The Politics of Fear Archive: Syllabus

Thursday, September 8: The Politics of Fear and the Psychology of Hate

Karen Weis
PhD Candidate, University of Heidelberg
Co-author, Robert Sternberg, Psychology of Hatred (forthcoming - Yale University Press)

Handouts:
“Explorations of the Duplex Theory of Hate” by Karin Weis, September 2005
“A Duplex Theory of Hate and its Development and its Application to Terrorism, Massacres, and Genocide” by Robert J. Sternberg, August 2002

Tuesday, September 13: The Conflict in the Former Yugoslavia - Fear, Hatred, and Nationalism - Ethnic Cleansing and its Repercussions

Zlatko Lagumdzija
President of the Social Democratic Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina; Former Prime Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina; Member, House of Representatives, Parliamentary Assembly, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bruce Hitchner
Professor and Chair, Department of Classics and Director, Archaeology Program, Tufts University; Chairman, Dayton Peace Accords Project

Books:
The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing by Michael Mann, chapters 12 and 13

Handouts:
The Fall of Yugoslavia: The Third Balkan War by Misha Glenny, chapters 1 (The Heart of the Matter, Knin), 2 (Dress Rehearsal ? Serb Eat Serb, Belgrade), and 5 (Bosnia-Hercegovina ? Paradise of the Damned)
“Yugoslav Nationalities Policy” from Nationalism and Federalism in Yugoslavia 1962-1991 by Sabrina Ramet
“Nationalist Tensions, 1968-90: Muslims, Albanians, Croats, Slovenes, Montenegrins” from Nationalism and Federalism in Yugoslavia 1962-1991 by Sabrina Ramet
“The Balkan Tragedy” by Michael Ignatieff, The New York Review of Books, May 13, 1993
“Bosnia: ‘No More than Witnesses at a Funeral’” from A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power
Op-ed from Dnevi Avaz by Bruce Hitchner
Opinion on the Constitutional Situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Powers of the High Representative, European Commission for Democracy through Law (for those who have not done a lot of reading about the former Yugoslavia, read the handouts in the order listed and then the two chapters in Mann’s book)

Thursday, September 15: "Metus Hostilis" - Fear of Enemies and Collective Action

Professor Ioannis Evrigenis
Assistant Professor of Political Science, Tufts University; Coeditor and Co-translator, Jonathan Gottfried’s Another Philosophy of History and Selected Political Writings; Author, “Carthage Must Be Saved”: Fear of Enemies and Collective Action (forthcoming)

Book:
Climate of Fear: The Quest for Dignity in a Dehumanized World by Wole Soyinka
(this will be discussed in the first hour of class)

Handouts:
Carthage Must Be Saved: Fear of Enemies and Collective Action by Ioannis D. Evrigenis, paper from the 2003 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association
Sallust’s Theorem: A Comment on “Fear” in Western Political Thought by Neal Wood, History of Political Thought, Summer 1995

Tuesday, September 20: The Geopolitics of Fear

Padraig O’ Malley
For most of his professional life he has been involved with the conflict in Northern Ireland. Working with all the political parties to the conflict he convened the Amherst Conference on Northern Ireland (Massachusetts, 1975), the Airlie House Conference (Virginia, 1985) and co–convened the Arniston Conference with the government of South Africa (Western Cape, 1997). He was also a member of the Opshal Commission, which authored the report "Northern Ireland: A Citizens' Inquiry" (Belfast, 1993). He is the author of a number of prize winning books on Northern Ireland including The Uncivil Wars: Ireland Today (1983) Biting at the Grave (1990), and Questions of Nuance (1990). He has also extensively researched the transition from apartheid to democracy in South Africa; his work is archived online at The Heart of Hope: South Africa's Transition from Apartheid to Democracy, 1989-1996.

Book:
The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War by Andrew Bacevich, pp 1-96

Handouts:
Torture: A Collection, Sanford Levinson, editor, pp 1-141
Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror by Mark Danner, pp. 1-24
Biting at the Grave: The Irish Hunger Strikes and the Politics of Despair by Padraig O’Malley, parts I (Hunger Strikes) and II (Reactions)
Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power by David Rothkopf, chapters 1 (The Committee in Charge of Running the World) and 13 (U.S. Foreign Policy in the Age of Ambiguity)

Thursday, September 22: The Politics of Fear in Central America: From Civil War to Anomic Violence

Professor Victor Valle
Dr. Valle is the Dean for Academic Administration and Professor of Human Security at the University for Peace. As Dean, he oversees admission and registrar processes as well as the management of all academic programmes. He serves as Vice Chair of the Headquarters Management Committee, the Programme Academic Committees and Secretary of the Academic Board.

