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• Department of Political Science
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• Morgantown WV 26506-6317
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FACDIS Thirty-Second Annual Workshops

Global Crises, 2012

November 29-30, 2012
Lakeview Resort & Conference Center
Morgantown, West Virginia

Final Program

Thursday, November 29

• 9:30 am-1:00 pm
• REGISTRATION: Library
• BOOK Display: Reflections Ballroom
• 10:30-11:15 am
• STEERING COMMITTEE MEETING: Ward Christopher Room
• 11:45 am- 1:15 pm
• LUNCH: Reflections Ballroom
• Welcome: Jack Hammersmith, Director, FACDIS
• 1:30 pm-3:00 pm
• OPENING PANEL DISCUSSION WITH PRESENTERS: Reflections Ballroom
• The Dynamics of Violence and Human Rights in Latin America: John Dinges, Columbia University
• Youth and Transformation: How Young People Are Grappling with Change in Eastern Europe, East Asia, and the Arab World: John Feffer, Institute for Policy Studies
• Energy, Resources, and Crisis: Toby Jones, Rutgers University
• It's All About Economics!: Karl Kaltenthaler, The University of Akron
• 3:00 pm-3:15 pm
• BREAK: Library
• 3:15 pm-4:45 pm
• First Set of Concurrent Sessions
• Topic 1. The Dynamics of Violence and Human Rights in Latin America: Governor Ballroom 5
  The study of Latin America provides ample opportunity to explore major themes of international relations and international development. Now that people of Latin American origin are far and away the largest minority population in the United States, students easily can see the relevance of understanding our closest neighbors and their societies as a way, increasingly, of understanding changes in our own country.
• Consultant: John Dinges, Columbia University
• Chairperson: Joseph Lovano (Bethany College)
• Session I: Political Violence as an Alternative to Democracy
  Nearly all Latin American countries currently have democratic or at least elected systems of government. Thatis a relatively recent development, however. Just beneath the surface in many countries is an authoritarian temptation: the idea of resorting to state violence (or violent revolution) as a way to bring about or prevent change. This session will look at the revolutionary movements of the young in past decades and the military regimes that annihilated them at the expense of both democracy and human rights. The Operation Condor alliance of five regimes exemplified this trend and was the subject of Dinges' latest book.
• Topic 2. Youth and Transformatin: How Young People Are Grappling with Change in Eastern Europe, East Asia, and the Arab World: Governor Ballroom 6
• Consultant: John Feffer, Institute for Policy Studies
• Chairperson: Joyce Webb (Shepherd University)
• Session I: Reunifiction Generation?
  North and South Korea have been divided for nearly 70 years. The two countries have attempted to reunify the Korean peninsula by both military and non-military means. Today, the two Koreas have never been more different: politically, economically, and socially. What do young people in the two Koreas want? Do they find more in common with their counterparts across the DMZ or with the younger generation in China and Japan? Will they bring about the reunification of the Korean peninsula, or is this issue simply not on their agenda?
• Topic 3. Energy, Resources, and Crisis: Seminar Rooms 1-2
• Consultant: Toby Jones, Rutgers University
• Chairperson: Sy Sarkarat (West Virginia University at Parkersburg)
• Session I: Energy and Politics
  What is the relationship between energy and politics, between energy and the character of political systems? Since the late 19th century oil has fundamentally shaped economic and political systems around the world. Indeed, oil and the pursuit of its extraction have helped forge not only global connections and dependencies, but also a broad range of political practices. From oil producing states to those dependent upon them, oil has both created and closed off political opportunity, has helped foster both democratic and autocratic politics. Session one will examine oil’s global history and the ways that its extraction helped influence contemporary politics.
• Topic 4. It's All About Economics!: Seminar Rooms 3-4
• Consultant: Karl Kaltenthaler, The University of Akron
• Chairperson: Gary Arbogast (Glenville State College)
• Session I: The European Central Bank, and Today's European Crisis
  What role does the bank play, how best can it act? The European debt crisis has been the object of tremendous interest and importance. It has not only imperiled the welfare of the European Union but has had large-scale implications for other world economies. Certainly, it has had significant implications for the U.S. In this session we will explore the historical development of the European Central Bank, its functions, policies and role in "bailing out" European nations from their current economic crises.
• 5:30 pm -6:30 pm
• Social Hour (cash bar): Library
• 6:30 pm
• Banquet - Reflections Ballroom
• Evening Entertainment: The Pundit, John Feffer

