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.

From Conversations with History- Institute of International Studies, University of California at Berkeley

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Siegfried S. Hecker, former Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, for a discussion of scientists, the national laboratories, and the threat posed by nuclear weapons. Hecker traces his career in material sciences, describes the evolution of his intellectual focus, and recalls his leadership of Los Alamos. He then traces the changes in the international security environment in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union discussing the response of the U.S. and the weapons laboratories to the momentous events that created a qualitatively different set of security challenges. Hecker then analyzes the threats posed by terrorist organizations, the dangers of nuclear proliferation, and the challenges for U.S. policy in assessing the motivation and capabilities of Pakistan, North Korea, and Iran. He emphasizes the importance of understanding the political and technical dimensions of the international security landscape.

Aila M. Matanock is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Stanford.  Her current research is on bringing militant groups into elections in conflicted states and, more broadly, on effective governance for minimizing conflict.  She is currently compiling an observational dataset on militant groups worldwide, while also conducting survey experiments, primarily in Colombia.  Before coming to Stanford, she was employed by the RAND Corporation to conduct research on terrorism and proliferation.  She received an undergraduate degree magna cum laude in Social Studies from Harvard University, and also worked with the Belfer Center's Managing the Atom Project and with the Los Alamos National Laboratory during that time.

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.

Hein Goemans received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Chicago in 1995 and currently serves as Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Rochester in New York. 

His book War and Punishment was published by Princeton University Press in 2000. Another book, Leaders and International Conflict (co-authored with Giacomo Chiozza) is forthcoming by Cambridge University Press. Other publications have appeared in the American Journal of Political Science and the Journal of Conflict Resolution. 

Goemans is currently engaged in two research projects. The first extends the research in his first book on the causes of war termination and examines the role and incentives of leaders in international conflict initiation. This seminar will draw on his work for his second research project, which explores when and why people become attached to specific pieces of territory that together constitute a "homeland" and the consequences of these attachments.