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International Forum >> Fellowship Programs >> Current Fellows |
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Dr. Susan Alberts is a former U.S. foreign service officer, whose career has included postings in Bombay, India and Washington, D.C. She has extensive experience in government relations and legislative affairs, having served as director of government affairs at the National Association of Arab Americans, as communications director for Senator Tom Harkin and as assistant director of the Hubert Humphrey Fellows Program at American University. An emerging expert in constitutionalism who recently obtained her Ph.D. in government from Georgetown University, Dr. Alberts presented her paper, “Subjecting Power to Rules: Constitutionalism in New Democracies in Latin America,” at the 2006 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association. Her article, “How Constitutions Constrain,” is forthcoming in Comparative Politics. During her fellowship, Dr. Alberts is working on a book project examining constitutionalism and democratic survival.
Dr. Leila Alieva is founding director of the Center for National and International Studies, a Baku-based think tank that provides independent research and policy analysis on a wide range of national and international issues. One of Azerbaijan’s most renowned social scientists, she has served as a research fellow at a number of universities and research institutions, including Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University–SAIS, the University of California–Berkeley, and the Woodrow Wilson Center. She has worked as a consultant to the United Nations, OSCE, and the U.S. government, and was a national observer of Azerbaijan’s presidential and parliamentary elections, in 2003 and 2005, respectively. Her articles have appeared in numerous books and journals, including the Journal of Democracy and the NATO Defense College’s Occasional Paper Series. During her fellowship, Dr. Alieva is working on a monograph concerning oil development, democracy, and state-building in Azerbaijan.
Dr. Gia Areshidze is director and senior fellow at the Partnership for Social Initiatives (PSI), a Tbilisi-based NGO devoted to developing ideas and policies for the consolidation of liberal democracy in Georgia. He is also director of the Orbeliani Center for Advanced Strategic and National Security Policy, which conducts analyses of demographic trends and publishes the annual Demographic Yearbook of Georgia. Prior to joining PSI in 2000, he was a prominent member of the Georgian business community, helping to establish one of the country’s largest private banks, as well as the Association of Banks of Georgia. He has since worked with several NGOs that promote the role of the private sector, property rights, and democratic governance. During his fellowship, Dr. Areshidze is examining the role of the business community in the recent color revolutions of Georgia and Ukraine. He is also developing a general vision of the business sector as an engine of democratic change in transitional societies.
Ms. Tihana Bartulac-Blanc has worked as an election-planning and management consultant in a wide range of war-torn and post-conflict societies throughout the world, including Africa, the Balkans, the Caucasus, South Asia, and the Middle East. As deputy chief of party programs and deputy director of out-of-country voting at IFES’s Center for Transitional and Post-Conflict Governance, she advised the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq in the run-up to the country’s first post-war elections in 2004–2006, managing IFES’s work on all election-related issues, including voter education and registration, candidate registration, and general operations. She has extensive prior experience working with the OSCE’s election missions in Kosovo, Croatia, and Georgia, where she has provided training and technical assistance, managed voting operations, and facilitated voter registration for refugees and other displaced persons. Using the countries of the former Yugoslavia as case studies, Ms. Bartulac-Blanc plans to devote her fellowship to studying how ethnic minorities are protected in electoral processes. Events and Report: New Borders and Anomalies in the Balkans: Croatia’s Diaspora Constituency (November 14 and December 11, 2007) Mr. Usam Baysaev is a journalist and human rights worker who has monitored and reported on the crisis in Chechnya from the onset of the second Chechen war. As a member of the Human Rights Center Memorial, he documents human rights violations and compiles the center’s “Chronicle of Violence,” a monthly account of war crimes and human rights violations perpetrated in the war-torn republic. Mr. Baysaev also serves as a freelance writer and Chechen desk correspondent for Radio Free Europe. He is the author of a book on Novye Aldy and co-author of the book series People Live Here, based on the “Chronicle of Violence.” During his fellowship, Mr. Baysaev plans to write a book analyzing social and political developments in Chechnya since 1996. As the reflections of a human rights activist, the book will seek to dispel popular myths concerning Chechnya, offer an analysis of the legal aspects of the Chechen conflict, and focus on the human dimension of war. Events:Putin's Campaign against Chechen Society (January 15, 2008)
Dr. Tom Gallagher is chair in ethnic conflict and peace studies at the University of Bradford, where he has taught courses on European history, comparative politics, and ethnic identity for over twenty-five years. His research has centered on inter-ethnic relations in twentieth-century Europe, the impact of identity conflicts on representative government, and the role of ethnicity in shaping politics, notably in Scotland, Portugal, Italy, Romania, and the Balkans. He is the author of six books, including Theft of a Nation: Romania Since Communism (2005) and The Balkans Since the Cold War (2003), and has written numerous articles for journals such as Open Democracy, Government and Opposition, and Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics. During his fellowship, Dr. Gallagher is exploring the origins, effects, and implications of British-born Muslims’ alienation from British state and society.
