Civil and interstate war
Ethnic conflict

Program Member, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (Institutions, Organizations, and Growth)
American Academy of Arts and Sciences (elected 2002)
Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, 1999-2000
Karl Deutsch Award
Heinz Eulau award
Greg Luebbert Award
Helen Dwight Reid award

Editorial Board Member of: American Journal of Political Science, American Political Science Review , International Organization, and Rationality and Society.

Referee for: American Economic Review, American Journal of Political Science, American Journal of Sociology, American Political Science Review, British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Games and Economic Behavior, International Interactions, International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Theoretical Politics, MacArthur Foundation, National Science Foundation, Rationality and Society, World Politics.

Undergraduate Courses
Political Science 152: Intro to Game Theoretic Methods in Political Science
Political Science 215: Explaining Ethnic Violence

Graduate Courses
Political Science 310A: International Relations Theory, Part 1
Political Science 352: Intro to Game Theoretic Methods in Political Science

Journal articles


Iraq’s Civil War. Foreign Affairs 86, 2 (March/April 2007), 1-13.

Ethnic Minority Rule and Civil War Onset (co-authored with Kimuli Kasara and David Laitin). American
Political Science Review 101, 1 (February 2007), 187-193.

Primary Commodity Exports and Civil War. Journal of Conflict Resolution 49, 4 (August 2005), 483-507.

Separatist Wars, Partition, and World Order. Security Studies 13, 4 (Summer 2004), 394-415.

Neotrusteeship and the Problem of Weak States (co-authored with David Laitin). International Security 28, 4
(Spring 2004), 5-43.

Why Do Some Civil Wars Last So Much Longer Than Others? Journal of Peace Research 41, 3 (May 2004),
275-301.

Ethnic and Cultural Diversity by Country. Journal of Economic Growth 8, 2 (June 2003), 195-222.

Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War (co-authored with David Laitin). American Political Science Review 97, 1
(February 2003), 75-90. Additional documentation provided by “Additional Tables for “Ethnicity, Insurgency,
and Civil War,” 7 February, 2003, http://www.stanford.edu/~jfearon/.

Selection Effects and Deterrence. International Interactions 28, 1 (January-March 2002), 5-29.

Violence and the Social Construction of Ethnic Identity (co-authored with David Laitin.) International Organization 54, 4 (Autumn 2000), 845-877.

Bargaining, Enforcement, and International Cooperation. International Organization 52, 2 (Spring 1998), 269-306.

Signaling Foreign Policy Interests: Tying Hands versus Sinking Costs. Journal of Conflict Resolution 41, 1
(February 1997), 68-90.

Explaining Interethnic Cooperation. (Co-authored with David Laitin.) American Political Science Review 90, 4
(December 1996), 715-35. Winner of the 1997 Heinz Eulau Award for best article published in the American
Political Science Review in the previous year.

Rationalist Explanations for War. International Organization 49 (Summer 1995), 379-414.

Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes. American Political Science Review 88 (September 1994), 577-92.

Signaling versus the Balance of Power and Interests: An Empirical Test of a Crisis Bargaining Model. Journal of Conflict Resolution 38 (June 1994, Special Issue), 236-69.

Counterfactuals and Hypothesis Testing in Political Science. World Politics 43 (January 1991), 169-95.

International Financial Institutions and Economic Policy Reform in Sub-Saharan Africa. Journal of Modern
African Studies 26 (March 1988), 113-137.


Papers in edited volumes


Integrating Quantitative and Qualitative Methods. (Co-authored with David D. Laitin.) In Henry Brady and
David Collier, eds., Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

Economic Development, Insurgency, and Civil War. In Elhanan Helpman, ed., Institutions and Economic Performance (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, forthcoming).

The Rise of Emergency Relief Aid. In Michael Barnett and Thomas G. Weiss, eds., Humanitarianism in Question: Politics, Power, Ethics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, forthcoming).

