Hi! My name is Cartland Zhou, and I am a Political Science Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). My core research seeks to model and answer questions regarding conflict initiation and dynamics as a result of arms transfers. I also have research interests in computer vision to develop novel techniques that supplement my core research, such as optical character and object recognition.
My dissertation project is a series of papers exploring the relationship of power perceptions, arms transfers, and conflict initiation. The theoretical foundation of my project is built on two corollaries:
- States leverage on foreign policy to support or suppress regional allies and adversaries
- The modern security environment is logistically constrained such that sustained militarized aggression and deterrence by the average state require foreign transfers of weapons and technologies.
The unique combination of these two corollaries in today’s international security environment allows powerful states with significant capacities in arms production, stockpiles, and trade, to dictate and shape conflicts around the world through a range of foreign policy maneuvers, particularly in arms transfers.
Each of my dissertation papers explores a specific aspect of the overall project, spanning the development of a novel dimensional reduction technique to better classify state capacities, to the tracing of conflict intensity-arms transfer dynamics over time in the last 2 decades.
You can contact me at cartlandzhou_at_ucla_dot_edu
