Environmental and Nuclear Networks in the Global South How Skills Shape International Cooperation

For decades, expert bureaucrats have been moving regularly across borders, from their home institutions to international organizations, and forging collaborative networks with peers. Analyzing over twenty years of environmental and nuclear technology projects data for 150 countries, this book provides a comprehensive study of international cooperation among elite bureaucrats in developing states. An empirical study that will interest researchers, undergraduate, and graduate students of political and social sciences, this is the first book to explain the causes of transnational cooperation in the Global South and find a link between domestic level of skills and international cooperation. The author methodically illustrates how state experts with high skills can reap the benefits of international technical cooperation. In contrast, bureaucrats with low skills cannot forge stable collaborative ties with foreign peers and gain little from participating in these transgovernmental networks.

1. Why do bureaucrats cooperate? International inter-agency networks in the Global South; 2. Bureaucrats across borders; 3. Skill formation, economic crisis, and expert networks in the nuclear sectors of Argentina and Brazil; 4. International inter-agency cooperation in nuclear energy, science, and technology (NEST); 5. Explaining international inter-agency cooperation in nuclear energy, science, and technology (NEST); 6. International inter-agency cooperation in the protection of the global environment; 7. Explaining international inter-agency cooperation in the protection of the environment; 8. After austerity; 9. Conclusion: the hidden costs of low skills.

Isabella Alcañiz is Assistant Professor and the Harrison Distinguished Professor in Environmental Politics at the Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland, College Park. Professor Alcañiz grew up in South America and has carried out extensive field research in Latin America and Africa. She has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Houston, and universities in Argentina and Europe. Her research is published in World Politics, the British Journal of Political Science, the Latin American Research Review, Latin American Perspectives, and Environmental Science and Policy. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Northwestern University, Illinois.