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Illuminating the Arts-Policy Nexus 

Illuminating the Arts-Policy Nexus is a fortnightly series of articles on the role of art in public policymaking.  This series invites WPI fellows and project leaders as well as external practitioners to contribute pieces on how artists have led policy change and how policymakers can use creative strategies.

 

WPI BOOKS
Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World

 

In Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World, World Policy Institute Senior Fellow Ian Bremmer illustrates a historic shift in the international system and the world economy—and an unprecedented moment of global uncertainty.

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2011 Events

Jan 1 2011 12:00 am

Dec 31 2011 12:00 am   

 

Monday, December 12, 2011 - ZOMBIE BANKS: A POLITICAL SALON WITH YALMAN ONARAN

What do the protests in Greece, unemployment in the United States, bank failures in Ireland, and the “Lost Decade” of 1990s Japan have in common? According to financial journalist Yalman Onaran’s new book, they are all products of a broken system of zombie banks, in which governments provide constant life support to financial institutions that can no longer remain solvent on their own. In this discussion, moderated by the Eurasia Group's Dan Alamariu, Onaran examines how zombie banks hinder economic recovery and offers suggestions on how to stabilize the global economy.
 

Saturday, December 10, 2011 - NEW YORK SCREENING OF BHOPALI

Bhopali documents the experience of second generation children affected by the Union Carbide gas disaster of 1984, the worst industrial disaster in history, and subsequent contamination of groundwater by Union Carbide Corporation (an American company now owned by Dow Chemical, the second largest chemical company in the world). It follows several children as they and their families cope with the ongoing medical and social disaster, as well as their memories of that traumatizing night that shocked the world and changed Bhopal forever. Set against the backdrop of vehement protests for the 25th anniversary of the disaster, the Bhopalis continue to fight for justice, proving to be anything but victims.
 

Wednesday, December 7, 2011 - DEMOCRATIC TRANSITIONS AND COUNTERTERRORISM 

The cascade of events loosely known as the Arab Spring has overturned authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and ushered in a period of transition in a number of countries, transforming U.S. alliances and upending strategic thinking in the region. How will this affect counterterrorism strategies? In the second of the annual Ian Cuthbertson Memorial Lectures, Naureen Chowdhury Fink and Scott Helfstein discuss the positive and negative impacts of democratic transitions on the fight against terrorism.
 

Tuesday, November 29, 2011 - OCCUPY THE WORLD: A POLITICAL  SALON WITH MIRA KAMDAR

During the past year, citizen-led protests against governments that have failed to deliver equality of opportunity–from the Arab Spring to India to European debtor nations to the Occupy movement in the United States-have had worldwide resonance, yet varying degrees of success. In this discussion, Mira Kamdar examines the global implications these protest movements, focusing on India's crisis of governance.

 
Monday, November 14, 2011 -  AEROTROPOLIS: POLITICAL SALON WITH GREG LINDSAY
 
Airports: the new drivers of urban, economic, social and governmental change. In this discussion moderated by Michelle Fanzo, author Greg Lindsay examines the costs of living in midair, and explore how air travel and transportation are largely responsible for the shape and scope – and winner and losers – of globalization.
 
 
What are the right combinations of policies to jump-start growth and re-prioritize government spending? Will economic policy makers resort to “financial repression” – suppressing interest rates and in turn the cost of rolling over debt? Hans Humes, president of Greylock Capital Management, with moderator Michele Wucker, President of World Policy Institute, lead a discussion of possible paths out of the debt mess.
 
 
 
Have the institutions that keep us safe on the streets learned how to protect us in this burgeoning digital world? Why are governments and the private sector losing against these ever-morphing, often invisible and very smart new breed of criminals? In this discussion with Kim Taipale, Misha Glenny explores the questions posed by the explosion of cyberspace, and offers surprising suggestions for the ways in which the authorities might begin to end the cybercrime epidemic.
 
 
 
In True Wealth, economist and best-selling author Juliet Schor argues that the old way out of an economic downturn―a debt-financed consumer boom―is no longer a viable option. With a view towards new trends in economic theory, social analysis, and ecological design, Schor reveals how innovation, macroeconomic balance, and a new attention to multiple sources of wealth --such as discretionary time, dignified work, creativity, vibrant communities and a secure sense of well-being-- can lead to a healthier environment and higher quality of life.
 
