THE SOLOMON ASCH CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF ETHNOPOLITICAL CONFLICT, based at the University of Pennsylvania, was created in 1998 to "enhance the efforts of social scientists to identify the origins, trajectory and impact of violent intergroup struggles." Through original research and findings, it devises public policy strategies addressing the world's most intractable conflicts. It has established collaborative arrangements with a network of international sites that includes organizations in Northern Ireland, South Africa, Israel/Palestine, and Sri Lanka.
THE FOREIGN POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE, a Philadelphia-based think tank, has a stable of scholars including a former aide to three U.S. secretaries of state, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, and two former staff members of the National Security Council. They research pressing geopolitical issues such as the war on terrorism, developments in the Middle East, nuclear proliferation in South Asia, relations with China, Russia, and Japan.
THE WORLDS AFFAIRS COUNCIL OF PHILADELPHIA is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization "dedicated to creating an informed citizenry on matters of national and international significance. To do this it provides education, discourse, and information resources to audiences throughout the Greater Philadelphia region, including WAC individual and corporate members, students and teachers, and the general public." In addition to its well-known speaker events and conferences, it has international travel programs and briefings for members and teachers, and cosponsors the Bodine High School for International Affairs.
THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA POLITICAL SCIENCE DEPARTMENT has scholars in foreign policy and strategic studies, including one who is the associate director of the Christopher H. Browne Center for International Studies. Another has written on crisis decision making, the sources of credibility in international politics, the effects of technological change on the future conduct of war, the effects of war on the globalized economy, and U.S. foreign policy alternatives.
THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY DEPARTMENT has a scholar whose titles include "Blind Oracles: Intellectuals and War From Kennan to Kissinger."
TEMPLE UNIVERSITY'S HISTORY DEPARTMENT has one professor who is studying "the social and cultural dimension of U.S. foreign relations." A second is director of the Center for the Study of Force and Diplomacy and vice president of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.
TEMPLE UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL has faculty who are versed International Law; International Trade; International Human Rights; Constitutional Law and Foreign Policy.
THE MIDDLE EAST FORUM is a local think tank whose goal is "to define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining interests to include fighting radical Islam (rather than terrorism), working for Palestinian acceptance of Israel, urging the Bush administration to better manage its democracy efforts, reducing funds going to the Middle East for energy purchases, more robustly asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and containing the Iranian threat."
