I am currently in the thick of writing up my thesis, to be handed in on 19 June 2009. Please feel free to contact me, but it may be a few days before I am able to respond.
Writing Up
Feb 9
Heading to Harvard
Apr 14
In the Autumn of 2009, I will take up a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Harvard University. The post is divided between the Kennedy School of Government (and in particular the Science, Technology, & Society unit) and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). My job will involve building links between the two schools, helping to design an undergraduate major in Technology & Society, publishing at least one journal article, and preparing my thesis for publication as a book. I will be working closely with Sheila Jasanoff, Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies, and Venky Narayanamurti, former Dean of SEAS, and now Director of Science, Technology and Public Policy Program at Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School.
For a more personal take on this transition, please see my Journal entry.
Next week may prove to be a precipitous moment in the life of the Wassenaar Arrangement. Brinley Salzmann has organised a two-day conference in Paris called “Export and Security Controls in the Globalised Marketplace of the 21st Century“. The morning of the first day is given over completely to Wassenaar, with talks by Ambassador Sune Danielsson (Head of the Wassenaar Secretariat), Barry Fletcher, Anne-Charlotte Merrell Wetterwik, and members of the US, Australian, and Chinese governments.
With the series of GAO reports stacking up, and much work by the Center for International Trade and Security on how to improve the international export control scene, perhaps this may be a watershed conference, where past disputes can be put behind us and the groundwork laid for serious consideration of how to modify the shape of export controls to adequately address the needs of a diverse international community in the 21st Century.
There will be no report from this meeting, in order to allow more candid discussion among the participants. I will not, unfortunately, be attending, as I am focusing all my effort on finishing my thesis at the moment. Anyone who does attend and wishes to say something is welcome to comment on this post.
California trip
Aug 29
I recently got back from a trip to California, where I met a few people at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Clara’s Center for Science, Technology, and Society, and gave a talk at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, part of the Monterey Institute for International Studies.
The talk, I think, went quite well. I outlined how the Wassenaar Arrangement, and export controls generally, are based on three assumptions:
- That it is possible to know from whom one wishes to keep technology;
- That it is possible to actually control the export of technology;
- That it is possible to define what the technology is one wishes to control.
My research focuses primarily on the last of these assumptions, and in the talk I gave a few examples of how it can be difficult to decide on a definition of a ‘dual-use’ technology when changing the Dual-Use List of the Wassenaar Arrangement. The three basic views on how to define the text of the Dual-Use List can be crudely labelled as security, bureaucractic, and economic. The security discourse will generally want to broaden the current categorisation to incorporate the technology, say by taking away a de-control note (which remove controls for items with specific parameters or uses) or by removing a parameter (instead of controlling “aerial quantum cryptography”, just control “quantum cryptography”) . The bureaucractic discourse will want to refine the List, preferably by making a new entry or sub-entry for the technology; a place for everything and everything in its place. The economic discourse will argue, not surprisingly, for the technology not to be on the List at all, and if it is, for their particular technologies not to be controlled, perhaps by fighting for more parameters – thus more narrowly defining the technology – or else specific decontrols for their uses, such as the Cryptography decontrol Note (Category 5, Part 2, Note 3). Each of these interact in the list-modification process at Wassenaar, often constructively, though not always.
The talk was well attended, and I hope to engage in further dialogue with CNS in the future.
Welcome
Jul 31
Welcome to my research website. This site is wholly dedicated to providing access to my ideas and information about my career. It is in the early stages of development, so check back in a while for more information.
After much hard work, my Confirmation of Status for my DPhil has now been completed. I produced two chapters for my Confirmation: my Literature Review and a history of the Wassenaar Arrangement. If you would like to read these drafts, please let me know, either by commenting below or by using the contact form.
