, professor in the 91探花 Jackson School of International Studies, will celebrate retirement after 39 years at the 91探花on Oct. 3 with a daylong workshop featuring current and former students, followed by a lecture on 鈥�.鈥�

Migdal has been the Robert F. Philip Professor of International Studies, with an adjunct appointment in political science, and now becomes a professor emeritus. He joined the 91探花in 1980 and was the founding chair of the UW鈥檚 .

As part of what the Jackson School is calling Joel S. Migdal Day, several dozen of his current and former students will gather at the 91探花Club for a roundtable discussion on aspects of his work. This will run from 8 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. and cover topics such as law and society, the Middle East today, the comparative politics of states and societies and the current state of higher education.

After the workshop, Migdal will give his lecture on 鈥淪tate and Society鈥� at 5 p.m. in Room 210 of Kane Hall, followed by a reception. Both the workshop and lecture are open to the public.

Speaking to the topic of his coming talk, Migdal said he emphasizes to students in introductory international studies classes that United States foreign policy stayed fairly consistent from the end of World War II through the Cold War and the end of the 20^th century.

The Cold War and its aftermath, he said, saw all U.S. administrations sharing two related concerns:

• That the U.S. role in the world would entail 鈥渂eing everywhere all the time,鈥� taking the lead in all international crises and affairs worldwide, and
• That such a global role might bankrupt the U.S., creating the need for allies and for the U.S. to take action through multilateral organizations

鈥淭he early 2000s saw a continued worldwide U.S. presence, but now the neoconservatives felt that multilateralism was antiquated,鈥� Migdal said. 鈥淭o my mind, this was a significant cause of the 2008 economic crisis.鈥�

He added: 鈥淭he Trump administration is the first to contract the U.S. role altogether, leading to an isolationism not seen since before聽World War II.鈥�

Migdal鈥檚 four decades at the 91探花have brought him several honors. He received a Distinguished Teaching Award in 1993, a Washington State Governor鈥檚 Writers Award in 1994 and the Marsha L. Landolt Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award in 2008. Before joining the UW, Migdal was an associate professor of government at Harvard University, and a senior lecturer at Tel-Aviv University.

He has seen many changes in his long tenure, in world affairs as well as more prosaic scenarios.

Migdal described how in the years after he returned to the U.S. in 1975 following three years abroad, the sound of offices themselves had changed: 鈥淕one were the striking of typewriter keys, the whirring of the mimeo machine, the characteristic ring of the telephone, the clackety-clack of the adding machine,鈥� to be replaced by 鈥渁n odd medley of beeps, pulsing sounds and paper shuffling out of copy machines.

鈥淟ittle did I imagine how all these sounds presaged changes in how I would write, research, and teach, let alone changes in interpersonal relations.鈥�

He鈥檚 at work on a book project under the title: 鈥淲ho, Then, Will Speak for America?: The Creation and Unraveling of the American Public鈥� and continues to write articles and review manuscripts. He intends to split his time between Seattle and Jerusalem.

鈥淩etirement,鈥� he said, 鈥渋s not looking like a week of Sundays.鈥�

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For more information, contact Monique Thormann, Jackson School director of communications, at 206-685-0578 or thormm@uw.edu; or Migdal at migdal@uw.edu.

This 10-part series examines the ongoing impact of the 2016 election on countries and regions worldwide.聽Each week, Jackson School faculty experts聽will explore perspectives from Europe, Asia, Mexico, Russia and the Middle East as well as questions of climate change and historical context in the U.S. presidency.

“” lectures will be held from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Monday afternoons in room 110 of Kane Hall, and all are open to the public. Jackson School Director will be moderator for these events.

The schedule is as follows:

Oct. 2: Trump and the World 鈥� a Historical Perspective, with , assistant professor of international studies
Oct. 9: The Middle East and Israel, with , professor of international studies
Oct. 16: Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Gulf, with , affiliate professor of international studies
Oct. 23: The US-Mexican Border, with , associate professor and chair of the
Oct. 30: India, with , associate professor, director of the
Nov. 6: China, with , professor of international studies
Nov. 13: The Korean Peninsula, with , professor of international studies
Nov. 20: The International Climate Regime, with , professor of international studies and director of the
Nov. 27: Russia, with , professor of history and international studies.
Dec. 4: Final panel discussion and round table.

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For more information about the series, contact the Jackson School at 206-543-6001 or jsisadv@uw.edu. Interested press may contact Monique Thormann, Jackson School director of communications, at 206-685-0578 or thormm@uw.edu.

Joel Migdal is a longtime 91探花professor in the Jackson School of International studies and the author of several books, including “,” “” and “” (with Baruch Kimmerling). He answered a few questions about his new book, “,” for 91探花Today.

Q: What is the concept behind this book?

A: The Middle East is on the front page almost every day with stories of the latest crisis. “Shifting Sands” provides a broader understanding of the region 鈥� a way to make sense of daily events and of the United States as a player in the region.

Q: Why did you decide to write the book?

A: In late 2008 and early 2009, I was lecturing in the community on the latest crisis 鈥� the Gaza war. Several people who heard those lectures suggested to me that I had a book in the making. I was actually headed off on a sabbatical to work on a different project, but decided that perhaps I really did have something important to say on this troubled part of the world and the U.S. relationship to it.

Q: You write that, “For more than half a century following World War II, Washington applied a fixed strategy to a moving target” 鈥� hence the “shifting sands” of the title. Why was this true, and what has been its effect?

A: As a global power after World War II, the United States needed a broad strategy for being involved in so many regions, many for the first time. The Cold War became the framework with which U.S. leaders began to think about these unfamiliar areas, pushing them to find some way to be involved in all corners of the world without bankrupting the country. The result was policies that tended to underplay the important differences from region to region.

Q: How did the George W. Bush administration differ from those before it in viewing the Middle East and responding to its crises? And how does Obama administration compare to those before it?

A: There were two radical turns in U.S. foreign policy. The first was by FDR and Truman, in which they made the United States into a global power. The second was by George W. Bush, in which he discarded key limitations that had been built into U.S. foreign policy, including sharing the burdens of being a player in every corner of the world with regional allies.

The Obama administration has sought to return to some of the pre-Bush tenets, but that has been difficult both because of the economic crisis he inherited and because a return to old policies looks now like a retreat.

Q: You write that you believe the United States can do more in the Mideast than merely, as one critic said, “keep disorder at bay” despite the “abject failures” of its policies in recent years. Briefly, how can the U.S. encourage peace and democracy in the region?

A: There certainly are limitations on what the United States can accomplish in the region, especially in as volatile a period as the one it is experiencing now. Still, the U.S. is a formidable player in the Middle East; even today it must use its leverage in three ways: serving as an active mediator in regional disputes; engaging in direct negotiations with its own antagonists, like Iran; and working to build new regional alliances.

Q: Finally, what do you hope your readers will learn from this book?

A: With so many crises occurring simultaneously 鈥� in Syria, Egypt, Iran, Palestine-Israel and more 鈥� my hope is to provide readers with a frame in which they can place diverse disputes and events and understand American foreign policy in that light.

• “” was published in February by Columbia University Press.