2019 In the News

Senior Fellow Stephen Kinzer in The Boston Globe, "We too have trouble realizing that our problems in the world have causes. To understand the desperation driving Guatemalan and Honduran migrants, it helps to recognize our own role in creating it."

In an interview, Professor Ashutosh Varshney discusses India's national elections and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's victory. "As prime minister, Modi styled himself as 'the watchman of the country.'"

Our new expansion building, Stephen Robert '62 Hall, is highlighted. Ed Steinfeld, Director of the Institute, shared "We had a vision for what it would take to be a state-of-the-art institute for international and public affairs. That vision has been translated into a functionally fantastic and aesthetically appealing facility."

This is a Q&A on race and freedom of speech on college campuses with Glenn Loury, a professor of social sciences.

A new study from the Costs of War project shows that the U.S. military emits more greenhouse gases each year than many countries, including Sweden and Portugal.

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This column by Professor of Economics Emily Oster examines "unfunded parenting mandates," or parenting decrees that require an unreasonable amount of time and effort to undertake.

Neta C. Crawford, Co-Director of the Costs of War Project, describes new research in The Conversation, "I agree with the military and national security experts who contend that climate change should be front and center in U.S. national security debates."

Jeff Colgan in The Washington Post, "Given the huge U.S. network of overseas military bases, the Department of Defense has traditionally seen the issue of environmental liability as a slippery slope, and takes a hard line against assuming responsibility."

Senior Fellow Richard Boucher in The Hill, "If we can wire the world our way, China will have to negotiate to fit in. Dividing the world into the U.S. sphere and the Chinese sphere leaves us as isolated as them."

Senior Fellow Richard Arenberg recently joined WPRI's Dan Yorke State of Mind to discuss impeachment, the Senate, and the filibuster.

Senior Fellow Stephen Kinzer sat down with the Brown Political Review for an interview, saying "My training is not from being a scholar, but rather from being out in the world and working as a journalist."

Associate Professor Jeff Colgan is mentioned in an article on national oil companies. "Jeff Colgan, a prominent scholar on the topic, has found that oil is a leading cause of war and can exacerbate conflict in multiple ways."

Senior Fellow Richard Arenberg comments on the possibility of Democrats getting President Trump's tax returns, saying "...once you move into 2020 and begin to approach the election, the potential is there that Trump could just run out the clock."

Senior Fellow Stephen Kinzer in The Boston Globe, "For most of the 20th century, the United States was strong enough to keep allies in line and rivals at bay. Today, however, other countries are not so easily intimidated. Many have lost confidence in the US."

Senior Fellow Richard Arenberg comments on whether House Democrats will subpoena Special Coounsel Robert Mueller to testify before Congress, saying "I don't think the public understanding of the Mueller report ever recovered from Barr rolling out his summary, and then leaving it unchallenged for over a month."

Economist John Friedman comments on the plans Democratic presidential hopefuls have for education, saying "There's definitely been a turn against a set of ideas in education that we've been championing as effective."

Chair of the Political Science department, Wendy Schiller, comments on President Trump's abundance of supporters willing to repeat and endorse all of his claims. "The Republican establishment will push back through Fox, the Wall Street Journal and other outlets. The titans of the economy will put up with stuff only so long."

Professor Ashutosh Varshney in The Indian Express, "One could suggest that the election verdict was about the electorate's comparative assessment of Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi as leaders, and people chose Modi over Rahul."

Senior Fellow Richard Arenberg joined Skullduggery's Buried Treasure podcast to discuss the Iran-Contra affair and the differences in how Congress operated back then compared to the current presidential administration today.

Senior Fellow Stephen Kinzer in The Boston Globe, "It has little to do with Iran's behavior, which is no more provocative today than it was a year or a decade ago. Instead it is the product of fevered tempers in Washington."

On Thursday, May 23, as thousands of Brown University alumni and family members began to descend on College Hill to celebrate Commencement and Reunion Weekend, University leaders and community members gathered to dedicate Stephen Robert '62 P'91 Hall, among the newest additions to Brown's campus.

Emily Oster in The New York Times, "The differences we see by demographic groups in the United States — the inequality of outcomes for children from poor and rich backgrounds — are driven by a combination of vast differences in experiences."

Economist Emily Oster in The Atlantic, "Put simply, mothers and fathers ought to come clean about the nature of their lives. We can't fix problems that we pretend don't exist; we can't improve the lot of parents at work if we pretend we aren't parents."

Anthropologist Sarah Besky comments on the wages and management of tea gardens, explaining "that ideally the houses required to be built and maintained by the plantation management - something that rarely, if ever, happens. Whether it is painting the house, or just growing vegetables outside, it is done by the families and 'almost always by the women.'"

