Tobias Center Annual Report 2021-22

L. and

Innovation

F. Tobias Center for in International Development

AY 2021-2022 Annual Report

Randall

Deborah

Mission

Determining how best to assist countries in need while fostering their self-sufficiency engages policymakers, non-governmental organizations, and corporations alike. It’s a challenge at the heart of the Randall L. and Deborah F. Tobias Center for Innovation in International Development at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

Founded in 2017, the Tobias Center sponsors multidisciplinary research by scholars who identify innovative approaches to international assistance and evaluate how foreign aid affects the environment and public health. Since its founding, the Tobias Center has made $170,000 in grants to 42 scholars and students.

A laboratory for international research, the Tobias Center gives university scholars a voice in policy by stimulating dialogue between academics and leaders in government, foundations, and international agencies. Equally important, the Center nurtures the next generation of development scholars and practitioners.

Deborah F. Tobias

currently serves as vice chair of the board of the Methodist Health Foundation in Indianapolis and is a supporting member of the Women’s Philanthropy Council at Indiana University. She is a former trustee of the University of Dayton as well as a former director of the Indianapolis Catholic Youth Organization and of the Indianapolis City Ballet. was internationally recognized for over three decades of leadership in business, education, philanthropy, and government service. An Indiana alumnus, he is a past chair of IU’s Board of Trustees. He has been the vice chairman of AT&T, chairman and CEO of AT&T International, and chairman and CEO of Eli Lilly and Company. In 2003, President George W. Bush nominated Tobias to serve as the first United States Global AIDS Coordinator, with the rank of United States Ambassador. In this position, Tobias launched the highly successful President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and directed all U.S. government HIV/AIDS assistance across the globe. Tobias has also served as the director of U.S. foreign assistance and the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Ambassador Randall L. Tobias

The 2021-22 academic year was an exciting year for the Tobias Center. As travel opened again, we continued to grow our capacity across all three components of our Center’s core mission: research, teaching, and policy outreach. The Center supported 10 faculty and 42 students in a range of research projects related to international development such as a study of Chinese investment in Pakistan’s cotton industry and an evaluation of land titling reform on economic development in Laos and Cambodia.

In collaboration with our post-doctoral fellow, Dr. Elisheva Cohen, we have significantly expanded our programming to train the next generation of development professionals. We have

and symposia aimed at providing students with the practical skills they need for careers in international development and continue to grow opportunities for our students to engage in project-based learning with real clients, often overseas.

Now that student travel is back, we also have implemented our annual summer internship scholarship program. And, through applied research symposia, we have connected international development scholars to practitioners at the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and USAID.

The 2022-23 academic year promises to be pivotal for the center. Now entering our fifth year, we have transformed to a director-led model, which allows the center to expand its programming and

since its founding with a slate of research symposia, a celebration of center-supported research, and a side event at the annual America’s Role in the World Conference in spring 2023.

We continue to build on and expand upon our Center’s strengths by recruiting more students to careers in international development, by supporting student opportunities to engage in top-tier research, and by building partnerships with government and non-profit agencies working in the development assistance space.

We hope to see you at Center events in the upcoming year!

SARAH BAUERLE DANZMAN Chair, Steering Committee

Dear Friends and Supporters:

Tobias Scholars

STEERING COMMITTEE CHAIR/DIRECTOR

Bauerle Danzman Assistant Professor International Studies

SCHOLARS

Nick Cullather

Professor, History, International Studies

Interim Dean, IU Hamilton Lugar School

Wendy Leutert, Assistant Professor East Asian Languages and Cultures

International Development in an Era of Great Power Competition panel discussion at the IU Hamilton Lugar School’s America’s Role in the World conference

Stephen

Macekura Associate Professor,

International Studies

Jessica O’Reilly Associate Professor, International Studies

NEW GRADUATE FELLOW

Jessica

Steinberg Associate Professor, International Studies

POST-DOCTORAL FELLOW

Elisheva Cohen

Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for the Study of Global Change

GRADUATE FELLOWS

Andrew Carringer, International Studies

Alicia Gonzalez, International Studies

Katie Streckert, International Studies

Alicia Gonzalez

Graduate fellow Alicia Gonzalez is working toward an MA in International Studies with a region of focus in Latin America and the Caribbean.

