Future of Diplomacy Project

Join Douglas Alexander, former UK Shadow Foreign Minister and current advisor to Bono, for a discussion about how to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals at a time when  US administration has signaled an intent to withdraw financing and political backing from the UN and other international organizations. 

Please sign up here. 

Congressman Seth Moulton, Representative of the Sixth District of Massachusetts, will join the Future of of Diplomacy Project to speak about Congressional efforts to craft an effective national policy that addresses interlocking security issues. The seminar will be moderated by Nicholas Burns, Goodman Family Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics. 

Breakfast will be available.

Future of Diplomacy Project Senior Fellow and former U.S. Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs, Paula Dobriansky, looks at critical challenges for the Trump administration, including its relationship with European and Asian allies as it attempts to mitigate global risk factors. Cathryn Cluver, Executive Director of the Future of Diplomacy Project, moderates. 

Paul Jones, US Ambassador to Poland, will join Future of Diplomacy Project Faculty director Nicholas Burns to speak about the current situation in Poland, touching upon the nation's relationships to regional actors, the European Union, the NATO alliance, and of course the United States. He will also discuss the domestic political situation in Poland, which has been under close scrutiny from the international community since the far-right Law and Justice party gained a parliamentary majority in 2015. 

Ambassador João Vale de Almeida will discuss EU and UN priorities in this context, articulating the EU’s vision for global engagement and identifying opportunities for the implementation of the 2016 EU Global Strategy for Foreign and Security Policy in a conversation moderated by Cathryn Cluver, Executive Director of the Future of Diplomacy Project.

With centrifugal forces challenging the cohesion of the European Union, including the rise of populist parties across the continent from Poland to Spain, Britain's inevitable exit from the Union, a migrant crisis and the aftershock of the Eurozone crisis, many believe it falls to Germany to stabilize a continent in upheaval. More so, after increasingly isolationist policy proclamations by the Trump administration, many are looking to Germany to uphold a global order anchored in the strength of vibrant, multilateral institutions. Meanwhile, Germany faces a decisive year in domestic politics, with a national election in September which could see the end of a grand coalition government with Chancellor Merkel at the helm. What might this confluence of events mean for geopolitics? For Germany's role in Europe? We will address these questions with the Chairman of the Munich Security Conference and former German Ambassador to the United States, Wolfgang Ischinger.

Experts Gregory Maniatis, Jytte Klausen and Adam Hunter will endeavor to cut through the charged public discourse around these topics by offering a practitioner’s perspective on immigration and security policy on both sides of the Atlantic. Future of Diplomacy Project Executive Director Cathryn Cluver moderates.

As professed isolationist Donald Trump settles in to the White House and the United Kingdom prepares to trigger Article 50, the European Union has been cast as the 'last defender of the liberal world order.'  However, as core EU states Germany and France prepare for federal elections in 2017, the influence of populist, Eurosceptic parties in these and other nations could impact the cohesion of the European Union as a whole.

German diplomat Boris Ruge and French scholar Muriel Rouyer will discuss transatlantic influences, domestic politics, and EU governance in this context on a panel moderated by FDP Faculty Director Nicholas Burns.

The rise of populist movements across Europe, much like the election of Donald Trump in the United States, has been treated as a sudden and unexpected political development, confounding analysts, scholars and bureaucrats on both sides of the Atlantic. Scholar Yascha Mounk has challenged this view, drawing on empirical evidence that suggests a long-term trend towards ‘democratic deconsolidation’ in Western nations.

In a seminar moderated by Cathryn Cluver, Executive Director of the Future of Diplomacy Project, Dr. Mounk, Lecturer in Political Theory at Harvard, will discuss the implications of this phenomenon and their potential effect on major elections in France, Germany and the Netherlands in 2017.

Breakfast will be served. 

Farah Pandith, Future of Diplomacy Project Senior Fellow and former US Representative to Muslim Communities, will speak and answer questions about the essential role of civil society in shaping a sustainable security environment internationally.

Farah Pandith is a diplomatic entrepreneur and foreign policy strategist. In addition to serving as an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, she is currently a member of Secretary Jeh Johnson’s Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) and chairs its subcommittee on countering violent extremism (CVE). She is also a Commissioner and Strategic Advisor on the Center for Strategic and International Studies CVE Commission. She is writing her first book and driving efforts to counter extremism through new organizations, programs and initiatives, most notably Halcyon, a new innovative global organization she has co-founded dedicated to mobilizing youth against extremist ideologies.

Ms. Pandith has served as a political appointee in the George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Barack H. Obama administrations. Ms. Pandith was appointed the first-ever special representative to Muslim Communities in June 2009 by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, serving under both Secretaries Clinton and John Kerry. The Office of the Special Representative was responsible for engaging with Muslims around the world both organizationally and individually. Reporting directly to the secretary of state, Ms. Pandith traveled to nearly one hundred countries and launched youth-focused initiatives, while also playing a central role in the creation of the Women in Public Service Project. In January 2013, she was awarded the Secretary's Distinguished Honor Award.

Breakfast will be served.