Kenneth N. Waltz

Senior Research Scholar
Adjunct Professor, Department of Political Science

International Affairs Building, Room 1338

212-854-4573

knw6@columbia.edu

Kenneth N. Waltz is Senior Research Scholar at the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Political Science at Columbia University, where he teaches a seminar entitled “Problems of International Political Theory.”  Waltz’s current research interests involve reflections on the canonical works of international relations theory and the role of nuclear weapons in the relations of states.

Waltz served in the United States Army during the Second World War and the Korean conflict. He was a member of the Columbia University faculty from 1953 until 1957 and subsequently taught at Swarthmore College, Brandeis University, and the University of California, Berkeley, before returning to the Institute in 1997.  Waltz has been a research associate with the Center for International Affairs at Harvard University and with the Department of War Studies, Kings College, University of London.  He has taught at the Peking University, Fudan University, and the United States Air Force Academy.  Waltz has lectured at many other institutions at home and abroad, including the London School of Economics, the Australian National University, and the University of Bologna.  He is a former President of the American Political Science Association and has received honorary doctorates from Copenhagen University, Oberlin College, Nankai University, and most recently Aberystwyth University.  In 2008, Aberystwyth University held a conference in his honor, entitled “The King of Thought: Theory, the Subject and Waltz,” celebrating the 50th anniversary of the publication of Man, the State, and War and the 30th anniversary of Theory of International Politics.  Waltz is the recipient of the International Studies Association’s 2010 International Security Studies Section Distinguished Scholar Award.

Waltz received a B.A. from Oberlin University and a Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Selected Publications

Realism and International Politics (Routledge, 2008)

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With Scott D. Sagan, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed (W.W. Norton, 2002)

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Theory of International Politics (Addison-Wesley, 1979)

Foreign Policy and Democratic Politics: The American and British Experience (Little, Brown, and Company, 1967)

Man, the State, and War: A Theoretical Analysis (Columbia University Press, 1959)

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See All Publications by Kenneth N. Waltz