Research

IGCC's early research focused largely on averting nuclear war through arms control and confidence-building measures between the superpowers. Since then, the research program has diversified. IGCC researchers study a wide range of topics involving security, environmental, and economic policies that shape our ability to prevent conflict and promote cooperation across the globe. Under the leadership of Director Susan Shirk, IGCC’s ongoing work in its core areas is complemented by the recognition that evolving threats to global stability require exploration of nontraditional connections between and across disciplines and institutions.

International Security Policy

IGCC remains highly committed to its original field of study, and security policy implications cross-cut all of IGCC's programs. Beyond preventive diplomacy and "track-two" initiatives, for many years IGCC conducted teaching seminars for the academic and policy communities on nonproliferation issues. IGCC training programs such as "Public Policy and Nuclear Threats" and "Public Policy and Biological Threats" continue the IGCC tradition of informing and instructing potential future decision makers.

International Environmental Policy

As understanding of global environmental degradation and the transboundary effects of environmental pollution grew throughout the 1990s, IGCC initiated a research program in international environmental policy to respond to the need for greater scholarly and policy attention to these issues.

The IGCC research program on the environment generally falls into four main categories:

• Global environment issues such as biodiversity, ozone depletion, and protection of rainforests. IGCC helped create a UC-systemwide program on global climate change to bring objective scientific and technical expertise to the United Nations climate change negotiations.
• Transboundary environmental issues such as pollution control, water allocation, control of straddling oil fields, wildlife conservation, and restoration of basic agricultural, environmental, and health services after a military conflict.
• International fisheries and the Pacific Commons issues such as overfishing, cooperative management of fish stocks, sharing of scientific information, and prevention of foreign species introduction.
• Issues involving the interplay between environmental/health concerns and trade agreements and the role of these concerns in determining international lending practices.

Current projects focus on coastal water quality management in Southeast Asia, conservation of biological diversity through forest management in Malaysia, illegal harvest and trade in tropical timber, and the effects of atmospheric brown clouds on agriculture in SE Asia.

Innovations in International Cooperation

Since its inception, IGCC and its partners have been committed to conflict resolution through international cooperation. By supporting research from a multi-disciplinary platform, IGCC has been on the frontline of innovative approaches to international problem solving. This includes research programs designed to examine how emerging communications technologies and the Internet have affected global and regional governance and cooperation systems.

International Dimensions of Domestic Conflict

IGCC's work on the international implications of nuclear proliferation and ethnic conflict has focused attention on concrete aspects of the interrelationships between domestic and foreign policies. Particularly fruitful in cases with high potential for international repercussions are its investigations of effective regulatory policies for managing international refugee and labor migration, and assessments of global economic restructuring impacts on internal institutional reforms.

Ethnic conflict, traditionally regarded as a domestic problem, rapidly became a serious international security issue in the aftermath of the Cold War. As a bipolar world devolved into a multi-polar one, five particular regions displayed heightened ethnic schisms and transnational conflicts: Eastern Europe, Africa, the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, and South Asia. IGCC's research program examines the impact of global development on domestic security, the potential for inter-ethnic violence to spread across national boundaries, and mechanisms for promoting lasting resolutions to civil wars.

Regional Relations

After the end of the Cold War, international politics became more regionalized: conflict and cooperation still engage major powers, but regions must be treated on their own terms. To remedy the ad hoc nature of most regional analysis and to strengthen its own projects, IGCC initiated "Reconceptualizing Regional Relations." The project, directed by Profs. David Lake (IGCC) and Patrick Morgan (UC Irvine), published its results in Regional Orders: Building Security in a New World (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997). This work complements and advances IGCC's research agenda on the Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa.

International Political Economy

In the context of regional relations, IGCC conducts and supports work on regional economic relations, including regional integration in the Asia-Pacific and Latin America and economic management of environmental, security, and governance issues.