US Peace Research Articles

The New Frontier Meets the White Revolution: The Peace Corps in Iran, 1962‒76

The Peace Corps brought an estimated 1,800 Americans to Iran from 1962 to 1976, coinciding with the unfolding of Mohammad-Reza Shah Pahlavi’s Enqelāb-e Sefid, or White Revolution. This article surveys Peace Corps Iran’s fourteen-year history by dividing it into three distinct moments defined by changing social and political conditions in Iran and shifting US‒Iranian relations. Initially, the Peace Corps Iran experiment built on earlier American foreign assistance programs, while coinciding with the roll-out of the White Revolution. Second, during its heyday in the mid-1960s, the Peace Corps inevitably became entangled with the White Revolution’s unfolding, both experiencing a phase of expansion and apparent success. Finally, as Iranian social and political conditions moved toward instability by the 1970s, Peace Corps Iran also seemed to have lost its direction and purpose, which ultimately led to a vote by volunteers to terminate the program. Based on accounts by US Peace Corps volunteers and the Iranians with whom they worked, the Peace Corps Agency, and the US State Department, this article argues that, ultimately, the Peace Corps Iran experience left a more lasting legacy on individuals than institutions.

An Exploration of the Concept and Practice of Co-teaching in Public Secondary School EFL Classes in Benin

Across Asia, in countries such as Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, and Hong Kong, the practice of the Co- teaching model within English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms has proved beneficial for both educators and learners. In those countries, having both native and non-native EFL teachers to develop and carry out lesson plans offers a great opportunity to build local teachers’ capacities and promote cultural exchange between teachers and within the classroom. For learners, the co-teaching model gives the possibility to hear pronunciation, as well as tones and rhythm, of a native speaker in English. While researchers have noted the benefits of this strategic approach in both teaching and learning English as a foreign language, in those aforementioned Asian countries, they have failed to specify if the practice can be generalized to other EFL countries around the world. To my knowledge, no research has been conducted on co-teaching in Benin. To fill this gap, this study, through qualitative and quantitative methods, aims to shed light on the prospects and challenges of co-teaching in Beninese secondary schools. As the co-teaching practice in Benin is only done by US Peace Corps TEFL Volunteers, the target population has consisted of thirty of them and forty of their counterparts. Valuable data has been collected through class observations, interviews and questionnaires over a six-month period. The findings have shown that even though there are challenges, the approach of co-teaching used in Benin is beneficial to both the team teachers and their learners. Finally, the study suggests ways to maximize the benefits of co-teaching and a few strategies to cope with challenges.

Ethical and Procedural Professionalization in the Peace Corps

How does a shift from ethically oriented professionalization to proceduralism affect intrinsically motivated development workers, and what are its consequences for development? In answering this question, this paper will attempt to do two things. First, I investigate how proceduralism affects intrinsically motivated workers in the US Peace Corps. The question of intrinsic motivation has received very little attention in either development studies or in sociology; in an era in which the default and presumed means of influencing worker actions is through largely pay-based incentives or threat of termination (both levers promoted by the economics discipline), what room is there for recovering more profoundly sociological underpinnings of work that do not originate in individual economic and status self-interest? Second, I will tackle changes in development using the professions literature, bringing a strong sociological perspective to a question that has been circulating within development for two decades: what is responsible for the persistent failure of development organizations? While I do not claim to answer this question exhaustively, I will, I hope, shed light on an important dimension of the problem. The paper thus contributes to both organizational theory and development studies by parsing the dynamics that affect intrinsically motivated development workers.

A pilot program of knowledge translation and implementation for newborn resuscitation using US Peace Corps Volunteers in rural Madagascar.

BackgroundPrevention of adverse perinatal outcome using the Helping Babies Breathe (HBB) neonatal resuscitation algorithm can reduce perinatal mortality in low income settings. Mercy Ships is a non-governmental organisation providing free healthcare education in sub-Saharan Africa and in an attempt to reach more rural areas of Madagascar with our neonatal resuscitation training we designed a novel approach in collaboration with US Peace Corps Volunteers (PCV). PCVs work in rural areas and contribute to locally determined public health initiatives.MethodWe used a model of knowledge translation and implementation to train non-medical PCVs in HBB who would then train rural healthcare workers. Bulb suction and a self-inflating bag were donated to each health centre. We evaluated knowledge translation and behaviour change at 4 months using the Kirkpatrick model of evaluation.ResultsTen PCVs received training and then trained 42 healthcare workers in 10 rural health centres serving a combined population of over 1 million. Both PCVs and rural healthcare workers showed significant increases in knowledge and skills (p < 0.001). The commonest behaviour changes persisting at 4 months were adequate preparation before delivery; use of rubbing and drying as a means of stimulation instead of foot tapping or back slapping; and use of the self-inflating bag to give respirations. Anecdotal evidence of changes in neonatal outcome were reported in several health care centres.ConclusionOur study demonstrates that non-medically trained PCVs can be used to successfully train rural healthcare workers in newborn resuscitation using the HBB algorithm and this results in improvements in personal and organizational practice at 4 months, including anecdotal evidence of improved patient outcome. Our novel method of training, including the provision of essential equipment, may be another tool in the armamentarium of those seeking to disseminate good practice to the most rural areas.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12992-016-0207-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Dengue in Peace Corps Volunteers, 2000-14.

