Fellows 2010-2011

The Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance (NCGG), directed by Helen V. Milner, is pleased to announce the selection of its 2010-2011 fellows for the Center’s three fellowship programs:  Globalization and Governance Fellowship ProgramPostdoctoral Fellowship Program in Regional Political Economy, and the Oxford-Princeton Global Leaders Program.

The cohort of NCGG fellows chosen from a large pool of applicants from all over the globe will be in residence pursing their own research projects and contributing to the intellectual life of the Center and the School of Public and International Affairs.

Globalization and Governance Fellowship Program

Through the Globalization and Governance Fellowship Program, NCGG will award six one-year research positions to a group of very talented scholars chosen from a large pool of close to 100 applicants from all over the globe. These awards are designed to promote basic research in the areas of international and comparative political economy, international organization, global governance, and globalization. Our scholars for the 2010-2011 academic year will be::

Olivier Accominotti received his Ph.D. in Economics from Sciences Po Paris in June 2010. He has previously been a visiting scholar (Fulbright fellow) at the University of California, Berkeley and a visiting researcher (Marie Curie fellow) at the European University Institute. Olivier’s research interests are in international economics and economic history. In his current work, he explores how financial crises transmitted internationally during the Great Depression, using bank balance sheet data and high-frequency financial series. His previous research has covered topics such as the determinants of foreign reserves policies, the effects of colonial institutions on countries’ access to capital markets and development and the impact of bilateral treaties and the most-favored-nation clause on trade liberalization. His work has been published in World PoliticsThe Economic History Review and the European Review of Economic History.
Faisal Z. Ahmed received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in June 2010. His dissertation examines how governments, especially those in autocracies, can manage and often harness various forms of international capital to their political advantage. Faisal's broader research interests are in political economy, empirical international trade, law and public policy. Before returning to academia, Faisal served on the Council of Economic Advisers as a staff economist for international finance, trade, and macroeconomics and as an associate macroeconomist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Faisal has a BA/MA in economics and BA in mathematics from Northwestern University.
Daniel J. Blake will receive his Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science at the Ohio State University in December 2010. His research focuses on the international political and legal regime governing foreign direct investment and the role of domestic politics in the formation of international institutions. In his dissertation, he develops a general theory of government preference formation over international institutional design that stresses the role of leaders' time horizons and uses it to explain a range of design differences in the legalization of international investment agreements. While at the Niehaus Center, Daniel will expand an original data set of investment treaty design features in order to examine whether more stringent treaty protections for foreign investors alter the composition of FDI flows.
Ian Hurd is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. His research is on the ways that governments and international organizations interact with and shape each other, both directly (through negotiations and treaties) and indirectly (through legitimation, authority, and social construction). His most recent book is International Organizations: Politics, Law, Practice (Cambridge University Press, 2011). He is currently writing a book on the strategic manipulation of international law which examines how states use, interpret, and are changed by the rules, norms, and practices of international law.
Tana Johnson (Ph.D., University of Chicago) is working on a book manuscript, Rethinking Non-State Actors: The Role and Impact of International Bureaucrats in Institutional Design. It points out that design suggestions, and even initial demands for new institutions, frequently come from staff of existent intergovernmental organizations. International bureaucrats participated in creating prominent organizations such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations Development Program, the International Energy Agency, and many others. Johnson was a research fellow in Vanderbilt University's Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in 2009-2010, and in summer 2011 she will join Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy as an assistant professor.
Erica Owen received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Minnesota in August 2010. Her current research focuses on the relationship between democratic politics and foreign direct investment (FDI). In her dissertation, she theorizes that although FDI tends to benefit economically skilled labor at the expense of unskilled labor in developed democracies, it is necessary to take into consideration which groups have the greatest potential to influence policy. Thus it is the combination of economic and political skills that leads to the presence of barriers to FDI in some industries and not others. She then examines how domestic political institutions affect this interaction, and consequently, FDI policy outcomes. Her other research interests include international economic organizations and the politics of international finance.

Postdoctoral Fellowship Program in Regional Political Economy

The Niehaus family’s generosity to the Center has funded for the third year the Postdoctoral Fellowship Program in Regional Political Economy created with the goal of developing a new generation of scholars able to analyze and make policy recommendations about the regional political economy in the Middle East, East, South, or Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America. This fellowship program attracted over 90 applicants for only two slots. The Center has welcomed its third class of fellows in the regional political economy fellowship program, Shana R. Marshall and A. Kadir Yildirim.

