Peter Van Buren - Nation-building and why it's so hard to do
Date & Time: April 29, 2015 | 08:00 PM – 09:15 PM
Location: Lewis Katz Building, University Park, Pa.
Peter van Buren is a retired 24-year veteran of the U.S. Department of State.
Peter Van Buren spent a year in Iraq as a State Department Foreign Service Officer serving as Team Leader for two Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs). Now in Washington, he writes about Iraq and the Middle East at his blog, We Meant Well. His first book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, was published in 2011, and his latest book, Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99Percent, has just been published.
Professor and U.S. Ambassador (Ret.) Dennis Jett, organizes the semester long event to bring thought leaders on topics ranging from food security to terrorism. The program features 14 speakers. Colloquium topics vary depending upon the current issues of the day. The course surveys some major transnational social problems confronting the world, suggested by the Copenhagen Consensus, such as: climate change; communicable diseases; conflict and arms proliferation; access to education; financial instability; governance and corruption; malnutrition and hunger; migration; sanitation and access to clean water; and subsidies and trade barriers. The course involves team teaching and guest lecturers. The course lectures are open to the public and made available via webcast.
Since leaving the government, Buren’s commentary has been featured in The New York Times,[4] Salon,[5] NPR, Al Jazzeera, Huffington Post,[6] The Nation,[7] TomDispatch, Antiwar.com, American Conservative Magazine, Mother Jones,[8] MichaelMoore.com,[9] Le Monde, Asia Times, The Guardian (UK), Daily Kos, Middle East Online, Guernica and others. He has appeared on the BBC World Service, NPR’s All Things Considered and Fresh Air, CurrentTV, HuffPo Live, RT, ITV, Britain’s Channel 4 Viewpoint, CCTV, Voice of America, and more.
In his talk, Van Buren will be discussing "Nation-building and why it's so hard to do". Nation builders are those members of a state who take the initiative to develop the national community through government programs, including military conscription and national content mass schooling. Van Buren will examine the obstacles faced when in the process of creating a national identity.