“My studies focus on de-colonialism, women’s rights, and human rights,” said Gonzalez. “Another area of interest in my studies lies in immigration and transnational border issues from forced migration.”

Gonzalez is instrumental in planning and producing Tobias Center events, working directly with Dr. Elisheva Cohen.

“Not only am I a recipient of the Tobias Fellowship, but in addition, I was awarded a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship,” said Gonzalez. “I am grateful for the opportunities Indiana University has granted me by supporting my research in Latin America and the Caribbean. I have high hopes that I will be able to study abroad and do field work in the future in Brazil or Portugal.”

Sarah

EVENTS

Innovative Pedagogy and Practice in International Development Studies Workshop

This two-day workshop brought together international development scholars and instructors to share best practices, pedagogical approaches, lesson plans, readings, and activities that offer a critical, decolonial lens on international development instruction.

See page 12 for full article.

Writing for Change – Experience Working in International Development Workshop

Speakers shared their experiences working in international development and the ways that they used writing in their careers to affect change.

Dr. Maurice Sikenyi (Room to Read)

Dr. Paula Dias (American Institutes for Research)

Fall 2021 Measuring Global Value Chains Symposium

Empirical studies of private investment and development outcomes often suffer from poor data quality. The Tobias Center organized a symposium for development professionals to present new solutions and datasets to improve research quality in this area.

Session 1: An Investment Perspective on Global Value Chains

Yan Liu and Victor Steenbergen (World Bank)

Session 2: What is Real and What is Not in the Global FDI Network?

Jannick Damgaard, Thomas Elkhaer, and Niels Johannesen (International Monetary Fund)

International Economic Law and Sanctions on Russia (HLS International Law Week event)

This panel focused on sanctions against Russia: their economic and political effects and their relation to international economic law.

Lauren Brown (Squire Patton Boggs)

Michael De Groot (Indiana University)

Inu Manak (Council on Foreign Relations)

Nicholas Mulder (Cornell)

Fall 2021 Research Symposium

The symposium showcased the research of Faculty Research Support Fund grant awardees and facilitate conversation among IU scholars interested in the study of international development.

Panel 1: Development and Social Change

Regina Smyth, Social Policy and the Evolution of pro-Social Norms in Autocratic Systems

David Tezil, Tabitha Wilbur, How Rotating Savings and Credit Associations in Haiti can be used to Inform International Development Efforts

Leah Valtin-Erwin, Western European Multinational Retail and the Making of Post-Communist Supermarkets

Panel 2: Governance, Economic Life, and Development

Volodomyr Lugovskky and David Terner, Shipping towards Greener Horizons

Helge-Johannes Marahrens, Global Networks and City Development

Renzo de la Riva Aguero, Too Complex to Deliver? Administrative Capacity, Governance, and Waste Management in Peruvian Municipalities

Untold Stories of the Conservation Movement: Race, Power, and Privilege

In partnership with the Indiana University Integrated Program in the Environment, O’Neill School, The Center for Research on Race and Ethnicity in Society, and the Environmental Resilience Institute.

Dr. Dorceta Taylor, Senior Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Professor of Environmental Justice (Yale)

International Development in an Era of Great Power Competition

This panel event was featured at the Hamilton Lugar School’s America’s Role in the World conference, featuring three preeminent scholars and practitioners in the field.

Sarah Bauerle Danzman (Moderator)

Yuen Yuen Ang, Political Science, University of Michigan

Samantha Custer, Policy Analysis Unit Director, AidData research lab, William & Mary

Kristen Cordell, Sr. Policy Advisor, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)

See page 10 for full article.