Shana R. Marshall is a PhD Candidate in International Relations and Comparative Politics at the University of Maryland with a concentration on political economy of the Middle East. Her dissertation, “From Oil to Offsets: Rentier State Innovation and the Endurance of Authoritarianism in the Middle East” examines how the region’s regimes are tapping into their trade with Western defense firms in order to secure new rents and deliver crucial patronage to pro-regime constituencies. Her work has appeared in the International Journal of Middle East StudiesMiddle East Policy and Political Studies. Research interests include Comparative and International Political Economy, Middle East Politics, U.S. Foreign Policy, and the Politics of Military and Security Institutions. Shana is a 2003 graduate of Hanover College.
A. Kadir Yildirim obtained his Ph.D. in Political Science from the Ohio State University in August of 2010. His main research interests center around economic liberalization, democratization and political Islam. Kadir's dissertation, entitled Muslim Democratic Parties: Economic Liberalization and Islamist Moderation in the Middle East, explores the socioeconomic origins of the different pathways that Islamic parties pursue as viable political parties. In his research, Kadir analyzes the distinctive forms that economic liberalization has taken in the Middle East, and offers a new theory on the impact of such distinctive liberalizations over the moderation of Islamist parties by focusing on Egypt, Morocco and Turkey. Currently, he works on two ongoing projects examining the Muslim democratic JDP government's effect on the level of anti-Americanism in Turkey, and the implications for the trading patterns of Turkey globally.

Oxford-Princeton Global Leaders Fellowship Program

The Global Leaders Fellowship Program (GLF), at Oxford University and Princeton University has selected four fellows for a two-year period, 2009-2011, which includes postdoctoral fellowships in world politics and political economy for holders of a doctorate who are nationals of a developing country. The Princeton program, directed by Robert O. Keohane, will create a network of scholars and practitioners with expertise in the key issues surrounding globalization.

