Zachary Shirkey
Professor of Political Science

Zachary C. Shirkey teaches courses on international security, foreign policy, and international relations theory. His research focuses on military intervention, state alignment strategies, war duration, historical international relations, and counterterrorism. He has published articles in the Journal of Peace Research, Polity, Civil Wars, International Studies Review, Conflict Management and Peace Research, PS, and the Journal of Theoretical Politics. He has four books. The most recent one, American Dove: US Foreign Policy and the Failure of Force (University of Michigan Press), argues the United States would benefit from a more peaceful foreign policy that relied on deterrence and non-military tools. He is currently working on a series of projects examining the relationship between the international system and the units that compose it.

• American Dove: US Foreign Policy and the Failure of Force. 2020. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press).
• Uncertainty, Threat, and International Security: Implications for Southeast Asia. 2017. Routledge.
• Implications for Southeast Asia Joining the Fray: Military Intervention in Civil Wars. 2012. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.
• Is This a Private Fight or Can Anybody Join? The Spread of Interstate War. 2009. Aldershot, UK:  Ashgate.