Representing IU at COP26

With Tobias Center support, Indiana University students were among the few university students worldwide to attend the 26th Conference of Parties (COP26) United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

A generous gift of $28,000 in support from the Tobias Center fully funded the airfare, hotel, ground transportation, and parking expenses of the IU delegation to the 26th Conference of Parties (COP26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Glasgow, Scotland. The financial support of the Tobias Center helped reduce some of the economic uncertainty for students and difficulties of international travel during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I am so thankful for the Tobias funding,” said O’Reilly. “It helps level the playing field for students to know that much of their travel is paid for. This helps create diversity in all senses of the word in our delegation—and all of those students will take this powerful experience with them, professionally or personally.”

The 13 selected students enrolled in the 3-credit seminar INTL 434/525. Coursework focused on the negotiating histories, implications, and critiques of the Articles of the Paris Agreement. The students completed scaffolded preparatory assignments based on their chosen research topic that they planned to track at COP26: a project proposal, an analysis of a nationally determined

took to the conference with incredible energy, meeting leaders, activists, innovators, and scholars working all across the climate space. They regularly posted on social media to document their experiences. While some faced challenges inherent in ethnographic research — sometimes projects outined on paper do not show up as expected in person — these were normal, learning challenges. All students grew in their capacity as researchers, communicators, international travelers, and climate activists in this global gathering of more than 20,000 people.

The Indiana University COP26 delegation, led by associate professor of international studies, Jessica O’Reilly, consisted of 11 undergraduate students, two graduate students, one faculty director, one faculty assistant director, and a self-funded faculty member from the Kelley School of Business who audited the course. The students were selected for the COP26 delegation in the spring ahead of fall registration through a competitive application process. Many students inquired about the opportunity and showed great interest, demonstrating a clear opportunity to expand the course’s promotion.

contribution, an annotated bibliography, and a policy brief.

The IU delegation meeting was only made possible due to the UK government changing policies in order to accommodate delegates. The government tested delegates daily and had a robust set of precautions in place to limit coronavirus exposure.

Students were divided into two groups, with half attending week one of the COP and the other half attending week two. The students

Upon return to Indiana, students submitted research papers and posters and gave final research presentations. They also were invited to present their research at Colorado University’s COP26 student research conference. Additionally, students had the option to submit posters to IU’s 2020-21 Sustainable Development Goals poster competition with the theme of Climate Action. Thomas Day, international studies major, with Professor O’Reilly’s mentorship, won first prize for the undergraduate category for the topic: “Implementation Gap of Negative Emission Technologies,” which addresses the urgency of immediate climate action.

Indiana University | Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International

Student delegates produced a vlog about their experiences at COP26 on Indiana University’s YouTube channel.

Associate Professor Jessica O’Reilly

— Thomas Day, IU COP26 Student Delegate

“Climate change is the defining issue of our generation. We have eight years until 2030 — these are the most critical years in trying to limit warming to two degrees.”

Uniting scholars for environmental governance

Professor Jessica Steinberg creates opportunities for partnership across disciplines to address environmental governance.

Tobias Center steering committee member

Jessica Steinberg was recently named director of the Indiana University Ostrom Workshop Environment and Natural Resource Governance Program.

Steinberg, associate professor of international studies, researches international development topics, specifically resource extraction, state capacity, and violent conflict. The Ostrom Workshop brings together academics, legal scholars, economists, policymakers, political scientists, and many other disciplines to tackle challenges of governing common or shared resources.

The role offers Steinberg the opportunity to unite scholars from various disciplines, from the Ostrom Workshop, the Tobias Center, the IU O’Neill School, and other University units to address issues of natural resource governance and environmental management, including in developing contexts.

“One of the things that I was able to do upon coming into the position was expand the Environment and Natural Resource Governance Program beyond governance of natural resources to include governance of the environment,” said Steinberg. “This is a small change but one which allows for the study of climate governance, facilitating collaboration between those at the Tobias Center studying climate change and the Ostrom Workshop.”

