The Domestic Politics of Darfur

 

Kathryn C. Lavelle, Ph.D. - Ellen and Dixon Long Associate Professor of World Affairs, Case Western Reserve University

Friday October 26, 2007
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Crawford Hall - Room 9
Inamori Center
Case Western Reserve University

The tragic situation in Darfur has received a great deal of attention in the U.S. and abroad, but not prompted much action by governments. Why is it easier to have activism in the media and on campus than to get action on the ground?

Professor Lavelle is a scholar of African politics who just returned to campus after spending nine months as an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow. She worked on international issues, including Darfur, for the staff of the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services. Few people are as well informed about both the complexities of the situation in Darfur and the relationship between activists and decision-makers on this issue.

The Friday Lunch is a brown-bag event open to all. Cookies and some beverages are provided

The remainder of this e-mail reports what we know about the schedule for the rest of the semester. We will be sending out announcements each week. If you would prefer not to receive the announcements, please inform Dr. Andrew Lucker, Associate Director of the Center for Policy Studies, by e-mail (andrew.lucker@case.edu).

About Our Guest

Dr. Lavelle recently returned from a year as an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow in Washington, DC. She worked on the staff of the House Committee on Financial Services for Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA). The experience was an important contribution to her ongoing research interest in the intersection between domestic and international politics in the issue-area of finance. She is writing a book that analyzes the relationship between the US Congress and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank by examining the activities of public and private sector interest groups active on issues related to global capital flows from the League of Nations era to the present.

Her first book, The Politics of Equity Finance in Emerging Markets (Oxford University Press, 2005), was released in October 2004. By considering the ownership structure of large firms, the book uses a historical and political argument to demonstrate that corporate governance will fail to institutionalize along the lines of either the Anglo-American or Continental models in emerging markets. It is thus also situated theoretically at the intersection of domestic politics and international relations. To conduct the initial research for this project, Dr. Lavelle was awarded a 1999 West Africa Research Association Fellowship to travel to Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.

Dr. Lavelle’s interest in international political economy and international organizations extends to her dissertation research that examined the ideological and institutional restructuring of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). To complete the dissertation, she conducted interviews and archival research at the UNCTAD secretariat and its adjoining missions in Geneva, Switzerland. She was subsequently selected as a participant in the 1997 Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS) workshop on international organizations held at Brown University. To update the work, she spent the summer of 2003 as a Visiting Research Scholar at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, Graduate Center, CUNY.

She has published articles, book reviews, and book chapters appearing in International Organization, Review of International Organizations, The Journal of Modern African Studies, Third World Quarterly, Review of International Political Economy, International Studies Review and The Columbia Journal of World Business.

Friday Lunch and Other Public Affairs Upcoming Topics and Speakers:

November 2: European Terrorism Past and Present. Kenneth Ledford, Ph.D., J.D., Associate Professor of History and Law, Case Western Reserve University

November 9: Jane Platten, Director of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections, on Can the machines work, securely? Will the poll-workers know how to operate them? Will new rules about identification deprive people of their right to vote?: A Post Election Report.

November 16: Journalistic Ethics. Ted Gup, Shirley Wormser Professor of Journalism at Case Western Reserve University and Chris Sherridan, former associate editor and award-winning editorial writer and columnist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and special assistant to CWRU President Barbara Snyder

November 23: Thanksgiving Break

November 30: Nico Lacetara, Assistant Professor of Economics, will talk about, "What Motivates Blood Donors?"

December 7: TBA

The Friday Lunch will resume for the Spring semester on January 18, with Robert Strassfeld, Professor of Law, leading a discussion on 'How to End a War.

The Friday Lunch discussions are held on the lower (ground) level of
Crawford Hall.  Visitors with mobility issues may find it easiest to take advantage of special arrangements we have made.  On most Fridays, a few parking spaces in the V.I.P. lot in between Crawford Hall and Amasa Stone Chapel are held for participants in the lunch discussion. 

Visitors then can avoid walking up the hill to the first floor of Crawford by entering the building on the ground level, through the garage area under the building.  The further door on the left in that garage will be left unlocked during the period before the Friday lunch.  On occasion, parking will be unavailable because of other university events.

For more information about these and other Center for Policy Studies programs, please see http://policy.case.edu.

October 22, 2007

A weekly newsletter published by the Center for Policy Studies, Case Western Reserve University. If you would like to not receive this weekly e-mail or you would like to submit items for inclusion please send a notice to: pubpol@case.edu.

Upcoming Events

What a Mighty Power We Can Be: African American Fraternal Groups and the Struggle for Equal Rights

Theda Skocpol, Ph.D.
Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology
Harvard University

Thursday October 25, 2007
Ford Auditorium - Allen Memorial Medical Library
4:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Case Western Reserve University

THEDA SKOCPOL is the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology. From 2005 to 2007, she served as Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. From 2000 to 2006, Skocpol served as Director of the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard, expanding this center from a tiny operation within one department into a broadly interdisciplinary center supporting joint faculty projects and graduate and undergraduate research on all aspects of modern U.S. politics. Skocpol received her BA in 1969 from Michigan State University and her PhD in 1975 from Harvard University. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, and has held fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The Invisible Primary: Money, Media & Polls in the 2008 Presidential Race

Thomas Patterson, Ph.D.
Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press,
John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Monday November 12, 2007
4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Ford Auditorium - Allen Memorial Medical Library
4:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Case Western Reserve University

THOMAS E. PATTERSON is Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press. His most recent book, The Vanishing Voter, looks at the causes and consequences of declining electoral participation. His book on the media's political role, Out of Order, received the American Political Science Association's Graber Award as the best book of the decade in political communication. An earlier book, The Unseeing Eye, was named by the American Association for Public Opinion Research as one of the 50 most influential books on public opinion in the past half century. He also is author of Mass Media Election and two general American government texts: The American Democracy and We the People. His articles have appeared in Political Communication, Journal of Communication, and other academic journals, as well as in the popular press. His research has been funded by the Ford, Markle, Smith-Richardson, Pew, and National Science foundations. Patterson received his PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1971.

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About the Friday Lunch Newsletter

Submissions for the Friday Lunch Newsletter may be e-mailed to pubpol@case.edu. All submissions must be received at least a week prior to inclusion in the weekly e-mail and will be reviewed for timeliness and relevance to the Center for Policy Studies audience.

E-mail pubpol@case.edu.