Amy Oakes received her B.A. in political science from Davidson College and her Ph.D. in political science from The Ohio State University. Her research interests include the effect of domestic politics on foreign policy decision-making and international bargaining. Her work has appeared in Security Studies, Politics & Gender, International Journal, International Studies Quarterly, and Foreign Policy. Her book, Diversionary War, published by Stanford University Press, examines whether governments provoke international crises in response to domestic unrest. In 2009-2010, she was a research fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. And she received the university's Alumni Fellowship Award in 2012 and was appointed University Associate Professor for Teaching Excellence from 2014 to 2017.
In addition to teaching in the Department of Government and International Relations Program, she is co-founder of the Project on International Peace and Security (PIPS). PIPS is an undergraduate think tank established in 2008 and housed at William & Mary' Global Research Institute, which aims to produce rigorous and original foreign policy analysis. To learn more, visit the PIPS website.
