Publications

“Weaponising Europe? Rule-makers and rule-takers in the EU regulatory security state” (online Feb 2023) Journal of European Public Policy

“Muddying the Waters: Migration Management in the Global Commons” with Noora Lori, (2021) International Relations

“The Political Economy of Global Migration and Border Security” with Noora Lori, (2021) Journal of Global Security Studies.

Forum introduction on “Political Economy of Global Security” with Rosella Cappella-Zielinski and Norrin Ripsman, (2021) Journal of Global Security Studies.

“A more martial Europe? Public opinion, permissive consensus, and EU defence policy” with with Stephanie Anderson and Andrew Garner, European Security (2019)

Questions the European public’s alleged resistance to defense integration and the use of force. Findings include evidence of robust and well-formed preferences over EU defense integration, including an equal preference for hard power over soft power options, as well as normal public opinion preferences over defense spending and the use of force.

“Hatchet or Scalpel? Domestic Politics, International Threats, and US Military Spending Cuts, 1950-2014” with Rosella Cappella-Zielinski,Security Studies (2019)

Theorizes US defense decision making as subject to constraints and tradeoffs, due to relative domestic interest group configurations. Proposes a framework for understanding defense spending cuts, taking an organizational lens to the strategic and parochial interests and organizations with a stake in the distributional politics of defense spending. Evaluates the relative capacity constraints on the foreign policy executive to cut, not cut, or redistribute existing spending relative to other strategic or domestic concerns.

“What Goes Up, Must Come Down? The Asymmetric Effects of International Threat and Economic Growth on Military Spending” with Rosella Cappella-Zielinski and Benjamin Fordham, Journal of Peace Research (2017)

Questions key assumptions about defense spending, including the idea that variables explaining national differences also explain overtime spending changes, and variables explaining spending increases also explain decreases. We hypothesize that—both across and within cases—growth might not vary inversely with spending (contrary to expectations of defense budgets as Keynesian tools), and that variable (GDP and threat) increases might impact spending increases differently than GDP or threat decline impact spending decreases. We found a differential impact of economic growth/decline on defense spending increases/decreases. We also found no systematic relationship—either increases or decreases—in threat change and spending change, a surprising result, but one that lends support to my overall research agenda that security outcomes are driven by nonstrategic, domestic interests and parochialisms as much, if not more than, strategic or international factors.

 “European Security Strategy and Capability: Enablers and Constraints on EU Power?” JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies (2017)

Uses a historical institutionalist framework to theorize military capabilities, proposing that 1) European states are threat-sensitive to international change, 2) this is not always evident in spending changes, but in procurement pattern shifts (from conventional to expeditionary back to conventional), and 3) over time, investments in a particular kind of capability can produce capability constraints at a later stage, when international threat environments shift.

“Cosmic top secret Europe? The legacy of North Atlantic Treaty Organization and cold war US policy on European Union information policy.” European Security (2015)

Evaluates EU classified information and security clearance policy, addressing how the 21 Century EU adopted US McCarthy-era rules for secrecy and classified information, due to bureaucratic inefficiencies in attempting to mimic NATO standard operating procedures. The consequences resulted in extreme opacity in EU affairs, as well as the accidental adoption of démodé discriminatory personnel policies over sexuality and mental health.

“Who are the Europeans? European Identity Outside of European Integration.” JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies (2014)

Questions the assumptions around EU identification, including that identifying as European was associated with support for the EU or expectation of benefits from EU membership. Found evidence that cultural attachment to Europe exists separately from EU support. The implications are that there are multiple possible mechanisms in identifying as European, and at least one is not liberal or cosmopolitan. ‘Feeling’ European is not necessarily a progressive or cosmopolitan frame, but can be associated with more cultural, historical, or regressive politics.

Book Chapters and Non-refereed Articles