About the event: Nuclear power in Eastern Europe has been framed in various ways depending on political context: as a uranium state-building project, a key element of international decarbonization efforts, a model for reducing energy dependence on Russia, and an environmental risk slated for phase-out. Yet, one crucial aspect remains overlooked: how gendered expertise has sustained Bulgaria’s nuclear industry for decades—and how it remains entangled with the social hierarchies shaping nuclear energy production.

This talk draws on ethnographic and historical research, along with footage from a film-in-progress, to explore the labor, expertise, and social lives of women working in nuclear spaces along the Danube River. It focuses on two key sites: the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant, which continues to expand, and the Belene Nuclear Power Plant, a stalled project since the end of socialism. As laboratory technicians, construction managers, and power plant engineers, these women navigated state socialist labor policies, shifting gender expectations, and the demands of both career and family. Their perspectives offer deeper insight not only into the evolving role of women’s expertise in the nuclear power industry but also into how human labor itself is being reconfigured in relation to aging nuclear infrastructures—whether left to decay or reimagined as part of the “green” energy transition.

About the speaker: Elana Resnick is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and leads the Infrastructural Inequalities Research Group. Her published work includes articles in American Anthropologist (2021), American Ethnologist (2024), Cultural Anthropology (2024), Journal of Contemporary Archaeology (2018), and Public Culture (2023). Her forthcoming book, Refusing Sustainability: Race and Environmentalism in a Changing Europe, will be published by Stanford University Press in July 2025.

Resnick’s scholarship has received multiple awards, including the 2022 American Anthropological Association GAD Prize for Exemplary Cross-Field Scholarship, the 2023 Women’s Forum Article Prize from the British Association for Slavonic & East European Studies, and the 2024 Association of Women in Slavic Studies (AWSS) Heldt Prize for the Best Article in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Women’s and Gender Studies. Her current research focuses on the environmental and social politics surrounding nuclear power development and decommissioning in Europe. She holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and has received research support from the Wilson Center, the Council for European Studies, the School for Advanced Research, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and the Fulbright Program.

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Dr. Janar Pekarev, a Stanford Global Digital Governance Fellow, will present his research exploring the impact of AI on military decision-making and the nuances of AI-driven command and control. His work uses simulated scenarios with AI feedback ranging from accurate to intentionally flawed. It measures decision accuracy, decision time, and user confidence to determine how varying AI feedback influences the quality and speed of decisions.

The research integrates a machine learning model and an override-rule module within an end-user interface. It operationalizes key principles of the laws of war—distinction, proportionality, and military necessity—through scenario simulations and a blend of qualitative and quantitative metrics. A stepwise experimental design enables a close examination of human-machine interaction dynamics, particularly how the transparency of AI reasoning affects human trust, decision-making biases, and ethical judgments under uncertainty. Though conceptual at this stage, the intent is to facilitate broad empirical validation and interdisciplinary collaboration, thereby augmenting our understanding of adaptive, transparent, and ethically grounded human-machine teaming in military operations.

The Global Digital Governance Fellows program is a joint initiative with Stanford Libraries, Vabamu, and Estonia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

About the Author

Dr. Janar Pekarev is a Global Digital Governance Fellow in the Program in Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. Janar holds the rank of Major with more than 20 years in the Estonian military. He is a Fellow at the Estonian Military Academy and a member of multiple NATO STO research groups, including SAS-MSG-ET-FV (Emerging and Disruptive Technology) and NATO STO SAS-160 (Ethical, Legal, and Moral Impacts of Novel Technologies on NATO’s Operational Advantage), as well as an Estonian Ministry of Defence project on cognitive warfare against a superior adversary. Holding a PhD in Sociology and a BA in Law from the University of Tartu, he adopts an interdisciplinary approach that integrates law, military science and technology, and sociology. His research focuses on human-machine teaming within the military domain, with particular emphasis on AI weaponization and the moral programming of the use of force. He has contributed to the field through numerous publications in journals and presentations at academic conferences.