Scholars will address questions of climate change, deforestation, carbon offset

— Jessica Steinberg, assistant professor of international studies

initiatives, or other environmental systems management in developing contexts.

In terms of natural resource management, the prevalent challenges that face nations and regions are state capacity, technology cost and availability, and regulatory enforcement. The result is environmental injustice and a failure to protect individuals and communities that bear the brunt of environmental externalities of things like fossil fuel reliance.

“This occurs on a global scale, whereby developing countries are expected to incur the costs of limiting greenhouse gas emissions, for example,” said Steinberg. “And so how do we think about compensating or addressing these kinds of challenges when resources are limited?”

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

BY JESSICA STEINBERG

Steinberg, J., Cyanne Loyle, and Federica Carugati. “Digital repression and cyberpeace.” Cyber Peace: Charting a Path Toward a Sustainable, Stable, and Secure Cyberspace. Eds. Scott Shackelford, Frédérick Douzet, and Christopher Ankerson. Cambridge University Press. 2022.

Steinberg, J. Mines, Communities, and States: The Local Politics of Natural Resource Extraction in Africa. Cambridge University Press, 2019.

In her directorship, Steinberg is working both locally and globally. Specifically, she is working with the Indiana University Environmental Resilience Institute to explore climate change planning on a city level. More globally, Steinberg is collaborating with scholars in the Global South to evaluate biodiversity and livelihoods outcomes of community forests.

“Mines, Communities, and States introduces a novel view of the role of natural resources and its potential to promote the economic development of mining communities in Africa, showing avenues to avoid the natural resource curse.”

Africa Spectrum

“I hope to build a community of experts around governance to address questions of climate change or natural resource management like deforestation, carbon initiatives, or water management.”

Winner of ISA’s 2020 Sprout Prize for Best Book in Environmental Politics. Reviewed in Perspectives on Politics, Journal of Development Studies, African Studies Review, and Africa Spectrum

Tobias Center sponsors panel discussion on aid and great power competition

International development panel featured in America’s Role in the World Conference

Each year, the Tobias Center sponsors a panel at the Hamilton Lugar School’s flagship event — the America’s Role in the World conference. This year’s panel was International Development in an Era of Great Power Competition. Tobias Center Chair Sarah Bauerle Danzman moderated a discussion with three preeminent scholars and practitioners in the field.

Dr. Yuen Yuen Ang, associate professor of political science at the University of Michigan and author of China’s Gilded Age: The Paradox of Economic Boom and Vast Corruption, discussed what development practitioners can and cannot learn from China’s economic rise. She also argued China’s foreign aid strategy is less coherent than the U.S. government often fears.

Kirsten Cordell, senior policy advisor on security and development policy for the Policy Planning and Learning Bureau at the U.S. Agency for International Development, discussed USAID’s approach to foreign assistance in the context of China’s aid diplomacy.

“China is such a large and important player in the ecosystem that you can’t really ignore it … At the same time we are who we are. We’re an imperfect liberal democracy that believes in promoting shared economic prosperity underpinned by democratic norms and values and this isn’t going to change even in a competition with China.”

— Samantha Custer, director of policy analysis at AidData

Samantha Custer, director of policy analysis at AidData, drew particular attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) aid strategy in Central Asia and how its investments affect local attitudes toward the country.

Panelists represented a range of opinions over the issue of Chinese development assistance and the appropriate U.S. government policy

response. All demonstrated how deep contextual understanding of China and the countries in which it focuses development assistance is vital to accurate and useful assessments of the effectiveness of economic aid as a tool of foreign policy. Reviving area studies expertise — a position of strength for the Hamilton Lugar School — is crucial for developing and evaluating effective aid strategies as well as designing and implementing successful assistance programs.

Indiana University | Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International

Tobias Center Chair Sarah Bauerle Danzman moderated a discussion at the 2022 America’s Role in the World Conference with three preeminent scholars and practitioners in international development.

