Principal Investigators

Benjamin Graham

Ben Graham is an Associate Professor in the USC Department of Political Science and International Relations and the Research Director at LEWIS. His core research is in two fields: the political economy of security and the geopolitics of foreign investment, including the evolution of international property rights. His first book focuses on the role of migrants in multinational firms. He also conducts research on federalism, powersharing, and unrecognized states.

Research Areas:

- Political Economy of Security

- Powersharing: Inclusion, Dispersion, and Constraint

- Foreign Investment and Political Risk in Emerging Markets

- International Political Economy Data Resource

Jonathan Markowitz

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Email: jnmarkowitz@gmail.com

Jonathan Markowitz is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Southern California where he is also a Co-Founder and Co-Principal Investigator of both the Security and Political Economy Lab and the U.S.-Asia Grand Strategy Pre-Doctoral Fellows Program. His research focuses on how economics shape what foreign goals states adopt and whether they pursue those interests by investing in military power projection. He has published broadly on issues related to the political economy of security including power projection, grand strategy, great power conflict, the political implications of climate change, and resource competition. This work has been published in International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, the Journal of Peace Research, and the Journal of Conflict Resolution, among others. Jonathan obtained his PhD in Political Science at the University of California, San Diego, in 2014.

Director

Megan Becker

Email: meganbec@usc.edu

Megan Becker is an Associate (Teaching) Professor in the USC Department of Political Science and International Relations. She leads the Lab's team on the Resource Curse. Her research interests include the causes and consequences of civil war, the role of non-state actors in conflict, and the application of transparent research practices. She teaches courses on UN Peacekeeping, war, and research methods. Dr. Becker earned her PhD in Political Science at the University of California, San Diego.