Harvey Starr
Dag Hammarskjold Professor in International Affairs Emeritus, University of South Carolina
Harvey Starr is the Dag Hammarskjӧld Professor in International Affairs Emeritus, retiring from the Department of Political Science at the University of South Carolina in 2014. Before arriving at South Carolina he taught for 17 years at Indiana University. He served as chair of the Political Science Department at both institutions. He has also held visiting appointments at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, and the Australian National University.
His broad research interests include theories and methods in the study of international relations, war and international conflict, geopolitics and diffusion analyses, and domestic influences on foreign policy. His primary research focus has been on the study of conflict processes—including the causes of conflict, the consequences of conflict, the spread of conflict, and the relationships between conflict within states and between states, and between the governments of states and internal opposition groups to state governments– including civil war, and “protracted social conflict” among ethnic groups, and between such groups and governments. Also related is his most recent research on the causes and consequences of failed states. His overall theoretical framework of “opportunity and willingness” has led him to study decision making and psychological approaches, as well as the contexts within which the decision making process takes place, especially geo-spatial and geopolitical studies. His work includes the use of statistical methods, game theory and formal models, simulation, and GIS (geographic information systems), as well as case studies.
He has received multiple grants from the National Science Foundation, has served on the NSF Advisory Panel for Political Science, and has reviewed NSF proposals for Political Science and six other NSF programs. He has served as President of the International Studies Association (2013-14), President of the Peace Science Society (2000-01), and Vice-President of the American Political Science Association (1995-96). In 2015 he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Conflict Processes Section of the American Political Science Association, “in recognition of scholarly contributions that have fundamentally improved the study of conflict processes.” He also received the International Studies Association Section on Political Demography and Geography’s 2016-17 Distinguished Scholar/Myron Weiner Award.
He is author or co-author of 18 books and monographs, and over one hundred journal articles and book chapters. His most recent books include: On Geopolitics: Space, Place, and International Relations (2013), The Israeli Conflict System: Analytic Approaches (co-edited with Stan Dubinsky, 2016), and State Failure in the Modern World (co-authored with Zaryab Iqbal, 2016).