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Below you will find a chronological list of current Council research projects. You can search by issue or region by selecting the appropriate category. In addition to this sorting control, you can search for specific subjects within the alphabetical, regional, and issue categories by choosing from the selections in the drop-down menu below.
Each project page contains the name of the project director, a description of the project, a list of meetings it has held, and any related publications, transcripts, or videos.
December 2008—Present
| Director: | Shannon K. O'Neil, Douglas Dillon Fellow for Latin America Studies |
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This project will develop a framework for a Sustainable Energy Partnership for the Americas that goes beyond bilateral agreements and adopts a regional approach towards sustainable growth and clean energy. The objective of this project is to draft a blueprint that will explore, and ultimately define, pathways for collaboration among American states in order to deliver solutions to the region's energy challenges. The blueprint document will be presented at the Summit of the Americas which will take place in Trinidad and Tobago in April 2009 and will also be available on our website at that time.
This initiative is a collaboration between scholars and receives support from the Center for International Governance and Innovation, Canada; the Council on Foreign Relations, United States; Centro Brasileiro de Relações Internacionais, Brazil; and University of West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago.
At the Council on Foreign Relations, this project is part of the Latin America Studies Program and the International Institutions and Global Governance Program. It is made possible by the generous support of Ford Foundation, the Robina Foundation, and the Tinker Foundation.
December 9, 2008—New York, NY
| Director: | Paul B. Stares, General John W. Vessey Senior Fellow for Conflict Prevention and Director of the Center for Preventive Action |
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This symposium was made possible by the generosity of the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Symposium Summary Report (PDF, 84K)
October 17, 2008—New York, NY
Experts discuss international justice and law at this three-part symposium, featuring speakers such as International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, General Wesley Clark, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, and UNHCR goodwill ambassador Angelina Jolie.
Session 3 Video: The Darfur Case
This symposium has been underwritten by the Jolie-Pitt Foundation.
June 12, 2008—June 12, 2008
| Directors: | Isobel Coleman, Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy Laurie A. Garrett, Senior Fellow for Global Health |
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A discussion of maternal health as a foreign policy issue.
This symposium was made possible by the support of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
September 12, 2008—Present
| Fellows: | Julia E. Sweig, Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies and Director for Latin America Studies Shannon K. O'Neil, Douglas Dillon Fellow for Latin America Studies |
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This symposium was made possible by the generous support of the Ford Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
October 2008—January 2009
| Director: | Paul B. Stares, General John W. Vessey Senior Fellow for Conflict Prevention and Director of the Center for Preventive Action |
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| Author: | Steven Pifer, Visiting Fellow, Brookings Institution |
September 2008—February 2009
| Author: | Jeffrey Mankoff, Adjunct Fellow for Russia Studies |
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July 2008—January 2009
| Director: | Paul B. Stares, General John W. Vessey Senior Fellow for Conflict Prevention and Director of the Center for Preventive Action |
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April 2008—October 2008
| Director: | Paul B. Stares, General John W. Vessey Senior Fellow for Conflict Prevention and Director of the Center for Preventive Action |
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| Author: | Anthony W. Gambino |
September 8, 2008—New York and January 22, 2009 - Washington, DC
| Director: | Laurie A. Garrett, Senior Fellow for Global Health |
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These meetings were made possible through the generous support of the Robina Foundation and Richard Brown.
May 27, 2008—Present
| Director: | Michelle D. Gavin, Adjunct Fellow for Africa |
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This roundtable series will meet periodically over the course of 2008 to explore changing political and security dynamics on the African continent, often with a special emphasis on U.S. policy options and responses. Extra effort will be devoted to drawing in new voices and perspectives on critical African issues.
October 2008—Present
| Director: | David G. Victor, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Science and Technology |
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May 5, 2008—Washington, DC
| Directors: | David G. Victor, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Science and Technology M. Granger Morgan, Head, Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University John D. Steinbruner, Director, Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland Jay Apt, Distinguished Service Professor, Engineering and Public Policy, Executive Director, Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center, Carnegie Mellon University |
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November 1, 2008—Present
July 2008—Present
| Director: | Stephen E. Flynn, Ira A. Lipman Senior Fellow for Counterterrorism and National Security Studies |
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May 2008—Present
| Staff: | Kaysie Brown, Deputy Director, International Institutions and Global Governance |
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| Director: | Stewart M. Patrick, Senior Fellow and Director, Program on International Institutions and Global Governance |
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has launched a comprehensive five-year program on international institutions and global governance. Made possible by a generous grant from the Robina Foundation, this cross-cutting initiative will explore the institutional requirements for world order in the twenty-first century. It is motivated by recognition that the architecture of global governance--largely reflecting the world as it existed in 1945--has not kept pace with fundamental changes in the international system. These changes include accelerating global economic integration; a shift in global power to non-Western countries; the rise of transnational security threats; the emergence of agile non-state actors; a proliferation of failing states; and evolving norms of state sovereignty. Existing multilateral arrangements thus provide an inadequate foundation for addressing today’s most pressing threats and opportunities and for advancing U.S. national and broader global interests.
