Professors John Ohnesorge (Law), Gay Seidman (Sociology), and Aseema Sinha (Political Science) serve as principal investigators for the first collaborative entitled “Governance in Economic Development: Law, Politics and the Role of the State”.  This collaborative analyzes ways in which the role of the state is being reinterpreted and renegotiated in response to globalization and how more interventionist states will interact with today’s highly globalized international economy.  They build on the observation that the era of the “Washington Consensus” is over and the activist, interventionist state appears to be making a comeback around the developing world.  Where and why is this occurring? How does it manifest differently in different national contexts?  How will such developments affect the future path of globalization? Four countries lie at the core of this project: Brazil, India, China, and South Africa.

The second collaborative, “Governing New Conflicts in Global Energy Futures”, will be led by Professors Tracey Holloway (Environmental Studies, Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences, Civil & Environmental Engineering), Bernard Lesieutre (Electrical and Computer Engineering), Greg Nemet (La Follette School of Public Affairs and Environmental Studies) and Paul Wilson (Engineering Physics). This project will investigate emerging conflicts arising from changing energy policies, examine how they relate to existing global governance mechanisms, and assess the preparedness of those mechanisms for tackling these new conflicts. They will pursue three parallel themes: 1) new competition between energy, food, and water as in the case of biofuels; 2) constraints imposed by global environmental agreements on energy options; and 3) security concerns driven by inequities in energy resources and technology distributions.   

The third collaborative focuses on “Managing Challenges of Import Safety in a Global Market” and builds on expertise housed in the College of Engineering, Law School, School of Business, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the School of Human Ecology.  It is led by Professors Vicki Bier (Industrial and Systems Engineering and Engineering Physics) and Stephanie Tai (Law) and will examine market, regulatory, and hybrid approaches to managing risk from contamination of food commodities in the global supply chain. This project will evaluate the relative capacity of national regulatory systems, international standards, and market forces to provide, individually or in various combinations, the necessary resources and incentives to address the problem of product safety through efficient testing, inspection, and quality control. In the process, this project seeks to identify cost-effective, risk-based strategies for inspection, auditing, and sampling of imported food.

These exciting interdisciplinary collaboratives will enrich the campus community by bringing in distinguished visitors, holding conferences, advancing important research questions, developing critical web and data resources, training graduate students, and sharing their expertise with the businesses, government, and the public of Wisconsin.

Impressively, more than 17 additional faculty and academic staff members from across the university already have signed on to participate in these projects in various capacities and the research and related activities of the collaboratives will build on the expertise of of UW’s many area studies and other specialized centers. 

2005 Collaborative Award Announcement