The World at Yale

By Amal Ga’al:

Monday evening, the Jackson Institute hosted Jonathan Berman, a partner at Dalberg Global Development Advisers, for a career conversation. The discussion covered many things, some specific to Dalberg (a unique player in the strategic consulting space), but most, and the most memorable, relating to value of traveling to unexpected places.

Jonathan Berman is the head of Dalberg’s global corporate practice and advises corporations on how best to break into frontier markets. I found his career path to be his most fascinating aspect; the series of steps that granted him the necessary exposure to pursue his current work. This path, he said, was by no means linear; after graduating, he began translating packaging of Taiwanese goods being exported to the U.S., then worked in traditional consulting before heading to Berkeley for his MA in political economy at Berkeley. As a student trying to choose my major, figure out my summer, and solve the puzzle that my summer has become—even occasionally trying to imagine life after Yale—I found this admission unbelievably reassuring.

If this kite can soar against the laws of physics, surely Africa can soar in keeping with the laws of demography! I think that was Berman's thesis, at least. (Courtesy of the Economist).

Talking with Berman was also refreshing because, unlike many similar events we’ve all attended, his talk was a dynamic exchange of questions and ideas rather than a lecture. Interested in the growing internationalization of Yale he posed questions to us about our experience with course offerings in international affairs and area studies. It made me realize that Yale is certainly in a different place in terms of engaging with global issues then it was when Berman was pursuing his BA in East Asian Studies. At that time, Chinese language study was almost unheard of. There weren’t many students traveling to China—let alone those, like Berman, who had never been on a plane before coming here.

In recent years, East Asia’s star has risen, both as a focus of the University’s attention and among its student body. So much so that Berman doesn’t think East Asian Studies would have had quite the same appeal if he were to be an undergrad at Yale now. A good number of my friends and acquaintances have received the Richard U. Light Fellowship and have or are spending a summer or even year abroad in China, Korea or Japan. The growing power of China is universally recognized and students here increasingly find value in learning Mandarin Chinese, in particular, and traveling to China.

In contrast, Yale has been reluctant to commit the same amount of attention and resources to African Studies. As the author of an upcoming book entitled The Bright Continent: Successful Africa and the CEOs Creating It and someone whose career has been built on identifying “worlds that weren’t fully connecting”, it is not surprising that Berman likely would have chosen to focus his research on sub-Saharan Africa in this context. As someone interested in this region, I am beginning to see the opportunities that exist in bridging the gap, both geographically and conceptually, between institutions of higher learning, civil society, companies, markets and, above all, people.

Berman seems to be attracted to risk. From his role as negotiator between the Nigerian government and rebels in the volatile Niger Delta region to his witnessing of protest and democratic transition in Taiwan, I can’t help but look at his life as one long, thrilling adventure; living, thinking and working on the frontier. I’ve spent much of the past few months feeling frustrated that not enough resources, human or otherwise, are going where there is the most need. Even when there’s a willingness and ability to pay for essential goods and services, entire markets are vastly under-served. Now, thanks to Berman, I’ve finally realized that I can work there, in that yet-to-be-determined space, where I can add value, establish linkages and contribute to the public good.

Amal Ga’al is ’14 is in Saybrook College. Contact her at amal.gaal@yale.edu.

By Ifeanyi Awachie:

Jonathan Tepperman gave a talk on April 11^th in the boardroom of the Yale Daily News, where he got his start in journalism as a political cartoonist. Tepperman described how after a couple of unfortunate jobs—for example, an internship with the “New York Civil Rights Coalition,” which turned out to be a one-man army—he landed some meaningful gigs that helped jumpstart his career. He was managing editor and director of Eurasia Group, an international political risk consulting firm. He worked under Fareed Zakaria at Foreign Affairs (a bit like the Globalist, but for writers who bright college years are behind them), and described the experience as his “field PhD in international affairs.” He ended up working for Zakaria again as Deputy Editor of Newsweek International. Then, he returned to Foreign Affairs as Managing Editor in 2001.

Jonathan Tepperman, one of the globe's best-connected journalists, really should have written for us during his time here. If only we'd existed. (Courtesy Council on Foreign Relations).

Tepperman spoke mostly about his journey from majoring in English at Yale to attending law school at Oxford to writing for Foreign Affairs, but he also mentioned the ability of Foreign Affairs to reflect and impact American foreign policy. In the 50s, writers reworked a speech by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles on “massive retaliation,” a new military doctrine addressing nuclear warfare, and the article remains the authoritative explanation of the policy. In the 70s, the magazine’s coverage of oil and energy policies warned of the impending oil crisis, though no measures were taken to address the growing issues.  After the Middle East War in 1973 started, Foreign Affairs covered the crisis and its consequences extensively, though that coverage had little impact on national policy.

