Combining tried and true American Assembly techniques with some recent innovations, The Next Generation Project aims to identify and engage new and rising talent from a wide range of vocations, backgrounds, and regions of the country as Next Generation Fellows, in order to achieve the following three goals:
1. Generate New Ideas about U.S. Global Policy and the Future of
International Institutions
2. Influence Discussions about the Future of America’s Role in the World
3. Cultivate New Policy Networks
Over the next two and a half years Assemblies will be held across the country, beginning with Dallas in October, 2006, followed by meetings in San Diego, Denver, Miami, Chicago and Northern California, culminating in June, 2008, with a final national Assembly co-hosted with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC.
We have already begun the process of selecting Next Generation Fellows from across the country. We are also planning of a variety of products, including an edited volume, a comprehensive web site, interviews with leading scholars that will serve as background material, and perhaps even polls, media partnerships, and legislative testimony.
The project, as it has evolved in the past months, is animated by a series of assumptions about the current state of U.S. global policy and the future of international institutions.
Assumption One
The first assumption is simple, uncontested, but bears constant repeating – we live in a global environment that has changed dramatically in the past ten to fifteen years. There are disagreements over the cause of these changes, their impact, and whether they are negative or positive. All agree, however, that almost every aspect of our lives, and the future of our security and prosperity, are affected by this great change in world affairs. Some people call this an age of globalization, with largely positive outcomes, while others see this era as World War IV and paint an almost apocalyptic picture of international affairs. Some of these disagreements may emerge in the panels and discussions today.
For some – particularly those involved in the world of international finance and technology sectors - globalization, if managed correctly, has and will continue to bring new wealth and opportunity throughout the world, particularly in places that have only known abject poverty and suffering in the recent past. For them, the vast increase in trade and global finance, the tremendous influence of profound technological change, and the increasing harmonization of much of the developed world’s macro-economy, promises a new era of peace and prosperity.
However, these same changes, which hold such promise, are also the cause of potential threats and dangers. Even beyond the well-noted asymmetric threat that non-state actors pose, think about the dangers that resource scarcity, environmental degradation, pandemics and the effects of increased economic inequality could pose to the world in the decades to come. Or reflect upon a backlash against globalization, something similar to but far more powerful than what we see in Latin America, with a possible return to the rhetoric, if not the policies, of the nationalism and autarkic economic polices of the 1930s.
And then there is the old but time-tested game of great power politics, war and peace, and the challenges that new, rising powers may make. Elias Zerhouni, Director of the National Institute of Health, recently observed that there were two divergent globalizations. The first was the globalization of increased wealth and interconnectivity, but the second globalization was that of an increasingly disconnected world where, as he put it, “knowledge may actually be decreasing and where poverty and disease are on a steady climb.” (Johns Hopkins commencement address, reported in NY Times, 6/11/06 “Commencement Speeches; Graduates Get an Earful, From Left, Right and Center”)
Both must be debated, discussed, and understood. Obviously, there is much disagreement over the nature of the world order in the decades to come. Consider the important question of China’s place in world affairs. To many, increased economic interdependence will pull China towards prosperity and stability, making it a responsible and cooperative stakeholder in the global order. Others see this as foolish, believing that globalization is only enriching an already powerful rival, who some day may be a more powerful and frightening enemy. Still others admire increased prosperity for hundreds of millions who will enter the middle class in the decades to come, while fearing the environmental and resource implications for the planet of this vast economic change in the world’s most populous country. Who is right? Much of the answer depends on who is asked. A hi-tech venture capitalist, the leader of a global human rights NGO, a DC policymaker, and a scholar of China – all will have different answers. Of course, these groups rarely speak to each other, rarely have a chance to hear the others’ perspective. The Next Generation Project hopes to facilitate these conversations.
Assumption Two
The second assumption is that the national and international institutional architecture that was created largely during the early days of the Cold War does not appear to be up to the task – at least in their current form – of providing global security and prosperity in the decades to come. These organizations – the Bretton Woods institutions, the United Nations, and the 1947 National Security Act departments on the domestic front, all were designed to deal with a much different world than we live in today. They do not appear particularly useful or relevant to the newly emerging threats and opportunities that are highlighted under our first assumption. Can they be reformed? Are new institutions needed? Are they even relevant to the question of our future global policy?
Jim Langdon, a member of the project’s Senior Advisory Council and a partner at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP, who has closely watched both the private and the public sectors of the past three years, says it better than anyone. As he sees it, private institutions have been transformed, as old giants like United Steel, ITT, and General Motors have been eclipsed by the likes of Google, Federal Express, and Genentech. Even in the non-profit world, organizations like the Gates Foundation are forcing old foundations to alter the way they go about their work. Bureaucracies are shrinking and becoming flatter, and incentives to innovate have become sharper. Has the same thing happened in national or international governmental institutions? Is the World Bank or CIA that much different than they were thirty years ago? Can some of these new innovations, new ways of doing business, be applied to the world of global policy and international institutions? Or is global governmental policy simply too different, too important, to take the kind of risks acceptable at Microsoft or in the prize community?
Assumption Three
The third assumption is that despite the obvious importance of these issues, the current level of discussion and debate about the shape of U.S. global policy and the future of international institutions is simply inadequate. Why is the debate so bad?
It can partly be explained by the intensely partisan nature of the times. It is not surprising that the one theme that consistently emerged in my consultations with scholars and policymakers is the degree of political polarization that plagues almost any discussion of these questions today.
