Hendrik Spruyt
Norman Dwight Harris Professor of International Relations
Director, Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies
PhD, University of California, San Diego
Doctorandus, University of Leiden
Professor Spruyt is Norman Dwight Harris Professor of International Relations. He previously taught International Relations at Columbia University (1991-1999) and Arizona State University (1999-2003) before joining the faculty at Northwestern. He received a Doctorandus from the Law Faculty at the University of Leiden (The Netherlands) in 1983, and his Ph. D from the University of California, San Diego in 1991.
He is the author of The Sovereign State and Its Competitors (Princeton University Press 1994) which won the J. David Greenstone Prize for best book in History and Politics 1994-96. His most recent book is Ending Empire: Contested Sovereignty and Territorial Partition (Cornell University Press 2005). He has published, a.o., in the journals International Organization, The Review of Political Economy, The European Journal of Public Policy, Acta Politica, The Pacific Review, The Review of International Studies (UK), International Studies Review (US), and The Journal of Peace Research. Professor Spruyt has also contributed numerous chapters to edited volumes. He is also co-author with Alexander Cooley of Contracting States: Sovereign Transfers in International Relations (Princeton University Press, forthcoming in 2009).
He was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton in 1997-98. He has received research support from the Josephine de Karman Foundation and the Smith Richardson Foundation. Professor Spruyt is former co-editor of the Review of International Political Economy.
His research intersects comparative politics with international relations and includes particularly the formation of polities and their disintegration; and the rise and demise of sovereignty. He is currently working on a book length manuscript applying incomplete contracting theory to diverse issues as decolonization, overseas basing, and regional integration.