies, anti-vaxxers, and right-wing paranoia. Klein’s journey reveals mirrored concerns and unlikely connections between well-meaning liberals and the right-wing voices that relish “owning” them.

After a talk sharing her insights, Klein joins distinguished global democracy experts from Cornell to lift the lid on this surreal election moment and examine how our politics have become so twisted and polarized. What can we do to escape our collective vertigo and get back to fighting for what really matters?

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Panelists

Read election remarks from the panelists in Chronicle coverage of global democracy activities on campus.

Thomas Garrett, Einaudi Center Lund Practitioner in Residence, Distinguished Global Democracy Lecturer (Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy)Suzanne Mettler, John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions, Department of Government (College of Arts and Sciences)Kenneth Roberts (moderator), Einaudi Center Democratic Threats and Resilience faculty fellow, Richard J. Schwartz Professor, Department of Government (A&S)

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This event is sold out.

All free tickets are reserved. If you don’t have a ticket but would like to attend, please arrive 15 minutes early to be put on our wait list.

A reception with refreshments will follow the lecture and panel.

Lecture and Panel: 5:00 | G10 Biotechology BuildingReception: 6:30-7:30 | Biotechnology Building Atrium

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About Naomi Klein

Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist and international bestselling author of nine books published in over 35 languages, including No Logo, The Shock Doctrine, and her most recent book Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World (2023). A columnist for The Guardian, her writing has appeared in leading media around the world. She is a tenured professor of climate justice at the University of British Columbia, founding codirector of UBC’s Centre for Climate Justice, and honorary professor of media and climate at Rutgers University.

About the Bartels World Affairs Lecture

The Bartels World Affairs Lecture is a signature event of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies. This flagship event brings distinguished international figures to campus each academic year to speak on global topics and meet with Cornell faculty and students, particularly undergraduates. The lecture and related events are made possible by the generosity of Henry E. Bartels ’48 and Nancy Horton Bartels ’48.

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Einaudi Center for International Studies

Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

East Asia Program

Southeast Asia Program

Latin American and Caribbean Studies

Institute for African Development

Institute for European Studies

South Asia Program

Migrations Program

A Humanitarian Vision Lost

October 24, 2024

12:00 pm

Uris Hall, G08

North American Practices of Forced Displacement, Detention, and Humanitarian Oversight in the 1940s

Nation states abide by international humanitarian law unevenly. They misrepresent their internal operations and deceive monitoring agencies. Yet, they often feel bound to give international agents the opportunity to observe and report, thus facilitating the endeavors they evade. During the Second World War, states notoriously evaded international law to perpetrate atrocities. Even the United States and Canada, whose mistreatment of civilians never generated international alarm, obscured their domestic undertakings from an international gaze. Nevertheless, humanitarian actors gained remarkable access to sites of mass internment and displaced people across the globe. In the decades since, their reports have served as fraught documentation for survivor communities, reflecting the biases of their creators yet capturing rare moments of traumatic pasts.

This presentation investigates the engagement of the United States and Canada with international humanitarian oversight of detention during the 1940s and its legacy within survivor communities, drawing from international, national, and community archives.

Delving into one case study, this presentation examines the creation and subsequent recontextualization of humanitarian photography in survivor communities. In doing so, it reveals the making of what Cathy Schlund-Vials calls, in a different case of twentieth-century displacement, a “transnational set of amnesiac politics.” In tracking the journey of these images, this paper situates North American wartime detention within the politics of liberal internationalism and considers what their remembering and forgetting can tell us more broadly about the commemoration and representation of histories of forced displacement.

About the Speaker
Kaitlin Findlay is a doctoral student in the Cornell History Department. Her research examines forced displacement, humanitarianism, liberal internationalism, and memory in the mid-twentieth century. Her dissertation is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship. Kaitlin completed her BA in History (Honours) at McGill University and her MA Thesis at the University of Victoria, Canada. She has over seven years of experience in community-engaged and public history, including with the award-winning Landscapes of Injustice project. She has published with McGill-Queen’s University Press and The Canadian Historical Review.