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About the event: How can states use military force to achieve their political aims without triggering a catastrophic nuclear war? How has China coped with this dilemma? While other nuclear-armed countries have preferred the traditional options of threatening to use nuclear weapons or fielding capabilities for decisive conventional military victories, China has instead chosen to rely on information-age weapons—offensive cyber capabilities, counterspace capabilities, and precision conventional missiles—to coerce its adversaries. In Under the Nuclear Shadow: China’s Information-Age Weapons in International Security (Princeton University Press, 2025) Fiona Cunningham explains this distinctive aspect of China’s post–Cold War deterrence strategy using an original theory of strategic substitution. When crises with adversaries created leverage deficits that highlighted the inadequacy of China’s existing military capabilities, China pursued information-age weapons that promised to provide coercive leverage against adversaries more quickly and credibly than the traditional options adopted by other nuclear-armed states. Drawing on hundreds of original Chinese-language sources and interviews with experts in China, the book provides new insights into the information-age technologies that are reshaping how states gain coercive leverage.

About the speaker: Fiona Cunningham is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests lie at the intersection of technology and conflict, with a focus on China. Fiona’s first book Under the Nuclear Shadow: China’s Information-Age Weapons in International Security (Princeton University Press, 2025) examines China’s distinctive approach to the dilemma of coercing an adversary under the shadow of nuclear war, which relies on substitutes for nuclear threats. Her research has been published in International Security, Security Studies, Journal of Strategic Studies, The Texas National Security Review, and The Washington Quarterly.

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About the event: The foundations of American power are eroding due to a failure to adapt to a new era in which knowledge and technological innovation are the primary sources of national strength. Traditional measures of power—military might, natural resources, and economic scale—are increasingly insufficient. Instead, intangible assets such as education, research capacity, and control over emerging technologies determine long-term geopolitical influence. The United States is losing ground in these areas, with declining K–12 educational outcomes, reduced federal investment in basic research, outdated immigration policies, and growing reliance on private-sector actors whose interests may diverge from national objectives. Meanwhile, global competitors—particularly China—are rapidly expanding their innovation capacity. The U.S. must look toward a strategic shift in policy to enhance knowledge power through educational reform, immigration modernization, increased public research funding, and improved coordination between government, academia, and industry.

About the speaker: Amy Zegart is the Morris Arnold and Nona Jean Cox senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, professor of political science by courtesy at Stanford University, and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. She is also a senior fellow at Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). Zegart is an internationally recognized expert in U.S. intelligence, emerging technologies, and global political risk management. In addition to her research and teaching, Zegart led Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), founded the Stanford Cyber Policy Program, and served as chief academic officer of the Hoover Institution. At Hoover, Zegart currently serves as the Director of the Robert and Marion Oster National Security Affairs fellows program and as Director of the Technology Policy Accelerator, which produces the annual Stanford Emerging Technology Review. Before coming to Stanford, she was professor of public policy at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a McKinsey & Company consultant. Zegart has served on the National Security Council staff and as a presidential campaign foreign policy advisor. She frequently advises senior U.S. officials on intelligence and emerging technology matters. She is the author of five books, including the bestseller Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence; Political Risk: How Businesses and Organizations Can Anticipate Global Insecurity, co-authored with Condoleezza Rice; and Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11. Zegart holds a bachelor’s degree in East Asian studies from Harvard University and a doctorate in political science from Stanford University. She serves on the boards of Kratos Defense & Security Solutions and the Capital Group. Zegart is based in Stanford, CA.

