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Public Policy Lecture Series
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Public Policy Lecture Series
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Dipali Mukhopadhyay: The Palace Politics of State-Building in Post-2001 Afghanistan
Apr 11, 201800:30:19Tap to summarizeDipali Mukhopadhyay concludes this spring’s Public Policy Lecture Series, The Ends of Empire.Models of foreign-led state-building and counterinsurgency anchor their prescriptions for governance in the Weberian ideals of a monopoly over the legitimate use of violence and the emergence of rational, rule-based bureaucracy. These are touchstones for our modern understanding of statehood, government, and governance. But the palace politics of weak statehood are not about the delivery of services to far-flung local communities; nor are they about the construction of an institutionalized technocracy. The palace politics of weak statehood are about the apportioning of power as a means of managing competition. As a result, Western efforts at governance promotion are often out of alignment with the interests of post-conflict regimes, which are seeking survival in highly competitive surroundings. Mukhopadhyay will revisit the Karzai regime’s management of gubernatorial appointments in order to unearth the logic of rule that has been driving Afghan state formation since 2001. Dipali Mukhopadhyay is Assistant Professor at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs, where she is a faculty affiliate of the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies. She recently published the book Warlords, Strongman Governors, and State Building in Afghanistan (Cambridge, 2014). Her current work on Afghanistan builds on her first book with a study of palace politics during the Karzai and Ghani presidencies. Her writings have been featured in publications such as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Foreign Policy, U.S. Institute of Peace, U.S. News & World Report, and the Washington Post's Monkey Cage Blog. This spring’s Public Policy Lecture Series, The Ends of Empire, explores the past, present, and future ends of empires in South Asia. During the series, lecturers will examine contemporary warlordism and “strongman” governance in Afghan provinces post-2001; the imperial and multinational armies that fought in Asia during the Second World War, with a focus on the British Indian army in the Burma campaign; and cross-ethnic political coalitions in the context of the rise of strong ethnic identities in colonial and post-colonial India.
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Dipali Mukhopadhyay: The Palace Politics of State-Building in Post-2001 Afghanistan (AUDIO)
Apr 11, 201800:30:11Tap to summarizeDipali Mukhopadhyay concludes this spring’s Public Policy Lecture Series, The Ends of Empire.Models of foreign-led state-building and counterinsurgency anchor their prescriptions for governance in the Weberian ideals of a monopoly over the legitimate use of violence and the emergence of rational, rule-based bureaucracy. These are touchstones for our modern understanding of statehood, government, and governance. But the palace politics of weak statehood are not about the delivery of services to far-flung local communities; nor are they about the construction of an institutionalized technocracy. The palace politics of weak statehood are about the apportioning of power as a means of managing competition. As a result, Western efforts at governance promotion are often out of alignment with the interests of post-conflict regimes, which are seeking survival in highly competitive surroundings. Mukhopadhyay will revisit the Karzai regime’s management of gubernatorial appointments in order to unearth the logic of rule that has been driving Afghan state formation since 2001. Dipali Mukhopadhyay is Assistant Professor at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs, where she is a faculty affiliate of the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies. She recently published the book Warlords, Strongman Governors, and State Building in Afghanistan (Cambridge, 2014). Her current work on Afghanistan builds on her first book with a study of palace politics during the Karzai and Ghani presidencies. Her writings have been featured in publications such as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Foreign Policy, U.S. Institute of Peace, U.S. News & World Report, and the Washington Post's Monkey Cage Blog. This spring’s Public Policy Lecture Series, The Ends of Empire, explores the past, present, and future ends of empires in South Asia. During the series, lecturers will examine contemporary warlordism and “strongman” governance in Afghan provinces post-2001; the imperial and multinational armies that fought in Asia during the Second World War, with a focus on the British Indian army in the Burma campaign; and cross-ethnic political coalitions in the context of the rise of strong ethnic identities in colonial and post-colonial India.
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Madhavi Devasher: The Ends of Ethnic Identity: The Politics of Electoral Choice in Post-Colonial India AUDIO
Mar 8, 2018Tap to summarizeNo description available
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Madhavi Devasher: The Ends of Ethnic Identity: The Politics of Electoral Choice in Post-Colonial India
Mar 6, 201800:38:44Tap to summarize“Indian voters don’t cast their vote, they vote their caste.” This commonly heard quip about Indian elections suggests that ethnic affiliations—which, in India, includes caste and religion—are inflexible determinants of voting behavior. Other multiethnic democracies are often thought to experience similar challenges. Devasher’s talk first examines why caste and religion impact electoral choices in post-colonial India, before arguing that this logic does not always hold. She explores the complex ways in which parties and voters instrumentally use and discard ethnicity and discusses the implications of these dynamics for political stability and social equality in India.Madhavi Devasher is an assistant professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire specializing in ethnic politics, especially in South Asia. She received her PhD in Political Science from Yale University and her BA from Stanford University.This spring’s Public Policy Lecture Series, The Ends of Empire, explores the past, present, and future ends of empires in South Asia. During the series, lecturers will examine contemporary warlordism and “strongman” governance in Afghan provinces post-2001; the imperial and multinational armies that fought in Asia during the Second World War, with a focus on the British Indian army in the Burma campaign; and cross-ethnic political coalitions in the context of the rise of strong ethnic identities in colonial and post-colonial India.
