• Managing Across Boundaries

Johan Bergenas is the deputy director of the Managing Across Boundaries initiative, which looks for innovative government responses--at the international, national, and regional levels--and for smart public-private partnerships to mitigate transnational security threats and ameliorate development challenges.

His areas of expertise include the nexus between security and economic development, public-private sector partnerships, technology applications for security and development capacity-building, illicit networks, transnational crime, proliferation, terrorism, and the security and defense industry. 

Prior to joining the Stimson Center, he worked for the Monterey Institute James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies analyzing regional and international proliferation issues and trends. Before then, he was a member of Oxfam America's humanitarian policy and communications teams, covering development and conflict issues in the Middle East and Africa. Bergenas has also been a reporter and a freelance journalist for numerous publications, covering a wide range of international and U.S. domestic issues including presidential politics.

Bergenas is a prolific writer and has been published, inter alia, in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, National Geographic Traveler, and The Guardian and has appeared on BBC, Al Jazeera, and PRI. He holds an honors MA degree from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and an honors BA degree from the University of Iowa. Originally from Sweden, he has lived in the United States since 2001. For a comprehensive list of publications, click here.

Select Publications and Presentations

• Combatting the Undercurrents of Globalization in the Developing World: The Next Frontier for the High Technology Industry (Occassional Swedish Institute of International Affairs Papers, March 2013).
• Crime-Terror Nexus Requires Integrated Security Approaches (World Politics Review, February 25, 2013)
• Hybrid Framework For a Hybrid World (Uppsala University panel titled "A Wider Security Agenda," December 5, 2012)
• Global and Regional Security/Development Challenges and the Role of Innovative Partnerships (Dynamixx and IHS sponsored industry conference titled "E3DS12" on energy, environment, economics, defence, and security, November 13, 2012)
• Towards a More Effective Implementation of the EU Security Strategy: What Methods and Strategies to Ensure Impact (European Union Parliament Policy Hub, October 5, 2012)
• Defense, Security, and Development in a Hybrid World (World Politics Review, September 11, 2012)
• More National Security Work Ahead (Politico, August 8, 2012)
• To Counter Nuclear Smuggling, Target All Smuggling (World Politics Review, May 1, 2012)
• Development and Arms Export: Tech, Security Firms Can Help in ‘Global South’ (DefenseNews, April 22, 2012)  
• Data vs. Borders: Information-Sharing in Transnational Security (World Politics Review, February 21, 2012)
• Fighting Budget Deficits by Leveraging the Private Sector (World Politics Review, November 2011)
• Bridging the Divide: Security and Development Capacity-Building in Southeast Asia (CISTEC, July 2011)
• Memo to Congress: the UN Works (The Hill, April 2011)
• Beyond Boundaries in Eastern Africa: Bridging the Security/Development Divide With International Security Assistance (with Brian Finlay, Stimson Center Report, March 2011)
• A Piece of the Global Puzzle: The Role of the Gulf Cooperation Council and the League of Arab States in Implementing Resolution 1540 (Stimson Center Report, December 2010)
• The European Union’s Evolving Engagement with Iran: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back (The Nonproliferation Review, November 2010)
• The Nuclear Domino Myth (Foreign Affairs snapshot article, September 2010)
• Give Obama a Break (Foreign Policy, December 2009).
• The Role of African Regional and Subregional Organizations in Implementing Resolution 1540 (chapter in Implementing Resolution 1540: the Role of Regional Organizations, L. Scheinman, ed., September 2008).