Miles Kahler
Rohr Professor of Pacific International Relations
mkahler@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 534-3078
Fax: (858) 534-3939
Office Hours Notes:
On Leave 2007-08, Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093-0519
Office #1417
irpshome.ucsd.edu/faculty
/mkahler/
Education
Ph.D., Department of Government, Harvard University, 1977
(international relations and comparative politics in Western Europe)
B.Phil., Nuffield College, Oxford University, 1973
(international relations)
A.B., Harvard University, 1971
(summa cum laude, social studies)
Biography
CV
Kahler is Rohr Professor of Pacific International Relations at IR/PS and Professor of Political Science at UC San Diego. From 2001 to 2005, he served as interim director and founding director of the Institute for International, Comparative, and Area Studies (IICAS) at UC San Diego.
Recent publications include Territoriality and Conflict in an Era of Globalization (co-edited with Barbara Walter, Cambridge University Press, 2006), Governance in a Global Economy (co-edited with David Lake, Princeton University Press, 2003), and Leadership Selection in the Major Multilaterals (Institute for International Economics, 2001). Current research interests include international institutions and global governance, the evolution of the nation-state, multilateral strategies toward failed states, and the political economy of international finance. He directs the research project on Rebuilding Political Authority in States at Risk at UC San Diego, supported by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Kahler was Senior Fellow in International Political Economy at the Council on Foreign Relations from 1994 to 1996. He is a member of the editorial board of International Organization.
Programs and Centers
Interim and Founding Director, Institute for International, Comparative, and Area Studies (IICAS), 2001-2005
Perspectives
"Globalization has not had the drastic effects on governance that some of its supporters and opponents have claimed. Although national governments must adapt in the face of international economic integration, they remain central to effective global governance."
Expertise
Kahler is an expert in the international relations of the Pacific region; global and regional economic integration and its consequences for domestic politics; international institutions, particularly the International Monetary Fund and other international and regional economic institutions; and the politics of international monetary, financial and trade relations.
Current Projects
Networked Politics: a research project of UC San Diego's IICAS,
the Munk Centre at the University of Toronto, and the University of Cambridge
Rebuilding Political Authority in States at Risk: International Strategies and the Role of NGOs (Principal investigator, funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York)
Research Interests
Current research interests include international institutions and global governance, the evolution of the nation-state, multilateral strategies toward failed states, and the political economy of international finance. Kahler directs the research project on Rebuilding Political Authority in States at Risk at UC San Diego, supported by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Recent Papers, Projects, and Publications (by Subject)
Networked Politics: Agency, Power, and Governance in Networked Politics: Agency, Power, and Governance, (Cornell: Cornell University Press, forthcoming). This volume is the product of a research project on Networked Politics sponsored by the Institute for International, Comparative, and Area Studies (IICAS), University of California, San Diego; the Centre of International Studies, University of Cambridge; and the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto. The project was supported with funding from the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC), University of California.
Collective Action and Clandestine Networks: The Case of Al Qaeda. Contribution to Miles Kahler, editor, Networked Politics: Agency, Power, and Governance (forthcoming). Revised version of the paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia PA, 1 September 2006.
Aid and State Building, Paper presented at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association. Research for this paper was supported by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York as part of the research project on Rebuilding Authority in States at Risk: International Strategies and the Role of NGOs.
Statebuilding After Afghanistan and Iraq. Contribution to Roland Paris and Timothy D. Sisk, Statebuilding after Civil War: The Long Road to Peace. (forthcoming Routledge, 2008).
Networks and Failed States: September 11 and The Long Twentieth Century, Revised version of a paper prepared for the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, 29 August-1 September 2002, Boston, MA
"The State of the State in World Politics," in Ira Katznelson and Helen Milner, editors, Political Science: The State of the Discipline (New York: W. W. Norton, 2002).
"Evolution, Choice, and International Change," in David A. Lake and Robert Powell, editors, Strategic Choice and International Relations, (Princeton University Press, 1999).
Back to Top
Territoriality and Conflict in an Era of Globalization in Miles Kahler and Barbara Walter, editors, Territoriality and Conflict in an Era of Globalization (Cambridge University Press, 2006). This volume is the product of a research project on Globalization, Territoriality, and Conflict at the UCSD Institute for International, Comparative, and Area Studies (IICAS), funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Governance in a Global Economy: Political Authority in Transition (co-editor, David A. Lake) (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003) includes:
- "Globalization and Governance: Definition, Variation,
and Explanation"
(with David A. Lake)
- "Globalization and Changing Patterns of Political Authority"
(with David A. Lake)
Modeling Races To The Bottom
Information Networks and Global Politics, in Christoph Engel and Kenneth H. Keller, editors, Understanding the Impact of Global Networks on Local Social, Political, and Cultural Values, (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2000).
Back to Top
Economic Integration and Global Governance: Why So Little Supranationalism? Co-author: David Lake. Contribution to Walter Mattli and Ngaire Woods, editors, Explaining Regulatory Change in the Global Economy.
