This news story first appeared on February 16, 2015 . For more information, click here.

Tower Center Associate, Neil Foley is the Robert H. and Nancy Dedman Chair in History at SMU.

The history of immigration in the United States is the topic of today’s discussion. Ironically even though the United States is a nation of immigrants, immigration has been a controversial issue from its very beginnings.

Click here to watch the video

The immigration debate is again heating up as a result of President Obama’s executive actions as they relate to immigration. Recent news headlines report that 26 states filed a lawsuit to stop President Obama’s executive actions that would allow approximately 4.9 million eligible, undocumented immigrants to temporarily avoid deportation by applying for deferred action programs, namely the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and the Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA). The suit was initiated by then Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who has since become the state’s governor.

On the first of our 25th anniversary programs, host, Dennis McCuistion, is joined in part one of a three part series titled A Brief History of Immigration,  by experts:

• Mike Gonzalez (via Skype): Heritage Foundation Senior Fellow, Author of A Race for the Future: How Conservatives Can Break Through the Liberal Monopoly on Hispanic Americans
• Hipolito Acosta: Former District Director, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration, Author of The Shadow Catcher, and
• Neil Foley, PhD: SMU Professor -The Robert H. and Nancy Dedman Chair in History U.S.-Mexico Borderlands/Immigration Legal, Labor and Political History of the American Southwest, Author of Mexicans and the Making of America.

While discussing the history of immigration in the United States, our guests take us back in time to the making of our present policies and their colorful evolution. At the start of this country U.S. migration went from East to West. Westward migration expanded into Kentucky and the 1803 Louisiana Purchase pitted us directly against the Spanish Empire. There was a south to north Spanish immigration into Texas, which began  causing conflict as early as the 1820’s . The U.S. intended to own America from east coast to west coast.

We’re  reminded  of the various immigration acts,  their outcomes and challenges. At one time Mexicans were not considered immigrants, with families living on both sides of the border. The 1917 Immigration Act called for a head tax and a literacy test, partly to keep Asians, primarily Chinese from immigrating. The 1924 National Origins put quotas on SE Europeans, Irish and Italians, Poles and Slavs. Many of these acts have failed.

It’s no surprise that our guests tell us we keep repeating the same old story. We have border enforcement, which is still not secure, and the same fears of immigrants taking jobs away from citizens.

Join us this week as we talk about our country’s origins and the peoples who have made this country a great one in a Brief History of Immigration.

Thanks for joining us in our 25th year of talking about things that matter with people who really care.

Click here to watch the video

This news story first appeared on February 16, 2015 . For more information, click here.

Tower Center Senior Fellow, Pia M. Orrenius is Vice President and Senior Economist, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Immigration policy is the subject of this McCuistion Program episode. Joining host, Dennis McCuistion, to continue the Immigration question on part two of our three part series are guests:

Immigration is part of the founding myth of the United States which has gone through several immigration waves in its short history. Its first; the founding colonial wave, which was largely English. Since, we’ve had the primarily German/Irish wave of 1820-1870 with German immigration the largest to date, comprising 15% of all our immigration. The third wave took place from the 19th century to World War I. Today we’re in our fourth wave.

Click here to watch the video

Immigration policy has become ever more complex; as a human rights issue, jobs and economic issue, welfare issue, a cultural and a national security issue. Despite the succession of laws it still remains problematic. A 1986 law gave 3 million undocumented aliens some legalized status and had provisions to fine employers who abused the system by employing undocumented aliens.

A 1990 law expanded the number of family based visas that were being issued and resulted in the highest rate of immigrants in decades- 10-11 million people. Another law in 1996 added reinforcement provisions, more benefits were granted; even more enforcement to authorities and considerably more resources along our borders. Still illegal immigration continues; the complexity increases and our policies are still deficient.

When speaking of immigration policy, our experts challenge us to  remember why so many people immigrate to the United States, in spite of the obstacles put in their way. The answer is partly opportunity – and economic and other freedoms.  Research shows that it’s high skilled immigration which has the highest payoff for our economy. Still, as always there’s demand and supply so programs that work need to be in place to bring both the highly skilled and not so skilled into the United States, albeit  legally.

Is there one solution to our immigration policy dilemma? Secure borders, enforce the law, strong interior enforcement? The U.S. needs more comprehensive laws and  better enforcement. President Obama’s executive order helps families and offers employer reforms but is that enough to resolve the growing issue?

Thanks for joining us in our 25th year of talking about things that matter with people who really care.

Click here to watch the video

This news story first appeared on February 8, 2015 . For more information, click here.

Joshua Rovner is the John Goodwin Tower Distinguished Chair in International Politics and National Security. He is the author of Fixing the Facts: National Security and the Politics of Intelligence (Cornell University Press, 2011).

President Obama fails all the time. That is the verdict of the op-ed pages, at least. His foreign policy is a muddle. His decisions to exit from Afghanistan and Iraq were disastrously premature. His responses to terrorism, Syria, Iran, and Russia revealed weakness. His response to the rise of China is a massive failure based on wishful thinking. America’s standing in the world is in steep decline because of all these errors.

