Congratulations to our colleague Dr. Eoin O'Malley, on his most recent publication, Governing Ireland: From Cabinet Government to Delegated Governance. The co-edited book was official launched last week by Brendan Howlin, TD, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. The structures of Irish government were once considered reliably stable, professional and efficient. The economic crash of 2008 swept away all such sureties. How did we fail to foresee the challenges and avert a crisis that has undermined the state in every respect?

Dr. Eoin O'Malley's new book

Initial explanations have focused on the absence of robust mechanisms to challenge policy, a lack of imagination and expertise in policy design, and inadequacies in policy implementation and evaluation. Others still have pointed to the inability of traditional structures of decision-making and oversight to manage the multidimensional nature of modern policy problems, as well as an increasingly complex administrative system. This new book offers a fresh and sustained scrutiny of the Irish system of national government. It examines the cabinet, the departments of Finance and the Taoiseach, ministerial relationships with civil servants, the growth and decline of agencies, the executive's relationship with Dáil Éireann and other monitoring agencies, the impact of the European Union, the courts, the media and social partnership. Distinguished academics are brought together in this volume to reassess Irish governance structures in the context of much greater diversity in policy processes and delegation in government.

To purchase a copy, click http://www.ipa.ie/index.php?lang=en&p=product&id=248&prodid=262

Dr. Karen Devine accepted an invitation to appear before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on European Union Affairs on Thursday, 23 February 2012 to discuss the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union (TSCG/EMU). Dr. Devine highlighted problematic legal and normative democratic issues underpinning the processes of creating the TSCG/EMU (signed by the leaders of twenty-five European states on 2nd March 2012) and its sister Treaty on the European Stability Mechanism (signed by member states of the euro area on 2nd February 2012) and the status of the two new Treaties in relation to the European Union's current provisions on Economic and Monetary Union. Dr. Devine set these issues in the context of the poor conduct of referendum campaigns in Ireland on previous Treaties progressing European integration and suggested that addressing the failure of democracy and the rule of law at both national and EU levels could lead to optimal decision-making on Ireland's positions on the new proposals and called for a rational costs-benefits debate on the provisions.

The link to the meeting (with Dr. Devine's presentation at 1 hour 48 minutes into the meeting and ending at 2 hours 2 minutes into the meeting) is at http://www.oireachtas.ie/viewdoc.asp?DocID=20474&&CatID=127 . An edited summary record of the meeting can be read at http://debates.oireachtas.ie/EUJ/2012/02/23/00005.asp.

Dr. Adam McAuley has been appointed by the Minister for Health and Children to the Government's Bioethics Committee.

Dr Donnacha Ó Beacháin conducted a research trip to Moldova to evaluate elections in the separatist region of Transnistria. This research is funded by an IRCHSS "New Ideas" grant awarded to Dr Ó Beacháin to evaluate electoral contests in the breakaway regions of post-Soviet Georgia and Moldova. The reports arising from this research will be submitted to the Irish Government's OSCE Taskforce to assist them during Ireland's chairmanship of the OSCE in 2012.

Our weekly guest speaker series is an integral part of our MA Programmes in International Studies and we were delighted to recently welcome Dr. Lamont Colucci. Dr. Colucci has experience as a diplomat with the U.S. Dept. of State and is today an Associate Professor of Politics and Government at Ripon College. His primary area of expertise is United States National Security and United States Foreign Policy. At Ripon, he is the coordinator for the National Security Studies program and teaches courses on national security, foreign policy, intelligence, terrorism, and international relations. He has published a book entitled Crusading Realism: The Bush Doctrine and American Core Values After 9/11. In 2012, he became a Fulbright Scholar designated to teach at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna, Austria. He visited DCU as part of the Fulbright Scholar Program.

In February and March, Dr. Maura Conway and Dr. Francesco Cavatorta, together with PhD student Mr. James Fitzgerald, are running a series of film screenings and accompanying lectures-discussion that seeks to connect themes of terrorism and political violence with the world of cinema and how it represents/deals with such issues. Each film is introduced by a guest speaker who will outline the main themes arising. After the screening the same speaker will provide a few points for discussion followed by a Q&A session.

The screenings-lectures, which will take place in QG13 (on the ground floor of DCU Business School) on Wednesdays from 2pm, are formally linked the modules 'Political Terrorism' and 'Politics of the Middle East and North Africa,' but all are welcome to attend.