• 7:00 am
• Institutional Representatives Breakfast: Ward Christopher Room
• 7:30 am
• General Breakfast: Reflections Ballroom
• 8:30-10:00 am
• Second Set of Concurrent Sessions.
• Participants will stay in same track as Thursday afternoon (3:15-4:45 pm)
• Topic 1.The Dynamics of Violence and Human Rights in Latin America : Governor Ballroom 5
• Consultant: John Dinges, Columbia University
• Chairperson: Joseph Lovano (Bethany College)
• Session II: How Human Rights Documentation Helped Remove a Dictator: The case of Chile's General Pinochet
• Chile has long been closely watched as a showcase of political and economic development. Its lurching path from democratic revolution to dictatorship to exemplary centrist democracy and its current prosperity is the subject of voluminous research and writing. This session will explore how the mundane (though often dangerous) work of human rights investigators led to Pinochet’s departure and to a revolution in international human rights law.
• Topic 2. Youth and Transformation: How Young People Are Grappling with Change in Eastern Europe, East Asia, and the Arab World: Governor Ballroom 6
• Consultant: John Feffer, Institute for Policy Studies
• Chairperson: Joyce Webb (Shepherd University)
• Session II: 25 Years after the Fall
• It's been nearly 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Young people in Eastern Europe have had no experience of living under communism. They have experienced, however, the considerable turmoil of transition: war in the Balkans, economic collapse and revival, political upheaval, absorption into the European Union. What lessons about the challenges of large-scale social transformation can the young people of Eastern Europe provide? Do they have a voice in their society, or are they still exiting the region in large numbers?
• Topic 3. Energy, Resources, and Crisis: Seminar Rooms 1-2
• Consultant: Toby Jones, Rutgers University
• Chairperson: Sy Sarkarat (West Virginia University at Parkersburg)
• Session II: The Political Economy of Oil
• We are often told that resource scarcity, most notably the rapidly dwindling supply of global oil, is an engine of conflict, market instability, high gasoline prices, and so on. But is it true that oil is a scarce resource? Where have notions of resource scarcity come from, whose interests have these claims served historically, and how have they been linked to patterns of oil production and consumption? Session two will examine some of the conventional wisdom surrounding the economics and politics of oil, and will encourage critical reflection. It will also addressquestions of American foreign policy in the Middle East and oil’s role in it.
• Topic 4. It's All About Economics!: Seminar Rooms 3-4
• Consultant: Karl Kaltenthaler, The University of Akron
• Chairperson: Gary Arbogast (Glenville State College)
• Session II: Germany and the Politics of Europe's Money
• This session will be based on a study I published more than a decade ago, anticipating many of the problems that have subsequently exploded into crises with global ramifications. Why has Germany done so much better, economically, than other European nations, certainly better than Greece, Spain, and Italy? What role should or can the Germans play in helping to solve the debt crises of the moment. Is it in Germany's interest to do so? If so, are there limits to what that nation should be willing to do?
• 10:00-10:30 am
  • Coffee Break
• 10:30 am-12:00 pm
  • Third Set of Concurrent Sessions.
• Participants will stay in same track as Thursday afternoon and Friday morning (above)
• Topic 1. The Dynamics of Violence and Human Rights in Latin America: Governor Ballroom 5
• Consultant: John Dinges, Columbia University
• Chairperson: Joseph Lovano (Bethany College)
• Session III: Journalism and Freedom of the Press in Latin American Democracies: Four Countries in Conflict
• Latin America has a highly developed media sector and a long tradition of freedom of the press, based in large part on emulation of U.S. media institutions. The media is credited with a major role in the restoration and consolidation of democracy in countries ruled by the military. But in contemporary Latin America, the consensus about the role of the news media has broken down, especially in countries such as Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Argentina. This session will examine ways of understanding media-government conflict and explore the feasibility of new tools, such a conflict resolution, to strengthen democratic institutions.
• Topic 2. Youth and Transformation: How Young People Are Grappling with Change in Eastern Europe, East Asia and the Arab World: Governor Ballroom 6
• Consultant: John Feffer, Institute for Policy Studies
• Chairperson: Joyce Webb (Shepherd University)
• Session III: At the Heart of the Arab Uprising
• It was long a stereotype of the Arab world that it was resistant to democracy, to change altogether. The popular demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt destroyed this stereotype. At the forefront of these movements, as well as the uprisings in Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Morocco, and elsewhere in the region, have been young people who have rejected the authoritarian politics and culture of their countries. What is the status of young people in the region today? Are they actively participating in the new governments and new civil societies, or have they drifted back into the everyday concerns of school and work? Thwarted in Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain, have they turned to more radical tactics?
• Topic 3. Energy, Resources, and Crisis: Seminar Rooms 1-2
• Consultant: Toby Jones, Rutgers University
• Chairperson: Sy Sarkarat (West Virginia University at Parkersburg
• Session III: Oil, Security, and Violence and the 21st Century
• Oil producing states everywhere have a troubled history. Dominated by elites, plagued by corruption, and vulnerable to sudden political shocks – both at home and abroad – oil producers from the Middle East to Africa have hardly been stable. What accounts for this instability? Is oil a curse? Session three will examine oil’s role as an engine of instability and violence, particularly in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
• Topic 4. It's All About Economics!
• Consultant: Karl Kaltenthaler, The University of Akron
• Chairperson: Gary Arbogast (Glenville State College)
• Session III: Why Aren't All Economies Created Equal?
• This final session will explore the problem of income inequality in Europe. What are the roots of this problem? Why has it been allowed to reach the levels to which it has now attained? What practical solutions are at hand? Does the United States have a role to play in these questions? The World Bank?

