Alumni Today IRD

Eric Miller has just published his Master’s thesis under the title: The Inability of Peacekeeping to Address the Security Dilemma: A Case Study of the Rwandan-Congolese Security Dilemma and the United Nation’s Mission in the Congo (Lambert 2010).

His advisor, Professor Douglas Yates, comments: "Eric had been interested in the topic before he arrived at AGS, and when I first met him he was already reading literature on this conflict, which is so big and so complex that it has been called “Africa’s World War.” The fall of Mobutu and the collapse of Zaire in 1996 created an enormous power vacuum in the heart of Africa, which has been filled by a euphemistically named Democratic Republic of the Congo, ruled by a father and then by his son: Laurent and Desire Kabila.  Since then the Congo forest basin has been filled with armed rebellion, strategic resource conflict, attempted genocide, and all the evils of war.

What makes Eric’s book interesting is how he framed the ongoing conflict in the DRC not in terms of those conventional categories, but in terms of the rising power of Rwanda.  Eric shows how the war in the eastern DRC is not how many have presumed just another resource conflict (although natural resources surely do play their part) but is really a kind of “proxy war” reflecting the “security dilemma” faced by post-genocide Rwanda.  That is, Eric managed to use international relations theory to explore a conflict usually relegated to African studies.

The inability of the United Nations peacekeeping mission (the largest in the world) to resolve this conflict, or even to prevent what is estimated to have been six million deaths, was Eric’s original problematic.  But as he delved into all the literature coming out on the subject, and mapped the shifting patterns of international, national, and sub-national armed forces, what he managed to do was demonstrate how this conflict is not simply another African exemplar of the coming anarchy, but a genuine international conflict, with global implications.

For Master's students who are working on their thesis, Eric’s publication should be an inspiration.  This is not the first AGS student to publish their work, nor will it be the last."

See online book summary here

Since he graduated from AGS last June, Eric Miller has been guest lecturing on topics related to his thesis in various universities in the US and Europe. On December 8-10, 2009, he taught two classes at the University of New York Tirana, in Albania, upon invitation by UNYT's Professor Tom Hashimoto. He spoke about peacekeeping, nation building and security in Africa.

On March 2, he was invited as a guest speaker at Boston University, USA. He did a summary of his thesis, the Congo wars, the continuing security dilemma in the region and the role of the United Nations in that conflict, to an audience of about thirty professors and graduate students from the International Relations and African Studies departments of Boston University.

Laura-Lee Smith is interning at the US State Department in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor in Washington D.C. Laura-Lee says "I am really picking up on how everything works. I have been in meetings with Secretary Clinton's deputies, and next week I am scheduled to attend two confirmation hearings and the main celebration for Black History Month by the Office of Civil Rights. It is very exciting and I am already learning so much about possible career paths with the State Department. I am seriously considering becoming an Foreign Service Officer (FSO) and will be conducting as many informational interviews as I can while I am here."

Additionally this year, Laura-Lee was selected as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow for 2009-2010. The Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship promotes academic cooperation between excellent scientists and scholars from over the world and from Germany. Fourty-three former Alexander von Humboldt fellows became Nobel laureates.

For one year, starting in September 2010, Laura-Lee  will be conducting research in Berlin with the German Council on Foreign Relations. Her individual project is about the German role in the Afghanistan war and contradictions between Germany's international obligations with NATO and waning public support at home.

Laura-Lee comments: "I would not have chosen this topic if I had not been inspired during the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy conference last summer, and if I hadn't met the policy analyst from the German Council of Foreign Relations who encouraged me to apply for fellowships such as this one. It's incredible how one event leads to so many others and I am very grateful to AGS for supporting my attendance to this conference."

Karina Kloos entered Stanford University in the fall 2009 to do a Ph.D. in Sociology.

Karina spent six months, prior to starting her doctoral studies, volunteering in Cambodia with PEPY, an educational NGO and social venture.