Dengue is an arboviral disease estimated to cause 50-100 million infections each year in >100 tropical and subtropical countries. Urbanization, human population growth and expanded global travel have resulted in an increase in the incidence of dengue worldwide. International travellers to areas with endemic dengue are at risk of contracting dengue and US Peace Corps Volunteers are one specific group of long-term travellers who are exposed to environments where dengue can be contracted. Cases of dengue among Peace Corps Volunteers, defined as clinically apparent infections with laboratory-confirmation by a positive NS1 antigen test, demonstration of IgM antibodies or by a 4-fold increase in IgG antibodies, between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2014, reported to the Peace Corps’ Epidemiologic Surveillance System were analyzed. Overall there were 1448 cases of dengue reported among Volunteers, with an incidence rate of 1.12 cases per 1000 Volunteer-months (95% CI 1.06-1.17). The highest rate of dengue among Volunteers was reported in the Caribbean region, with a rate of 5.51 cases per 1000 Volunteer-months (95% CI 4.97-6.10), followed by the East Asia/South Asia region (3.34, 95% CI 2.96-3.75) and Central America (2.55, 95% CI 2.32-2.79). The rate of dengue peaked in 2007, 2010 and 2013. Each peak year was followed by a trough year. Globally, there appears to be a 3-year cyclical pattern of dengue incidence among Volunteers, with differences by region. Dengue continues to be a priority health issue for travellers to endemic areas, and enhanced surveillance of dengue among international travellers may result in improved patient education and prevention efforts.

Educating Americans for “Overseasmanship”: The Peace Corps and the Invention of Culture Shock

Since culture shock was first coined in the mid-1950s, the term has become a fixture of popular discourse and continues to organize general understandings of the way individuals experience cultural difference. This essay examines the emergence of culture shock in relation to the 1961 establishment of the US Peace Corps, an institution that contributed to both scholarly and popular understandings of the concept. Through an analysis of both the early scholarship on culture shock and the term’s appearance in volunteers’ accounts and Peace Corps histories, the essay identifies two complementary discourses at play in the culture shock story, which together supported the Peace Corps’ project of “educating Americans for overseasmanship”: the concept of culture shock harnessed the expert authority of an emerging American social science to a classically sentimental narrative of individual crisis, growth, and recovery. Ultimately, the essay argues, culture shock offered volunteers a framework through which to make sense of their unsettling encounters abroad, but one that individualized, psychologized, and depoliticized their confrontations not only with cultural difference but also with inequality, poverty, racism, and imperialism.

First Person Singular: Building the road as we travel

After completing a law degree at the University of Birmingham when I was 20 and not really knowing what I wanted to do, except that it was not law, I became an English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher accidentally through signing up as a volunteer with the British United Nations Association (BUNA), roughly equivalent to the US Peace Corps. Instead of being dispatched to assist starving people through a remote third-world community development project, as I had naively expected, I was sent on a fast-paced, two-week English as a second language (ESL) teacher-training course at a well-known private language school, International House, on Shaftesbury Avenue, in the heart of London's West End. Then came a one-week BUNA ‘orientation’ course in the suburbs. A hundred-plus neophyte volunteers were lectured on how to deliver a baby, how to deal with snake bites, how to remove leeches using gasoline or matches (but not both), the importance of taking anti-malaria pills daily without fail (pills subsequently found to be 100% ineffective), and how to avoid schistosomiasis (snail fever). On the last day, I was informed that, contrary to what I had first been told, I would not after all be going to Afghanistan, but to Peru. A week later, I arrived in Lima, a bustling Latin-American metropolis with no shortage of mid-wives, no malaria, no snakes, no snails and not a leech in sight. In the face of pervasive poverty, corruption, violence, and illiteracy, I had been sent several thousand miles, with absolutely no understanding of how people learn languages and minimal understanding of how to teach them, to provide free English classes for the relatively wealthy, mostly middle-class faculty and students in the Faculty of Law of Peru's leading university, the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos.

