A new book hit the shelves last week—a project years in the making for School of Public and International Affairs Professor Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili. 
Governing Differences: Social Diversity, Polycentric Political Economy, and Modus Vivendi, explores various crises in modern governance stemming from the social fragmentation of society and the expanding diversity of values, beliefs, and ways of life around the globe. Murtazashvili co-edited the volume alongside Paul Dragos Aligicia, Professor of Governance at the University of Bucharest and senior fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.
“Working with my co-editor Paul Dragos Aligica and a terrific group of authors, we set out to ask a simple question: How do very different people learn to live, work, and govern together given the rapid pace of political, technological, and social changes in our world?” Murtazashvili said in a post on LinkedIn announcing the book’s release.
Governing Differences is the product of a three-year research initiative led by the team at SPIA’s Center for Governance and Markets (CGM) and funded by a $2.4 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation. The book’s nine chapters are authored by scholars from around the world, combining quantitative survey data and field research in countries including Ukraine, Romania, Uzbekistan, and the United States. The finished work presents frameworks to navigate the challenges observed in the case studies and offers practical and theoretical insights for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers alike. Published by by Edward Elgar Publishing, Governing Differences is available Open Access now at Edgar Online.
As the founding director of CGM, Murtazashvili has led the center since its establishment in 2019. She is a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and was recognized as a Distinguished Fellow of Peace and International Cooperation at the Institute for Humane Studies in 2022.
In other exciting news, Murtazashvili was also named this week as one of three University of Pittsburgh faculty members awarded a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program Award from the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. She will serve as distinguished scholar at Tel Aviv University in Israel through this prestigious program, studying how formal agreements and informal networks shape regional cooperation in the Middle East, Central Eurasia and Eastern Europe.
Learn more about Murtazashvili and the work being done at the Center for Governance and Markets on the Center's website.