The role of moral principles in international relations will be the subject of the Wilson School's first annual Colloquium on Public and International Affairs, which begins this morning with panels in McCosh 10 and Dodds Auditorium.
The event, titled "A World of Good and Evil? The Return to Morality in International Affairs," is open to the public and brings together prominent academics, journalists and policymakers.
Speakers include Dennis Ross, special Middle East coordinator in the Clinton administration, Brady Kiesling, a State Department diplomat who resigned in protest of President Bush's Iraq policy, and Mike McCurry '76, President Clinton's press secretary from 1995 to 1998.
Wilson School Dean Anne-Marie Slaughter '80 founded the colloquium three years ago as the Harvard Colloquium on International Affairs, with the goal of bringing the university together on a subject of interest to all, she said in an email.
"It proved very successful and seemed like a natural transplant to Princeton," she said.
Slaughter added that she sees the Wilson School as Princeton's "nexus" with the world of public and international affairs.
"This Colloquium allows us to play that role as catalyst and coordinators of a University-wide event of great importance to all of us," she said.
Slaughter conceived of the topic for the conference last fall when looking at the Bush administration's National Security Strategy, she said.
"I was very struck last fall with the moral language throughout President Bush's National Security Strategy — not only in terms of the 'axis of evil,' but also in the way the Administration described the value of trade and the need for aid in moral terms," she said. "The United States has certainly been here before, but it was striking to me how much we had turned back in this direction after September 11."
The colloquium is part of a larger effort at the Wilson School to emphasize international affairs after Sept. 11, she said.
Slaughter has made special efforts to bring in more professors with expertise in international relations, she said, adding that a leading scholar in the field has just agreed to join the faculty.
Thomas Christensen, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology political scientist and "one of the nation's leading China and security scholars" has accepted a position with the politics department and the Wilson School, Slaughter said.
"I hope that he will be the first of a number of new appointments in the international area," she added.
The University Board of Trustees has also expressed an interest in emphasizing the significance of international relations, President Tilghman said in an email. The importance of international affairs was "discussed at length" at the November retreat of the board of trustees, where the board "expressed a strong interest in having all students leave Princeton with a global perspective," she said.
A PBS television crew will tape portions of the colloquium to air in May on the program, "By the People," said Bill Burke-White, special assistant to Slaughter.
Also today in the Computer Science building, the Program in Leadership Studies and the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics are sponsoring a public conference titled "The George Bush Presidency: An Early Assessment."
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