Today, the magazine covers news in all areas from domestic pop culture to international conflict and American relations with foreign governments. Tepperman attested to the fact that the publication strives to include articles by writers from both sides of the political spectrum in order to provide an unbiased setting for political thought. As Managing Editor, Tepperman gathers news of global importance from sources ranging from policymakers to professors, and he describes his work and the task of Foreign Affairs as a mission to put that news into language the “educated layperson” can understand. In doing so, Tepperman fills one of the most important roles journalism has to offer.

Ifeanyi Awachie ’14 is in Timothy Dwight college. Contact her at ifeanyi.awachie@yale.edu.

By Janine Chow:

Today, in one of its most highly anticipated fireside chats of the year, Yale-China hosted Professor Alvin Eng for a talk entitled: “Our Town: China/USA.”  Professor Eng, a professor of creative writing at Fordham University and a Fulbright specialist in theatre, he introduced himself simply as a “playwright, performer, and educator.”

The simplicity of his chosen epithet belied the consummate artistry with which he crafted his speech today. Eng’s speech was at once about his family history growing up the American born son of illegal Chinese immigrants in Flushing, New York and the story of a theatre program he brought to Hong Kong in 2011. And so his talk was part oration, part monologue, part past, part present, part China, part U.S.A.—all securely woven around a dancing timeline.

Alvin Eng's Death-of-a-Salesman suitcase; a playwright's prop from another playwright's play, for his own play, about a playwright's play replayed by potential playwrights, though not playfully. (Courtesy Alvin Eng).

Theatre, he said, is a “dialogue between the people on the stage and the audience about the present day.” In this way, Eng brought Yale alumnus Thorton Wilder’s quintessential American play Our Town to the City University of Hong Kong. In a program envisioned and carried out with his wife, Wendy Wasdahl, Eng worked with students write their own Our Towns, transplanting early 1900s small town New Hampshire to the modern global city that is Hong Kong. The project’s title: “Hong Kong Time Capsule 2011,” said Eng with a smile, as a reference to the time capsule of Wilder’s play, meant to capture the simple but meaningful details of everyday life for future generations.

In the figurative Hong Kong time capsule, students placed everything from the polluted air to the dwindling Victoria Harbor to the shrill cries of marketplace vendors. The experience was deeply meaningful to Eng, who commented: “while money may still be Hong Kong’s raison d’être, this new generation had very different values.” The plays, he said, were “really witty” and “dug beneath the slick surface of Hong Kong.” The students had had little to no theatrical experience and had written the plays in their second language, English. Said Wendy Wasdahl, Eng’s wife, “We cried. We’re criers.” This was Eng’s present.

But his past lay with his immigrant family in Flushing, New York (what he called “the People’s Republic of Floo Shing”). Eng read and performed segments from his memoir monologue “The Last Emperor of Flushing”—a deeply personal and nostalgic work reflecting his role as “the guardian and figurehead of a dynasty that no longer existed.”

The dynasty came to him, the last emperor of Flushing, from his family and especially from his mother, a seemingly indomitable spirit who never quite assimilated into the American lifestyle. “The emperor’s mother did not speak English, but she was damn proud of it.” Eng mimed holding a pair of black shoes which his mother had worn on a trip home to Xiazhou, China. On that trip, said Eng, “I was acutely aware that I was in my mother’s land, not my motherland.”

The monologue concluded as Eng placed the final items into his “Death of a Salesman suitcase,” finally packing up and leaving the imperial palace of the Flushing dynasty.

After that, the emperor left the stage—“and that stage of [his] life.” With the death of his mother, “the way of life that [he] had dedicated his life to preserving was now extinct.” But he now has a “new spiritual home”—and today, his role as playwright, performer, and educator is clearer than ever. His is a passion he shares, a passion for the theatre, that “most ephemeral of art forms,” and that most attuned to the mysterious movements of the human soul.

Janine Chow ’15 is in Jonathan Edwards college. Contact her at janine.chow@yale.edu.

By Ashley Feng:

Cleaning up the pollution, safety hazards, and corruption which plague many Chinese factories is an essential step towards reducing global emissions and averting catastrophic climate change. Sustainable supply chains are also critical to China’s environment, public health, economic prosperity, and political stability.

