Stanford University

Governance

FSI's research on the origins, character and consequences of government institutions spans continents and academic disciplines. The institute’s senior fellows and their colleagues across Stanford examine the principles of public administration and implementation. Their work focuses on how maternal health care is delivered in rural China, how public action can create wealth and eliminate poverty, and why U.S. immigration reform keeps stalling. 

FSI’s work includes comparative studies of how institutions help resolve policy and societal issues. Scholars aim to clearly define and make sense of the rule of law, examining how it is invoked and applied around the world. 

FSI researchers also investigate government services – trying to understand and measure how they work, whom they serve and how good they are. They assess energy services aimed at helping the poorest people around the world and explore public opinion on torture policies. The Children in Crisis project addresses how child health interventions interact with political reform. Specific research on governance, organizations and security capitalizes on FSI's longstanding interests and looks at how governance and organizational issues affect a nation’s ability to address security and international cooperation.

Conjuring Spirits from the Vasty Deep: A User's Guide to Proposals for Strengthening UN Civilian Capacity in Peace Operations

Paragraphs

This report examines the civilian capabilities that must be deployed early in a United Nations peace operation. All too often, analysts emphasize expansive civilian inputs into multi-dimensional peace operations at the expense of meaningful identification of which inputs are truly critical in the immediate aftermath of war. This report focuses on what we consider to be a first-priority responsibility: the establishment or restoration of basic standards of security and protection for citizens of the host country. This specific focus will be placed within the wider debate over the ability of the United Nations to provide appropriate levels of skilled civilian personnel and financing in a timely manner.

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Policy Briefs
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
CISAC
Authors

Escaping the 'Half-pipe of Doom:' Is the IPCC Model Transferable to Issues of Safety and Security of Biotechnology?

-

Exponential advances in the life sciences, particularly in the realm of biotechnology, have been held to raise the classic concerns of "dual-use" research: the same technologies that propel scientific advances critical to human health, the environment and economic growth also could be misused to develop biological weapons, including for bioterrorism.  However, there is significant disagreement as to whether this depiction appropriately frames the nature of the problem.  Some scientists have characterized the prevailing policy discourse on the life sciences as the "half-pipe of doom," a bipolar approach that artificially disaggregates and decontextualizes the promise and peril of advances in the life sciences.  The panel will discuss proposals to address such concerns, focusing on whether the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) offers a transferable model of scientific and policy consensus-building for issues of safety and security of biotechnology.      

Stephen J. Stedman joined CISAC in 1997 as a senior research scholar, and was named a senior fellow at FSI and CISAC and professor of political science (by courtesy) in 2002. He served as the center's acting co-director for the 2002-2003 academic year. Currently he directs the Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies at Stanford and CISAC's Interschool Honors Program in International Security Studies. His current research addresses the future of international organizations and institutions, an area of study inspired by his recent work at the United Nations. In the fall of 2003 he was recruited to serve as the research director of the U.N. High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change. Upon completion of the panel's report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility, Annan asked Stedman to stay on at the U.N. as a special advisor with the rank of assistant secretary-general, to help gain worldwide support in implementing the panel's recommendations. Following the U.N. world leaders' summit in September 2005, during which more than 175 heads of state agreed upon a global security agenda developed from the panel's work, Stedman returned to CISAC. Before coming to Stanford, Stedman was an associate professor of African studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. He has served as a consultant to the United Nations on issues of peacekeeping in civil war, light weapons proliferation and conflict in Africa, and preventive diplomacy. In 2000 Scott Sagan and he founded the CISAC Interschool Honors Program in International Security Studies. Stedman received his PhD in political science from Stanford University in 1988.

Donald Kennedy is the editor-in-chief of Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a CESP senior fellow by courtesy. His present research program entails policy on such trans-boundary environmental problems as: major land-use changes; economically-driven alterations in agricultural practice; global climate change; and the development of regulatory policies.

Kennedy has served on the faculty of Stanford University from 1960 to the present. From 1980 to 1992 he served as President of Stanford University. He was Commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration from 1977-79. Previously at Stanford, he was as director of the Program in Human Biology from 1973-1977 and chair of the Department of Biology from 1964-1972.