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About the event: The advent of generative artificial intelligence and associated innovation in the broader AI domain has the potential to create transformative opportunities globally, automating routine tasks and shortening the timeline to understand and potentially solve complex problems while permitting humans to focus on challenges that require human creativity and problem-solving. There is no doubt, likewise, that the broad adoption and use of AI will result in some significant shifts in the workforce and could enhance challenges in domains like cybersecurity, misinformation and disinformation, and others. Additionally, there are significant questions about how to achieve broad adoption given concerns raised by many about trust, safety, and security in this domain. The key question facing policymakers, then, is what they ought to do in the fairly early days of the AI revolution, and whether the adoption of broad-based AI regulatory frameworks like those adopted by the European Union is the right initial step.

This presentation will evaluate and challenge the claim that broad-based regulation is the correct initial approach and even long-term approach to this rapidly expanding and increasingly publicly accessible domain of innovation.  The presentation will evaluate the innovation environments in jurisdictions where regulatory action is the initial move versus those that take a more limited approach during the lifecycle of rapid innovation. Specifically, the presentation will compare and contrast the regulatory approaches taken in the United States and the EU historically in the technology domain and seek to assess their impact on innovation or the relative lack thereof in those jurisdictions while drawing out some insights for policymakers in the AI domain.

The presentation will also assess whether key issues raised in the AI domain might be addressed through private sector action alone--which there is strong reason to believe they can--and, if policymakers nonetheless determine that some government action is needed, what approaches to such action can help ensure that broad innovation continues to be incentivized effectively.   The presentation will close on a set of recommendations for policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic—and around the globe—for expanding and protecting innovation in this critical domain while also ensuring that legitimate concerns are accounted for and addressed, as well as identifying issues for further research and evaluation.

About the speaker: Jamil N. Jaffer is the Founder and Executive Director of the National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, where he also teaches national security law, cybersecurity, and counterterrorism. He is a Venture Partner at Paladin Capital and serves on multiple corporate and advisory boards in cybersecurity, technology, and national security.

Previously, Jamil held leadership roles at IronNet Cybersecurity, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the House Intelligence Committee. He served in the Bush Administration as an Associate Counsel to the President and at the Justice Department’s National Security Division. Jamil holds degrees from UCLA, the University of Chicago Law School, and the Naval War College.

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About the event: Conflicts and crises between nations play out in cyberspace. For many years, policy practitioners have proposed a parallel between nuclear deterrence and cyber deterrence. Over the last decade, practical lessons learned from cyber offenses and defense across policy and operations contradict any parallel to nuclear deterrence theory. Indeed, it is better to think of offensive cyber attacks as a new form of warfare, playing out across offense and defense. AI is about to supercharge both sides of this equation through everything from identifying vulnerabilities and exploits to managing cyber operations. This talk will discuss the lessons learned across offense and defense, based on the lecturer’s experiences in the policy and operational arenas at the White House’s National Security Council, NSA and USCC.

The Payne Lectureship is named for Frank E. Payne and Arthur W. Payne, brothers who gained an appreciation for global problems through their international business operations. Their descendants endowed the annual lecture series at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies in order to raise public understanding of the complex policy issues facing the global community today and to increase support for informed international cooperation.

The Payne Distinguished Lecturer is chosen for his or her international reputation as a leader, with an emphasis on visionary thinking; a broad, practical grasp of a given field; and the capacity to clearly articulate an important perspective on the global community and its challenges.

About the speaker: Anne Neuberger is an internationally recognized expert in cyber warfare and cybersecurity, risk and emerging technologies. She served as Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technologies in the Biden Administration, coordinating national policy, and led NSA’s intelligence operations as well as its cybersecurity mission, in addition to serving as NSA’s Chief Risk Officer. She also initiated and led the successful effort to convene 71 countries to combat trans-national cyber threats like ransomware, and money laundering via cryptocurrencies. Prior to her time in government (which included a stint at the Pentagon and Navy), Ms. Neuberger held several positions related to technology and operations at a large financial services firm.

