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Below you will find a chronological list of current Council research projects. You can search by issue or region by selecting the appropriate category. In addition to this sorting control, you can search for specific subjects within the alphabetical, regional, and issue categories by choosing from the selections in the drop-down menu below.
Each project page contains the name of the project director, a description of the project, a list of meetings it has held, and any related publications, transcripts, or videos.
November 1, 2008—Present
July 2008—Present
| Director: | Stephen E. Flynn, Ira A. Lipman Senior Fellow for Counterterrorism and National Security Studies |
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May 2008—Present
| Staff: | Kaysie Brown, Deputy Director, International Institutions and Global Governance |
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| Director: | Stewart M. Patrick, Senior Fellow and Director, Program on International Institutions and Global Governance |
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has launched a comprehensive five-year program on international institutions and global governance. Made possible by a generous grant from the Robina Foundation, this cross-cutting initiative will explore the institutional requirements for world order in the twenty-first century. It is motivated by recognition that the architecture of global governance--largely reflecting the world as it existed in 1945--has not kept pace with fundamental changes in the international system. These changes include accelerating global economic integration; a shift in global power to non-Western countries; the rise of transnational security threats; the emergence of agile non-state actors; a proliferation of failing states; and evolving norms of state sovereignty. Existing multilateral arrangements thus provide an inadequate foundation for addressing today’s most pressing threats and opportunities and for advancing U.S. national and broader global interests.
The program seeks to identify critical weaknesses in current frameworks for multilateral cooperation; propose specific reforms reflective of new global circumstances; and promote constructive U.S. leadership in building the capacities of existing organizations and in sponsoring new, more effective regional and global institutions and partnerships, including those involving the private sector and non-governmental organizations.
The program will focus on arrangements governing state conduct and international cooperation in meeting four broad sets of challenges:
In each of these areas, the program will consider whether the most promising framework for governance is a formal organization with universal membership (e.g., the United Nations); a regional or sub-regional organization; a narrower, informal coalition of like-minded countries; or some combination of all three. The program will also examine the potential to adapt major bedrock institutions (e.g., the UN, G8, NATO, IMF, and AU), as well as the feasibility of creating new frameworks and initiatives to meet today's challenges.
The participation, input and endorsement of both official and non-state actors will be critical to ensure the appropriateness and feasibility of any institutional reforms. Throughout the course of the project, CFR will engage stakeholders and constituencies in the United States and abroad, including governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), civil society representatives, and the private sector.
The attached concept note summarizes the rationale for the program on global governance, describes potential areas of research and policy engagement, and outlines the envisioned products and activities. We believe that the research and policy agenda outlined here constitutes a significant contribution to U.S. and international deliberations on the requirements for world order in the twenty-first century.
July 2008—Present
| Directors: | William L. Nash, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Military Affairs and Director of the Military Fellows Program Colonel John S. Clark Jr., USAF, Military Fellow, U.S. Air Force Captain Brian T. Donegan, USN, Military Fellow, U.S. Navy Colonel John C. Kennedy, USMC, Military Fellow, U.S. Marine Corps Colonel Kevin C. Owens, USA, Military Fellow, U.S. Army |
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The Military Affairs Roundtable Series provides a forum for experts from both the public and private sector to engage senior officers from the U.S. Armed Forces in discussions on timely and important defense and national security issues.
March 25, 2008—New York, NY
| Directors: | Walter Russell Mead, Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy Timothy Samuel Shah, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Religion and Foreign Policy |
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This symposium addressed how different forms of Christianity and Islam may have helped (and sometimes hindered) the development of free and open societies – not just in the narrow sense of democratic government but in the broader sense of openness to progress, innovation, an entrepreneurial spirit in economics, and a competitive marketplace of ideas. Directed by Walter Russell Mead and Timothy Shah, this symposium explored how both Christianity and Islam may foster freedom-friendly dynamism, but also considered powerful arguments that religion is essentially antithetical to freedom and the open society.
This is the third symposium in the Religion and Foreign Policy Symposia Series made possible by the generous support of the Henry Luce Foundation.
June 11, 2008—New York, NY
| Directors: | Walter Russell Mead, Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy Timothy Samuel Shah, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Religion and Foreign Policy |
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This symposium, directed by Walter Russell Mead and Timothy Shah, explored how China’s various major religious traditions (village-based folk religion, Buddhism, neo-Confucianism, Roman Catholicism, evangelical Protestantism, Islam, and new religious groups such as the Falun Gong) are contributing to its economic, social, and political development – and stirring up controversy. It also addressed the ways in which religion is playing a stabilizing and destabilizing role in China at the moment, how Chinese government policy towards religion may be changing, and what the long-term consequences are likely to be for country’s social, economic, and political future.
This event was the fourth in the Religion and Foreign Policy Symposium Series at CFR and was funded through the generous support of the Henry Luce Foundation.
December 2008—Present
| Director: | Princeton N. Lyman, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies |
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February 2008—Present
| Director: | Sheila A. Smith, Senior Fellow for Japan Studies |
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November 2008—Present
| Director: | Steven Simon, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies |
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October 2008—Present
| Director: | Peter Beinart |
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October 2008—Present
| Director: | Matthew C. Waxman, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Law and Foreign Policy |
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Taking place in New York during the 2008-2009 programming year, this series serves as a venue for policymakers, scholars, legal professionals, and journalists to exchange ideas and reach conclusions on issues at the intersection of law and United States foreign policy. Particular attention is given to matters of international legal policy involving the rule of law.