Kennedy is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. He served on the National Commission for Public Service and the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology and Government, and as a founding director of the Health Effects Institute. He currently serves as a director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and as co-chair of the National Academies' Project on Science, Technology and Law. Kennedy received AB and PhD degrees in biology from Harvard University.

Drew Endy is a synthetic biologist with the Stanford Department of Bioengineering. He was a junior fellow and later an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT prior to coming to Stanford in September 2008 as an assistant professor in the Department of Bioengineering. Endy's research focus is on synthetic biology. With researchers at MIT he works on the engineering of standardized biological components, devices, and parts, collectively known as "BioBricks." He is one of several founders of the Registry of Standard Biological Parts, and invented an abstraction hierarchy for integrated genetic systems. Endy is known for his opposition to limited ownership and supports free access to genetic information. He has been one of the early promoters of open-source biology, and helped to start the Biobricks Foundation, a non-profit supporting open-source biology.

Tarun Chhabra is a JD candidate and Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow at Harvard Law School, and a doctoral candidate in international relations at Oxford University.  Tarun previously worked in the Executive Office of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and on the staff of Annan's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change.  He also served as a consultant-advisor to the Norwegian Foreign Ministry on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament initiatives. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Russia at the Moscow State Institute for International Relations (MGIMO) and received a Marshall Scholarship to study at Merton College, Oxford, where he earned a MPhil in international relations and was an instructor in international relations at Stanford House.  He holds a BA from Stanford University, where he worked at the Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers Project and was in the honors program at CISAC. Tarun is a Fellow of the Truman National Security Project and a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Chris Field is the founding director of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology, Professor of Biology and Environmental Earth System Science at Stanford University, and Faculty Director of Stanford's Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve. He also is co-chair of Working Group 2 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and will lead the fifth assessment report on climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability.  The author of more than 200 scientific publications, Field’s research emphasizes impacts of climate change, from the molecular to the global scale. Field’s work with models includes studies on the global distribution of carbon sources and sinks, and studies on environmental consequences of expanding biomass energy. Field has served on many national and international committees related to global ecology and climate change and was a coordinating lead author for the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Field has testified before House and Senate committees and has appeared on media from NPR “Science Friday” to BBC “Your World Today”. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences. Field received his PhD from Stanford in 1981 and has been at the Carnegie Institution for Science since 1984.

Download pdf

CISAC Conference Room

Stephen J. Stedman

CDDRL
Encina Hall, C152
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

(650) 725-2705 (650) 724-2996
0
Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Professor, by courtesy, of Political Science
Stedman_Steve.jpg PhD

Stephen Stedman is a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), an affiliated faculty member at CISAC, and professor of political science (by courtesy) at Stanford University. He is director of CDDRL's Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development and Rule of Law, and will be faculty director of the Program on International Relations in the School of Humanities and Sciences effective Fall 2025.

In 2011-12 Professor Stedman served as the Director for the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy, and Security, a body of eminent persons tasked with developing recommendations on promoting and protecting the integrity of elections and international electoral assistance. The Commission is a joint project of the Kofi Annan Foundation and International IDEA, an intergovernmental organization that works on international democracy and electoral assistance.

In 2003-04 Professor Stedman was Research Director of the United Nations High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change and was a principal drafter of the Panel’s report, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility.

In 2005 he served as Assistant Secretary-General and Special Advisor to the Secretary- General of the United Nations, with responsibility for working with governments to adopt the Panel’s recommendations for strengthening collective security and for implementing changes within the United Nations Secretariat, including the creation of a Peacebuilding Support Office, a Counter Terrorism Task Force, and a Policy Committee to act as a cabinet to the Secretary-General.

His most recent book, with Bruce Jones and Carlos Pascual, is Power and Responsibility: Creating International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats (Washington DC: Brookings Institution, 2009).

