Other News
Dr Gabriel Siles-Brügge awarded Parliamentary Academic Fellowships
Two University of Warwick researchers have been awarded Parliamentary Academic Fellowships, as part of a new scheme that offers academics the opportunity to work on projects in the House of Commons and House of Lords.
Dr Gabriel Siles-Brügge of PAIS is supporting and advising the House of Commons International Trade Committee in its remit to scrutinise the work of the Department for International Trade, including the implementation of new trade agreements post-Brexit. This involves advising the Committee on effective lines of inquiry, producing briefings and reviewing evidence received in inquiries.
Dr Thijs Van Rens, of Economics, is working with the House of Commons Health Committee to scrutinise the Government’s Childhood Obesity Plan. This includes examining how effectively it has been implemented to date, and reviewing the evidence base on options to address childhood obesity that were not included in the original strategy.
The Parliamentary Academic Fellowship Scheme is organised by the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology in collaboration with ESRC and EPSRC Impact Acceleration Accounts (IAAs). Six Fellowships linked to IAAs were awarded in total to academics from UK universities.
As well as enabling researchers to work on policy-relevant projects within Parliament, the scheme provides the opportunity to learn how research feeds into the policy-making process and to develop lasting connections with decision-makers.
Dr Siles-Brügge’s and Dr Van Rens’ Fellowships are supported by the University of Warwick ESRC IAA.
Multiple BISA awards won by PAIS colleagues
PAIS is delighted to congratulate Drs Erzsebet Strausz and Jakub Eberle for their recent successes in winning British International Studies Association (BISA) Awards. Founded in 1975, BISA is a learned society which develops and promotes the study of International Studies, Global Politics and related subjects through teaching, research and the facilitation of contact between scholars. We are thrilled to announce Erzsebet's achievement in winning the BISA 'Excellence in Teaching International Studies' Prize for 2017, and Jakub's success in being awarded the Michael Nicholson Prize for best doctoral thesis.
Jakub, a Doctoral Researcher in PAIS, has been awarded the Michael Nicholson Prize for the best doctoral thesis in International Studies, for his thesis: 'Logics of Foreign Policy: Germany and International Interventions'. The judges remarked upon intense competition between excellent PhD theses for the award, but ultimately Jakub emerged as the winner given the strength of his psychoanalytical interrogation of German foreign policy logic and for how his thesis draws out the implications of the study for wider questions of foreign policy. Congratulations to Jakub, and to his supervisors Dr Chris Browning and Professor Stuart Croft.
We are also thrilled to celebrate the achievement of Dr Erzsebet Strausz, an Assistant Professor in PAIS, who has been awarded the 'Excellence in Teaching International Studies' Prize of 2017. The judging committee were unanimous in their verdict that Erzsebet should be awarded the title, remarking upon the incredible strength and depth of her pedagogical statement, as well as the extremely evident positive impact Erzsebet has upon her students during her teaching practice. Congratulations Erzsebet!
Call for Papers for an Academic Workshop: “Diasporas and Challenges to Statehood in the Middle East and North Africa”
This workshop is organized as part of a larger conference "Diasporas and Contested Sovereignty: Lessons Learned about Transnational Diaspora Mobilizations in Europe” on 28-29 September, 2017 at Warwick University, and is sponsored by the European Research Council.
The workshop seeks to consolidate scholarly discussions about the role of diasporas linked to the Middle East and North Africa from the Global North and South, and to move on from initial consideration of diasporas as simply conflict or peace actors. It will look into broader conflict and postconflict dynamics, where a variety of domestic and international actors influence political processes, and endorse or challenge weak states, their governance or international recognition. When do diasporas mobilize with their loyalties towards sectarian or nationalist factions, and when do they do so on the basis of citizenship and cosmopolitan ideas? When and how do they seek transitional justice for past atrocities and what is the role of trauma for their mobilizations? How do original home-states in the Middle East and North Africa and non-state actors operating on their territories reach out to diasporas abroad? When do diasporas sympathize with their causes or when do they oppose them? How do contexts of host-states and spaces within and beyond them, as well as liberal and non-liberal regimes shape diaspora mobilizations?
If you are interested to participate, please send a paper abstract of max. 300 words by 10 July, 2017 to Dr. Maria Koinova, PI of the ERC project “Diasporas and Contested Sovereignty” at m.koinova@warwick.ac.uk.
PAIS PhD Candidate Writes Blog on the Hypermasculinity of the ‘Businessperson as Leader’ Rhetoric
PAIS PhD Candidate, Columba Achilleos-Sarll, has written a blog for UCL titled Deal or No Deal? The Hypermasculinity of the ‘Businessperson as Leader’ Rhetoric.
Theresa May and other ministers have repeatedly claimed that no deal is better than a bad deal. Columba Achilleos-Sarll argues that the discourse of both the referendum campaign and subsequent Brexit debates have been hypermasculine in nature. She points out that this has a number of undesirable consequences, such as reinforcing gendered stereotypes about successful political leadership and foreign policy.
You can read the whole piece on the UCL Brexit Blog.
CSGR Advises the IMF on Social Safeguards
Over the past 12 months the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation (CSGR) at the University of Warwick together with four civil society organizations has engaged in a dialogue with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as part of an External Advisory Panel on social safeguards in IMF loan programmes to protect spending in low income countries on poor and vulnerable groups. Together with representatives from the New Rules for Global Finance Coalition, Development Finance International, the Bretton Woods Project, and Civil Society for Poverty Reduction Zambia, CSGR director Dr André Broome has participated in an advisory process on the conceptual scope and design of a new IMF policy paper on the use of social safeguards in loan programmes led by the IMF’s Strategy, Policy, and Review Department.
The policy paper, which was discussed and approved by the IMF’s Executive Board on May 26, was published online in English on June 6, and French and Arabic versions of the Executive Summary will be available soon. The report aims to improve best practices associated with the use of social safeguards to protect spending for poor and vulnerable groups within PRGT and PSI-supported IMF loan programmes, and identifies a number of areas where IMF policies and future practices might be improved, including recommendations to increase efforts to strengthen social safety nets in low income countries.
IMF Policy Paper: Social Safeguards and Program Design in PRGT and PSI-Supported Programs. Available at: http://www.imf.org/en/Publications/Policy-Papers/Issues/2017/06/01/pp042117social-safeguards-and-program-design-in-prgt-and-psi