What can be done about this vexing problem? The American Assembly has a long-standing history of being nonpartisan, which has allowed us to talk with and bring into the project people who do not usually communicate. We have done other things as well, such as orienting the project in a forward-looking manner, to look at possible threats and challenges ten or fifteen years down the road, instead of focusing on events today.
I also believe, however, that the poor state of debate goes beyond simple partisanship. There simply are not many vehicles for civil, reasoned, respectful discussion about the most important issues we face. Nor have there been many venues effective at bringing together people of different backgrounds, outlooks, experiences to generate new ideas. We could go through each of the institutions responsible for this state of affairs – government, the media, think tanks, universities – and highlight why they have for the most part failed on this front. But the project is not concerned with where past failures lie but rather where we go from here.
The Next Generation Project’s Comparative Advantage
Prestigious organizations, ranging from the Aspen Institute to the Council on Foreign Relations to the Princeton National Security Project are undertaking excellent projects of their own to look into the future of international institutions. They are doing great work and should be supported.
The Next Generation Project, however, has some strengths and comparative advantages that will help us achieve our goals: the nonpartisan nature of The American Assembly, and the attempt to look at this problem in a comprehensive way instead of in a piecemeal manner. Additionally, the project is not an academic conference, a task force, or a one-off meeting. The project aims to seek advice, not to lecture about the issues at hand. And the project is problem driven. As opposed to examining institutions in a vacuum, the Next Generation Project will examine the challenges, threats, and opportunities facing the United States in this age of increasing globalization and try to provide responsible recommendations.
Most importantly, this project is not commissioning what might be called “the usual suspects.” I mean nothing negative by this – some of the best “usual suspects” are essential Assembly advisors. But there is an incredibly exciting world outside of the ivory tower and beyond the “Amtrak Corridor” that is at the forefront of the great changes we see. The people leading these changes are not usually professors or policymakers. They are the venture capitalists, the scientists, people in international finance and consulting, the NGO’s and IGOs. They are from the military, local government, unions, and ethnic and religious organizations. The project aims to involve the country as a whole to unearth different perspectives and provide possible solutions.
We believe that the discussion of these questions will be immeasurably improved by including new people with fresh ideas to supplement the wise counsel of senior experienced policy makers and academics. It is our hope that diverse perspectives can, in the right setting, produce important new ideas that can influence how we think about global policy. We hope to include some of the best fellows, the truly outstanding young leaders, into a network that would last well beyond the Assemblies, and that could continue to participate and influence these discussions in the years to come.
Think about the global knowledge that an energy lawyer trying to craft a pipeline deal in Central Asia must have; or the head of an IGO that is battling the same lawyer to deal with environmental issues. They want and need real world help in navigating a complex global environment. They are as likely to live in Houston or Seattle or Denver as on the “Amtrak Corridor” between Cambridge, Massachusetts and Washington, DC. My sense is that they see these issues much differently than the usual suspects. The Next Generation Project will pull these perspectives into the bloodstream of current debates about international affairs.
The energy lawyer I mentioned – unlike many a professor – probably does not lose any sleep at night worrying about the fate of the United Nations or the World Bank, which is not to say, however, that s/he does not worry about international law, financial transparency, and robust global regimes. The lawyer is likely to look at the issue or problem first and cast about for a solution, rather than worrying about an institution absent the problem it is intended to address.
And this leads to a final point of difference about the project – we have no idea, as we start this process, what kind of answers the Next Generation Fellows will come up with – and that is the exciting part. Let’s face it – the usual suspects, and I include myself here –can often lecture as opposed to listen. I suspect every professor and policy type already secretly thinks she or he has the answer to these big questions. But if the Assemblies are successful, if we have the right mix of Next Generation Fellows, then the conclusions the project arrives at should be surprising.
We are at the start of a two-and-a-half year project. We could always use advice and suggestions on additional Next Generation Fellows and input into what types of activities and products could best help us achieve the stated goals of the project. What are needed most are boundaries. There are an infinite amount of subjects that fall under the heading of “U.S. Global Policy and the Future of International Institutions.” We cannot look at all of them, nor can we always be as in depth as we would like. What must be included in our discussions and what, even if regrettably, can be left out? The problem that we face can be summarized by the Harvard Art History curriculum dilemma: how should art history be taught at Harvard – by focusing intensely on one artist or by broadly surveying of the history of art? The first gives depth but not breadth, the latter the opposite. And what is the best way to engage very smart, very successful young people, who are very interested in global policy and international institutions but are not experts in the field, at least in the way the “usual suspects” might define it?
The success of this project is predicated on, above all else, committed partners. We have already secured terriffic partnerships with Peter Cowhey, Dean of the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego and Tom Farer, Dean of the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver. We are also exicted by the alliance with University of Miami predident Donna Shalala, and Susan Purcell, Executive Director of Miami's Center for Hemisphere Policy, and with Northwestern University president, Henry S. Bienen, and Andrew Wachtel, Dean of the Graduate School and Directorof the Center for International and Comparative Studies at Northwestern. We are busy planning for tha all-important first Assembly in Dallas with our cosponsors there, Jim Hollifield, Director, and Lynne Novack, Associate Director, of the John G. Tower Center for Political Studies at Southern Methodist University where our first Assembly will be held this October.
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