Director, Fisher Family Honors Program in Democracy, Development and Rule of Law
Director, Program in International Relations
Affiliated faculty at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Hide publication sections
Off
Date Label
Stephen J. Stedman Professor of Political Science (by courtesy) and Senior Fellow at CISAC and FSI Speaker
Donald Kennedy President Emeritus of Stanford University; Bing Professor of Environmental Science and Policy, Emeritus and FSI Senior Fellow by courtesy Speaker
Drew Endy Assistant Professor of Bioengineering, Stanford University Speaker
Tarun Chhabra JD Candidate, Harvard Law School; DPhil, Oxford Speaker
Christopher Field Director of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology, Professor of Biology and Environmental Earth System Science, and FSI Senior Fellow, by courtesy, Stanford University Speaker
Seminars

The Security Implications of Information Technology

-

Abstract
Information access and distribution is expanding exponentially.  Recent technological advancements have created a state of information openness where the general public has easy access both to a wealth of information previously available only for select government agencies and to a large array of communication-collaboration tools that can further develop and disseminate content. This information, or cyber, openness is having a profound impact on society at large and has equally profound, if not greater, implications for international and national security in terms of both capabilities and vulnerabilities. Nevertheless, many of the potential expanded capabilities have yet to be realized and many of the new vulnerabilities have yet to be fully understood.  This project aims to illuminate the emerging cyber capabilities from various viewpoints: users and developers, operational impacts and vulnerabilities in conflict and crisis management, enhancement and suppression of democratic development, and future trends: what issues will face society in the cyber world of 2050?

Alistair Dawson is the Executive Assistant to CISAC’s co-director, Professor Siegfried Hecker. Prior to her arrival at CISAC, she served as an Administrative Assistant at the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation in San Diego, California.  She obtained a BA in International Studies with an emphasis in Political Science along with a minor in European History from the University of California San Diego. Alistair received additional training in European Politics and Government while participating in the Education Abroad Program at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England.

Jeff Richardson recently retired after 35 years at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.  At LLNL he held a variety of program management positions, including Division Leader of Chemistry and later of Proliferation Prevention.  He spent two tours in Washington DC, supporting NNSA in Nonproliferation R&D and DoD in the USAF Directorate of Nuclear Operations, Plans and Requirements.  His most recent paper, Shifting from a Nuclear Triad to a Nuclear Dyad, explores an alternate future strategy for the US nuclear arsenal.  At CISAC he will focus on science diplomacy, using science as a tool for international engagement and promoting regional security. He will also be working on developing the concept of cyber openness (i.e., how the information revolution will change international security).

Jeff earned his BS degree in chemistry from CalTech and his PhD in organic chemistry from Stanford University.  His work at LLNL including chemical and materials science research, energy research, materials development for nuclear weapons programs, radiation detection for border security, nuclear materials protection, and proliferation detection, science cooperation for international security, and support for the Chemical Weapons Convention.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Alistair Dawson Executive Assistant to CISAC Co-Director Siegfried Hecker Speaker

Jeffery H. Richardson

0
Affiliate
Richardson_Jeffery.jpg

Jeff Richardson is an affiliate and former visiting scholar at CISAC. He came to CISAC after a 35-year career at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. At LLNL he held a variety of program management positions, including Division Leaders of Chemistry and later of Proliferation Prevention. He spent two tours in Washington DC, supporting NNSA in Nonproliferation R&D and DoD in the USAF Directorate of Nuclear Operations, Plans and Requirements. He recently completed 4-year assignment working for CRDF as the U.S. Science Advisor for the ISTC program, administered by the Office of Cooperative Threat Reduction, State Department. At CISAC he is focused on science diplomacy, using science as a tool for international engagement and promoting regional security.

Jeff earned his BS degree in chemistry from CalTech and his PhD in organic chemistry from Stanford University. His work at LLNL included chemical and materials science research, energy research, materials development for nuclear weapons programs, radiation detection for border security, nuclear materials protection, and proliferation detection, science cooperation for international security, and support for the Chemical Weapons Convention. He has authored over 100 papers. More recent papers include LLNL and WSSX, a contribution to Doomed to Cooperate: How American and Russian scientists joined forces to avert some of the greatest post-Cold War nuclear dangers, and Shifting from a Nuclear Triad to a Nuclear Dyad, which explored an alternate future strategy for the US nuclear arsenal.

