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Prof. Etel Solingen
University of California, Irvine
January 11, 2008
Jointly presented by the University of Washington International Security Colloquium (UWISC), UW Institute for National Security Education and Research (UW INSER),Marc Lindenberg Center for Humanitarian Action, International Development and Global Citizenship (MLC), Henry M. Jackson Foundation, Center of Global Studies at the Jackson School of International Studies, and the Department of Political Science.
Presenter
Etel Solingen is Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Solingen serves as Chair of the Steering Committee of the University of California's systemwide Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC). She was Vice-President of the International Studies Association (2002–2003). Prof. Solingen is also the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships.
Solingen is interested in the connections between international political economy and international security, internationalization, institutional theory, regional and international security regimes, democratization, and the comparative political economy of science and technology. She is also the author of Regional Orders at Century's Dawn: Global and Domestic Influences on Grand Strategy (Princeton University Press 1998) and Industrial Policy, Technology, and International Bargaining: Nuclear Industries in Argentina and Brazil (Stanford University Press 1996). Her articles have appeared in International Security, International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, Comparative Politics, Journal of Peace Research, Review of International Studies, Journal of Theoretical Politics, Global Governance, and Journal of Democracy, among others.
Theme
Solingen’s talk was based on her most recent book: Nuclear Logics: Alternate Paths in East Asia and the Middle East, published by Princeton University Press (2007), in which she examines why some states seek nuclear weapons while others renounce them. Looking closely at nine cases in East Asia and the Middle East, Solingen finds two distinct regional patterns. In East Asia, the norm since the late 1960s has been to forswear nuclear weapons, and North Korea, which makes no secret of its nuclear ambitions, is the anomaly. In the Middle East, the opposite is the case, with Iran, Iraq, Israel, and Libya suspected of pursuing nuclear-weapons capabilities, with Egypt as the anomaly in recent decades.
Audience
The audience consisted of approximately 30 people. Audience members came from multiple academic units across campus including the Departments of Sociology and Political Science, the Jackson School of International Studies, and the Evans School of Public Affairs. Faculty, graduate students and undergraduate students were all represented.
Implications for National Security
At a time in which the international community works together to curb proliferation of nuclear weapons, it is of critical importance to understand the underlying reasons for why some states seek nuclear weapons while others, who possess the required technology, does not. Professor Solingen’s book improves our understanding of the mechanisms that can account for these variations.
Report by Stephan Hamberg
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