About
The University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC) addresses global challenges to peace and prosperity through academically rigorous, policy-relevant research, training, and outreach on international security, economic development, and the environment. IGCC brings scholars together across social science and lab science disciplines to work on topics such as regional security, nuclear proliferation, innovation and national security, development and political violence, emerging threats, and climate change.
Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation
Newsletters (26)
Newsletter Spring 1998
The following is an issue of IGCC's periodic Newsletter, detailing IGCC affairs and IGCC funded research initiatives.
Newsletter Spring 1996
The following is an issue of IGCC's periodic Newsletter, detailing IGCC affairs and IGCC funded research initiatives.
Old Archived Documents (20)
What do we do with Nuclear Weapons Now?
Written in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union, the document contains discussion about possible future trajectories for cooperation over Nuclear weapons. Seeing neither the grounds for continued competition nor immediate cooperation, the authors prescribe a path of cautious engagement in cooperative measures to diminish any nuclear threat.
Policy Briefs (44)
Policy Brief 14: Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
A ceasefire in the border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea is only the beginning of the process of conflictresolution that must occur for peaceto take hold. The possibility ofthe conflict erupting into violenceagain is high unless serious internaland international effort is put into thedemarcation of the border and theacceptance of that demarcated borderas fair.The United States need to build strong relations with Ethiopia as well as encourage peace and economic development.
Policy Brief 02: "Ethnic" Conflict Isn't
“Ethnic” and “sectarian” conflicts are not caused by ethnicity or religion. To avoid future episodes we need early warning systems and intervention in societies undergoing rapid and destabilizing economic and political transitions.
Japanese Bureaucratic Transparency
This brief examines the issue of transparency during and after the period of political dominance by the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan (LDP) which ruled with only a brief nine-month interruption from 1955–2009. It highlights two related but analytically separate dimensions of governmental transparency—transparency in decision-making processes and transparency in official policies. The first concentrates on the public visibility of how agencies decide on matters under their jurisdiction; the second focuses on how visible actual government policies are to those most affected by them and to the general citizenry. I argue that Japanese agencies have been far more open on policy content than on the processes by which those decisions were reached. In addition, this brief examines recent changes designed to foster greater transparency in both process and policy, including a Freedom of Information Act, e-government provisions, enhanced roles for parliamentary inquiry, a greater role for nongovernmental organizations, and other measures. It also highlights the broad shifts in government attitudes toward transparency under the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which has governed since 2009.
Policy Papers (55)
Policy Paper 09: Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue II Conference Papers
These papers were prepared as background papers for the May 1994 meeting of hte NEACD in Tokyo. They neither represent a consensus of the participants nor a summary of any part of the discussions at any of the meetings. They are presented here in the hopes that other readers outside of the NEACD prcess will find them to be as useful and thought-provoling as did the hosts and participants.
Research Papers (2)
Arms Control: Problems and Prospects
An examination of the viability and usefulness of arms control in the late 1980s, the paper looks at the prospects of arms controls to maintain peace and the dangers inherent to such agreements. The authors then provide a series of suggestions to improve the procedures surrounding arms control implementation and management.
SITC Research Briefs (142)
Long-Term Strategic Competition Between the United States and China in Military Aviation
Given bilateral tensions and the importance of airpower to national defense, has long-term strategiccompetition between the United States and China in the military aviation sector emerged? This brief evaluates US and Chinese military aviation through three factors that shed light on the degree and nature of strategic competition: resource allocations, targeted platform development, and airpower employment concepts. While China has been competing with the United States for decades, China has only recently begun to drive US decisions. Cost-imposing strategies may not favor the United States, so innovation and technological developments in military aviation should focus on how to thwart China’s ability to achieve its military objectives.
