Books
Private Wars: Corporate Intelligence and the Roots of American Interventionism, in-progress
Throughout the twentieth century, the U.S. government exercised statecraft to protect American investments in Africa, Latin America, South Asia, and the Middle East. Conventional wisdom among IR scholars and historian states it was in the U.S. national interest to do so. This book presents a different story. Drawing on newly-discovered archival evidence and detailed case studies, I show that American policymakers were often uncertain about how to pursue their national interests abroad. Instead, American corporations who sought protection were the key players in these interventionism. These corporations lobbied policymakers and provided intelligence—strategic and economic information about the world—that shaped their perceptions of the world, affecting American security policy and the trajectory of the international order. The book challenges us to consider the epistemic sources of corporate power, the value of business-state relations in foreign policy, and ways to foster an equitable foreign policy.
The Price of Empire: Entrepreneurs in American Expansionism, with Eric Grynaviski, Cambridge University Press (2024)
Beginning in the 1850s, the United States took its first, cautious steps toward developing an overseas empire in the Pacific. The conventional wisdom among many historians is that there were forces within the continental United States that yearned to expand. We challenge that conventional wisdom, showing how American entrepreneurs—conmen, slavers, adventurers, and criminals—stimulated U.S. interest in pursuing imperialism in the Pacific in the mid to late nineteenth century. We show how commodity prices drove entrepreneurs abroad, and threats to profits prompted them to lobby for imperialism. We provide original archival evidence and detailed case studies of every case of U.S. expansion and non-expansion in the Pacific before 1899. The findings prompt us to rethink the importance of periodization in IR theory and the origins of American imperialism.
Peer-Reviewed Publications
“The Color of International Trade: How Different Racial Attitudes Affect Public Trade Preferences”, with Steven Schaaf, International Interactions 50:4 (2024): 593-623.
“Wars without Gun Smoke: Global Supply Chains, Power Transitions, and Economic Statecraft,” with Ling Chen, International Security, 48:2 (2023): 164-204
“Discovering the Prize: Information, Lobbying, and the Origins of U.S.-Saudi Security Relations,” European Journal of International Relations, 29:1 (2023), 104-128
“Just the Facts: Why Norms Remain Relevant in an Age of Practice,” International Theory 12:2 (2020), 220-230
“Is There a Trump Effect? An Experiment on Political Polarization and Audience Costs,” with Aleksandr Fisher and Steven Schaaf, Perspectives on Politics, 17:2 (2019), 433-45
“On Transgression,” International Studies Quarterly, 61:4 (2017), 786-794
Commentary
“Why the United States is Losing the Tech War with China”, Lawfare, The Brookings Institution, Jan. 14 (2024).
“The Economic War Against China in Self-Defeating,” Power Problems Podcast, CATO Institute, 49:00.
“The Business of Grand Strategy: Corporations, Economic Statecraft, and Geopolitical Competition,” with Geoffrey Gertz, The Washington Quarterly, 43:2 (2020), 117-136
“If Trump backs down from his latest Iran threat, will he lose support? We checked,” with Aleksandr Fisher and Steven Schaaf, The Washington Post, June 26 (2019)
“The Biggest Threat to China’s Growing Military Might,” The National Interest, July 16 (2014)
“The Fatally Flawed Fragile States Index,” The National Interest, July 15 (2014)
Ongoing Research
“Anachronism in International Relations Theory,” with Arjun Chowdhury (revise-and-resubmit)
“The Color of International Justice: Racial Attitudes towards the International Criminal Court”
“Roll for Racism: An Experiment on Fantasy and World Racial Imaginaries”, with Eric Grynaviski and Steven Schaaf
“Corporate Leviathans: Private Authority at the Birth of the Modern International System”
“They All Go To Davos: CEOs in International Political Economy”