Africa Working Group

At our final meeting of the semester, we screened the film Munyurangabo, a quiet, independent film released in 2007. The film follows two adolescents, Sangwa and Munyurangabo, as they journey through Rwanda in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide. Though they are companions, it is later revealed that one boy is a Hutu, and the other is a Tutsi. During the 100 days of the Rwandan genocide, Hutu extremists murdered hundreds of thousands of Tutsis over cultural conflict. Though survivors of this tragedy from opposing sides, the boys seem unfazed. They share a simple relationship expressed in little dialogue, and only when we meet Sangwa’s family does the tension become evident. The film is powerful because it marks the growth, maturation, and strength of these two boys, while simultaneously paralleling the growth, maturation, and strength of a country after great devastation – without a scene of violence.

After a semester of exploring both broad-based and specific areas of research in African development and bringing in guest speakers from two African countries (Uganda and Sudan), Munyurangabo was a wonderful way to cap off 2010. We look forward to continuing our work in 2011!

Is government transparency always a good thing for the people?

Starting November 28^th, 250,000 diplomatic cables were released to the public through Wikileaks. Wikileaks is an international non-profit media organization that seeks to encourage government transparency by releasing otherwise classified documents to the public. Among the quarter-million documents released Sunday, 11,000 of them were marked secret. The editor in chief of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, staunchly defends the release of the documents stating that governments use secrecy to conceal unjust behavior, and therefore Wikileaks must, “act against abusive organizations.”

Some of the leaked documents were almost comical - one U.S. diplomat called Russian Prime Minister Medvedev Robin to Putin’s Batman.  Other documents were more substantial; some indicated that Iran’s Arab neighbors are quietly pleading with the US to launch an attack against Iran’s nuclear program.  While this might come as a surprise to some, those who closely follow the region suspected as much.

Now that Iran is aware other Arab nations are coordinating the United States, will this adversely affect efforts to impede Iran’s nuclear program? Will Arab states be more reluctant to coordinate with the United States, even in secret, for fear their actions will be revealed? When does transparency become detrimental to international diplomacy?

The Wikileaks documents undermined political trust built up between nations.Releasing this type of political gossip does not make the world more just, it makes world more difficult to diplomatically navigate. If governments cannot communicate in private and give their honest opinions about heads of state without fear, they become less efficient, and therefore less effective. I’m usually a tremendous advocate for government transparency. However, in this scenario I do not see the benefit.

Present and/or publish your work to a broader audience

Political science faculty meet annually at the Palmer House in Chicago to present their current research at the Midwest Political Science Association's Annual Conference. For several years, the organizers have included a poster session for undergraduate research and several ND students have presented in the past few years. If you are interested, see the following blurb extracted from a recent email:


"Finally, I wanted to remind you that several years ago, the MPSA created a Poster Section for Undergraduate Research. This is a great opportunity for advanced undergraduate students to present a capstone project and get an understanding of academic research if they are considering graduate school. If you have any undergraduate students that might be interested, please forward them information on this (www.mpsanet.org) The deadline is December 3, 2010."


Additionally, I was recently contacted Columbia University’s Journal of Politics & Society, an undergraduate academic journal distributed in outlets like Barnes & Noble and Borders. I was specifically asked to nominate papers from my junior seminar on financial crises but also other undergraduate research of note such as seminar papers and senior theses. If you are interested, please let me know (Guisinger.1@nd.edu). The deadline is January 15th; papers must be a minimum of 15 pages. To find out more, you can also go to www.helvidius.org.


Best,


Professor Guisinger

Latin America Working Group

We began a discussion on immigration from Latin American countries to the United States. A topic we focused on was the current policies towards immigrants and how refugee status is given. Many citizens are denied refugee status even though human rights violations are occurring in their countries. A possible explanation is the US support for those countries governments and the desire to display one image towards it. Some examples of these countries are Haiti, Colombia, or El Salavador. The percentage of people granted refugee status from these countries is much lower than other countries. Next week we plan on continuing the discussion on immigration.

Africa Working Group

This week the Africa Working Group continued it's discussion about South Africa, examining and discussing articles which forecast South Africa's future and needs. We discussed how though South Africa has the strongest economy of any other sub-Saharan country it is not the strongest institutionally, with countries like Botswana having a far more efficient and less corrupt government. 

Southeast Asia Working Group

The Southeast Asia group discussed the ND Forum, "The Global Marketplace and the Common Good," as it pertains to the region. The discussion focused on China and ways to incentivize innovation in the green energy industry. The group also discussed Thomas Friedman's surprising height--he only comes in at about 5'7".

Africa Working Group

Dr. Robert Esuruku, a Kellogg Institute Fellow from Uganda spoke to the Africa Working Group about his research "Gender, Local Governance, and Participatory Rural Development in Uganda", highlighting the notable absence of women at the level of the local government despite the mandate that women comprise 1/3 of thee national government. Dr. Esuruku also gave the group advice about how to prepare and conduct research ourselves.