Handouts:
“Truth as Justice: Investigatory Commissions in Latin America” by Margaret Popkin and Naomi Roht-Arriaza in Transitional Justice: How Emerging Democracies Reckon with Former Regimes, Neil Kritz, editor
“The United Nations Truth Commission for El Salvador” by Thomas Buergenthal in Transitional Justice: How Emerging Democracies Reckon with Former Regimes, Neil Kritz, editor
“A Miracle, A Universe: Settling Accounts with Torturers” by Lawrence Weschler in Transitional Justice: How Emerging Democracies Reckon with Former Regimes, Neil Kritz, editor
"Myrna Mack" by Elizabeth Oglesby
"Living in a State of Fear" by Linda Green

Tuesday, September 27: Rushdie and Beyond: Literature and the Politics of Fear

Professor Modhumita Roy

Book:
Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies by Ian Baruma and Avishai MargolitHandouts:
"Literature Can Close the Fear Gap" by Salman Rushdie, New Perspectives Quarterly, Summer 2005
"Massacre of Arcadia" by Pantcaj Mishra
"Letter from Europe" by Jane Kramer from The New Yorker, Jan 14, 1991
"Kashmir: Learning from the Past" International Crisis Group

Thursday, September 29

First Exam

Friday, September 30 - Sunday, October 2: Fear and U.S. Foreign Policy: The War on Terror
Sargent Camp for Outdoor Education, Peterborough NH

EPIIC Weekend Immersion with Professor Andrew Bacevich
Dr. Bacevich is professor of international relations and the former Director of the Center for International Relations at Boston University. He is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy and has taught at West Point and at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Bacevich is the author most recently of The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War (2005). His previous books include American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy (2004), The Imperial Tense: Problems and Prospects of American Empire (2003), and War over Kosovo: Politics and Strategy in a Global Age (2002). He was a member of a Cato Institute task force that produced the report, "Exiting Iraq: Why the U.S. Must End the Military Occupation and Renew the War Against al-Qaida. In 2004, Dr. Bacevich was a Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin.

Book:
The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War by Andrew Bacevich

Thursday, October 6: US Foreign Policy: Manufactured Fear?

Professor Paul Joseph
Paul Joseph is a political sociologist at Tufts University with a specialty on the influence of US domestic politics on military policies. He examines the impact of social movements, public opinion, and various business and bureaucratic interests particularly with regard to the Vietnam War and nuclear weapons policy. He is writing a book on public opinion and military interventions during the period bookended by the two wars in Iraq.

Book:
Fear's Empire by Benjamin Barber (all)

Handouts:
“Terror and Fear Post 9/11.” by Paul Joseph
"Virtual War" from Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond by Michael Ignatieff
"New Rome, New Jerusalem," from The Imperial Tense: Prospects and Problems of American Empire by Andrew Bacevich
Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, Prologue by Steve Coll
"Supremacy By Stealth" by Robert Kaplan from The Atlantic Monthly, July/August 2003

Wednesday, October 12: The Holocaust and Anti Semitism: The Historical Context

Professor Steve Cohen
Steve Cohen has taught high school history for twenty-five years and is in his sixth year at Tufts. He has also had the opportunity to work on educational projects beyond the classroom. He edited and wrote anthologies to accompany the public television documentaries Vietnam A Television History and Eyes On The Prize. Steve has been a Program Associate with Facing History and Ourselves for two decades and written articles about teaching controversial issues like Vietnam, the dropping of the Atomic Bomb, and the Holocaust. His interests are teacher education, history and social studies.

Book:
The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing by Michael Mann, Chapters 7,8,9 (Nazis)

Handouts:
“I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years 1933-1941” by Victor Kelmperer
“The Jew Who Fought to Stay German” by Amos Elon
“The True Believer" by Gordon A. Craig from the New York Review of Books
"Contemporary Anti-Semitism" by Mary Robinson
“In the Wake of Barbarossa, ” Chapter 6 from Understanding Ethnic Violence: Fear, Hatred, and Resentment in Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe by Roger D. Peterson

Tuesday, October 18: Neuroscience, Aggression and Fear

Professor Turhan Canli, EPIIC '86, Tufts '88
Turhan Canli is a neuroscientist and psychologist working on the brain basis of individual differences in emotion and personality. Dr. Canli uses cutting-edge methodologies, including functional magnetic resonance imaging, magnetic brain stimulation, and molecular genetic techniques to investigate how and why we differ from each other in our responses to emotional experiences. He has also published, and appeared as a contributor to a PBS program, on the topic of neuroethics - an emerging field of inquiry that is concerned with the ethical implications of neuroscientific discovery.

