Hosted by the American Academy of political and social science. She is the recipient of the academies 2019 Daniel Patrick moynihan prize. Good afternoon. Can you hear me okay, everybody . Im tom kecskemethy, executive director the American Academy of political and social science. It my pleasure to welcome all of you to our seventh annual Daniel Patrick moynihan lecture on social science and Public Policy. Very briefly before you move into todays proceedings, i know we all want to hear from ambassador power, were pleased to such if the last as always, happy to be joined by folks who work with senator moynihan and to be joined by members of the family who have been so supportive of this enterprise from the start. I havent seen morena yet but she may be. She will be with us at some point today. Maura is his daughter and shes been a tremendous supporter of our organization and this initiative from the beginning. I also would like to thank Sage Publications your sage in the publishing world is probably the preeminent Publishing House concern with the social sciences. Sciences. They also published the title we went out of my Organization Called the animals of the American Academy and also the principle cosponsor of this lecture having given us some generous funding to support this enterprise, so thank you to them. Also a quick thank you to the willard staff and to my staff at the American Academy. They have just terrific in getting all this started. We are going to a brief time for question and answer after ambassador power talks. Twopoint about that. One, it is going to be brief. We will only have probably time for several questions and i would ask you to keep your questions succinct, to do your level best to not make them little many mini lectures of yn or position statements that actual questions. Second, please wait for a microphone to come to you. We are very pleased to know that cspan was going to be covering us today and we also have our own inhouse tech staff so wait to be heard before you speak. That would be terrific. And with that welcome ken prewitt to the states to take us in todays proceedings. He is the carnegie professor of Public Affairs at Columbia University and a political scientist by training. Hes also a former director of the United States census. More to the point of todays proceedings, ken has been a past president or director in some sort of most every organization thats been influential in this country to improve the social sciences in advance their interests on the National Stage and is also currently the president of the American Academy of political and social science. So ken, if you please. [applause] thanks, and welcome. And i will suggest a few words about the academy itself. Its 130 years old, founded by people of the earliest generation if you will of the modern social science community, didnt come along to the 1880s. The earliest come by the way we were all trained in germany. They did come in and help our Research Universities get established before the social science. But they were peripheral of course. They were compared to communities in the natural sciences. They were really immature as sciences. And the idea they should have their own academy was an idea that came out at the university of pennsylvania, and launched it, and launched it with the journal. So it became the earliest journal in the social sciences that had the responsibility that tom just mention of doing more than just reporting our research but also reporting our research in such a way it was critical to make a difference. Its been very successful sense. We dont make a lot of noise about ourselves, except about 12 years ago the idea was why do we do at least one thing publicly every year for, whenever and later youll see we elect fellows and that became the moynihan award. Everybody knows that this was an unusual man. I have a code that someone asked me to read some going to do it. The nations best thinker among politicians and best politician among thinkers. And thats true. He went back and forth without any hesitancy, always carries his deep commitment to social sciences and getting the story right. As i say we started about 12 12 years ago with this award, and the event, alice rivlin was her first awardee and many people nauseous passed away this last year, and so we do recognize that and she was a great i think i saw becky blank walk in, maybe. Yes. Whos also a moynihan awardee. Did i miss anyone who is here today . Haskins is here. Sorry, yes, please. My immediate task is to get somebody else up here who can speak more whats the right word eloquently than i can about our speaker, about ambassador power i would say the 12th year of doing this and for about half of those years we were looking for somebody out of the international world. We want to recognize pass ambassadorship to the u. N. And its hard. We simply never came up with somebody within the International Sector who we felt was senior enough and so forth to a the award. And so youve done us a big favor, because ive been under lots of pressure. Why in the world dont you get but also to powell will be introduced by avril haines, marvelous trajectory when she stands appear. You wont recognize her traffic physics degree from university of chicago and then you say how in the world did that come about . But that wasnt enough, then she went out and got a law degree from georgetown and is now Columbia University, thats just an accident. Not quite but where shes extremely active in a number of initiatives that the Columbia University is engaged in and so forth, and i wont go into those things. I want to say a a word or two about her own shes out in the National Security system under obama. Make sure i get it right. Deputy