Research & Impact
Areas of Expertise
Our faculty conduct research and service projects in the following broad areas:
- cross-cultural conflict and intergroup relations
- democratic development
- environmental governance and sustainability
- gender studies
- global health
- international relations and political economy
- mediation and negotiation
- politics and governance in Africa, Middle East, Latin America, Europe and Asia
Affiliated Centers & Special Projects
- Center for Peace, Democracy, and Development
- Center for Governance and Sustainability
- John Joseph Moakley Chair of Peace and Reconciliation
- Massachusetts Office of Public Collaboration
Sample Publications and Presentations
Professor Karen Ross:
Ross, K. & M. Call-Cummings. (2020). “Reflections on Failure: Teaching Research Methodology.” International Journal of Research and Method in Education.
Ross, K. (2019). “Navigating ‘Red Lines’ and Transcending the Binary: Tensions in the Pedagogical and Political Goals of Peace Education Work.” Peace & Conflict Studies 26(2): Article 2.
Call-Cummings, M., M. Hauber-Özer & K. Ross. (2019). "Struggling with/against the unintentional reproduction of power structures in participatory research: Using reconstructive horizon analysis." Action Research. (published online ahead of print).
Professor J. Samuel Barkin:
International Relations’ Last Synthesis? Decoupling Constructivisms and Critical Approaches, co-authored with Laura Sjoberg (Oxford University Press, 2019).
Barkin, J.S. & Sjoberg, L. (Eds.). (2017). Interpretive Quantification: Methodological explorations for critical and constructivist IR. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Professor Courtenay Sprague
Sprague, Courtenay, Nataly Woollett and Abigail Hatcher. 2020. Enhancing Agency for Health Providers and Pregnant Women Experiencing Intimate Partner Violence in South Africa. Global Public Health 15(6): 1-17.
Sprague, Courtenay, Shelley M. Brown, Lyndsey D. McMahan, Sara Simon & Deborah Konkle-Parker. 2020. Experience of Religion and Spirituality among Socially Marginalized People Living with HIV in Mississippi. Culture, Health & Sexuality 20(6): 1-15..
Sprague, Courtenay, Shelley M Brown, Sara Simon, Lyndsey D McMahan, Ira Kassiel & Deborah Konkle-Parker. 2019. Towards ending the US HIV epidemic by 2030: Understanding social determinants of health and HIV in Mississippi. Global Public Health, epub 21 June, doi: 10.1080/17441692.2019.1631366.
Sprague, Courtenay. 2018. Gender and HIV in South Africa: Advancing Women’s Health and Capabilities. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Professor Stacy VanDeveer
The Global Environment: Institutions, Law & Policy. 5th Edition. Regina S. Axelrod & Stacy D. VanDeveer, eds. (CQ Press/Sage, 2020)
Routledge Handbook of the Resource Nexus, Raimund Bleischwitz, Holger Hoff, Catalina Spataru, Esther van der Voet, and Stacy D. VanDeveer, eds. (Routledge, 2018)
“Resource Nexus Perspectives towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals" Raimund Bleischwitz, Catalina Spataru, Stacy D. VanDeveer, Michael Obersteiner, Ester van der Voet, Corey Johnson, Philip Andrews-Speed, Tim Boersma, Holger Hoff, and Detlef P. Van Vuuren. Nature Sustainability(December)(1)(2018): 737-43.
Professor Jane Parpart:
Parpart, B.J. (2017). Imagined Peace, Gender Relations and Post-Conflict Transformation: anti-colonial and post-Cold War conflicts. In Joyce Kaufman and Kristen Williams (Eds.). Women, gender equality and post-conflict transformation. London: Routledge.
Tiessen, R., Parpart, B.J. & Marchand, M. (2017). Gender and development: Theoretical contributions, international commitments, and global campaigns. In Paul Haslam, Jessica Schafer and Pierre Beaudet (Eds.). Introduction to international development: Approaches, actors and practice (pp 84-101). London: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Professor Margaret Karns
The United Nations in the 21st Century with Karen A. Mingst. 5th edition (Boulder: Westview Press, 2016) (note: this is a retitled version of The United Nations in the Post-Cold War Era originally published in 1995; 2nd edition 2000; 3rd edition 2007; 4th edition 2012; 5th edition 2017).
International Organizations: The Politics and Processes of Global Governance with Karen A. Mingst. (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004; 2nd edition 2009; 3rd edition 2015). Recipient of the 2006 ACUNS Prize for the Best Book on the United Nations and the United Nations System.
The United States and Multilateral Institutions: Patterns of Changing Instrumentality and Influence, co-contributor and co-editor with Karen A. Mingst. (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990).