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

For someone who craved attention, who cultivated reporters and published several memoirs, Henry A. Kissinger liked secrecy. Or better put, he wanted others to keep secrets so that he could reveal them when and how he chose.
John Owen The Hedgehog Review
John Owen, a senior fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and the Miller Center for Public Affairs at the University of Virginia, said a hierarchy means prioritizing some allies over others. That would be hard to do in cases where the United States is already involved.
John Owen WORLD
In this live webinar discussion convened by UVA’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, experts in history, political science, economics, law, and diplomacy from across the University of Virginia join veteran government practitioners to discuss the array of world crises now challenging American policymakers.
Aynne Kokas, Eric Edelman, Harry Harding, John Owen, Mara Rudman, Phil Potter, Spencer Bakich, Stephen Mull, Syaru Shirley Lin, William Antholis Miller Center Presents
China aims to restructure the world order to favor autocracy.
John M. Owen IV The Messenger
Moscow and Beijing use human rights and the internet to uphold autocracy
John M. Owen IV
Liberalism is not making the world safe for democracy
John M. Owen IV