Experts in nuclear materials security gathered for a workshop on Jan. 8 and 9, 2009.

The Global Security and International Affairs program area draws on the expertise of policy-makers, practitioners, and scholars to foster knowledge and inform innovative and more substantial policies that address crucial issues affecting the global community. Projects underway in this area engage with pressing strategic, development, and moral questions that underpin relations among people, communities, and states worldwide. Each initiative embraces a broad conception of security as the interaction among human, national, and global security imperatives. Project recommendations move beyond the idea of security as the absence of war toward higher aspirations of collective peace, development, and justice.

One of the recommendations for strengthening American democracy proposed in Our Common Purpose - the report of a bipartisan Academy commission - is to enact ranked-choice voting (RCV) for presidential, congressional, and state elections. This article examines legislative progress at the federal, state, and local levels concerning ranked-choice voting.

In 2021, the Academy received a gift from business leader, philanthropist, and Academy member David M. Rubenstein to support the building of a new addition to the headquarters in Cambridge, MA. The new wing would house the organization’s institutional archives, furthering the efforts to date to preserve the records of the Academy and make them more accessible. Academy President David W. Oxtoby said of the gift, “David Rubenstein’s generosity reflects his deep appreciation for the arc of history and his abiding interest in strengthening democracy and justice in America.”

At a Brown University event co-hosted with the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, panelists discussed the importance of partnering with community members and first responders and reducing stigma around addiction.

Judith Resnik, Jonathan Lippman, Carol S. Steiker, Susan S. Silbey, Jamal Greene, and Linda Greenhouse participated in a conversation on the function of courts in the United States.

On April 12, 2012, North Korea unsuccessfully launched a long-range missile that was intended to carry an Earth observation satellite into space. North Korea fired the long-range test rocket in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions and an agreement with the United States. On the eve of the launch, the Academy convened leading North Korea experts to discuss the broader geopolitical and nonproliferation implications of North Korea’s nuclear program.

A new publication from the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the Russian Academy of Sciences is released. Its purpose is to inform policymakers who will shape the relative safety or danger of the future international nuclear environment.

How did music in the twentieth century both influence and reflect American culture? The Fall 2013 issue of Dædalus examines how music—in Hollywood films, in concert halls, in private homes and public spaces—helped shape our modern selves.

Academy Publications

Compared with our knowledge about students who take courses in the sciences, we know very little about who takes humanities courses in college. With the sciences, most of what we know is about majors rather than courses taken because data on majors are more readily available. Therefore having basic information about relative course-taking by students who majored in particular subjects is extremely important.

Three of the country’s leading philanthropic organizations are supporting the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in its goal to ensure safety and security amid the anticipated expansion of nuclear energy around the world.

Valerie Bunce, George W. Breslauer, and Timothy J. Colton discuss the ongoing crisis in Ukraine and Russia.

What is consciousness? How do we store memories, process thoughts, and command our bodies? Why do we require sleep to live? And can we trust our perception of the world around us? The Winter 2015 issue of Dædalus responds to these fundamental questions of human experience, exploring “What is the Brain Good For?” through recent developments and new theories in the field of neuroscience.

Academy Publications

“The bottom line is that despite the profound global threat of pandemics, there remains no global health mechanism to force parties to act in accordance with global health interests,” write Paul Wise and Michele Barry in the Fall 2017 issue of Daedalus.

The Global Security and International Affairs program area draws on the expertise of policy-makers, practitioners, and scholars to foster knowledge and inform innovative and more substantial policies to address crucial issues affecting the global community. Projects underway in this area engage with pressing strategic, development, and moral questions that underpin relations among people, communities, and states worldwide. Each initiative embraces a broad conception of security as the interaction among human, national, and global security imperatives. Project recommendations move beyond the idea of security as the absence of war toward higher aspirations of collective peace, development, and justice.

The 2015 Induction Ceremony included presentations by five new members: Phil S. Baran, Patricia Smith Churchland, Roland G. Fryer, Jr., Sally Haslanger, and Darren Walker.

The Spring 2020 issue of Dædalus, “Meeting the Challenges of a New Nuclear Age,” guest-edited by Robert Legvold and Christopher F. Chyba, examines some of the possible escalation pathways that could lead one or more states to use nuclear weapons.