Top scholars on Afghanistan and Iraq will meet on the Indiana University Bloomington campus Friday and Saturday (Nov. 13-14) for one of the first collaborative conferences on state-building in both nations. "State-Building in the Contemporary Islamic World: U.S. Intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan" is being presented by the Indiana Democracy Consortium. The two-day event is being held in the Indiana Memorial Union's State Room East and is open to both the public and the media.

A new Indiana University academic program will focus on the work of French political thinker and author Alexis de Tocqueville, who died 150 years ago but whose insights into American democracy remain as fresh and vital as when they were written. The Tocqueville Program, directed by Associate Professor of political science Aurelian Craiutu, will launch with a lecture on Nov. 6 by Matthew Mancini of Saint Louis University.

Indiana University professor Elinor Ostrom has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced today (Oct. 12). Ostrom is the Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science in the College of Arts and Sciences and a professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University Bloomington. She is co-founder and senior research director of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at IU.

The Center on Congress at Indiana University will celebrate its 10th anniversary in a series of events at IU Bloomington Oct. 8-9, including two events at which center director Lee Hamilton will address the public. The celebration also marks the official debut of Hamilton's new book, Strengthening Congress, published by Indiana University Press, which details the steps Congress should take to re-establish the power and influence envisioned for it in the Constitution.

Jessica Jackley, co-founder of Kiva.org, the world's first person-to-person micro-lending Web site, will speak at Indiana University Bloomington next Thursday (Sept. 24).

Jeffrey C. Isaac, James H. Rudy Professor of Political Science at Indiana University Bloomington and director of the Indiana Democracy Consortium, has been named editor-in-chief of Perspectives on Politics, one of the core journals of the American Political Science Association.

The often-used one-size-fits-all approach to policies aimed at achieving sustainable social-ecological systems needs to be updated with a diagnostic tool to help scholars from multiple disciplines better frame the question and think through the variables, asserts Indiana University social scientist and political economist Elinor Ostrom in an article appearing in a July 24 special section of Science.

A panel of Indiana University faculty and students this Saturday (July 18) will present a forum on the recent elections and protests in Iran.

Indiana University Africa and African-American experts A.B. Assensoh and Yvette M. Alex-Assensoh comment on President Barack Obama's upcoming visit to Ghana. The president, First Lady Michelle Obama and their daughters will visit the African nation Friday and Saturday.

Under a joint research and book project undertaken by the IU Center on American and Global Security and the India Studies Program, two professors at IU Bloomington have addressed a gap in literature on counterinsurgency. Professors Sumit Ganguly and David P. Fidler have addressed this gap by co-editing and contributing chapters to a new book, India and Counterinsurgency: Lessons Learned.

Indiana University Bloomington political scientist Abdulkader Sinno has been named a 2009 Carnegie Scholar, the Carnegie Corp. of New York announced this week. He is one of 21 well-established, promising young thinkers, analysts and writers selected to receive the prestigious award, which provides $100,000 over two years to support original research.

A lecture scheduled for Thursday (April 9) by Jessica Jackley, co-founder of Kiva.org, the world's first person-to-person micro-lending Web site, has been postponed.

The March 2009 issue of Book Marks features books about the Romanian-born French philosopher E. M. Cioran, the late style of composer Claude Debussy, the use of irony in the Hebrew Bible, developments in civil and criminal law on child maltreatment, and the roles of Muslims in Western politics.

Four Indiana University Bloomington researchers are presenting at this year's annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago. Descriptions of their talks as well as contact information are provided.

Scholars from across the U.S. and from Canada and Scotland will join together this week at Indiana University Bloomington to tackle a vexing question: What does it take to establish a lasting, successful democracy? The "Building Sustainable Democracies" conference will take place Thursday, Friday and Saturday at the Indiana Memorial Union.

Sumit Ganguly, director of the India Studies Institute, professor of political science and holder of the Rabindranath Tagore Professorship in Indian Cultures and Civilizations at Indiana University, will be an official observer of parliamentary elections for the People's Republic of Bangladesh on Dec. 29.

Today's (May 2) news conference featuring Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has been canceled, but her speech to invited guests and news media is expected to take place. President Sirleaf's flight to Bloomington was delayed due to inclement weather this afternoon.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the president of Liberia and the first woman elected as president of any African country, will meet with reporters at 3:30 p.m. at IU's Lilly Library, 1200 E. Seventh St., where she later will speak to about 100 invited guests and the media. Only working media who can provide identification verifying them with a recognized news organization will be permitted to attend.

James Collins, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, and several other prominent specialists will gather at Indiana University on Friday, March 21, to discuss the future of Russian politics and democracy. The panel discussion, hosted by the Russian and East European Institute, will take place at noon in the State Room East of the Indiana Memorial Union, 900 E. Seventh St.

A new report released by the Center on American and Global Security at Indiana University identifies key issues in U.S.-Pakistan relations and makes recommendations for next steps in U.S. policy.

A new book co-edited by an IU professor marks the 60th anniversary of India's independence and subsequent transition to democracy. The State of India's Democracy will receive major recognition when it is released there next week.

In this week's special issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (online), Indiana University political scientist Elinor Ostrom and colleagues argue that while many basic conservation strategies are sound, their use is often flawed. The strategies are applied too generally, they say, as an inflexible, regulatory "blueprint" that foolishly ignores local customs, economics and politics.

Karen Hanson, Indiana University Bloomington provost and executive vice president, has named Jean C. Robinson, professor of political science and current director of graduate studies for that department, as interim dean of the IU Hutton Honors College. She also has named Catherine Pilachowski, the Daniel Kirkwood Chaired Professor of Astronomy and current chair of the Department of Astronomy, as interim dean of the Office of Women's Affairs.