May 2, 2002 | Read Time: 6 minutes
With international conflicts and the U.S. war on terrorism dominating the news, Lukas Haynes has started his job as a program officer in International Peace and Security at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, in Chicago, at a conspicuous time.
Mr. Haynes, 30, was hired two months ago to help oversee a $12-million grant-making budget that supports research on weapons proliferation at a time when national security is on everyone’s mind.
He is no stranger to being in the middle of things. In 1996 and 1997, he worked for Oxfam International in Bosnia, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, all during times of intense strife. While in Bosnia, Mr. Haynes co-founded a group called Let Us Play, which provided sports equipment to children there. The group flourished for two summers, raising more than $75,000 in donations and equipment.
Then, after a stint teaching international relations at Occidental College, in Los Angeles, he joined Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright’s policy-planning staff. He took the job with the understanding that he would focus on making the case for more U.S. involvement in the Balkans. But Mr. Haynes ended up getting a much broader lesson in diplomacy and policy making, helping the secretary write 75 speeches on a wide range of topics while logging 75,000 miles in trips around the globe.
Work in different corners of the international arena has been a natural path for someone born in Austria to American parents and raised in the cosmopolitan East Village neighborhood in New York, and who has spent time backpacking through 50 countries on five continents. He joins the fund at a time when it is conducting a review of its grant making in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
In an interview, Mr. Haynes discussed his new job:
Where did your interests in international affairs and policy making originate?
In high school I interned at a small, globally minded foundation called the Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation. I was lucky to be exposed at an early age to the world of civil-society organizations. I knew very early that I wanted to work at the intersection of nonprofit research, field work, and policy making. My government experience was my first exposure to the world of diplomacy. I want to go back there. But, when you’re tossed out of government because of an election, where do you go? The idea of policy-oriented philanthropy came back to me.
How is working for a foundation different from your other jobs?
The thing that stands out is the incredibly high standard for intellectual curiosity. The foundation community tends to be extremely curious about a wide variety of things. There is also time for reflection and evaluation that’s lacking in government and in the day-to-day demands of field work.
What is the MacArthur Foundation’s grant-making approach?
The International Peace and Security area is concerned with limiting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction: nuclear, biological, and chemical. The approach begins with the notion that arms control and reduction requires a deep understanding of social, economic, and political processes, but also specialized knowledge, particularly technological expertise on complex weapons systems. We also believe that arms control requires developing new frameworks that get beyond the traditional reference points of deterrence and confrontation. We support policy research, are always open to innovative methods for moving new ideas into the policy arena, and would like to expand and nurture a new generation of science and security experts.
What do you bring to the table?
I’ve worked on so-called hard security issues, such as military conflicts, and soft security, where individual and community insecurity gives rise to violent conflict. I also have experience at research groups, at field organizations, and in the Washington policy arena. I try to understand how those three communities interact. Also, given the eclectic nature of my experience, I know what I don’t know.
What sorts of grants would you like to give out?
We would like to support universities and applied research organizations that have the intellectual infrastructure to give young people the resources to do original research and network with policy makers. There’s too much analysis at think tanks that doesn’t get to policy makers. We need to bridge that divide.
What are examples of grants that embody your approach?
In March, we made a three-year grant to the Monterey Institute of International Studies to support a scientist-in-residence position at its Center for Nonproliferation Studies. This is intended to support a mid-career scientist at a major policy institute and to expose graduate students to technical issues in international security. Another example is the Russian-American Nuclear Security Advisory Council, a network of scientists we support to encourage information-sharing and practical solutions to the problem of securing nuclear warheads and weapon-usable materials.
What trends are unfolding that you’re trying to get a head start on?
Weaponization of outer space. The military has a number of research programs on space involving the deployment of lasers as part of missile defense. We’re interested in supporting groups that are looking to develop cooperative frameworks for managing commercial, scientific, and military uses of space. Right now the U.S. military is in a position to get out there, deploy a system, and start a new arms race, even before policy decisions have been made.
Will you travel much for work to supervise grantees?
Supervise is the wrong word. Evaluation or investigation is more accurate. I’m going to spend a lot of time in Washington to understand policy making and how our grantee work relates to it. I will be traveling overseas because it’s tough to make judgments about organizations from afar.
How do you measure grantees’ performance?
We hold the grantees to the standard that they set in the proposal. For example, if they get a grant to create fellowships and don’t fill them, it may be that the state of the field is so barren that they can’t find young candidates, or they might not be working hard enough. We let them set the bar and see whether they’re clearing it.
What can foundations do to best respond to September 11?
This administration’s policies have caused a re-evaluation of arms control. It’s unclear to many outside of government why certain arms-control efforts don’t appear to have more urgency, given the nature of the terrorist threat. Some issues that need more work are the disposal of nuclear material and chemical and biological weapons.
ABOUT LUKAS HAYNES, PROGRAM OFFICER FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE AND SECURITY AT THE JOHN D. AND CATHERINE T. MACARTHUR FOUNDATION
Education: Received a bachelor’s degree in international relations from the College of William & Mary, in Williamsburg, Va., and a master’s degree, also in international relations, from the University of Oxford, in England.
Previous employment: Has worked as a researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in Washington, as adviser for Oxfam International, and as a speechwriter for Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright.
Charitable interests: Gives money to support asthma programs run by the American Lung Association, and volunteers as a mentor. Co-founded the charity Let Us Play, which provides sports equipment to children in Bosnia.
Favorite books and magazines: Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation, by Jonathan Kozol; The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; and Powder, a skiing magazine.