Reforming International Institutions to Promote International Peace and Security. In Peace and Security, Expert Paper Series # 5 (Secretariat of the International Task Force on Global Public Goods, 2006).
Fearon c.v. – continued 3

Ethnic Mobilization and Ethnic Violence. In Barry R. Weingast and Donald Wittman, eds., Oxford Handbook
of Political Economy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).

Comments of the Report of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change. In Ernesto Zedillo,
ed., Reforming the United Nations for Peace and Security, Proceedings of a Workshop to Analyze the Report
of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change. New Haven, CT: Yale Center for the Study of
Globalization, 2005.

Two Questions about Ethnicity and Nationalism: Explaining Motivations versus Explaining Variation. A comment on Leonard Binder’s essay in Edward Mansfield and Richard Sisson, eds., The Evolution of Political Knowledge: Democracy, Autonomy, and Conflict in Comparative and International Politics. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2004.

Rationalism and Constructivism in International Relations Theory (co-authored with Alex Wendt). In Walter
Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse, and Beth Simmons, eds., Handbook of International Relations Theory. London: Sage Publications, 2002.

Electoral Accountability and the Control of Politicians: Selecting Good Types versus Sanctioning Poor Performance. In Bernard Manin, Adam Przeworski, and Susan Stokes, eds., Democracy, Accountability, and Representation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Domestic Politics, Foreign Policy, and Theories of International Relations. Annual Review of Political Science, vol. 1. Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews, 1998.

Commitment Problems and the Spread of Ethnic Conflict. In David Lake and Donald Rothchild, eds., The
International Spread of Ethnic Conflict: Fear, Diffusion, and Escalation. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.

Deliberation as Discussion. In Jon Elster, ed., Deliberative Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1998.

Counterfactuals and Causation in Social Science: Exploring an Analogy between Cellular Automata and Historical Processes. In Philip Tetlock and Aaron Belkin, eds., Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.


Working Papers and Work in Progress


Fighting rather then Bargaining. Unpublished paper, Stanford University, December 2006.

Self-Enforcing Democracy. Paper presented at the 2006 Annual Meetings of the American Political Science
Association, Philadelphia, September 1-4, 2006.

Civil War and Economic Growth. Paper presented at the 2005 Annual Meetings of the American Political
Science Association, Washington, D.C., September 1-4, 2005.

Civil War since 1945: Some Facts and a Theory. Paper presented at the 2005 Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., September 1-4, 2005.

Sons of the Soil, Immigrants and Civil War (co-authored with David Laitin). Mimeo, Stanford University.
August 2002.

Ordinary Language and External Validity: Specifying Concepts in the Study of Ethnicity (co-authored with
David Laitin). Paper presented at the 2000 Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association,
Washington, D.C., August 31-September 4.

Weak States, Rough Terrain, and Large-scale Ethnic Violence. Paper presented at the 1999 Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association, Atlanta, GA, September 1999.

Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War. Book manuscript in preparation (with David Laitin).

What is Identity (as We Now Use the Word)? Mimeo, Stanford University, November 1999.

Why Ethnic Politics and “Pork” Tend to Go Together. Presented at an SSRC-MacArthur sponsored conference on “Ethnic Politics and Democratic Stability,” University of Chicago, May 21-23, 1999.

The Politicization of Cultural and Economic Differences: A Return to the Theory of Regional Autonomy Movements. Co-authored with Pieter Van Houten. Presented at the 1998 Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association, Sept. 2-5, Boston, MA.

Chunky Shoes: A Model of Style Choice and Fashion Trends with Implications for Understanding “Image”
Advertising. Mimeo, June 1998.

A Cross-sectional Study of Large-Scale Ethnic Violence in the Post-War Period. Co-authored with David Laitin. Mimeo, September 1997.

Bargaining over Objects that Influence Future Bargaining Power. Chicago Center on DemocracyWorking Paper, University of Chicago, 1995.

The Offense-Defense Balance and War since 1648. Presented at the Annual Meetings of International Studies Association, Chicago, February 21-25, 1995.

Ethnic War as a Commitment Problem. Presented the 1993 APSA Annual Meetings, New York.