Ben Cole grew up in Kensington, NH. He studied political science and history at The George Washington University from 2001-2003, and transferred to the University of New Hampshire in 2004, completing his BA in Political Science in May 2005, and MA in Political Science in May 2006, writing a thesis on the role of the neoconservative policy advocacy coalition in determining US policy towards China's space program from 2001-2005. During this time he also consulted for Historicus, Inc., in the creation of interactive web-based simulations for political science textbooks for Houghton Mifflin Corporation (now Cengage) and McGraw-Hill. He completed his Ph.D. in Public Policy at George Mason University's School of Public Policy in January 2011.

 

At GMU Ben served as a Graduate Research Assistant for Dr. Monty G. Marshall, Research Professor and Director of the Center for Systemic Peace, and enjoyed the tutelage of Dr. Jack Goldstone, Hazel Professor of Public Policy and renowned sociologist and political scientist. His research there, including several publications, papers, and conference presentations, some which are available here, was funded by GMU, and indirectly by the One Earth Future Foundation, and the US government's Political Instability Task Force. His doctoral fields included comparative public policy, democratic transition studies, and complexity theory.

 

After completing the coursework phase of his dissertation Ben served as Hood House Lecturer in International Affairs at the University of New Hampshire's Center for International Education from 2008 to 2011, teaching undergraduate International Affairs classes, coordinating the undergraduate curriculum, mentoring students in independent research, and serving on several university and graduate thesis committees. Upon completion of the dissertation in early 2011 Ben formally joined the Center for Systemic Peace and Societal-Systems Research, Inc., as a Research Associate, and in July 2011 Ben accepted a post-doctoral fellowship at Dartmouth College, as Visiting Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Co-Manager of the Policy Research Shop, with the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center. As part of his curricular and co-curricular duties at Dartmouth, since October 2011 Ben has been assisting the NH Department of Safety on that agency's effort to develop a performance assessment system. He has recently accepted an appointment to the faculty of Simmons College, beginning September 2012, with the Department of Political Science and International Relations.

 
In addition to teaching and administrative responsibilities, Ben maintains an active research agenda focused on modeling, measuring, and forecasting state fragility, political instability, and democratic transition dynamics, in addition to the comparative study of local and regional policy processes and public administration, and NH politics and policy in particular. Ongoing projects include research and preparation of the Annual Report on Governance, Conflict and State Fragility, co-authored with Monty G. Marshall, as well as continued macro-comparative analysis of the problem of factionalism in emerging democracies. Active secondary research interests and publication areas include space policy, both domestic and comparative, and comparative health insurance policy. Ben is also working on transforming his dissertation, which reconceptualizes democracy on the basis of harnessing social complexity and offers a new quantitative measure of democratic governance, into a book.

 

A curriculum vitae, updated September 2011, is available below.