Of course, the situation was no better in the last administration. Our summary judgment about President Bush is more or less summarized in the titles of two popular books from the time: Hubris and Fiasco. Our summary judgment of President Clinton was that he lacked any conception of grand strategy, concentrated on domestic policy at the expense of foreign affairs, and otherwise took a “holiday from history.” And we can go back much further. Indeed, read the news from any era and you may get the feeling that the United States is incapable of coherent foreign policy, that it is devoid of serious strategic thinkers, and that its whole history is a depressing catalog of blunders. Yet somehow we ended up as the world’s most prosperous and powerful country.

To be clear, the United States is certainly capable of blunders. Americans frequently misunderstand foreign crises but plow into them nonetheless. They are also capable of nationalist back-slapping and heroic myth-making that obscure the limits of American power. And sometimes they throw good money after bad in foolhardy attempts to rescue ill-conceived policies. We should not ignore these errors, however tragic and demoralizing. Exploring the causes and consequences of strategic failure is a necessary antidote to hubris.

But the United States has also done some things very well, blending activism and restraint in order to deal with present threats without getting mired in unsolvable long-term quagmires. It is historically secure and prosperous, and its position in the world is not simply a matter of geography or luck. For a number of reasons, however, we often fail to acknowledge our own triumphs. This has major implications. For analysts, the focus on failure makes it difficult to understand the sources of success. For policymakers, it encourages abandoning successful strategies and replacing them with bad ones. This leads to overreach, not because of victory fever but because of the inability to recognize victory in the first place.

Consider the conflict with Iraq during the 1990s. The decade began with the first Gulf War, which many worried would be an atrocious bloodbath. At the time, Iraq boasted the fourth-largest army in the world, battle-tested in the long war with Iran. Saddam Hussein was ruthless and aggressive, and the Iraqis had proven willing to suffer horrendous casualties rather than capitulate to their enemies. But Operation Desert Storm was a stunningly rapid victory with a historically low casualty rate for the U.S.-led coalition. In the process it destroyed the bulk of Iraq’s conventional military capabilities, and the sanctions that remained on Iraq over the next decade shattered Iraq’s economy and prevented it from rebuilding. During the 1990s, +weapons inspectors also located and destroyed Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons and caused Iraq to shelve its nuclear ambitions. Most important, Saddam Hussein’s behavior changed during that time. Before Desert Storm he harbored dreams of expanding Iraq’s regional power, but after the war he focused on holding on to power at home.

The irony was that as all this was happening, U.S. officials began to worry that Iraq was “winning the peace.” As long as Saddam remained in place, and as long as he spouted belligerent rhetoric, they feared that whatever gains they made against Iraq were temporary at best. Fears about the deterioration of the sanctions regime were overblown, and in any case even a complete collapse of sanctions would not have mattered much. Iraq’s economy was so thoroughly demolished by the end of the decade that Saddam had no chance of restoring its previous strength, regardless of whether he had unfettered access to international markets. Fears that Iraq would resuscitate its nuclear program were also exaggerated, because they downplayed the resources needed to achieve even a modest nuclear weapons capability. Nonetheless, despite abundant evidence that Iraq was a shell of its former self and that it posed no real threat to anyone, officials became increasingly convinced that stability and security in the Persian Gulf were only possible if Saddam was removed. So they removed him. What followed was a terrible civil war, which is now in its second decade.

The war on al Qaeda followed a similar pattern. The United States rapidly and decisively shattered Osama bin Laden’s original organization. This was important, because vintage al Qaeda was unique among terrorist groups: it was rich, well organized, led by a charismatic figure, and dedicated to killing large numbers of American civilians. Dismantling that group was the most important task in the aftermath of 9/11, for which the Bush administration deserves a great deal of credit. Unfortunately, that administration was unwilling to settle for a limited victory. Instead, it launched a quixotic nation-building effort and became deeply involved in the fractured politics of Afghanistan. At the same time it decided to pursue an open-ended “war on terror” rather than a straightforward war on al Qaeda. By targeting far-flung terrorists with no direct connection to the perpetrators of 9/11, it set the stage for an ambiguous conflict with no end in sight.

The tendency to ignore success also has implications for U.S. foreign policy and great power politics. Consider the Obama administration’s handling of the Ukraine crisis. Russia’s decision to annex Crimea and support separatists in Eastern Ukraine led the Obama administration to enact a series of escalating sanctions against Moscow, but it was cautious about intervening in a way that would put it squarely in the ongoing conflict. At the time, some criticized the administration for timidity and argued that Vladimir Putin was outmaneuvering the president and undoing the post-Cold War order in Europe. But the Obama administration’s approach has worked. Russia’s actions spooked investors, leading to a stock market and currency crisis and a staggering wave of capital flight. Recent estimates suggest that as much as $150 billion left the country last year, and U.S. sanctions compounded Russia’s economic pain. On top of all that was the collapse in oil prices, which has made it extremely difficult for Moscow to weather the storm. Among other things, the loss in revenue will probably force Russia to scale back its ambitious military modernization program. And while Russia’s economic and military power is eroding, its aggressiveness breathed new life into NATO and made its neighbors desperate to strengthen ties to the United States. Thus, Russia simultaneously weakened itself and united its rivals.

