Experts

John M. Owen IV

Faculty Senior Fellow

Fast Facts

  • Recipient of fellowships from the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard, the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford, and the Center of International Studies at Princeton
  • Member of the editorial board of International Security
  • Expertise on war, regime change, religion, and international security

Areas Of Expertise

  • Foreign Affairs
  • American Defense and Security
  • War and Terrorism
  • Religion

John M. Owen is a Miller Center faculty senior fellow and Ambassador Henry J. Taylor and Mrs. Marion R. Taylor Professor of Politics. He is the author of Liberal Peace, Liberal War: American Politics and International Security (Cornell University Press, 1997) and The Clash of Ideas in World Politics: Transnational Networks, States, and Regime Change 1510-2010 (Princeton University Press, 2010). He is also co-editor of Religion, the Enlightenment, and the New Global Order (Columbia University Press, 2011).

Owen has published work in Foreign Affairs, International Politics, International OrganizationInternationale Politik und GesellschaftInternational SecurityInternational Studies QuarterlyPerspectives on PoliticsThe National Interest, and several edited volumes. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard, the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford, and the Center of International Studies at Princeton. His research has been funded by the MacArthur, Earhart, and Donchian Foundations. He is a member of the editorial board of International Security and a faculty fellow at the UVA Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. 

John M. Owen IV News Feed

Constitutional self-government and authoritarianism are in a worldwide contest—and it is not going well for democracy.
Ideas matter to University of Virginia politics professor John M. Owen IV. “Many scholars in the field really don’t talk about ideas,” said Owen, the Ambassador Henry J. and Mrs. Marion R. Taylor Professor of Politics, and a senior fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and the Miller Center for Public Affairs. “International relations for them is about material power – weapons, ships, soldiers, technology or money. And ideas really aren’t a part of this picture, except in a trivial way. I’ve always thought that’s wrong. Ideas do matter,” he said. “The notion that politics is just about who has the most guns has never been satisfactory to me – it’s also who’s got the words and the ideas.”
John M. Owen IV UVA Today
The 2022 Ambassador William C. Battle Symposium on American Diplomacy addressed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting shifts in the global geopolitical landscape and featured the University of Virginia's Miller Center faculty Senior Fellow John M. Owen IV.
John M. Owen IV Miller Center Presents
In a round-table discussion, participants including the University of Virginia's Miller Center Faculty Senior Fellow John M. Owen IV addressed the successes and failures of the Biden administration to date, and prospects for the midterm elections in November.
John M. Owen IV RAIOxford