No Exceptions: Documenting the Abortion Experiences of US Peace Corps Volunteers.

Since 1979, US federal appropriations bills have prohibited the use of federal funds from covering abortion care for Peace Corps volunteers. There are no exceptions; unlike other groups that receive health care through US federal funding streams, including Medicaid recipients, federal employees, and women in federal prisons, abortion care is not covered for volunteers even in cases of life endangerment, rape, or incest. We interviewed 433 returned Peace Corps volunteers to document opinions of, perceptions about, and experiences with obtaining abortion care. Our results regarding the abortion experiences of Peace Corps volunteers, especially those who were raped, bear witness to a profound inequity and show that the time has come to lift the "no exceptions" funding ban on abortion coverage.

Bombs and Border Crossings: Peace Activist Networks and the Post-colonial State in Africa, 1959–62

This article explores the engagement between European, African and US peace activists as a case-study of the transnational dimensions of decolonization. Its focus is the protest against the first French nuclear weapons test in the Sahara, and European activists’ involvement in subsequent international conferences in Ghana that sought to contest ‘nuclear imperialism’. The article assesses the limits of transnationalism when addressing interconnected histories of European, African and US anti-nuclear weapons campaigns and argues that, rather than facilitating the formation of new transnational communities, anti-nuclear peace movements in Africa coalesced around pre-existing anti-colonial activist networks. Furthermore, this study of interactions between Western and African activists suggests that there is a need for greater reflection on the sometimes contradictory ways in which campaign groups have interacted with the nation-state and negotiated transnational connections in ‘global’ political spaces.

Popular Fiction and Development Studies

The essay uses two recent works of fiction as a takeoff for a critique of Development Studies, suggesting that what is presented in the form of fiction is often closer to reality than what the discipline offers as fact. The review of two novels by former US Peace Corps volunteers offers clear examples of how fiction in the field of “development” can offer truths that are not presented in academic work. This essay suggests how fiction can help invigorate the discipline of Development Studies, offers a list of examples, and also suggests how fiction should not be used. This essay challenges scholars in the field to draw upon insights from fiction and to review fiction works while encouraging publishers to widen their perspectives and present works in new genres in the field of “development.” The essay also notes how related genres like development “diaries” can also be used as a reality check on the discipline and as a way to infuse new ideas into this field.

(De)stabilizing Sexual Violence Discourse: Masculinization of Victimhood, Organizational Blame, and Labile Imperialism

Following calls to center nation, we analyze sexual violence discourse in the US Peace Corps. The texts we consider deploy three typical dichotomies—public/private, self/other, and agent/victim—that, in this case, reveal inconsistencies at the intersections of race and gender. We argue that these inconsistencies are evidence of lability, counterintuitive discursive shifts necessary to maintain white heteromasculine dominance. Instead of blaming individual victims of rape and assault, the masculinization of victimhood shifts culpability to the Peace Corps. This organizational blame maintains the moral position of the US and legitimates imperialism. By marking these instabilities, we trace the solidity and vulnerability of sexual violence discourse as it organizes global power.

Health services quality improvement in Guaymate, Dominican Republic, as the framework for US global health education: a case study

Abstract Background We explored the feasibility of a partnership approach between the community, the US Peace Corps, and the University of Illinois to improve the quality of local primary health-care services in Guaymate, Dominican Republic. The aim was to do community-based participatory research (CBPR) as a framework for responsible global health education for US trainees. Methods We used mixed methods to characterise the partnership, assess the health service effect of a quality improvement process, and qualitatively examine the value of the global health education experience. Outcome variables include partner contributions and benefits to assess the partnership; client perceptions of access, safety, and continuity to assess service quality; and US trainee perceptions of personal and community effect to assess global health education. We used CBPR to identify local priorities for health service quality improvement. Findings Within the partnership, the local health institution leadership guides the project in consideration of local priorities; the Peace Corps provides coordination support, community expertise, and local trust; and the academic institution offers technical, public health, and research support. The local community benefits through improved access to quality primary health care services. US trainees learn principles of primary health care, community participation, social determinants of health, and health services strengthening. Local priorities identified for health service quality improvement were at the local municipal hospital and community health education. Interpretation This partnership approach has been successfully implemented in Guaymate, Dominican Republic, and has shown promise as a generalisable model. The anticipated partnership outcome is local primary health-care quality improvement that sustainably addresses locally prioritised public health issues within a responsible approach to global health education. Funding Northwestern University School of Law.