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Tarak Barkawi: Soldiers of Empire: The Indian Army in World War II AUDIO
Feb 22, 201800:48:10Tap to summarizeHow are soldiers made? Why do they fight? Reimagining the study of armed forces and society, Tarak Barkawi, reader in international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, examines the imperial and multicultural armies that fought in Asia during the Second World War, especially the British Indian Army in the Burma campaign. Going beyond conventional narratives, Barkawi studies soldiers in transnational context, from recruitment and training to combat and memory. Drawing on history, sociology, and anthropology, he critiques the “Western way of war” from a postcolonial perspective. Barkawi reconceives soldiers as cosmopolitan, their battles irreducible to the national histories that monopolize them. Tarak Barkawi is the author of Soldiers of Empire: Indian and British Armies in World War II (2017) and Globalization and War (2005). He has written on colonial armies, small wars, the Cold War in the Third World, and on counterinsurgency and the War on Terror. This spring’s Public Policy Lecture Series, The Ends of Empire, explores the past, present, and future ends of empires in South Asia. During the series, lecturers will examine contemporary warlordism and “strongman” governance in Afghan provinces post-2001; the imperial and multinational armies that fought in Asia during the Second World War, with a focus on the British Indian army in the Burma campaign; and cross-ethnic political coalitions in the context of the rise of strong ethnic identities in colonial and post-colonial India.
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Tarak Barkawi: Soldiers of Empire: The Indian Army in World War II
Feb 22, 2018Tap to summarizeHow are soldiers made? Why do they fight? Reimagining the study of armed forces and society, Tarak Barkawi, reader in international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science, examines the imperial and multicultural armies that fought in Asia during the Second World War, especially the British Indian Army in the Burma campaign. Going beyond conventional narratives, Barkawi studies soldiers in transnational context, from recruitment and training to combat and memory. Drawing on history, sociology, and anthropology, he critiques the “Western way of war” from a postcolonial perspective. Barkawi reconceives soldiers as cosmopolitan, their battles irreducible to the national histories that monopolize them. Tarak Barkawi is the author of Soldiers of Empire: Indian and British Armies in World War II (2017) and Globalization and War (2005). He has written on colonial armies, small wars, the Cold War in the Third World, and on counterinsurgency and the War on Terror. This spring’s Public Policy Lecture Series, The Ends of Empire, explores the past, present, and future ends of empires in South Asia. During the series, lecturers will examine contemporary warlordism and “strongman” governance in Afghan provinces post-2001; the imperial and multinational armies that fought in Asia during the Second World War, with a focus on the British Indian army in the Burma campaign; and cross-ethnic political coalitions in the context of the rise of strong ethnic identities in colonial and post-colonial India.
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Wayne Cornelius "U.S. Immigration Policy in the Age of Trump: Do Facts Matter?"
Mar 28, 201700:59:20Tap to summarizeWayne Cornelius is the Theodore Gildred Distinguished Professor of Political Science and U.S.-Mexican Relations, emeritus, at the University of California-San Diego and the recipient of the Aguila Azteca, Mexico's highest award for foreign nationals, in recognition of his lifetime contributions to U.S.-Mexican relations and understanding of Mexican immigration. His lecture will explore the ways in which fake or "alternative" facts shape public and policy debates over immigration in the United States today. Drawing on his fieldwork on Mexican migration to the United States, he illustrates the chasm between claims made by anti-immigrant politicians/advocacy groups and the reality documented by academic research. He will also discuss the serious human consequences of immigration policies that are not evidence-based.
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Ian Shapiro "Democratic Competition: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly"
Mar 24, 201700:48:30Tap to summarizeIan Shapiro is Sterling Professor of Political Science and Henry R. Luce Director of the MacMillan Center at Yale University. Shapiro'’s lecture will be an evaluation of different democratic arrangements in light of the elections and referenda of 2016. Shapiro will argue that recent trends to decentralize decision making and the governance of political parties in the name of enhanced democratic control have been self-defeating, and he will propose reforms aimed at remedying the situation.
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Jeffrey Green: "The Few, the Many…and Trump" Audio
Mar 7, 2017Tap to summarizeJeffrey Green is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. A political theorist, Green has broad interests in democracy, ancient and modern political philosophy, and contemporary social theory. In his lecture, Green will examine aspects of the Trump phenomenon in light of a plebeian model of democracy, according to which the division between the Few and the Many is seen as inescapable but also full of progressive potential. He argues against two different anti-plebeian standpoints: expecting the Many to behave like the Few and, conversely, being a member of the Few but behaving as one of the Many. Trump embodies the latter dynamic.Sponsored by the Elizabeth C. Ducey Political Science Lecture Fund.
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Jeffrey Green "The Few, the Many…and Trump"
Mar 7, 2017Tap to summarizeJeffrey Green is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. A political theorist, Green has broad interests in democracy, ancient and modern political philosophy, and contemporary social theory. In his lecture, Green will examine aspects of the Trump phenomenon in light of a plebeian model of democracy, according to which the division between the Few and the Many is seen as inescapable but also full of progressive potential. He argues against two different anti-plebeian standpoints: expecting the Many to behave like the Few and, conversely, being a member of the Few but behaving as one of the Many. Trump embodies the latter dynamic.Sponsored by the Elizabeth C. Ducey Political Science Lecture Fund.
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