Samuel Evans says no in perhaps the most discouraging title ever for a professional talk: “Wassenaar Arrangement: Unsexiest of International Regimes.”
Evans, a Visiting Researcher at Georgetown’s Center for Peace and Security Studies and a doctoral candidate at Oxford says that Wassenaar isn’t “sexy” despite being a rather, um, “fertile” area of inquiry:
Current day discussions on the topics of arms control and non-proliferation revolve almost entirely around the issues of small arms and light weapons or weapons of mass destruction. While significant, these ‘sexy’ issues are not the only part of current efforts to control the spread and use of sensitive technology. This talk will focus on the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Control for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies. The Wassenaar Arrangement, one of four international regimes concerning export controls, provides a fertile ground for academic research that both pushes the bounds of current theories in many disciplines, and is practically relevant and sought after by practitioners. Samuel Evans will lay out the case for the need for more research and policy engagement in this area by describing his current efforts on producing the first thesis to substantially address the rhetorics and routines involved in this ‘unsexiest’ of international regimes. [Emphasis mine.]
At McCarthy Hall on April 11th at noon. Bring your own handiwipes.
Sounds like a desperate attempt by a grad student to sell a dissertation that only ten other people will read.
My apologies to all PhD students …
I’ve spoken with Mr. Evans before and have found him to be engaging and thoughtful about Wassenaar Arrangement issues. So I’ll be there sans handiwipes.