Legislative Assistant for Foreign Affairs, Office of Senator John S. McCain in Washington, D.C.
M.A., American Foreign Policy, 2002
How did your SAIS education prepare you for a career in politics/government/political advocacy?
Intellectual Debates in American Foreign Policy, a class taught by my professor, Barry Lowenkron, provided a marvelous preparation for the debates that began to swirl around my post-SAIS positions at the State Department, at the National Security Council and in working for Senator McCain. The course’s in-depth treatment of the various discourses that have taken place in our history helped frame the new discussions shaping our foreign policy today, and it has been invaluable to me in my work.
Governor of the Iwate Prefecture in Japan
SAIS Degree
M.A., International Relations, 1991
How did your SAIS education prepare you for a career in politics/government/political advocacy?
I learned both realistic and liberalistic points of view at SAIS. A realis-tic point of view helped me understand struggles in Japanese politics, and a liberalistic perspective encouraged me to work with constituencies through election campaigns.
The idea that it is the lack of democracy that causes terrorism must not be treated as an iron law of politics and turned into a one-size-fits-all policy nostrum. Many democracies suffer or have suffered from home-grown terrorism, such as Spain and Great Britain, while many dictatorships do not.
Managing director of ImagineNations Group and senior vice president of Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates; formerly chief of staff to Maryland Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and staff director of the House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere
SAIS Degree
M.A., International Economics, 1989
How did your SAIS education prepare you for a career in politics/government/political advocacy?
I have had the unique pleasure of enjoying a rich career where I have served in senior positions within the public, private and civil society sectors. The “language” and the “compass” provided at SAIS—and the platform the school provides us as students and alums—give us the capability to navigate using strong negotiation, diplomacy and relationship-building skills, along with strong quantitative/economic capabilities.
What do you consider the most critical election taking place around the world in 2007–08 and why?
The U.S. presidential election in 2008 is among the most important elections in our nation’s history and is extremely significant globally. The need for the United States to reposition itself on the global stage as the leader and to reestablish its diplomatic credentials has never been higher.
With Gül in the presidency, the AKP’s backbenchers and the informal Islamist forces that surround the party leadership are now likely to strengthen their demands for comprehensive reforms that roll back Turkey’s secularist tradition.
Founder of the Fund for Independence in Journalism and the Center for Public Integrity and author of The Buying of the President quadrennial series, begun in 1996, that profiles U.S. presidential candidates and political parties and the special interests behind them
SAIS Degree
M.A., American Foreign Policy and Latin American Studies, 1977
How did your SAIS education prepare you for a career in politics/government/political advocacy?
SAIS taught me Washington-speak—how issues are framed and discussed—and the historical perspective learned there reduced the latest policy adventures, ambitions and public posturing to their proper, merely mortal, place. These were invaluable insights for an investigative reporter watching those in power over the next 30 years.
What do you consider the most critical election taking place in 2007–08 and why?
Certainly the 2008 presidential election is critically important in the United States and the world. By January 2009, when the next president takes the oath of office, one party, the Republicans, will have controlled the White House for 20 of the past 28 years. The two parties diverge quite widely on international policy issues, from Iraq to climate change. This is the most wide-open presidential election since 1952 for both parties; for the Republicans, it will be the first time a Bush or Dole has not been on the national party ticket since 1972. This epic, two-year campaign, in which each of the two political party nominees are likely to raise and spend $500 million, will probably produce nearly a million political ads (in 2004, 650,000 commercials were shown nationwide in the shorter presidential campaign, with fewer candidates). The viewing public, especially living in Iowa and New Hampshire, may want to apply for workers compensation for being exposed to that much pandering and partisan propaganda.
International electoral expert who spent 10 years (1990–2000) as a senior staff member at the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES), worked for the United Nations monitoring important elections in Africa and Afghanistan and soon will assume the post of director of the Electoral Division of the U.N. Mission in Sudan for the anticipated 2009 elections
SAIS Degree
M.A., Latin American Studies, 1984; Ph.D., Latin American Studies, 2000
How did your SAIS education prepare you for a career in politics/government/political advocacy?
As most people involved in election administration and electoral assistance, I got into this work pretty much by accident: IFES was looking for someone familiar with Brazil to go there to observe the 1989 presidential elections, and I had just completed six years as coordinator of SAIS’s Center for Brazilian Studies. A year later, IFES invited me to join the staff when they were expanding their work in Latin America.
What do you consider the most critical election taking place in 2007–08 and why?
