Alexander Thompson, Ph.D.

Ohio State University

Alexander Thompson’s research focuses on international relations, especially in the area of international institutions and cooperation. His book, Channels of Power: The UN Security Council and U.S. Statecraft in Iraq (Cornell University Press, 2009), asks why powerful states often conduct coercive foreign policies through international organizations. Professor Thompson provides an information-based explanation and assesses arguments looking at U.S. policy toward Iraq from 1990 to the current intervention and its aftermath. Channels of Power won the International Studies Association’s Chadwick F. Alger Prize for the best book on international organization and multilateralism and the Best Book Award from ISA-Midwest. Much of Alexander Thompson’s research addresses issues of institutional delegation and design at the international level, with recent and ongoing projects on the design of the global climate regime, the politics of investment treaty ratification, the domestic politics of legalization in the WTO, the principal-agent dynamics of multilateral weapons inspections, determinants of how international organizations perform, and the enforcement of international law. Professor Thompson also writes and speaks on the question of unilateralism versus multilateralism in U.S. foreign policy. [](https://smile.amazon.com/Alexander-Thompson/e/B002DEQ82U/)