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Abstract:

Scholars have long argued that transparency makes international rule violations more visible and improves outcomes. Secrets in Global Governance revises this claim to show how equipping international organizations (IOs) with secrecy can be a critical tool for eliciting sensitive information and increasing cooperation. States are often deterred from disclosing information about violations of international rules by concerns of revealing commercially sensitive economic information or the sources and methods used to collect intelligence. IOs equipped with effective confidentiality systems can analyze and act on sensitive information while preventing its wide release. Carnegie and Carson use statistical analyses of new data, elite interviews, and archival research to test this argument in domains across international relations, including nuclear proliferation, international trade, justice for war crimes, and foreign direct investment. Secrets in Global Governance brings a groundbreaking new perspective to the literature of international relations.

Bios:

Allison Carnegie is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Columbia University. Prior to joining Columbia, she was a fellow at the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University. Her research interests include international relations, political economy, and quantitative methods. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, Political Analysis, and the Election Law Journal, among other outlets. She has been awarded the Bradley, Falk, Ethel Boies Morgan, Kaufman, and Yale University Dissertation Fellowships. She earned a joint Ph.D. in Political Science and Economics with distinction from Yale University in 2014.

Austin Carson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. His main research focus is the politics of secrecy in International Relations. His first book, Secret Wars: Covert Conflict in International Politics (Princeton UP 2018), analyzes puzzling secrecy patterns that arise when outside powers intervene in foreign wars. The book develops a theory based on conflict escalation dynamics, showing that states use covert intervention and conceal others’ covert activity to keep war limited. An article analyzing the secret side of the Korean War was published in International Organization. His second book project, in collaboration with Allison Carnegie (Columbia), analyzes the role of intelligence and other forms of sensitive information in international organizations. His other research addresses the signaling value of covert action, secrecy’s role in insulating international regimes from damaging rule violations, and dynamics of limited war. Carson received his PhD from Ohio State, his BA from Michigan State, and has held research fellowships at Princeton University’s Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance and George Washington University’s Institute for Security and Conflict Studies.

Keren Yarhi-Milo is the Director of the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies and the Arnold A. Saltzman Professor of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. Her research and teaching focus on international relations and foreign policy, with a particular specialization in international security, including foreign policy decision-making, interstate communication and crisis bargaining, intelligence, and US foreign policy in the Middle East. Yarhi-Milo’s first book (Princeton University Press, 2014) titled, Knowing The Adversary: Leaders, Intelligence Organizations, and Assessments of Intentions in International Relations, received the 2016 Furniss Award for best book in the field of international security. Also, it is Co-Winner of the 2016 DPLST Book Prize, Diplomatic Studies Section of the International Studies Association. This book explores how and why civilian leaders and intelligence organizations select and interpret an adversary’s signals of intentions differently. Her latest book, titled Who Fights for Reputation? The Psychology of Leaders in International Conflict came out with Princeton University Press (2018) and received the 2019 Best Book Award on Foreign Policy from the American Political Science Association. Yarhi-Milo’s articles have been published or are forthcoming in International Studies Quarterly, International Organization, International Security, British Journal of Political Science, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Foreign Affairs, and Security Studies. Before joining the faculty at Columbia University, she was an Associate Professor (with tenure) of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University’s Politics Department and the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs. She was previously a post-doc fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and a pre-doc fellow at the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. Yarhi-Milo has worked at the Mission of Israel to the United Nations, as well as served in the Israeli Defense Forces, Intelligence Branch. Her dissertation received the Kenneth Waltz Award for the best dissertation in the field of International Security and Arms Control in 2010. She also has received awards for the study of Political Science from the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Arthur Ross Foundation, and the Abram Morris Foundation. She holds a Ph.D. and a Master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.A., summa cum laude, in Political Science from Columbia University.