About Me
I am an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Middlebury College. I specialize in international relations and political theory. I am particularly interested in international political economy and the history of political and economic ideas. Previously trained as a historian, I infuse my study of political and economic institutions with a historical perspective.
I have a Ph.D. in Political Science and a Master’s in History from Stanford University. I am also an alumnus of the University of Chicago (graduated 2003) and a member of Trinity College at Cambridge University (matriculated 2002).
For my leave year (2012-13), I will be a fellow at the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University.
My Trajectory
While I have always been interested in policy, I was originally trained as a historian. As an undergraduate at Chicago, I studied political and economic ideas and institutions in the British Empire and the early United States. I spent my fourth year abroad at Cambridge, where I wrote a second undergraduate thesis on the influence of John Locke on British mercantilism. I subsequently went to Stanford to pursue a PhD in history under Jack Rakove. Even as a historian, however, I was unusually interested in the role international politics played in animating and constraining seemingly “domestic” policies. At the same time, I became increasingly impressed with the sophisticated tools political scientists have developed to study these issues. Hoping to flesh out these international dimensions with the care and skill they warranted, I switched into Professor Rakove’s other department: political science.
My work continues in the traditions of my mentors: Judith Goldstein, Barry Weingast, Benjamin J. Cohen, Mark Goldie, Steven Pincus, and Jack Rakove. I am broadly interested in studying the role of ideas and intellectuals in foreign economic policy. Having been an intellectual historian, I take the ideas at play seriously and go to lengths to ensure that I contextualize and develop them as well as a historian might. I am, however, ultimately interested in the ways in which these ideas--and the intellectuals who proffer them--interact with institutions and interests to shape policy. My research utilizes both the methods of contemporary social science and historical analysis.
My home at Middlebury is in the Department of Political Science, although I am also a member of the interdisciplinary International Politics and Economics program. One of the few such undergraduate programs in the country, the IP&E program provides Middlebury students with a rigorous introduction to the interaction between politics and economics in the international sphere. Working with students across disciplines nicely complements my interdisciplinary research.
Me with Hadley & Samantha