Reciprocal Visits Strengthen SAIS Partnership with Middle East Diplomatic Academy
February 21, 2024
On January 10, 2024, James Steinberg, the dean of Johns Hopkins SAIS, visited one of the school’s key partners in the Middle East region, the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy (AGDA), based in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The program for the dean’s visit included a leadership meeting with AGDA Director-General Nickolay Mladenov, a public lecture by Dean Steinberg on “Logical Change in the New World Order” and a private meeting with SAIS alumni living in the United Arab Emirates. The lecture was attended by AGDA students and faculty, SAIS alumni in the region, and members of the diplomatic corps in UAE.
The idea that interstate cooperation can produce positive benefits is hardly new, but globalization and the emergence of transformative technologies have dramatically increased the potential benefits of cooperation and the associated costs of autarchy.
Johns Hopkins SAIS Dean James Steinberg
In his speech, Dean Steinberg noted that the most urgent challenge facing the current international order is what he described as “the underproduction of international cooperation.” “The idea that interstate cooperation can produce positive benefits is hardly new, but globalization and the emergence of transformative technologies have dramatically increased the potential benefits of cooperation and the associated costs of autarchy,” he said. “We cannot afford to make the best the enemy of the good.”
On February 21, 2024, six weeks after Dean Steinberg’s visit, SAIS and its Foreign Policy Institute hosted Professor Eric Canal Forgues Alter, the dean of AGDA, for a public lecture on “Law, Power and Diplomacy in a World of Change”—attended by SAIS students at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center in Washington, D.C.
During the lecture, Alter discussed the question of whether law has only become a marginal enterprise in diplomacy or if it can be reshaped through a quest for legitimacy and justice. “The divergence or disconnect between law and power has never been more obvious,” he stated. “A great part of disorientation in foreign policies comes from the fact that many countries do not see the possibility of a regime of public international law as a system of governance in international relations.”
The Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy, formerly known as the Emirates Diplomatic Academy, is a federal diplomatic research and civil service training institute founded in 2014 by the United Arab Emirates’ Vice President and Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. AGDA serves members of the country’s foreign service community and prepares its diplomats and other professionals to advance Emirati foreign affairs interests overseas.
Every year, AGDA trains over 100 students in its Post-Graduate Diploma in UAE Diplomacy and International Relations, Master of Arts in Global Affairs and Diplomatic Leadership, Master of Arts in Humanitarian Action & Development, as well as in its executive education programs.
SAIS Dean Jim Steinberg and Director General of AGDA Nickolay Mladenov
AGDA students participate in Q&A with Dean Steinberg
Dean Alter speaks to SAIS Students
Prof. Eric Canal Forgues Alter, Dean of AGDA