Seminar Recording: ​https://youtu.be/vwmgYCTUJ3o

About this Event: Scholars and practitioners have long argued that compliance with international rules often requires building institutions or other mechanisms to ease access to information about possible violations. This book introduces a different information problem -- disclosure dilemmas -- that requires equipping IOs with secrecy. States and firms often possess private information that sheds detailed light on the compliance of others with international rules. Yet fears of revealing intelligence sources or helping commercial rivals can deter them from disclosing it. Building a “confidentiality system” in an international organization can allow the institution to receive and protect such sensitive details, enabling disclosure without wider dissemination. This, in turn, elicits the sharing of unique and sensitive information which fills evidentiary gaps and makes cooperation more effective. For example, targeted intelligence disclosures to the IAEA can fill in gaps about hidden nuclear weapons programs. Similarly, targeted disclosures of internal firm documentation to the WTO can clarify whether trade barriers have caused damage to foreign firms. The book offers a unified, multi-method approach to understanding international cooperation and how institutions work, spanning economic and security domains from nuclear proliferation to trade to human rights. In addition to practical lessons about how to improve compliance with international rules, the book recasts the role of institutions in International Relations and identifies a source of tension between cooperation and normative goals like global governance transparency.

Speaker's Biography: Austin Carson is assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. His first book, Secret Wars: Covert Conflict in International Politics (Princeton UP 2018), argues that secrecy helps great powers meddle in conflicts while keeping war limited. It was recently award the Lepgold Book Prize for best book in 2018. A second book with Allison Carnegie, Secrets in Global Governance: Disclosure Dilemmas and the Challenge of International Cooperation (Cambridge UP forthcoming), shows how secrecy allows international organizations to use sensitive information to assess compliance. His research has appeared in International Organization, American Journal of Political Science, and Security Studies.

Livestream: This event will not be live-streamed or recorded.

Abstract: State nuclear enterprises are shrouded in secrecy. This fact alone makes nuclear security scholarship difficult. Yet recent scholarship has begun to explain variation in the secrecy of international politics. This panel will investigate the strategic uses of  secrecy and deniability both within and between states in the nuclear domain. We will discuss the role of secrecy in coercive bargaining, the relationship between secrecy, deniability, and dual-use technologies, and assess their value and limitations in matters of nuclear security. Pauly will present ongoing research into the constructive opacity of the nuclear nonproliferation regime. Das will present evidence on the role of secrecy and deniability in the sales of nuclear delivery systems that undercut the nonproliferation regime. And Borja will present work on how uncertainty in cyberspace affects the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

Speakers' Biography: 

Lauren Borja is a Stanton Postdoctoral Fellow at CISAC, where her research will focus on the cyber insider threat to the U.S. nuclear arsenal. She is broadly interested in the effect of new technology on nuclear security issues, leveraging her technical skills as a scientist to inform and contribute to the issues in nuclear policy. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, where she constructed an ultrafast laser apparatus for studying fundamental interactions inside semiconductor materials with unprecedented resolution. Lauren completed her Ph.D. in December 2016 and is currently a Simons Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of British Columbia, where she studies nuclear disarmament and risk. She has authored articles on the Nuclear Ban Treaty, nuclear false alarms, and cybersecurity risks in the nuclear arsenal that have appeared in the Vancouver Sun, American Physical Society’s Physics and Society newsletter, and Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Debak Das is a MacArthur Nuclear Security Pre-doctoral Fellow at CISAC. He is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the Department of Government, Cornell University. His doctoral dissertation examines how regional powers build their nuclear force structures. This research is based on extensive fieldwork in India, the United Kingdom, and France. Debak is also interested in historical archives, public opinion and foreign policy, and South Asian politics. His research has been supported by the Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, the Wilson Center, Cornell University’s Graduate School, the Cornell Institute for European Studies, and the Chateaubriand Fellowship in Humanities and Social Sciences. Debak received his M.Phil in Diplomacy and Disarmament, and his M.A. in Politics and International Relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He also holds a B.A. (Honors) in History from Presidency College, Kolkata. Debak has formerly held research positions at Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies and the Centre for Dialogue and Reconciliation, New Delhi. His prior work includes organizing extensive Track II Dialogues between India and Pakistan specifically on nuclear and other related security issues. 

Reid Pauly is a Stanton Postdoctoral Fellow at CISAC. His scholarship focuses on coercion and nuclear weapons proliferation, especially the causes of credible coercive assurance—why and how targets of coercion believe that they will not be punished after they comply with demands. His broader research interests include wargaming and crisis simulations, nuclear strategy, and tacit cooperation between adversaries. Reid is a PhD candidate in Political Science at MIT and a member of the Security Studies Program. He was also a predoctoral fellow at the International Security Program and the Project on Managing the Atom at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Prior to graduate school, Reid was a research assistant at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University and earned a B.A. in History and Government from Cornell University.