It’s fitting, then, that the second annual U.S.-China Forum at Yale, which assembled industry experts, professors, and students to discuss China-U.S. relations, should conclude this afternoon with a panel discussion of supply chain sustainability. Experts representing the business, consulting, academic, and nonprofit sectors identified causes and solutions.

Moderator Duncan Cheung, senior analyst at the consulting firm Green Order, opened by remarking that potentially profitable efficiency gains, as well as consumer demand for environmentally responsible products, have motivated many corporations to “green” their entire supply chains. Cheung added that the development of socially and environmentally responsible supply chains requires dialogue between these retailers, their suppliers, government, NGOs, and consumers.

Bo Li, Executive Director of the NGO Friends of Nature, built on his earlier address on the conflicts between Chinese civil society and multinational corporations, particularly in the case of Apple, to reassert that companies must increase transparency in order to protect workers and enable consumers to make informed decisions.

On smoggy days, the Middle Kingdom looks a little more like Mordor; China's failure to control pollution takes years off the lives of average Beijingers. (Courtesy BBC).

Professor Stephen Ramsey, Senior Visiting Fellow at Yale School of F&ES and former VP of Corporate Environmental Programs at GE, emphasized the basic responsibility of multinational corporations to protect workers’ environmental health and safety by providing adequate training and resources to suppliers. He urged his audience, as future leaders in business and elsewhere, to maintain “an unswerving commitment to integrity” throughout their careers. He also made the key observation that China’s core problem is not insufficient regulations (in fact, their legal protections often match or exceed those in the U.S.) but a lack of enforcement.

Taryn Sullivan, founder and CEO of Efficiency Exchange, which helps Asian manufacturers meet efficiency standards and reduce their environmental impact, noted that inadequate enforcement allows many Chinese factories to appear compliant while flouting regulations. She then asserted that solutions to improve compliance cannot rely entirely on draconian enforcement, but must help suppliers understand a complex web of regulations and train workers in the use of new technologies and procedures. Sullivan also predicted that greater corporate compliance with existing law would be driven as much by investor concerns about supply chain security as public image concerns.

She joined Jack Yeh, VP of Business Development and Sustainability at Four Corners Sourcing, in comparing the power of Chinese and American consumers to pressure retailers to adopt sustainable practices. Yeh noted that many Chinese consumers have too little income  to buy pricier products, even if they are more sustainable. Sullivan predicted that China’s rapidly expanding middle class may have more incentive to make sustainable choices, since factory pollution usually affects their immediate environment.

Later, Yeh shared the story of his interest in sustainability. Yeh, had no previous interest in environmental issues besides a passion for the outdoors, until he realized while working at a furniture manufacturer in China that he could not see the sun; the pollution was so thick that it had literally disappeared. He subsequently became involved with sustainable supplying.  Yeh discussed the inefficacy of a command-and-control regulatory approach in China’s environment of rampant graft and corruption, finally asserting the importance of persuading industry leaders to care about the environmental impact of their decisions.

The panel concluded that greening China’s supply chain will require reducing corruption while increasing transparency, corporate accountability, supplier training, and environmental awareness among consumers and corporate decision-makers.

Ashley Feng ’15 is in Calhoun College. Contact her at ashley.feng@yale.edu.

By Ashley Feng:

The first panel of this weekend’s U.S.-China Forum at Yale in Kroon Hall centered on conflicts  between the U.S. and China this year and how they could be resolved–though the latter topic is a struggle, as both countries face a wide array of domestic and international challenges from tensions in the South China Sea to China’s leadership transition.

Professor Xi Chen, Assistant Professor in comparative politics at UNC at Chapel Hill, emphasized the often-overlooked role of China’s domestic public opinion in guiding and constraining its relations abroad. Despite censorship over official news outlets, China’s outward-looking and nationalistic citizenry holds increasing sway over public officials and must be considered in any interactions with China.

With the rise of the Chinese media as a potent political force, News China CEO Mr. Fred Teng is optimistic about the industry's future. (Courtesy Eventbrite).

Mr. Fred S. Teng, CEO of NewsChina, considered the role of cultural and political misunderstandings in perpetuating conflicts over sovereignty and commerce between China and the U.S. He contrasted China’s focus on issues of sovereignty and security- including tensions over Taiwan, Tibet, and the South China Sea- against the U.S. focus on issues of commerce, such as currency valuation and trade. Mr. Teng urged a demilitarization of China-U.S. diplomacy, and called for a new generation of diplomats in the tradition of Burlingame and Kissinger to strengthen the world’s most important relationship.

