Browse FSI scholarship on geopolitics, global health, energy, cybersecurity and more.
Featured Publications
Autocrats vs. Democrats: China, Russia, America, and the New Global Disorder
A clear-eyed look from Michael McFaul at how the rise of autocratic China and Russia are compelling some to think that we have entered a new Cold War—and why we must reject that thinking in order to prevail.
Gi-Wook Shin explores how Japan, Australia, China, and India achieved economic power and sustained momentum by responding to risks and challenges such as demographic crises, brain drain, and geopolitical tensions.
This volume, edited by Marietje Schaake and Francis Fukuyama provides perspectives on how digital technologies are used, perceived, and affect behavior in a range of countries outside of North America and Europe. This volume should be seen as a modest first effort to gather comparative data on digital technology issues affecting ECs that will inform government policy, the platforms, and civil society around the world.
As the Internet and digital information and communication technologies (ICTs) have spread globally, governments around the world have struggled to understand the transformative impacts of these technologies and determine how best to govern them.
Preterm birth (PTB) is the leading cause of death in children under five, yet comprehensive studies are hindered by its multiple complex etiologies. Epidemiological associations between PTB and maternal characteristics have been previously described. This work used multiomic profiling and multivariate modeling to investigate the biological signatures of these characteristics. Maternal covariates were collected during pregnancy from 13,841 pregnant women across five sites. Plasma samples from 231 participants were analyzed to generate proteomic, metabolomic, and lipidomic datasets. Machine learning models showed robust performance for the prediction of PTB (AUROC = 0.70), time-to-delivery (r = 0.65), maternal age (r = 0.59), gravidity (r = 0.56), and BMI (r = 0.81). Time-to-delivery biological correlates included fetal-associated proteins (e.g., ALPP, AFP, and PGF) and immune proteins (e.g., PD-L1, CCL28, and LIFR). Maternal age negatively correlated with collagen COL9A1, gravidity with endothelial NOS and inflammatory chemokine CXCL13, and BMI with leptin and structural protein FABP4. These results provide an integrated view of epidemiological factors associated with PTB and identify biological signatures of clinical covariates affecting this disease.
ChatGPT has exploded into the national consciousness. The potential for large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Bard, and many others to support or replace humans in a range of areas is now clear—and medical decisions are no exception. This has sharpened a perennial medicolegal question: How can physicians incorporate promising new technologies into their practice without increasing liability risk?
This book explores the social and psychological factors behind how ISIS was able to rise in Iraq, control most of it, and why most of that population eventually turned on it.
Using open-source intelligence - including photographs from the regiment's New Year's party - Ukranian hacktivists were able to ascertain the identity of the Russian pilots.
Educational Research for Policy and Practice,
May 3, 2023
This study utilizes semi-structured interviews to explore the status quo of teacher training of rural and urban public primary school teachers in Henan Province China. Our findings showed that both rural and urban teachers had very limited training opportunities available to them. Most of the participants did not find the current training opportunities useful in improving their teaching practices. Both rural and urban teachers desired training in pedagogy, educational psychology, and curriculum. Rural teachers particularly expressed the need for training in ICT and classroom management skills. Observing education experts’ demonstration classes is the most preferred training format. Policy implications are discussed.
Unlike previous such strategies, the new National Cyber Strategy rebalances responsibility to generate a new social contract for a resilient national cybersecurity to counter threats from malicious nations and emerging technology.
We study the effect of a victimization narrative on national identity and public opinion in China experimentally. Previous research has suggested that governments can shape public opinion by guiding citizens’ collective memories of historical events, but few studies have established a clear causal link. By conducting an online survey experiment among 1890 urban Chinese citizens, we examine the causal impact of historical narratives on political attitudes. We find that, compared to control conditions, a narrative focusing on China’s humiliating past in the late Qing significantly reinforces respondents’ attachment to the victim side of the Chinese national identity, raises suspicion of the intention of foreign governments in international disputes, stimulates preference for more hawkish foreign policies, and strengthens support for China’s current political system. These effects are particularly strong among respondents without a college degree.
This study investigated the association between household characteristics, perceived family support (PFS), and the developmental outcomes (resilience, academic performance, and prosociality) among at-risk students. Our large sample included 1564 primary and secondary school students from poor rural China (M = 11.55 years old). Having a caregiver whose resilience score was in the top 50% of the sample was associated with a 0.48-point increase (or 0.31 d effect size), while having a migrant mother was correlated with a 0.26-point decrease (or 0.17 d effect size). PFS was a significant (p < 0.0001) mediator between household characteristics and developmental outcomes. Our study highlights the link between caregiver resilience and PFS, and the healthy functioning of disadvantaged students in a developing context.
in Antje von Ungern-Sternberg (ed.), Content Regulation in the European Union – The Digital Services Act, TRIER STUDIES ON DIGITAL LAW, Volume 1, Verein für Recht und Digitalisierung e.V., Institute for Digital Law (IRDT), Trier April 2023