Decolonizing international development education

The Tobias Center hosted a two-day virtual conference in March 2022, Innovative Practices & Pedagogical Practices for Teaching, to convene international development scholars and instructors to share concrete teaching practices through a critical, decolonial lens.

Few conferences of its kind exist. While there is much scholarship that emphasizes the value of decolonial pedagogies, there is a great need for decolonial scholarship that offers concrete solutions and best practices, pedagogical approaches, lesson plans, readings, or activities. The conference, led by Dr. Elisheva Cohen, filled this gap by highlighting innovative educational practices, pedagogies, and programs being employed in the field of international development studies.

Black Star Square, also known as Independence Square, in Accra, Ghana

“There has been a lot of theorizing but very little writing about the concrete strategies to actualize this vision of equity and decoloniality in the classroom,” said Cohen.

International development scholars convened to share decolonial pedagogical approaches.

The workshop attracted faculty and instructors from around the world, from a wide variety of disciplines, including international development, economics, anthropology, history, sociology, human rights, regional studies, and others.

Faculty and instructors presented many creative ways they have been teaching international development, giving particular attention to approaches that elevate perspectives from the global south and highlight ethical issues involved in teaching, studying, and working in international development.

“Some of the topics that really stood out to me were the ones presented by instructors on the African continent,” said Cohen. “One in particular talked about ways in which they are working to decolonize their teaching within Africa and what that means for them. They also shared how they are pushing to center their own voices in this space that is often dominated by white westerners. This elicited some really good conversation from participants.”

PREPARING THE NEXT GENERATION

OF DEVELOPMENT PRACTITIONERS

With Tobias Center support, Dr. Elisheva Cohen taught a new course, Careers in International Development, to allow students to gain a practical understanding of the different aspects of international development and to learn and practice concrete skills.

“Many students want to work in international development but don’t really know what people do on a day to day basis,” said Cohen. “This course was designed to help students understand the breadth of the field, what jobs really look like, and to help them think about how to prepare them for those positions.”

Elisheva Cohen, Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for the Study of Global Change

From the perspective of an American institution, international development is often something thought of as something that happens “somewhere else.” In an interesting contrast, a presentation by Ruth Murumba of Moi University in Kenya titled, “Bridging Theory and Practice in International Development Studies,” shared the perspective of students, primarily from Kenya, doing development work in communities within Kenya. Murumba spoke about how she taught her students to consider the power dynamic as university graduates with some level of privilege that they had to work through in doing international development work.

The workshop resulted in a great deal of positive feedback. One faculty member said that the conference’s acknowledgement of teaching as an important part of their job was validating and gratifying.

An edited volume of some of the presentations is currently being compiled and will be published in an open access format. A link to the volume will be available on the Tobias Center website once published.

Students learned about different types of work in the field, includng communications, procurement, management, grant writing or “on the ground” work. Students attended a panel discussion with practitioners from USAID, the American Institute of Research, International Refugee Assistance Project, and others. They also conducted informational interviews with international development professionals.

Due to its popularity, the course will be offered again in spring 2023.

STUDENT COMMENT:

“There has been a lot of theorizing but very little writing about the concrete strategies to actualize this vision of equity and decoloniality in the classroom.”

—

“Through hearing from global development professionals and participating in class, I have gained career insights regarding what kind of work I want to do, as well as what I believe I would be good at.”

Student Fellows conduct research and promote Tobias Center

Katie Streckert’s research focused on the representation of the Middle East in Midwestern American museums, specifically the Art Institute of Chicago and the Detroit Institute of Arts.

“Because narratives shape our views of the world and subsequent action, the stories told in museums and other public institutions inform approaches to development and intercultural interactions. By investigating the messages conveyed through the informational texts and display of the Islamic art exhibits at the two museums, I identified two distinct approaches to decolonization: subtractive and additive,” explained Streckert.

Streckert’s research contends that while the Art Institute of Chicago’s subtractive exhibit simply removed overtly Orientalist display strategies and left the underlying

Katie Streckert’s research poses that financial structures influence museum representation of the Middle East.

