Abroad so hard

Future public affairs professionals… or hip hop stars? Made by MPA students. Featuring Daniel Cohn, dual degree MPA/SIPA ’14 candidate. Parody from Columbia SIPA Follies. Premiered in New York on April 19, 2014.

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Fighting the tide

Headlines of record‑breaking water-related disasters around the world – whether flood or drought – are a sign of things to come. As Lord Stern recently warned, the extreme weather events witnessed in many parts of the world reflect “a pattern of global change that it would be very unwise to ignore”. Recently, the UK and French floods…

Iran’s regional influence

How is Iran’s role in the regional energy sector changing and how does this shape the country’s strategic place in the broader politics of the Middle East? The Iranian draft budget for the 2013/2014 period assumed a 40% decline in oil revenues taking into account the economic consequences of international sanctions since 2012 that have targeted…

Gender Inclusion in the US Military

In January 2013 the United States Department of Defense (DoD) lifted a ban on women serving in combat fields and assignments, marking the end of one of the few remaining barriers to the full inclusion of women in the U.S. military. Repealing the combat exclusion policy is one step toward eliminating the discrepancy between servicewomen’s…

Nostalgia for national borders?

The nation state–a concept produced in 1648 by the powdered heads who gathered at Westphalia to end the thirty years war–has been under attack for some time. The most recent whacks came as the world has collectively tried to make sense of the Syrian conflict. Fareed Zakaria, for instance, has argued that the conflict is…

MPA students have mad skillz

This might be a Columbia SIPA video, but that seems to be our very own (SIPA dual degree student) Dan Cohn putting his white guilt on the line. Impressive.

The MPA’s new blog

Welcome to Global Significance: the MPA’s new blog launched today along with our brand new website. An exciting day to be sure. This blog is a space for the MPA community to share what we think with the rest of the world. We are in a particularly privileged position: our network and our perspectives span…