Associate Professor

Office: 1718A HW
Phone: 212-772-5503
Email:zshirkey@hunter.cuny.edu

C.V.

Office Hours

Google Scholar Page

Education:
Ph.D. Columbia University, 2006
M.Phil Columbia University, 2003
M.A. Columbia University, 2001
B.A. University of Michigan, 1999

Areas of Specialization:
International Relations
Military Intervention
War Duration and Causes of War
Terrorism and Counterterrorism

Courses:

Undergraduate:

• POLSC 274: American Foreign Policy
• POLSC 283: Terrorism
• POLSC 382: Causes of War
• POLSC 384 Comparative Foreign Policy
• POLSC 493: Conducting and Presenting Political Science Research

Graduate:

• PSC 76000: Basic Concepts and Theories of International Relations
  

Publications:

Books:

• Savic, Ivan and Zachary C. Shirkey. Under Contract. State Responses to Threat in the Face of Uncertainty. (London: Routledge).
• Joining the Fray: Military Intervention in Civil Wars. 2012. (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate).
• Is This a Private Fight or Can Anybody Join? The Spread of Interstate War. 2009. (Aldershot, UK:  Ashgate).

Articles:

• "Uncertainty and War Duration," 2016. International Studies Review 18(2): 244-267.
• "When and How Many: The Effects of Third Party Joining on Casualties and Duration in Interstate Wars," 2012. Journal of Peace Research 49(2): 321-334.
• Savic, Ivan, and Zachary C. Shirkey. 2009. “Trust in the Balance: The Role of Commitment Problems in Shaping External Balancing Behavior,” Journal of Theoretical Politics 21(4): 483-507.

Book Chapters:

• "No: International organizations are limited in their ability to combat terrorism", 2013. In Debating Terrorism and Counterterrorism, 2nd Ed., Stuart Gottlieb ed. Washington, DC: CQ Press: 279-291.
• “No:  The UN is limited in its ability to play a role,” 2009. In Debating Terrorism and Counterterrorism, 1st Ed., Stuart Gottlieb, ed. Washington, DC: CQ Press: 275–287.

Online Publications:

• "A Better Way To Combat Terrorism", 2014. The National Interest. 21 August.
• "America Can't Escape the Middle East", 2013. The National Interest. 29 July.
• Shirkey, Zachary C., and Alex Weisiger, 2007. “An Annotated Bibliography for the Correlates of War Interstate Wars."

Reviews:

• Review of "Confounding Powers: Anarchy and International Society from the Assassins to Al Qaeda. By William J. Brenner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). 2017 / Forthcoming. Journal of Interdisciplinary History 47(3).
• Review of "Alexander Lanoszka and Michael A. Hunzeker 'Rage of Honor: Entente Indignation and the Lost Chance for Peace in the First World War.' Security Studies 24:4 (October-December 2015). Forthcoming. H-Diplo/ISSF.
• "Commitment Problems as a Cause of War Severity", 2014. International Studies Review 16(1): 136-38.
• “Review of "Dan Reiter’s How Wars End,” 2012. H-Diplo/ISSF Roundtable Reviews 3(19): 15–19.

Some of the above works are available in the open access CUNY Academic Works repository.

Working Papers:

• Joining by Number: Military Intervention in Civil Wars.
• Which Wars Spread? Commitment Problems and Military Intervention.
  
• Michael Lee and Zachary C. Shirkey. "Going Beyond the Existing Consensus: The Use of Games in International Relations Education."

Data:

• Unexpected Events in Interstate Wars Data Set:
  COW Interstate Wars Data Set
  Coding appendix
  Citation: Shirkey, Zachary C. 2009. Is This a Private Fight or Can Anybody Join? The Spread of Interstate War (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate).
  
• Unexpected Events in Civil Wars Data Sets:
  COW Civil Wars Data Set
  PRIO Civil Wars Data Set
  Coding appendix
  Citation: Shirkey, Zachary C. 2015. "Joining by Number: Military Intervention in Civil Wars" Working Paper. Hunter College, CUNY.