Topic: international relations

Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. compared the current political and economic state of Washington, D.C. to that of St. Petersburg (then called Petrograd) during the last days of the Russian tsar at a lecture entitled “America in Distress” at the Joukowsky Forum.

On June 4, 1989, Ambassador Samantha Power was working for an Atlanta TV station covering sports news — her summer job after her first year at Yale —  when one of the screens in the video booth where she was working started flashing images of students protesting in Tienanmen Square, Beijing. 

The Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs will officially merge its three undergraduate concentrations into a single International and Public Affairs concentration, the Institute announced Monday afternoon.

To be honest, I have never been a passionate supporter of the International Relations concentration, and I have spent most of my time at Brown debating whether to continue my studies in IR or pursue a concentration in which I found fewer faults.

When the United States implements ineffective foreign policy, the government instinctually pushes more resources and energy toward that failing policy, a tendency that has proven detrimental in the Middle East, said Chas Freeman, Jr.

The Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs intends to combine three of its concentrations — Development Studies, International Relations and Public Policy — into a single concentration called “International and Public Affairs.”

A week ago, Edward Steinfeld, director of the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, emailed development studies, international relations and public policy concentrators with an update on the proposed restructuring of Watson’s concentrations.

“It used to be a lot of fun to talk about U.S.-China relations, … but now here we are,” joked Senior Fellow in International and Public Affairs Chas Freeman during his talk at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs last night.

The Dean of the College released a report that synthesized the work of a committee created last semester to review the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs and three of its concentrations — development studies, international relations and public policy.

Last April, the Office of the Dean of the College led a review of the three undergraduate concentrations affiliated with the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.