Mission: The Institutional Development Initiative (IDI) in the Department of Government at Harvard University is a long-term initiative to create and support an ongoing dialogue on the development of institutions. The institutions that pique and capture our interest are multiform. While primarily interested in the emergence and evolution of political institutions such as constitutions, legislatures, bureaucracies and regulatory regimes, we are also interested in legal, economic, religious and social institutions. Our aim is to foster a long-term research and dialogue on institutional development. And we are consciously catholic in our methodological perspectives; we are interested in diverse perspectives on institutional development, whether cognitive/behavioral, historical institutionalist, interpretive, rational choice, sociological, or other.

We hope to accomplish these objectives by the following programs:

• Sponsorship of colloquia, seminars, conferences and reading groups on institutional development

• Construction of a website where quantitative and qualitative data on institutional development is made available to researchers and students from all disciplines

• Creation of sustained intellectual networks in the Department of Government and across departments at Harvard and elsewhere in which institutional development can be discussed and studied

Events - Fall 2005

 

Friday, October 28, 8:15 a.m.-5:00 p.m.*

PRELIMINARY AGENDA

Note:  Open to faculty and graduate students only.

One-Day Conference:  Authors Meet the Critics. 

William Howell
Associate Professor of Government
Harvard University

Jon Pevehouse
Assistant Professor
Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin

Book Manuscript: 
"While Dangers Gather: Congressional Checks on Presidential War Powers"

This book-length manuscript examines the conditions under which Congress opposes presidential decisions to deploy troops abroad, and the consequences this opposition has for presidential decision making. Using a variety of original datasets and drawing from diverse literatures within political science, the authors argue that Congress plays an important role in shaping the domestic politics that precede military action.

  *LOCATION:  Please RSVP to lhalpern@latte.harvard.edu for location and to obtain a copy of the manuscript before the event.

 

Friday, November 4, 12:00-2:00 p.m.  

Seminar:  "Party and Constituency in the House, 1982-2002"

John Aldrich
Pfizer-Pratt University Professor of Political Science
Duke University

LOCATION:  CGIS Knafel Building, Room N354*
1737 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, MA

For further information, contact Terri Bimes, 617-496-4213 or tbimes@latte.harvard.edu.

* Please note location has changed from an earlier posting.  Talk will be in N354, not in N450.