The World We Want to Live In

The World We Want to Live In

As the Institute of Current World Affairs marks its 100th anniversary, we’re gathering leading alumni in Washington, DC for a day of discussions examining major challenges facing global society, and key questions for advancing democracy, a sustainable environment, equitability and culture at a pivotal moment in history.

The event is open to the public. Join us at the House of Sweden on the Potomac River in Georgetown or via Zoom.

To join via Zoom, register here.

The Institute of Current World Affairs has advanced understanding of global cultures and affairs since our founding in 1925.

10:00 a.m. - 11:15 a.m. | The new political movements

A tidal wave of change is transforming the global order and fueling tremendous uncertainty about the future. In a world of new political realities, how do we shore up liberalism in traditional democracies and advance it elsewhere? What do historical perspectives tell us about the current upheavals?

Eve Fairbanks is a writer, journalist and senior editor at Foreign Affairs. During her ICWA fellowship in 2009–2011, she investigated medicine, politics and social change in South Africa. Her first book, The Inheritors: An Intimate Portrait of South Africa’s Racial Reckoning, won the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Prize in 2023.

Katherine Roth Kono was a longtime correspondent and editor at The Associated Press. She now divides her time between New York and Japan. During her ICWA fellowship, from 1993 to 1995, she explored Islamic movements in North Africa and the Middle East.

Emily Schultheis is a journalist for POLITICO reporting from California about elections and democracy. On her Berlin-based ICWA fellowship from 2019 to 2021, she reported about the rise of right-wing populism across Germany and in other Central European countries.

Andrew Tabler is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He has served as director for Syria at the National Security Council’s Middle East Affairs Directorate. His ICWA fellowship (Lebanon and Syria, 2005–2007) focused on regional affairs and reform efforts.

11:30 a.m. - 12:45 p.m. | Economies and populations in flux

After two decades of post-Cold War globalization, the financial crisis of 2008 helped prompt a backlash against open borders whose full extent is becoming fully realized only today. With tariffs and anti-migration policies dominating the international agenda, how do we advance equitability and human rights in societies in which the chasm between rich and poor is yawning ever wider?

Joseph Battat was head of the World Bank Group’s Foreign Investment Advisory Service and a co-dean of the first MBA program in the People’s Republic of China. He is currently a senior lecturer of global economics and management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. As an ICWA fellow, he studied the development of science and technology in China from 1975 to 1978.

Bacete Bwogo is a physician specializing in geriatrics and internal medicine in Britain. He was an ICWA fellow examining primary health care systems in Cuba, Costa Rica, Kerala State in India and the Bronx in New York from 1992 to 1995.

William Foote is the founder and CEO of Root Capital, a nonprofit social enterprise that supports small-scale sustainable agricultural businesses. As an ICWA fellow, he studied rural poverty and the impact of free-market reforms in Mexico from 1995 to 1997.

Joel Millman was a longtime reporter for The Wall Street Journal and later became spokesperson for the International Organization for Migration in Geneva. As an ICWA fellow based in El Salvador in 1987–1989, he investigated arms aid to Central America.

1:15 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. | Culture across borders

In an age of mounting nativism, populism and corruption, in which identity politics are deepening polarization, how can music, art, literature and other forms of culture help bridge national and economic divides? Is it possible to keep high culture accessible to most at a time of rising inequality?

Bryn Barnard is an illustrator, artist and teacher. During his fellowship in 1981–1984, he studied visual communication in Southeast Asia.

Kenneth Cavander is a writer, producer and director whose work has been widely performed in the United States and Britain. As a US-based fellow from 1973 to 1976, he examined theater and myth in the aftermath of Watergate, the Vietnam War and youth and sexual revolutions.

Jean-Benoît Nadeau is a Canadian writer, journalist and leading explicator of French customs. His ICWA fellowship in France from 1999 to 2001 focused on the response of the French to globalization.

Roger Reynolds is a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer (“Whispers Out of Time,” 1989). In 1998, the Library of Congress established a special collection of his work, and he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2023. He was an ICWA fellow in Japan (1966–1971) studying music, culture and perceptions of time.

2:45 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. | The environment and adaptation

With the devastating effects of climate change starkly apparent to populations around the world, combatting its man-made causes is suddenly facing tremendous challenges just as time to change course is running out. What do we need to know about what's coming? How must societies adapt? Is it too late for a green revolution?

Deanna Donovan is an environmental economist who most recently worked in Britain at the Joint Nature Conservation Committee. She has also worked with the Asian Development Bank, the Dutch government, the US Agency for International Development and UNESCO. She was an ICWA Forest and Society fellow in Nepal in 1978–1981.

William Knowland is an international consultant on environment, energy and economic development. He served as USAID’s first regional environmental adviser in Indonesia and Thailand until 1992. Later, he opened an office for the Mott Macdonald consulting group in Washington, DC, and chaired the Washington branch of the International Association for Impact Assessment. As a Forest and Society fellow based in Malaysia (1978–1981), he examined the role of forests in economic development.

Brett Simpson is an environment journalist who began her ICWA fellowship in 2024 based 200 miles above the Arctic Circle in Tromsø, Norway—the world’s northernmost city where she’s investigating climate change and the growing environmental, societal and political challenges across the Arctic.

James Workman designed and developed the world’s first online water credit trading platform, the public benefits corporation AquaShares Inc. He is also a principal at Confluence Communications, a freelance consultancy on building resilience in water, forestry and fishery resources. As an ICWA fellow (Southern Africa, 2001–2003), he analyzed international water sharing in arid regions from Cairo to Cape Town.