The Watson Institute's research focuses in two areas: global security, and political economy and development. Over two decades, the Institute has become known for questioning settled policy prescriptions and thinking outside the range of conventional debate to identify new causes and cures for urgent international problems in these areas.
To do so, the Institute fosters collaboration across the range of social sciences - anthropology, economics, political science, and sociology - to establish deeper context and reach new levels of understanding. Its multidisciplinary team of academics and practitioners draws on Brown's strength as a major research university, on the experience of collaborators in the policy arena, and on the perspective of peers from around the world.
Global Security
The Institute's global security research spans both traditional and non-traditional security issues, including armed intervention, post-conflict reconstruction, terrorism and counterterrorism, ethnic conflict, urban violence, military spending, border security, drug trafficking and transnational crime, and cybersecurity. Work on many of these issues also connects to the Institute's research in the area of political economy and development.
Related Faculty: Peter Andreas | Keith Brown | Sue E. Eckert | Michael D. Kennedy | Catherine Lutz | Nukhet A. Sandal | Richard Snyder | Ashutosh Varshney |
- Costs of War
- Cybersecurity Policy and Technology Initiative
- Human Security in the Middle East
- Illicit Globalization
- Post-Soviet States: From the Past Into the Future
- Targeted Sanctions
- Targeting Terrorist Finances
- Terrorist Transformations: IMRO and the Politics of Violence
- Conduct and Discipline in UN Peacekeeping Operations: Culture, Political Economy and Gender
- Cultural Awareness in the Military (More Information)
- Dialogue among Americans, Russians, and Europeans (DARE)
- Engaging Afghanistan (Engaging Afghanistan)
- Nuclear Dilemmas in the 21st Century
- US Military Bases and Global Response
- War Epiphanies: When Iraq Veterans Break Ranks
Political Economy and Development
In researching political economy and development, the Institute focuses on global and local governance and on the Global South, where emerging world powers such as Brazil, China, India, and South Africa are challenging general conventions of development. We are interested in the ties between economics and modes of governance, and we study the implications of changing economic balances in such fields as urban governance, global finance, and civic engagement.
Related Faculty: Peter Andreas | Gianpaolo Baiocchi | Mark Blyth | Keith Brown | Peter B. Evans | Patrick Heller | Michael D. Kennedy | Richard Snyder | Barbara Stallings |
- Alliance for Governance Research and Analysis
- Democratic Governance and Participation
- Foreign Aid in East Asia
- Global Governance and Inequality
- Global Inequality, Climate Change, and Environmental Protection
- Globalization and Inequality
- Human Security in the Middle East
- Illicit Globalization
- Markets and Social Inequality
- Muabet - Local Dimensions of Democracy-building in Southeast Europe
- Participatory Democracy Project (Participatory Budgeting website)
- Public Health and Social Disparities
- Urban Transformation and Inequality
- Amazon Governance: Understanding its History, Rethinking its Future
- Assessing Environmental Knowledge Flows and Their Media
- Human Security in a Changing Global Environment