 
 
Sedlacek takes us on a tour de force exploration of economic thinking over the millennia: from the epic of Gilgamesh and the Old Testament to the emergence of Christianity; from Descartes and Adam Smith to the consumerism in Fight Club. In the process, he challenges the way we calculate economic value, humanizes the field of economics and offers fresh ideas that may offer a path forward from the current crisis.
 
 
 
On September 23 in New York City, the Womensphere Global Summit & Awards brings together global leaders, entrepreneurs, social innovators, and industry leaders across business, finance, technology, energy, environment, media, sciences, and public policy. The Summit agenda is on "Creating the Future," and will center on the themes of women’s leadership, innovation, ventures, economic growth, sustainability and social impact.
 
 
Thursday, September 22, 2011 - THE ENERGY-WATER NEXUS 
 
Join Solar One and the NYC Accelerator for a Clean and Renewable Economy (NYC ACRE) at Polytechnic Institute of New York University for "The Energy-Water Nexus", their event for Climate Week NYC 2011. The fourth event of Solar One's and NYC ACRE's discussion series and online forum Clean Energy Connections, The Energy-Water Nexus will bring together policy thinkers, industry leaders, and innovators to engage on how to responsibly maintain the relationship of energy and water for generations to come.
 
 
 
In the sixth edition of the World Economic Roundtable, Oxford Analytica CEO Nader Mousavizadeh discusses the intersection of the European debt crisis, emerging markets as a potential driver of global growth, and the multiple risks to the world economy in an archipelago world.
 
 
 
Tonight's Political Salon has been postponed due to illness. Updated details will be circulated once the event is rescheduled. What are the right combinations of policies to jump-start growth and re-prioritize government spending? Will economic policy makers resort to “financial repression” – suppressing interest rates and in turn the cost of rolling over debt? Hans Humes, president of Greylock Capital Management, with moderator Constance Hunter of Aladdin Capital, lead a discussion of possible paths out of the debt mess.
 
 
 
The Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1920 to the Present, is a vividly told history of how greed bred America’s economic ills over the last forty years, and of the men most responsible for them. This breakfast conversation brings together Jeff Madrick and Herb Allison, who builds a powerful case for breaking up the megabanks and overhauling regulation and oversight of the financial industry in The Megabanks Mess. Madrick and Allison discuss how we got here, who played a major role, and what to do about it going forward.
 
 
 
It would take five additional planets if everyone in the world were to live at the consumption level of the average American. In this discussion, William Powers and an esteemed panel explore some of the workable, cross-disciplinary alternatives to the “more-is-better” paradigm, investigating successful movements in green living, and thinking creatively about moving these models into the policy realm.

 

 
Thursday, June 9, 2011 - MARA HVISTENDAHL: UNNATURAL SELECTION 
 
More than 160 million females are “missing” from Asia’s population. That’s more than the entire female population of the United States. Gender imbalance—which is mainly the result of sex selective abortion— is no longer strictly an Asian problem. In Azerbaijan and Armenia, in Eastern Europe, and even among some groups in the United States, couples are making sure at least one of their children is a son. So many parents now select for boys that they have skewed the sex ratio at birth of the entire world. In her first book, Unnatural Selection, Mara Hvistendahl explores how this has occurred, asking why women and girls are becoming scarce in Asia and Eastern Europe as these regions develop, and investigates the implications for security, women's rights, governance, and economic development when the world’s extra boys grow up.
 
 
 
Chaw Ei Thein will give a brief performance and discuss the limitations on civil rights and freedom of speech that drove her to seek asylum from Burma, where 2000 political prisoners are serving decades-long sentences for speaking out. She also will give perspectives on the challenges facing asylum seekers in the United States.
 
 
 
In this session of the World Economic Roundtable, Ian Bremmer discusses how the transition of power from the west to east and north to south may lead to a clash between state capitalist economies and the prevailing liberal economic order led by the United States and the European Union.
 
 
Tuesday, May 24, 2011 - THE WATER-ENERGY NEXUS (D.C.)
 

The Water-Energy Nexus represents a critical business, security, and environmental issue, but has not yet received the attention that it merits. Energy production consumes significant amounts of water, and vice versa. Now --as energy policies are being considered around the world-- is the window of opportunity to include water on the agenda alongside cost, carbon, and security considerations. In this panel discussion, industry leaders explore what businesses, the military, policy makers, and the media need to know about managing trade-offs between water and energy.

