The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, or the Geneva Graduate Institute (French: Institut de hautes études internationales et du développement, previously known as Institut des hautes études internationales), abbreviated IHEID (previously HEI, IHEI, or IUHEI), is a government-accredited postgraduate institution of higher education located in Geneva, Switzerland.The institution counts one UN secretary-general (Kofi Annan), seven Nobel Prize recipients, one Pulitzer Prize winner, and numerous ambassadors, foreign ministers, and heads of state among its alumni and faculty. Founded by two senior League of Nations officials, the Graduate Institute maintains strong links with that international organisation's successor, the United Nations, and many alumni have gone on to work at UN agencies.Admission to the Graduate Institute's study programmes is highly competitive, with a selection rate of only 14% of applicants. Founded in 1927, the Graduate Institute of International Studies (IHEI or HEI) was continental Europe's oldest school of international relations and was the world's first graduate institute dedicated solely to the study of international affairs. It offered one of the first doctoral programmes in international relations in the world. In 2008, the Graduate Institute absorbed the Graduate Institute of Development Studies, a smaller postgraduate institution also based in Geneva founded in 1961. The merger resulted in the current Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies.Today the school enrolls close to a thousand postgraduate students from over 100 countries. Foreign students make up nearly 90% of the student body and the school is officially a bilingual English-French institution, although the majority of classes are in English. With Maison de la Paix acting as its primary seat of learning, the institute's campuses are located blocks from the United Nations Office at Geneva, International Labour Organization, World Trade Organization, World Health Organization, International Committee of the Red Cross, World Intellectual Property Organization and many other international organisations.It runs joint degree programmes with universities such as Smith College and Yale University, and is Harvard Kennedy School's only partner institution to co-deliver double degrees. The school is a member of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs (APSIA), a group of schools that specialize in public policy, public administration, and international affairs.
This paper studies whether countries benefit from servicing their debts during times of widespread sovereign defaults.Colombia is typically regarded as the only large Latin American country that did not default in the 1980s.Using archival research and formal econometric estimates of Colombia's probability of default, we show that in the early 1980s Colombia's fundamentals were not significantly different from those of the Latin American countries that defaulted on their debts.We also document that the different path chosen by Colombia was due to the authorities' belief that maintaining a good reputation in the international capital market would have substantial long-term payoffs.We show that the case of Colombia is more complex than what it is commonly assumed.Although Colombia had to re-profile its debts, high-level political support from the US allowed Colombia do to so outside the standard framework of an IMF program.Our counterfactual analysis shows that in the short to medium run, Colombia benefited from avoiding an explicit default.Specifically, we find that GDP growth in the 1980s was higher than that of a counterfactual in which Colombia behaved like its neighboring countries.We also test whether Colombia's behavior in the 1980s led to long-term reputational benefits.Using an event study based on a large sudden stop, we find no evidence for such long-lasting reputational gains.
This chapter offers a comprehensive overview of the Migrant Workers Committee, its mandate and activities. The membership and functioning of the Committee as well as its monitoring functions are analysed and compared against those of other existing supervisory mechanisms. Further emphasis is placed on the cooperation of the Migrant Workers Committee with a large number of stakeholders, such as the ILO and UN treaty bodies, but also other concerned international and non-governmental organisations (including IOM and UNHCR).
The longstanding debate around the trade-offs of formalizing institutions of citizen participation (ICPs) within legal frameworks is currently facing a revival with the spread of citizens’ assemblies. Among arguments in favour of “more” institutionalization, the expectation that it will protect ICPs from eventual political changes stands out. Among arguments against institutionalization, the fear of crystallizing certain “recipes” translates concerns that overly routinized institutions can be more easily manipulated. But what exactly does institutionalization entail? We offer three contributions to this conversation. First, we define institutionalization, identifying four constitutive dimensions: formalization, political embedding, professionalization, and social engagement. It is rare for any ICP to achieve high degrees of all four dimensions. Second, we propose four connected arguments: (a) the debate is not whether to institutionalize or not but about contextual configurations, (b) formalization alone does not guarantee the persistence or success of ICPs, (c) the extent and form of institutionalization will and should vary across ICPs and over time, and (d) if any single dimension of institutionalization stands out as crucial, it is political embedding. Third, we explore these ideas by analyzing three Latin American ICPs: popular initiatives (direct decision-making), participatory budgeting (deliberative decision-making), and sortition-based citizens’ assemblies (consultative deliberation).
The construction and use of datasets have become an important practice in Earth system governance research. By systematically cataloguing various outcomes, policy issues, actors, sites, and processes, datasets enhance the reliability, transparency, and replicability of research. Yet, despite growing interest, efforts to share data, integrate datasets, and develop common standards remain fragmented. This Perspective surveys various scholarly efforts to create datasets and provides a classification of the emerging dataset landscape in the field of Earth system governance. Drawing on examples from our own research and group discussions, we identify current best practices and lessons learned regarding data collection, management, and integration, as well as data usability and sharing. We argue that the design of datasets is not a neutral technical exercise, but has implications for how global environmental governance is theorized and studied. We also highlight how greater attention to data infrastructures can strengthen the relevance of research for policy practitioners and other stakeholders beyond academia.
