Science, Technology, and Public Policy

This book explores the sources and dynamics of social opposition to innovation. It:

• Explains the roots of resistance to new technologies - and why such resistance is not always futile
• Draws on nearly 600 years of economic history to show how the balance of winners and losers shapes technological controversies
• Outlines policy strategies for inclusive innovation to reduce the risks and maximize the benefits of new technologies

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The New Harvest argues that Africa can feed itself in a generation and help contribute to global food security despite its history of persistent food shortages and the rising threat of climate change. This new edition provides ideas on how to place agriculture at the center of the continent's long-term economic transformation. It demonstrates how policy coordination can help realize agriculture's full potential as a motherboard for other economic activities.

The full text of The New Harvest is available here.

South Korea's phenomenal rise has been studied extensively by political scientists and economists both in terms of its impact on democratisation and as a role model for economic development. Yet little attention has been devoted to exploring the nexus between economic development and foreign policy. As a rising middle power, analysis of South Korea's foreign policy is crucial to our understanding of the power structure and future relations in East Asia.

Strategy in the Second Nuclear Age assembles a group of distinguished scholars to grapple with the matter of how the United States, its allies, and its friends must size up the strategies, doctrines, and force structures currently taking shape if they are to design responses that reinforce deterrence amid vastly more complex strategic circumstances.

Despite continuing efforts to convince North Korea to relinquish its nuclear capability, it appears increasingly unlikely that it will ever do so. Pyongyang might be willing to curtail or freeze certain parts of the program but the likelihood of North Korean denuclearization is quickly fading. With Pyongyang likely to retain some level of nuclear-weapons capability, analysis turns to an assessment of how these weapons might be integrated into its defense posture. Using deterrence theory as the analytical framework, this chapter examines possible avenues for North Korea's nuclear weapons strategy and doctrine.

As American businesses, inventors, and artists market, sell, and distribute their products worldwide via the Internet, the threat from criminals and criminal organizations who want to profit illegally from their hard work grows. The threat from other nations wanting to jump start their industries without making the intellectual investment is even more disturbing. This fleecing of America must stop. We can no longer afford complacency and silence—we must find and use as many market levers as possible to change the path we are on.

This book is a collection of papers commissioned for the 2011 Aspen Strategy Group workshop, a bipartisan meeting of top national security experts. The papers examine the complexities of the emerging cyber threat, as well as the possibilities and inherent challenges of crafting effective domestic and international cyber policy. Authors explore topics such as the economic impact of cybercrime, cyber as a new dimension of warfare, the revolutionary potential of Internet freedom, and the future realities the United States will face in the new age of heightened Internet connectivity.

Over the past decade, carbon trading has emerged as the industrialized world's primary policy response to global climate change despite considerable controversy. With carbon markets worth $144 billion in 2009, carbon trading represents the largest manifestation of the trend toward market-based environmental governance. In Carbon Coalitions, Jonas Meckling presents the first comprehensive study on the rise of carbon trading and the role business played in making this policy instrument a central pillar of global climate governance.

"Enabling infrastructure (public utilities, public works, transportation, and research facilities) is essential for agricultural development. Infrastructure is defined here as facilities, structures, associated equipment, services, and institutional arrangements that facilitate the flow of agricultural goods, services, and ideas. Infrastructure represents a foundational base for applying technical knowledge in sustainable development and relies heavily on civil engineering. This chapter outlines the importance of providing an enabling infrastructure for agricultural development."

"The use of emerging technology and indigenous knowledge to promote sustainable agriculture will require adjustments in existing institutions. New approaches will need to be adopted to promote close interactions between government, business, farmers, academia, and civil society. The aim of this chapter is to identify novel agricultural innovation systems of relevance to Africa. It will examine the connections between agricultural innovation and wider economic policies. Agriculture is inherently a place-based activity and so the chapter will outline strategies that reflect local needs and characteristics."