Jeffrey T. Checkel
Jeffrey T. Checkel is Professor of International Studies and Simons Chair in International Law and Human Security. His reviews and articles have appeared in American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, European Journal of International Relations, European Union Politics, International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, International Studies Review, Review of International Studies and World Politics. In addition, he is the author of Ideas and International Political Change: Soviet/Russian Behavior and the End of the Cold War (Yale University Press, 1997), editor of International Institutions and Socialization in Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2007), and co-editor (with Peter J. Katzenstein) of European Identity (Cambridge University Press, 2009).
In addition to his position at SFU, Checkel is also Research Professor, Centre for the Study of Civil War, International Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), where he leads a working group on 'Transnational and International Facets of Civil War.'
Latest News - CV - Research and Teaching
Current Projects - Recent Publications
Recent Invited Lectures - Courses
- 11.09: 'Mobilizing Across Borders' - Click here for new project prospectus
- 10.09: International Workshop - 'Mobilizing Across Borders'
- 9.09: Simons Series Fall 2009 - Click here for the latest news
- 1.09: Simons Series in the Social Dynamics of Peace and Conflict
- 1.09: Sage Series on the Foundations of International Relations
- 12.08: Our New House on Bowen Island
- 7.08: Alphubel Rotgrat Traverse
Research and Teaching Interests
- International relations - Civil war, international institutions, constructivism, transnational politics
- Human rights
- European integration - Socialization dynamics, identity
- Qualitative methods
Mobilizing Across Borders: Transnational Dynamics of Civil War. Why should civil wars be any different? After all, across a variety of subfields and research programs in international relations, it has become a truism to argue that the external and the internal, the global and the local, the state and non-state actors are inextricably linked. To capture outcomes of interest to both scholars and policymakers, one must explain the interactions across these various levels. Indeed, surveying the literature on civil war, one finds an increasing recognition of this fact. Numerous examples come to mind - rebel groups recruiting across borders, the diffusion of ethnic conflict, state leaders using transnational armed groups to fight proxy wars, and diaspora networks financing civil conflict, to name just a few.
This project thus explores the relation of the transnational to the local in the context of civil war. How do we conceptualize this transnational dimension? In material or social terms? How does it affect civil war dynamics? By bringing new material resources into play? By affecting cost/benefit calculations? By promoting learning among actors? Under what conditions do transnational factors increase or decrease levels of civil violence? What is the nature of the causal connection between the transnational and the local? Put differently, what is the causal mechanism at work?
We argue that to address these issues – and to craft better theory about and policy on civil war – requires three moves. Analytically, one needs a more robust understanding of causality, where the goal is the measurement of causal mechanisms and not simply establishing causal effects. Theoretically, the finding of transnationalism’s importance in
civil war needs to be linked to existing literatures in other subfields that have extensively conceptualized and empirically documented such non-state dynamics; key here is work on transnational politics in IR theory and sociology. Methodologically, the central challenge is practical and operational – to establish a roster of techniques and appropriate community standards for mechanism-based social science. Click here for 10.09 workshop program and framework essay.
The More the Better? Human Rights Law in a Changing Europe. This project explores the consequences of the growing amount of human-rights lawmaking at the European regional level, specifically examining the European Union (EU), the European Court of Justice and the Charter of Fundamental Rights, on the one hand, and the Council of Europe, European Court of Human Rights and European Convention on Human Rights, on the other. Using various theoretical lenses (symbolic interactionism and role conflict from sociology; forum shopping and institutional nesting from rational choice), it seeks to offer a net assessment of the good and bad of the EU’s forceful move into the area of basic rights. Click here for policy memo.
From Meta-Theory to Nuts and Bolts - Qualitative Methods in International Studies. This project gives a practical, epistemologically plural and down-to-earth feel to the abstract and often meta-theoretical debates between positivists and post-positivists. It accomplishes this by focusing on method, and by interpreting qualitative to include a diverse set of techniques ranging from discourse analysis to ethnography to agent-based modeling. Recent publications include a 2008 chapter on process tracing, which distills a number of practical lessons and highlights its potential for bridging epistemological divides; and a 2008 symposium on bridging the gap between quantitative and qualitative studies of civil war.
Future work includes a co-edited volume for Cambridge University Press that will present a state-of-the-art overview of process tracing, from its meta-theoretical foundations to empirical applications. Watch this space in the coming months for more details!
European Identity. This collaboration is a multi-disciplinary overview, synthesis and exploration of the politics of European identity. Understood as process, these identities flow through multiple networks and create new patterns of identification. Viewed as project, the construction of identities is the task of elites and entrepreneurs, operating in Brussels or various national settings. Process and project involve publics and elites; they are open-ended and have no preordained outcomes; and they serve both worthy and nefarious political objectives. Bureaucrats crafting a Europe centered on Brussels, xenophobic nationalists, cosmopolitan Europeanists, anti-globalization Euro-skeptics, and a European public that for decades has been permissive of the evolution of a European polity - they are all politically involved in the construction of an evolving European identity.
- European Identity (Cambridge University Press, 2009)
- "Bridging the Gap? Connecting Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in the Study of Civil War (Symposium)," Qualitative Methods: Newsletter of the American Political Science Association Organized Section for Qualitative and Multi-Method Research 6, 1 (Spring 2008)
- "Process Tracing," in Audie Klotz, Editor, Qualitative Methods in International Relations: A Pluralist Guide (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)
- "Constructivism and Foreign Policy," in Tim Dunne, Amelia Hadfield and Steve Smith, Editors, Foreign Policy: Theories, Actors, Cases (Oxford University Press, 2007)
- "Social Mechanisms and Regional Cooperation: Are Europe and the EU Really All That Different?," in Amitav Acharya and Alastair Iain Johnston, Editors, Crafting Cooperation: Regional International Institutions in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2007)
- "Paradigm Wars or Scientific Pluralism? A Modest Proposal for EU Studies," European Union Studies Association EUSA Review 20, 2 (Spring 2007)
- International Institutions and Socialization in Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2007)
- "Constructivism and EU Politics," in Knud Erik Joergensen, Mark Pollack, Ben Rosamond, Editors, Handbook of European Union Politics (Sage Publications, 2007)
- "Tracing Causal Mechanisms (ISR Forum)," International Studies Review 8, 2 (June 2006)
- “Civil War and Regional Security,” 40th Anniversary Conference, Peace Studies Program, Cornell University, April 2010
- “Causal Mechanisms and the (Transnational) Dynamics of Civil War,” Mershon Center for International Security Studies, Ohio State University, January 2010
- "Transnational Dynamics of Civil War," Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zuerich), December 2009
- “Transnational Actors and the Boundaries of Civil Wars,” University of Washington International Security Colloquium, May 2009
- "The Politicization of European Identities," Social Science Research Center Berlin, May 2009
- “Understanding Transnationalized Civil War,” Otto Suhr Institute of Political Science, Free University Berlin, May 2009
- “The Transformative Power of Europe? Conditionality, Socialization and the (Forgotten) Role of Politics,” Otto Suhr Institute of Political Science, Free University Berlin, May 2009
- “Causal Mechanisms and Civil War,” Centre of International Relations and Liu Institute for Global Issues, University of British Columbia, April 2009
- “The Politicization of European Identities,” University of Trento and Innsbruck University, Ninth International PhD Summer School, Innsbruck University, September 2008
Undergraduate
- IS 409 - Theorizing International Politics (Fall 2009)
Masters
- IS 800 - International Development and Complex Emergencies: From Big Ideas to Social Science
Research Projects (Spring 2010)
Doctoral
- Qualitative Methods and the Study of Civil War (June 2009)