Le Thanh Forsberg is from Vietnam. She obtained her Bachelor Degree in International Studies from Vietnam National University in 1998. In 2000, she completed the Uppsala Master Program in International Studies, with major in Peace and Conflict Research, in Sweden. Her research focused on regionalism and security cooperation in Southeast Asia. In 2007, she received her Doctorate in development studies and institutional economics from Lund University through the fellowships of the Swedish School of Advanced Asia-Pacific Studies and the European Institute of Japanese Studies at the Stockholm School of Economics. Her research area was the politics of foreign aid and the defining of ownership in development planning of recipient countries, with a particular geographical reference to Vietnam.
She is now a fellow of the Oxford-Princeton Global Leaders Program. Her research interests in this program are how domestic politics and international interactions shape public policies in developing countries. The year in Oxford was to define to what extent political constraints and economic interests influence healthcare reforms and the rapid commercialization of healthcare services in Vietnam. She plans for the year in Princeton to focus on to what extent development cooperation with international donors has influenced the institutional design and policy outcomes in the Vietnamese healthcare.
Apart from her academic affiliations, Le Thanh has conducted policy analysis and consultancies for international and think-tank organizations on development strategies such as UNDP, OECD, FRIDE; and government agencies in Sweden and Vietnam.
Rahmane Idrissa was born 1971 in Niger and first went to University in Senegal, at the University Cheikh Anta Diop, taking courses in Philosophy and Political Science. He wrote a Philosophy Maîtrise thesis in 1998 on the political geography of Jean-Jacques Rousseau before beginning his research into the decade-long democratic transition of Niger in the 1990s. In 2001 he won a Fulbright fellowship to study in the Political Science program of the University of Kansas and then began a PhD at the University of Florida in 2003. His current research focuses on the political economy of regional integration in West Africa. His doctorate examined the relations between the liberal democratic civil society and the Islamic civil society (or ‘clerical society’) in the ways in which they shape Nigerien governance agendas within a much-weakened state. Alongside this work, Rahmane has also written and published on other issues, such as maternal health care.
Leany Barreiro Lemos has a Masters in Political Science and a Doctorate in Comparative Studies on the Americas, both granted by the University of Brasilia, Brazil. Her dissertation “Legislative Control in Presidential Democracies: Brazil and United States in Comparative Perspective” won the Best Doctoral Dissertation Prize 2005-2006 (Latin American Political Science Association), and received Honor Mention at the 2006 Great Prize of Doctoral Dissertation (Capes/ Brazilian Agency for Higher Education and Research). She was an APSA/ Fulbright Congressional Fellow in 2003-2004; Visiting Scholar at Georgetown University (2003-2004); and Visiting Research Associate at the Centre for Brazilian Studies and St. Antony´s College, University of Oxford (2006). She has edited the book "The Brazilian Federal Senate after the 1988 Constitution" (2008), and has published several articles on Legislative Studies. Leany Barreiro Lemos has been a permanent staffer of the Brazilian Federal Senate since 1993, where she has served as senior advisor or chief of staff to a number of influential senators. Currently, she is also an Associate Professor at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Brasilia (on leave).
Dima Noggo Sarbo joined the Oxford-Princeton Global Leaders Fellowship program in 2009. He is currently a research scholar at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University. He spent a year at the Global Economic Governance Program, Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford in the UK. His main area of work is on the role of regional organizations in global governance with a specific research focus on the challenges of regional integration in Africa. His research interests include the institution of the state, governance, democratization, human rights, development, identity, nationalism, and social movements.
Dima was educated in Ethiopia, Senegal and the United States. He obtained a PhD in Sociology with a major concentration in political economy and a minor in environmental sociology from the University of Tennessee. His dissertation research focused on the structure of power and strategy of survival of states with contested legitimacy. In particular, it highlights the dual structure of power, the use of coercive methods and violence, as well as domestic and external patronage. Dima has a B.A. in Political Science and Government from Addis Ababa University, and a Post-Graduate Diploma from the United Nations Institute for Economic Development and Planning (IDEP) in Dakar.
Dima has previously worked as a consultant on development, peace, and conflict issues for several international non-governmental organizations. He was also involved in struggles for social justice, in diplomacy, negotiations and mediation. Earlier, he worked as a civil servant and in involved in rural development in Ethiopia. Moreover, he has worked in education, relief and rehabilitation among refugees, IDPs, and victims of state repression and civil wars in Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, and Kenya. He also served as a cabinet minister and a member of the legislature in the Government of Ethiopia.
Dima has lived in many countries in Africa and Europe and has travelled widely in Africa, Europe, Asia, the Pacific, and the Americas. He speaks and understands several languages, among them, English, Oromo, Amharic, German, French, and Arabic.

Global Leaders Fellowship (GLF) scholars for two-year period, FY2011-2012:

Ousseni Illy was born in 1977 in Burkina Faso. He did his primary education in Banwalé, a small village in the West of the country. He went to University in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, where he graduated with a Master (Maîtrise) in Law in 2003. In 2002 he won a scholarship from the Swiss Government for a short exchange programme at Geneva University. He came back to Geneva University in 2003 on his own for a Master (DEA) programme and then started a PhD programme in International Economic Law in 2005 at the same University. He obtained his doctorate in 2010. His research interests include international trade law (WTO, regional trade agreements, etc.), investment law, and international financial and monetary law. His PhD thesis dealt with the problematic of regionalism in WTO, with special focus on Africa’s RTAs.
Ren Hongsheng is from China. He obtained his doctorate at Nankai University in 2003 and plans to work on the relations between developing countries and multinational enterprises and devising strategies that could enhance the interests of countries and corporations alike.
Omobolaji Olarinmoye comes from Nigeria. He obtained his PhD in Political Science from University of Ibadan in 2007. He is currently working as a Coordinator for CODESRIA-Sephis Programme.
Valéria Guimarães de Lima e Silva is from Brazil. She holds a PhD degree in International Law from the University of São Paulo, Brazil, and a Masters in International Law and Economics from the World Trade Institute, Switzerland. More recently, she was in charge of the International Advisory Department of the Brazilian competition authority CADE, where she has previously held the position of Chief of Staff. She worked as a Bluebook Trainee at the European Commission, DG Competition. She has previously worked as an attorney for the second largest Intellectual Property law firm of Latin America, as well as branch manager of a law firm in the city of Rio de Janeiro. While living in Taiwan she has worked as legal counsel for a Taiwanese biotechnology company. She plans to work with International Economic Law, focusing on competition and international trade issues.