Teachers abroad: collaboration between the Peace Corps, Seed Global Health, and African medical and nursing schools in faculty scale-up

Abstract Background In 2012, the US Peace Corps and Seed Global Health, supported by PEPFAR, developed the Global Health Service Partnership (GHSP) to address extreme shortages of health-care providers in low-income countries. In 2013, GHSP placed 30 physicians and nurses on faculties at medical and nursing schools in Tanzania, Uganda, and Malawi to support educational capacity development aimed at long-term health system strengthening. Seed Global Health offers privately funded debt repayment to offset loan obligations and reduces barriers to participation. Methods GHSP recruited US faculty to work at sites selected in consultation with Ministries of Health and Education and other partners. Qualitative and quantitative surveys of applicants and volunteers were used to identify opportunities for continued and enhanced volunteer support during service. Findings Data review of recruitment and placements identified two career stages of volunteers—early and late. Regardless of seniority, substantial financial challenge exists for individuals considering GHSP. 27 volunteers require debt relief. The bimodal volunteer distribution suggests that, worldwide, opportunities are growing for midcareer faculty to serve as clinical educators. Midcareer faculty will need specific support because they are often unable to consider positions that entail substantial salary reduction associated with a year working abroad or an interruption of their academic activities, or both. Interpretation The financial challenge to individuals considering global service is problematic, especially for midcareer professionals. A so-called sabbatical corps could provide US institution-based funding and support for faculty who would transfer skills to their global counterparts and bring novel skills home in return. The sabbatical corps would effectively expand the pool of educators needed. Funding President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the Exxon Mobil Foundation, the Engelhard Foundation, Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, Pfizer Foundation, and Goldman Sachs Gives.

Global Health Service Partnership: building health professional leadership

Global Health Service Partnership: building health professional leadership

States of Exception, Ethics and New Beginnings in Middle East Politics

The work of philosopher Giorgio Agamben on ‘states of exception’ generated discussion across various fields of enquiry about the suspension of juridical norms in liberal democracies. In the wake of Agamben's influential writing, ‘state of exception’ commonly stands for the manifest might of the governing. However, the governed can also ethically refashion themselves under states of exception of their own. This essay goes beyond a juridical understanding of exception by examining an ethical exception in the texts of three writers whose politics exude a sense of encompassing emergency in the Middle East. They are Palestinian novelist Ghassan Kanafani, US peace activist Rachel Corrie and Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood theorist Sayyid Qutb. I discuss ways these writers conceptually expand exception's relation to norm—from that of suspension to that of cohabitation and complicity with the norm. Informed by Hannah Arendt's discussion of the human capacity to begin anew, I argue that, when not confined to the quandary of juridical order, state of exception can emerge as subjects' ethical capacity for political renewal, one that is not necessarily beholden to sovereign state power over law and life.

Serving in Africa: US Peace Corps in Cameroon

Based on a variety of primary sources including recently declassified documents, interviews in Cameroon, letters, and Peace Corps Volunteers’ personal correspondence, this study examines the service of the US Peace Corps in “Agroforestry” and “Small Enterprise Development” in Cameroon. The study argues that Volunteers were ill trained, ill prepared, and ill equipped for service in Cameroon, and as a result did not achieve Goal 1 of the Peace Corps Act, which calls on the agency to assist developing nations in gaining “trained manpower”. The study has broader implications, as it raises questions about the relevance of Peace Corps-like organizations in Cameroon, and in African nations as a whole. It focuses on Cameroon for a variety of reasons, among which is that Cameroon is one of only three nations in Africa in which Volunteers have served uninterruptedly since 1962.

Austria-Hungary, Unrestricted Submarine Warfare, and the United States' Entrance into the First World War

This study shows that Austro-Hungarian policy toward the United States of America was in winter 1917 not primarily dictated by its German ally but by the sober evaluation of its own interests. The separate peace, which was offered by the Wilson administration, was not a realistic foreign-policy option for the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Therefore, this article shows why Austria-Hungary did not accept US peace feelers. On the other hand, it also demonstrates that in the winter of 1917 Washington did not treat Germany and Austria-Hungary as equals, with the latter being in a better position. But the monarchy's acceptance of the German course in the submarine war strengthened the perception of the monarchy as an appendage of the stronger Germany in the United States, and finally caused great damage to its reputation across the Atlantic.

The Path that Led to the Cease-Fire Ending the War of Attrition and the Stationing of Missiles at the Suez Canal

At midnight on 7 August 1970, the military episode known as the ‘War of Attrition’ came to an end.1 On 3 June 1970, after long months of fierce fighting across the Suez Canal between Egypt and Isra...

Presidential Power, the Panay Incident, and the Defeat of the Ludlow Amendment

Presidential Power, the Panay Incident, and the Defeat of the Ludlow Amendment

Book Review: The Contemporary US Peace Movement

Book Review: The Contemporary US Peace Movement