September 2008—Present
| Director: | Sheila A. Smith, Senior Fellow for Japan Studies |
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November 2008—Present
| Directors: | Martin N. Baily, Brookings Institution Andrew B. Bernard, Dartmouth College John Y. Campbell, Harvard University John H. Cochrane, University of Chicago Douglas W. Diamond, University of Chicago Darrell Duffie, Stanford University Kenneth R. French, Dartmouth College Anil K Kashyap, University of Chicago Frederic Mishkin, Columbia University Raghuram G. Rajan, University of Chicago David S. Scharfstein, Harvard University Robert J. Shiller, Yale University Hyun Song Shin, Princeton University Matthew J. Slaughter, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Business and Globalization René M. Stulz, Ohio State University |
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The Squam Lake Working Group on Financial Regulation is a nonpartisan, nonaffiliated group of fifteen academics who have come together to offer guidance on the reform of financial regulation.
The group first convened in fall 2008, amid the deepening capital markets crisis. Although informed by this crisis—its events and the ongoing policy responses—the group is intentionally focused on longer-term issues. It aspires to help guide reform of capital markets—their structure, function, and regulation. This guidance is based on the group’s collective academic, private sector, and public policy experience.
To achieve its goal, the group is developing a set of principles (along with their implications) that are aimed at different parts of the financial system: at individual firms, at financial firms collectively, and at the linkages that connect financial firms to the broader economy.
October 2008—Present
| Staff: | Scott G. Borgerson, Visiting Fellow for Ocean Governance |
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April 23, 2008—Present
| Director: | James M. Goldgeier, Whitney Shepardson Senior Fellow for Transatlantic Relations |
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This symposium was made possible by the generosity of the European Commission and the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
December 1, 2008—New York, NY
| Director: | Sheila A. Smith, Senior Fellow for Japan Studies |
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This symposium was cosponsored by Council on Foreign Relations and the Asahi-Shimbun.
Widely acclaimed as the most respected and credible source of news in Japan and the Asia-Pacific region, the Asahi Shimbun is one of Japan’s oldest and largest national newspapers, with a daily circulation of over eight million. Based in Tokyo, its overseas network includes five general bureaus covering America from Washington DC, Europe from London, the Middle East from Cairo, Asia from Bangkok, and China from Beijing, with an additional bureau newly opened in Havana, Cuba, in 2007. It has a presence in about 30 locations worldwide with 53 correspondents. The company also broadcasts nationwide in Japan via TV Asahi and has a news website, Asahi.com.
This event has also been made possible by the generosity of the following corporate sponsors of CFR's Japan program: Canon USA, Mitsui & Company, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries America, Mitsubishi International Corporation, Sony Corporation of America, and Toyota Motor North America.
Symposium Summary Report (PDF, 148K)
September 2008—Present
| Director: | Stewart M. Patrick, Senior Fellow and Director, Program on International Institutions and Global Governance |
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The United States and the Future of Global Governance roundtable series will focus on core global governance challenges and proposals for fundamental institutional reform. Topics will include overhaul of the UN Security Council; the reform and expansion of the G8; prospects for a global counterterrorism organization; the adaptation of U.S. sovereignty to a global age; the trade-offs between formal institutions and ad hoc coalitions; and the domestic and legislative preconditions for sustained U.S. multilateral engagement. This roundtable series is sponsored by CFR’s Program on International Institutions and Global Governance and is supported by a generous grant from the Robina Foundation.
December 2008—Present
| Director: | Davis R. Robinson, Adjunct Senior Fellow |
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Taking place primarily in Washington, DC, during the 2008-2009 programming year, this series examines the international law ramifications of the use of force and attendant foreign policy concerns.
June 2008—Present
| Staff: | Shannon K. O'Neil, Douglas Dillon Fellow for Latin America Studies |
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| Director: | Julia E. Sweig, Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies and Director for Latin America Studies |
The Western Hemisphere Transnational Roundtable Series investigates the economic, social, and human ties between Western Hemisphere nations that are rapidly developing and deepening. It explores the important ways that citizens, families, civil society organizations, and the private sector shape transnational connections and interactions, while analyzing the so far limited governmental policies that encourage, constrain, or attempt to guide U.S. bound migration. This roundtable series was launched in June 2008. This roundtable series is made possible by the generous support of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Ford Foundation.
October 1, 2007—Present
| Director: | James M. Goldgeier, Whitney Shepardson Senior Fellow for Transatlantic Relations |
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The goal of the America, Europe, and the World roundtable series is to examine how America and Europe can move forward with a constructive transatlantic agenda for managing problems that arise outside of North America and Europe.
Explore the international finance regime with a new interactive from CFR's program on International Institutions and Global Governance.
Identifying international threats and acting on them may be the most difficult job for U.S. policymakers. This report
provides an actionable road map for managing international threats before they erupt into crises and makes a strong case that preventive action is not a luxury but a necessity.
For more than a decade, the United States has mostly watched from the sidelines as Asian countries organize themselves into an alphabet soup of new multilateral groups. In this report, the authors review the relationship between pan-Asian and trans-Pacific institutions and suggest policy guidelines for a new U.S. approach to this new Asian landscape.
Complete list of Council Special Reports
Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.
In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
Complete list of CFR Books
For more information on the David Rockefeller Studies Program, contact:
James M. Lindsay
Senior Vice President, Director of Studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg Chair
+1.212.434.9626 (NY); +1.202.509.8405 (DC)
jlindsay@cfr.org
Janine Hill
Deputy Director of Studies Administration
+1.212.434.9753
jhill@cfr.org
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