The Obama administration appears to have recognized Russia’s self-defeating behavior for what it was. While critics worried that Putin was “running circles” around the White House, the administration’s patient approach has exacted a huge toll from Russia at minimal cost. Of course, this means that Washington is willing to tacitly accept that Crimea will never go back to Ukraine. There is also risk involved: a desperate Putin might gamble for resurrection by lashing out against NATO allies along Russia’s western border. But the administration has clearly drawn the line in the Baltics and is working to deter Russia from going forward there. So far this combined strategy—economic sanctions against Russia plus deterrent threats to protect the alliance—has allowed Washington to avoid a costly intervention while letting Russia exhaust itself.

Limited success isn’t enough for some, however, and prominent critics continue to call for more robust U.S. efforts to assist Kiev, including providing military assistance. It remains to be seen whether the Obama administration or its successor will be able to resist this pressure.

Dealing with China may prove to be the biggest test of all. U.S. success in East Asia is one of the great underappreciated triumphs of the last half century. Successive administrations have managed to deter China from attacking Taiwan, while simultaneously restraining Taiwan from declaring independence. Such a provocation would likely shatter the framework of triangular deterrence that has sustained the peace for decades. Although each case is unique, U.S. relations with all of its Asian allies rely on this basic concept. The United States offers them protection while taking steps to discourage them from doing anything that might lead to a serious crisis with China. As a result, understanding how the United States succeeded in standing between Taiwan and China is critical for developing the United States’ diplomatic approach to the region as a whole.

There are reasons to believe that Washington will change course, however. For instance, U.S. officials might conclude that the past offers little guidance given China’s growing economic and military strength. New circumstances might require an unequivocal declaration of U.S. support in order to reassure increasingly nervous allies. While this is not an unreasonable argument, it risks overstating the degree to which China is actually catching up to the United States. China has clearly made important gains, but it also faces gigantic economic and demographic problems, and there is evidence that the United States is actually increasing its overall lead. If this is true, than the Obama administration and its successors need not abandon the approach that has served it so well for so long. But as with the other cases, everything depends on whether they are able to recognize success in the first place.

Former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Tower Center Senior Fellow, Robert Jordan, comments on the succession of Arab King Salman bin Abdulaziz.

This news story first appeared on January 22, 2015. For more information, click here.

(Reuters) – The death on Friday of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah means Salman bin Abdulaziz has become the country’s new ruler and the last to be born before the discovery of oil in the world’s top crude exporter.

As king, Salman, thought to be 79, will have to navigate regional turmoil caused by wars in Iraq and Syria, as well as a bitter rivalry with Shi’ite Muslim power Iran and a lingering threat from an al Qaeda wing in neighboring Yemen.

His crown prince will be his youngest half brother Prince Muqrin, a former intelligence chief who was appointed as deputy crown prince in March.

A reputed moderate with a deft understanding of the competing demands of conservative clerics, powerful tribes and an increasingly youthful population, Salman will also have the final say on social and economic reforms started under Abdullah.

“It appeared to me he had a good handle on the delicate balancing act he had to do to move society forward while being respectful of its traditions and conservative ways,” said Robert Jordan who was U.S. ambassador in Riyadh from 2001-03.

A physically imposing figure, Salman controls one of the Arab world’s largest media groups. He believes that democracy is ill-suited to the conservative kingdom and advocates caution on social and cultural reform, according to a 2007 U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks.

For nearly 50 years Salman was governor of Riyadh Province, a role that involved working closely with both conservative traditionalists and liberal technocrats as he oversaw the development of the Saudi capital from a small desert town to a major metropolis.

However, when two elder full-brothers, crown princes Sultan and Nayef died within a year of each other, Salman was appointed first Defense Minister and then heir apparent.

The defense portfolio involved running the kingdom’s top-spending ministry, which used massive arms purchases to bolster ties with allies such as the United States, Britain and France.

He has been part of the inner circle of the al-Saud ruling family, which founded and still dominates the desert kingdom in alliance with conservative religious clerics, for decades.

In a royal family that bases its right to rule on its guardianship of Islam’s holiest sites in Mecca and Medina, Salman is reputed to be devout and relatively outward-looking.

“He’s intelligent, political, in touch with the conservative base but also quite modern-minded,” said a former diplomat in Riyadh interviewed about the kingdom’s succession process.

RIYADH GOVERNOR

As governor of Riyadh from 1962 until 2011, Salman had more to do with foreign governments than many senior royals.