Host
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

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Einaudi Center for International Studies

Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

The Transition Home

October 23, 2024

9:00 am

Hosted by the Gender and the Security Sector Lab, the University of Edinburgh’s Centre of African Studies, and the Reppy Peace and Conflict Studies Program, The Transition Home: Key Challenges for African UN Peacekeepers Upon Return is a unique collaborative effort, bringing together qualitative and quantitative evidence from surveys and interviews in Liberia, Senegal, Ghana, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, and Zambia.

In recent years, global shifts in peacekeeping contributions have led to African countries being some of the largest contributors of peacekeeping. Yet, many of the countries lack resources and have limited funding for their state security forces. On one hand, deployment to peacekeeping missions helps provide the country’s security forces with training, new experience, and funds. On the other hand, there is less information about the challenges that these peacekeepers face upon return.

This event is based on a policy brief that explores four potential challenges for African peacekeepers after they return from operations: relationship, psycho-social, economic, and career challenges. The report finds that the main challenges for returned peacekeepers upon their return appear to be relationship and financial. Women were more likely to experience financial challenges and social stigma whereas men had more physical and mental health problems. Psychosocial, mental health, and physical problems were more prevalent in the military than the police. The report ends with a series of policy recommendations. The policy brief will be available here after the event.

Register to attend this virtual event.

About the Panelists

Dr. Sabrina Karim is an Associate Professor in the department of Government. Her research focuses on conflict and peace processes, particularly state building in the aftermath of civil war. Specifically, she studies international involvement in security assistance to post-conflict states, gender reforms in peacekeeping and domestic security sectors, and the relationship between gender and violence. She directs the Gender and the Security Sector Lab.
Dr Maggie Dwyer is a Senior Lecturer in African Studies and International Development in the School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh. She is Co-Director of the Centre for Security Research within the University of Edinburgh and is also a Global Fellow at the Peace Research Institute Oslo.
T. Debey Sayndee is Professor / Director, Kofi Annan Institute for Conflict Transformation (KAICT), University of Liberia. He has worked for many years on the complex nexuses of conflicts in West Africa, particularly Liberia and Sierra Leone. He has also served as a consultant for the UN, the University of Wyoming, and Women’s Campaign International on peace, security, and development issues. He is a Public Speaker, Facilitator, Trainer, Radio Broadcaster, and Mediator. He has contributed to several publications, most recently, Incomplete DDRR: A Prescription for Prolonged Fragility in Liberia; Post-War SSR in Liberia; and co-published: African Truth Commissions; and Social Mobilization and the Ebola Virus Disease in Liberia.
Addison Barton is a third-year PhD student and two-time Reppy Fellow whose research focuses on practices of humanitarian restraint in armed conflict. Host
Cornell University’s Gender and the Security Sector Lab
University of Edinburgh’s Centre of African Studies
Reppy Peace and Conflict Studies Program

Photo credit: Clair MacDougall.

Additional Information

Program

Einaudi Center for International Studies

Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

Information Session: Fulbright Opportunities for Undergraduate Students

November 11, 2024

4:45 pm

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program supports U.S. citizens to study, conduct research in any field, or teach English in more than 150 countries. Students who wish to begin the program immediately after graduation are encouraged to start the process in their junior year. Recent graduates are welcome to apply through Cornell.

The Fulbright program at Cornell is administered by the Mario Einaudi Center for International studies. Applicants are supported through all stages of the application and are encouraged to start early by contacting fulbright@einaudi.cornell.edu.

Register for the virtual session.

Can’t attend? Contact fulbright@einaudi.cornell.edu.

Additional Information

Program

Einaudi Center for International Studies

Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

East Asia Program

Southeast Asia Program

Latin American and Caribbean Studies

Institute for African Development

Institute for European Studies

South Asia Program

Migrations Program

Information Session: Fulbright Opportunities for Graduate Students

November 6, 2024

4:45 pm

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program provides full funding for graduate and professional students conducting research in any field or teaching in more than 150 countries. Open to U.S. citizens only. The Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad program supports doctoral students conducting research in modern languages or area studies for six to 12 months.

Open to U.S. citizens and permanent residents of the United States. Travel to Western European countries is not eligible.

Register for the virtual session.

Can’t attend? Contact fulbright@einaudi.cornell.edu.

Additional Information

Program

Einaudi Center for International Studies

Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

East Asia Program

Southeast Asia Program

Latin American and Caribbean Studies

Institute for African Development

Institute for European Studies

South Asia Program

Migrations Program

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