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Since its founding in 1925, the Institute of Current World Affairs has provided more than 150 young men and women with long-term fellowships in countries throughout the world. They have immersed themselves in foreign cultures, mastered languages, and gained deep national and regional understanding, while pursuing study programs of their own design for at least two years.

Fellows have built on the experience and knowledge gained during their fellowships to take leading roles in a host of professions, in the United States and elsewhere. They have been social activists and business leaders, teachers, journalists, archeologists, composers, physicians, economists, foresters, city planners, and novelists.

Our fellowship program continues to thrive, just as the need for deep understanding of foreign cultures and political systems grows ever more obvious. This website provides information about our purpose, history, fellowship opportunities, application procedures and more.

Donate NowThe Institute of Current World Affairs is a 501(c)(3) exempt operating foundation, supported by contributions from individuals and foundations. [about us]

ICWA Community News
Foundation, Former and Current Fellows_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


JUNE 2011 FELLOWSHIP AWARD

image The ICWA Board of Trustees have selected Shannon Sims for a two year Forest and Society Fellowship in Brazil. A 2011 graduate of The University of Texas School of Law, Shannon has a passion for photography, travel and the environment. She earned a B.A. in International Relations with a concentration in Politics from Pomona College in 2005. She also completed coursework at Cattolica University in Milan, Italy; İstanbul Bilgi University in Istanbul, Turkey; and University of the Aegean in Mytiline, Greece. Following the BP Oil Spill in April 2010, she was nominated for an environmental law internship with the United States Coast Guard District 8 Legal Division in New Orleans, where she helped draft unique legal regulations defining the role of the Coast Guard during a drilling moratorium. In 2009, through the Rapoport Fellowship from the Rapoport Center for International Human Rights and Justice at the University of Texas School of Law, Shannon completed a legal clerkship with the Attorney General's Office of the Ministry of the Environment of Brazil (IBAMA). She researched concessions management in environmentally protected areas along the coast, and documented small Brazilian fishing communities. As an ICWA Forest and Society Fellow in Brazil, Shannon will later this year begin researching and writing about stakeholder involvement in the governance of the South Atlantic Coastal Forest, the Mata Atlantica—a vast and important, yet heavily degraded, forest belt running along Brazil’s eastern seaboard.

ARTICLES

On the Trail of an Intercontinental Killer

By Nicholas Schmidle

The New York Times Magazine • January 5, 2012

image A little after 9 a.m. on Sept. 15, 1990, the owner of a steel-products company pulled up to her office in Vinegar Hill, near the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and spotted a black garbage bag sitting on the sidewalk out front. She parked her car and went to...

www.nytimes.com



Invest in America Before It's Too Late

By Pooja Bhatia

The Daily Beast • October 3, 2011

image Spending four years in Haiti, where the government is too poor to provide even basic services, made me realize that the United States is moving in the same direction. It’s time to start propping up our government—instead of destroying it.

www.thedaileybeast.com


Haiti's Army
Back to the furture

By Pooja Bhatia

The Economist • September 30, 2011

"WHAT awful memories! What corpses!... What dramas, often bloody, whe have known!" So ruminated Le Novelliste, a newspaper in Haiti, over a government plan unveiled this week to restore the Haitian Army...

www.economist.com


Drug addiction surges in Dominican Republic

By Ezra Fieser

The Global Post • August 22, 2011

image Dominican drug rehab centers are struggling to keep up with a rise in crack and cocaine addiction, a consequence of the country's decades-long role as a transshipment point in the international drug trade...

www.globalpost.com


Life on the Line

By Andrew Rice

The New York Times Sunday Magazine • July 28, 2011

image El Paso and Ciudad Juárez lie together uncomfortably like an estranged couple, surrounded on all sides by mountains and desert. The cities are separated by the thin trickle of the Rio Grande, which flows through concrete channels, built to put an end to the river’s natural habit of changing course and muddying boundaries...

