Paul Poast, Guest Speaker

Paul Poast is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science and Committee on International Relations at the University of Chicago. He is also a nonresident fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and a foreign affairs columnist for World Politics Review.

Paul studies international politics, primarily international security. He has made contributions in a variety of research areas, including the economic and financial aspects of warfare, the formation and operation of military alliances, the militarized fortification of borders, and the influence of international organizations on civil-military affairs. He also writes on how best to use large-N data to study international relations and regularly oversees large data collection projects.

Paul is the author or co-author of four books, The Economics of War (McGraw Hill-Irwin, 2006), Organizing Democracy (with Johannes Urpelainen, University of Chicago Press, 2018), Arguing About Alliances (Cornell University Press, 2019), and Wheat at War (with Rosella Capella Zielinski, Oxford University Press, 2025). He has also published numerous research papers in academic journals, including International Organization, World Politics, Political Analysis, the American Journal of Political Science, and the Journal of Conflict Resolution. His commentary on foreign affairs appears regularly in a variety of global news outlets and forums.

Paul received a PhD from the University of Michigan, a MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a BA from Miami University. Paul has taught courses at a number of universities including Universidad CEU San Pablo in Spain, Universität Konstanz in Germany, Rutgers University, and Ohio State University.