Centre for International Policy Studies (CIPS) Podcasts

Jennifer M. Welsh is Professor in International Relations at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Somerville College. She is a former Jean Monnet Fellow of the European University Institute in Florence, and was a Cadieux Research Fellow in the Policy Planning Staff of the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs. Jennifer has taught international relations at the University of Toronto, McGill University, and the Central European University (Prague). She is the author, co-author, and editor of several books and articles on international relations. Her current research projects include the evolution of the notion of the 'responsibility to protect' in international society, the ethics of post-conflict reconstruction, the authority of the UN Security Council, and a critique of conditional notions of sovereignty. Jennifer was the Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Massey College (University of Toronto) in 2005, and is a recent recipient of a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship and a Trudeau Fellowship. In 2006, she joined the Board of Trustees of the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation, and in 2008 became a member of the Editorial Board of the BISA Series in International Relations at Cambridge University Press. Jennifer has served as a consultant to the Government of Canada on international policy, and acts as a frequent commentator in Canadian media on foreign policy and international relations. She has a BA from the University of Saskatchewan, and a Masters and Doctorate from the University of Oxford (where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar).

Ian Hurd is Associate Professor of political science at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. His teaching and research is on the interaction between governments and international institutions, and he has published widely on international organizations, international theory, and world politics. He is currently on leave at the Niehaus Center on Globalization and Governance at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, where he is writing a book on the connections between international law and foreign policy. His most recent work is International Organizations: Politics, Law, Practice (Cambridge University Press, 2011), a textbook for courses on international politics and international organizations.

Ronnie D. Lipschutz is Professor of Politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His most recent books are Political Economy, Capitalism and Popular Culture (Rowman & Littlefield, Dec. 2009), The Constitution of Imperium (Paradigm, 2008) and Globalization, Governmentality and Global Politics: Regulation for the Rest of Us? (Routledge, 2005), as well as a text co-authored with Mary Ann Tetreault, Global Politics Because People Matter (Rowman and Littlefield, 2005). He is editor of Civil Societies and Social Movements (Ashgate, 2006). He is also author of, among other volumes, Global Environmental Politics: Power, Perspectives and Practice (CQ Press, 2004).

Prior to joining CIGI, Thomas A. Bernes was director of the IMF's Independent Evaluation Office. Before that he was executive secretary of the joint IMF-World Bank Development Committee and deputy corporate secretary of the World Bank. From 1996 to September 2001, Mr. Bernes was the IMF executive director for Canada, Ireland and the Caribbean. He has been assistant deputy minister of finance and G7 finance deputy in Canada and served as the senior international economic official representing Canada at high-level meetings. In addition to holding various senior finance, foreign affairs and trade policy positions within the Canadian government, Mr. Bernes served as head of the OECD's General Trade Policy Division in the mid-1980s. He is a graduate of the University of Manitoba.

Paul Meyer retired in September 2010 from DFAIT after a 35 year career in Canada's Foreign Service. He served as Canada's Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations and the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva (2003-2007) in which capacity he headed the Canadian Delegation to the 2005 NPT Review Conference and several NPT Preparatory Committee meetings.

(In English and French) Séverine Autesserre is Assistant Professor of Political Science, specializing in international relations and African studies, at Barnard College, Columbia University. She works on civil wars, peace building and peace keeping, humanitarian aid, and African politics. Her last research project focused on local violence and international intervention in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where she has travelled regularly since 2001. Research for this project has appeared in Foreign Affairs, International Organization, Review of African Political Economy, African Studies Review and Journal of Humanitarian Affairs. Her book, The Trouble with the Congo: Local Violence and the Failure of International Peacebuilding, was published in 2010 by Cambridge University Press. Her new research project studies how Western and non-Western cultures influence peacebuilding interventions on the ground.

Jeffrey T. Checkel is Professor of International Studies and Simons Chair in International Law and Human Security at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. His reviews and articles have appeared in numerous leading European and American journals. In addition, he is the author of Ideas and International Political Change: Soviet/Russian Behavior and the End of the Cold War (Yale University Press, 1997), editor of International Institutions and Socialization in Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2007), and co-editor (with Peter J. Katzenstein) of European Identity (Cambridge University Press, 2009). In addition to his position at SFU, Checkel is Research Professor, Centre for the Study of Civil War, Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). His current research focuses on the transnational and social dynamics of civil war.

Since January 1997, David Bercuson has been the Director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary and is also the Director of Programs of the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute, based in Calgary. He has published on a wide range of topics specializing in modern Canadian politics, Canadian defence and foreign policy and Canadian military history. In 1988, Prof. Bercuson was elected to the Royal Society of Canada and in May 1989, he was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies at the University of Calgary. He was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2004. He was a member of the Minister of National Defence's Monitoring Committee from 1997 to 2003. He has authored, co-authored, or edited more than 35 books on Canadian history, specializing on Canadian military history and Canadian defence and foreign policy.

(In English and French) A panel discussion featuring Yves Fortier, Louise Fréchette, Paul Heinbecker and Allan Rock. On October 12, the day before this panel, the United Nations General Assembly is scheduled to vote on Canada's bid for a seat on the Security Council. Four veteran UN hands will discuss the outcome and implications of the vote. If Canada is elected, what should it aim to accomplish during its two year term? If Canada is not elected, what are the implications for our foreign policy?

Stathis N. Kalyvas is Arnold Wolfers Professor of Political Science and Director of the Program on Order, Conflict, and Violence at Yale University. He is the author of The Logic of Violence in Civil War and The Rise of Christian Democracy in Europe, and the co-editor of Order, Conflict & Violence. He has received several awards and has been awarded fellowships and grants by the European University Institute, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the United States Peace Institute, and the Folke Bernadotte Academy. He is currently researching various aspects of conflict, including the dynamics of violence and participation, and the evolution and transformation of civil wars.

Andrew Hurrell is the Montague Burton Professor of International Relations at Balliol College, and the director of the Center for International Studies, Oxford University. In 2009, Professor Hurrell's book On Global Order: Power, Values, and the Constitution of International Society (Oxford University Press 2007) won the International Studies Annual Best Book Award.

Stedman directs Stanford's Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies and is a director of 'Managing Global Insecurity,' a joint project with Stanford, New York University and the Brookings Institution. His research addresses the future of international organizations and institutions, an area of study inspired by his work at the United Nations. In 2003, he was recruited to serve as the research director of the U.N. High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change. Upon completion of the panel's report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility, Secretary General Kofi Annan asked Stedman to remain at the U.N. as an assistant secretary-general to help gain worldwide support in implementing the panel's recommendations.

Christina Hellmich is a specialist in Middle East politics with a particular research interest in Political Islam, International Security and Global Health. During fieldworkd in Iraq and the Yemen she has conducted extensive research into the role of Islamic preaching in the process of radicalisation as well as gender relations and women's health.

Michael O'Hanlon, author of the newly published book Toughing It Out in Afghanistan, is director of research and senior fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution, where he specializes in U.S. defense strategy, the use of military force, homeland security and American foreign policy. He has advised General Petraeus on the Central Command Strategy Review of 2009 and General McChrystal's strategic analysis group for its 2009 strategic assessment document. Through the summer of 2009, he has made six trips to Iraq or Afghanistan, most recently with the International Republican Institute to help monitor the 2009 Afghan presidential election.

Adam Chapnik is deputy director of education at the Canadian Forces College and associate professor of defence studies at the Royal Military College of Canada. He is the author of the newly published book, Canada's Voice: The Public Life of John Wendell Holmes.