Articles

126 Items

U.S. Army Soldiers share tactics and training with Nigerian Army Soldiers, Nigeria, February 8, 2018.

Capt. James Sheehan, U.S. Army

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

The Cult of the Persuasive: Why U.S. Security Assistance Fails

    Author:
  • Rachel Tecott Metz
| Winter 2022/23

Why does the U.S. Army rely on persuasion to influence military partners to improve their forces despite repeated failures that undermine U.S. foreign policy goals? The army prioritizes its role as a fighting force, not an advisory group. U.S. leaders have developed an ideology—the cult of the persuasive—to advance army bureaucratic interests.

A supporter of Nigeria Labour Party's, Presidential Candidate, Peter Obi, during a rally in Lagos Nigeria

AP/Sunday Alamba

Newspaper Article - Harvard Crimson

Belfer Center Fellow Discusses Nigerian Election Violence at HKS Seminar

    Authors:
  • Jina H. Choe
  • Erika K. Chung
  • Emma H. Haidar
| Nov. 14, 2022

International Security Program Fellow Megan M. Turnbull, an international affairs professor at the University of Georgia, discussed the conditions leading to election violence in Nigeria during a virtual seminar hosted by the International Security Program on November 10, 2022.

A Carmelite convent on fire in Madrid, Spain during riots.

AP Photo

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Decline and Disintegration: National Status Loss and Domestic Conflict in Post-Disaster Spain

    Author:
  • Steven Ward
| Spring 2022

A state’s declining international status activates two sets of social psychological dynamics that contribute to domestic conflict, alienating some groups and intensifying others’ nationalism. These dynamics can contribute to center-periphery conflict in multinational states after acute status loss.

Solar plant in Uttar Pradesh

Citizenmj/Wikimedia

Journal Article - Energy Policy

Trade-Offs and Synergies in Power Sector Policy Mixes: The Case of Uttar Pradesh, India

| May 2022

How can electricity sector policymakers in developing countries ensure financial viability of utilities while also extending electricity access and minimizing the environmental impact of electricity supply? This study uses a mixed-method approach to analyze synergies and trade-offs between policies for financial reform of utilities, extending electricity access, and solar PV deployment in the case of Uttar Pradesh in India.

Black Americans register to vote in the July 4 Georgia Democratic Primary in Atlanta, Ga., on May 3, 1944. Registrations are increasing in Atlanta as black schools are giving instructions to students in ballot casting procedure.

AP Photo

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

White Supremacy, Terrorism, and the Failure of Reconstruction in the United States

| Summer 2021

White Southerners opposed to Reconstruction used violence to undermine Black political power and force uncommitted white Southerners to their side. Although structural factors made it harder for the U.S. government to suppress this violence, a series of policy failures prompted Reconstruction’s failure and generations of injustice.

solar power plant

Wikimedia CC/Thomas Lloyd Group

Journal Article - Energy Research & Social Science

Lessons for Renewable Integration in Developing Countries: The Importance of Cost Recovery and Distributional Justice

| July 2021

This article examines both the premise and prescription of the argument to integrate renewable electricity in developing countries through elements of the standard model (such as a wholesale spot market, or an independent system operator for dispatch). This is done by highlighting the differences between power sector reform experiences in the developing and developed worlds, and the causal mechanisms underlying these differences.

In this photo taken on Wednesday, March 28, 2018, members of the Kurdish internal security forces stand on their vehicle in front of a giant poster showing portraits of fighters killed fighting against the Islamic State group, in Manbij, north Syria. Manbij, a mixed Arab and Kurdish town of nearly 400,000, was liberated from Islamic State militants in 2016 by the YPG fighters with backing from U.S-led coalition airstrikes. With Turkey's threats, the town has become the axle for U.S. policy in Syria, threate

(AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Journal Article - Quarterly Journal: International Security

The Political Power of Proxies: Why Nonstate Actors Use Local Surrogates

| Spring 2020

Unlike state sponsors, which value proxies primarily for their military utility, nonstate sponsors use proxies mainly for their perceived political value. An analysis of three case studies—al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the People’s Protection Units in Syria, and Hezbollah in Lebanon—illustrates this argument.

The Minister of State (I/C) for Power and New and Renewable Energy, Shri Raj Kumar Singh

Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (GODL-India)

Journal Article - World Development

Urban Waste to Energy Recovery Assessment Simulations for Developing Countries

In this paper, a quantitative Waste to Energy Recovery Assessment (WERA) framework is used to stochastically analyze the feasibility of waste-to-energy systems in selected cities in Asia.

Workers shovel waste from a wheat farm into a prototype for a biomass machine

AP/Andy Wong

Journal Article - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Gasification of Coal and Biomass: A Net Carbon-Negative Power Source for Environment-Friendly Electricity Generation in China

    Authors:
  • Xi Lu
  • Liang Cao
  • Haikun Wang
  • Jia Xing
  • Shuxiao Wang
  • Siyi Cai
  • Bo Shen
  • Qing Yang
  • Chris P. Nielsen
  • Michael B. McElroy
| 2019

Deploying coal-bioenergy gasification systems with carbon capture and storage (CBECCS) provides a promising opportunity for China to realize its carbon mitigation and air pollution abatement goals simultaneously. The authors conducted a comprehensive assessment of CBECCS technology for China, with a focus on plant and fuel configurations (e.g., biomass ratios) and economics, as well as CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions and cobenefits for air quality.

A funeral ceremony in Kobani, Syria

Wikicommons

Journal Article - E-International Relations (E-IR)

Societal (In)Security in the Middle East: Radicalism as a Reaction?

| Apr. 24, 2019

Societal insecurity, stemming from historical and functional realities has emboldened the identity-based gap of states vs. societies in the Arab region. The division of the Ottoman Empire into new states without much attention to identity lines, created a historical identity challenge in those states. On the other hand, Arab ruling elites’ efforts to enforce state-centred identities failed to prevent the challenge of conflicting identities. Later on, their functional inefficiencies emboldened the identity dichotomy.

As a result of threats perceived by Arab societies against their collective identity as well as separate challenges facing each state, the state-society gap continues to challenge state identities. Collectively perceived threats create and strengthen collective frameworks intended to address those threats. And among other frameworks come radical and terrorist organisations.