Professor Daniel P. Ahn, Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs and former Director at Citadel Securities in NY, addressed energy security. He explained that in a world of closely interconnected energy markets–in which regional bottlenecks drive up oil prices worldwide–the U.S. and China must cooperate to ensure each other’s energy security; the U.S. by selling its surplus to China, and China by curbing fuel subsidies to reduce price distortion and overconsumption.

Professor Stephen Roach, Yale SOM and Jackson Institute professor and former Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, addressed the U.S.-China trade imbalance and the struggle between reform-oriented and conservative factions within China’s party leadership. He noted the role of global supply chains in making leaders in innovation laggards in job creation, with many U.S. jobs outsourced overseas likely gone for good. As a personal acquaintance of both Premier Wen Jiabao and Chongqing ex-Secretary Bo Xilai, he praised Wen’s support for market-based reform, particularly the Premier’s stance against Bo Xilai’s regressive growth model of monopolies for state-owned businesses and banks.

Despite the diverse professional backgrounds of the panelists and the wide array of issues addressed, a broad theme ultimately emerged: the huge gaps in understanding between two notoriously self-centered nations, which current and future leaders absolutely must bridge to ensure their nations’ security and prosperity.

Ashley Feng ’15 is in Calhoun College. Contact her at ashley.feng@yale.edu.

To learn more about China from China’s perspective, visit http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/. To learn about China from the perspective of a Chinese fan of the Onion, visit http://chinadailyshow.com/.

By Ashley Feng:

Forty years after the Shanghai Communique began to thaw the relationship between Earth’s richest nation and its most populous, the second annual U.S.-China Forum at Yale (UCFY) on April 5-8, titled From Win-Win to Mutual Trust, has drawn speakers from fields as diverse as media, law, economics, and environmental advocacy to map out a blueprint for greater cooperation between the U.S. and China.

Professor Stephen Roach, lecturer at the Yale School of Management and Jackson Institute and former Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, opened the first full day of this year’s UCFY with an address to students and professors from China’s preeminent Qinghua and Beida universities, as well as Yale and Harvard. Professor Roach outlined the structural weaknesses of the two nations’ opposing economic models and called for trust, as well as mutually beneficial trade policies, between the pair of superpowers.

Stephen Roach speaking at the World Economics Forum; just a few years later, he got to attend his first REAL important conference here at Yale! (Courtesy PBS).

The U.S. economy has been driven by a steep climb in consumption, which has since collapsed with the implosion of the credit and housing bubbles. With annual U.S. consumption growth at less than a seventh of pre-recession levels, the heavily export-oriented Chinese economy has been forced to reconfigure its own economic model. China’s economy, in addition to its foreign investment addiction, also lags behind other major economies in employment growth and remains highly resource-intensive.

Roach criticized both countries’ economic models and laid out a several suggestions for mutually beneficial re-balancing and growth. Each nation must adjust its accounting preferences; the U.S. savings rate is currently too low and the Chinese rate too high to sustain their respective economic growth. China’s economy must shift from dependence on exports to increased domestic consumption, driven by increases in employment, wages, and financial security. To meet these goals, Roach proposed expanding China’s service sector by permitting foreign multinationals to compete domestically, reforming the household registration system to facilitate urbanization, and increasing funding for a meager social safety net.

Professor Roach deplored the “bipartisan China-bashing” taking place in Washington as a major barrier to a win-win U.S.-China relationship, and described the popular perception of China as a massive threat to American workers as “one of the most flawed macroeconomic views I have ever seen.” He criticized a hostile currency bill passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in the House, a similar measure in the Senate, and Mitt Romney’s promise to declare China a currency manipulator as glaring examples of American politicians dodging their share of blame for the state of the economy. Roach has repeatedly called for the U.S. government to accept responsibility for out-of-control consumption and debt fueled by its own myopic economic policies, a view for which at least one irate Congressional Representative furiously declared declared him a “panda-hugger.”

Roach urged U.S. policymakers to instead recognize China’s huge potential as a export market for U.S. goods (Roach noted that, for example, channeling Chinese demand toward the U.S. agricultural market could remedy China’s food security problem while eliminating U.S. agricultural subsidies), and negotiate with China for increased access to its domestic Chinese market, where U.S. companies could successfully compete while creating jobs in China’s service sector. Given that the nations control three-eights of global GDP between them, petty trade squabbling seems unlikely to last–and whatever the future of our trade relationship, Steven Roach will be there to keep everyone honest.