The role also meant he was responsible for arbitrating disputes between quarreling members of the ruling family, putting him at the center of the kingdom’s most important power structure.

The governor’s office overlooks Riyadh’s most appealing square where, if he worked on Fridays, he would have been able to watch as an executioner publicly beheaded malefactors.

In a meeting with the U.S. ambassador in March 2007, described in a cable released by WikiLeaks, Salman said the social and cultural reforms instigated by King Abdullah had to move slowly for fear of a conservative backlash.

He also argued against the introduction of democracy in the kingdom, citing regional and tribal divisions, and told the ambassador that a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was necessary for Middle East stability.

Jordan said Prince Salman had initially refused to believe Saudis participated in the Sept 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, but his attitude changed in the face of increasingly solid evidence that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis.

“He doesn’t blindly accept everything the United States says, but at the same time he understands the importance of the relationship, which goes beyond oil,” Jordan said.

ROYAL POWER

With his strong, bearded features, Salman is the prince who is said to resemble his father, King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, more closely than do any of his brothers.

Ibn Saud recaptured his family’s old stronghold of Riyadh in 1902 with a small group of followers fired by an austere vision of Islam, setting off a three-decade campaign of conquest that carved out the modern borders of a kingdom founded in 1932.

As one of the so-called “Sudairi seven” – the brothers born to Ibn Saud by his favorite wife Hassa bint Ahmed al-Sudairi – Salman has been at the center of royal power for decades.

His full brothers in a family of more than 30 half-brothers include the late King Fahd and Crown Princes Sultan and Nayef, and former interior minister Prince Ahmed.

Salman was born in 1936 in Riyadh, then a mud-brick oasis town deep in the interior of a new kingdom that had not yet discovered oil, depending instead on revenue from pilgrims to Mecca and Medina, date farming and camel herding.

Yet one son, Prince Sultan bin Salman, became the first Arab astronaut, flying on the U.S. space shuttle Discovery in 1985.

Prince Sultan is now the kingdom’s tourism minister while another son, Prince Abdulaziz, is the deputy oil minister.

In his five decades administering Riyadh and its surroundings, Salman oversaw the development of the capital from a large desert town into a metropolis of 4.6 million people.

Prince Salman was taught in the “princes’ school” set up in Ibn Saud’s palace by the imam of the Grand Mosque of Mecca, signaling the importance that Ibn Saud attached to the centrality of pure Islamic belief in the kingdom he created.

We are pleased to announce that Dr. James F. Hollifield, Director of the Tower Center, has been appointed as a Public Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. for 2015-2016.

During his sabbatical at the Wilson Center, Professor Hollifield will be completing a book entitled THE MIGRATION STATE, a study of how states manage migration for strategic gains.

Dr. Joshua Rovner, Tower Chair and Director of Studies will serve as interim director in Professor Hollifield’s absence.

Tower Center Programs and External Relations Director, Luisa del Rosal (center), is featured in a Dallas Morning News series about young professionals from Mexico starting new ventures. Read article here and view video interview here .

FELLOWS & ASSOCIATES RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS, FALL 2014

John A. Booth, Associate

• Papers and Publications
  • Book, Latin American Political Culture: Public Opinion and Democracy. John A. Booth & Patricia Bayer Richard, Congressional-Sage Publications, 2015.
• Academic Lectures, Conference Presentations, and Speaking Engagements
  • “Central America, 2014″ Houston Seminar, Houston, TX, November 24, 2014.
  • “Latin American Political Culture” and “Central America’s Current Crisis” SOUTHCOM Theater Course, United States Air Force, Cannon AFB, Clovis, NM, December 2, 2014.

Caroline B. Brettell, Fellow

• Papers and Publications
  • Book, Anthropological Conversations: Talking Culture Across Disciplines. 2015.
  • Book, Migration Theory: Talking Across Disciplines (3rd edition). 2015.
• Academic Lectures, Conference Presentations, and Speaking Engagements
  • “Perspectives on Nation Unbound: The Transnational Migration Paradigm in the Current Conjuncture” Vrije University, Amsterdam, October 2014.

Karisa Cloward, Associate

• Papers and Publications
  • “False Commitments: Local Misrepresentation and the International Norms Against Female Genital Mutilation and Early Marriage.” International Organization 68(3): 495-526, 2014.
• Academic Lectures, Conference Presentations, and Speaking Engagements
  • Presentation, “The NGO Life Cycle: Organizational Birth and Death in the Kenyan Development Sector” The annual meeting of the African Studies Association, Indianapolis, IN, November 21, 2014.
  • Dedman College Interdisciplinary Institute Fellows Seminar, Co-organizer, “Global Africa: Between Intervention and Engagement” 2014-2015.

