Sarkar Presents Research at Georgetown, Wilson Center
Jayita Sarkar, Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, presented her research at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service at a workshop entitled, “Regulating Knowledge Flows in the Global Age” on November 9-10, 2017, and at a Wilson Center event organized by the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project on November 7-8, 2017.
At Georgetown University, Sarkar presented the preliminary findings from her project on United States’ nonproliferation policy toward major nuclear suppliers in the mid-1970s. The paper examines how the presidencies of Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter attempted to convince France and West Germany — with different levels of success— to enhance their commitment to export controls in the nuclear domain. Paris and Bonn pursued their commercial and strategic interests through nuclear assistance to third-party states like Pakistan, Brazil, India, and others, and did not always agree with American definitions of proliferation risks leading to frequent disagreements between Washington and its close allies. Sarkar’s paper presented at Georgetown University is forthcoming as an original article in the Journal of Cold War Studies. The workshop was a unique event that brought together scholars, policymakers and industry leaders engaged in questions of export controls.
At the Wilson Center, Sarkar presented about archival research in France and Switzerland, and the risks and opportunities of doing multi-archival research on a sensitive subject matter such as nuclear proliferation and nonproliferation. Sarkar has been associated with the Wilson Center’s Nuclear Proliferation International History Project since 2011, and was a visiting junior scholar with the Project in 2013.
Jayita Sarkar, an historian by training, is Assistant Professor of International Relations at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies. Her expertise is in the history of U.S. foreign policy, nuclear proliferation, the global Cold War, South Asia and Western Europe. Her research has appeared or is forthcoming in the Journal of Cold War Studies, Journal of Strategic Studies, Cold War History, International History Review, and elsewhere. Dr. Sarkar has held fellowships at MIT, Harvard, Columbia and Yale universities, and obtained a doctorate in International History from the Graduate Institute Geneva in Switzerland.