www.nytimes.com/2011/07/31/magazine/


Overtime in Soccer City

By Eve Fairbanks

New York Times Magazine • July 22, 2011

image On the second Sunday in July, exactly one year after the final game of the 2010 World Cup was played here at Johannesburg’s Soccer...

www.nymag.com


The call—or cull—of the wild

By James G. Workman

PERC • Volume 29, No.2, Summer 2011

image From the moment it leaped out of captivity on January 12, 1995, the wolf has been fruitful and multiplied and replenished the earth. From a dozen Canadian transplants, 1,700 individuals in 250 packs now roam our Rocky Mountain wilds…

www.perc.org


Guatemala: Invasion of Mexico's Drug Cartels

By Ezra Fieser

Tucson Sentinel.com • June 13, 2011

image The scene was shocking even for a country made cold to horror: 27 bodies, hands bound, all but one decapitated, spread around a cattle ranch and a note written in a victim's blood

www.tucsonsentinel.com


The Strongman
Can Turkey’s democracy survive Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan?

By Suzy Hansen

The New Republic • June 9, 2011

The Esenyurt District of Istanbul is classic new Turkey: pastel-colored office buildings with plastic-looking facades, rows of high-rise apartment...

www.tnr.com/article

INTERVIEWS

Wendy Call featured on PRI's The World

image Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks with author Wendy Call about the clash of traditional Mexican culture with economic globalization in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Call’s book “No Word for Welcome: The Mexican Village Faces the Global Economy” talks about the villages and cultures found on the isthmus.  

(See book below)

Nicholas Schmidle - Details Of The Bin Laden Raid, Recounted By The SEALs

image For all the planning that went into the Abbottabad raid that killed Osama bin Laden, there were moments when everything could have gone wrong. Ray Suarez discusses the Navy SEAL operation with journalist Nicholas Schmidle, who uncovered new details about the May raid for an article in the latest issue of The New Yorker. www.pbs.org 

Steve Inskeep talks with Nicholas Schmidle about his upcoming article in The New Yorker on the Osama bin Laden raid. It's a detailed account of the planning for the operation — much of the information has not been previously disclosed — and a play by play of the night the al-Qaida leader was killed. The account is based on the recollections of the Navy SEAL members who participated in the raid. www.npr.org


Dirk Vandewalle Speaks About the Crisis in Libya

image Former ICWA fellow Dirk Vandewalle is Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, and former chair of its Asian and Middle Eastern Studies program. His academic specialty focuses on the political economy of North Africa, and on strategies of political and economic liberalization in the Middle East. He is the author of “Libya Since Independence: Oil and State-building” (Cornell University Press), “A History of Modern Libya” (Cambridge University Press), and editor of two volumes on Libya and North Africa. Dirk has received — among many awards — two Regional Fulbright Research Awards for research in Morocco and Yemen (1997), and the Arab Gulf countries (2005-06) respectively, as well as a Social Science Research Council grant. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the Harvard Institute for International Development and at Harvard’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies. As part of his 2005-2006 Fulbright award, he spent 10 months in the Arab Gulf countries, investigating the politics of economic reform and development in the region. He was an ICWA Fellow in Egypt and North Africa (1986-1989).

www.charlierose.com
www.pbs.org
www.npr.org...Libya-Primer
www.wnyc.org/people/dirk-vandewalle


Andrew Tabler has been prominent commentator on Syria and the Middle East

image An expert on Syria and Lebanon, Andrew is a Next Generation Fellow in the Program on Arab Politics at the Washington Institute, where he focuses on U.S. engagement with Syria. During his ICWA fellowship (2005-2007), he wrote on Syrian, Lebanese and Middle Eastern affairs. He's the cofounder and former editor-in-chief of Syria Today, Syria's first private-sector English-language magazine, and has been a media consultant for Syrian nongovernmental organizations (2003-2004) under the patronage of Syrian first lady Asma al-Asad. His book, In the Lion's Den: An Eyewitness Account of Washington's Battle with Syria, is scheduled for release on September 1st (Lawrence Hill Books). He has most recently appeared as a guest on: Charlie Rose, PBS Newshour, NPR.

