Dr Dan Plesch
Director of the centre for international studies and diplomacy
Profile
Dr Plesch's forthcoming book, 'America, Hitler and the UN' has been hailed as magnificent by Sir Brian Urquhart. It is an outcome of Centre research programme and earlier publications in this field.
Dr Plesch read history at Nottingham and obtained professional qualifications in social work and public administration from Bristol in 1979 and 1980, he then worked for non-governmental organisations focused on the abolition of nuclear weapons. In 1986 he founded the British American Security Information Council (BASIC) and directed it from Washington DC until 2001, when he became the Senior Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies in London.
Academic posts since 1988 include Honorary Visiting Research Fellow at the Department of Peace Studies at Bradford University, Research Associate at Birkbeck College, University of London and Senior Visiting Research Fellow at Keele University.
Outside academia, he has acted as consultant and advisor to the UK and US governments, the BBC, CNN, Sky News, Kroll Security International, Oxfam, the Foreign Policy Centre and Greenpeace. He was the independent advisor to the UK government's department of constitutional affairs on the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act. He gave the keynote address to the official conference on the London bombings of 7/7/05, and was invited to give a plenary address to the World Congress on Renewable Energy in 2006. Contributions to newspapers, include the New York Times, Washington Post, The Financial Times, The Times, The Guardian and the New Statesman.
Academic Interests and Selected Publications
In 1985 the Washington Post devoted a front-page 1,200 word news story to his research into the nuclear weapons policies of the Reagan Administration and its NATO allies, and the relationship of these governments to their legislatures. Since then his research has been focused on critical contemporary global issues and his work has often attracted similar attention.
For fifteen years he led international research-based applied international relations programmes as director of BASIC. These programmes focused on Western nuclear weapons policy, doctrine and deployments, UN disarmament processes, EU and NATO security policy and the development of global controls on small arms. This research was supported by governments and by such organisations as the Ford and MacArthur Foundations.
In recent years he has broadened his research into areas including corporate accountability, energy policy, global counter-insurgency strategies, the origins of the present UN system, and UK Parliamentary law.
Forthcoming/in progress
Plesch D. 'America, Hilter and the UN', I B Tauris 2010
Blankenburg S, Plesch D. and Wilkinson F, (eds.), 'Corporate Limited Liability' Special Issue of the Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2010
Articles and Pamphlets
'WMD in the Middle East: An Explosive Combination', International Relations, Forum 22(3) (guest editor) **online here
'How the United Nations Beat Hitler and Prepared the Peace', Global Society, 22(1) 2008
'A state in denial: Britain's WMD dependency on the United States', Economics of Peace and Security Journal, Vol 3, No 1 - Symposium: The UK Military Industrial Complex, January 2008
Blankenburg S and Plesch D. Corporate Limited Liability and Equality before the Law, (Royal Society of Arts, Spring 2007)
'Corporate Social Responsibility: questions of equality before the law, property rights and de-regulation', Accountancy Business and the Public Interest, Volume 4, No. 2, 2005
'The Future of Britain's Strategic Nuclear Deterrent', in Report of the House of Commons Defence Select Committee on the Strategic Nuclear Deterrent (London: The Stationery Office 2006)
'The Future of Britain's WMD' (London: Foreign Policy Centre, 2006)
'Bio-energy and CAP Reform: The Gains to Europe and Africa' (London: Foreign Policy Centre, 2006), with G. Austin, D. Grant, and S. Sullivan.
'Britain's Energy Future: Securing the 'Home Front'' (London: Foreign Policy Centre, 2005), with S. Twigg, G. Austin, and F. Grant.
'Taming Globalisation' (London: Charter 88, 2003)
'Memorandum on the Foreign Policy Aspects of the War on Terrorism', Foreign Affairs Committee (London: The Stationery Office, 2002)
Books
The Beauty Queen's Guide to World Peace (London: Politico's, 2004)
A Case to Answer (Nottingham: Spokesman, 2004), with G. Rangwala
Chapters in Books
'Democratic Heroes', in: You're History, Brown M. et al (eds.), (London: Continuum, 2005)
'Neo-conservative thinking since the fall of Baghdad', in Danchev A. and Macmillan J. (eds.). The Iraq War and Democratic Politics (London: Routledge, 2004)
Contributing author to Ruthven M (ed.), Historical Atlas of Islam (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2004)
'The risks of oil supply disruption for the transport sector', in Douthwaite R. (ed.) Before the Wells Run Dry: Ireland's transition to Renewable Energy (Dublin: Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability, 2003)
'Tackling Small Arms in the Euro-Atlantic Region', in Small Arms Survey 2001 (Oxford: Graduate Institute of International Studies, Oxford University Press, 2001), with G. O'Callaghan
'Western Nuclear Doctrine', in Blackaby F (ed.), Nuclear Weapons: The Road to Zero, Pugwash Conferences on World Affairs (Connecticut: Westview Press, 1998)
Contact Details
(by appointment through the Centre Secretary)
Room 4426
Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy
School of Oriental and African Studies
Thornhaugh Street
Russell Square
London WC1H 0XG
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7898 4840
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7898 4839
E-mail: dp27@soas.ac.uk
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