International Research News

As Russian missiles exploded throughout Ukraine and Russian troops advanced toward the capital city of Kyiv this week, Polina Lishko was in her UC Berkeley office thinking about her family, and about the history of their Ukrainian homeland.

We must do what we can to contain Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine. But we also need to be clear-eyed about it, and face the costs. As I’ve said before, economics can’t be separated from politics, and neither can be separated from history. Here are eight sobering realities.

The co-editors of The Palgrave Handbook of EU Crises discuss their research that explores the European Union’s institutional and policy responses to crises across policy domains and institutions, including the Euro crisis, Brexit, the Ukraine crisis, the refugee crisis and the global health crisis caused by COVID-19.

Berkeley News talked with two veteran Russia scholars: George Breslauer and M. Steven Fish, both political scientists at UC Berkeley. Based on their decades of research and experience with contemporary Russia, they offered compelling insights into the mind and heart of Russia’s leader: his immediate objectives in Ukraine and his overarching vision for Russia. They also reflected on the U.S. response to Putin’s military threat, the field of options for both sides, and possible long-term scenarios.

The program run for five years by the Center for Effective Global Action has supported government improvements across continents.

To meet the development needs of a growing population, Africa’s electricity sector requires a major transformation. New research, co-authored at the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy, identifies five sets of complementary actions to put Africa’s electricity sector on track to sharply increase electrification rates and secure long-term access to affordable and cleaner energy.

The Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Global, International, and Area Studies, are pleased to announce the appointments of Natalia Brizuela as Chair of the Center for Latin American Studies, and Asad Q. Ahmed, Chair of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

With an estimated 80 million refugees and displaced people facing increased uncertainty and growing crises, this year’s World Refugee Day on June 20 carries added significance. That urgency is evident at Berkeley Law. Faculty lead seminal research and often coordinate their efforts through the Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative, clinics provide vital legal assistance, centers and institutes offer robust programming, and student groups such as the International Refugee Assistance Project advocate for rights and protections.

Fierce battles continue in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict that has killed at least 1,000 people, and possibly many more. The fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan threatens to destabilize the South Caucasus region, in what has been one of the world’s most protracted wars; three cease-fires have already collapsed since hostilities flared at the end of September.

With a multi-faith population of some 1.3 billion, India claims to be the world’s largest secular democracy. But when it comes to the question of who is a true Indian, the country’s Hindu children are more likely than their Muslim peers to connect their faith to their national identity, according to new research from UC Berkeley.

When UC Berkeley architect Ronald Rael took his bright pink teeter totters to the U.S.-Mexico border wall, he didn’t know what he and his team did next would go viral. He just wanted to create a moment where people on both sides of the wall felt connected to each other. “Women and children completely disempowered this wall for a moment, for 40 minutes,” says Rael. “There was a kind of sanctuary hovering over this event.”

In a region of India with a long history of tension between Hindus and Muslims, children of different faiths are showing unexpected tolerance for one another’s religious beliefs and customs.