Technological Diffusion and the Strategy of Embargoes: How and Why Embargoes Shape Firm Preferences and Capabilities to Produce and Protect Technology

Knowledge can be power, as long it remains concentrated. This simple axiom underscores that while the diffusion of technology across national borders fuels economic growth, it can also impose security costs on the country that created the technology. I study how policymakers manage this complex balance between the security and economic imperative of technological diffusion. In doing so, my dissertation project seeks to explain how policymakers design embargoes strategically to stem the diffusion of technology and why they employ them.

To address these questions, I construct a theoretical framework specifically to assess the components that determine the design and effectiveness of embargoes designed strategically to stem the diffusion of a technology. I explicitly pinpoint two crucial constraints to the effectiveness of embargoes, the extent to which policymakers can identify and enforce controls on the commercial interactions that can create security costs through technological diffusion. Taking these constraints into account, I argue that two crucial, but overlooked, components to the design and usage of embargoes include the maturity of a technology and the strategy of the firms that create it. This project therefore seeks to explain how policy interventions in the diffusion of technology motivated by security concerns, such as export controls and investment restrictions, ultimately change how technology is developed.