My scholarship in recent years has focused on the five areas described below.  I’ve listed recent papers, and am happy to send them upon request, if publishers permit.  For more information on my publications, check my google scholar profile, my researcher ID page, or download my CV.

Subversion in Great Power Politics

What role does subversion–malicious meddling in domestic affairs–play in great power competition?

• Kastner, J. and W.C. Wohlforth, A Measure Short of War: A Brief History of Great Power Subversion. Oxford University Press, available December 2024.
• Kastner, J. and W.C. Wohlforth, “A Measure Short of War: The Return of Great Power Subversion,” Foreign Affairs (July/August 2021), 118-131.
• “Realism and Great Power Subversion,” International Relations 34: 4  (December 2020)

Unipolarity and U.S. Grand Strategy

This project seeks to assess the United States’ position in an evolving international system and the strategic implications for U.S. foreign policy.  Much of this work is coauthored with Dartmouth’s Stephen Brooks, and I am also collaborating on several ongoing projects with Carla Norrlof at the University of Toronto.

• “The Myth of Multipolarity: American Power’s Staying Power,” S. G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth Foreign Affairs May/June 2023: 76-91
• “Raison de l’Hégémonie (The Hegemon’s Interest): Theory of the Costs and Benefits of Hegemony” with Carla Norrlof,  Security Studies 28, no. 3 (July–September 2019).
  
• “The Future of the Liberal Order Is Conservative: A Strategy to Save the System,” Foreign Affairs March/April 2019.  With Jennifer Lind
• “Is US Grand Strategy Self Defeating? Deep Engagement, Military Spending and Sovereign Debt,” with Carla Norrlof.  Conflict Management and Peace Science (published online November 2016)
• “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers in the 21st Century: China’s Rise and the Fate of America’s Global Position,” International Security (Winter 2015/16): 7-53. With Stephen Brooks.
• “The Once and Future Superpower: Why China Won’t Overtake the United States,” Foreign Affairs May/June 2016, pp 91-104
• America Abroad: The United States’ Global Role in the 21st Century, with S.G. Brooks. (Oxford University Press: July 2016).
• “The US Commitment to Europe,” in Jeremy Suri, Benjamin Valentino, and Stephen Van Evera, eds. A Sustainable National Security Strategy (Oxford University Press, 2016).
• “Lean Forward: In Defense of American Engagement,” Foreign Affairs Jan-Feb 2013, pp. 130-142.  With S.G. Brooks and G. J. Ikenberry.
• “Don’t Come Home, America: The Case Against Retrenchment,” International Security 37/3 (Winter 2012-13): 7-51.  With S.G. Brooks and G. J. Ikenberry.
• International Relations Theory and the Consequences of Unipolarity (editor, with G. John Ikenberry and Michael M. Mastanduno) Cambridge University Press, 2011.
•  “Unipolarity, State Behavior and Systemic Consequences,” with G. John Ikenberry and Michael Mastanduno, World Politics 61: 1 (January 2009): 1-27
• World Out of Balance: International Relations Theory and the Challenge of American Primacy (Princeton University Press, 2008). With Stephen G. Brooks

Status, Social Identity, and Power Politics

People value their position in the social hierarchy–status, prestige, standing–sometimes even more than they care about material things.  How if at all does this affect conflict and cooperation among states?

•  “The Irony of Prestige: Status-Seeking as Rational Choice,” Cooperation and Conflict, forthcoming.
• “Why Authoritarians Love the Olympics” with Dawn Brancati Foreign Affairs (online) March 2021
• External Intervention, Identity, and Civil War (with Nicholas Sambanis and Stergios Skaperdas)  Comparative Political Studies 2020, Vol. 53(14) 2155 –2182
  
  • See also Sambanis, Skaperdas and Wohlforth, “The Costs of a New Cold War are Higher than You Think,” Political Violence at a Glance Oct. 2020.
• “Status-Seeking and Nation-Building: The ‘Piedmont Principle’ Revisited”  with Simone Paci & Nicholas Sambanis, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 51: 1 Summer 2020 p.65-95
  
• Moral Authority and Status in International Relations: Good States and the Social Dimension of Status-Seeking” with Benjamin de Carvalho; Halvard Leira; Iver B. Neumann Review of International Studies 44/3 (July 2018), pp. 526-546
• “Nation-Building Through War,” American Political Science Review Vol. 109, No. 2 (May 2015): 279 – 296,  with Nicholas Sambanis and Stergios Skaperdas
• Status and World Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2014) edited with T.V. Paul and Deborah Larson.
• “Status Dilemmas and Inter-State Conflict,” chapter in Status and World Order.
• “Hypotheses on Status Competition,” working paper, with David Kang
• “Unipolarity, Status Competition and Great Power War” World Politics  61:1 (January 2009): 28-57.

Russia  and the West

I have longstanding teaching and research interests in Russian Foreign policy and from 2018-2021 served as Scientific Director of the Laboratory of International Process Analysis at MGIMO University

• “The Tragedy of US-Russian Relations: NATO Centrality and the Revisionists’ Spiral,” International Politics 57 (3) (2020), pp. 427-450. With A. A. Sushentsov.
• “An abiding antagonism: realism, idealism and the mirage of western–Russian partnership after the Cold War,” International Politics  with V. M. Zubok (Published online May 2017)
• Torkunov, A. V., W. C. Wohlforth and B. F. Martynov, eds., History of International Relations and Russian Foreign Policy in the 20th Century (2 vols.) (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing., 2020)

Realism and International Politics

Realism is a venerable approach to the study and practice of international relations.  Scholars continue to debate and refine it.

• Andersen, M. ., & Wohlforth,  W.C.,  “The Balance of Power,” in Routledge Handbook of Historical International Relations (2021) Benjamin de Carvalho, Julia Costa Lopez, Halvard Leira, eds.
• “Realism and Foreign Policy,” in Steve Smith, Amelia Hadfield and Tim Dunne, eds., Foreign Policy: Theory, Actors, Cases (Oxford University Press 3d ed 2016)
• “Hegemonic Decline and Hegemonic War Revisited,” in G. John Ikenberry, ed., Power, Order and Change in World Politics (Cambridge University Press,  2014).
• “GilpinianRealism and International Relations” International Relations 25/4(December 2011): 499-511
• “No One Loves a Realist Explanation: The Cold War’s End Revisited” International Politics Vo1. 48: Nos. 4/5 (July/September 2011) pp.441-459
• “Realism and Security Studies,” in Myriam Chase Dunn and Victor Mauer, eds., The Routledge Handbook of Security Studies (London: Routledge, 2011)
•  “Realism,” in in Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal, eds., The Oxford Handbook of International Relations  (Oxford University Press, 2008)
• “Testing Balance of Power in World History,” European Journal of International Relations Vol. 13, No. 6 (June 2007), 155-185.  (with  Little,  Kaufman,  Kang,  Jones,  Tin-Bor Hui,  Eckstein,  Deudney, and  Brenner)