CV
Jeffery H. Richardson CISAC Visiting Scholar Speaker
Seminars

Anja Manuel

0
Affiliate
photo.jpeg JD

Former diplomat, author, and advisor on foreign policy, Anja Manuel is Co-Founder and Principal along with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, in Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, a strategic consulting firm that helps US companies navigate international markets.

Anja is the author of the critically acclaimed This Brave New World: India, China, and the United States, published by Simon and Schuster, and numerous articles and papers.

She is the Executive Director of the Aspen Strategy Group and Aspen Security Forum, a premier bipartisan forum on foreign policy in the United States.

From 2005 to 2007, she served as an official at the U.S. Department of State, as Special Assistant to the Undersecretary for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns, responsible for Asia policy.

Earlier in her career, Anja was an attorney at WilmerHale, working on Supreme Court and international cases and representing clients before the US Congress, Supreme Court, Department of Justice, Department of Defense, and the SEC. She began her career as an investment banker at Salomon Brothers in London.

A cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School and Stanford University, Anja also lectured and was a research affiliate at Stanford University from 2009 - 2019, and 2024-now, teaching courses on US Foreign Policy in Asia and Technology Policy.

Anja is a frequent speaker on foreign policy and technology policy, is a commentator for TV and radio (NBC/MSNBC, Bloomberg News, Fox Business, BBC, NPR, etc.), and writes for publications ranging from the Washington Post, New York Times, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic, and Fortune, among others.

Anja currently serves on the corporate boards of Ripple Labs Inc. and Hims & Hers Health, Inc. and the Applied Materials Secure Innovation Advisory Board. Additionally, she is a member of the Defense Policy Board for the U.S. Department of Defense

She has serves/d on the boards/advisory boards of National Committee on US-China Relations, CARE.org, Center for a New American Security, Flexport Inc., Synapse Inc., and the boards of the Overseas Shipholding Group, Inc., American Ditchley Foundation, and formerly Governor Brown’s California Export Council. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Anja lives in San Francisco with her husband and two children.

Hide publication sections
Off
Date Label

How to build on the START Treaty

Authors
William J. Perry
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs

THIS has been a remarkable time for the Obama administration. After a year of intense internal debate, it issued a new nuclear strategy. And after a year of intense negotiations with the Russians, President Obama signed the New Start treaty with President Dmitri Medvedev in Prague. On Monday, the president will host the leaders of more than 40 nations in a nuclear security summit meeting whose goal is to find ways of gaining control of the loose fissile material around the globe.

New Start is the first tangible product of the administration's promise to "press the reset button" on United States-Russian relations. The new treaty is welcome. But as a disarmament measure, it is a modest step, entailing a reduction of only 30 percent from the former limit - and some of that reduction is accomplished by the way the warheads are counted, not by their destruction. Perhaps the treaty's greatest accomplishment is that the negotiations leading up to its signing re-engaged Americans and Russians in a serious discussion of how to reduce nuclear dangers.

So what should come next? We look forward to a follow-on treaty that builds on the success of the previous Start treaties and leads to significantly greater arms reductions - including reductions in tactical nuclear weapons and reductions that require weapons be dismantled and not simply put in reserve.

But our discussions with Russian colleagues, including senior government officials, suggest that such a next step would be very difficult for them. Part of the reason for their reluctance to accept further reductions is that Russia considers itself to be encircled by hostile forces in Europe and in Asia. Another part results from the significant asymmetry between United States and Russian conventional military forces. For these reasons, we believe that the next round of negotiations with Russia should not focus solely on nuclear disarmament issues. These talks should encompass missile defense, Russia's relations with NATO, the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, North Korea, Iran and Asian security issues.

