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Robert Trager

International Governance Lead

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Robert F. Trager is the GovAI International Governance Lead and a Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles. He studies the strategic implications of emerging technologies with a particular focus on the transition to advanced AI.  He also investigates arms control and nonproliferation; the construction of international orders; and a variety of other topics.

Featured Publications

Political Science and International Relations

The Offense-Defense Balance and The Costs of Anarchy: When Welfare Improves Under Offensive Advantage

May 2021
APSA Pre-Print
R. Daniel Bressler, Robert F. Trager, and Allan Dafoe

A large literature has argued that offensive advantage makes states worse off because it can induce a security dilemma, preemption, costly conflict, and arms races. We argue instead that state welfare is u-shaped under...

Political Science and International Relations

The Suffragist Peace

October 2020
International Organization
Joslyn Barnhart, Robert Trager, Elizabeth Saunders, and Allan Dafoe

Preferences for conflict and cooperation are systematically different for men and women: across a variety of contexts, women generally prefer more peaceful options and are less supportive of making threats and initiating...

Security

Autonomous Weapons And Coercive Threats

December 2019
UCLE AI Pulse Paper
Ciara Sterbenz and Robert Trager

Governments across the globe have been quick to adapt developments in artificial intelligence to military technologies. Prominent among the many changes recently introduced, autonomous weapon systems pose important new...

Featured Blog Posts

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