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UCSD, IR/PS Peter Cowhey is an internationally recognized expert in telecommunications and information policy and markets who also is a leader in building cooperative international arrangements for the management of security and economic issues. He is a practical visionary. In the early 1980s, he envisioned the creation of a world where inexpensive international calling and high speed, global data networks were available in every office and home. For twelve years, he worked with companies and governments to advance this vision. He then spent three years in the Clinton administration as the head of international policy and regulation for the Federal Communications Commission and an adviser to the U.S. Trade Representative. He is widely credited as the moving force behind the successful completion of a global trade agreement in 1997 at the World Trade Organization to open up competition in basic telecommunications markets. This pact not only changed the future of the communications market globally, but also created dramatic new precedents for global trade and investment policy that will shape agreements in many other high technology and service industries. Cowhey remains dedicated to hands-on service and advocacy in creating the next networking and information technology revolution. He argues that this revolution will further transform the world economy and reach much more deeply into the social fabric of every corner of global life, including the poorest regions. In addition to serving on the advisory boards of the United Nations Development Program and the U.S. Agency for International Development, he has advised over fifty countries on reforming their communications markets. He has counseled corporate giants such as Qualcomm and AT&T on some of their most critical global decisions and has served as Chairman of the Board of Digital Partners, a global nonprofit organization that works on harnessing digital technology for economic and social development. He is a member of the International Advisory Board of the Grameen Foundation USA. To stay in touch with the newest innovations in technology, Cowhey serves as the head of policy studies for the California Institute on Telecommunications and Information Technology, headquartered at U.C. San Diego. He holds the Qualcomm Chair in Communications and Technology Policy at U.C. San Diego, and from 1999-2006 he was the director of the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC). Cowhey holds a bachelor’s degree in foreign service from Georgetown University, and a master’s and Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. Technological change long ago turned Cowhey into a student of the Pacific Rim. Cowhey believes that the Pacific region (the Americas and Asia) will be the 21st Century’s world center of technology and markets, on the one hand, and of global security and economic policies, on the other. Reconciling the promise and turbulence of change in the region is the key to long-term security, prosperity and democracy. For this reason, he agreed to serve as the dean of the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) at U.C. San Diego beginning in July 2002. The mission of IR/PS is to train leaders, generate ideas and solutions, and build networks that will enable the Pacific Century to reach its best potential. IR/PS is the only school of international relations in the UC system and the premier professional school in the United States dedicated to understanding Pacific politics, markets and institutions. Cowhey believes that San Diego’s and California’s fates are tied closely to the Pacific Rim in the long-term. The links are inescapable, and so the challenge is clear. He notes, “We can either provide leadership and partnership in the Pacific in order to build a true Pacific community that will help everyone, or we can drift in the wave of globalization in the Pacific region and miss many of our opportunities to help all of our children and grandchildren prosper.”
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Peter F. Cowhey