The Center for US Politics and Power
FIIA’s newly established Center for US Politics and Power (CUSPP) has launched an exchange programme. Programme Director Mika Aaltola is currently visiting the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and FIIA is currently seeking a Visiting Professor or Senior Research Fellow to join FIIA in early 2014. The deadline for applications is 1 November. The Visiting Professor/Fellow will be integrated into the research activities of the CUSPP which focuses mainly on the US role in global governance, security and the changing international political economy.
A new research project on Latin America
Dr Mikael Wigell has started a three-year research project funded by the Academy of Finland which is entitled “Varieties of Extractive Capitalism: The Politics of Natural Resource Extraction in Latin America”. The research project is concerned with the relationship between natural resource extraction and development and will conduct a comparative analysis of the mining sector in four Latin American countries: Bolivia, Chile, Colombia and Peru. These countries have been at the forefront of the current extraction boom and provide a leading laboratory for the analysis of the politics of natural resource extraction. The project seeks to understand the patterns through which these resource-abundant states interact with their societies and extractive industry developers when making decisions about natural resource extraction and the use of natural resource rents.
Staff news
Dr Bart Gaens will be the Acting Programme Director of the Global Security Programme while Dr Mika Aaltola is visiting Johns Hopkins University until early December.
Dr Antto Vihma is visiting Sciences Po in Paris until the end of October.
Harri Mikkola defended his doctoral dissertation “Neopragmatism and Politics: Essays on the Possibilities and Consequences of Richard Rorty’s Neopragmatism to Political Science” on 27 September at the University of Tampere.
Marikki Stocchetti defended her doctoral dissertation “Inside the European Consensus on Development and Trade: Analyzing the EU’s Normative Power and Policy Coherence for Development in Global Governance” at the Helsinki University on 11 October.
Dr Mikael Mattlin has been granted the title of Adjunct Professor by the University of Turku.