ABOUT THE TOPIC: Social scientists have been working hard to understand the circumstances and strategies that improve the chances of favorable human rights outcomes.  Their findings are consistent with the view that the long-term prospects for human rights are good.  Despite this, the activities of the human rights movement seem only marginally related to the forces producing rights improvements, and in some circumstances may even be counterproductive.

Dr. Snyder will also briefly reflect on his work over the years, including his 2012 book of collected essays, Power and Progress in International Relations.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Jack Snyder is the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science and the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. His books include Power and Progress: International Politics in Transition (Routledge 2012); Religion and International Relations Theory (Columbia 2011); Electing to Fight: Why Emerging Democracies Go to War (MIT Press, 2005), co-authored with Edward D. Mansfield; From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict (Norton 2000); Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Cornell 1991); and Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention, co-editor with Barbara Walter (Columbia 1999). His articles on such topics as democratization and war, imperial overstretch, war crimes tribunals versus amnesties as strategies for preventing atrocities, and international relations theory after September 11 have appeared in The American Political Science Review, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, International Organization, International Security, and World Politics. His commentaries on current public issues such as the promotion of democracy abroad have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune, and on National Public Radio. A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Snyder received a B.A. in government from Harvard University in 1973, the Certificate of Columbia’s Russian Institute in 1978, and a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia in 1981.

ABOUT THE TOPIC: The talk, based on Betts' new book, will explore the challenge of responding to new drivers of cross-border displacement that fall outside the existing refugee framework. Rather than beginning with particular causes of displacement – whether environmental change, food insecurity, or generalized violence – it offers a human rights-based framework through which to critically consider who, in a changing world, should be entitled to cross an international border and seek asylum. Based on extensive fieldwork, it grounds its analysis in an exploration of contemporary flight from three of the most fragile states in the world: Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Somalia. It explains the massive variation in national and international institutional responses in the neighboring states, arguing that politics rather than law ultimately determines how the refugee regime is implemented in practice.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Alexander Betts is University Lecturer in Refugee Studies and Forced Migration at the University of Oxford. His research focuses on the international politics of refugees, migration, and humanitarianism, with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa. His recent books include: Protection by Persuasion: International Cooperation in the Refugee Regime (Cornell University Press, 2009); Refugees in International Relations (with Gil Loescher, Oxford University Press, 2010); Global Migration Governance (OxfordUniversity Press, 2011); and Survival Migration: Failed Governance and the Crisis of Displacement (Cornell University Press, 2013). He has worked as a consultant to UNHCR, OCHA, UNDP, IOM, UNICEF, and the Council of Europe, and received research grants from the MacArthur Foundation, the Leverhulme Trust, and the Economic and Social Research Council. He has also held teaching and research positions at Stanford University and the University of Texas at Austin. He is Director of the Humanitarian Innovation Project (www.oxhip.org).

The Europe Center's 2-day multidisciplinary dialogue on migration -- the subject of great and growing consequence in the contemporary world. Conference participants from a wide range of theoretical, case-study, and comparative approaches will address the phenomenon of population movement and the experience of migration in its various qualities.

The agenda for this conference is below.

Co-sponsored by the University of Vienna, the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, and the Center for International Security and Cooperation