By Michael V. Palinkas

Following the end of the Cold War, the defense budget in the United States began to shrink. In response, domestic arms manufacturers in the U.S. increased their focus on political lobbying. This lobbying worked to gain favorable subsidies for research and development, improve access to foreign markets, and open lucrative secondary markets.

By Stephen M. Walt

Most social scientists would like to think that their work helps solve important problems. For scholars of international relations, there is certainly no shortage of issues to address: ethnic and religious conflict, managing a fragile world economy, global terrorism, climate change, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, the Euro crisis, etc.—the list is endless.

By Francis J. Gavin

International relations scholars and foreign policy makers often look at each other’s profession the way a bored spouse might gaze upon a forbidden but tempting lover. To the policy maker, the impenetrable walls of the Ivory Tower seem mysterious and exotic, a place of deep reflection and refined dialogue where they can escape the vicious and politicized battles that often dominate government life.

By Robert Jervis

I have been interested in politics, especially international politics, for as long as I can remember. The times in which I grew up and my personal surroundings were permeated by politics.

By Marc Trachtenberg

I started college at Berkeley in 1962 and by the end of my first year there I pretty much knew that I wanted to become an historian, and that in particular I wanted to study the history of international politics. There were times when I was not sure I would actually be able to spend my life in this field, but I did ultimately manage to get a good job and it still strikes me as a little amazing that society was willing to pay me, quite generously in fact, for doing something I really wanted to do.