 
 
John Prendergast is a human rights activist and best-selling author who has worked for peace in Africa for all of his adult life. In this Political Salon, John Prendergast discusses the power of activism, advocacy and political engagement. He reflects on the differences and similarities at home and abroad in working to advance social justice and human rights.
 
 
 
William Holstein covered China's early modernization efforts in the late 1970s as a correspondent for United Press International and has been deeply involved in coverage of Japan and South Korea as well. China is now the world's second largest economy, followed closely by Japan. In his book, Holstein argues that Americans as a whole have largely failed to launch a competitive response to the emergence of the Asian powerhouses, recently joined by India. Now that the financial bubble that propped up housing prices has popped, the United States has no choice but to finally come to grips with raising its technological level. The key is to harness the innovative ideas in America's universities and research institutes to create industries and jobs in the U.S., rather than allowing them to be siphoned to Asia.
 
 
 
Inflammatory public speech often precedes mass atrocities, especially genocide, and such speech is part of the social process that makes such human catastrophes possible, as demonstrated by many cases including Nazi Germany, Rwanda and Bosnia in the early 1990s, Kenya in 2008, and Libya and Cote d’Ivoire this year. In this Political Salon, Susan Benesch discusses new research on dangerous speech, including innovative efforts to both prevent harm and protect free speech.
 
 
Friday, May 6, 2011 - IS THE U.S. (STILL) IGNORING EUROPE? 
 
As the U.S. policy establishment focuses on the various crises around the world, many in Europe are beginning to feel neglected. This was the sentiment expressed at a recent discussion hosted by the World Policy Journal and facilitated by the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program, where a delegation of young policymakers, legislators, and journalists from 16 European nations took part in a lively exchange with WPJ Editor David Andelman and managing editor Justin Vogt.
 
 
 
Since the euphoric days when millions of Egyptians massed in Tahrir Square and forced Hosni Mubarak to resign, Egypt has been ruled by a military junta bent on preserving the dictatorship's privileges, just without the old dictator. The nationalist January 25 movement is struggling to remain unified in its fight against the "deep state," the complex of military, police, business and ruling party interests that has dominated Egypt through a brutal police state for half a century. What are the possibilities that this broad movement, spanning Islamists and secularists, intellectuals and the working class, can force the still-strong regime to dismantle the institutions of control and allow independent civil institutions to grow?
 
 
 
In this session of the World Economic Roundtable, Carmen Reinhart analyzes the build up of debt in the wake of the Great Recession, and Michele Wucker offers comments on the prospects for debt restructuring.
 
 
Wednesday, April 13, 2011 - TURKEY REFORMING ITSELF: CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGE AND DEMOCRATIZATION 
In September 2010, Turkish voters endorsed constitutional reforms that, observers have variously argued, either moved the country closer to true democracy or allowed the ruling party to gain more control and further marginalize once dominant secularist forces. Belinda Cooper moderates this panel discussion, which asks how we should understand Turkey's constitutional reforms and the broader context of transformation that has occurred under the ruling Justice and Development (AKP) party: is Turkey democratizing, or is the AKP, a party with Islamic roots, leading Turkey and its Muslim majority towards Islamicization? What lessons can Turkey provide to post-revolutionary societies in Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East?
 
 
In this Political Salon, Devin Stewart and Ross Schaap reflect on the recent earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, examining the response inside and outside Japan, and the implications for Japan and the world.
 
 
Wednesday, March 23, 2011 - WORLD ECONOMIC ROUNDTABLE: REVISING THE GLOBAL ENERGY MAP
 
This session will feature Fareed Mohamedi, who will kick off our discussion with an analysis of the major changes that are occurring in the global energy market and how they impact the economy, investment strategy, and American policy.
 

 
The Water-Energy Nexus represents a critical business, security, and environmental issue, but has not yet received the attention that it merits. Energy production consumes significant amounts of water, and vice versa. Now --as energy policies are being considered around the world-- is the window of opportunity to include water on the agenda alongside cost, carbon, and security considerations. In this panel discussion, industry leaders explore what businesses, the military, policy makers, and the media need to know about managing trade-offs between water and energy.
 
