Research
My research focuses on military organizations and civil-military relations, mostly in OECD countries. I am currently working on several projects, dealing primarily with domestic use of military force for law enforcement, as well as determinants of manpower systems, professional ethics, how the US public perceives "cost" with respect to military operations, and what drives the "thank you for your service" phenomenon. I am also interested in public opinion on military and foreign policy issues, comparative political economy, innovation in organizations, asymmetric conflict, and international law.
Current book-length projects:
Posse: Domestic Use of Federal Forces and U.S. Civil-Military Relations
On Order, Authority, and Civil-Military Relations
Current article-length projects:
“Domestic Use of Federal Force and Civil-Military Relations in the Post-Reconstruction U.S.”
“Thank You for Whose Service? Diversity and Feelings of Gratitude Towards Military Personnel”, with Meredith Kleykamp, Gilad Wenig, and Sarah Croco (survey experiment complete, data analysis in progress)
“I’m From the Government and I’m Here to Help: Public Perceptions of the Use of Coercive State Power”, with Jessica Blankshain and Danielle Lupton (R&R at APSR)
PUBLICATIONS: PEER REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLES
“Citizens to Soldiers: Mobilization, Cost Perceptions, and Support for Military Action”, with Jessica Blankshain and Doug Kriner, Journal of Global Security Studies 7(4), 2022.
“Markets and Manpower: the Political Economy of Compulsory Military Service”, with Nathan Toronto, Armed Forces and Society 43(3): 436-458, 2016.
“How Much is Enough? Military Compensation and the Civil-Military Contract”, Strategic Studies Quarterly 9(3), 2015.
“Who Will Serve: Labor Markets and Military Personnel Policy”, Res Militaris 3(2). Winter/Spring 2013.
“Relations Between Uniformed and Contractor Personnel in Operations” Small Wars and Insurgencies special issue on complex operations 24(2): 295-305, 2013.
“It Wasn’t in my Contract: Civilian Control and the Privatization of Security”, Armed Forces and Society 37(3): 381-398, 2011.
PUBLICATIONS: CHAPTERS IN EDITED VOLUMES
“Modern Day Minutemen? Public Opinion and Reserve Component Mobilization”, with Jessica Blankshain, in Checking the Costs of War: Sources of Accountability in U.S. Foreign Policy, eds Doug Kriner and Sarah Kreps, forthcoming at Chicago University Press
“To Execute the Laws of the Union: domestic use of federal military force in the United States”, in Military Operation and Engagement in the Domestic Jurisdiction: comparative call-out laws, eds Pauline Collins and Rosalie Arcala-Hall, Brill-Nijhoff, 2022.
“Dissents and Sensibility: Conflicting Loyalties, Democracy, and Civil-Military Relations”, with Michael A. Robinson and Max Z. Margulies, in Reconsidering American Civil-Military Relations: the military, society, politics, and modern war, eds R. Brooks, L. Beehner, and D. Maurer. Oxford University Press, 2020.
“Conscription and the Politics of Military Recruitment”, with Nathan W. Toronto, in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, 2020.
“Political Realism and Civil-Military Relations” in The Edinburgh Companion to Political Realism, edited by Miles Hollingworth and Robert Schuett. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2018.
"The U.S. Approach to Countering Violent Extremism" in Extremisms in Africa, edited by Alain Tschudin and Stephen Buchanan-Clarke. Johannesburg, SA: Fanele (an imprint of Jacana Publishers), 2018.
“Civil-Military Relations” in The Oxford University Press Handbook on International Security, edited by William Wohlforth and Alexandira Gheciu. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Co-authored with Peter D. Feaver and Damon Coletta.
“Thanks for Your Service: Civilian and Veteran Attitudes After Fifteen Years of War” in James Mattis and Kori Schake (eds), Warriors and Citizens: American Views of Our Military. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2016. Co-authored with James T. Golby and Peter D. Feaver.
“American Civil-Military Relations and the Use of Force” in Encyclopedia of War and American Society, edited by Peter Karsten. London: Sage Publications, 2006: 133-137. Co-authored with Peter D. Feaver and Christopher Gelpi.
“Civil-Military Relations in the US” in Armed Forces and International Security: Global Trends and Issues, edited by Jean Callaghan and Franz Kernic. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2003: 65-72.
“Introduction” in Peter D. Feaver and Richard H. Kohn, eds. Soldiers and Civilians: the Civil-Military Gap and American National Security. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001: 1-11. Co-authored with Peter D. Feaver and Richard H. Kohn.
PUBLICATIONS: NON-PEER-REVIEWED
“Civil-Military Relations One Year In”, Texas National Security Review “Policy Roundtable: Civil-Military Relations Now and Tomorrow”. 27 March, 2018.
"Drones and Targeted Killing: Costs, Accountability, and US Civil-Military Relations", Orbis 59(1). Winter 2015.
Review of Military Politics and Democracy in the Andes (by Maiah Jaskoski), Perspectives on Politics 12(2): 508-509, June 2014.
Review of Service to Country: Personnel Policy and the Transformation of Western Militaries (edited by Curtis Gilroy and Cindy Williams), Armed Forces and Society 35(3): 608-611, April 2009.
“Kampf dem Chaos: die klassischen Formeln der Counter-insurgency und warum man mit ihnen im Irak nicht weit kommt” [Fighting Chaos: why classic counter-insurgency doctrine may be insufficient in Iraq], in Internationale Politik 14(1): 40-44. Berlin: German Council on Foreign Relations, January 2008.
The Evolution of the Civil-Military “Gap” Debate. Working Paper of the Triangle Institute for Security Studies (Project on the Gap Between the Military and Civilian Society), Durham: TISS, 1999.
Dissertation
My dissertation, "Who Will Serve? Education, Labor Markets, and Military Personnel Policy", assessed how differences in educational systems and labor market structure across states affect military policies on selection/accessions, occupational specialty assignment, and terms of contract. Fundamentally, military personnel policies are likely to be a compromise between the military's functional demands of both high levels of firm-specific training AND fairly high levels of labor turnover, and what the national labor market context incentivizes the individual laborer to expect. In more highly regulated labor markets, where turnover tends to be low, militaries will have to behave differently from firms in order to avoid having large numbers of expensive but redundant personnel. In less regulated labor markets, where turnover tends to be high and employers must incentivize laborers to invest in firm-specific skills, militaries will have to behave differently from firms by providing far higher levels of job security and less opportunity to leave employment voluntarily.
Using in-depth studies of five developed democracies (the USA, UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Germany), I determined that labor market structure had the expected effects on specialty assignment and terms of contract.
OTHER ACADEMIC PRODUCTS
“Civil-Military Relations: The Role of the Military in Policy Development” for the Peruvian Naval War College’s published proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Security and Defence, 2018
Translator German-to-English of The United Nations: an Introduction, by Sven Bernhard Gareis and Johannes Varwick, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
Language editing on European Military Law Systems, edited by Georg Nolte, Berlin: De Gruyter Recht, 2003.