A Quest for Autonomy and Excellence: The Defense Innovation Systems of France and Sweden
The defense innovation systems (DIS) in France and Sweden have longstanding traditions of domestic innovation and high self-reliance, but they differ greatly in how they have achieved these ambitions. France has almost complete self-reliance in defense technology and close government control of activities contributing to defense innovation and regarding the defense industry. In France, there is considerable state ownership, and foreign ownership is blocked. In contrast, Sweden has delimited its breadth of sovereign technology development since the 1990s, and now expresses three "essential security interests": fighter aircraft, underwater capability, and cyber. This research brief describes what characterizes the present defense innovation systems in these countries, discusses their similarities and differences, and points out factors that have led to their success.
Other Recent Work (13)
A Quest for Autonomy and Excellence: The Defense Innovation Systems of France and Sweden
The defense innovation systems (DIS) in France and Sweden have longstanding traditions of domestic innovation and high self-reliance, but they differ greatly in how they have achieved these ambitions. France has almost complete self-reliance in defense technology and close government control of activities contributing to defense innovation and regarding the defense industry. In France, there is considerable state ownership, and foreign ownership is blocked. In contrast, Sweden has delimited its breadth of sovereign technology development since the 1990s, and now expresses three "essential security interests": fighter aircraft, underwater capability, and cyber. This research brief describes what characterizes the present defense innovation systems in these countries, discusses their similarities and differences, and points out factors that have led to their success.
Critical Factors in Enabling Defense Innovation: A Systems Perspective
This brief provides an analytical framework to identify, categorize, and assess the diverse array of factors that are involved in the pursuit of defense innovation, as viewed through an innovation ecosystem prism. Defense innovation systems are engaged in highly complex, time-consuming and resource-intensive work. Many of the insights from this framework are derived from an extensive examination into the state of innovation in the contemporary Chinese defense science, technology, andindustrial system, examined in more detail in Brief 2018-3 in this series.
North Korea’s Approach to Defense Innovation: Foreign Absorption, Domestic Innovation, and the Nuclear and Ballistic Weapons Industrial Base
The international community has consistently underestimated North Korean nuclear and missile capabilities. How has an economically impoverished, technologically backward, and internationally isolated state been able to establish robust and increasingly competent nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, especially since the mid-2010s? Has North Korea predominantly relied on foreign sources of technology or are its nuclear and missile programs the result of domestic effort? Even when technologies have been borrowed, a detailed analysis of the evolution of the programs suggests sustained domestic investment has proven crucial. The result is a far-flung and large weapons of mass destruction (WMD) infrastructure. Any negotiations over the program must take the extent of this infrastructure into account and consider the challenges of how to inspect, verify, and limit them, including through repurposing these capabilities to civilian uses.
Conference Proceedings (19)
Proceedings of the Conference on Space Monitoring of Global Change
Taken from the content of the October 1992 meeting on Space Monitoring and Global Change, the contents of this IGCC paper range from means of assuring global cooperation in earth observation, potential systems and the practical difficulties of assembling and managing such systems.
Historical Perspectives on Global Conflict and Cooperation
On February 5-7, 1987, the University of California's Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation sponsored a conference on "Historical Perspectives on Global Conflict and Cooperation." The aim of the conference was two-fold: to identify promising new areas for historical scholarship in the field of global conflict and cooperation, and to generate new ideas for specific research proposals that University of California historians might later present to IGCC for funding.
Cognitive-Linguistic-Organizational Aspects of Field Research in International Relations. Working Paper No. 5, First Annual Conference on Discourse, Peace, Security and International Society
If we need a new language of national and international politics in order to think differently so as to cope with the dangers of a nuclear world, we also need a new language of policy analysis to examine the structures and processes by which defense policy in general, and nuclear policy in particular, is made. What is needed, as a start, is a new lexicon of basic terms derived from language and discourse but applied to the policy process. We might then begin to develop this new vocabulary into an effective critique of defense decision making in the modern or indeed, the post-modern state.
