In This Issue

Associate Professor of Political Science

March 3, 2014

Doctoral Student in Public Affairs

March 3, 2014

Mershon Associate

March 4, 2014

Mershon Associate

March 4, 2014

March 17, 2014

Gen. Raymond E. Mason Jr. Chair in Military History

March 5, 2014

Ralph D. Mershon Senior Research Scientist

March 16, 2014

Jacob E. Davis and Jacob E. Davis II Chair in Law

March 12, 2014

Mershon Memo is a weekly e-mail newsletter distributed by the Mershon Center for International Security Studies, a unit of the Office of International Affairs at The Ohio State University.

   

Qiusha Ma is associate professor of East Asian studies at Oberlin College.  Her publications include two books, Nongovernmental Organizations in Contemporary China and To Change China: the Rockefeller Foundation's Century-long Journey in China, and numerous articles in English and Chinese. In this talk, she will outline the legal environment of NGOs in China, and their major features, importance, and challenges. Environmental grassroots organizations compose the most active, numerous, and vibrant sector among NGOs, and Ma will use the emergence of environmental activism to discuss the NGO-government interface and NGOs' strategy to survive and thrive in China. Read more at go.osu.edu/maq

The United States has maintained an All-Volunteer Force (AVF) for its armed services for nearly 41 years. However, changes in demographics, military costs, and the national security environment raise the issue of whether the AVF can adapt to and overcome its current challenges. The goal of this event is to create dialogue on the subject of AVF, a topic critical to our nation's future. This panel will highlight key aspects of the current discussion about the United States' All-Volunteer Force in the context of fairness, efficacy, and sustainability by addressing differing points of view regarding this topic. Col. Peter Mansoor will advocate for the retention of the current all-volunteer military force, John Mueller will propose reducing the Armed Forces, and Maj. Gen. Dennis Laich (left) will propose an alternative to the AVF concept. Read more and register at go.osu.edu/AVF

WOSU's Ann Fisher will lead a discussion on how economic development and business affects peace, and how peace building and end of conflicts impact regional development, rule of law, and economic growth. Organized by Mershon affiliates Esther Gottlieb and John Carlarne, the panel will be introduced by David Manderscheid, executive dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and include Patrice McMahon, associate professor of political science at University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Christopher Gelpi, Chair of Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution at the Mershon Center; Yoram Haftel, associate professor of international relations at Hebrew University in Jerusalem; and Mason Foster Ye, an undergraduate business scholar at Ohio State. This event is underwritten by the U.S. Institute of Peace Public Education for Peacebuilding Support Initiative.  Read more and register at go.osu.edu/businesspeace

Eitan Alimi is senior lecturer in political sociology at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His book Israeli Politics and the First Palestinian Intifada (Routledge, 2007) was awarded the 2008 best English book on Israeli Politics by the Israeli Political Science Association. A book on radicalization and de-radicalization in the case of the Jewish settler movement has recently come out (Resling, 2013), and a co-authored book on processes of radicalization in comparative perspective is under contract with Oxford University Press. He will discuss why some social movements experience radicalization while others do not, compairing of two episodes of Jewish settler contention. Read more at go.osu.edu/alimie

T.V. Paul is James McGill Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science at McGill University. Paul specializes and teaches courses in international relations, especially international security, regional security and South Asia. He is the author or editor of 15 books (all published through major university presses) and nearly 55 journal articles or book chapters. He will be speaking on his most recent book, The Warrior State: Pakistan in the Contemporary World (Oxford University Press, 2014). In this book Paul argues that Pakistan's "geo-strategic curse" -- putting the country at the center of major geopolitical struggles -- has kept it from progressing politically and economically. Read more at go.osu.edu/paultv

 

Chadwick Alger, professor emeritus of political science and public policy at the Mershon Center, passed away on February 15, 2014, at the age of 89.

 

Alger, an authority on peacebuilding and the United Nations system, joined the political science faculty of The Ohio State University in 1971, where he did teaching and research for more than 40 years.

 

Alger's areas of expertise included:

• global problem-solving by international governmental and non-governmental organizations, primarily focused on the United Nations System;
• the world relations of local people, governments and organizations;
• inventory and evaluation of available "tools" and strategies for peace building.