This event is co-sponsored by the Program in History and Philosophy of Science; Program in Science, Technology, and Society; and Stanford Center for Law and History.

Livestream: This event will not be live-streamed or recorded

Abstract: How have national practices of nuclear security produced local conditions of insecurity? After World War II, the United States’ nuclear testing program transformed the Marshall Islands into an experimental site for testing both new weapons and forms of territorial governance. During the same period, the Hunters Point Shipyard in southeast San Francisco became the launching point and return site for ships, scientists, and military personnel circulating between the mainland and the Pacific tests. These activities not only incorporated the Marshall Islands and Hunters Point into networks of militarization and scientific knowledge production, but also resulted in widespread radiological contamination. Professors Mary Mitchell and Helen Kang will discuss the entangled legal, environmental, and social legacies of radiological contamination at these two sites, shedding light on the consequential damages of the Cold War and ongoing efforts to demand accountability from the United States government.

Helen Kang Biography: Helen H. Kang is Professor of Law at Golden Gate University School of Law and Director of the school’s Environmental Law and Justice Clinic, which has received recognition for its work from the American Bar Association and the Clinical Legal Education Association, among others. She has devoted most of her legal career to environmental protection, first as Trial Attorney with the Environmental Enforcement Section of the U.S. Department of Justice. Since joining the clinic in 2000, she and her students have successfully represented community and environmental groups, prevailing against agencies such as U.S. EPA and large sources of pollution, including power plants. The clinic’s work has contributed to developments in environmental law, reducing pollution in communities most affected by pollution in California and beyond, and improving public participation and regulatory accountability. Helen’s achievements include successfully arguing in the California Supreme Court to defend the California Environmental Quality Act from federal preemption and compelling California, after decades of abdication, to meaningfully regulate agricultural pollution. She graduated from Berkeley Law, University of California at Berkeley, and Yale University.

Mary Mitchell Biography: Mary X. Mitchell is an Assistant Professor of History at Purdue University where she works on issues at the intersection of environmental inequality and law. During the spring of 2020, Mitchell will be a faculty fellow at Princeton University's Shelby Cullom Davis Center. She earned her PhD in History and Sociology of Science from the University of Pennsylvania in 2016 and was an Atkinson Fellow in Sustainability at Cornell University from 2016-2018. Previously, she practiced law in Pennsylvania and served as a law clerk to Judge Anthony J. Scirica of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

This event is cosponsored with the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment

Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/yMVJu1gmRFk

Abstract: Joshua Busby, University of Texas-Austin, will present the main argument and empirical work from his draft book manuscript. Over the past decade, a rich literature on the connections between climate change and security emerged, much of it quantitative on the links between climate change and violent internal conflict. In this book manuscript, Busby seeks to widen the aperture of security concerns to include major humanitarian emergencies. Through the study of paired cases, he explores why countries that face similar physical exposure to climate hazards experience different outcomes. His argument combines state capacity, the degree of political inclusion, and the role of international assistance to explain differences between countries as well as within countries over time. Countries with low state capacity, high political exclusion, and where assistance is denied or delivered in a one-sided manner are expected to have the worst security outcomes in the wake of exposure to climate hazards. While assistance can sometimes compensate for weak state capacity, improvements in capacity and inclusion can diminish the risks of climate-related emergencies and conflict. In this talk, Busby will compare the experience of Bangladesh, India, and Myanmar to cyclones.

Speaker's Biography:

Joshua Busby is an Associate Professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Climate and Security. He has been part of two U.S. Department of Defense-funded research projects on climate and security and his work on the topic has been published in Foreign Affairs, World Development, Climatic Change, Political Geography, International Security, Security Studies, among other publications.

This event is co-sponsored with The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

Seminar Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vHBvzWHcpw&feature=youtu.be

Abstract: The world’s largest organization is also one of its most mysterious. The Department of Defense (DOD) employs more men and women than Amazon, McDonald’s, FedEx, Target, and General Electric combined. Yet most Americans know little about it beyond its $700 billion budget and iconic five-sided headquarters. Now, the leader who knows the Pentagon best pulls back the curtain on an institution that many regard with a mix of awe and suspicion, revealing not just what it does but why, and why it matters. Former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter will offer an insider’s account of how America’s military works—and how it should work. It is also a timely reassessment of U.S. foreign policy and national security strategies in a rapidly changing world, and a timeless reflection on the leadership qualities essential to not only run but also reform a dauntingly complex organization. 

Speaker's Biography:

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