Peter F. Cowhey

Expertise

Cowhey is an expert on U.S. foreign policy and technology policy. He has published extensively on comparative foreign policy and international issues involving Asia and the United States. He has also done extensive work on international trade, technology and investment policy. His special expertise is the international communications and information industries. He is a former chief of the International Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and negotiated many of the U.S. international agreements for telecommunications and satellite services. He had responsibility for antitrust decisions involving the communications and satellite industries. He is currently co-leader of the IGCC project on biological threats and public policy, which is funded by the Carnegie Corporation.  And he has served on the boards of leading global non-profits using microfinance and technology innovation programs to alleviate world poverty.

Current Projects

Cowhey is a member of the board of directors of the Grameen Foundation USA, the US foundation supporting the work of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Dr. Muhammad Yunus. Cowhey is a research scholar at the California Institute on Telecommunications and Information Technology (CALIT2) and is a non-resident fellow of the Annenberg Center of Communications at USC. He also consults extensively for the telecommunications and information technology industries. His recent book is Transforming Global Information and Communication Markets: The Political Economy of Innovation, (with J. Aronson and D. Abelson), MIT Press (2009). He is currently working on a book manuscript on American Foreign Economic Policy with M. McCubbins.

In 2009, Peter Cowhey served a 12 month assignment as the Senior Counselor to Ambassador Kirk in the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) under President Barack Obama.

Background Notes

Cowhey is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He has served as chairman of the board of Digital Partners, a non-profit organization using social entrepreneurship to address the "digital divide." In addition to having served on the advisory boards of the United Nations Development Program and the U.S. Agency for International Development, he has advised over fifty countries on reforming their communications markets. Cowhey joined UCSD's faculty in 1976. He was director of the University of California's system-wide IGCC from 1999-2006. Cowhey became Dean of IR/PS in July 2002 and Assocate Vice Chancellor-International Affairs in 2007.

Professional Activities

In addition to his work on communications and technology markets and policies, Cowhey remains active in the foreign policy community. He is a member of the advisory board for the American Assembly's Project on the Next Generation of Foreign Policy Leaders. He is co-director of the Carnegie Corporations's project on Biosecurity and Public Policy at IGCC, serves on the board of directors of the Institute of the Americas and the San Diego World Trade Center, and recently became a Council member of California Council on Science and Technology.

Research Interests

Cowhey is an internationally recognized expert in telecommunications and information policy and markets who also is a leader in building cooperative international arrangements for the management of security and economic issues.

• International political economy (trade and investment policy)
• Regulation and public policy (telecommunications and information policy, theory of regulation, comparative public policy)
• Homeland security
• International corporate strategy
• Comparative foreign policy

Publications of Note

Transforming Global Information and Communication Markets: The Political Economy of Innovation, (with J. Aronson and D. Abelson), MIT Press (2009).

When Countries Talk:  Global Telecommunication for the 1990s, (with J. Aronson), a book for the international trade project of the American Enterprise Institute (Ballinger, 1988).

The Problems of Plenty:  Energy Policy and International Politics, University of California Press (1984).  

Structure and Policy in Japan and the United States: An Institutionalist Approach, (co-edited with Mathew McCubbins) Cambridge University Press (1995) (reprinted in 1997).

Recent Publications

“Network Theory and Internet Governance,” in Miles Kahler (ed.), Networked Politics (Cornell University Press, 2009) (with Milton Mueller)

“Political Economy and Technological Architectures: The Political Economy of the U.S. Information and Communication Technology Infrastructure,”  November 2008, Journal of Policy Research (with J. Aronson and J. Richards)

“The Peculiar Evolution of 3G Wireless Networks: Institutional Logic, Politics, and Property Rights” in William Drake and Ernst Wilson (eds.), Governing Global Electronic Networks (Social Science Research Council and MIT Press, 2009) (with J. Aronson and J. Richards)

“Access and Innovation Policy for the Third-Generation Internet,” Telecommunications Policy, 24 (July/August 2000)  (with  F. Bar, S. Cohen, B. de Long, M. Kleeman, and J. Zysman).

 “Property Rights and the Institutional Foundations of International Services Markets: Comparing Aviation and Telecommunications,” (in preparation for a volume edited by S. Vogel) (with J. Richards)

Recent Working Papers
The Political Economy of U.S. Policy for Competition in the Communications and Information Technology Industries