Zachary C. Shirkey (PhD, Columbia 2006) is Professor of Political Science at Hunter College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York. His research focuses on war and intervention, US foreign policy, and state-building. He is the author or co-author of four books and his research has appeared in several outlets including the Journal of Peace Research, Polity, and International Studies Review.
Ah, those days when you did not feel guilty for reading something that does not contain the term “poststructuralism” and/or footnotes. Back in my teenage years, I used to devour all the books I could get during the summer. I had some favorites: Alexandre Duma’s The Count of Monte-Christo (1844-1846) and The Valley of the Moon (1913) by Jack London. If the Monte Christo long-drawn out revenge plot is a great motivational read for staying in...
I get the sense that lots of scholars are viewing the return (sooner or later) of in-person conference with a good deal of ambivalence. Is it time to take all conference online?
Arnold Wolfers is one of the most important figures of “mainstream” mid-20th century internationa…
I just published a piece in Foreign Affairs, which draws on my new book, Bullets Not Ballots: Success in Counterinsurgency Warfare. After two decades, the United States is finally leaving Afghanistan, and only 2,500 U.S. troops remain in Iraq. In both countries, the insurgencies continue. It wasn’t supposed to end this way. In both wars, Washington hoped that imposing democratic reforms could protect the population, win hearts and minds, and...
Charles J. Sullivan is an Assistant Professor of Political Science & International Relations in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Nazarbayev University. Dr. Sullivan earned his PhD in Political Science from The George Washington University (2014) in Washington, DC. Prior to joining Nazarbayev University, he worked as an instructor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Dr. Sullivan is a comparativist and specializes...
Spencer Willardson is an Assistant Professor at Stephen F. Austin State University in the Department of Government. He teaches in the National Intelligence and Securities Studies program. He was previously an Assistant Professor at Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan, where he served as the first Department Chair of Political Science and International Relations from 2015-2017. His primary research focus is on the ways that arms transfers are...
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The second- and third-most downloaded articles at the journal Security Studies both tackle the causes of the Iraq War. This might reflect an imbalance of supply and demand: there aren't that many articles in leading international-relations journals that focus on the question of why the United States invaded Iraq. We can find a number of partial explanations. Many believe that American global dominance was at least a permissive condition; the...