Ashley Feng ’15 is in Calhoun College. Contact her at ashley.feng@yale.edu.

By Fil Lekkas:

The rise of Carnival-hosting, football-loving, and racially diverse Brazil injects rare color into otherwise dismal narratives about the future of global politics. But what are the historical underpinnings of the Brazilian success story, and what does the future look like both for Brazil and beyond? On Tuesday, April 3^rd the Ezra Stiles Master Stephan Pitti hosted André Petry, Poynter Journalism Fellow at Yale and veteran journalist for Veja, a Brazilian news magazine, to add his experience and insights to the conversation.

It might be cliche, but this giant picture of Sao Paulo seemed like a good way to demonstrate Brazil's newfound wealth. There are slums to both sides of this picture, but the trend is still toward skyscrapers. (Courtesy Flights In Brazil).

Growing up in a Brazil weighed down with an oppressive military dictatorship plagued by inflation as high as 80 percent, Petry is “amazed” to be able to talk about Brazil as the “first Latin American country that actually has weight in international circles.” After returning to civil rule following 25 years of dictatorship in 1985, Brazil eventually overcame inflation with its Real plan, which privatized and opened up to global competition many state owned companies that now have a “leading role internationally” and rejuvenated its civil society by engaging in large-scale cash transfer program that lifted “over 40 million people” out of poverty and into the ranks of the lower-middle class. Today, Brazil is the world’s sixth-largest economy, surpassing even the United Kingdom, and attracts 65 billion dollars worth of foreign direct investment annually.

Petry gives credit for this political and economic transformation to an active lower-class “grassroots movement” which demanded and received inclusive economic institutions and strong trade unions. From there too came “democracy with pluralism” along with a vociferously independent media to watch over the infant republic, breaking even “traumatic and tragic” stories about political corruption at the highest levels.

These success stories aside, Brazil still faces considerable challenges. With the FIFA World Cup just 4 years away, the quality of infrastructure is “very precarious”, and its historical problems of poverty, unequal distribution of income and widespread urban violence continue to cast disquieting shadows. The vibrant grassroots movement, now successfully enfranchised, is lapsing into “docility” and turning a blind eye to corruption within its own ranks. Education, from primary school up to university, remains low-quality. The evidence? Petry suggests you sit in a restaurant and watch “three friends try and split a check”.

What can we expect of Brazil internationally? 140 years of peace despite 13 neighboring countries, Brazil’s status as the “only BRIC country to have both democracy and a strong national identity”, and its vow to abstain from nuclear weaponry make a strong case for a tranquil future. In addition, Brazil’s unique racial, “anti-imperialist”, and environmental narrative foreshadows the rise of something the world has yet to see: a “soft, green superpower”.

Though Brazil’s ascent has been achieved in near-record time, questions remain about its ability to sustain the upward momentum. Nevertheless, this new civilization on the Amazon seems to be on a good track to realizing its promise to be “the country of the future”.

Fil Lekkas ’14 is in Calhoun College. Contact him at filippos.lekkas@yale.edu.

By Amal Ga’al:

No one really saw the Arab Spring coming.  Foreign Affairs referred to the house of Assad as “sturdy” in March of last year, a description which has clearly been disproven by the scale of protests and the amount of blood that has been spilt in Syria. According to David Keyes, the moderator of the Bernstein Symposium panel titled “The Means of Change, Familiar and New”, “none of us have any idea what we’re talking about”. His comment gave rise to much laughter amongst the crowd assembled at Yale Law School on Friday afternoon. I laughed, as well, not only at Keyes’ witty opening, but at the fact that I, along with well over 50 other people, was still eagerly waiting to hear speakers make predictions about a revolutionary wave that has proven to be anything but predictable.

Graffiti in Egypt saying "Al-Jazeera" and "Facebook" reveals the tremendous impact of news outlets and social media sites on the uprisings in countries across the Middle East and North Africa. (Khaled Desouki/Getty Images)

It is quite safe to say that the link between political unrest and technology in North Africa and the Middle East is undisputed. To claim there is no connection between the two is to ignore the widespread use of mobile technology, social media and the Internet by activists from Egypt to Bahrain. Where opinions seem to differ is around the question of the effectiveness of these mediums in bringing about social change and democracy. Members of the panel professed varying levels of optimism regarding technology in this context.

