Research
International Politics
Faculty
Faculty |
Faculty |
All international relations faculty members share a commitment to broad, theoretically-based inquiry. Several have published major books on international relations theory. Specific faculty research expertise is concentrated in two subfields of international relations: international conflict and political economy. Research on international conflict reflects several different approaches and emphases. One segment of international conflict research derives from the quantitative, behavioral tradition typified by the Correlates of War (COW) Project, currently directed by an Illinois faculty member. Several faculty members have research interests in territorial conflict, geopolitical concerns, and conflict management approaches such as mediation. Additional foci include "rivalries," long standing conflicts between the same pair of states such as India and Pakistan. A second segment of international conflict research adopts a deductive approach to understanding international conflict behavior. This set of research projects employs mathematical models, computational models, and game theory to capture various international conflict processes. Faculty interests include those related to compliance with international agreements and institutional effects on conflict behavior. A third string of international conflict research concerns traditional security studies and is associated with the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security (ACDIS). Illinois faculty members have done pioneering work on globalization, UN peacekeeping, and conflict related to energy and environmental concerns.
Faculty research on international cooperation explores traditional and emerging concerns of globalization, trade ties, and international institutional arrangements. For too long, scholars ignored that while conflictual relations dominated the headlines, the dominant modes of international interaction were cooperative. A consistent theme of research in this area is the role of domestic political incentives and coalitions in how much and what types of cooperation will emerge. Research on international cooperation also takes a broad historical view of such processes, without sacrificing contemporary relevance. At the systemic level, faculty research has concentrated on how international systems are formed and how the global society constructs rules for enhancing the values of order, welfare, and legitimacy. At the domestic level, research has also concerned domestic institutions such as central banks. Yet, the construction of institutional arrangements (e.g., WTO) is only one step in the process; compliance incentives and mechanisms must also be in place. Faculty research in this area has concentrated on the influence of domestic political factors in inducing compliance with international rules, specifically in the area of the environment, human rights, and international trade. Finally, at the sub-systemic level, a central focus has been on trading patterns between states, specifically when they choose to enter into trading arrangements and how deep their levels of cooperation will become.
The success of our graduate program is evident from the excellent placements of our recent graduates, including those who have secured the most prestigious post-doctoral fellowships (e.g., Harvard University, Stanford University, Ohio State University, and University of Toronto), tenure track faculty positions at top research universities (e.g., University of Iowa, University of North Carolina, Florida State University. Binghamton University), excellent liberal arts colleges (e.g., Clark University, Bradley University), and professional schools (e.g., Army War College, Air War College), as well as research employment at international organizations (e.g., United Nations, World Bank) and think tanks (e.g., Brookings Institution). Four recent Illinois Ph.Ds were recipients of the Walter Isard Award given by the Peace Science Society (International) for the best dissertation in peace and conflict studies, a record unmatched by any other university.