Links to appearances and other articles of interest:

Council on Foreign Relations
C-SPAN Washington Journal

Charlie Rose

PBS Newshour
NPR

New York Times, 3/27/11

New York Times, 3/25/11

Wall Street Journal

Early positive review for:
In the Lion's Den: An Eyewitness Account of Washington's Battle With Syria by Andrew Tabler (see Books below), was reviewed in the July 11, 2011 issue of Publishers Weekly (circ 19,068). http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-56976-843-3

AWARDS

Padma Award 2011

image Granville (Red) Austin has been awarded the Padma Shri, one of India's highest civilian honors, in recognition of his work on the Indian constitution. The Padma Awards, announced each year on the eve of the country's Republic Day, are generally awarded to Indian citizens to recognize their distinguished contribution in the areas of Arts, Education, Industry, Literature, Science, Sports, Medicine and Social Service. This year, Red was one of five Americans who received awards for distinguished service in Literature and Education, Journalism, Public Affairs, and Science and Engineering.

Red Austin worked as a journalist-photographer and for the U.S. Information Service, Department of State, Department of Health Education and Welfare, a U.S. Senator and for himself. He was a Fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs (1960-1966) and received fellowships/grants from the Ford Foundation, the Fulbright Program, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, St. Antony’s College, Oxford and the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation. He is a recognized authority on the Indian Constitution and the author of two books: ”The Indian Constitution - Cornerstone of a Nation” and “Working a Democratic Constitution - The Indian Experience”. He is also the author of articles, book reviews and the editorial advisor of Political Pamphlets for the Indian Subcontinent, Parts 1-5.

www.granvilleaustin.com


BOOKS

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IN THE LION'S DEN
An Eyewitness Account of Washington's Battle with Syria

Andrew J. Tabler

Vast, inscrutable, unpredictable, Syria has traditionally been the toughest nut to crack in the Middle East peace process. After 9/11 and Damascus' opposition to the War in Iraq, Washington decided it had had enough, and began a quiet campaign against Asad's regime. There were no Western journalists or academics based in Damascus during this period - except for Andrew Tabler. "In the Lion's Den" tells the unique story of the war no one knew about as seen from the inside. As Tabler negotiates his way through the labyrinth of Syrian politics, where nothing is at it seems, and no-one says what they mean, we learn how the country works, and how the signature events in Washington's attempts to create a 'New Middle East' - sanctions, meetings with opposition groups, support for Israel's 2006 bombing campaign in Lebanon - played out in the corridors of power in Damascus. Part expose, part vivid narrative account of one man's encounter with one of the most baffling political systems in the world, "In the Lion's Den" is an essential introduction to modern Syria and a warning for international policymakers now trying to engage with the state of the hidden depths that lie beneath its sun-scorched surface.

Lawrence Hill Books  — September 1st, 2011
ISBN10: 9781848851474
Paperback

www.amazon.com



 

image

Policy Entrepreneurship and Elections in Japan
A Political Biogaphy of Ozawa Ichiro

Takashi Oka

Ozawa Ichiro is one of the most important figures in Japanese politics, having held the positions of Chief Secretary of the Liberal Democrat Party and, after defection from the LDP, President of the Democratic Party of Japan. Ozawa has distinctive ideas that set him apart from the average Japanese politician, he believes in the concept of the independence of the individual, as opposed to the importance of the group, and as a policy entrepreneur he has had a huge impact on political change not only advocating but precipitating institutional change in a key political area – the election system. Using extensive interview data from key players in the political arena, this book examines Ozawa's struggle to normalize alternation in office between two competing political parties – particularly significant given the results of the 2009 election which handed over power to the Democratic Party of Japan – and how he has used his entrepreneurial talents to precipitate and carry out institutional change. Not only a political biography, but also an in-depth analysis of the Japanese political and electoral systems, this book will be of huge interest to anyone interested in Japanese politics and electoral systems.

