James Fearon

James D. Fearon a graduate of Cornell Law School, Johns Hopkins University, Harvard, and the University of California at Berkeley, is Theodore and Francis Geballe Professor of Political Science at Stanford University, a political scientist, and jurist, known for his work on civil wars, international bargaining, and the theory of rational expectations in consumer choice and decision making.

In his paper co-authored with David D. Laitin, "Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War" (2003) Fearon casts doubt on three conventional late 20th Century beliefs concerning political conflict namely: (1)that the prevalence of civil war in the 1990s was due to the end of the Cold War, that; (2) a greater degree of ethnic or religious diversity alone makes a country more prone to civil war; and that; (3) ethnic or other broad political grievances cannot be used to accurately predict where a civil war will occur. Fearon also argues that defining the term insurgency is key to understanding civil war. James Fearon has a first class honours degree in the Natural Sciences from the University of Queenland(1991), and an MA from the Royal College of Arts, London(1996). In 2002, Dr James Fearon was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

External links

* [http://politicalscience.stanford.edu/faculty/fearon.html Fearon's faculty page]
* [http://www.theory-talks.org/2008/09/theory-talk-18.html Interview with Fearon by Theory Talks]