Karina recounts: "I was primarily  involved in supporting PEPY's educational and volunteer tours, mostly with volunteers from Dubai coming to help in the construction of three new primary schools in a rural commune of Siem Reap Province. PEPY also leads cycling tours throughout Cambodia, visiting with and learning from partner organizations along the way.

My first-hand experience with these trips contributed to my research on responsible volunteer tourism, an increasingly popular way to travel and, for better or worse, a progressively more accessible approach to development work and educational opportunities.

During my years at AGS, I distinctly remember talking about the "increasing role of non-state actors". As a country with one the highest NGO density rates in the world, Cambodia was a fascinating place to learn about development work.

I experienced incredible insights during my time there about how NGOs are contributing to the reconstruction of the country, devastated by the Khmer Rouge thirty years ago, and how social ventures are helping to improve accountability and decrease dependency on aid and donations."

In the fall, Karina entered Stanford's Ph.D. program in Sociology, focusing on social movements and organizational studies, specifically related to international development organizations, applying her experiences  with PEPY and the dozens of NGOs and social ventures she interacted with in Cambodia, Africa and the US as well as her international relations studies here at AGS.

Dr. Harold Bashor is a professor at Franklin University, Columbus, Ohio. He teaches International Business and Global Issues in the Vantage MBA program.

Since he received his Doctoral degree from AGSIRD in 2004, Harold Bashor published his Ph.D. dissertation under the title The Moon Treaty Paradox (Xlibris Co. 2004) and received a Graduate Certificate in Air and Space Law from McGill University. He was interviewed by USA Today regarding the legal and financial issues of the upcoming US, EU and Chinese Lunar missions.

Harold Bashor is also the editor of the Journal of Diplomatic Language.

Culver Van Der Jagt passed the US Multistate Bar Exam in May, scoring in the top 2% of test takers across the country. He is now employed as an attorney with the law firm of Gutterman Griffiths in Denver, Colorado.

Culver uses diplomacy in negotiation and litigation and thanks AGS for equipping him to defend a position under tremendous pressure.

Charlotte Bennborn has been appointed Delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, an international organization whose humanitarian mission is to protect the lives and dignity of victims of war and internal violence and to provide them with assistance.
Charlotte is currently posted in Darfur for 12 months.

More about the ICRC

Jennifer Grant is consulting at the United Nations World Food Program in Rome. She works as a Production Facilitator in the Communications and Public Policy Strategy Division. Her tasks include participating in the development of multi-media tools to internally communicate new politcy initiatives to senior staff.

More about the UN World Food Program

James Wagamon works in Washington as a Senior Consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting company specializing in strategy, operations, organization and change, information technology, systems engineering, and program management. Booz Allen Hamilton has 20,000 employees in 80 offices accross the globe.

Kyra Levine has entered a doctoral program at the Université de la Sorbonne in Paris. Her area is socio-linguistics and German colonial history in Africa.

She says: "I am continuing my research on Tanzania, which was one of my cases in my AGS thesis, and the connections between national identity, colonial politics, and socio-linguistic issues related to the use of Swahili in the German colonial administration. I was so encouraged by Drs. McGiffen, Harwich and Kobtzeff at my thesis defense that it helped influence my decision to keep researching this multifaceted topic."

Sean Lee is a Research Analyst at Morgan Stanley, London. Though his work revolves around balance sheets and cash flows, his AGS experience provided him with the capacity to view mergers and alliances on the international and political level, not merely on the financial one.

He appreciated the diverse cultural environment at AGS, and attributes his successful acclimatization in the very international workplace of Morgan Stanley to this. He has stayed in touch with a number of his AGS classmates and they often get together when they visit London.

Sean earned a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, USA before entering the M.A. program at AGS. He went on to the top French business school HEC where he was awarded a Master's in the Science of Business degree. He earned his CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) a qualification for finance and investment professionals, in 2006.