Christopher Jenks, Associate

• Papers and Publications
  • Security Versus Freedom: Contemporary Challenge of Indefinite Detention Pursuant to Section 1021 of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act. Harvard J. Law & Pub. Pol., 2014.
  • Strange Bedfellows: How Expanding the Public Safety Exception to Miranda Benefits Countererrrism Suspects, 61 Fordham Urb. L.J. 1, 2014.
  • Down the Rabbit Hole: Notes from Camp Justice, Guantanamo Bay. August, 2014.
  • A Kellog-Briand Pact for the 21st Century. Small Wars Journal, June, 2014.
  • US Military Should Publish All Investigations of Civilian Deaths. Al Jazeera America, June, 2014.
  • Targeting Transparency: A Call for DoD to Automatically Release Investigations of Civilian Casualties in Armed Conflict. Just Security, May 2014.
• Academic Lectures, Conference Presentations, and Speaking Engagements
  • “International Humanitarian Law”, “Who is Protected and How?” and “Implementation and Enforcement of IHL” as part of Professionals in Humanitarian Assistance and Protection special training for United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, New York City, NY, November 2014.
  • “Trying Terror Suspects” panel chair as part of Appellate Judges Education Institute, panel included General Mark Martins, Chief Prosecutor Office of Military Commissions and Chris Harland, Legal Adviser International Committee of the Red Cross, Dallas, TX, November 2014.
  • “Protection of the Environment: An Operational Perspective,” United Nations Seminar on Protection of the Environment During Armed Conflict, United Nations Headquarters, New York City, NY, October 2014.
  • “Asymmetric or the New Normal? Autonomous Weapon Systems & The Next Arms Race,” Texas A&M Law Review Symposium Technology and Law: Rethinking National Security, Ft. Worth, TX, October 17, 2014.
  • “Hacked! Ethical Issues for Lawyers in the Cyber World,” panelist on the impact of cyber intrusions and collective cyber defense, General Counsel Forum, SMU Dedman School of Law, Dallas, TX, May, 2014.
  • “Rules of Engagement” and “Use of Force in Peace Operations” and “The Responsibility to Protect”,” as part of Conduct of Peace Support Operations Course, International Institute of Humanitarian Law, Deputy Course Director and Presenter; Sanremo, Italy, June, 2014.
• Media Appearances
  • Carol Rosenberg, Is Guantanamo Navy Base Part of the USA? Well That Depends….. Miami Herald, September 8, 2014.
  • Wade Goodwyn, Rick Perry’s Legal Trouble: The Line Between Influence and Coercion, National Public Radio, August 30, 2014.
  • ABC News Interview, The Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility Conundrum, August 28, 2014.
  • Wade Goodwyn, Grand Jury in Texas Probes Whether Gov. Perry Abused Powers, National Public Radio, June 9, 2014.
  • Chris Carroll, What Punishment Could Bergdahl Face? Stars and Stripes, June 5, 2014.

Robert Jordan, Senior Fellow

• Papers and Publications
  • Book, Desert Diplomat: Inside Saudi Arabia Following 9/11. Accepted for publication by Potomac Books.

Jeffrey D. Kahn, Fellow

• Papers and Publications
  • The Law is a Causeway: Metaphor & the Rule of Law in Russia, in The Legal Doctrines of the Rule of Law & the Legal State (Rechtsstaat)(Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law & Justice, Vol. 38) 229-250 (Silkenat, Hickey, & Barenboim, eds., Springer, 2014).
  • How Federal Is The Russian Federation? (with Trochev & Balayan) in Federalism & Legal Unification: A Comparative Empirical Investigation of Twenty Systems (Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law & Justice, Vol. 28) 355-390 (Halberstam & Reimann, eds., 2014).
• Additional Writings
  • Guest Post: A Reply to Margo Schlanger on Latif & Fundamental Rights.Just Security, June 30, 2014.
  • Guest Post from Jeff Kahn on Latif v. Holder (Striking Down the No-Fly List). Lawfare, June 25, 2014.
• Academic Lectures, Conference Presentations, and Speaking Engagements
  • Presentation on “Robert Bolt, Vaclav Havel, and the Rule of Law in Russia,” in the roundtable “The Rule of Law, Business, and Crime: Law and Politics in Russia and Kazakhstan,” 46th Annual Convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, San Antonio, Texas, November 22, 2014.
  • Presentation on “The Khodorkovsky Case, Collateral Attacks, and the Rule of Law,” 14th Annual Aleksanteri Conference on Restructuring State and Society in Russia, University of Helsinki, Finland, October 24, 2014.
  • Chair and panelist, “Citizenship and the Right to Travel: A Legal History of the Relationship from before the Passport to after the No Fly List,” 8th Annual European Consortium for Political Research, University of Glasgow, Sept. 4, 2014.
  • Invited Lecture entitled “The Khodorkovsky Saga, Power Politics and Legal Reform in Russia,” International Institute for Strategic Studies, Arundel House, London, Sept. 3, 2014.
  • Invited Panelist, 22nd Annual Teaching Effective Symposium, SMU, August 21, 2014.
  • 30-minute radio interview, “Lawsuit Over Federal Watch List,” Bloomberg Law, August 18, 2014.
  • Keynote Speaker, “The Past, Present, & Future of the No Fly List,” Weil Gotshal, Dallas, Aug. 13, 2014.
  • Public lecture entitled, “Liberty and Security at 30,000 Feet: Freedom of Movement and the No Fly List,” Dallas Public Library Preston-Royal Branch, August 7, 2014.
  • Invited Panelist, Fugh Symposium on Law and Military Operations, The Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School, Department of the Army, Charlottesville, VA, May 14, 2014.

