Bruce Jones will present on the World Bank's 2011 World Development Report, on "Conflict, Security and Development." The report, which is the World Bank's flagship annual research product, reviews and challenges previous Bank findings on the causes of conflict and fragility; provides new research findings on strategies for recovery from conflict and violence; and sets out a series of directions for national policy and international institutional reform. Dr. Jones will brief on these, as well as on the politics of research and implementation at the World Bank and the UN.

Dr. Bruce Jones is director and senior fellow of the NYU Center on International Cooperation, and senior fellow and director of the Managing Global Insecurity Program at the Brookings Institution. Currently, his is also the Senior External Advisor for the World Bank's Development Report (WDR) on Conflict, Security and Development. Jones will provide an overview and account of the WDR and will be joined by Dr. Francis Fukuyama who will participate as a discussant on the topic.

In March 2010, Jones was appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General as a member of the Senior Advisory Group to guide the Review of International Civilian Capacities.
Dr. Jones’ research focuses on US policy on global order and transnational threats; on multilateral institutions in peace and security issues; on the role of the United Nations in conflict management and international security; and on global peacekeeping, post-conflict operations and fragile state engagements.

Prior to assuming the Directorship of the Center, Dr. Jones served in several capacities at the United Nations. He was Senior Advisor in the Office of the Secretary-General during the UN reform effort leading up to the World Summit 2005, and in the same period was Acting Secretary of the Secretary-General’s Policy Committee. In 2004-2005, he was Deputy Research Director of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change. From 2000-2002 he was Special Assistant to the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East peace process; and held assignments in the UN Interim Mission in Kosovo, and in the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.  

Dr. Jones has been interviewed by or cited in US and international media, including the New York Times, LA Times, Globe and Mail, BBC, CNN, Fox, NPR, and Al Jazeera.
Dr. Jones holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics; and was Hamburg Fellow in Conflict Prevention at Stanford University. He is co-author with Carlos Pascual and Stephen Stedman of Power and Responsibility: Building International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats (Brookings Press, 2009); co-editor with Shepard Forman of Cooperating for Peace and Security (Cambridge University Press, 2009); author of Peacemaking in Rwanda: The Dynamics of Failures; Series Editor of the Annual Review of Global Peace Operations (Lynne Reinner) and author of several book chapters and journal articles on US strategy, global order, the Middle East, peacekeeping, post-conflict peacebuilding, and strategic coordination.

He is Consulting Professor at Stanford University, Adjunct Faculty at the NYU Wagner School of Public Service, and Professor by Courtesy at the NYU Department of Politics.

Brenna Marea Powell is a 7th year PhD candidate in the department of Government at Harvard University, and a doctoral fellow at the Multidisciplinary Program on Inequality and Social Policy at the Kennedy School of Government. She received her AB from Stanford in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. Her research interests include inequality, civil conflict and political violence in divided societies. Her three-article dissertation research explores the role of political institutions in redefining ethno-racial boundaries and social hierarchy. This includes work on post-conflict policing in Northern Ireland, racial policy in Brazil, and the politics of ethno-racial classification in the United States.

Film showing of "Shadow Work," a documentary from the Ivory Coast, about the grassroots origins of the violence currently tearing Ivory Coast apart.

A Discussion Session with

Joel Beinin is Donald J. McLachan Professor of History and Professor of Middle Eastern History at Stanford University. He received his M.A. from Harvard University and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan- Ann Arbor.  His research focuses on workers, peasants, and minorities in the modern Middle East and on Israel, Palestine, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. He has written or edited seven books, most recently Workers and Peasants in the Modern Middle East (Cambridge University Press, 2001) and The Struggle for Sovereignty: Palestine and Israel, 1993-2005 (with Rebecca Stein, Stanford University Press, 2006). In 2002, he served as President of the Middle East Studies Association of North America.

Lisa Blaydes is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. She received her M.A. from Johns Hopkins University and Ph.D. from University of California-Los Angeles. Among her publications are Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak's Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 2011), "Women's Electoral Participation in Egypt: The Implications of Gender for Voter Recruitment and Mobilization" (with Safinaz El Tarouty , Middle East Journal, 2009), and "Spoiling the Peace?: Peace Process Exclusivity and Political Violence in North-central Africa" (with Jennifer De Maio, Civil Wars, 2010). Her research interests include comparative politics, Middle Eastern politics, and political economy.



Robert Crews is Associate Professor of History and Director of the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies at Stanford University. He received his M.A. from Columbia University and Ph.D. from Princeton University. He is the author of For Prophet and Tsar:  Islam and Empire in Russia and Central Asia (Harvard University Press, 2006) and co-editor of The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan (with Amin Tarzi, Harvard University Press, 2008).  He was named by the Carnegie Corporation of New York as one of the 2009 Carnegie Scholars selected for influential ideas and enhancing public discourse about Islam.

Sponsored by the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies