all Weatherhead Center for International Affairs stories

McElroy says it's time to stop seeing global warming as political issue

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:25:56 -0400

Michael B. McElroy, Gilbert Butler Professor of Environmental Studies and director of Harvard's Center for the Environment, is among the scientists who since the 1970s have been using paleoclimatic data to chart changes in the earth's atmosphere. To obtain these data, researchers drill several kilometers down into polar ice sheets and extract gases from the tiny air bubbles trapped inside. Through these, says McElroy, "you can not only infer a surrogate for temperature, but you can also measure the composition of the atmosphere at that point in the earth's history.

The myth of American isolationism

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:28:59 -0400

American diplomacy in the 1920s was subtle but ambitious and effective, instead of isolationist, argues Harvard Assistant Professor of Government Bear F. Braumoeller. American policy in the years leading up to the bombing of Pearl Harbor was in fact quite responsive to events on the European continent, Braumoeller says. Though isolationists did exist, they never came close to constituting a majority. In short, American isolationism is a myth.

Which side are you on?

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:19:39 -0400

Andrew Kydd is an assistant professor of government at Harvard University who has developed an interesting theory about mediation. As Kydd writes in the introduction to a working paper, "Mediators are often thought to be more effective if they are unbiased, or have no preferences over the issue in dispute. ... For a mediator to be effective, however, the parties must believe that the mediator is telling the truth, especially if the mediator counsels one side not to make a large demand because their opponent has high resolve and will fight. An unbiased mediator who is simply interested in minimizing the probability of war will have a strong incentive to make such statements even if they are not true, hence the parties will not find the mediator credible."

Indivisible territory and ethnic war

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:19:42 -0400

Monica Duffy Toft is assistant professor of public policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and assistant director of the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. Toft has studied the causes of ethnic war and developed a theory based on territory. She says that "Attempts to negotiate a resolution short of war will fail when: (1) the ethnic minority demands sovereignty over the territory it occupies, and (2) the state views that territory as indivisible.