Dr. Cowhey is an expert on U.S. foreign policy and technology policy. He has published extensively on comparative foreign policy and international issues involving Asia and the United States. He has also done extensive work on international trade, technology and investment policy. His special expertise is the international communications and information industries.
His recent book is Transforming Global Information and Communication Markets: The Political Economy of Innovation, (with J. Aronson and D. Abelson), MIT Press (2009). He is currently working on a book manuscript on American Foreign Economic Policy with M. McCubbins.
Current Projects
Cowhey is a member of the board of directors of the Grameen Foundation USA, the US foundation supporting the work of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Dr. Muhammad Yunus. Cowhey also is spearheading the Aspen Institute’s International Digital Economy Accords project to develop policies that will update the international regime for Internet communications and and serves as chairman of the board of CONNECT Innovation Institute. Cowhey is also the Vice Chair of the California Council on Science and Technology. Read more about his appointment to CCST here.
Cowhey is a research scholar at the California Institute on Telecommunications and Information Technology (CALIT2) and is a non-resident fellow of the Annenberg Center of Communications at USC. He also consults extensively for the telecommunications and information technology industries.
Background Notes
In 2009, Peter Cowhey served a 12 month assignment as the Senior Counselor to Ambassador Kirk in the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) under President Barack Obama. His responsibilities included working with Ambassador Kirk on the strategic agenda for trade policy while supervising the work of USTR offices for the Americas, Europe and the Middle East, Market Access and Competitiveness, Intellectual Property, and Services and Investment. Click here to watch Peter Cowhey’s February 23, 210 public lecture on “Reflections on Forging the U.S. Trade Agenda”.
He is a former chief of the International Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and negotiated many of the U.S. international agreements for telecommunications and satellite services. He had responsibility for antitrust decisions involving the communications and satellite industries.
Cowhey is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He has served as chairman of the board of Digital Partners, a non-profit organization using social entrepreneurship to address the “digital divide.” In addition to having served 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.
Cowhey joined UCSD’s faculty in 1976. He was director of the University of California’s system-wide IGCC from 1999-2006 and Associate Vice Chancellor-International Affairs from 2007-2009. Cowhey became Dean of IR/PS in July 2002.
Professional Activities
In addition to his work on communications and technology markets and policies, Cowhey remains active in the foreign policy community. He is a member of the advisory board for the American Assembly’s Project on the Next Generation of Foreign Policy Leaders. He is co-director of the Carnegie Corporations’s project on Biosecurity and Public Policy at IGCC. Cowhey also serves on the boards of the Institute of the Americas, San Diego World Trade Center, the Vice Chair for the California Council on Science and Technology, and the Bishop’s School.
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