The Decentralization of American Diplomacy

The Atlantic has a good article out right now on mayoral participation in global diplomacy. According to the authors, the practice is increasingly common and ambitious. Mayors of large cities have taken on issues ranging from global warming to nuclear disarmament, to economic growth and terrorism. These efforts are also becoming more institutionalized. The mayor of New York, for example, has a “Mayor’s Office for International Affairs,” and Europe has an “EU-China Mayors’ Forum” that promotes relations between European and Chinese municipal authorities. The authors use the term “diplomacity” to refer to the “expanding propensity of cities to develop the necessary mechanisms to autonomously navigate foreign relations on their own.”

These developments strike me as interesting for a couple of reasons. First, they form half of a two-dimensional assault on a classical model of international relations, which identifies heads of state and their agents as the critical channels for official communication. Diplomacity amounts to a vertical assault on that model because it reflects a dispersion of diplomatic activity among national and local authorities. Communication by national officials other than heads of state—such as legislators—forms the other half: a horizontal assault in the form of a dispersion of diplomatic acts among component parts of national governments. Neither of these is new, but both have intensified under globalization. The result is an entirely different picture of international relations. If diplomacy under the classical model was centralized and tidy, the contemporary counterpart is decentralized and cluttered with a broad range of actors. This has both benefits and disadvantages. States and localities, for example, will often possess unique perspectives on international problems and unique capacity to develop solutions, but the proliferation of voices may also complicate the management of inter-state relations.

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ADHD and Keeping Time in Practice

alarm-clockEach spring semester, when my first-year writing students have moved from objective writing from pre-selected authorities to persuasive writing and doing their own research, I have them keep track of their time. In law practice, time is money.  Even if a lawyer does not bill her hours to a client, she is likely still required to keep track of their time, if only for that organization’s internal purposes. For better or for worse, practicing attorneys must know well each .1 of an hour they work, on what, and for whom.

The time-keeping exercise is designed to provide students practice with billing their time, learning, for example, how to convert, say, twenty minutes of reading cases to .3 of research.  It’s also an exercise designed to give them practice on what kinds of activities to bill. The time spent online looking for case law? Yes.  The writing of the brief?  Of course.  But what about that one-hour meeting with the professor?  Sure.  I’d call that an office conference and lawyers have those all the time. 

After students have finished their first briefs and have turned in their time sheets, I have them reflect on keeping time and ask them what they learned from the exercise. Most students aren’t fond of the exercise, but do recognize its value. One student once asked why I couldn’t ask them to keep track of their time in “normal” increments, like .25, .50, .75, and 1.00. This year, one student responded that keeping time was, for him, incredibly painful.  You see, he said, he has Attention-Deficit, Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

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Israel Reflections 2013–American Perspectives on the Middle East

Earlier this week was the last day for our International Conflict Resolution class and, to close,  I thought I would post some overarching comments.  Particularly as the new Secretary of State, John Kerry, embarks on what I hope will be a successful quest to learn more about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and encourage the parties to reach resolution, it is always useful to remember that newspapers cannot possibly convey the nuances and complexities of conflict.  Here are two different reflections on how American perspectives of the Middle East are shaped:

From Amber Ragonese:

Almost everything the average (non-Jewish) American hears about Israel is in some way related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Almost everything the average (non-Middle Eastern) American hears about the Middle East is in some way related to war.  Until participating in the Conflict Resolution course, I was no exception.  We hear of suicide bombers attacking crowded markets and public transit.  We hear of rockets crossing over the southern borders and of Palestinians  being targeted by Israeli military forces.  Given this background, I was a bit surprised to find myself around day three of our eight-day escapade suddenly realizing that not a moment had passed in which I felt unsafe or worried about my  security or overall well-being.  

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