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
  • 2015 winner, Humboldt Research Prize (Germany)
  • Expertise on war, regime change, religion, democracy and the international order, 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. His newest book, The Ecology of Nations: American Democracy in a Fragile World Order (Yale University Press, 2023), received the 2025 Grawemeyer Award for World Order from the University of Louisville. He is also 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 co-editor of Religion, the Enlightenment, and the New Global Order (Columbia University Press, 2011).

Owen has published work in Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, The Washington Post, International Politics, International Organization, Internationale Politik und Gesellschaft, International Security, International Studies Quarterly, Perspectives on Politics, The 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 received a Humboldt Research Prize in 2015. He is a member of the editorial boards of International Security and Security Studies and a faculty fellow at the UVA Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. 

John M. Owen IV News Feed

Liberal democracies are struggling from within, but also from without, writes John Owen.
John Owen The London School of Economics and Political Science
John Owen argues that liberalism has evolved in ways that are no longer conducive to its own survival; and meanwhile autocratic governments in Russia and China are actively reshaping the international environment to favor autocracy. He believes that the way to ensure democracy’s survival in the United States is to reimagine liberalism—to view it as less about disruption and perpetual openness, and more about commitment, community, and country. His latest book is "The Ecology of Nations: American Democracy in a Fragile World Order", and it is the subject of our conversation today.
John Owen Historically Thinking
Eric visits the Miller Center and joins John Owen IV, the Amb. 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 and Marc Selverstone, the Miller Center’s director of presidential studies, co-chair of the Center’s Presidential Recordings Program, and professor of presidential studies. They discus John’s new book, 'The Ecology of Nations: American Democracy in a Fragile World Order,' and Marc’s book, 'The Kennedy Withdrawal: Camelot and the American Commitment to Vietnam.'
Eric Edelman, John Owen, Marc Selverstone The Bulwark
The carnage of the war on both sides of the border is the ultimate wake-up call to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It's time to start planning for a day after that would include international mobilization and money, and an end to 'managing' the conflict while sowing the seeds of the next disaster.
John Owen Haaretz
Constitutional self-government and authoritarianism are in a worldwide contest—and it is not going well for democracy. Miller Center Faculty Senior Fellow and Taylor Professor of Politics John M. Owen IV engages with experts to discuss open liberal internationalism and what comes next for "The Ecology of Nations," the title of his latest book.
Aynne Kokas, John Owen, Kristen Eichensehr, Eric Edelman Miller Center Presents
In this conversation with RevDem editor Ferenc Laczó, John M. Owen IV shows how authoritarian rivals, such as China and Russia, have attempted to engineer their ecosystems and reflects on what the emergence of two rather separate but partly overlapping international ecosystems might imply for the future.
John Owen The Review of Democracy