Submit Your RAPS Proposal for ISA 2027
A Message from RAPS Leadership
As the ISA 2027 proposal deadline approaches (June 1), we invite you to submit for panels and roundtables as part of ISA Research and Policy Section (RAPS) official allocation. RAPS was established in 2025 to encourage greater connections between international affairs research and policy. We’re eager to fill our ISA sections with proposals that reflect the latest advancements in research, teaching, and engagement with policy audiences.

Read ISA’s full call for proposals, including submission requirements, here. If you’d like our assistance in pulling together a panel or a roundtable, please contact Daniel Solomon at dsolomon@ushmm.org. We hope to see you in Atlanta next year!

Upcoming Workshop: Conducting Policy-Relevant and Responsibly Engaged Public Scholarship
BTG Principal Jordan Tama, in partnership with Susanna Campbell and Oliver Kaplan, will be teaching an ISA online professional development course on May 28 for scholars of international affairs seeking to conduct more public or policy engagement. View more information and registration details here.

Virtual Roundtable: Bridging the Gap between Policymakers and Academics in Africa and the Global South
Co-sponsored by RAPS and the Global Africa Section at ISA, this virtual roundtable on June 12 will bring together leading thinkers, who have engaged with and in policy spaces across several different Africa countries and across different issues areas, including peace and security, Sino–Africa relations, and development cooperation. Join the conversation on the status of academic and policy engagement across the African continent and beyond. Register here.

Bureau of Intelligence and Research Roundtable Recap
On April 3, 2026, Bridging the Gap convened a roundtable at the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) on “East Asian Responses to Uncertainty in the Global Order.” Alex Yu-Ting Lin, Cheng Xu, Andrew Yeo, and Ketian Zhang served as presenters.

Updates from Our Network

Orbis Accepting Articles and Policy Commentary Submissions 

Orbis: Journal of World Affairs has relaunched through a new partnership between the Foreign Policy Research Institute and the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology, under the editorship of BTG alum Lawrence Rubin and Nikolas Gvosdev, with BTG Senior Director Rachel Whitlark as Associate Editor. Orbis returns as an open access, peer reviewed journal designed to bridge academic insight and policy relevance, alongside a dedicated policy commentary section.

 

Orbis is now accepting submissions for their first peer reviewed issue this fall. They welcome two main types of submissions: research articles (5,000–7,000 words) and policy commentaries (3,000–5,000 words). Submission guidelines are available at https://orbisjournal.org/. To complement the journal, they have also launched the Shifting Ground podcast, available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

 

ISA Research Workshop Series: Artificial Intelligence and Global Governance

Recently, the International Studies Association (ISA) uploaded a four-part research workshop series from the 67th ISA Annual Convention in Columbus, Ohio to its official YouTube channel. The workshop, Artificial Intelligence and Global Governance: Institutional, Normative, Ethical and Political Implications for the 21st Century, was led by Primary Investigator Prof. Aigul Kulnazarova (Tama University). BTG alum Pooja Arora served as Co-Primary Investigator alongside Dr. Sarah Stanlick (Worcester Polytechnic Institute) and Dr. Michal Natorski (Maastricht University).

The series brought together an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars and practitioners to examine questions surrounding AI governance, autonomous weapons, ethics, democratic resilience, and the future of world order. Participants included scholars from institutions such as Maastricht University, University of Zurich, Ohio State University, the Balsillie School of International Affairs, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and others.

 

Part 1: AI & Global Power: Who Controls Intelligence in the 21st Century?

Part 2: AI Warfare & Global Power: Can We Regulate High-Risk Intelligence?

Part 3: AI, Power & the Global Majority: Who Gets Left Out of the Future?

Part 4: AI, War & World Order: Who Controls the Future of Power?

 

SCHOLARLY PUBLICATIONS

 

Christina Cottiero

International Financial Institutions and the Promotion of Autocratic Resilience, International Organization (co-authored with Christina Schneider)

Protective Clubs: How Leaders Cooperate in African Regional Organizations, Cambridge University Press 

 

Silvia Danielak

Peace Infrastructures: How UN Peace Operations Build Roads, Bridges, and Solar Farms in the Pursuit of Sustainability, MIT Press

 

Augusta Dell’Omo

Saving Apartheid: White Internationalism at the End of the Cold War, Columbia University Press

 

Sarah Dorr, Birthe Einen, Louise Olsson
Societal Impact in a Turbulent World: Researcher Competencies and Career Pathways, International Studies Perspectives

 

Meghan Garrity and Harris Mylonas

Eliminationist politics: an analytical framework, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

The Logics of Eliminationist Politics, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies [Special Issue]

 

Rachel Ann George
AI and Democracy: Mapping the Intersections report, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
From Altruism to Instrumentalism? Aid-Diplomacy Mergers and the Future of Foreign Policy, Global Studies Quarterly 

 

Matt Guardino, Jeffrey D. Pugh, and Kelsey Edmond
Demanding Invisibility: Examining U.S. Attitudes Toward Immigrant Political Engagement, Political Research Quarterly

 

Dennis Murphy

The geopolitics of compute in the aftermath of the AI diffusion framework, Journal of Cyber Policy
An Independent Safety Evaluation of Kimi K2.5, Cornell University

 

Rachel J. Schoner and Andrea Vilán

Children’s participation in international organizations: Individual petitions in the United Nations, Journal of Human Rights

 

Damien Van Puyvelde

The DGSE: A Concise History of France’s Foreign Intelligence Service, Georgetown University Press

 

BTG IN THE MEDIA

Mary S. Barton and James Graham Wilson

Eisenhower’s lessons in alliance management, Engelsberg Ideas

 

Jeff D. Colgan
Trump's War Is Punishing the Poor, Starting at the Gas Pump, The New York Times

Rachel Ann George

Amid Shaky Ceasefire, War in Iran Is Starving Sudan, Just Security

 

Sahar Khan
AI is Quietly Reshaping Nuclear Risk in South Asia, Asia-Pacific Leadership Network
How massive US footprint in the Gulf became a bullseye overnight, Responsible Statecraft

 

Rubin Lawrence

Pakistan mediates US-Iran talks amid threats, troop buildup and regional escalation, Channel News Asia 938

 

Rebecca Lissner

The Strategic Aftershocks of Trump’s Iran War, Foreign Policy

Americans Actually Support U.S. Global Leadership, U.S. Council on Foreign Relations

 

Noaman Elwaleed Mousa

Emergency Response Rooms and Collective Action in Sudan, CSIS Into Africa Podcast

 

Dennis Murphy

Why Iran targeted Amazon data centers and what that does – and doesn’t – change about warfare, The Conversation

 

Jeffrey Pugh 

PaxGlobal Voices (Creator), UMASS Boston Center for Peace, Democracy, and Development

 

Will Walldorf

Trump risks falling in to the ‘asymmetric resolve’ trap in Iran − just as presidents before him did elsewhere, The Conversation

 

Would you like your work to be included in an upcoming BTG newsletter and on our social media?

Send it to us at BridgingTheGap@du.edu (Include "Alumni Update" in the header of your email).