Noon:

• WORKSHOPS ADJOURN

WORKSHOP LEADERS

JOHN DINGES, Columbia University
Dinges is in charge of the Columbia Journalism School’s radio curriculum, which he revamped to emphasize public radio journalism. He received a B.A. from Loras College and an MA in Latin American Studies from Stanford University. Dinges began his career as a reporter and copy editor for The Des Moines Register & Tribune. He was a freelance correspondent in Latin America for many years, during the period of military governments and civil wars in South and Central America, writing for Time, The Washington Post, ABC Radio, The Miami Herald and other news organizations. On his return to the United States, he worked as assistant editor on the foreign desk at The Washington Post. He joined National Public Radio as it was building up its foreign coverage, serving as deputy foreign editor and managing editor for news. He is the author, most recently, of The Condor Years: How Pinochet and his Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents (The New Press, 2004). His other books include Assassination on Embassy Row (1980), Our Man in Panama: The Shrewd Rise and Brutal Fall of Manuel Noriega (1990), Sound Reporting: The National Public Radio Guide to Radio Journalism and Production (as co-editor and co-author) (1992), and Independence and Integrity: A Guidebook for Public Radio Journalism (co-editor) (1995). His awards include the Maria Moors Cabot Prize for excellence in Latin American reporting, the Latin American Studies Media Award, and two Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards (as NPR Managing Editor). He is the founder and executive director of the Center for Investigation and Information (CIINFO), which promotes quality journalism abroad, especially independent investigative journalism projects in Latin American and elsewhere. He serves on the advisory boards of Human Rights Watch and the National Security Archive, and is a juror for the Cabot Prizes and the duPont-Columbia University award

JOHN FEFFER, Institute for Policy Studies
Currently an Open Society Fellow for 2012-13 looking at the transformations in Eastern Europe, John Feffer is on leave from being co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies. The author of books on Islamophobia in the western world, U.S. Korean relations, post-1989 Eastern Europe and Soviet foreign policy in the 1980s, Feffer is also a freelance journalist whose articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation and The Christian Science Monitor. He is also the author and performer of four plays, including, most recently, The Pundit.

TOBY C. JONES, Rutgers University
Toby C. Jones is Associate Professor of History and Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. From 2012 to 2014 he will serve as co-Director of the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis. He is also a non-resident scholar in the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Jones is the author of Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia (Harvard University Press, 2010) and is currently writing a new book for Harvard titled America's Oil Wars. Jones is an editor of Middle East Report and has published widely, including in the International Journal of Middle East Studies, the Journal of American History, The Atlantic, The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and elsewhere. He has held fellowships at Swarthmore College and Princeton University. From 2004- 2006 he was the Persian Gulf analyst at the International Crisis Group.

KARL KALTENTHALER, The University of Akron
Karl Kaltenthaler teaches and researches in the areas of comparative politics and international relations. His research focuses on public opinion, political psychology, terrorism (Al Qaeda and affiliates), and political economy. He has three books and several journal articles in these areas. His research has been published in International Studies Quarterly, Political Science Quarterly, Journal of Conflict and Terrorism, European Journal of Political Research, Journal of International Political Economy, European Union Politics, and others. Kaltenthaler received his Ph.D. from Washington University (St. Louis).

FACDIS ORGANIZATION

FACDIS Director:

Jack L. Hammersmith, Dept of History, WVU; (304)293-9324; email: jhammer@wvu.edu

FACDIS Assistant Director:

Gretchen Peterec, Dept. of Political Science, WVU; (304)293-9599; email: Gretchen.Peterec@mail.wvu.edu

Administrative Secretary:

Sharon Nestor, Dept. of Political Science, WVU; snestor@wvu.edu

FACDIS Founding Director (1980-1997):

Sophia Peterson, Professor Emerita, Dept. of Political Science, WVU; (304) 293-9667

Institutional Representatives, Study Abroad Advisers, and Steering Committee (2012)

* Institution whose Institutional Representative serves on the Steering Committee until November 30, 2012

** Institutions whose IR serves on Steering Committee until November 30, 2013

***On sabbatical leave from WVU at Parkersburg for the fall 2012 semester.