Projects

Representatives of two of the world’s major industrial nations, and thus major polluters, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., met in August 1991 at the Rockefeller Conference Center in Bellagio, Italy, to discuss ways to improve environmental protection practices in the two nations.

In 1990, the Academy co-sponsored an interdisciplinary symposium focused on trends in current scholarship on homelessness. The resulting publication critically examined the shortcomings of the research into the causes of homelessness and addressed barriers to remedying this social problem.

This study brought together political scientists specializing in U.S. foreign policy and those studying Congress to examine the impact of Congress on U.S. conduct of foreign affairs.

The Academy designed this study to act as a roadmap for transportation policy-makers, students, and concerned citizens. Calling for changes in policies and social habits, the resulting report offered strategies to minimize and resolve the problems raised by the increasing use of automobiles in urban areas.

This project investigated how environmental degradation and depletion of natural resources might contribute to social strife and conflict in many parts of the world.

This project examined the major political, economic, and security obstacles standing in the way of a durable Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement.

Between the first meeting for this project and the 1992 publication of the book, the Soviet Union collapsed. This created profound implications for the way Americans and the West thought about security policy. The earlier meetings brought together Soviet and U.S. scholars and security policy specialists to discuss changes in the Soviet Union, and the later session also invited specialists in Eastern European affairs.

This project examined superpower relations during the Cold War as a cooperative effort in order to illuminate the constraints and opportunities that will influence possible superpower cooperation in the future.

The Academy sponsored a conference on genetic engineering, examining both the risks and possible benefits. The resulting volume of papers concentrates on the scientific principles required to understand the issues that lie at the core of public concern and, therefore, of policy development.

The Academy organized two workshops to explore the role of women in developing and implementing national security policy.

This study compared France and the United States’ immigration policies, race relations, and political institutions. It looked at how both countries educate and house immigrants and analyzed the political and legal implications of integration, marginalization, and discrimination in each country.

This project examines the relationship between legal systems and the cultures in which they are embedded, with particular emphasis on the legal profession.

The Academy co-sponsored a workshop to explore the feasibility of the United States and the Soviet Union agreeing to halt production of the radioactive, warhead-boosting agent tritium and to pace steady, significant reductions in their arsenals at the relatively rapid rate of tritium’s decay – the so-called “tritium factor.”

The focus of this study was to better understand the role of Confucianism - long thought to be incompatible with the spirit of capitalism - in industrialization.

This major comparative study of anti-modernist, anti-secular militant religious movements on five continents and within seven world religious traditions resulted in multiple influential publications.

Managing the ABM Treaty Regime into the 21st Century: This study analyzed ways in which the underlying objectives of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. could continue to be realized in the future.

The Academy organized a multidisciplinary study group to examine the historical evolution of the U.S. corporation, changes in structure and control, the social organization of corporations, the role of the board of directors, and the corporation’s responsibility to its workforce and to society as a whole.

A study group composed of policy figures, military experts, and policy analysts studied such issues as the technical and political aspects of the U.S. and Soviet command and control systems over nuclear forces; the devolution and delegation of authority to use nuclear weapons; and the synergistic effects of U.S. and Soviet actions during a crisis.