Mr. David Hawk is a former executive director of Amnesty International USA (AIUSA), who has also served on the board of directors of Human Rights Watch–Asia. In the 1980s, he documented the Khmer Rouge atrocities in Cambodia, under the auspices of the Columbia University Center for the Study of Human Rights. In the early 1990s, he directed the Cambodia Documentation Commission, which sought an international tribunal for the Khmer Rouge leadership and human rights provisions in the 1991 Cambodia peace treaty and subsequent UN peacekeeping operation. In the mid-to-late 1990s, he directed the Cambodia Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. His recent publications include Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea’s Prison Camps—Prisoner Testimonies and Satellite Photographs (published by the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea). During his fellowship, Mr. Hawk is researching human rights and governance conditionalities in bilateral and multilateral aid programs to North Korea.
Mr. Angelo Izama is director of special projects at the Daily Monitor, Uganda’s only independent daily newspaper, and a frequent contributor to various other news media, including the Nation, Radio Botswana, Voice of America, and Radio Channel Africa. He has also served as producer and host of top-rated political talk shows at the radio station 933 KFM. One of Uganda’s most well-known and respected journalists, Mr. Izama is sought after by local and foreign media alike, as well as by members of the Ugandan government, for his ideas, opinions, and insightful analyses of the political situation in Uganda. During his fellowship, he is evaluating the demands for international justice and options for a peaceful resolution of the conflict in northern Uganda, with a focus on the potential role of the United States in mediating an end to the insurgency. Events:Regional Options for Peace in the Great Lakes: The Case of Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (February 11, 2008)
Mr. Eddie Jarwolo is founding director of the National Youth Movement for Transparent Elections–Partners for Democratic Development (NAYMOTE) an organization that provides young Liberians the opportunity to participate in decision-making, governance, leadership, and community service. Mr. Jarwolo spearheaded NAYMOTE’s successful advocacy campaign to improve electoral laws for disabled voters and led a civic education campaign to increase the peaceful participation of young Liberians in the run-up to the 2005 elections. Mr. Jarwolo has participated in numerous capacity-building initiatives, including the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program, the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Youth and Politics in Conflict Contexts Seminar, and the Building Resources for Democracy, Governance and Elections (BRIDGE) program, a comprehensive elections administration course sponsored by International IDEA, IFES and UNDP. During his fellowship, he is examining how civic education can be used effectively to promote democratic growth, particularly in African countries emerging from civil strife.
Mr. Tapera Kapuya is the coordinator of the South Africa office of the National Constitutional Assembly, a civic movement that campaigns for a new constitution in Zimbabwe. He is former Africa region secretary for the International Union of Students, an umbrella organization representing 125 national student unions across the globe. Among his activities as regional secretary, Mr. Kapuya helped to raise financial support to student activists otherwise denied access to education due to their political beliefs. An original working-group member of the World Youth Movement for Democracy (WYMD), Mr. Kapuya is currently working to establish a regional chapter of the WYMD in Africa. As a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, Mr. Kapuya is developing new strategies and opportunities for involving youth in the struggle for democracy in Zimbabwe. Mr. Prem Khanal is chief of the business bureau at the Kathmandu Post, where he has published more than 250 articles on politics, business, corruption, and economic reform in Nepal. An economist by training, he previously served as research officer for the Institute for Development Studies, in Kathmandu. He has authored two books, An Analysis of Public Expenditure in Nepal (2005) and A Study on Government Plans, Programs, Budget Affecting Children in Nepal (2002), and has co-authored Problems and Prospects of Reforms in Nepal (2003). He recently completed a study on “Financing Education in Nepal” for Action Aid International. In 2004, his numerous expository pieces on corruption and the misuse of public funds earned him an Outstanding Performance Award from Kantipur Publications, the largest media firm based in Kathmandu. During his fellowship, Mr. Khanal is studying political resistance to economic reforms in Nepal since 1990 and the impact of this resistance on democratization in the country. Events:Political Resistance to Economic Reform in Nepal: Conflict and Consequences for Democracy (February 1, 2008)
Mr. Okechukwu Nwanguma is project head for campaign operations and periodic reports at the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO) in Lagos, where he monitors, documents, and publicizes cases of human rights abuses in Nigeria. Beginning with his days as a student activist at the University of Nigeria (1988–1992), when he served as speaker of the Student Union House of Representatives and helped to form a youth group in support of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, Mr. Nwanguma has emerged as a fearless advocate of civil liberties in Nigeria and beyond, facing government-sanctioned terror squads and risking personal safety as he speaks out against police brutality throughout the country. During his fellowship, Mr. Nwanguma is developing a model for police reform in Nigeria.