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About the event: Autonomous weapons systems (AWS) have sparked significant debate in international politics and research, especially regarding their ‘critical functions’ of target selection and engagement without human intervention or control. As a response to potential ethical and legal concerns, as well as security-related risks, AWS have been subject to an ongoing international regulation process at the United Nations since 2014. The primary focus of this process has been on maintaining human control over the use of force. However, since its initiation more than a decade ago, no regulatory framework has been agreed upon and core concepts, such as human control, are still highly contested.

Anna's research investigates why the regulation of AWS have not been successful (so far) by analyzing the co-production of weapons technology and arms control politics. In this talk, she shows that it is not solely determined by state interests. Rather, it is influenced by a complex interplay of knowledge production practices and discourses both within and outside of these processes. Moreover, with recent developments in and applications of artificial intelligence (AI), new questions about the nature of human-machine relations in war come to the fore, further complicating the regulatory landscape.

About the speaker: Anna-Katharina Ferl is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and the Stanford Existential Risk Initiative (SERI) at Stanford University. Her research focuses on the regulation of artificial intelligence and autonomy as well as the practices of knowledge production in international security. Anna received her PhD from the University of Frankfurt in 2024 and previously worked as a researcher at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF). In addition to academic publications, she has also contributed to several policy reports on topics such as German arms control policies and gender-specific aspects of new technologies in international security.

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About the event: Research shows that women are less likely to protest and have less cellphone access than men. Since studies indicate that cellphones can boost protest participation, we ask whether the gender gap in mobile ownership influences gender disparities in protest turnout. We find that the growing gender digital divide in cellphone ownership exacerbates the participation gap. We use survey data from Africa to show that where women systematically own fewer cellphones than men, they protest less frequently than men. We use a variety of methodological techniques to address concerns of endogeneity. We also probe one mechanism underpinning this relationship; we demonstrate that women who do not own cellphones face a political information disadvantage that limits their engagement. We conclude that unequal cellphone access further entrenches women’s position on the political margins.

This paper was co-authored with Tiffany Barnes, Emily Rains and Jingwen Wu.

About the speaker: Jakana Thomas is Associate Professor in the School of Global Policy and Strategy and Department of Political Science at University of California San Diego. Her research focuses on political violence and conflict processes with an emphasis on understanding women’s participation in and experiences with contentious politics. Her work has been published at the leading Political Science and International Relations journals, including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics and International Organization, among other outlets. She is PI on a Blue Shield Foundation funded project examining Californians’ experiences with violence across their lifespans (CalVEX).

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About the event: In this talk, Elena Kempf shares material from her forthcoming book on the history of weapons prohibitions in international law from the 1860s to the 1970s.

She argues that weapons prohibitions during this period emerged as a central site of contestation about the limits of the legitimate application of new technologies to war. These debates involved diplomats and international lawyers, but also medical professionals, scientists, and journalists. From their efforts, two ways of justifying a prohibition on a weapon emerged. The first repurposed the old legal concept of unnecessary suffering to newly weigh wounding against the abilities of military surgeons. The second was based on the specter of injury to global systems like shipping lines or the obliteration of major cities.

To revisit the early history of weapons prohibitions under international law is to uncover an expansive vocabulary that might animate future efforts at prohibition or control. This history also reveals the limits of outlawing weapons under international law. Law and technology changed at different velocities, leading to persistent distortions between moral-legal expectations and technical realities. In addition, the project of weapons prohibitions remained fragile, contested by techno-optimist, militarist, and pacifist critics.

About the speaker: Elena Kempf is the Old Dominion Career Development Assistant Professor of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on the legal regulation of modern weapons of war. She is currently completing a manuscript on the history of weapons prohibitions in international law from the 1860s to the 1970s. She is also drafting a paper on the history of the concept of unnecessary suffering and superfluous injury. Prior to joining MIT, she was a postdoctoral fellow with the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law at UC Berkeley Law School, and a lecturer with the Department of History at Stanford University. Professor Kempf earned her PhD in History from UC Berkeley in 2021.

 All CISAC events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone.

No filming or recording without express permission from speaker.