Routledge - 224 pages  — April 21, 2011
ISBN10: 978-0-415-58752-5R

www.routledge.com

 

image

The Genius of Islam
How Muslims Made the Modern World

Bryn Barnard

Islam is one of the world’s great religions, one of history’s most important civilizations, and one of the foundational cultures of the West. During Islam’s first five hundred years, from the seventh through the twelfth centuries, this new religion created the most innovative and influential civilization on earth, an essential bridge between antiquity and modernity. The Genius of Islam surveys the remarkable contributions Islamic civilization has made to the world - in art, design, calligraphy, architecture, music, engineering, philosophy, astronomy, medicine, agronomy, optics, cartography, paper, and mathematics - how those contributions sparked the European Renaissance and how, until recently, they were mostly forgotten. The Genius of Islam is essential reading for anyone interested in history, the turning of fortune’s wheel, and the march of contemporary events in the Muslim world.

In English by Knopf  — April 5, 2011
ISBN10: 978-0-375-84072-2
Published in Arabic by Dar El Ilm Limalayin, 2012

www.brynbarnard.com
www.amazon.com

 

image

The Rule of Law in Afghanistan: Missing in Inaction

Edited by

Whitney Mason

How, despite the enormous investment of blood and treasure, has the West's ten-year intervention left Afghanistan so lawless and insecure? The answer is more insidious than any conspiracy, for it begins with a profound lack of understanding of the rule of law, the very thing that most dramatically separates Western societies from the benighted ones in which they increasingly intervene. This volume of essays argues that the rule of law is not a set of institutions that can be exported lock, stock and barrel to lawless lands, but a state of affairs under which ordinary people and officials of the state itself feel it makes sense to act within the law. Where such a state of affairs is absent, as in Afghanistan today, brute force, not law, will continue to rule.

Cambridge University Press  — April 30, 2011
ISBN10: 9781107003194

www.amazon.com

 

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No Word for Welcome
The Mexican Village Faces the Global Economy

Wendy L. Call

Wendy Call visited the Isthmus of Tehuantepec—the lush sliver of land connecting the Yucatan Peninsula to the rest of Mexico—for the first time in 1997. She found herself in the midst of a storied land, a place Mexicans call their “little waist,” a place long known for its strong women, spirited marketplaces, and deep sense of independence. She also landed in the middle of a ferocious battle over plans to industrialize the region, where most people still fish, farm, and work in the forests. In the decade that followed her first visit, Call witnessed farmland being paved for new highways, oil spilling into rivers, and forests burning down. Through it all, local people fought to protect their lands and their livelihoods—and their very lives. Call’s story, No Word for Welcome, invites readers into the homes, classrooms, storefronts, and fishing boats of the isthmus, as well as the mahogany-paneled high-rise offices of those striving to control the region. With timely and invaluable insights into the development battle, Call shows that the people who have suffered most from economic globalization have some of the clearest ideas about how we can all survive it.

University of Nebraska Press  — June 2011
ISBN10: 978-0-8032-3510-6

www.nebraskapress.edu
www.wendycall.com

 

More Books


Video Links

 

MEET THE CURRENT FELLOWS

View all ICWA Fellows

  Lewis   Zilber
(click image for bio)

About the Fellowship Program >

 

SPOTLIGHT ON
FORMER FELLOWS


fellow image
Carole Beaulieu

Vietnam (1992-94)

“There was no better place to study the wonders of a free-market economy than communist Vietnam in the early ’90s. My ICWA fellowship profoundly changed the way I looked at the world and at the role businesses play in shaping societies. It made me a better journalist, forced me to challenge every assumption I had about development, about economic and social justice.” – Carol Beaulieu

