Uncommon Ground: indivisible territory and the politics of legitimacy. Book Manuscript. Under review at a major university press

In Jerusalem, Ireland, Kosovo, and Kashmir, indivisible territory underlies much of international conflict. I argue that whether or not territory appears indivisible depends upon how actors legitimate their claims to territory during negotiations. The manuscript applies this legitimation theory to Ulster and Jerusalem.

The Power of Position: entrepreneurs, networks, and international politics
Political entrepreneurs reside at the core of constructivist theory. Structures might constrain agents, but entrepreneurs can remake and transform these structures, contesting norms, shifting identities and creating space for significant political change. Despite this, constructivists themselves note that key questions about entrepreneurs remain under-theorized. Under what conditions are political entrepreneurs likely to emerge? Who is likely to succeed as an entrepreneur, and how do entrepreneurs produce structural change? I argue constructivists could strengthen their answers to these questions by drawing from the growing program of social network theory.

War Reimagines the State: the Military Technical Revolution and State-Formation in Early Modern Europe

This essay recasts both why the military technical revolution was important, as well as how it influenced the modern European state. First, I argue that the military transformation of the sixteenth and seventeenth century was not simply a material revolution; it was an ideational revolution as well. Second, I argue that that the military technical revolution did not only increase a sovereign’s power or his ability to control territory. Rather the military revolution reconstructed social relations within the modern state. In particular, the military technical revolution reorganized societies into populations, conceptualizing social relations as organized and governed by virtue of their geographic boundaries.