International Conflict and International Organizations

The United Nations presented Dr. Susan Allen (far left in photo) with the 2024 Book Award for her insights into how the UN Security Council makes decisions. Her co-authored book, Bargaining in the UN Security Council: Setting the Global Agenda, was published by Oxford University Press in 2022 and examined the formal and informal factors that influence Security Council priorities and responses to international peace and security threats. Their book became highly recommended reading around the UN leadership and they were brought by the South Korean mission to the UN to consult with member representatives.

Dr. Ben Jones explores the use of public diplomacy abroad by combatants in civil wars. He asks whether and under what circumstances, rebels and governments involved in ongoing civil wars will divert resources away from the battlefield, and instead toward influencing foreign public opinion about the ongoing war and the sides fighting. Moreover, this research project has demonstrated that such public diplomacy efforts can have meaningful results, at times increasing the cooperation between rebels and foreign allies, as well as improving the sentiment with which US government officials discuss governments that engage in public diplomacy during civil wars.

Dr. Lauren Ferry created an original dataset on the timing and intensity of negotiations between borrowing countries and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for loans during economic crises. One article showed that borrowers can obtain speedier negotiations with fewer compromising conditions on the basis of their ties to major IMF shareholder states. Her second article, the subject of a SoundCloud podcast. discussed how the debt negotiation processes for distressed countries with the IMF has changed in the wake of China’s emergence as a major lender.  

A recipient of the Department Distinction Award, Madeleine Dotson (B.A. in Arabic, Economics, and Political Science with an emphasis in International Conflict and Cooperation '24) received a national Truman Scholarship for aspiring public service leaders. She published research on Russian tactics in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the UM undergraduate journal, Ventures. Her Honors thesis investigated the role of dams in bargaining and analyzed the current conflict between Egypt and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). She also participated in an Arabic translation internship with the Commission for International Justice and Accountability, which gathers evidence used to prosecute terrorists. 

Lake Dodson (BA in Political Science with minors in East Asian studies and Global Security Studies '24) studied abroad in S. Korea where he learned about Korean foreign policy, North-South Korean relations, and nuclear energy. He also traveled to Vienna, Austria, to attend the Atoms for Peace conference, a meeting of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management and the European Safeguards Research and Development Association. He presented on thorium's potential to provide energy and lessen the threat of nuclear conflict. Lake (right in photo) met Mr. Enobot Agboraw, Executive Secretary of the African Commission on Nuclear Weapons.