Katie Streckert

structures of representation intact, the Detroit Institute of Arts took initiative to not only eschew Orientalism but add more complex and humanizing representations of the Middle East. Streckert surmised that the differing financial structures and target audiences of the two museums were main factors in their varying approaches, noting that the Detroit Institute is more financially dependent on their Arab constituency.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

BY TOBIAS CENTER SCHOLARS

Andrew M. Bell & Fiona Terry. 2021. “Combatant rank and socialization to norms of restraint: examining the Australian and Philippine armies,” International Interactions 47(5): 825-854.

“Overall, my findings suggest that, until American museums privilege the voices of those living in ‘developing’ nations, pervasive views of their citizens and approaches to development will tend toward old, colonial patterns of interaction,” said Streckert.

This year, Streckert will continue her work at a retreat center in Northern Ireland, where she has been since summer 2022, and will also begin working with a local church which is seeking to create reconciliation between Protestants and Catholics in the surrounding area. She will then seek to join a humanitarian relief group which is supporting Yazidi communities to rebuild their homes in the wake of ISIS.

Andrew Carringer

Andrew Carringer’s research focuses on themes around cultural expression in Post-Soviet states. Carringer graduated from The Ohio State University in 2018 with B.A.s in Strategic Communication and German. At Indiana University he has participated in the Summer Language Program for Russian and is now learning introductory Estonian. In the summer of 2022, he completed an internship in Indianapolis with The International Center helping to administer foreign professional exchange programs, and he hopes to continue working with educational and cultural exchange programs after graduating in December 2022 from IU.

Since beginning his studies in January 2021, Carringer has helped to build the Tobias Center’s social media presence by setting up new pages on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube. He has worked to communicate the identity and work of the Tobias Center to the wider academic community both at IU and throughout the world, assisting with international Zoom conferences, video editing, graphic design and other content creation.

Sarah Bauerle Danzman & Alexander Slaski. 2022. “Incentivizing embedded investment: Evidence from patterns of foreign direct investment in Latin America,” The Review of International Organizations 17(1): 63-87.

Publication was covered in prominent EU-based economic policy think tank, Council on Economic Policies.

Sarah Bauerle Danzman & Alexander Slaski. 2022. “Explaining deference: why and when do policymakers think FDI needs tax incentives?,” Review of International Political Economy, 29(4):1085-1111

Cohen, Elisheva, and Stephen Macekura. 2022. “State of the Field: A Comparative Analysis of International Development Studies Majors in Canada, the United Kingdom, and United States,” Journal of International Development Firstview.

“Until American museums privilege the voices of those living in ‘developing’ nations, pervasive views of their citizens and approaches to development will tend toward old, colonial patterns of interaction.”

Research Assistant Fellow projects

Tobias Center supports RA fellows to conduct multidisciplinary international development research.

Sub-National Geographies of Land Titling

Since the 1990s, land titling has been widely funded by international development institutions —including the World Bank — in order to increase land tenure security and citizen access to credit among communities who have historically been excluded from property formalization due to economic or political conditions. This research project investigates the rural-vs-urban geographies of titling programs, and seeks to answer whether or not titling programs have become more responsive to rural tenure insecurity in response to the rural land-concession boom of the last decade-plus. The research areas are primarily Southeast Asia, including Thailand and Indonesia, Latin America, and subSaharan Africa.

Olivia Campbell Michael B. Dwyer, Assistant Professor, Geography

As Research Assistant Fellow, Oliva Campbell is compiling an Excel database of land titling projects from the World Bank project database, and assembling them into a timeline, organized by region, to show the frequency, duration, and timing of land-titling projects over the last few decades. Using World Bank project documents, Campbell is also compiling quantitative data about cadastral coverage of countries that have land-titling projects. In addition, she is investigating subnational geographies of specific titling projects to assess their ruralvs.-urban coverage, and investigating whether

there have been any changes (e.g. a shift toward rural areas) in the years after 2008.

