CSS Open House 2018

We welcomed Fletcher students back for the academic year at an open house on September 17. The event introduced new and returning graduate students to the center’s recent work and our agenda for the coming year.

CSS Director Monica Toft kicked off the event by thanking the 40 students, representing all of The Fletcher School’s resident degrees and Tufts University’s undergraduate program, for attending the afternoon session. She presented her newest work on migration and demographics, a volume co-edited with Isabelle Côté and Matthew I. Mitchell entitled People Changing Places: New Perspectives on Demography, Migration, Conflict, and the State. Demographic change is a subtle and underappreciated factor driving conflict and tensions in all parts of the world, and she encouraged students to pay more attention to the long-neglected field. Demographics are critical for understanding power between and within states, shifting balances, and political violence and war. She noted that demographers were studying the effects of immigration on political stability many years before they hit the front pages of newspapers in Europe and the United States.

Sidita Kushi, a new research fellow, discussed The Intervention Project (TIP), a core research effort at CSS that will create a novel database of all U.S. military interventions dating back to the country’s founding. She highlighted opportunities for Fletcher students to work with the project, particularly on studies of under-examined cases.

More broadly, Professor Toft highlighted the many opportunities CSS offers to master’s students at The Fletcher School, including attending the Engaging Practitioners Series, applying to be research assistants, participating in the Capstone Incubator Program, writing for the Elephants in the War Room blog, and submitting entries to our “Pressing Questions” Competitions. The prize for the top two winners is lunch with Professor Toft and a $50 book certificate. Professor Toft emphasized that CSS is looking forward to supporting student activities, including conferences, events, travel, and interesting ideas for speakers and guests.

Also present at the open house were the new postdoctoral fellows, Nils Hägerdal and Megan McBride, as well as a returning fellow, Karim Elkady, and the PhD fellows and research associates from The Fletcher School. The open house provided an opportunity for interested graduate students to meet and get to know the CSS team, and marked the launch of a new year of collaboration, research, and engagement.