Jeff Colgan
Richard Holbrooke Associate Professor of Political Science and International and Public Affairs
Jeff D. Colgan is the Richard Holbrooke Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Watson Institute for Public and International Affairs at Brown University. His research focuses on international order, especially as related to energy and the environment.
His book, Petro-Aggression: When Oil Causes War, was published in 2013 by Cambridge University Press. He has published work in International Organization, Foreign Affairs, World Politics, International Security and elsewhere. He also occasionally blogs at the Monkey Cage and Foreign Affairs. On Twitter, he is @JeffDColgan
Professor Colgan previously taught at the School of International Service of American University 2010-2014, and was a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC in 2012-13. He completed his Ph.D. at Princeton University, and was a Canada-US Fulbright Scholar at UC Berkeley, where he earned a Master’s in Public Policy. Dr. Colgan has worked with the World Bank, McKinsey & Company, and The Brattle Group.
Books
Petro-Aggression: When Oil Causes War (Cambridge University Press 2013)
The Promise and Peril of International Trade (Broadview Press 2005)
Selected Blog Posts
New evidence on gender bias in IR syllabi (Duck of Minerva)
From West Texas to the World (Foreign Affairs.com)
How sectarianism shapes Yemen's war (Monkey Cage / Washington Post)
Petro-aggression: how Russia's oil makes war more likely (Monkey Cage / Washington Post)
OPEC, the Phantom Menace (Monkey Cage / Washington Post)
40 years after the oil crisis: could it happen again? (Monkey Cage / Washington Post)
Published Articles
"Where is IR going? Evidence from graduate training" IR syllabi - Colgan ISQ (forthcoming)
"Revolutions, Personalist Dictatorships, and International Conflict" Colgan and Weeks-2015.pdf
"Oil, Domestic Conflict, and Opportunities for Democratization" Colgan 2015 JPR.pdf
"The Emperor Has No Clothes: The Limits of OPEC" Colgan-OPEC - 2014.docx
"Mechanisms of informal governance: Evidence from the IEA" [journal page]
"Oil, Domestic Politics, and International Conflict" Colgan - 2014 - ERSS.pdf
"Fueling the Fire: Pathways from Oil to War" Colgan - 2013 - IS.pdf
"Domestic Revolutionary Leaders and International Conflict" Colgan - 2013 - World Politics.pdf
"Protecting Sovereignty, Protecting the Planet" Green and Colgan 2013 - Final.pdf
"Measuring Revolution" Colgan - 2012 - CMPS.pdf
"Punctuated Equilibrium in the Energy Regime Complex" Colgan et al. - 2011 - RIO.pdf
"Venezuela and Military Expenditure Data" Colgan - 2011 - JPR.pdf
"Oil and Resource-Backed Aggression" Colgan - 2011 - Energy Policy.pdf
"Oil and Revolutionary Governments: Fuel for International Conflict" Colgan - 2010 - IO .pdf
"The International Energy Agency - Challenges for the 21st Century" Colgan 2009 - GPPi_PP6_IEA_final.pdf
July 18, 2018 War on the Rocks
This article features amusing archived documents from the Cold War period that scholars have come across during their research. Professor Jeff Colgan chose a 1975 report by The Church Committee that revealed a play related to Fidel Castro's beard.
July 6, 2018 Global Policy Journal
Jeff Colgan in Global Policy Journal, "At the moment, property values and stock prices generally seem unaffected by the prospect of climate change, which generates a comforting illusion that our current trajectory is sustainable. But the idea that that markets rapidly update prices with all available information – an idea for which Eugene Fama won a Nobel Prize in 2013 – relies on a strict set of assumptions. In a world of climate change, those assumptions bear re-examination."
May 30, 2018 The American Interest
Research by Professor Jeff Colgan is cited in an article about the correlation between high oil prices and international conflict. "He also notes that oil-producers are 50 percent more likely to engage in conflict than non-oil producers."
February 22, 2018 Atlas Obscura
A U.S. project from the Cold War is turning into an environmental hazard, due to climate change, according to Professor Jeff Colgan in his new study.
February 20, 2018 Motherboard
Political scientist Jeff Colgan discusses his new study on the impacts of climate change on military bases. “It’s not a high priority. In fact it’s a barely known [issue] in Washington."
February 5, 2018 News from Brown
When Project Iceworm, an abandoned Cold War-era U.S. Army initiative in Greeland was shut down in 1967, military expected leftover materials would freeze. A new study by Jeff Colgan finds that now, the melting ice in the Arctic has remobilized some toxic waste and threatens to do the same at other sites.
September 6, 2017 The Washington Post
As Texans worry about the potential health effects from the flooded plant that led to a massive fire, political scientist Jeff Colgan wrote in his most recent op-ed that this type of incident is called a 'knock-on' effect of climate change and that political fights are likely to ensue over whose responsible for other 'knock-on' effects as the climate continues to warm.
12 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. Joukowsky Forum