Research


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 decisionmakers.

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.

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.

Past Programs

Innovations in International Cooperation

International Dimensions of Domestic Conflict

International Political Economy

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