We are thrilled to share that Zakir Rzazade, our Ph.D. student has been awarded the Best Paper Prize for Ph.D. students and early-career scholars at this year’s European Initiative for Security Studies (EISS) annual conference.

His paper “Does Preeminence in Emerging and Military Technologies Matter for International Status? Evidence from Conjoint Survey Experiment” uses a conjoint survey experiment to analyze whether states with premier weapon systems have an improved international status. He focuses on artificial intelligence, emerging military technologies, and aircraft carriers as primary attributes of interest.

His main findings are:

1️⃣ Demonstrated technological advancement in AI and the possession of emerging military technologies and aircraft carriers have a positive impact on states' international status.

2️⃣ Countries that are able to indigenously produce those capabilities are more likely to obtain status payoffs than those that import them from elsewhere.

3️⃣ This difference is especially pronounced for emerging military technologies, which may provide only short-term status benefits to possessors due to their rapid proliferation and reduced exclusivity over time.

Zakir’s research offers valuable contributions to debates on technological power on the internationl scale, and we are proud to see his research recognized on such a prestigious platform.