Today's society faces challenges of great complexity. Some of these problems are the result of modern society's past successes (such as climate change, the aging of the population, the impact of robotization on the workforce, or disinformation), and that is why they have proven so difficult to solve. The policy approaches, concepts, and instruments have also exhausted their capacity to manage a rapidly evolving society that does not match the social context for which they were designed. Finally, our Enlightenment knowledge systems, driven by the forces of specialization, are also incapable of addressing these problems, since they were one of the main causes of the progress that has now become paradoxical.

To address current social challenges, it is necessary to integrate disciplines and experiment with new scientific approaches and methods, rather than rely on fragmented systems that created the problems in the first place.

This workshop will focus on a nascent attempt in Spain, linked to Cornell's Clinic Lab program, to use artificial intelligence for two purposes: for rigorous social research through interdisciplinary teams, and to address xenophobia, a social ill that has been growing rapidly in online settings.

Sergio García Magariño has a Ph.D. in Sociology with international recognition and is a specialist in education and social development. He is currently a lecturer (associate professor) at the Public University of Navarra and a researcher at its Institute for Advanced Social Research: I-Communitas. He is co-founder and director of the Institute for Global Knowledge, Governance and Development and associate researcher at the think tank Globernance, directed by Daniel Innerarity. He has been a Visiting Fellow at the University of Essex, at Cornell University, Visiting Professor at the University College of Dublin, and Consulting Professor at Nur University in Bolivia. His research interests include processes of violent radicalization, mechanisms of collaborative governance, collective security, social and economic development, and issues related to the sociology of science and religion. These are reflected in some 85 academic articles and books. He is a regular contributor to written and audiovisual media. He was included in the catalogue of Thinking Heads 2020-2021, a communications consultancy, as one of the 100 new talented speakers in Spain. A sample of his production can be seen at sergarcia.es or at his website at the Public University of Navarra.

Join us for a discussion of RIVERINE CITIZENSHIP: A BOSNIAN CITY IN LOVE WITH THE RIVER. Featuring the book's author, Azra Hromadzic (Syracuse University), Kristin Doughty (Rochester University), Saida Hodzic (Cornell University), and the Cornell Proseminar in Anthropology. Lunch will be served and everyone is invited.

Join Kim Aris, son of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, for an important discussion on Myanmar's ongoing crisis. This event is an opportunity to come together, hear firsthand about Kim's mission and explore ways we can take action to support the people of Myanmar together.

Topics to be discussed:

The urgent need for access to his mother and concerns over her health.The worsening humanitarian crisis and ways to help those in need.Advocacy efforts to free all political prisoners and restore democracy.

Winston Churchill famously quipped, “There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them.” For generations, the United States has wrestled with the complexities that come with international alliances. Nonetheless, ever since the early days of the Cold War, America's ability to attract like-minded allies to support and defend its interests has given it a competitive advantage relative to its main adversaries. As we continue the debates of previous generations regarding where and how the United States should be involved in the world, we need to understand the value of alliances, and how the debate itself—both within the United States and with its allies—matters to national security. Three panelists from the US Army War College will share perspectives on how Australia contributes to US security; the complexities of improving NATO effectiveness via increased contributions from its European members; and the importance of the American public engaging in well-informed debate about the country’s role in the world.

Panelists
Colonel Rob Haertsch, an Australian Army Officer with 25 years of service, recently served as Director - Land at Army Headquarters in Canberra, overseeing the integration of operational planning with the joint force and government. Prior to this, he was the Defense Adviser in Suva, Fiji, working with the Head of Mission at the Australian High Commission. His operational deployments include to the Solomon Islands, Iraq, and Afghanistan, along with domestic support to civil authorities in Australia. Colonel Haertsch holds a Bachelor of Civil Engineering from the University of New South Wales and a Masters in Defense and Military Studies from the Australian National University.

Lieutenant Colonel Frank Hartnett is a Public Affairs Officer in the U.S. Air Force. He has served for over 19 years, and his last assignment was as the Public Affairs Advisor to the Secretary of the Air Force. In this capacity, Lt Col Hartnett supported the Secretary’s efforts to modernize the force and improve the lives of Airmen through the coordinated use of media engagement, community outreach, and internal coverage. He holds a Master's Degree from Air University and a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Pittsburgh.

Lieutenant Colonel Christiana Crawford is a U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Operational Planner and Western Europe Foreign Area Officer. She was commissioned in 2004 from the United States Naval Academy. She has spent considerable time living and working in Europe where she participated in the Robert Bosch Fellowship Program and worked in the German Foreign Ministry. Most recently Lieutenant Colonel Crawford served as the lead planner in the Pacific, overseeing the implementing of Marine Corps force modernization efforts. She is fluent in German and holds a Doctor of Chiropractic as well as master’s degrees in international relations and defense and strategic studies.

Host
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

It is a familiar observation that the possibility of war permeates relations among states under anarchy. It is less well appreciated that states deliberately and routinely regulate that possibility by delineating prohibitions on the use of militarized bargaining. Three ambitious examples of such prohibition – the rule of non-aggression embedded in the Covenant of the League of Nations (1920), Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928), and Charter of the United Nations (1945) – have attracted enormous attention from political scientists and historians alike. Few scholars appreciate that these three instruments are, however, only the most well-known cases inhabiting a much broader universe. Indeed, across the past two centuries alone, various groups of three or more states concluded over 97 legal instruments containing 120 distinct provisions variously circumscribing the right and ability of different states to engage in militarized bargaining. Despite their ubiquity in modern international relations, states’ use of such prohibitions is documented only incompletely and rather imperfectly understood. Why do states enact them? What explains variation in their design? And what does the practice of such prohibitions tell us about the ability of states, especially the great powers, to cooperatively limit the use of military force in the international system? In this lecture, Anatoly Levshin will articulate a new institutionalist theory that resolves these questions. He will provide guidance on the use of prohibitions on militarized bargaining as policy instruments and, drawing on extensive archival research, develop new narratives of the origins of some of the most familiar prohibitions, including the rule of non-aggression articulated in Article 10 of the Covenant of the League of Nations.

Anatoly Levshin is a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University. He is presently affiliated with two fellowships at the School’s Belfer Center: Technology and Geopolitics and the International Security Program. Anatoly is also Director’s Fellow with the Reimagining World Order research community at Princeton University, which he formerly co-curated with its director, G. John Ikenberry. Anatoly’s research explores fundamental international-security issues from the standpoint of world order. His first book project, Bounding War: Rules of Neutralization, Demilitarization, and Non-Aggression and the Institutional Logic of Prohibitions on Militarized Bargaining, investigates the history and theory of the rules of neutralization, demilitarization, and non-aggression as instruments for the bounding of war in the international system. Anatoly is also interested in the geopolitical implications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as an emerging technology. He is currently investigating the ability of specialized AI systems, trained specifically in the strategic logic of interstate bargaining, to reliably assist policymakers, advisors, diplomats, and statesmen in negotiating complex international challenges. Anatoly’s second book project, tentatively entitled The Geopolitics of Digital Oracles, will explore the risks and benefits of national-security applications of AI more generally and consider alternative models of arms control that states can draw on to manage strategic contests supercharged by competitive deployment of rival AI systems.

Host
Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

Cosponsor
Brooks Tech Policy Institute
Department of Government