“This opportunity has provided insights into the field of research within geography and has allowed me to gain a stronger understanding of international development carried out by the World Bank,” said Campbell. “This research has provided a strong foundation for what to expect [in a graduate program] and demonstrated how research is an iterative process, and how to develop and craft my own research questions.”

RA Fellow: Olivia Campbell

Faculty mentor: Michael B. Dwyer

“This opportunity … has allowed me to gain a stronger understanding of international development carried out by the World Bank. It has also provided a strong foundation for what to expect in a graduate program … and how to craft my own research questions.”

—

RESEARCH ASSISTANT FELLOWS

The Politics of Electricity Grid Development in the Mekong Region

RA Fellow: Tim Clark

Faculty mentor: Michael B. Dwyer

As a result of hydropower grid development on the Mekong River and international efforts to integrate Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand via a single electricity system, Laos has been left in the position of being a major electricity exporter while lacking an integrated national grid of its own.

— Tim Clark

As a result, Laos struggles to both provide reliable electricity for its own population and negotiate on a strong footing with potential investors. Laos’s national electric utility, Electricité du Laos (EdL), has faced multiple problems in delivering electricity to domestic users — notably the rural poor — and regulating private-sector development. Tim Clark’s research project seeks to reconstruct the institutional history of EdL, along with the corresponding sub-national geography of electricity infrastructure development in order to investigate the relationship between Laos’s current momentum in electricity infrastructurebuilding, and EdL’s relative regulatory incapacity.

Clark is uncovering the institutional history of EdL through analyzing project documents from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, to investigate these interactions and relationships with private developers and neighboring countries. He is also tracking the history of cooperation and conflict between (a) the Laos government and the World Bank, and (b) EDL and electricity consumers in Laos such as rural villagers and government institutions.

“After major investments in infrastructure in dam construction that left a major impact on the physical environment, the Laos electrical utility EdL boasts high rates of villages electrified. However, access to electricity on the household level remains relatively low,” noted Clark. “Electricity can have a major impact on local economic growth … so understanding why access continues to lag is important.”

Authoring Climate

RA Fellow: Sarah Meadows Faculty mentor: Jessica O’Reilly

The Political Economy of Business-Government Connections

RA Fellows: Madigan Hogan, Devin Coryell Faculty mentor: William Winecoff

Fall Summer

Contextualizing Global Policy for Local Contexts: A Case Study of Teacher Wellbeing among Higher Education Instructors in Myanmar

RA Fellow: Moe Moe Tun Faculty mentor: Elisheva Cohen

Sub-National Geographies of Land Titling

RA Fellow: Olivia Campbell Faculty mentor: Michael B. Dwyer

The Politics of Electricity Grid Development in the Mekong Region

RA Fellow: Tim Clark

Faculty mentor: Michael B. Dwyer

Empires of Cotton: Analyzing Chinese Investment in Pakistan’s Cotton Industry through the ChinaPakistan Economic Corridor

RA Fellow: Benjamin Blythe Faculty mentor: Hamid Ekbia

Policy Instruments for a Low-Carbon Energy Transition

RA Fellow: Zhongmin (Evy) Luo

Faculty mentor: Ken Richards

“The Tobias Center fellowship is an exciting opportunity to research a story with global resonance … especially as traditional development issues intersect more and more with climate crisis mitigation finance.”

Contextualizing Global Policy for Local Contexts: A Case Study of Teacher Wellbeing among Higher Education Instructors in Myanmar

Elisheva

Formal policies, documented best practices and other guiding documents disseminated by international development agencies play a key role in shaping the global agenda for education and setting normative expectations for high quality schooling around the world.

“By drawing on her family ties to Myanmar, Moe Moe provided insight into the conditions shaping teaching and learning in Myanmar. This perspective informed the literature review she conducted, ensuring its relevance to the context of our work.”