Let's begin with missile defense. Future arms talks should make a serious exploration of a joint United States-Russia program that would provide a bulwark against Iranian missiles. We should also consider situating parts of the joint system in Russia, which in many ways offers an ideal strategic location for these defenses. Such an effort would not only improve our security, it would also further cooperation in dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat, including the imposition of consequential sanctions when appropriate.

NATO is a similarly complicated issue. After the cold war ended, Russia was invited to NATO meetings with the idea that the country would eventually become an integral part of European security discussions. The idea was good, but the execution failed. NATO has acted as if Russia's role is that of an observer with no say in decisions; Russia has acted as if it should have veto power.

Neither outlook is viable. But if NATO moves from consensus decisions to super-majority decisions in its governing structure, as has been considered, it would be possible to include Russia's vote as an effective way of resolving European security issues of common interest.

The Russians are also eager to revisit the two landmark cold war treaties. The Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty enabled NATO and Warsaw Pact nations to make significant reductions in conventional armaments and to limit conventional deployments. Today, there is still a need for limiting conventional arms, but the features of that treaty pertaining to the old Warsaw Pact are clearly outdated. Making those provisions relevant to today's world should be a goal of new talks

Similarly, the 1987 treaty that eliminated American and Soviet intermediate-range ballistic missiles was a crucially important pact that helped to defuse cold war tensions. But today Russia has neighbors that have such missiles directed at its borders; for understandable reasons, it wants to renegotiate aspects of this treaty.

Future arms reductions with Russia are eminently possible. But they are unlikely to be achieved unless the United States is willing to address points of Russian concern. Given all that is at stake, we believe comprehensive discussions are a necessity as we work our way toward ever more significant nuclear disarmament.

William J. Perry, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, was the secretary of defense from 1994 to 1997. George P. Shultz, the secretary of state from 1982 to 1989, is a distinguished fellow at the Hoover Institution.

 

Hero Image
Start Treaty Obama Medvedez logo www.kremlin.ru
All News button
1

Automating Counterinsurgency

-

This is part of the Stanford seminar series on Science, Technology, and Society.

Hugh Gusterson
Born in the UK, Hugh Gusterson took a B.A. in history at Cambridge University in 1980, a Masters degree in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1982, and a PhD in anthropology at Stanford University in 1992.  Somewhere in between he worked for a couple of social change organizations.  He was a professor at MIT from 1992-2006, when he came to George Mason University.  He has done fieldwork in the United States and Russia, where he has studied the culture of nuclear weapons scientists and antinuclear activists.  He also writes about militarism and about science more generally, and has a strong interest in professional ethics.  He is the author of Nuclear Rites (UC Press, 1996) and People of the Bomb (Minnesota, 2004) and co-editor of Cultures of Insecurity (Minnesota, 1999) and Why America's Top Pundits Are Wrong (UC Press, 2005).  As well as writing for scholarly journals, he has a regular online column for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and has published in numerous newspapers and magazines.

Co-sponsored by STS and CISAC.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Hugh Gusterson Professor of Cultural Studies Speaker George Mason University
Seminars
Science, Technology and Security Seminars (2009-2010)

The Nature of Technology

-

This is part of the Stanford seminar series on Science, Technology, and Society.

Abstract
How do transformative new technologies arise, and how does innovation really work? Conventional thinking ascribes the invention of technologies to “thinking outside the box,” or vaguely to genius or creativity, but Arthur shows that such explanations are inadequate. Rather, technologies are put together from pieces  themselves technologies  that already exist. Technologies therefore share common ancestries, and combine, morph, and combine again, to create further technologies. Technology evolves much as a coral reef builds itself from activities of small organisms  it creates itself from itself; and all technologies are descended from earlier technologies.

W. Brian Arthur is an External Faculty Member at the Santa Fe Institute, IBM Faculty Fellow, and Visiting Researcher in the Intelligent Systems Lab at PARC (formerly Xerox Parc). From 1983 to 1996 he was Morrison Professor of Economics and Population Studies at Stanford University. He holds a Ph.D. from Berkeley in Operations Research, and has other degrees in economics, engineering and mathematics.