LaiYee Leong, Fellow

• Appointments
  • Fellow at the SMU Center for Presidential History to work on its Collective Memory Project (lead researcher and interviewer for US “Post-9/11 Policy in East and Southeast Asia).

Michael McLendon, Fellow

• Papers and Publications
  • McLendon, M. K., D. Tandberg, & N. Hillman. (2014). Financing college opportunity: Factors influencing state spending on student financial aid and campus appropriations from 1990 to 2012. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 655, 143-162.
  • McLendon, M. K., & L. W. Perna. (2014). State policies and higher education attainment. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 655, 6-15.
  • Perna, L. W., M. Klein, & M. K. McLendon. (2014). State Policies and higher education attainment: Insights and implications for state policymakers. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 655, 209-230.
  • McLendon, M. K., L. Cohen-Vogel, & J. Wachen. (2014). Understanding education policymaking and policy change in the American states: Learning from contemporary policy theory. In L. Fusarelli, J. Cibulka, & B. Cooper (Eds.). Handbook of Education Politics and Policy (2nd ed.).
• Academic Lectures, Conference Presentations, and Speaking Engagements
  • Presenter, “The Rhetoric and the Reality of State Performance Funding in U.S. Higher Education.” Association for the Study of Higher Education, Washington, D.C.
  • Presenter,“Financing American Higher Education: Revolution, Evolution, or More of the Same?” SMU Faculty Club 2014 Distinguished Lecture, SMU.
  • Presenter, “Lessons in Leadership from the Summer of 1940.” Faculty keynote to the Hart Global Leaders Forum, SMU.
  • Presenter, “What Will the College Student Experience Look Like in the 21st Century?” Education Writers Association’s Annual Higher Education Seminar, SMU.

Edward T. Rincón, Associate

• Papers and Publications
  • “Texas:  Quality of Life at the Crossroads.” Public policy paper co-authored by Marcos G. Ronquillo and Edward T. Rincón.  August 18, 2014.
  • “Raising the bar in health-related research.”  Viewpoint article, HispanicAd.com, May 20, 2014.
• Academic Lectures, Conference Presentations, and Speaking Engagements
  • Presenter, “Marketing and Demographic Trends of the U.S. Latino Population,”  Universidad Autonoma del Estado de México,  October 2014.
  • Presenter, “Designing Survey for Diverse U.S. Audiences,”  workshop presented to Parametro Research staff in Tuluca México, October 2014.
  • “D-FW law firms employ few Hispanic lawyers, study finds.” Media coverage regarding our Legal Watch Dallas study, Dallas Morning News, Natalie Postgate and Mark Curriden, 2014.
• Media Appearances
  • “Shortsighted Business Law Firms Ignoring Hispanic Business Growth.” Media coverage regarding the Legal Watch Dallas study, www.Texaslawbook.net, Natalie Postgate and Mark Curriden, 2014.

Carolyn Smith-Morris, Associate

• Papers and Publications
  • Smith-Morris, Carolyn, Gilberto Lopez, Lisa Ottomanelli, Lance Goetz, and Kim Dixon-Lawson. “Ethnography, Fidelity, and the Evidence that Anthropology Adds: Supplementing the Fidelity Process in a Clinical Trial of Supported Employment”. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 28(2): 141-161.
  • Smith-Morris, Carolyn and Jenny Epstein. “Beyond Cultural Competency: Skill, Reflexivity, and Structure in Successful Tribal Health Care”. In Special Issue Cultural Capital and Health in Native American Communities, Jennie Joe and Robert Young (Eds). American Indian Culture & Research Journal 38(1): 29-48.
• Grants, Fellowships, Awards
  • PI. National Science Foundation #1502792 ($28,500). “Cultural Patterns in Crisis-Induced Stigma: Ebola in two Dallas Neighborhoods”.
• Academic Lectures, Conference Presentations, and Speaking Engagements
  • Community Action Research Track (CART) lecture for the Department of Family and Community Medicine at UT Southwestern.  “Social Determinants of Health”.  May 14, 2014.  UTSW Campus, Dallas, TX.

