Austin W. Marxe School of Public and International Affairs
Quinn Slobodian, Pardee Professor of International History and author of Muskism (2026), was recently featured in a piece titled “Democracy blindsides Silicon Valley’s power players looking to transform the world with AI”, by Eduardo Porter for The Guardian, discussing the growing public backlash against artificial intelligence infrastructure and what it reveals about the relationship between technology, power, and democracy. In an article examining opposition to the rapid expansion of AI data centers across the United States, Slobodian argued that public skepticism is more than a reaction to local development projects, but part of a broader concern about who gets to shape the future of society....
In a recent commentary for the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, Paul Webster Hare, Master Lecturer and former British ambassador to Cuba, analyzes the implications of a controversial oil agreement between the Trump administration and Venezuela’s interim government led by Delcy Rodríguez, who assumed her role after the United States’ removal of Nicolás Maduro from power on January 3, 2026. Hare argues that the deal marks a dramatic departure from decades of public diplomacy on both sides....
Sanne Verschuren, Assistant Professor of International Security at the Pardee School of Global Studies, has published a new article in the Journal of Strategic Studies on September 21, 2026, examining an enduring puzzle in international security: why states repeatedly pursue collaborative military technology projects despite their frequent failures. In her article,“Why interstate arms collaborations fail: The commitment-implementation paradox in the context of NATO BMD,” Verschuren argues that many multinational defense initiatives contain the very conditions that ultimately undermine their success....