Arthur pioneered the modern study of positive feedbacks or increasing returns in the economy--in particular their role in magnifying small, random events in the economy. This work has gone on to become the basis of our understanding of the high-tech economy. He has recently published a new book: The Nature of Technology: What it Is and How it Evolves, "an elegant and powerful theory of technology's origins and evolution."He is also one of the pioneers of the science of complexity.

Arthur was the first director of the Economics Program at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, and has served on SFI's Science Board and Board of Trustees. He is the recipient of the Schumpeter Prize in economics, the Lagrange Prize in complexity science, and two honorary doctorates.

Arthur is a frequent keynote speaker on such topics as: How exactly does innovation work and how can it be fostered? What is happening in the economy, and how should we rethink economics? How is the digital revolution playing out in the economy? How will US and European national competitiveness fare, given the rise of China and India?

Lynn Eden is Associate Director for Research at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University. Eden received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan, held several pre- and post-doctoral fellowships, and taught in the history department at Carnegie Mellon before coming to Stanford. In the area of international security, Eden has focused on U.S. foreign and military policy, arms control, the social construction of science and technology, and organizational issues regarding nuclear policy and homeland security. She co-edited, with Steven E. Miller, Nuclear Arguments: Understanding the Strategic Nuclear Arms and Arms Control Debates (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989). She was an editor of The Oxford Companion to American Military History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), which takes a social and cultural perspective on war and peace in U.S. history. That volume was chosen as a Main Selection of the History Book Club.

Eden's book Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004; New Delhi: Manas Publications, 2004) explores how and why the U.S. government--from World War II to the present--has greatly underestimated the damage caused by nuclear weapons by failing to predict damage from firestorms. It shows how well-funded and highly professional organizations, by focusing on what they do well and systematically excluding what they don't, may build a poor representation of the world--a self-reinforcing fallacy that can have serious consequences, from the sinking of the Titanic to not predicting the vulnerability of the World Trade Center to burning jet fuel. Whole World on Fire won the American Sociological Association's 2004 Robert K. Merton Award for best book in science, knowledge, and technology.

Co-sponsored by STS, CISAC, and WTO.

Arthur's new book, The Nature of Technology, will be available for purchase.

Please bring lunch; drinks and light refreshments will be provided.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Brian Arthur External Professor Speaker Santa Fe Institute

Lynn Eden

Not in residence

0
Affiliate
rsd15_078_0365a.jpg PhD

Lynn Eden is a Senior Research Scholar Emeritus. She was a Senior Research Scholar at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation until January 2016, as well as was Associate Director for Research. Eden received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan, held several pre- and post-doctoral fellowships, and taught in the history department at Carnegie Mellon before coming to Stanford.

In the area of international security, Eden has focused on U.S. foreign and military policy, arms control, the social construction of science and technology, and organizational issues regarding nuclear policy and homeland security. She co-edited, with Steven E. Miller, Nuclear Arguments: Understanding the Strategic Nuclear Arms and Arms Control Debates (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989). She was an editor of The Oxford Companion to American Military History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), which takes a social and cultural perspective on war and peace in U.S. history. That volume was chosen as a Main Selection of the History Book Club.

Eden's book Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004; New Delhi: Manas Publications, 2004) explores how and why the U.S. government--from World War II to the present--has greatly underestimated the damage caused by nuclear weapons by failing to predict damage from firestorms. It shows how well-funded and highly professional organizations, by focusing on what they do well and systematically excluding what they don't, may build a poor representation of the world--a self-reinforcing fallacy that can have serious consequences, from the sinking of the Titanic to not predicting the vulnerability of the World Trade Center to burning jet fuel. Whole World on Fire won the American Sociological Association's 2004 Robert K. Merton Award for best book in science, knowledge, and technology.

Eden has also written on life in small-town America. Her first book, Crisis in Watertown (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1972), was her college senior thesis; it was a finalist for a National Book Award in 1973. Her second book, Witness in Philadelphia, with Florence Mars (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977), about the murders of civil rights workers Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman in the summer of 1964, was a Book of the Month Club Alternate Selection.