Professor Klaus Miczek
Professor Miczek is a professor at Tufts University specializing in Psychopharmacology. The work in Dr. Miczek's pre-clinical psychopharmacology laboratory systematically dissects the difference between stimulant and alcohol abuse, violence and social stress in ethologically valid animal preparations integrating behavioral, physiological and neuropharmacological research strategies. The distinctive feature of the research is the characterization of individuals at the behavioral physiological and neurochemical level in terms of their vulnerability to the aggression-heightening effects of alcohol, psychomotor stimulants and opiates.

Books:
Fear: Its Political Uses and Abuses, "Fear and the Brain" Jacek Debiec and Joe Le Doux (the book is in the bookstore -- start with this chapter for Tuesday but keep reading)
Karaoke Fascism: The Politics of Fear in Burma

Handouts:
"Neuroimaging of Emotion and Personality: Scientific Evidence and Ethical Considerations" by Turhan Canli and Zenab Amin
"When Genes and Brains Unite: Ethical Implication of Genomic Neuroimaging" by Turhan Canli
"The Neurobiology of Trauma" by David Lisak
"Psych Professor Specializes in the Neurobiology of Fear" by Sue Moncure
"The Neurobiology of Fear" by Ned Kalin
"Brain Scans Raise Privacy Concerns" by Steve Olsen from New Focus

Thursday, October 20: The Wars Against Terrorism and the Market State

Philip Bobbitt
Philip Bobbitt is the A.W. Walker Centennial Chair in Law at the University of Texas at Austin. As one of the nation's leading constitutional theorists, Mr. Bobbitt's interests include constitutional law, international security and the history of strategy. Mr. Bobbitt is a member of the American Law Institute, The Council on Foreign Relations, the Pacific Council on International Policy and the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Aside from his recent book, "The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History," he has published five other books: Constitutional Interpretation (1991), U.S. Nuclear Strategy (1989), Democracy and Deterrence (1987), Constitutional Fate (1982) and Tragic Choices (1978).

Book:
The Lesser Evil, Michael Ignatieff

Handouts:
Bobbitt manuscript: "The Wars Against Terror" by Philip Bobbitt
"America First: The Case to Answer" by Philip Bobbitt and Paul Hirst
"The Truth about Terrorism" by Jonathan Raban

Tuesday, October 25: The Politics of Fear, Retribution and Reconciliation in Chile and Argentina

Judge Juan Guzman
Juan Guzmán is the Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals in Santiago, Chile and is currently in charge of the prosecution and trial of former General Augusto Pinochet. Judge Guzmán is also a Professor of Law at the Catholic University Law School and at the Central University Law School of Santiago.

Handouts:
"Sowing Fear: The Uses of Torture and Psychological Abuse in Chile" by Physicians for Human Rights, pp 1-50
"The CIA: Time to Come in from the Cold" from TIME Magazine
Roht-Arriaza, Naomi, The Pinochet Effect: Transnational Justice in the Age of Human Rights Preface - end of Ch. 3; Ch. 7; ch. 8 (all in one packet)
Kornbluh, Peter, The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability, Atrocity and Accountability: The Long Epilogue of the Pinochet Case
Robben, Antonius C. G. M., Political Violence and Trauma in Argentina, Part III: Breaking Hearts and Minds: Torture, Self, and Resocialization
Sluka, Jeffrey A., Death Squad: The Anthropology of State Terror, Chapter 3 - State Terror in the Netherworld: Disappearance and Reburial in Argentina

Thursday, October 27: The Genocide in Rwanda: Revenge and Reconciliation

Ervin Staub
Professor of Psychology and Director of the Program in Peace Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst; Authority on youth and mob violence, genocide, and the role of bystanders; Author of The Psychology of Good and Evil and The Roots of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and Other Group Violence; Past president of the Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict and Violence (Peace Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association 1999-2000).