director of the cia, the Legal AdvisorNational Security council, was a real player. Shes a very modest person and you would not know that was true of her, but she was a major player in the last go round and remains that, remains an active, and so avril, would you please take over . [applause] thank you so much. Thank you, ken. Honestly, im incredibly grateful for the opportunity to briefly introduce samantha as this afternoons, for election as a winner of the Daniel Patrick moynihan prize. And in part because its a real gift to have an opportunity to force sam in a ballroom full of people to hear what i think of her, because she would never stand for the smoke im about to blow if we were alone together. But also in large part becausei really believe this prize uniquely suits her. There are the obvious parallels between moynihan and samantha. They both have irish roots, though samantha was born in ireland and is a proud immigrant, and they are both authors although sam, i have to say, insanely won a Pulitzer Prize for her book in her 20s after spending a year as it were reported in the balkans, and theyre both harvard professors, and she still is, both served as the u. S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Moreover, like moynihan, samantha is an ideas person. She is someone who is intellectually insatiable on a range of topics in beliefs that the biggest problems causing human suffering in the world today can and should be solved. And they are both incredibly charismatic as people. But that really is a what is thinking of when i thought of her as being so wellsuited for this particular price and for giving this lecture. Samantha exemplifies a leader who champions the use of informed judgment to advance the public good and someone who has consistently pot as i know ken has in the American Academy of political and social science has, to further communication between the academy and the policy world, between scientic thought and practical thought. And i have no doubt that youll see that today in her lecture. The importance she placed on evidencebased policymaking and the value of social science and Academic Research and rigor was obvious in her approach to decisionmaking, of her memorandum she worked for the president in her interventions in meetings and in and she selected to have on her staffs when she worked at the white house, or when she was ambassador to United Nations. She is an intellectual that wants to face the really challenging questions, relishes doing so, the matter how hard those truths are, how complex the dilemmas are. But she combines that drive with an equally if not more powerful drive to be effective and to produce impact. And in my experience that truly is a rare combination. The first time i met sam, shes not going to remember this by glcm she was chairing a meeting and wires on the ottawa convention, sometimes known as the mine ban treaty, and i was alone at the time at the state department in this theme was quite striking. It was this incredibly tall, redheaded woman who was a wellknown human rights advocate chairing the discussion on arms control treaty and a room full of male military officers. And i suspect people had made a number of assumptions about her, about how she would run the meeting, which almost certainly was not the impression they left with that day. She had done her homework as she always did, but more than that she make clear that she wasnt there to advocate for the treaty even though her position was clear, she wanted to understand their perspective. She had studied the report, worked hard to unearth the data on these issues, and what she had were penetrating questions that make clear she was listening, wanted to understand what they thought about this but also she wasnt going to accept peoples views on faith. She wanted to be sure whatever the decision was on this issue of the discussions surrounding it would be rigorous. Moreover, characteristically, she knew and assumed everyone had noble intentions, were trying to achieve the objectives that they believed to be critically important to the National Security of the United States, but she was focused not only on that but also on the means for achieving those objectives and the human consequences of those means. And forcing an examination of those issues in a way i dont think anyone had get done in that room on that issue. And as a colleague you can help to see samantha is fierce, brilliant, self reflective, sometimes to a fault. Shes occasionally stubborn that shes generous and kind and empathetic while also being tough as nails when it comes to protecting people, and in her pursuit of an ethical and better society. But something that makes her particularly suited to be a little today and to promoting a dialogue between social science and policy is to focus on the human consequences of governmental action. If you read her book you will see this reflected. Shes constantly asking herself, particularly s ambassador to view an entry talks about this whether and how we are effectively integrating a concern for human consequences into our thought process, decisionmaking on Foreign Policy and the interNational Security. This may sound obvious for someone who has worked in government for years, i can tell you its not. Even if you recognize it as being critically important, its not easy to deal. When you recognize, sort of a traditional lenses that frequently simplify and ignore the consequences of our state to state interactions and on the human beings they catch, and i think in part it makes it easy to set and make these are decisions to do that but its also true that its challenging to find ways on the timelines you are making decisions, and in the institutional