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Peter F. Cowhey
Peter F. Cowhey
Dean
Associate Vice Chancellor - International Affairs
Qualcomm Endowed Chair in Communications and Technology Policy
pcowhey@ucsd.edu
Phone: (858) 534-1946
Fax: (858) 534-3939
Office Hours:
By appointment only
request appointment
UCSD, IR/PS
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093-0519
Office #4201
Education
Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1977 (political science)
M.A., University of California, Berkeley, 1971
B.S.F.S., Georgetown University, 1970 (foreign service)
Biography
CV
Programs and Centers
Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC)
Center on Pacific Economies (CPE)
California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (CALIT2)
Perspectives
Cowhey can provide commentary on U.S. foreign policy, the future of communications and information technology markets and policy, the internet, trade policy, biological threats, international corporate strategy, and the microfinance industry to alleviate poverty. As UC San Diego’s Associate Vice Chancellor for International Affairs he has become a leader on the internationalization of the world’s research universities.
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. He is currently writing a book about global communications and information markets and policy.
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.
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
- 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
“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
Public Policy Workshop
Introduction to the course
This is a capstone course. Our goal is to turn to your initial introduction to the key concepts and methodologies of policy analysis in your individual courses into a working command of these tools when addressing a specific policy problem. This requires us to review and build upon these tools in the context of working on your class assignment, a major exercise in applied policy analysis. We will emphasize a systematic approach to understanding the nature and magnitude of a problem (is there a problem), looking at the policy options for addressing the problem (can we think of an alternative that might be better), assessing the feasibility of implementation (could we actually do it in practice) and analyzing the true costs and benefits of outcomes (how did it work in practice compared to the blueprint). In examining the feasibility of an option we include political feasibility and ethical desirability as an important part of the assessment.
In our overview sessions we will review comprehensive planning and evaluation techniques. Our approach is comparative--contrasting planning and evaluation methods between public and private sectors, and across geographic levels. Our goal is to have you think about the use of these techniques in a more scientific manner. Too often, tools get deployed without a clear and powerful hypothesis about the problem. A policy intervention is akin to a medical intervention—and all of the tools of analysis need to aligned around a clear conception of the problem, the experiment (the policy intervention), and an assessment. With this theme in mind we re-examine research methods commonly used for evaluation, particularly survey methods and the analysis of secondary data. This includes such quantitative and qualitative methods for planning and evaluation of public policy as planning and evaluation processes, resource inventory and classification, use and demand estimation, forecasting, marketing, and needs assessment. It also includes formative, process, and summative evaluations using secondary data, surveys, observation, experiments, case studies, and focus.
Teaching Model
Readings and lectures provide a systematic treatment of concepts and methods in the early classes. Students will form teams and identify a problem that they will tackle. Most of the last part of the court is oriented around the team projects under the tutorial review of the instructors.
Evaluation Philosophy
We believe in the necessity of successful teamwork in policy making. So, the bulk of your grade depends on your team. But we also believe in individual accountability. We expect individual participation in the class and we will evaluate individual contributions to the work of the teams in several ways.
Grading and Assignments
1. Class participation is expected and required. This will account for 10% of your grade. Students will be graded on their ability to answer questions during lecture.
2. Students will form research teams, for between 4 to 5 students each, to undertake a study of a policy question.
3. Each team must be formed by the end of the 4th week of class.
4. Each team will meet once per week to discuss their projects, some meeting time will be reserved in class for these meetings.
5. Each team will hand in an annotated bibliography at the end of the 7th week of classes. This assignment will constitute 10% of your grade. This is a team product and all members of the team share the same grade.
6. Each student will hand in an abstract, of no more than two pages, with references, that presents their version of their team’s policy argument. This will constitute 15% of your grade.
7. Each team will hand in a policy evaluation, of their chosen policy, on the day of the final exam. These can be emailed. The evaluation will be between 20 and 30 pages. This will constitute 40% of your grade. Each student shares the team’s grade.
8. Each team will make a presentation of their policy evaluation. This will be either the last day of class or during the final exam period. This will constitute 15% of your grade. This is a team product and all members of the team share the same grade. Each individual will also be graded on their part of the presentation, which will total 10% of their grade.
Readings
I. (optional, but very useful) Trochim, William M.K., 2001. The Research Methods Knowledge Base, second edition. Atomicdog Publishing. Available online or for online purchase, at the UCSD bookstore or at Amazon.com. for $95.95. You can substitute Trochim, William, 2005. Research Methods: The Concise Knowledge Base. Atomicdog Publishing. This sells for roughly $48.
II. A CD provided by the professors.
III. Bardach, Eugene. 2004. A Practical Guide for Policy Analysis: The Eightfold path to More Effective Problem Solving, second edition. CQ Press, Washington, D.C. Available at Amazon.com. for $12.89 (as of 12/12/06). Used copies available for much less.
