Neta Crawford, Council Boston University

Neta Crawford, Boston University
Council 2004-06

I am Professor of Political Science and African American Studies at Boston University and Adjunct Professor of International Studies at Brown University. I am currently on the editorial board and executive committee of the American Political Science Review. I am also on the Committee on Slavery and Justice at Brown which examines the university's relationship to slavery and the slave trade.

My research interests include international relations theory, normative theory, foreign policy decisionmaking, African foreign and military policy, sanctions, peace movements, discourse ethics, research design, utopian science fiction, and emotion. I have a Ph.D. in political science from MIT and a bachelor of arts from Brown University. At Brown my independent concentration was "The War System and Alternatives to Militarism." I wrote my senior thesis on the genesis and effects of military rule in Ghana from 1960-1984.

I am the author recently of Argument and Change in World Politics: Ethics, Decolonization, Humanitarian Intervention (Cambridge University Press, 2002) which was a co-winner of the 2003 APSA International History and Politics section Jervis and Schroeder Award for best book. I am co-editor of How Sanctions Work: Lessons from South Africa (MacMillan, 1999). My articles have been published in books and journals such as International Organization, Security Studies, Perspectives on Politics, International Security, Ethics & International Affairs, Press/Politics, Africa Today and, most recently, Qualitative Methods.

I do some community and professional service related to my research interests. For example, I am a member of the advisory board of the Project on Defense Alternatives, based in Cambridge, MA. In 2000, I co-organized a research meeting in South Africa for the SSRC of young African and N. American scholars of security so that both sides could get to know each other, and hopefully stimulate each other's research. I have appeared on radio and TV and written op-eds on U.S. foreign policy and international relations for newspapers including the Boston Globe, Newsday (Long Island), The Christian Science Monitor, and the LA Times.

I became a political scientist because I am interested in making the world a better place. Of course, APSA is not the "world" but only a small part of it. I would view my participation in the council, if elected, as part of the larger ongoing effort to make APSA better -- more inclusive, relevant, effective, and engaged in contemporary problems facing political scientists and the world.