structures that we have two actually tap into outside sources that give you a sense of what the human consequences are in the moment that so critical. Yet today i think given the increasingly mobile interconnected world we live in where nonstate actors are frequently as powerful if not more powerful, frequently less accountable than states, decisionmaking that actually brings together and rakes down the barriers between those sort of governmental actors and the communities are working with the cross borders is more and more critical. And the human consequences we need to be taken into account are not simply the potential harms people may suffer as a consequence of Government Action on particular portions of the population but its also Frank Woolley the opportunity we can reveal and promote also how authoritarian societies can affect frankly affect the societies, the people that are living in those societies. And i think in short, submit this approach to thinking about these issues, its not only intellectually preferable, more likely to be pragmatic but its something we need to do and something i think Democratic Society have real competitive advantage on. Im so proud and honored to introduce Samantha Power for her lecture for this wonderful prize and i really appreciate the society has done this. Its remarkable, so thank you very much. [applause] thank you so much. Im so, so grateful to be a very thanks to the American Academy of political and social science, take ken prewitt for serving as president and for leading this incredibly important academy. And im looking forward to our discussion after. To tom who how did they all summer to get a topic for this lecture, and never did. So it will be a big surprise for everyone here. And to jessica for organizing this, which is no easy feat. Avril, i have to say more than a word about avril, my former colleague and dear friend. Avril i think brought to every governmental debate that i saw her participate in, and this is at the absolute highest levels of government, the freshest eyes of anyone i so work in government. There were no taboos. There were no dumb questions, and talk about rare. It turns out one of the things that constrains informed and rigorous policy debate is a a sense that some questions are offlimits or a sense certain things must be done a certain way. And while the position of National Security adviser is famously, i suppose the most stressful position there is in the National Security establishment, the secret, the bestkept secret, one of the best kept secrets in washington is that the deputy National Security adviser job is even more stressful because you are mikey, you know in the old cereal commercial. Everything that is hard comes to you, and she ran, avril ran the most, the fairest and most intensively determined and inclusive National Security process i ever saw. And then of course made a way to the cia was she brought her background in International Humanitarian law, and her regard for human consequences into that institution, and not only i think changed many dimensions of the things were done in the Intelligence Community but also won the first loyalty of fierce intelligence professionals just as she has ever shes worked in the government. Which the main thing i would say about avril is the unfailing decency that she offers as a human being, as a person, as a friend is what she wants to see reflected in american policy, American Public policy. I couldnt be more honored that if avril with one to introduce ecothanks very much. More about mrs. Moynihan, thank you for your support for this enterprise. She is here. Shes there. Nice to see you, and im just, could not be more honored to be receiving this award in your dad honor and couldnt be more pleased and proud as an american and as a person who also lives in the broader world that there is an award named for your dad, that every year we come together to think about your dad and his legacy. And so again im incredibly proud to be here. Avril drew a few alleged parallels between me and senator moynihan. I dont flatter myself to believe that a necessary belong in his league, despite again how pleased i am to be associated with them, but there are as avril noted a few parallels that i do acknowledge. So both Daniel Patrick moynihan and i do take pride in our irishness, and, but part of that is we, and going to stick about it in the present tense because hes such a large force in our world still today, but we carry with it an expectation, and irish expectation, that good things may not last and you all remember after president john f. Kennedy was shot, moynihan famously saying i dont think theres any point in being irish if you dont know that the world is going to break your heart eventually. And then he paused and added, i guess we thought we had a little more time, which is very moving and very poignant. I i guess i spend my days with that same sense of worry about the world, especially these days, but im just hoping we have a lot more time and not just a little more time. We both had the experience of, avril note of toggling between academia we would each professors and stints in public service, though he and a far more diverse range of roles in government and disciplines and academia than i. Serving in the white house and though and sensing a certain skepticism at times about insights that i might have drawn from social science or behavioral science or Political Science. I often wished that i could mobilize our retort as lively as moynihan could when he was being challenged. And, of course, the incident, that comes was quick to mike in this context is that in 1976 when he was challenging the new york incumbent senator james buckley, this is i guess his