The program seeks to identify critical weaknesses in current frameworks for multilateral cooperation; propose specific reforms reflective of new global circumstances; and promote constructive U.S. leadership in building the capacities of existing organizations and in sponsoring new, more effective regional and global institutions and partnerships, including those involving the private sector and non-governmental organizations.
The program will focus on arrangements governing state conduct and international cooperation in meeting four broad sets of challenges:
In each of these areas, the program will consider whether the most promising framework for governance is a formal organization with universal membership (e.g., the United Nations); a regional or sub-regional organization; a narrower, informal coalition of like-minded countries; or some combination of all three. The program will also examine the potential to adapt major bedrock institutions (e.g., the UN, G8, NATO, IMF, and AU), as well as the feasibility of creating new frameworks and initiatives to meet today's challenges.
The participation, input and endorsement of both official and non-state actors will be critical to ensure the appropriateness and feasibility of any institutional reforms. Throughout the course of the project, CFR will engage stakeholders and constituencies in the United States and abroad, including governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), civil society representatives, and the private sector.
The attached concept note summarizes the rationale for the program on global governance, describes potential areas of research and policy engagement, and outlines the envisioned products and activities. We believe that the research and policy agenda outlined here constitutes a significant contribution to U.S. and international deliberations on the requirements for world order in the twenty-first century.
July 2008—Present
| Directors: | William L. Nash, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Military Affairs and Director of the Military Fellows Program Colonel John S. Clark Jr., USAF, Military Fellow, U.S. Air Force Captain Brian T. Donegan, USN, Military Fellow, U.S. Navy Colonel John C. Kennedy, USMC, Military Fellow, U.S. Marine Corps Colonel Kevin C. Owens, USA, Military Fellow, U.S. Army |
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The Military Affairs Roundtable Series provides a forum for experts from both the public and private sector to engage senior officers from the U.S. Armed Forces in discussions on timely and important defense and national security issues.
March 25, 2008—New York, NY
| Directors: | Walter Russell Mead, Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy Timothy Samuel Shah, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Religion and Foreign Policy |
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This symposium addressed how different forms of Christianity and Islam may have helped (and sometimes hindered) the development of free and open societies – not just in the narrow sense of democratic government but in the broader sense of openness to progress, innovation, an entrepreneurial spirit in economics, and a competitive marketplace of ideas. Directed by Walter Russell Mead and Timothy Shah, this symposium explored how both Christianity and Islam may foster freedom-friendly dynamism, but also considered powerful arguments that religion is essentially antithetical to freedom and the open society.
This is the third symposium in the Religion and Foreign Policy Symposia Series made possible by the generous support of the Henry Luce Foundation.
June 11, 2008—New York, NY
| Directors: | Walter Russell Mead, Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy Timothy Samuel Shah, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Religion and Foreign Policy |
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This symposium, directed by Walter Russell Mead and Timothy Shah, explored how China’s various major religious traditions (village-based folk religion, Buddhism, neo-Confucianism, Roman Catholicism, evangelical Protestantism, Islam, and new religious groups such as the Falun Gong) are contributing to its economic, social, and political development – and stirring up controversy. It also addressed the ways in which religion is playing a stabilizing and destabilizing role in China at the moment, how Chinese government policy towards religion may be changing, and what the long-term consequences are likely to be for country’s social, economic, and political future.
This event was the fourth in the Religion and Foreign Policy Symposium Series at CFR and was funded through the generous support of the Henry Luce Foundation.
December 2008—Present
| Director: | Princeton N. Lyman, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies |
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Explore the international finance regime with a new interactive from CFR's program on International Institutions and Global Governance.
Identifying international threats and acting on them may be the most difficult job for U.S. policymakers. This report
provides an actionable road map for managing international threats before they erupt into crises and makes a strong case that preventive action is not a luxury but a necessity.
For more than a decade, the United States has mostly watched from the sidelines as Asian countries organize themselves into an alphabet soup of new multilateral groups. In this report, the authors review the relationship between pan-Asian and trans-Pacific institutions and suggest policy guidelines for a new U.S. approach to this new Asian landscape.
Complete list of Council Special Reports
Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.
In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
Complete list of CFR Books
For more information on the David Rockefeller Studies Program, contact:
James M. Lindsay
Senior Vice President, Director of Studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg Chair
+1.212.434.9626 (NY); +1.202.509.8405 (DC)
jlindsay@cfr.org
Janine Hill
Deputy Director of Studies Administration
+1.212.434.9753
jhill@cfr.org
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