Hein Goemans
Professor of Political Science
PhD, Chicago, 1995

hgoemans@mail.rochester.edu
Harkness Hall 337

A specialist in war, war termination and territorial disputes, Hein's current research project examines war from a novel perspective: which pieces of territory are disputed in the first place, and why? In collaboration with colleagues, Hein has published a series of papers on territorial conflict that form building blocks in prepation for the larger book project. These papers show that states typically have limited aims, and the implications that has for bargaining; explored why states dispute some border segments but not others in Africa; how maps affect national identity and willingness to sacrifice for the defense of the homeland, and how and why borders are focal points in both domestic and international coordination games. Tracing the history of borders through changing maps in South America (an ideally circumscribed case study), the project explores the impact of internalized national identity on territorial conflict.

His first book, War and Punishment, was published by Princeton University Press (2000), asks what keeps wars going and what makes them stop, and focuses on the role of leaders in war termination--with an empirical focus on World War I. His second book, Leaders and International Conflict, co-authored with Giacomo Chiozza, was published by Cambridge University Press (2011) and focuses on the role of leaders in war inititiation. The book employs a new data set,  Archigos, collected in collaboration with Giacomo Chiozza and Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, to analyze the role of leaders in international conflict; Archigos won the 2014 Lijphart/Przeworski/Verba Dataset Award sponsored by the American Political Science Association's section on Comparative Politics. The book also includes a detailed historical analysis of international conflict in Central America 1840 -- 1919. Leaders and International Conflict was awarded the Joseph Lepgold Prize (Georgetown University) for best book in International Relations in 2011.

Goemans' publications have appeared in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, International Organization, World Politics, the British Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, the Journal of Peace Research and Security Studies. His teaching focuses on international relations, with an emphasis on conflict and international relations history.

Goemans has discussed his work on war termination in the contex of the war in Ukraine in articles in the The Economist (09/20/2023), The Atlantic (05/17/2023), The Washington Post's Monkey Cage (03/34/2022) as well as in interviews in international media, such as , the BBC's The Inquiry, Cable News CBC, Euronews, Ejaz Haider's InFocus (Pakistan), CNN Portugal, France 24, TV3 Estonia, Welt, Kabel 1, CTV News Channel, TVBS-N Taiwan, SBS Australia, and print media such as The Financial Times, NRC Handelsblad, Algemeen Dagblad, Het Parool, Der Spiegel, Die Zeit and The New Yorker