I teach courses in the area of international politics.
My research interests include ethnic and nationalist conflict, the phenomenon of political demobilization, democracy promotion, and post-conflict societies. His current research projects focuses on how images of a dangerous outside world are used as a domestic political resource. I have also worked with anthropologist Stefan Senders on a multi-year project, "Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Post-Conflict Studies," based at the Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies at Cornell University, where I have been a long-term Visiting Scholar.
I served as Chair of the Politics Department from 2009-2013 and from 2022-2026.
My professional website is located at chipgagnon.com.
Education: BSFS, Georgetown University; MIA, MA , PhD, Columbia University.
Fall 2026 - I am on terminal sabbatical in the fall 2026 semester
Website of the Department of Politics
Courses Taught
- Intro to International Relations - POLT 12800
- Making Sense of World Politics (Cornell University summer session) - GOVT 1817
- Terrorism and Insurgencies - POLT 33800
- Seminar: Nationalism, Populism and Conflict - POLT 40105
- Crossing Borders / Global Migration - POLT 33500
- US Foreign Policy - POLT 30600
- Pirates and Mercenaries: Sovereignty in the Int'l System
- Ithaca Seminar: War, Peace, and Terrorism
- Russian Politics
- Whiteness and Multiculturalism
- Seminar on Missionaries for Democracy
Select Publications
- “Dayton and right-wing nationalism in the West,” in Godišnjak za sociologiju (Annual Review of Sociology), Faculty of Philosophy, University of Niš (Serbia), no.23 (2019).
- Post-Conflict Studies: An interdisciplinary approach. Co-edited with Keith Brown(Routledge, 2014). Part of Routledge's series Studies in Peace and Conflict Resolution.
- "Democracy Promotion as Mission" in Post-Conflict Studies: An Interdisciplinary Approach.
- Political Science and the Yugoslav Dissolution: The Evolution of a Discipline,” in Florian Bieber, Armina Galijaš and Rory Archer, eds. Debating the End of Yugoslavia (Ashgate, 2014).
- “Yugoslavia in 1989 and after,” in Nationalities Papers: The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity, vol.38, no. 1 (January 2010), pp.23-39
- “Catholic Relief Services, USAID, and Authentic Partnership in Serbia” in Transacting Transition: The micropolitics of democracy assistance in the former Yugoslavia, Keith Brown, ed. (Kumarian Press, 2006), pp.167-188.
- The Myth of Ethnic War: Serbia and Croatia in the 1990s (Cornell University Press, 2004), Winner of the American Political Science Association's Prize for the Best Book on European Politics and Society and co-winner of the Best First Book Award of the Council for European Studies.
Grants Awarded
- US Institute of Peace Solicited Grant Program
- IREX Short-Term Travel Grants
- Ithaca College Summer Faculty Research Grant
- SSRC-MacArther Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in Peace and Security in a Changing World
- Title VIII Research Fellowship in Russian and East European Studies
To access my website, click here.