Professor McGinnis’ approaches international relations from the perspective of theories of public
policy. He is especially interested in understanding the response of national
and international governmental and nongovernmental organizations to the effects
of local and regional conflicts. In his book manuscript Managing Conflict
Policy: Exploring Strategic Complementarities in the Horn of Africa, he offers an integrated explanation for the
seemingly chaotic patterns of conflict within and between the countries of the
Horn. This research demonstrates that well-intentioned interventions of the
constituent members of the global conflict policy network (national
governments, UN agencies, and humanitarian, development, and conflict resolution
NGOs) have routinely been diverted or manipulated by strategically adept leaders
whose interests are served by continued conflict. The sad results of past interventions into Sudan, Ethiopia-Eritrea, Somalia, and Uganda
demonstrate that humanitarians and other transnational moral entrepreneurs can
no longer afford to treat political naiveté as a virtue.
Currently, McGinnis is
conducting research on the
unique contributions of faith-based organizations to the design
and implementation of global conflict policy. International, national, and local faith-based
organizations have made important and innovative contributions towards
development, peace-building, and reconciliation in the Horn of Africa and in other
troubled regions of the world. This research is inspired by the hope that
application of advanced techniques of policy analysis can enable reformers to
identify the most effective means to build upon these foundations.
Professor McGinnis teaches
courses in world politics (Coping with War; Institutions of Global Governance;
Nations, States, and Boundaries; Democracy and National Security), public policy
and institutional analysis (Approaches to the Study of Public Policy; Religion,
Politics, and Public Policy), and research methods (Introduction to Formal
Theory). He recently developed a new course on the use of rational choice theory to
understand the behavior and institutions associated with religious
organizations.
McGinnis
is Professor in the Department of Political Science at Indiana University,
Bloomington. In 2003-05 he served as Co-Director for the Workshop in Political
Theory and Policy Analysis, an inter-disciplinary research group focused on the
study of institutions, development, and governance. McGinnis received a B.S. in
mathematics from the Ohio State University in 1980 and a Ph.D. in political
science from the University of Minnesota in 1985. In his early research he used game theory to model arms races, alliances, wars, peace negotiations,
and other interactions between domestic and international politics. He has
published several articles in political science and international relations
journals, as well as chapters in edited volumes. He is co-author, with
John T. Williams, of Compound Dilemmas: Democracy, Collective Action, and
Superpower Rivalry (University of Michigan Press, 2001) and editor of three
volumes of readings on governance issues written by scholars associated with the
Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. He was co-editor of
International Studies Quarterly (1994-98).
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