Conflict Case Studies (9)
Introduction to Conflict Case Studies
This series, Holding These Truths: Empowerment and Recognition in Action, presents case studies for a future conflict resolution textbook. It has been successfully piloted with several international classes. Those, who benefit most, stress the importance of carefully studying this introduction. Because the case study format is intentionally unique, written in an interactive and non-linear workbook style, unlike many introductions, the information provided here is required for understanding the case studies. Readers are encouraged to send comments and critiques directly to the author. Because of the deliberate one-of-a-kind format of the text, detailed page-by-page comments and questions are welcome. A list of the entire series is included below.
Introduction to Conflict Case Studies
Case Study #1: Neutral Fact-Finding and Empowerment Within Conflicted Systems
Case Study #2: Intrapersonal Approaches to Conflict: Cognitive and Perceptual Biases
Case Study #3: Negative Intergroup Influence
Case Study #4: Empathy: Effective Response with Escalating Aggression
Case Study #5: Assessing Covert Bad Faith and Power Abuse
Case Study #6: Cultural Competence: Ethical and Empowered Response With Discrimination
Case Study #7: Empowered Process---Skilled Leadership: Diffusion, Party Capacity and Speaking Truth to Power
Case Series #8: Empowered Process: Multicultural Collaboration
Case Study #8: Empowered Process: Multicultural Collaboration
This is the eighth case study in the series Holding These Truths: Empowerment and Recognition in Action. This series presents case studies for a future conflict resolution textbook. It has been successfully piloted with several international classes. Those, who benefit most, stress the importance of carefully studying the introduction. (See Introduction to Conflict Case Studies, Nancy D. Erbe). Because the case study format is intentionally unique, written in an interactive and non-linear workbook style, unlike many introductions, the information provided there is required for understanding the case studies. Readers are encouraged to send comments and critiques directly to the author. Because of the deliberate one-of-a-kind format of the text, detailed page-by-page comments and questions are welcome. A list of the entire series is included below.
Introduction to Conflict Case Studies
Case Study #1: Neutral Fact-Finding and Empowerment Within Conflicted Systems
Case Study #2: Intrapersonal Approaches to Conflict: Cognitive and Perceptual Biases
Case Study #3: Negative Intergroup Influence
Case Study #4: Empathy: Effective Response with Escalating Aggression
Case Study #5: Assessing Covert Bad Faith and Power Abuse
Case Study #6: Cultural Competence: Ethical and Empowered Response With Discrimination
Case Study #7: Empowered Process---Skilled Leadership: Diffusion, Party Capacity and Speaking Truth to Power
Case Series #8: Empowered Process: Multicultural Collaboration
Case Study #5: Assessing Covert Bad Faith & Power Abuse
This is the fifth case study in the series Holding These Truths: Empowerment and Recognition in Action. This series presents case studies for a future conflict resolution textbook. It has been successfully piloted with several international classes. Those, who benefit most, stress the importance of carefully studying the introduction. (See Introduction to Conflict Case Studies, Nancy D. Erbe). Because the case study format is intentionally unique, written in an interactive and non-linear workbook style, unlike many introductions, the information provided there is required for understanding the case studies. Readers are encouraged to send comments and critiques directly to the author. Because of the deliberate one-of-a-kind format of the text, detailed page-by-page comments and questions are welcome. A list of the entire series is included below.
Introduction to Conflict Case Studies
Case Study #1: Neutral Fact-Finding and Empowerment Within Conflicted Systems
Case Study #2: Intrapersonal Approaches to Conflict: Cognitive and Perceptual Biases
Case Study #3: Negative Intergroup Influence
Case Study #4: Empathy: Effective Response with Escalating Aggression
Case Study #5: Assessing Covert Bad Faith and Power Abuse
Case Study #6: Cultural Competence: Ethical and Empowered Response With Discrimination
Case Study #7: Empowered Process---Skilled Leadership: Diffusion, Party Capacity and Speaking Truth to Power
Case Series #8: Empowered Process: Multicultural Collaboration