Subjects of his research included decision-making in the U.N. General Assembly, the role of non-governmental organizations in the struggle for human rights and economic well-being, evolving roles of NGOs in U.N. decision-making, potential roles of the U.N. System in the 21st century, religion as a peace tool, the expanding tool chest for peace builders, and why the United States needs the U.N. System.

 

Alger was director of the Mershon Program in Transnational Intellectual Cooperation in the Policy Sciences (1971-81) and director of the Mershon Program in World Relations (1982-91).

 

A memorial service will take place on Friday, April 11, at 1 p.m. at the Audubon Center, 505 W. Whittier St. in Columbus.  The Ohio State community is encouraged to attend.   Read more 

 

Mary Louise Roberts is professor of history at University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the author most recently of What Soldiers Do: Sex and the American GI in World War II France, which will be the focus of her talk. This event is co-sponsored with the Modern U.S. History Seminar, the Department of French and Italian, the Mershon Center for International Security Studies, and the Women, Gender, and Sexuality History Workshop.  Read more

 

On Friday, April 4, the Center for Ethics and Human Values at The Ohio State University will present the spring COMPAS conference. With a theme of Public/Private, the conference takes place 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in 165 Thompson Library, 1858 Neil Avenue Mall, and Mershon Auditorium, 1871 N. High St. 

 

Keynoting the event will be Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and professor of health policy and management at Columbia University. He is special advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the Millennium Development Goals, having held the same position under former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

 

He is director of the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He is co-founder and Chief Strategist of Millennium Promise Alliance, and director of the Millennium Villages Project. Sachs is also one of the Secretary-General's MDG Advocates, and a Commissioner of the ITU/UNESCO Broadband Commission for Development.  

 

He has authored three New York Times bestsellers in the past seven years: The End of Poverty (2005), Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet (2008), and The Price of Civilization (2011).

 

For more information about the conference, including the full program, see the conference web page.  No registration is required. 

 

The Ohio State University has joined Generation Study Abroad, a five-year initiative launched by the Institute of International Education to double the number of U.S. college students studying abroad by the end of the decade.

 

Joining Generation Study Abroad will help Ohio State engage educators, governments, associations and others to drive meaningful action to increase the number of students who have the opportunity to gain international experience through academic study abroad programs.

 

Ohio State is currently ranked 14th in the nation in the number of students studying abroad. Study abroad enrollment figures significantly increased from 1,716 in 2011-12 to 2,426 in 2012-13.

 

"Ohio State is committed to lifting study abroad to new heights by engaging our faculty university-wide and offering new and innovative programs that will exponentially benefit our students no matter their discipline." said William Brustein, vice provost for global strategies and international affairs.

 

The Institute of International Education is investing $2 million in the initiative and seeking funds to provide scholarships to students. Ohio State has developed several strategies to increase the numbers of students currently studying abroad by 5 percent each year through 2019-20.  Read more 

 

The Ohio University Contemporary History Institute will sponsor the annual Baker Peace Conference on Thursday, March 20, and Friday, March 21.

The theme of this year's conference is, "The Great War: A Centennial of the First World War." All events are free and open to the public.  The conference will allow World War I historians from all over the world to present their academic research to the audience.

The Baker Peace Conference will begin on Thursday with a keynote address by Professor Sir Hew Strachan of Oxford University at 7:30 p.m. in Baker University Center Ballroom A. His speech is titled "Military Operations and National Policies, 1914-1918."

Strachan has been Chichele Professor of the History of War at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of All Souls College since 2002. He served as director of the Oxford Programme on the Changing Character of War from 2003 to 2012. He serves on the Strategic Advisory Panel of the Chief of the Defence Staff and on the UK Defence Academy Advisory Board. In December 2012, Foreign Policy magazine included him in its list of top global thinkers for the year. He was knighted in the 2013 New Year's Honours.

Some of his recent books are The Changing Character of War (2011) and How Fighting Ends: A History of Surrender (2012), with Holger Afflerbach.

On Friday, March 21, there will be three panels discussing topics such as social change and the outbreak of war.  View the complete schedule on the conference web page.