Mary Spector, Associate

• Academic Lectures, Conference Presentations, and Speaking Engagements
  • Panelist,  Credit Reporting Issues Among Limited English Proficiency Latinos, Federal Trade Commission/Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Roundtable on Debt Collection and the Latino Community, Long Beach, CA, October 23, 2014.
  • Presenter, Bellow Scholar Workshop, University of Notre Dame Law School, Fort Bend, IN, October 17-18, 2014.
  • Panelist, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Credit Cards (but Were Afraid to Ask,) American Bankruptcy Institute, CARE Financial Literacy Conference, Dallas, TX, September 12, 2014.
  • Panelist,  Making the Most of Consumer Clinics, Teaching Consumer Law Conference, Santa Fe, NM, May 30, 2014.
  • Presenter, Can Empirical Research in our Clinics Help us Become Better Clinicians? (with Judith Fox and Michael Gregory), American Association of Law Schools, 37th Annual Conference on Clinical Legal Education, Chicago, IL,  April 29, 2014.

Hiroki Takeuchi, Senior Fellow

• Papers and Publications
  • Book, Hiroki Takeuchi, Tax Reform in Rural China: Revenue, Resistance, and Authoritarian Rule (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
• Additional Writings
  • “The ‘Russia’ issue for the U.S. (1): Implications of ‘Ukraine’” (in Japanese), Foresight, November 25, 2014.
  • “Whither ‘Arab Awakening’? Former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Talks about the Middle East” (in Japanese), Foresight, October 19, 2014.
  • “The ‘Middle East?’ ‘Asia?’ The U.S. Thinks How to Commit” (in Japanese), Foresight, September 29, 2014.
  • “The U.S. Facing the ISIS: Obama’s Speech and US Grand Strategy” (in Japanese), Foresight, September 21, 2014.
  • “The Commander of ‘Operation Tomodachi’ Analyzes Security in East Asia” (in Japanese), Foresight, September 4, 2014.
  • “Political Economy of the TPP (3): The Chinese Perspective” (in Japanese), Foresight, August 18, 2014.
  • “Political Economy of the TPP (2): The Abenomics and Japan’s ‘Homework’” (in Japanese), Foresight, July 23, 2014.
  • “Political Economy of the TPP (1): The U.S. That Does Not Do ‘Homework’” (in Japanese), Foresight, July 11, 2014.
  • “Dallas with Darvish: Texas and the U.S. Seen from the Texas Rangers” (in Japanese), Foresight, June 28, 2014.
  • “Managing China Is Most Important: Ambassador Schieffer Talks about Japan-U.S. Relations” (in Japanese), Foresight, May 19, 2014.
  • “The Korean Peninsula Seen from the U.S. (3): Why Japan-South Korea Relations Have Deteriorated” (in Japanese), Foresight, May 3, 2014.
• Academic Lectures, Conference Presentations, and Speaking Engagements
  • “Migration, Participation, and Taxation in Rural China.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., August 2014.
  • “Dancing in Another Ballroom? What Are the Roles of China’s Democratic Institutions” (co-authored with Tomoki Kamo). Paper presented at the biennial meeting of the European Association for the Chinese Studies, Coimbra, Portugal, July 2014.
  • “Trade and Globalization in the Asia-Pacific,” Global Citizenship Series by Stephen F. Austin State University, Sugar Land, TX, October 2014.

Bernard L. Weinstein, Associate

• Papers and Publications
  • The Keystone/Gulf Coast Pipeline System: A Catalyst for American Jobs and Energy Security, Maguire Energy Institute, May 2014.
  • The Financial Outlook for the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority: Challenges and Opportunities, Maguire Energy Institute, November 2014.
  • “Can the U.S. Government Revive Nuclear Power?” Wall St. Journal, November 24, 2014.
  • “Corporate Inversions a Symptom of Dysfunctional Tax System,” The Hill, October 28, 2014.
  • “Ban on Oil Exports Has Outlived its Usefulness,” Houston Chronicle, October 24, 2014.
• Academic Lectures, Conference Presentations, and Speaking Engagements
  • Congressional Testimony, U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce, July 24, 2014.
  • Invited participant, Workshop on Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), sponsored by Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Atlanta, November 20-21, 2014.
• Appointments
  • Named Fellow of Goodenough College, London (UK), November 2014.

Mark A. Wynne, Fellow

• Conference organizer, The Federal Reserve’s Role in the Global Economy: A Historical Perspective, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, September 2014.

Tower Center Fellow, Tyler Moore is an assistant professor of Computer Science and Engineering at SMU.

Tower Center Fellow Tyler Moore Co-edited New Oxford Journal of Cybersecurity

This news story first appeared on November 24, 2014. For more information, click here.

Tower Center Associate, Brian W. Stump is a Albritton Professor of Earth Sciences, SMU.

SMU seismologist Brian Stump named AAAS Fellow

DALLAS (SMU) – SMU seismologist Brian Stump has been named an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow for distinguished contributions to his field, particularly in the area of seismic monitoring in support of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.

AAAS is the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science. Stump, Albritton Chair of Geological Sciences in the Huffington Department of Earth Sciences in SMU’s Dedman College, is the fifth professor at SMU (Southern Methodist University) to be recognized as an AAAS Fellow.