CV
Lynn Eden Senior Research Scholar and Associate Director of Research Speaker CISAC
Seminars

Some Nukes

Authors
Leonard Weiss
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs
CISAC Affiliate Leonard Weiss responds to a March 22, 2010 article by New Yorker Senior Editor Hendrik Hertzberg

Hendrik Hertzberg writes that the end of the Cold War and the coming of global warming have brought about increased support for nuclear power, even among some environmentalists (The Talk of the Town, March 22nd). But many of us who work on nuclear-proliferation issues are dismayed by the growth of nuclear energy. Expanded nuclear power in industrial countries will inevitably mean expanded nuclear exports to less developed countries as manufacturers try to recoup their investments in a limited domestic market by selling abroad. It can be shown statistically that countries that receive nuclear assistance are more likely to build nuclear weapons, especially when they perceive threats to their security. India, Pakistan, and Israel started their nuclear programs with the importation of research reactors carrying peaceful-use requirements; with help from other countries, they were able to then realize their desire for weapons. Iran appears to be heading in the same direction. Given the documented interest in nuclear materials of terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda, and given the questionable assumptions that nuclear-energy economics is fraught with, it makes little sense to push nuclear power at a time when protections against proliferation are still so problematic. Improved energy efficiency is a safer, greener, and cheaper alternative.

All News button
1

“Re: Some Nukes”, a letter in response to Hendrik Hertzberg’s article of March 22, 2010

Paragraphs

Hendrik Hertzberg writes that the end of the Cold War and the coming of global warming have brought about increased support for nuclear power, even among some environmentalists (The Talk of the Town, March 22nd). But many of us who work on nuclear-proliferation issues are dismayed by the growth of nuclear energy. Expanded nuclear power in industrial countries will inevitably mean expanded nuclear exports to less developed countries as manufacturers try to recoup their investments in a limited domestic market by selling abroad. It can be shown statistically that countries that receive nuclear assistance are more likely to build nuclear weapons, especially when they perceive threats to their security. India, Pakistan, and Israel started their nuclear programs with the importation of research reactors carrying peaceful-use requirements; with help from other countries, they were able to then realize their desire for weapons. Iran appears to be heading in the same direction. Given the documented interest in nuclear materials of terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda, and given the questionable assumptions that nuclear-energy economics is fraught with, it makes little sense to push nuclear power at a time when protections against proliferation are still so problematic. Improved energy efficiency is a safer, greener, and cheaper alternative.

 

Leonard Weiss

National Advisory Board, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

Palo Alto, Calif.

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Commentary
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
The New Yorker
Authors
Leonard Weiss
External URL

Getting to Zero: Why U.S. Nuclear Doctrine Will Make it Extremely Difficult

-

Lynn Eden is acting co-director (2008-09) at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University. Eden received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan, held several pre- and post-doctoral fellowships, and taught in the history department at Carnegie Mellon before coming to Stanford. In the area of international security, Eden has focused on U.S. foreign and military policy, arms control, the social construction of science and technology, and organizational issues regarding nuclear policy and homeland security. She co-edited, with Steven E. Miller, Nuclear Arguments: Understanding the Strategic Nuclear Arms and Arms Control Debates (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989). She was an editor of The Oxford Companion to American Military History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), which takes a social and cultural perspective on war and peace in U.S. history. That volume was chosen as a Main Selection of the History Book Club.

Eden's book Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004; New Delhi: Manas Publications, 2004) explores how and why the U.S. government--from World War II to the present--has greatly underestimated the damage caused by nuclear weapons by failing to predict damage from firestorms. It shows how well-funded and highly professional organizations, by focusing on what they do well and systematically excluding what they don't, may build a poor representation of the world--a self-reinforcing fallacy that can have serious consequences, from the sinking of the Titanic to not predicting the vulnerability of the World Trade Center to burning jet fuel. Whole World on Fire won the American Sociological Association's 2004 Robert K. Merton Award for best book in science, knowledge, and technology.