Economist John Friedman comments on the SAT test's new adversity rating, saying "For each extra year you spend in a good environment, you do a little better. It's very powerful when somebody overcomes that."

Professor Ashutosh Varshney comments on the upcoming results of India's election, stating "Modi is doing what these other leaders are doing — he's projecting resolve, masculinity, determination, daring and courage."

Senior Fellow Chas Freeman comments on the rising tensions between the United States and Iran, saying a conflict "is unlikely to be launched by President Trump, despite his habit of posturing as a tough guy."

Professor Ashutosh Varshney in The Indian Express, "Instead, one can speak of two sub-waves, one among the upper castes, and another sweeping through the Dalit-Muslim-Yadav communities."

Senior Fellow Chas Freeman joined Stanford University's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center's podcast to discuss the ongoig U.S.-China trade negotiations.

Research by the Costs of War Project is cited in an article on former national security adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster's thought that war in Afghanistan can be sustained, but the American public's defeatist narrative is inaccurate. "As of August 2016, more than 31,000 civilians are estimated to have died violent deaths as a result of the war, according to the Watson Institute's Cost of War project."

Senior Fellow Stephen Kinzer in The Boston Globe, "Nicaraguans are reliving a nightmare. Forty years ago, they deposed the brutal Somoza family dictatorship. But over the decade of Sandinista rule following the coup, tens of thousands of Nicaraguans were killed in a brutal civil war."

Senior Fellow Richard Arenberg comments on the struggle among the Democrats to begin impeachment proceedings against President Trump, saying "Throughout the current scandal, the president has been free to assert his own facts in the absence of virtually any public testimony."

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Sociologist Michael Kennedy joined WPRI's Dan Yorke State of Mind to discuss Attorney General William Barr's testimony and the Mueller Report.

James N. Green, director of the Brazil Initiative, comments on Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro's proposed defunding to federal university budgets, saying "These are excellent universities, some of the top universities; they also have people within them who have organized events criticizing Bolsonaro."

Senior Fellow Deborah Gordon comments on the future of petroleum refining, saying "Although the future energy supply mix is not expected to resemble the past, we are still going to need sulfur for many chemical products, asphalt and jet fuel, which are not easily replaced by non-fossil-fuel alternatives."

Senior Fellow Richard Arenberg in The Washington Post, "We often think of a filibuster as one legislator rambling along, alone on the Senate floor, in symbolic defiance of the majority."

Professor Ashutosh Varshney comments on young people's willingness to vote for Narendra Modi in India's election. "In 2014, Modi undoubtedly represented hope...In 2019, Modi represents a mixture of fear and hope — fear that the state would punitively hurt and repress those who dissent and disagree, and hope for those who still think he can take India higher."

Assistant Professor Robert Blair in The Washington Post, " Beyond the lives lost and livelihoods destroyed, the Liberian civil wars shattered the already-strained relationship between citizens and the Liberian government, especially the police and courts."

Senior Fellow Stephen Kinzer in The Boston Globe, " If the US shares guilt for the Rwandan genocide, it lies not in our refusal to invade. It is to be found in the way ambition and politics came to obscure humanity, both in Washington and at the United Nations."

Economist John Friedman comments on how the recent college admissions scandal highlights the advantages some wealthy families have in the college admissions process. "The American Dream has been distressingly out of reach for a lot of people...The disparities in access are really quite striking."

Professor Cathy Lutz comments on the number of security contractors that the U.S. military employs in Afghanistan, saying "The main problem with contractors of all sorts is there's just not enough attention to what they're doing. That's not been reported out in a clear way to anybody's satisfaction for all these years."

Richard Arenberg comments on President Trump's vow to fight all congressional subpoenas following the Mueller Report, saying "I believe the Congress has the Constitution on their side, and in the end, they will prevail. But Trump may be able to just wait out the clock."

Senior Fellow Richard Boucher comments on U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's "ethos" statement he made in hopes of boosting morale. "Nothing speaks like leading with diplomacy and if we are going to start doing that then we don't really need ... (a new) statement."

Senior Fellow Timothy Edgar joins Llewellyn King and Linda Gasparello of PBS' White House Chronicle to discuss privacy in the era of megadata.

Jeff Colgan joined BBC's Business Daily to discuss "why he thinks sectors like insurance, property and oil and gas are overpriced given the threat of climate change."

Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard from Hawaii, a candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, spoke on her foreign policy and the possibility of nuclear war at the Watson Institute on April 22.