John M. Owen IV is Amb. Henry J. and Mrs. Marion R. Taylor Professor of Politics, and a senior fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and the Miller Center for Public Affairs. He studies how democracy and other systems of government affect, and are affected by, international politics. His latest book is "The Ecology of Nations: American Democracy in a Fragile World Order" (Yale, 2023). He is also author of "Confronting Political Islam: Six Lessons from the West’s Past" (Princeton, 2014), of "The Clash of Ideas in World Politics: Transnational Networks, States, and Regime Change, 1510-2010" (Princeton, 2010), and of "Liberal Peace, Liberal War: American Politics and International Security" (Cornell, 1997), and co-editor (with Judd Owen) of "Religion, the Enlightenment, and the New Global Order" (Columbia, 2011). He is co-author, with Richard Rosecrance, of "International Politics: How History Modifies Theory" (Oxford, 2018). He has published in the European Journal of International Relations, Foreign Affairs, International Organization, Internationale Politik und Gesellschaft, International Security, International Studies Quarterly, National Interest, New York Times, Perspectives on Politics, Washington Post, USA Today, The Hill, and a number of edited volumes.   

A past chair of the Department of Politics, Owen holds an A.B. from Duke University, an M.P.A. from Princeton University, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. He has held fellowships and visitorships at Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Oxford, the Free University of Berlin, the WZB Berlin Social Science Research Center, and the University of British Columbia. His research has been supported by the Mellon, MacArthur, Olin, Donchian, Earhart, and Smith Richardson foundations. From July 2011 through June 2014 he was editor-in-chief of Security Studies. He is on the editorial board of that journal and of International Security. In 2015-16 he received a Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. During Winter and Spring 2024, he is an Academic Visitor at Nuffield College, University of Oxford.