Internal Governance and IMF Performance, in Edwin M. Truman, editor, Reforming the IMF for the 21st Century (Institute for International Economics, 2006).
Global Governance Redefined. Paper presented at The Conference on Globalization, the State, and Society, Washington University School of Law, St. Louis, 13-14 November 2003, (Revised October 2004)
Defining Accountability Up: The Global Economic Multilaterals Government and Opposition Vol. 39 No. 2, (Spring 2004) pp. 132-158
Leadership Selection in the Major Multilaterals (Washington, D. C.: Institute for International Economics, 2001).
Legalization and World Politics, edited by Judith Goldstein, Miles Kahler, Robert O. Keohane, and Anne Marie Slaughter. Contains:
-- "Legalization as Strategy: The Asia-Pacific Case" The final revised version of this paper is published in International Organization, Volume 54, Number 3, Summer 2000, pp. 549-571.
-- "Conclusion: The Causes and Consequences of Legalization" The final revised version of this paper is published in International Organization, Volume 54, Number 3, Summer 2000, pp. 661-683.
Back to Top
"Institutional Choice in International Monetary Affairs: Bretton Woods and Its Competitors" Contribution to David Andrews, Randall Henning, and Louis Pauly, editors, Governing the World's Money: A Festschrift in Honor of Benjamin J. Cohen, (Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 2002)
Private Capital, Central Banks, and International Monetary Governance. Paper prepared for the Political Economy of International Finance Research Group meeting, Cambridge MA, 27 October 2000.
"The New International Financial Architecture and Its Limits" Revised version published in Gregory W. Noble and John Ravenhill, editors, The Asian Financial Crisis and the Architecture of Global Finance, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
Capital Flows and Financial Crises, edited by Miles Kahler (Cornell University Press, 1998).
Back to Top
Strategic Uses of Economic Interdependence: Engagement Policies on the Korean Peninsula and Across the Taiwan Strait, Co-author: Scott Kastner. Journal of Peace Research, 43, 5 (September), 2006, pp. 523-541.
Economic Security in an Era of Globalization: Definition and Provision, The Pacific Review, 17, 4 (2004), pp. 485-502; reprinted in Helen E.S. Nesadurai, editor, Globalisation and Economic Security in East Asia: Governance and Institutions (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 23-39.
Back to Top
We Are All Europeans Now: U.S. Politics and Transatlantic Relations, in David Andrews, editor The Alliance Under Stress: The Atlantic Partnership After Iraq, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming)
Back to Top
International Relations of the Pacific
Winter 2007
Course Description:
Few regions in the world present as many problems of definition as the Pacific. Whether it is a region at all is the subject of debate. Its combination of conventional diplomacy and military rivalries on the one hand and economic dynamism and integration on the other differs from regional trajectories in other parts of the world. Despite its high level of economic integration, the region's institution building has been incremental and shows few signs of accelerating. Growing democratization has not erased wide variation in political regimes across the region.
The course will investigate five questions:
(1) Which elements of the region’s historical legacy continue to influence its contemporary international relations?
(2) Why have Cold War alliances and conflicts persisted in the region?
(3) What is the balance sheet of success and failure for the region’s existing institutional architecture?
(4) Are existing mechanisms for collaboration adequate for emerging transnational issues, such as environmental protection, migration, and terrorism?
(5) What domestic and international trends will determine future international relations in the region?
International relations theory will be deployed to answer these questions. Throughout the course, the Pacific will be compared with other regions, particularly Latin America and Europe.
Syllabus available here.
Research resources available here.
International Political Economy: Money and Finance
Spring 2007
Course Description:
The course explores several central political dimensions of international monetary and financial relations:
(a) effects of cross-border financial transactions--public and private--on policy choices of governments and their policy autonomy
(b) government efforts, individually and collectively, to regulate internationalized financial sectors
(c) causes of international financial crises and the politics of managing those crises
(d) collaboration among governments to establish regional and global monetary orders
After a brief review of the politics of monetary and financial systems before 1945, the course will concentrate on explaining developments in recent decades. During that period, international monetary collaboration has been informal and sporadic; international regulatory cooperation and competition have increased in an era of financial integration; and capital flows to developing countries have been interrupted by periodic crises. Debates over a new international financial architecture continue.
Syllabus available here.
International Relations Theory
Winter 2007
Course Description:
This course is designed for Ph.D. students. It assumes some familiarity with major concepts in political science. It explores major concepts in the study of international relations and key research approaches in the field.
Syllabus available here.
International Strategies Toward Fragile States
Spring 2007
Course Description:
Internal conflict and weak governance have produced increased levels of international intervention in fragile states (a controversial and poorly defined category) by international institutions, the aid agencies of national governments, and non-governmental organizations. The course will explain and evaluate the strategies of international actors toward fragile states and the response by domestic actors within those states.
Syllabus available here.
