Events

Join the Intelligence Project for a seminar with John J. Sullivan, former Deputy Secretary of State and Acting Secretary of State, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Russia from 2020-2022. Ambassador Sullivan will provide his perspective from his time in Moscow and share details of his forthcoming book, Midnight in Moscow: A Memoir from the Front Lines of Russia's War Against the West, which will be released in August 2024. In it, Ambassador Sullivan explores his time in Russia, including providing warnings in the lead up to the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and then supporting US policy as the war unfolded. He argues that Russia and the United States are effectively at war, and explores options for the US to stand up to the challenge posed by Russia. This seminar will be moderated by the Intelligence Project and will be in person only, open to the first 50 registrants with a Harvard ID. Light refreshments will be served.

Speakers: Michal Ben-Josef Hirsch, Research Fellow, International Security Program; Jennifer M. Dixon, Associate Professor of Political Science, Villanova University

When does a principled idea become an international norm? And how do international norms change and develop over time and space? Over the past three decades, international norms scholarship has made great advances in our understanding of the nature, causes, and effects of the international normative environment. And yet, it also features a high degree of conceptual idiosyncrasy and lacks a shared conceptual framework for studying norm development. These shortcomings have hampered the accumulation of knowledge in the study of norms and stymied the ability to provide much-needed empirical assessments and methodological tools to assess the origins, trajectory, and current status of international norms. This seminar — which is based on a book manuscript in progress — introduces a conceptual model of norm development and uses a mixed-methods analysis of the development over time of five core international human rights norms: the prescriptive norms of legal accountability; truth-seeking; and reparations and the prohibitive norms against genocide and torture. Combined, the study of these five norms seeks to assess the development and status of the international human rights regime from 1945 to the present.

Open to Harvard ID Holders Only: Admittance will be on a first come–first served basis. Coffee &Tea Provided.

Speaker: Valbona Zeneli, Visiting Scholar, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University 

Prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Chinese enjoyed unfettered access to Europe's economic, research, and academic domains. Chinese President Xi Jinping's friendship pact with Russian President Vladimir Putin resulted in negative reverberations throughout European capitals and raised concerns about China's strategic ambitions and their impact on Europe. The presentation will examine the change in Europe's assessment of Chinese ambitions since the initiation of the war in Ukraine and likely impact on Chinese engagement activities going forward, including the need for a stronger transatlantic coordination.

Open to Harvard ID Holders Only: Admittance will be on a first come–first served basis. Coffee &Tea Provided.