Darf ich mich vorstellen?

My name is James Raymond Vreeland, Associate Professor of International Relations at Georgetown University in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and the Government Department.

I love my job! It has taken me all over the world. My research has been presented in over fifteen countries located in six different continents, and I have held positions on five continents at universities including Bond University, ETH Zürich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich), Korea University, University of California, Los Angeles, University of São Paulo and Yale University. I also teach for the Global Executive Master of Business program through the McDonough School of Business and ESADE Business School (Barcelona, Spain). My module is taught in Moscow. This summer, I will also teach a course in Buenos Aires for the Master in Development Management and Policy program, a joint degree created by the Universidad Nacional de San Martín (UNSAM) and Georgetown University.

I do research in the field of international political economy. My research explores a wide range of policy outcomes, including economic growth and the distribution of income under programs of economic reform, the foreign policy positions of developing countries, the transparency of policy making under various political systems, and even the commitment of governments to defend basic human rights or, alternatively, to engage in such pernicious activities as the practice of torture. I have also done some work on democracy and its relationship to civil war.

My work addresses the ways in which international and domestic politics interact, in particular the ways in which international organizations can be used to do the dirty work of governments - how they can "launder" dirty politics - how they are used as scapegoats - in short, how international actors can be the "dark knight" in domestic politics (sometimes for better, sometimes for worse).

I have written two books: The IMF and Economic Development (Cambridge University Press, March 2003) and The International Monetary Fund: Politics of Conditional Lending (Routledge, January 2007), and I co-edited Globalization and the Nation State: The Impact of the IMF and the World Bank (Routledge, 2006). I am currently working on a new book entitled The Political Economy of the United Nations Security Council, which is under contract with Cambridge University Press. My research has also appeared in numerous scholarly journals, including International Organization, Journal of Conflict Resolution, European Economic Review, Journal of Development Economics, Public Choice, World Development, International Political Science Review, Political Analysis, The Review of International Organizations, World Economics, and Foreign Policy Magazine.

Thank you for visiting my blog! I will be posting about my ongoing research as well as current events that relate to international political economy. I look forward to your comments...