Affiliated Faculty
Elizabeth Kier, Co-Director, UWISC
Email: ekier@uw.edu
Elizabeth Kier (Ph.D., Cornell University) is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Washington. Her first book, Imagining War: French and British Military Doctrine Between the Wars (Princeton, 1997), won the 1998 Edgar S. Furniss Award for exceptional contribution to the study of national and international security. Her recent book, War and Democracy: Labor and the Politics of Peace (Cornell, 2021) explores the effect of war on democracy. A co-edited volume with Ronald Krebs, In War’s Wake: International Conflict and the Fate of Liberal Democracy (Cambridge, 2006) addresses similar themes. She has also published articles on social movements, military doctrine, gays in the military, and setting precedents in international politics. Her current research focuses on rights in the military.
She has been a fellow at the London School of Economics, the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs (Harvard), the Center for International Security and Arms Control( Stanford), and the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies (Harvard). She has received fellowships from the SSRC-MacArthur Fellow in Peace and International Security MacArthur Foundation, SSRC-Western Europe, the Institute for the Study of World Politics, and the Council for European Studies.
Jonathan Mercer, Co-Director, UWISC
Email: mercer@uw.edu
Jonathan Mercer (Ph.D., Columbia University) is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Washington. He specializes in international relations with an emphasis on international security and political psychology. His current research addresses racism in international politics. He has published on “prestige” in the journal International Security, and on various aspects of emotion in International Organization and International Theory. His book, Reputation and International Politics, won the Edgar S. Furniss Award for an exceptional contribution to the study of national and international security.
He has been a fellow at the Center for International Relations at the London School of Economics, the Danish Institute for International Security in Copenhagen, the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard, the Center for International Relations at UCLA, the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford, and he was also an SSRC-MacArthur Fellow in Peace and Security.
David Bachman
Email: dbachman@uw.edu
David Bachman (Ph.D., Stanford University) is a Professor in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington. His areas of interest include the government and politics of contemporary China; US-China relations; and Chinese foreign relations.
Saadia Pekkanen
Email: smp1@u.washington.edu
Saadia Pekkanen (Ph.D., Harvard University; M.S.L., Yale Law School) is a Professor in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington. Her areas of interest include international political economy and international trade law, with a particular focus on the WTO. Her regional focus is Japan, as well as East Asia more broadly.
Rebecca U. Thorpe
Email: bthorpe@uw.edu
Rebecca Thorpe (Ph.D., University of Maryland, 2010) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Washington. Her research focuses on American politics with an emphasis on state-building and political violence. Her recent book, The American Warfare State: The Domestic Politics of Military Spending (University of Chicago Press, 2014) won the Richard E. Neustadt Best Book Award. The American Warfare State examines the development and persistence of the U.S. military complex and growth in presidential power to launch military actions. She has published articles on geographic biases in defense contracting and federal spending, the institutional politics of U.S. warfare, and the persistence of mass imprisonment in the U.S. She was formerly a Research Fellow at The Brookings Institution. She also worked on Capitol Hill as an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow. Thorpe teaches courses on US political institutions, state development, political exclusion, and state violence.
Geoffrey P.R. Wallace
email: gprwall@uw.edu
Geoffrey P.R. Wallace (Ph.D., Cornell University) is an Associate Professor in the
Department of Political Science at the University of Washington. He works primarily in the areas of international security and international law with a focus on the conduct of actors
during armed conflict. He also has interests in the design and effectiveness of international institutions as well as public opinion and foreign policy. He is the author of the book Life and Death in Captivity: The Abuse of Prisoners during War (Cornell University Press, 2015). His work has appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, and the Journal of Conflict Resolution, among others. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). He teaches courses on international law, international organizations, political violence, and international conflict.