— Elisheva Cohen

The adoption and implementation of these formal and informal policies are a political and ideological venture that may be fraught as they become entangled in local cultures. In recent years, there has been a growing understanding of the need to adapt these global policies to national and local contexts, yet little is known about the contextualizing such policies and how local actors make meaning of this process.

To fill this gap, a team of researchers, led by Postdoctoral Fellow Elisheva Cohen, undertook an action research project whereby they completed the process of contextualizing a global good for the context of non-state higher education in Myanmar.

Throughout the process of contextualizing a teacher wellbeing guidance note intended for humanitarian settings, the researchers explored the meaning of teacher wellbeing in the Burmese context and how the global recommendations could be adapted for this unique context.

Through the analysis, this research project will shed light on the process of policy contextualization, the challenges posed and opportunities presented to both local and global communities.

Moe Moe Tun, an East Asian Languages and Cultures BA student, conducted a literature review that explored the academic research on teacher wellbeing in both the K-12 and higher education settings. She identified articles and provided detailed summaries of them. She also spent time working with Cohen to apply these theories and ideas to the context of Myanmar.

RA Fellow: Moe Moe Tun Faculty mentor: Elisheva Cohen

Cohen, Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for the Study of Global Change

International development interns

Recent work in Southeast Asia, Italy, and Kenya

Emma Dabelko

Emma Dabelko, International Studies BA student, interned at the International Livestock Research Institute’s Mazingira Centre in Nairobi, Kenya in summer 2022. Dabelko contributed to three studies as a research assistant to examine the relationship between livestock and the environment. In the first project, she measured, organized, and analyzed data from greenhouse gas emissions from soil and water sources to develop the country’s livestock greenhouse gas inventory. She also collected data at the ILRI Kapiti Research Station to measure greenhouse gas emissions and the physical and chemical parameters of water pans in order to help clarify what conditions promote or minimize greenhouse gas emissions.

In addition, Dabelko installed vegetation cameras at the station to investigate vegetation regrowth and how boma usage impacts greenhouse gas emissions and nutrient cycling.

“The findings from this study will help scientists make recommendations for improved rangeland management strategies while considering the needs of pastoralists, livestock, and the environment,” said Dabelko.

Benjamin Blythe

As a Policy and Research Intern at the US-ASEAN Business Council, Benjamin Blythe researched national and regional economic policy trends in Southeast Asia and wrote weekly country and industry briefings for the Council’s 160+ members. Blythe, an MA student in East Asian Languages and Cultures, analyzed a variety of development issues impacting ASEAN as a whole. With the Council’s Energy and Sustainability committees, Blythe analyzed energy infrastructure development policy throughout the Southeast Asia region. He drafted analytical updates for the the Council’s ASEAN, Singapore, Energy, and Sustainability portfolios; summarizing recent policy changes in government and business sectors, and analyzed the implications of these changes for American businesses. Blythe also attended internal and external events throughout Washington, DC on behalf of the Council.

“From Singapore’s June cabinet reshuffle to changes in Indonesia’s energy regulations, these updates provided me with both in-depth analytical experiences, as well as exposure to the economic dynamics of the entire region and its investment partners,” said Blythe.

Thomas Day

Thomas Day, International Studies BA student, interned at an Italian Think Tank, Centro Studi di Politica Internazionale (CeSPI), in Rome, Italy in summer 2022. CeSPI is a leader in migration research and is one of four think tanks that inform the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. Day wrote policy recommendations on the topic Improving Migrant Resilience in the Face of Vulnerabilities Amplified by Climate Change in Italy. In his research, Day interacted daily with migrant populations on the streets of Rome, to gain a first-hand understanding of these individuals’ vulnerabilities. His research focused on the ways in which climate change exacerbates current migrant problems and how they will only get more severe as temperatures and climate impacts worsen.

“For me, this topic was fascinating to research because the subject of the research felt present and so I felt incredibly pressured to ensure my policy recommendations were supported by the research and were viable options to be implemented by the Italian government,” said Day.