“Dr. Stump is a scientist of the first rank and brings the results of his outstanding research into the classroom, where his students benefit from his example and insights as a scholar,” said SMU President R. Gerald Turner. “He richly deserves the AAAS recognition by his peers and we are proud that he calls SMU home.”

“Brian’s work has been seminal in scientists’ ability to rapidly and accurately discern the difference between an earthquake, a conventional explosion (such as might occur in a mining accident) and a nuclear test,” said James Quick, SMU vice president for research and dean of graduate studies.  “His research is tremendously important to all of us, and yet he is equally committed to teaching and serving as a mentor to young faculty.”

Stump is well known regionally for his continued work researching the increase of small earthquakes that have been occurring in North Texas since 2008.    But his work in detecting ground motion from explosions has for more than 20 years proved invaluable to the United States government in ensuring that the world’s nuclear powers abide by their agreements related to underground nuclear testing. He served as scientific adviser to the U.S. delegation to the Conference on Disarmament from 1994 through 1996 and continues to be called upon frequently to assist the U.S. government in the interpretation of seismic and acoustic data.

“I’m humbled by the recognition by the AAAS that science impacts the society in which we live,” Stump said. “I really believe that.  And the work we’ve done at SMU on inducted seismicity in North Texas has that same blend of real science and societal impact.”

For the last five years Stump has chaired the Air Force Technical Applications Center Seismic Review Panel, which provides a review of federally funded efforts in nuclear monitoring.  He served as a committee member on the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Seismology and Continental Dynamics from 2007 through 2012, and recently completed a term as board chair for Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS), a consortium of more than 100 universities funded by the National Science Foundation.

Stump joined SMU in 1983 from the Seismology Section of the Air Force Weapons Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico.  He graduated summa cum laude from Linfield College in McMinnville, Ore. with a bachelor of arts in physics in 1974, received a master of arts from the University of California at Berkeley in 1975 and received his Ph.D. in geophysics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1979 after completing a thesis titled Investigation of Seismic Sources by the Linear Inversion of Seismograms.

SMU faculty previously named as AAAS Fellows are volcanologist and research dean Quick, who was named a Fellow in 2013; environmental biochemistry scholar Paul W. Ludden, SMU provost and vice president for academic affairs and a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, who was named a Fellow in 2003; anthropologist David J. Meltzer, Henderson-Morrison Professor of Prehistory in the Department of Anthropology who was named a Fellow in 1998; and James E. Brooks, provost emeritus and professor emeritus in the Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, who was named a Fellow in 1966.

The AAAS Fellows program began in 1874. AAAS members may be considered for the rank of fellow if nominated by the steering group of their respective sections, by three fellows, or by the association’s chief executive officer. Each steering group then reviews the nominations of individuals within its respective section and forwards a final list to the AAAS Council, which votes on the final list of fellows.

The Council is the policymaking body of the Association, chaired by the president, and consisting of the members of the board of directors, the retiring section chairs, delegates from each electorate and each regional division, and two delegates from the National Association of Academies of Science.

The John G. Tower Center for Political Studies has awarded two faculty fellowships for the 2014-2015 academic year: Dr. Stephen K. Wegren, Professor of Political Science, has been awarded a Colin Powell Global Order and Foreign Policy Fellowship to analyze Russian food policy. Dr. Luigi Manzetti, Associate Professor of Political Science has been awarded a Tower Center Faculty Fellowship to study Re-Nationalization in Argentina from 2005-2013.

Through these faculty fellowships, the Tower Center supports tenured SMU faculty members in research that reflects the mission of the Center. In addition to receiving financial support for their work, recipients are expected to produce original and quality research, acknowledge the Tower Center’s support of their work and to present their findings at a seminar once the project is complete.

Learn more about the Tower Center Faculty Fellowships:

Ray Rafidi | Associate Director for Administrative and Academic Affairs | rrafidi@smu.edu | 214-768-3665

Research Synopsis

Dr. Stephen Wegren, Professor of Political Science & Director of International and Area Studies, SMU

The Arab Spring teaches us that authoritarian regimes that are unjust, unequal, and corrupt are ripe for instability, and food policy may act as the tipping point to collective action. The purpose of this project is to analyze Russian food policy in order to increase our understanding of regime stability and regime efficacy. Food is important to the population and the political leadership. The population, as consumers, is fundamentally interested in the price of food and access to it. In addition, food as a policy issue has experienced a dramatic rise in Russian political discourse. In recent years, Russian leaders have equated food security with national security. The project entails a cross-sectional survey of 10-15 regions and 1,000-1,500 respondents.

Dr. Luigi Manzetti, Associate Professor of Political Science, SMU

Nationalization is a topic that over the decades has attracted a large number of theoretical and empirical analyses from different disciplines, including law, economics, and political science. However, the nationalization trend that we have witnessed in South America in recent years is different from private asset takeovers in previous decades. We will analyze the nationalization-privatization nexus through the new institutional economics (NIE) framework.