Grant boosts study of human security issues

A recent grant renewal will help the Global Studies Program continue its inquiry into human security issues.

The program has been awarded nearly $1 million from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Global Studies, a member program of the International Institute, is a partner in the MacArthur Consortium on International Peace and Cooperation. Stanford University and the University of Minnesota received companion grants of similar amounts for a total of $2.98 million.

Leigh Payne, program director and associate professor of political science, says the consortium has moved beyond studying peace and security from a military and Cold War perspective to examining what Payne calls “human security issues.” These include such issues as war crimes against particular ethnic and gender groups, environmental justice, poverty and social equality.

“We’re still studying war but we want to know how the conduct of war has changed and what has shaped that change,” Payne says. “For instance, ethnic conflict isn’t new, but why is it that we now call it ‘ethnic conflict’ and not just ‘civil war’?”

Payne says these issues are increasingly being played out not just within a particular country but on an international stage and with implications worldwide.

“What we’re looking at is how different groups use the international system and international governing bodies to put pressure on their own governments to have an impact on domestic policy, and also how local groups have produced changes in international norms and ethics,” Payne says.

In granting the consortium funding, the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation recognized the partners’ innovative approach to issues of international peace and cooperation.

“These universities together have been able to support a new generation of scholars and professionals in a field undergoing fundamental change,” says the MacArthur Foundation’s area director, Kennette Benedict. “Faculty and administrators have provided a forum for exploring new approaches and interdisciplinary projects on global security and sustainability, and by doing so, have stimulated a redefinition and relocation of peace and security studies in the research and training programs at the University of Wisconsin.”

Since its inception in 1993, the Minnesota-Stanford-Wisconsin MacArthur Consortium has helped train outstanding graduate students through scholarly exchanges, classes, conferences and summer institutes.

The consortium provides an environment in which more than 300 graduate students and 100 faculty think creatively about the complexities of change in contemporary global society, the global effects of concentrations of power, and the importance of underlying cultural and institutional continuities.

Louis Bickford, associate director of the UW–Madison Global Studies Program, says students have benefited enormously from the program. “Throughout the life of the consortium we have emphasized training practitioners as well as scholars, people who will go into positions of policy-making and advocacy,” Bickford says. “Consortium alums have moved into positions at some of the most important institutions in the country and the world.”

In the next three years of the current grant cycle, the consortium will address issues of war and peace in historical context; global governance and transnational norms; environmental sustainability and social justice; and production, performance, and representation of identities. Under the terms of the three year grant, UW–Madison will receive $977,000; the University of Minnesota, $992,000; and Stanford, $1,006,000.

For more information, contact Louis Bickford, associate director, Global Studies Program, (608) 262-0646; lbickford@facstaff.wisc.edu.