Handouts:
Staub, Ervin. "Reconciliation After Genocide, Mass Killing or Intractable Conflict: Healing Understanding and the Prevention of New Violence"
Staub, Ervin and Laurie Anne Pearlman. "Psychological Recovery and Reconciliation After the Genocide in Rwanda and in Other Post-Conflict Settings"
Staub, Ervin. (working manuscript) "The Roots and Prevention of Violence" (in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and the rest of Europe)"
Power, Samantha, Ch. 10 (Rwanda: 'Mostly in a Listening Mode') from "A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide"

Tuesday, November 1: Intellectual Biographies // The Politics of Fear in Argentina // Covering Coups and Wars

Jack Blum, INSPIRE Practitioner
Jack Blum is the Senior Counsel for Special Projects for Finance Sector Compliance Advisers Limited, and a US Attorney admitted at the district of Columbia Bar, the US Court of Appeals for the district of Columbia Circuit and the US Supreme Court. Blum is an expert on controlling government corruption, international financial crime, money laundering, international tax havens and drug trafficking.

Mort Rosenblum, INSPIRE Practitioner
Mort Rosenblum has reported on nearly every major international conflict since the Congo mercenary wars and the Biafra secession in the 1960s. Former chief editor of the International Herald Tribune from 1979-1981, Mr. Rosenblum took an American-style European newspaper to printing plants around the world and pioneered new forms of international journalism. He is author of numerous books including Coups and Earthquakes and the James Beard Award-winning Olives.

Handouts:
"The Lessons of Hannah Arendt" by Samantha Power

Thursday, November 3: Critiquing the Precautionary Principle: Laws of Fear and the First Amendment

Jack Blum, INSPIRE Practitioner
Jack Blum is the Senior Counsel for Special Projects for Finance Sector Compliance Advisers Limited, and a US Attorney admitted at the district of Columbia Bar, the US Court of Appeals for the district of Columbia Circuit and the US Supreme Court. Blum is an expert on controlling government corruption, international financial crime, money laundering, international tax havens and drug trafficking.

Mort Rosenblum, INSPIRE Practitioner
Mort Rosenblum has reported on nearly every major international conflict since the Congo mercenary wars and the Biafra secession in the 1960s. Former chief editor of the International Herald Tribune from 1979-1981, Mr. Rosenblum took an American-style European newspaper to printing plants around the world and pioneered new forms of international journalism. He is author of numerous books including Coups and Earthquakes and the James Beard Award-winning Olives.

Book:
Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime by Geoffrey Stone
Laws of Fear by Cass Sunstein

Handouts:
Coups and Earthquakes by Mort Rosenblum

Thursday, November 10: Addressing Michael Crichton’s ‘State of Fear’ // Fear mongering and the Politics and Science of Climate Change

William Moomaw
William Moomaw, who earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from MIT, is professor of international environmental policy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy where he directs the International Environment and Resource Program. He is also senior director of Tufts Institute of the Environment, co-director of Tufts Global Development and Environment Institute, and co-director of the Public Disputes Program at the Program on Negotiations at Harvard Law School.

Handouts:
“Katrina’s Real Name” by Ross Gelbspan, The Boston Globe
“The Climate of Man I: Disappearing Islands, Thawing Permafrost, Melting Polar Ice ? How the Earth Is Changing” by Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker
“The Climate of Man II: The Curse of Akkad” by Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker
“The Climate of Man III: What Can Be Done” by Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker
“Taking Global Warming to Market” by Joseph Lieberman, The American Interest
“The Single Greatest Threat: The United States and Global Climate Disruption” by James Gustave Speth, Harvard International Review
“The Uses of Disaster: Notes on Bad Weather and Good Government” by Rebecca Solnit, Harper’s Magazine
“Rumsfeld’s Growing Stake in Tamiflu” by Nelson D. Schwartz, CNN Money
“Politics vs. the Integrity of Research” by Sen. John McCain and Peter Likins, The Chronicle of Higher Education”
“Michael Crichton’s State of Confusion” by Gavin Schmidt, Earth Institute News
“Michael Crichton’s ‘Scientific Method” by James Hansen
State of Fear excerpts (pp. 451-460, 477-492, 569-573, 581-603) by Michael Crichton
“Why Politicized Science Is Dangerous” , Appendix 1 from State of Fear by Michael Crichton
"The Role of Social Groups in the Persistence of Leaned Fear" by Andreas Olsson, Jeff Ebert, Mahrazin Banaji, Elizabeth Phelps

Tuesday, November 15: Pandemics, Global Health and the Fear Factor

Edith Balbach
Edith Balbach is the Director of the Community Health Program at Tufts University. She is interested in how communities identify and solve health problems. Her academic training is in public policy, which leads her to a specific interest in how the policy process either facilitates or impedes the work of communities. Professor Balbach's primary research interest is in drug policy issues, especially tobacco.