Eden has also written on life in small-town America. Her first book, Crisis in Watertown (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1972) was her college senior thesis; it was a finalist for a National Book Award in 1973. Her second book, Witness in Philadelphia, with Florence Mars (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977), about the murders of civil rights workers Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman in the summer of 1964, was a Book of the Month Club Alternate Selection.

Providing commentary on Dr. Eden's paper is Lieutenant Colonel John Vitacca, a national defense fellow for 2009-2010 at CISAC. 

John holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Marketing from Texas A&M University, a Master of Business Administration degree in Management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a Master of Arts degree in Military Operational Art and Science from Air Command and Staff College, Air University, Alabama.  He is a command pilot with over 3,400 flight hours in the B-2 and B-52, qualified as both an instructor and evaluator pilot.  Prior to coming to CISAC, John served in various assignments including a tour at the Pentagon as the Chief of the Global Persistent Attack Branch and the B-2/Next Generation Bomber subject matter expert.   Most recently, he was the Commander of the 393d Bomb Squadron at Whiteman Air Force Base, one of only two operational B-2 stealth bomber squadrons in the USAF.  His research at CISAC will focus on nuclear weapons policy issues.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Lynn Eden

Not in residence

0
Affiliate
rsd15_078_0365a.jpg PhD

Lynn Eden is a Senior Research Scholar Emeritus. She was a Senior Research Scholar at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation until January 2016, as well as was Associate Director for Research. Eden received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan, held several pre- and post-doctoral fellowships, and taught in the history department at Carnegie Mellon before coming to Stanford.

In the area of international security, Eden has focused on U.S. foreign and military policy, arms control, the social construction of science and technology, and organizational issues regarding nuclear policy and homeland security. She co-edited, with Steven E. Miller, Nuclear Arguments: Understanding the Strategic Nuclear Arms and Arms Control Debates (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989). She was an editor of The Oxford Companion to American Military History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), which takes a social and cultural perspective on war and peace in U.S. history. That volume was chosen as a Main Selection of the History Book Club.

Eden's book Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004; New Delhi: Manas Publications, 2004) explores how and why the U.S. government--from World War II to the present--has greatly underestimated the damage caused by nuclear weapons by failing to predict damage from firestorms. It shows how well-funded and highly professional organizations, by focusing on what they do well and systematically excluding what they don't, may build a poor representation of the world--a self-reinforcing fallacy that can have serious consequences, from the sinking of the Titanic to not predicting the vulnerability of the World Trade Center to burning jet fuel. Whole World on Fire won the American Sociological Association's 2004 Robert K. Merton Award for best book in science, knowledge, and technology.

Eden has also written on life in small-town America. Her first book, Crisis in Watertown (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1972), was her college senior thesis; it was a finalist for a National Book Award in 1973. Her second book, Witness in Philadelphia, with Florence Mars (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977), about the murders of civil rights workers Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman in the summer of 1964, was a Book of the Month Club Alternate Selection.

CV
Lynn Eden Senior Research Scholar and Associate Director for Research, CISAC Speaker

John Vitacca

not in residence

0
Visiting Scholar
Vitacca.jpg

Representing the United States Air Force, Lieutenant Colonel John Vitacca is a national defense fellow for 2009-2010 at CISAC. 

John holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Marketing from Texas A&M University, a Master of Business Administration degree in Management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a Master of Arts degree in Military Operational Art and Science from Air Command and Staff College, Air University, Alabama.  He is a command pilot with over 3,400 flight hours in the B-2 and B-52, qualified as both an instructor and evaluator pilot.  Prior to coming to CISAC, John served in various assignments including a tour at the Pentagon as the Chief of the Global Persistent Attack Branch and the B-2/Next Generation Bomber subject matter expert.   Most recently, he was the Commander of the 393d Bomb Squadron at Whiteman Air Force Base, one of only two operational B-2 stealth bomber squadrons in the USAF.  His research at CISAC focused on nuclear weapons policy issues.

John Vitacca Visiting Scholar, CISAC Commentator
Seminars
Subscribe to Governance