Chair in Peace Studies

In 1997, the Ohio State Board of Trustees established an Endowed Chair in Peace Studies, the result of an initiative spearheaded by congregations of Church of the Brethren, Menonnites, Friends, the Episcopal Diocese Procter Fund, the Ohio Council of Churches, and supported by numerous generous donors others in the community.

The Chair in Peace Studies at the Mershon Center will lead a program of research and education that explores the causes of violence and searches for viable alternatives.  The Chair will draw on an interdisciplinary body of knowledge to disseminate information about non-violent approaches to conflict resolutions to conflict to citizens throughout the state and throughout the world.

After a national search, Christopher Gelpi, currently a professor of political science at Duke University, was hired to fill the Chair in Peace Studies beginning January 1, 2013.

Gelpi's primary research interests are the sources of international militarized conflict and strategies for international conflict resolution. He is currently engaged in research on American public opinion and the use of military force, and on statistical models for forecasting military conflict and transnational terrorist violence. He has also published works on American civil-military relations and the use of force, the impact of democracy and trade on international conflict, the role of norms in crisis bargaining, alliances as instruments of control, diversionary wars, deterrence theory, and the influence of the international system on the outbreak of violence.

Gelpi is author of The Power of Legitimacy: The Role of Norms in Crisis Bargaining (Princeton University Press, 2002), co-author (with Peter D. Feaver) of Choosing Your Battles: American Civil-Military Relations and the Use of Force (Princeton University Press, 2004), and co-author (with Peter Feaver and Jason Reifler) of Paying the Human Costs of War: American Public Opinion and Casualties in Military Conflicts (Princeton University Press, 2009).