Pamina Firchow

The Politics of Measurement in the Age of Localization: Comparing “Top-Down” versus “Bottom-Up” Metrics of Reconciliation

What is the relationship between localization, or the shifting of power from international to local actors by addressing local priorities, and the proliferation of national and international efforts to measure, wrangle data and benchmark?
academic.oup.com/ips/article/...

Take a look at this opinion piece I just published with @apaczynska.bsky.social on the complexities of accountability for international cooperation and US foreign aid thehill.com/opinion/inte...

Two scholars standing outside Senator Lindsey Graham's office delivering a letter. Interior of office visible in background.

We're on the Hill! @pfirchow.bsky.social @apaczynska.bsky.social @democracyprofdc.bsky.social and Louis Berg are delivering the Open Letter to Congress as we speak. Over 217 scholars of foreign assistance have signed to demand Congress take action. @ Sen Lindsey Graham

Two scholars delivering a letter to Senator Chuck Schumer's office, American flag in background, official seal visible

Two scholars delivering a letter to Senator Susan Collins' office, American flag in background, official seal visible

We're on the Hill!
@pfirchow.bsky.social @apaczynska.bsky.social @democracyprofdc.bsky.social and Louis Berg are delivering the Open Letter to Congress as we speak. Over 217 scholars of foreign assistance have signed to demand Congress take action. @schumer.senate.gov Senator Collins

Today we distributed the Open Letter signed by over 200 US foreign policy scholars expressing their disagreement with the dismantling of US foreign aid. Next, we will distribute to media outlets, so please send us your media contacts at foreignassistancescholars@gmail.com

READ ONLY-Open Letter to Congress Open Letter to Members of Congress from U.S.-based Scholars of Foreign Affairs Dear Senators John Thune and Charles Schumer, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Chai...

If you are a US-based scholar of foreign policy, please join over 130 of your colleagues in signing this Letter to Congress re: the foreign assistance freeze and dismantling of USAID.

Read here: docs.google.com/.../1waW9li4....
Sign here: docs.google.com/.../1FAIpQLS...

Please Share Widely!

Open Letter about Foreign Assistance to Members of Congress from US Scientists Dear Colleagues - The following letter to Congress voices our concerns about the ongoing threats to U.S. foreign assistance and we hope you consider signing on. Once we have gathered signatures, we wi...

Open letter from scholars to Congress regarding the freeze of U.S. foreign assistance and the subsequent dismantling of USAID. You may read the letter (1st comment) and sign via this Google form: forms.gle/JFAQGsuLyGa4... The form will close on Wednesday, February 19, 2025 at 5:00 pm (EST).

Our findings illustrate the need for the aid industry to recognize the inter-linked nature of activities undertaken after violent conflict, and how building peace and reconciliation should best be regarded as a package guided by each interlinking group.

However, at the same time, we can see that there is a large level of variability from one neighborhood to another within Mostar, meaning that various factors such as ethnicity, religion, location and war experiences can influence conflict preferences.

We find that 30 years after the war, everyday people in Mostar prioritize development assistance with some integration of dialogue or conflict resolution over transitional, retributive or restorative justice mechanisms.

After war ends: Aid paradigms and post-conflict preferences This article is interested in aid preferences, or what people desire in terms of aid, in a post-conflict and post peace accord context. When examining…

How do post-conflict preferences align with the priorities of donors? I address this question in World Development with my colleagues @rogermacginty.bsky.social and Julianne Funk using empirical @epi-ngo.bsky.social data from Mostar, Bosnia Herzegovina www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Colombian President Gustavo Petro's full post ordering an increase of import tariffs on U.S. goods, says he doesn't really like traveling to the U.S. because it's “a bit boring” and invokes the ancestors

Working with @epi-ngo.bsky.social on the use of knowledge creation & M&E practices in the #triplenexus, @rogermacginty.bsky.social and I have learned a few lessons. For more, read our article in Data & Policy, which will be expanded upon in our forthcoming book. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Great news! Our 2024 symposium Measures of Justice: A Symposium in Honor of Sally Engle Merry (1944–2020) is now either open access or accessible to read without a paywall at Law & Social Inquiry.

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

All of the contributions in the symposium attend to Merry’s concerns related to commensuration and the tendency for policy makers to want to universalize and generalize social life as they try to professionalize human rights, humanitarianism and peacebuilding, or conflict response broadly defined.

The symposium contributions fall generally into two broad areas: questions related to commensurability in measurement and questions related to commensurability in the law more broadly.

This features several insightful contributions to the literature on the conceptualization and measurement of justice. They reflect the disciplinary and thematic breadth that spanned Sally Engle Merry’s work, from political science to anthropology and from human rights to peace and conflict studies.