Mr. Atef Saadawy (Egypt) Mr. Atef Saadawy is managing editor of the Democracy Review Quarterly, a publication of the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. He is also a researcher with the Arab Reform Forum at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and a contributor to Oxford University’s Project for Democracy Studies in the Arab countries. A prolific writer and expert on Egyptian politics, Mr. Saadawy has authored sixteen books and reports, including New Trends in the 2005 Egyptian Parliamentary Elections (2006), Africa: Between Democratization and Structural Adjustment (2006), and Despotism in Modern Arab Government (2005). He has been actively involved in the debate on democratization in the Arab world, having written numerous articles and papers for conferences in Egypt, England, and the Netherlands. During his fellowship, Mr. Saadawy plans to study U.S. approaches toward democratization in the Arab world, comparing rhetoric, strategies, obstacles, and outcomes.
Mr. Safwat Rashid Sidqi is a former election commissioner with the Independent Electoral Com-mission of Iraq, a government body established to oversee elections throughout Iraq. As co-founder of the Kurdistan Human Rights Organization (KHRO), Mr. Sidqi has helped to document and monitor human rights violations in Iraqi Kurdistan and mediate conflicts between the region’s two former rival political parties. A lawyer by training, he has dedicated more than forty years to a career in public administration and private practice. He has also worked with the Bar Association, the Jurists Union, and the KHRO to reverse gender discriminatory articles in Iraq’s legal code and promote the rule of law in post-Saddam Iraq. His written works include an Arabic translation of the UN Standard Rules for Equalization of Opportunities, a Kurdish translation of Elections in Iraqi Kurdistan: An Experiment in Democracy (1992), and an essay entitled “Accountability in a Post-Saddam Iraq,” published in How to Build a New Iraq After Saddam (2002). During his fellowship, Mr. Sidqi is undertaking a study of Iraq’s prospects for national reconciliation through democracy, the results of which will be produced in the form of a booklet in English, Arabic, and Kurdish. Events:Prospects for Iraqi National Reconciliation:
Searching for a Plan (February 7, 2008) Ms. Alice Verghese is program coordinator for Asia and the Pacific at the International Rehabilitation Council for Victims of Torture in Copenhagen, where she provides guidance and training for a network of nearly twenty-five independent torture rehabilitation centers in Asia. She has previously worked with the World Conservation Union in Pakistan and with Doctors Without Borders in Kenya, where she specialized in the delivery of humanitarian assistance to women and communities with special needs. In 2004, her paper, “The Impact of Gender Inequality in Uganda, East Timor, and the United States,” was selected for inclusion in a volume on sustainable feminism, to be published by Macalester College. During her fellowship, Ms. Verghese is studying methods of data collection on torture in Sri Lanka and the Philippines and plans to prepare a comparative report on best practices for preventing torture in the two countries. Mr. S. Akbar Zaidiis an independent researcher who has served as visiting professor of South Asian Studies at Johns Hopkins University–SAIS (2004–2005), as visiting scholar at the University of Oxford (1998), and as associate professor of economics at the University of Karachi (1983–96). One of Pakistan’s most widely recognized and respected political and economic analysts, he has written more than fifty articles and book chapters, and has authored or edited over a dozen books, including Education Under Globalization: The Case of Pakistan (2006), Issues in Pakistan’s Economy (2005), and the forthcoming Political Economy of Development in Pakistan (2007). Currently a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Women’s Studies (based in Islamabad), Mr. Zaidi has served as co-editor of the Pakistan Journal of Applied Economics and as review editor of Global Security Policy. During his fellowship, he is researching the role of civil society in Pakistan’s democratization process for eventual publication in the form of a book. Dr. Kate Zhouis associate professor of political science at the University of Hawaii, where she teaches courses on Asian politics, women and development, and political economy. An accomplished academic, she has devoted over twenty years to studying Chinese politics and grassroots movements, and is the author of more than twenty articles and book chapters, as well as the book How the Farmers Changed China: Power of the People (1996). Dr. Zhou is also a prolific activist, having founded the Educational Advancement Fund International, the U.S.-Asian Entrepreneurs Association, and several NGOs in China (including the Qiaotou School, the Xiangxi Human Resource Center, the Rural Minority Women’s Training School, and the Huairen-Hawaii English Art School). In 2006, she was awarded the Templeton Freedom Award for Social Entrepreneurship in recognition of her activism. During her fellowship, Dr. Zhou is completing her book China’s Long March to Freedom: Grassroots Liberalization through Individual Action. |
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Dr. Susan Alberts (United States)
Dr. Leila Alieva (Azerbaijan)
Dr. Gia Areshidze (Georgia)
Ms. Tihana Bartulac-Blanc (Croatia)
Mr. Usam Baysaev (Russia)
Dr. Thomas Gallagher (United Kingdom)
Mr. David Hawk (United States)
Mr. Angelo Izama (Uganda)
Mr. Eddie Jarwolo (Liberia)
Mr. Tapera Kapuya (Zimbabwe)
Mr. Prem Khanal (Nepal)
Mr. Okechukwu Nwanguma (Nigeria)
Mr. Safwat Rashid Sidqi (Iraq)
Ms. Alice Verghese (Malaysia)
Mr. S. Akbar Zaidi (Pakistan)
Dr. Kate Zhou (China/United States)