Research Description

My research focuses on the intersection of international relations and international law. Specifically, I seek to understand the different ways international law constrains the conduct of states. There is a growing tendency in the literature to argue that international law shapes the behavior of states via a logic of appropriateness rather than the logic of consequences stressed by realists and neoliberal institutionalism. By contrast, I understand the core evolution in law to be a more nuanced understanding of reciprocity. Building on Robert Keohane’s distinction between specific and diffuse reciprocity, I distinguish between two types of specific reciprocity: legal and strategic. While legal reciprocity involves the reciprocal commitments that states build into the wording of international law, strategic reciprocity can be used as a policy device regardless of the law. This understanding of reciprocity gives my research an appreciation of domestic debates regarding international obligations that are missed by other logic of consequences approaches.