Books:
The Truth about the Epidemic of Fear by Marc Siegel
The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time by John Kelly

Handouts:
"Recipe for Destruction" by Ray Kurzweil and Bill Joy, The New York Times, October 17, 2005
"Emerging Pandemic: Costs and Consequences of an Avian Influenza Outbreak" by Dr. Michael Osterholm and Helen Branswell

Thursday, November 17: Liberalism and the War on Terror

Corey Robin
Corey Robin is an associate professor of political science at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is the author of Fear: The History of a Political Idea (Oxford University Press), which recently won the Best First Book Award in political theory from the American Political Science Association (Foundations of Political Theory section). Fear has been cited as “recommended reading” by the New York Times and “one of the best books of 2004” by Publishers Weekly.

Books:
Fear: The History of a Political Idea by Corey Robin
Fear: Its Political Uses and Abuses edited by Arien Mack, “Thoughts on Fear in a Global Society” by Stanley Hoffmann (also in the Inquiry Reader) and “McCarthyism: Political Repression and the Fear of Communism” by Ellen Schrecker

Handouts:
"Fascism and Counterrevolution" by Corey Robin, Dissent, Summer 2005
"The Liberalism of Fear" by Jacob Levy, excerpt (pp. 23-38) from The Multiculturalism of Fear
Excerpts from Political Thought and Political Thinkers by Judith Shklar (Foreword by George Kateb, Editor’s Preface by Stanley Hoffmann, Chapter One: The Liberalism of Fear (don’t confuse with reading from above), Chapter Nine: The Political Theory of Utopia: From Melancholy to Nostalgia, Chapter Ten: What Is the Use of Utopia?, Chapter Eighteen: Nineteen Eighty-Four: Should Political Theory Care?, Chapter Nineteen: Rethinking the Past, Chapter Twenty: Hannah Arendt as Pariah, Chapter Twenty-One: The Work of Michael Walzer)

Tuesday, November 22: The Efficacy of Terrorism: Thinking About Suicide Terrorism and Political Violence

Ioannis Evrigenis and Sherman Teichman

Book:
Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism by Robert A. Pape

Handouts:
"The Truth About Terrorism" by Jonathan Raban from The New York Review of Books, January 13, 2005
"What Bush Wants to Hear" by David Cole from The New York Review of Books, November 17, 2005
"Why They Do It" by Christian Caryl from The NewYork Review of Books, September 22, 2005
"Is Terrorism Distinctively Wrong?" by Lionel K. McPherson (to be published)

Thursday, December 1: Sovereignty, Migration and the Politics of Selectivity and Fear

John Tirman
John Tirman is Executive Director of MIT's Center for International Studies. A political scientist, Tirman is author, or coauthor and editor, of six books on international security issues, including The Maze of Fear: Security and Migration after 9/11 (2004), Fallacy of Star Wars (1984), the first important critique of strategic defense, and Spoils of War: The Human Cost of America's Arms Trade (1997). He is recipient of the U.N. Association's Human Rights Award.

Books:
The Maze of Fear: Security and Migration after 9/11 by John Tirman
Fear: Its Political Uses and Abuses (finish the book)
Karaoke Fascism: The Politics of Fear in Burma by Monique Skidmore

Tuesday, Deecember 6: Violence and Politics: Fear and the Manipulation of Memory

Professor Roger Petersen
Associate Professor of Political Science. Professor Petersen studies comparative politics with a special focus on conflict and violence. He has written two books: Resistance and Rebellion: Lessons from Eastern Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2001) and Understanding Ethnic Violence: Fear, Hatred, Resentment in Twentieth Century Eastern Europe (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). He also has an interest in comparative method and has co-edited, with John Bowen, Critical Comparisons in Politics and Culture (Cambridge University Press, 1999). He is currently researching war and violence in the Balkans, especially in Kosovo.

Handouts:
"Understanding Ethnic Violence: Fear, Hatred, and Resentment in Twentieth Century Eastern Europe" Ch. 1 (Introduction), Ch. 2 (An Emotion-Based Approach to Ethnic Conflict), Ch. 3 (Resentment), Ch. 4 (Fear, Hatred, and Rage) and Ch. 11 (Conclusion) by Roger Petersen
"Fear and Hatred in Transitions" by Roger Peterson

Thursday. December 8

EPIIC committee reports

End of Semester