Belfer Center Book Reception

About

Please join Graham Allison and the Belfer Center
in celebrating our most recent books!

The reception is in honor of:

Philip Auerswald, Lewis M. Branscomb, Todd M. LaPorte, and Erwann Michel-Kerjan, eds.,
Seeds of Disaster, Roots of Response:  How Private Action Can Reduce Public Vulnerability

In modern, industrial societies, electric power, gas, telecommunications, and other critical infrastructure offer more than convenience.  They are lifelines to millions.  Yet the complexity and interdependence of such infrastructures makes them vulnerable to both natural disasters and deliberate attack.  Seeds of Disaster, Roots of Response details the economic, organizational, and institutional factors that drive the creation, maintenance, and evolution of critical infrastructures.  The book describes fundamental trade-offs between private efficiency and public vulnerability in an open society; highlights important contributions of organizational theorists in understanding reliability and resiliency in large technical systems; and conveys fundamental insights regarding factors that constrain the quantification of risk from extreme events and their implications for policy formulation.  It offers insights on how institutions can be strengthened and private incentives modified so that private decision reduce, rather than intensify, public vulnerability.

Matthew Bunn and Anthony Wier,
Securing the Bomb 2006

The latest publication in this series on securing the bomb finds that even though the gap between the threat of nuclear terrorism and the response has narrowed in recent years, there remains an unacceptable danger that terrorists might succeed in their quest to get and use a nuclear bomb, turning a modern city into a smoking ruin. Immediate action is needed to forestall this danger.  Fortunately, a nuclear bomb cannot be made without nuclear material, and making such material is beyond the reach of terrorists. Hence, if all of the existing stockpiles can be effectively guarded, nuclear weapons terrorism can be prevented: no material, no bomb.  Offering concrete steps to confront this issue, the report calls for world leaders to launch a fast-paced global coalition against nuclear terrorism focused on locking down all stockpiles of nuclear weapons and weapons-usable nuclear materials worldwide as rapidly as possible. 

Kelly Sims Gallagher,
China Shifts Gears:  Automakers, Oil, Pollution, And Development

Chinese production of automobiles rose from 42,000 cars per year in 1990 to 2.3 million in 2004; the number of passenger vehicles on the road doubled every two-and-a-half years through the 1990s and continues to grow.  In China Shifts Gears, Kelly Sims Gallagher identifies an unprecedented opportunity for China to "shift gears" and avoid the usual problems associated with the automobile industry--including urban air pollution caused by tailpipe emissions, greenhouse gas emissions, and high dependence on oil imports--while spurring economic development.  This transformation will only take place if the Chinese government plays a leadership role in building domestic technological capacity and pushing foreign automakers to transfer cleaner and more energy-efficient technologies to China.  Drawing from case studies, Gallagher explores the larger issues of the environmental and economic effects of technology transfer in the automotive industry and the policy implications of "leapfrogging" to more advanced technology.

Ronald B. Mitchell, William C. Clark, David W. Cash, and Nancy M. Dickson, eds.,
Global Environmental Assessments:  Information and Influence

Knowledge about environmental problems has expanded rapidly in recent decades, as have the number and variety of processes for making large-scale scientific assessments of those problems and their possible solutions.  Yet too often scientific information has not been transformed into effective and appropriate policies to protect the global environment.  In this book, scholars use a comparative analytic framework and supporting case studies to look at how global environmental assessments influence political and economic decisionmakers.  They find that global environmental assessments are more likely to be influential if the process is perceived not only as scientifically credible but also as salient to policy concerns and as generated through legitimate means.  The book's case studies show that although the content of the asessment clearly matters, its influence is often determined more by the process that generated it and by external factors affecting the receptiveness of different audiences. 

Brenda Shaffer, ed.,
The Limits of Culture:  Islam and Foreign Policy

In recent years, analysts of world affairs have suggested that cultural interests--ethnicity, religion, and ideology--play a primary role in patterns of conflict and alliances, and that in the future the "clash of civilizations" will dominate international relations.  The Limits of Culture explores the effect of culture on foreign policy, focusing on countries in the geopolitically important Caspian region and paying particular attention to those states that have identified themselves as Islamic republics:  Iran, Taliban Afghanistan, and Pakistan.  This book finds that, contrary to the popular view, culture is rarely more important than other factors in shaping the foreign policies of the countries in this region.  Cultural identities, the authors conclude, are flexible enough to enable states to pursue a wide range of policies that are consistent with their material interests.  The emerging foreign policies of the Caspian states present a significant challenge to the culturalist argument.