Public Policy Forum: A policy challenge for the 21st century
At
this week’s Public Policy Forum dinner, event honouree, OpenCanada founder
Taylor Owen, challenges institutions and think tanks to evolve and innovate, or
risk irrelevance.
Taylor Owen / @taylor_owen
Founder and Publisher of OpenCanada.org and Assistant Professor of Digital Media and Global Affairs at UBC
Taylor Owen is Assistant Professor of Digital Media and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia and a Senior Fellow at the Columbia Journalism School. He was previously the Research Director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University where he designed and led a program studying the impact of digital technology on the practice of journalism. He is the founder and publisher of OpenCanada.org, an award-winning international affairs website, the Director of the International Relations and Digital Technology Projects, an international research project exploring the intersection of information technology and international affairs, and is on the Board of Directors of the Center for International Governance Innovation (CIGI). His Doctorate is from the University of Oxford where he was a Trudeau Scholar. He is the author, most recently, of Disruptive Power: The Crisis of the State in the Digital Age (OUP, 2015). He was previously a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia, a Fellow in the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University, a Research Fellow at the Center for Global Governance at the London School of Economics and a Researcher at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo. His research and writing focuses on the intersection between information technology and international affairs. Taylor Owen’s publications can be found at www.taylorowen.com and can be followed at @taylor_owen.
Most Recent Posts
Towards a new Liberal foreign policy (Part 1/n: Ideology)
The world has changed since the Liberals were last in power. As a result, Trudeau needs to re-imagine a liberal internationalist agenda for Canada.
Twitter As Public Space, and Related Problems
Taylor Owen on the advantages of limitations of Twitter as a means of political change.
The Week: The Wars We Wage
This week on OpenCanada.org, Margaret Thatcher, proxy armies, and corporate intelligence.
This Week: Iraq, 10 Years On
Editor-in-Chief Taylor Owen sums up the week that was on OpenCanada.org.
This Week: A New Pope and a New President
Senior Editor Taylor Owen sums up the week that was on OpenCanada.org.
Buzz Kill
What does being constantly watched sound like? Taylor Owen on the under-appreciated costs of living under drones.
This Week: Space Race
Senior Editor Taylor Owen sums up the week that was on OpenCanada.org.
This Week: NATO in Africa and Abe in America
Senior Editor Taylor Owen runs down the week that was on OpenCanada.org.
This Week: North Korea, the State of the Union, and Trade Dealing
Senior Editor Taylor Owen runs down the week that was on OpenCanada.org.
The Surveillance Arms Race
Taylor Owen on how western technology companies are helping autocratic governments monitor and control their citizens.
This Week: Somali Refugees, Plumpy’Nut, and NATO
Senior Editor Taylor Owen runs down the week that was on OpenCanada.org.
Canadian Online Publishing Awards
We are very proud to announce that OpenCanada.org is a finalist for three Canadian Online Publishing Awards: – Best overall online-only publication website– Best Blog (for the Roundtable)– Best online-only article or series of articles (for our series The Future of Fighting) Congratulations to our Roundtable bloggers, Roland Paris, Jennifer Welsh, John Hancock, Stephen Saideman, Gregory […]
Conferencing in Halifax while Rome Burns?
Conferencing in Halifax while Rome Burns? Taylor Owen detects groupthink in the elite security debate.
Would Slowing Oil Sands Development Make us Richer, Cleaner and More Powerful?
Taylor Owen asks, “Would slowing oil sands development make us richer, cleaner and more powerful?”
The Risks of Building the Afghan Army
Taylor Owen is apprehensive about NATO’s mission in Afghanistan.
How The New Yorker Goes Viral
For years I have read The New Yorker as a non-US print subscriber. This meant that somewhere between a few days and a week after an issue was published, it arrived in the mail. The uncertainty of its arrival is fun, and the novelty of flipping through the Goings on About Town to find the […]
Have the Taliban Changed their Tune on Women’s Rights?
I find that the subject of women’s rights in Afghanistan is a difficult one to engage with. To some, the shocking standard to which women were treated under the Taliban represents a key reason for our presence there. To others, the goal of gender equality is a PR front for the actual reasons we intervened. […]
More on the Integrity of the Comprehensive Approach
I just had a conversation regarding my last post with a NATO Public Diplomacy official. In short, my argument was that in RC-N the ANP appear incapable of holding villages so that the building can take place, and that there are vastly more resources focused on the military component on the mission. The response I […]
Notes from Mazar e Sherif: Tactical Challenges, Strategic Quagmire
I am writing this on my phone from a c160 flying from mazar e sharif to herat where we have spent the past 48hrs. This morning, we awoke to the news that last night insurgents struck an international hotel in Kabul. This felt a world away, and frankly, neither surprises me, nor tells us very […]
First Impressions from ISAF HQ in Kabul
I am in Afghanistan as part of a NATO TOLA tour. On Friday the six participants met in Brussels for a day of briefings at the NATO HQ, and then flew to Kabul together. For 8 days, we are to be treated to incredible access to civilian, military and Afghan leaders. There is no doubt […]
The Munk Debates, Henry Kissinger and Polite Company
For the past few years I have worked on the Munk Debates. Officially, I am the Research Director. Unofficially, I help out however I can and get to be a part of a unique and fun event. The debate last week was on China and featured Henry Kissinger and Fareed Zakaria versus Nial Ferguson and […]
Welcome to Opencanada.org!
For the past eight months I have had the thrill of working with the CIC to answer the following question: what if the CIC wanted to build the online hub for international affairs discussion in Canada? The challenge was to merge an organizational website, with a media platform. This site is our first iteration of […]
Four Ways to Reinvigorate the Canadian Foreign Policy Debate
Last fall, I participated in a workshop hosted by L’Idée Fédérale, a think tank in Montreal headed by one of our Roundtable bloggers, André Pratte. The topic was modest – “A Bold New Vision for Canada” – and we were all tasked with presenting on an aspect of our changing federation, in my case foreign […]