A Middle East regional specialist, he teaches international and comparative politics, and he writes primarily about security and foreign policy. His research has addressed the Iraq war, state failure, WMD proliferation, civilian suffering and wartime ethics, human rights in the Middle East, and the political economy of cultural production. He has contributed to edited volumes and published articles in Political Science Quarterly, Middle East Policy, Security Studies, Middle East Journal, and PS: Politics and Political Science, and he is the author of Commerce in Culture: States and Markets in the World Film Trade. His current book project uses ideational and institutional theory to explain American involvement in Iraq and its consequences.