 
Monday, March 14, 2011 - POLITICAL SALON WITH MONIQUE EL-FAIZY: RELIGION AND POLITICS IN POST-MUBARAK EGYPT 
 
The reinvention of Egypt's political system could move toward becoming an open democracy or, as many in the West fear, it could become an Islamist state. In this great civic experiment, perhaps no group has more to gain or more to lose than Egypt's Copts, the Orthodox Christian minority that makes up an estimated 10 percent of the population. If Egypt becomes a fully secular society, Copts could become fully enfranchised citizens, enjoying the same rights as the Muslim majority for the first time in well over a century. If things take a different turn, though, they could find themselves living in an overtly hostile environment. In this Political Salon, Monique El-Faizy and Patricia DeGennaro discuss the Egyptian rebirth through the lens of religion and identity.

 

Monday, February 28, 2011 - THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX REVISITED: EISENHOWER'S WARNING AT 50 
 
Fifty years after President Eisenhower's farewell address warning of the growing power of the military-industrial complex, the military budget is at its highest levels since World War II, and companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin are receiving record levels of Pentagon contracts. In this panel discussion marking the release of William Hartung's new book, "Prophets of War," Nathan Hodge, James Ledbetter, Sharon Weinberger and Hartung address whether anything has changed since Eisenhower sounded the alarm.

 

Tuesday, February 22, 2011 - POLITICAL SALON WITH PARAG KHANNA: HOW TO RUN THE WORLD 
In this Political Salon, Parag Khanna and Michele Wucker discuss how we can adapt global governance mechanisms --incorporating myriad actors including governments, multinational firms, NGOs, philanthropists, celebrities, entrepreneurs, innovators, and faith communities-- to best address calamities whose causes and impacts span borders, regions, and continents.

 

Wednesday, February 9, 2011 - POLITICAL SALON WITH CONSTANCE HUNTER: "IS THERE A GLOBAL CURRENCY WAR?"
Ever since Brazil's finance minister, Guido Mantega, declared in September 2010 that an 'international currency war' had broken out, global rhetoric about monetary policy and exchange rates has become increasingly heated. In this Political Salon, Constance Hunter and Ann Lee discuss whether there really is an international currency war. Will controversial currency and trade maneuvers escalate? How can we tell if a country's monetary policy is "fair"? In a system where a major player has a fixed exchange rate, how does this distort the playing field for countries with floating rates? What, if anything, can the G20 or other multi-national organizations do to dissipate these conflicts?
 
 
The menu of Transatlantic security concerns has expanded to include emerging issues including piracy, cyber security, energy scarcity, climate change, and the gender impact of conflict, along with more traditional themes like missile defense, terrorism, and nuclear proliferation. In this discussion, Dr. Colette Mazzucelli and Michele Wucker explore how fresh thinking on emerging security threats can be integrated in to the policy agenda.
 
 
In the fall of 2008, New York Times foreign correspondent and Pulitzer Prize winner David Rohde traveled to Afghanistan to report on a book he was writing on the failing American war effort and the radicalization of Pakistan's tribal areas. While traveling to interview a Taliban commander outside of Kabul, he and two Afghan colleagues were kidnapped by the Taliban and held for seven months. His latest book, "A Rope and a Prayer," chronicles his months in captivity, and emerges as a timely resource for understanding the trajectory of violence during the last decade in a war-ravaged region. In this Political Salon, David Rohde will talk about why it was so important to seek local voices and viewpoints, and discuss the political dynamics of international involvement in the AfPak region
 

Wednesday, January 12, 2011 - EXORBITANT WITH BARRY EICHENGREEN

For more than half a century, the U.S. dollar has been not just America's currency, but the world's. This dependence on dollars --by banks, corporations and governments around the world--is a source of strength for the United States; to critics, the leeway afforded to America by the dollar has been called its "exorbitant privilege." In the face of high unemployment, record federal deficits, and the larger fallout from the financial crisis and Great Recession, will this soon be a privilege lost? In "Exorbitant Privilege," economist Barry Eichengreen counters this argument, challenging the presumption that there is room for only one true global currency, and his latest book emerges as a challenge to those who warn that the dollar is doomed as well as to those who regard its continuing dominance as inevitable.

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