Global Economy Expert Joins USC

Geoffrey Garrett, who brings a real-world approach to the subject, will teach a USC College course on international policy in 2006.

Geoffrey Garrett, an expert on the global political economy, will join the faculty of the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences as a professor of international relations July 1.

Garrett, who has also been named president of the USC-based Pacific Council on International Policy, will teach a course in spring 2006.

He will replace the council’s founding president, Abraham Lowenthal, who will continue as a professor of international relations.

“The appointment of Geoffrey Garrett to our faculty and to the presidency of the Pacific Council strengthens an already robust relationship between USC College and the international policy community,” said USC College Dean Joseph Aoun.

“Garrett is a distinguished scholar who brings a real-world, interdisciplinary approach to the study of the global political economy. He is also a dynamic educator who has made it clear to me that he values and looks forward to teaching,” Aoun said.

“I expect that Garrett’s presence will further energize college efforts to think globally, as outlined in our strategic plan, through his leadership on the council, his research and the courses he will teach.”

Garrett, 46, comes to USC from UCLA, where he has been vice provost and dean of the UCLA International Institute, director of the Ronald W. Burkle Center for International Relations and a professor of political science since 2001.

Before that he was on the faculties of Yale University, Oxford University, Stanford University and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Garrett earned a B.A. from the Australian National University and holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Duke University. The author of “Partisan Politics in the Global Economy,” Garrett has written widely on the global political economy.

As president of the Pacific Council on International Policy, Garrett will take the helm of an organization established in 1995 as the western partner of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations.

The group’s 1,290 members come from business, academia, non-governmental organizations, the media, law, government, labor, religion, science, the military and the arts. Through briefings, workshops and publications, the council seeks to promote better understanding and more effective action by private and public sector leaders from the western United States and the Pacific Rim.

Upcoming projects include the release of a study of U.S.-India relations conducted with the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi and headed by Richard Celeste, former Ohio governor and U.S. ambassador to India, and Abid Hussain, India’s former ambassador to the United States.

Researchers focused on Indo-U.S. tensions caused by the loss of American jobs in software and information technology hardware companies to lower-cost firms in India. The findings will be released in Washington, D.C., in late June.

“Globalization issues such as the international outsourcing of U.S. jobs often trigger deep anxieties among Americans,” Garrett said. “The challenge the Pacific Council has accepted is to help us understand clearly and respond constructively to this irreversible trend.”

Of Garrett’s appointment, council co-chair and former U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher said: “We are immensely pleased that Geoff has agreed to serve as our new president, and we are confident he will lead the Pacific Council to the next level of achievement and influence. He brings to the task first-rate academic quality, superb leadership skills, successful institution-building experience and expertise in the impact of globalization.”

These sentiments were echoed by Lowenthal.

“Geoff Garrett will bring great talent to the Pacific Council and will take the organization in new and promising directions,” he said.