While U.S. and Russian elections are probably the highest-profile elections coming up, the most important aspect to consider is the growing practice of elections throughout the world. However imperfect they are—and those of us in this field are working in many different ways to promote the constant professionalization and improvement of election administration—elections give ordinary people the opportunity to hold leaders accountable for their actions. For democracy to work, voters have to get out and exercise that right—and then continue to be involved in public policy discussions on an ongoing basis.
Candidate for the Congress of the State of Jalisco (Mexico) in 2003 and served as adviser to the secretary of State for Agrarian Reform of Mexico and to the national chairman of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI)
SAIS Degree
Bologna Center, 2007; M.A., International Development, 2008
How is your SAIS education preparing you for a career in politics/government/political advocacy?
A SAIS education offers me a theoretical and analytical framework that provides a systematic understanding of how to improve the development processes in a specific region—taking into account local, national and international politics and their relationship with institutions at different levels of government. Most important, SAIS fosters conscious and responsible leadership skills, enabling future policymakers to shape their decisions according to what is right, not just to what is possible.
Director of Harvard University’s Institute of Politics and former Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives for Iowa’s 2nd District for 15 terms, from 1977 to 2007
SAIS Degree
M.A., International Relations, 1966
How did your SAIS education prepare you for a career in politics/government/political advocacy?
The most important aspect of a SAIS education relates less to knowledge garnered than to advancement of an understanding of the human dimension in policymaking. History is rife with mass tragedies based on misapprehensions of peoples and their leaders. Hence, a SAIS education is designed to provide perspective on contemporary challenges in the context of probing and balancing the cross-cultural judgments of others.
What do you consider the most critical election taking place in 2007–08 and why?
The most important election in the coming year will be the one we hold in America because it will either ratify or set a new tone and dimension for international relations in much of the world. The second most important election will be in Russia, where the transition away from communism may be definitive—but the shape of a new society remains unclear.
Electoral adviser to U.N. Operations in Côte d’Ivoire
SAIS Degree
Bologna Center, 2005; M.A., Conflict Management, 2007
How did your SAIS education prepare you for a career in politics/government/political advocacy?
I found the conflict management field visits to Haiti and the Balkans really reinforced the class-based training I received in the Conflict Management Program. In addition to a SAIS-supported internship in Kosovo, seeing how peacekeeping missions operate firsthand helped me prepare for the realities of field work with the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations.
What do you consider the most critical election taking place in 2007–08 and why?
Being biased, I would have to say Côte d’Ivoire. Elections are crucial to returning the country to political, economic and social stability after five years of conflict and are part of the Ouagadougou Peace Accord, signed earlier this year. Elections are also required as the president has now been in office two years longer than his constitutional mandate.
President of the National Foreign Trade Council; was under secretary for Export Administration in the U.S. Department of Commerce; spent 20 years on Capitol Hill, from 1973 to 1993, serving as senior legislative assistant to the late Senator John Heinz and subsequently to Senator John D. Rockefeller IV
SAIS Degree
M.A., Asian Studies, 1969
How did your SAIS education prepare you for a career in politics/government/political advocacy?
SAIS not only provides a good set of facts, it also teaches students how to understand and analyze them to develop policy alternatives. I did not intend to go into international trade while at SAIS, but when my career moved in that direction, I was well prepared, thanks to strong economics courses that provided an excellent analytical framework.
What do you consider the most critical election taking place in 2007–08 and why?
It’s not an election, but the 17th Party Congress in China in October may have the most significant long-term consequences for the world, as China’s future leadership team is identified. As far as actual elections are concerned, the U.S. presidential contest is exceptionally important because it will likely bring major changes in U.S. foreign policy regardless of who wins.
Deputy director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; former chief of staff for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs
SAIS Degree
M.A., Middle East Studies, 1968; Ph.D., Middle East Studies, 1971
How did your SAIS education prepare you for a career in politics/government/political advocacy?
The SAIS education had a good bit of exposure to views in civil society, government and the private sector. On any public policy issue, you have to bring together views of these and many others, including NGOs. SAIS is not totally within academia or solely in the policy world. This is its strength and a source of its influence.
What do you consider the most critical election taking place in 2007–08 and why?
Many elections will be important in the coming year, but given the United States’ problems with public diplomacy and the chaos in Iraq, the impact of the U.S. election on foreign policy in general and in the Middle East in particular stands out. Not to be America-centric, but it is important to realize the potential of our elections for enhancing the United States’ image in the world. |
