Areas of Teaching and Research Interest

International relations theory; U. S. and Japanese foreign policy; security studies; theories of social and political choice; political psychology.

Ongoing Research Projects

My research focuses on the political psychology of leadership in foreign policy decision making; US-Japan relations; and the role of identity politics and social norms in contemporary international relations. Publications include:  Psychology and Constructivism in International Relations:  An Ideational Alliance (co-edited with Vaughn Shannon, 2011), Cultures of Order:  Leadership, Language, and Social Reconstruction in Germany and Japan (co-authored with Katja Weber, 2007), Groupthink or Deadlock: When Do Leaders Learn from Their Advisors? (2002) and International Relations in a Constructed World (co-edited with Vendulka Kubalkova and Nicholas Onuf, 1998).

My ongoing research includes two book projects. One, supported by the Social Science Research Council, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and Florida International University, explores the causes, and the foreign policy consequences, of national identity in US-Japan relations. The second is a jointly-authored (with Lisa Prugl) introductory international relations textbook project.