Brooke Ackerly is professor of political science at Vanderbilt University and co-editor-in-chief of the International Feminist Journal of Politics (2018-2021). In her research, teaching, and collaborations, she works to clarify without simplifying the most pressing problems of global justice, including human rights and climate change. Her most recent book is Just Responsibility: A Human Rights Theory of Global Justice (Oxford, 2018). In this presentation, based on research in Bangladesh, Ackerly will offer a grounded normative theory of climate change justice as a problem of global governance, which has surprising implications for taking responsibility for climate change globally. Read more and register at go.osu.edu/ackerlyb

Gabriella Blum is the Rita E. Hauser Professor of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at Harvard Law School, specializing in public international law, the law of armed conflict, international negotiations, and counterterrorism. She is the author of The Future of Violence: Robots and Germs, Hackers and Drones - Confronting a New Age of Threat (Basic Books, 2015), with Benjamin Wittes and recipient of the Roy C. Palmer Civil Liberties Prize. In this presentation, Blum will explore how the evolution of international law, technology, and social norms has contributed to the paradox of power, in which greater military power does not manifest itself in greater destruction, but, to the contrary, in greater restraint. Read more and register at go.osu.edu/blumg

Aila Matanock, assistant professor of political science at University of California-Berkeley, will speak about her 2017 book, Electing Peace: From Civil Conflict to Political Participation (Cambridge). It won the 2018 Charles H. Levine Memorial Book Prize and was a runner up for the 2018 Conflict Research Society Book of the Year Prize. In Electing Peace, Matanock presents a theory that explains the causes and consequences of civil conflict settlements that enable the combatant sides to participate as political parties in post-conflict elections. Matanock finds that these provisions are associated with an increase in the chance that peace will endure, potentially contributing to a global decline in civil conflict. Read more and register at go.osu.edu/matanocka

Meir Elran is senior research fellow and head of the Homeland Security Program and co-head of the Society-Military Program at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. Brig. Gen. (ret.) Elran served in the Israel Defense Forces as a career officer for 24 years in senior command and staff positions, primarily in the Military Intelligence Directorate. His last post was deputy director of Military Intelligence (1987-1989). Elran's lecture will strive to explain why Israel, the strongest power in the Middle East, is facing difficulties in managing the continuous conflicts with much weaker adversaries such as Hezbollah and Hamas. Read more and register at go.osu.edu/elranm

John Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1982. Mearsheimer has written extensively about security issues and international politics more generally. He is the author of six books including Conventional Deterrence (1983), which won the Edgar S. Furniss Jr. Book Award; The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001, 2014), which won the Joseph Lepgold Book Prize; The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (with Stephen M. Walt, 2007), which made the New York Times bestseller list; and Why Leaders Lie: The Truth about Lying in International Politics (2011). In this event, based on his new book, The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities, Mearsheimer will explain why liberal hegemony, the foreign policy pursued by the United States since the Cold War ended, was doomed to fail. Read more and register at go.osu.edu/mearsheimerj

Join the Ohio State chapter of the Alexander Hamilton Society for its first event of the 2018-2019 academic year, "Rising China: Trade and America's Pacific Posture" The discussion will feature Phil Levy (left) and Bin Yu (right), moderated by Peter Mansoor. Phil Levy is senior fellow for the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and Bin Yu is professor of political science and East Asian studies at Wittenberg University. AHS adviser Peter Mansoor is the Gen. Raymond E. Mason Jr. Chair in Military History. The discussion will begin with trade but will gradually progress into broader concerns about U.S.-China relations. Be sure to attend this exciting event and enjoy free pizza and Coke products. Read more and register

Citizens and scholars alike worry about the health of representative democracy around the world today. They worry about resurgent nationalism across the globe as well as accusations of "democratic deficits" against technocrats. In the United States, public approval of Congress remains near its all-time low, with populist challenges roiling both major parties. Michael Neblo presents some realistic reform proposals based on his research into what ails democratic politics in the United States today. Neblo is associate professor of political science and (by courtesy) philosophy and public policy, and director of the Institute for Democratic Engagement and Accountability (IDEA) at The Ohio State University. Read more and register