IU experts from multiple fields join forces in Indiana Democracy Consortium
What does it take to build a vibrant and stable democracy in a nation lacking democratic traditions? Why do some democracies flourish and others fail?
Through an initiative called the Indiana Democracy Consortium, Indiana University Bloomington experts are working across academic boundaries to answer those and similar questions that have grown in urgency since the end of the Cold War.
"This is a very interdisciplinary effort, and that's what makes it exciting," said Jeff Isaac, director of the consortium and chairman of the IU Bloomington political science department.
Isaac said the consortium makes sense because of extraordinary campus expertise on democracy in the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Law and the School of Public and Environmental Affairs.
"It's our belief that, if we organize and facilitate from the bottom up, some of this will really grow and become strong," he said.
The 50 members of the IDC include faculty from law, SPEA, political science, history, anthropology, international area studies, communication and culture and other fields. Information about the IDC is on the Web at http://democracy.indiana.edu.
The IDC was established several years ago with funding from the IU Commitment to Excellence project. It took shape with a June 2007 conference in Bloomington that brought together IU faculty members with outside experts, including former Michigan congressman Howard Wolpe and William Nash of the Council on Foreign Relations.
The conference, titled "Democracy and the Modern World: Prospects and Challenges," included three thematic sections:
- Civil Society and Governance, chaired by Roy Shin of SPEA.
- State Building, chaired by Isaac.
- Constitutionalism and the Rule of Law, chaired by David Williams of the Law School.
Participants eschewed prepared academic papers and jargon, taking part instead in focused and directed conversations aimed at breaking down the issues and learning about each others' areas of expertise, said Brian Shoup, associate director of the IDC.
"It wasn't the academics talking down to people," he said. "They sat in a circle and learned from each other."
Some of the conversations that began at the conference spawned small working groups, in which faculty members are developing ideas for cross-disciplinary research projects. The consortium may provide seed funding for some research projects, helping them reach the point of winning competitive grants.
So far, the IDC has engendered working groups on the limits and hazards of nation-building, ethnic identities and border conflicts, and the dynamics of collective decision-making.
It also sponsors monthly symposia, which have covered such topics as border issues in the Balkans, the problems of debt incurred by despotic regimes, and the value of truth and reconciliation commissions. In February, members met with Lt. Col. Doug Ollivant of the U.S. Army, who has a doctorate from IU and is a National Security Council staff member, to discuss Iraq. In March, the IDC co-sponsored a film showing and talk on the 2006 elections in Venezuela.
Lauren Robel, dean of the IU School of Law--Bloomington, directed the Indiana Democracy Consortium through the time of the 2007 conference and remains involved. She said the IDC has focused on the fundamental university missions of research and teaching -- with the research linking faculty in the disciplines of the College of Arts and Sciences with those in the professional schools of Law and SPEA.
And with the U.S. military engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, and border disputes and ethnic identities producing conflict on several continents, faculty members have a vast laboratory for trying to understand what democracy means and how it works.
"What could be more important right now?" Robel said. "Or more difficult?"
