Ben is a Research Fellow in the Department of International Relations whose work focuses on the politics of the great powers, nuclear weapons, and International Relations theory. He has published on issues of global order, security in the Asia-Pacific region, and nuclear weapons in journals such as Review of International Studies, Third World Quarterly, Pacific Review, Cooperation and Conflict, The Nonproliferation Review, and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He is also a regular contributor to national and international media on issues of foreign policy, and has contributed evidence to a number of Select Committee inquiries in the UK on issues of global security. In 2018-2019, Ben took up a 10-month Stanton Nuclear Security Junior Faculty fellowship in the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. Ben is also an advisor to the Oxford Research Group’s Sustainable Security Programme.

Before joining ANU in 2016, Ben worked in the UK at the University of Leicester, the Oxford Research Group, and Chatham House. He received his PhD in 2013 from the University of Birmingham, UK. He has previously taught courses on IR theory, rising powers, foreign policy analysis, and strategic studies.

Ben’s research interests include global order and polarity analysis; historical great power diplomacy; strategic relations in the Asia-Pacific; rising powers; nuclear arms control and disarmament; strategic conventional weapons; IR theory (especially the English School and realism).

Watch Ben discuss his work on Great Power politics.

Teaching

Ben teaches the graduate course Global Security INTR8032 (Semester 2, 2020), and the undergraduate course Politics of Nuclear Weapons STST2124 (Semester 2, 2020).