In June 2010, Carole became publisher of L’actualité, Canada’s leading public-affairs magazine published in French by Rogers Communications, Canada’s largest communication group. Carole has been editor-in-chief of the magazine since 1998 and now assumes the dual role of both publisher and editor-in-chief. A journalist since 1981, Carole is the recipient of a few gold medals from the National Magazine Foundation of Canada, including Best article of the Year. She has won Quebec awards for best writing in French (Prix Jules-Fourneir) and best reporting (Prix Judith-Jasmin) In the past ten years she has regularly earned the title of Editor-of-the-Year, an award given by the Quebec’s Association of Magazine Publishers. She studied journalism at Carleton University, in Ottawa, and began her career at a Montreal weekly before joining the daily Le Devoir. As a daily reporter she covered a variety of fields and was also a parliamentary correspondent in Ottawa in 1988. Carole is a past fellow of the Asian-Pacific Foundation of Canada, Journalists in Europe. She has been a Board member of the Canadian Magazine Publishers Association (CMPA) and has served on the board of the Federation Professsionnelle des Journalistes du Québec (FPJQ). She also served on the Board of the Quebec Press Council during the 1990’s. She is the co-author of Questions of Ethics, a book on ethics in the media. Published in Québec. 01-08-2010

Read Carole's ICWA Newsletters




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Andrew T. Weil

Latin America (1971-75)

“Being a Fellow of ICWA from 1971-75 allowed me to travel the world,experience and study uses of plants and healing practices in traditional cultures, and investigate mind/body interactions. During this period, I developed my philosophy of health and healing that led me to practice and teach integrative medicine. The fellowship was foundational to my life’s work and mission: to transform medicine, medical education, and health care.”

Acclaimed best-selling author and world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine, Dr. Weil has made a tremendous impact on the ways in which people view healing and health, mind/body interactions and the practice of integrative medicine. The recipient of an AB degree in botany from Harvard University and an MD from Harvard Medical School, Dr. Weil has worked for the National Institute of Mental Health and for fifteen years served as a research associate (ethnopharmacology) at the Harvard Botanical Museum. He is the director of the Program in Integrative Medicine and clinical professor of internal medicine at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He is also the founder of the Foundation for Integrative Medicine and editor-in-chief of the professional journal Integrative Medicine. In 1983, Dr. Weil joined the faculty of the University of Arizona College of Medicine as a Clinical Professor, and also taught in the department of Family and Community Medicine. At the same time he maintained a general medical practice in Tucson, focusing on natural and preventive medicine and diagnosis. In the following years, he established the Foundation for Integrative Medicine and served as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Integrative Medicine. In 1994, he founded the Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Today, it is known as the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine, and Dr. Weil serves as its Program Director. The center has trained hundreds of physicians, physician assistants and nurse practitioners in the techniques of integrative medicine. He is the author of a series of best-selling books: Natural Health, Natural Medicine (1995); Spontaneous Healing (1995) and Eight Weeks to Optimum Health (1997), Healthy Kitchen (2002), Healthy Aging (2005), Integrative Oncology (2009) and Why Our Health Matters (2009). As a Fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs, Dr. Weil has traveled extensively throughout the world gathering information about medicinal plants and healing. He has made several expeditions to the Amazon jungle.

Read Dr. Weil's ICWA Newsletters

Web site: www.drweil.com




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Carol V. Rose

Central Asia (1990-93)

“The Institute fellowship taught me that the principles of individual freedom, equality, and liberty that we too often take for granted in the United States are rare and precious, inspiring me to defend these rights in my life’s work both at home and abroad.” – Carol Rose

Carol is the Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. This non-profit organization has 20,000 members in Massachusetts and is dedicated to defending human liberty and realizing the legal protections set forth in the United States Constitution and its Bill of Rights. During her fellowship, she documented the plight of endangered people, including refugees, indigenous societies, and women. Carol subsequently attended Harvard Law School and has focused her professional work on defending human rights, civil rights and civil liberties in the United States and abroad. Carol has lived and worked in Japan, Sri Lanka, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Northern Ireland, and Vietnam. She was editor of the Harvard Human Rights Journal, co-chair of Women in Communications Law of the ABA Forum on Communications Law, Vice Chair of the Human Rights committee of the ABA Individual Rights and Responsibilities section, and served on the editorial board of the ABA’s Human Rights magazine.

Read Carol's ICWA Newsletters