Anupam Chander, a professor of law at the University of California, Davis, is convinced that technology has fostered what he referred to as the “emergence of a people power”. He sees the Internet as dangerous and so too do the regimes which have struggled to control it, even going as far as to shut it down. While critics would point to this as an example of how easily the Internet can be foiled by the government, Chander argued that it demonstrates how much authoritarian governments fear the powerful force embodied by the Internet. He was not going as far as to say that “dictators [were] toppled by tweets”, but that Twitter, Facebook and other social media technologies are not simply “opiates of the masses” nor should their use to galvanize citizens  be dismissed as “slacktivism”.

Wael Ghonim, famous Egyptian-Google-executive-turned-activist, once said “If you want to have a free society, just give them the Internet.” Rebecca MacKinnon, Bernard L. Schwartz Senior Fellow and pragmatist of the panel, would probably say that this quote, invoked by Chander, is one-sided. She sees the Internet as a tool for both good and evil. Online activism has been going on for the past decade and MacKinnon has researched the regional networks which began to form in the Middle East and North Africa far before protests began in Tunisia. She noted that the personal connections between Tunisian and Egyptian bloggers was a factor in the success of both revolutions. At the same time, in the highly sectarian states of Syria and Bahrain, the Internet has also been co-opted by pro-government bloggers and tweeters, forming “cyber armies”.

The question we should be asking ourselves now is whether or not the cyber dissident movement will translate into representation in constitution building and elections in countries that have had successful revolutions, in large part thanks to this group of tech-savvy, outraged and persistent young people.  While the answer to this question does not seem to be favourable in either Egypt or Tunisia, the strength of online activism still inspires hope.

Amal Ga’al is ’14 is in Saybrook College. Contact her at amal.gaal@yale.edu.

By Sera Tolgay:

As the public debate surrounding the American Presidential election continues to gain momentum, the election’s global importance has correspondingly sparked conversation on campus. Organized by the International Student Organization Political Council, the “Internationals Speak Out” speaker series brought together ABC News Middle East correspondent Lara Setrakian and Yale Professor Thomas Pogge this Thursday evening.

Setrakian, named one of the most influential young voices in US foreign policy by the Diplomatic Courier, has also contributed to Bloomberg Television’s coverage of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution as she reported live from Tahrir Square when President Mubarak stepped down.

Thomas Pogge drifts off as Lara Setrakian helps him tag-team audience questions. (TYG/Sandberg).

Setrakian expressed the essential dilemma of the international perspective: “The US election has an impact on the world, but the world has no vote in the US election.” Given America’s global presence, Setrakian also emphasized that what the current presidential debates have been lacking is a more informed and sophisticated discussion about US foreign policy. “Foreign policy, unfortunately in this election, has been mostly rhetoric, bashing Russia, bashing Iran, bashing China. However, once the election becomes a two-man race—once there is a Republican candidate—foreign policy could take on a different direction, and there could be a clearer conversation.”

Setrakian identified five critical questions that the she wished the candidates would debate, including how to restart progress on the Israel-Palestine issue, promoting stable and prosperous Arab societies, how to form a unified theory of America’s relationship with China, the rise of India versus the decline of Pakistan, and the economic spring in effect in Africa.

Thomas Pogge, director of the Global Justice Program and professor of philosophy and international affairs at Yale, approached the conversation from a philosophical standpoint as he drew attention to the importance of supranational rulemaking regimes in global governance. “The mainstay of democracy is representation. However, as a marker of globalization, rules are shifting upward—they are increasingly made at the supranational level than at the national level.” Since few individual governments can influence these new regimes, a central issue Pogge raised was the democratization of rulemaking.

“The patron state model is now being unhinged,” Setrakian mentioned, and Pogge similarly commented on the fact that “America has fallen behind in growth rates,” given the emergence of new markets throughout the developing world. “America should think strategically, and should take part in reforming the architecture of these supranational regimes to adapt to a changing world.”

With regards to presidential candidates’ foreign policy stance, such as what ISO president Sikander Khan called Ron Paul’s “isolationism”, Setrakian responded that the typical American taxpayer is more concerned with their economic well-being than the troubles of the world. “Americans probably won’t vote as a result of foreign policy,” she said and underscored that “there is a lot of insecurity among voters.”

From her own experience in journalism, Setrakian had begun the discussion on an optimistic note with her own motto: “Rise and raise others with you.” But most importantly, she encouraged the audience—with a strangely-phrased slogan of sorts—to take every possible opportunity to add to the discourse: “Whatever fuels you, let it light you on fire and let it cross you over the line into the game. The game is changing the status quo.”

Sera Tolgay ’14 is in Branford College. Contact her at sera.tolgay@yale.edu.