Charles Boehmer, Ph.D.
I earned my Ph.D. in Political Science from The Pennsylvania State Ãå±±ÂÖ¼é in 2002 and joined UTEP that fall. My research agenda includes various topics in international security and international organization, often including the examination of the effects of economics on interstate cooperation and conflict, or vice versa. Various articles and working papers are detailed in my research link. My teaching interests include those topics related to my research interests as well as courses on research methods at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. I have also contributed important service to my department and university, such as serving as Graduate Director for nearly five years and currently as the elected Chair of the Graduate Council, the faculty body that oversees all graduate curriculum and policies for the university. I am also a fellow at UTEP’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETaL), which reflects a significant interest in current developments in scholarship on teaching and learning (SOTL) and teaching/learning technologies.
My teaching interests relate to the above topics and research methods. I teach at the graduate and undergraduate levels. I have taught graduate seminars such as International Politics , International Security , International Organization and Law , International Political Economy , and Border Theory (content is political geography and other influences). I have also taught both of our graduate courses on quantitative research methods. I particularly enjoy teaching econometrics and advanced topics. My undergraduate course offerings are similar to my graduate courses and include undergraduate research methods ( Study of Politics and Advanced Research Methods ), International Security , International Politics , International Political Economy , and Introduction to Politics . I will also begin teaching courses on conflict analysis at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.
Biography
I earned my Ph.D. in Political Science from The Pennsylvania State Ãå±±ÂÖ¼é in 2002 and joined UTEP that fall. I earned my MA degree at Ãå±±ÂÖ¼é of Delaware and my BA from West Chester Ãå±±ÂÖ¼é, which is just outside Philadelphia. I am currently an Associate Professor and enjoy my teaching and research, although I have become too much involved in service. I grew up in New Jersey near the Jersey shore and I am thus an avid NY Mets (baseball) fan, which to some is clearly a personality flaw. I also enjoy long distance running and weight lifting, and ran college cross country and track & field (back in the day).
Research Interests
My research interests are in the areas of international relations and research methods. I have three areas of research within international relations. The first area examines the effects of economics on interstate conflict. Current manuscripts and past publications have examined the effects of economic development on interstate conflict, the effects of economic growth rates on interstate conflict, and the effects of international trade and investments on interstate conflict. My published journal articles in this area of research have appeared in journals such as International Organization (with three reprints in edited volumes), Journal of Peace Research, Defense and Peace Economics (one reprint in an edited volume), and Conflict Management and Peace Science. Current working papers continue the investigation of how economic development and growth affect interstate conflict. One manuscript on economic growth and conflict is under review at American Journal of Political Science and another manuscript is being developed examining economic development on conflict, which extends and improves my earlier manuscript published in JPR.
Another of my prominent research programs involves the examination of topics related to the Liberal Peace perspective. Central to this research program is the study of international intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and their effect on international relations. My research in this area has yielded journal publications in World Politics and International Interactions. The World Politics article examines how IGOs affect interstate conflict and the International Interactions article studies what factors lead countries to join certain types of IGOs. I have several working papers in this area. One paper continues the examination of IGOs on interstate conflict as an extension of the World Politics article by shifting the unit of analysis away from dyads of countries to single countries (monads). Another series of papers investigate how states form similar portfolios of IGO memberships and how this affects peace and cooperation in areas such as trade flows and interstate conflict. My newest research on this topic includes an NSF proposal currently under review to significantly improve and expand my data measuring the institutional structure of IGOs. The immediate purpose of these data is to measure hard and soft international laws and then examine how states use such laws to influence peace and conflict, human rights violations/enforcement, and economic interactions. I expect these data will be used in a wide variety of projects in the field. Some of my research also has examined the effects of democracy on interstate conflict. I have published one article in Conflict Management and Peace Science that shows evidence that democracies are generally less likely to become involved in militarized disputes than autocracies. I have a working paper that extends this work by combining the analysis of monadic and dyadic effects of democracy on interstate conflict.
My newest research program examines security topics related to civil war and terrorism. I have a manuscript with David Sobek examining how food security and deprivation affects the onset of civil wars and other forms of protest, such as riots and demonstrations. This manuscript is on a second R&R with International Studies Quarterly in order to update and expand the data, which when published will include new variables on food deprivation and exploitable commodities , and extend other variables to 2007. We have also examined the effects of food deprivation on the duration of civil wars in a previous conference paper. I have also begun the study of terrorism. In two working papers I examine the effects of economic development on domestic and transnational terrorism, respectively.
Violent Adolescence, Journal of Peace Research:
Do Intergovernmental Organizations Promote Peace?, World Politics, October 2004
Courses
Fall 2012
POLS 5331 -- Seminar in International Organization and Law
Spring 2012
POLS 5302 -- Seminar in Quantitative Research Methods II
POLS 2312 -- Study of Politics
Contact Information
Office: Benedict Hall 202
Phone: (915) 747-7979
Fax: (915) 747-6616
Email: crboehmer@utep.edu