Fields of Interest
Biography
Elizabeth Kier (Ph.D., Cornell University) is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Washington. Her first book, Imagining War: French and British Military Doctrine Between the Wars (Princeton, 1997), won the 1998 Edgar S. Furniss Award for exceptional contribution to the study of national and international security. Her recent book, War and Democracy: Labor and the Politics of Peace (Cornell, 2021) explores the effect of war on democracy. A co-edited volume with Ronald Krebs, In War's Wake: International Conflict and the Fate of Liberal Democracy (Cambridge, 2006) addresses similar themes. She has also published articles on social movements, military doctrine, gays in the military, and setting precedents in international politics. Her current research focuses on rights in the military.
She has been a fellow at the London School of Economics, the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs (Harvard), the Center for International Security and Arms Control( Stanford), and the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies (Harvard). She has received fellowships from the SSRC-MacArthur Fellow in Peace and International Security MacArthur Foundation, SSRC-Western Europe, the Institute for the Study of World Politics, and the Council for European Studies.
Kier teaches courses in international relations, national security, civil-military relations, and American and European foreign policy.
Research
Selected Research
- Kier, Elizabeth. War and Democracy: Labor and the Politics of Peace. Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, 2021.
- Kier, Elizabeth. In War’s Wake: International Conflict and the Fate of Liberal Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010 (co-edited with Ronald R. Krebs).
- Kier, Elizabeth. “Social Cohesion and Motivation in Combat: An Old Question with an Old Answer,” Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 32, no. 4 (2006): 546-654 (with Aaron Belkin and Robert MacCoun).
- Kier, Elizabeth. “Homosexuals in the U.S. Military: Open Integration and Combat Effectiveness,” International Security, 23, no. 2 (fall 1998): 5-39.
- Kier, Elizabeth, Imagining War: British and French Military Doctrine Before World War II, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997.
- Kier, Elizabeth. "Setting Precedents in Anarchy: Military Intervention and Weapons of Mass Destruction," International Security 20, no. 4 (spring 1996): 77-106 (co-authored with Jonathan Mercer).
- Kier, Elizabeth. "Culture and Military Doctrine: France between the Wars," International Security 19, no. 4 (spring 1995): 65-93.
Research Advised
- Vanessa E. Quince. 2018. "Racism By Design: The Role of Race and Ethnicity in the Design of International Trade Agreements"
- Meredith Loken. 2018. "Women in War: Militancy, Legitimacy, and Rebel Success"
- John A. Buchanan. 2017. "The Rise of the Bo: Autonomous Strongmen, Opium Capital, and State Formation in Mainland Southeast Asia (1948-1996)"
- Emily Kalah Gade. 2017. "Connection and Resistance: Civilian experiences of violence in conflict zones and their impact on civilians’ political preferences for violent and nonviolent resistance"
- William L. D'Ambruoso. 2016. "The Persistence of Torture: Explaining Coercive Interrogations in America's Small Wars." Diss., U of Washington.
- Stephan Hamberg. 2015. "Electoral Violence in New Democracies: Institutionalizing Peaceful Elections." Diss., U of Washington.
- Katherine Banks. "He Who Writes the Checks Tells You How to Dance: Explaining Health Aid Channel Allocation and Institutional Choice." Diss., University of Washington, March 2015.
- Jason Scheideman. 2010. "Threatening Extinction? Patronage, International Monitoring, and Electoral Fraud." Diss., U of Washington.
- Kawato Yuko. 2010. "Imagining Security: The U.S. Military Bases and Protests in Asia." Diss., U of Washington.