Film-lecture schedule:

7 March: Goodbye (Bé Omid é Didar) (2011) , with Dr. Roja Fezaeli, School of Religions and Theology, TCD

21 March: The Battle of Algiers (La Battaglia di Algeri) (1966), with Dr. Anthony Lemieux, WHS Center, Emory University

28 March: Paradise Now (2005) , with Dr. Des McGuinness, School of Communications, DCU

Dr. Maura Conway, Dr. Noelle Higgins and MS. Aurelie Sicard participated in the 'Self, Selves and Sexualities' conference organised by our colleagues in the School of Applied Languages and Intercultural Studies (SALIS).

Dr. Conway chaired a plenary, which featured Colm O'Gorman, Director of Amnesty International Ireland, on discrimination against LGBTI persons and activists worldwide while Dr. Higgins chaired a workshop on 'Prostitution and Human Trafficking in Ireland?'. Ms. Aurelie Sicard presented a paper entitled 'From Predators to "Innocent" Victims: Sexuality Projected by Women on US Television'.

More information is available at http://www4.dcu.ie/salis/conferencesexualitystudies2012/index.shtml

Dr Francesco Cavatorta has recently published two articles:

(with Rikke Haugbølle) 'Beyond Ghannouchi: Islamism and social change in Tunisia?', Middle East Report, Issue 262, Spring 2012.

'The war on terror and the transformation of Political Islam?', Religion Compass, Vol. 6, No. 2, 2012, pp. 185-194.

Gezim Visoka recently presented a paper entitled 'The 'Kafkaesque Accountability' of International Governance in Kosovo', at the Centre for the study of Wider Europe, NUI Maynooth, 07 March 2012. The same paper will appear later this year in the well-established Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, Vol. 6, No. 2, 2012.

Elvin Gjevori and Gezim Visoka presented a paper entitled 'The Politics of Regional Reciprocity: A Discursive Analysis of the 2011 Census in the Western Balkans' at the RRPP annual conference 'Social, Political, and Economic Change in the Western Balkans', Sarajevo, BiH, 25-26 May 2012.

Gezim Visoka will present a paper on 'The Discourse of Unintended Consequences in State-building Research' at the Post-Graduate conference on 'The Social and the Political in Discourses of State-Building, University of Westminster, London, 27 April 2012.

Michelle and her colleagues

Michelle O'Donnell Keating, CIS PhD Student, celebrated International Women's Day with the launch of Women for Election, a non-partisan organisation whose vision is of an Ireland with balanced participation of women and men in political life. Launched by Olivia O'Leary in the Mansion House, Women for Election offers a tailored training and support programme to women seeking to enter public life; and provides and facilitates a cross-party network of political women, committed to equal representation of women and men in Irish politics. Michelle is a one of the co-founder of Women for Election. Further details of the organisation can be found at Women For Election Ireland

CIS and the School of Law and Government are currently advertising for PhD Studentships in Law, Politics, or International Relations valued at up to €15,000 per annum plus fees. The closing date is March 30th. CIS operates a full-time PhD programme with a range of taught courses in the first year and further professional training offered in other years. For more information please click http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AEB160/phd-studentships-in-law-politics-or-international-relations/

Development Studies Association Ireland Postgraduate Workshop Following on from the extremely successful DSAI Postgraduate Workshop that was held in University of Limerick last year, we are pleased to announce that the 2nd Annual DSAI Postgraduate Workshop will be held in University College Cork on 7-8th June 2012 in conjunction with the UCC Centre for Global Development. The workshop is aimed at postgraduate researchers working on development, conflict and humanitarian issues in third-level institutions on the island of Ireland, and aims to strengthen the sense of community and develop networks between postgraduate researchers, academics and practitioners working on a broad range of issues related to international development.

If you are interested in attending this workshop, please email cgducc@gmail.com by 16th March 2012. Emails should contain the following information: name, institution, type of degree (PhD/ Masters), year and stage of research, and research questions/ topics. It is expected that around 20 postgraduate students will take part in the workshop. Should a larger number of applications be received, priority will be provided to doctoral level researchers and members of the Development Studies Association Ireland. Further enquiries should be directed to Dug Cubie at: cgducc@gmail.com

A reminder also that alumni should join the School of Law & Government Alumni Network on LinkedIn.