Dr Doug Stokes

BA (London), MSc (Bristol), PhD (Bristol)

Senior Lecturer in International Relations

Profile

photograph

Room: Rutherford W4.S1
Tel: 01227 (82)3372
D.Stokes@kent.ac.uk
Office Hours: Thursdays 12:30-2:30

Dr Stokes joined the department in 2006. During his 2004 ESRC post-doctoral fellowship he authored his first book America's Other War: Terrorizing Colombia [8]. The book received international commendations and included a foreword by Professor Noam Chomsky. His second book was an edited volume with Professor Michael Cox entitled US Foreign Policy [9] (Oxford University Press) and is the most comprehensive introduction to US foreign policy available with chapters from some of the world's leading scholars. Dr Stokes’ new book is entitled Global Energy Security and American Hegemony (Johns Hopkins University Press) and is due out in 2010. The book examines the role that US strategic primacy in oil-rich regions has played in supporting US hegemony in the post-Cold War era and examines recent US interventions in oil-rich non-Middle Eastern states in Africa, South America and the Caspian Region. As part of this ongoing research project, Dr Stokes was awarded £69,000 by the British Academy for research assistance. Dr Stokes has published in some of the world’s leading International Relations journals including the Review of International Studies and served on the British International Studies Association executive committee between 2003-2005. Dr Stokes is the Department’s Director of Staff Research and the chief editor of the journal Global Society.

Research Interests

  • US Foreign Policy
  • US Counter-Insurgency Warfare
  • The Changing Role of the American State Within the Liberal International Order
  • Energy Security
Current Projects
  • American Energy Diversification and International Security in the Age of Terror. Funded by a British Academy Large Research Grant for £69,246
  • US Hegemony and Transnational Conflict, a monograph contracted with John Hopkins University Press for publication in 2008/9, examining US Energy Security policy after 9/11 and contemporary interventions in oil rich regions outside of the Middle East
  • US Foreign Policy: From Republic to Hyperpower, a book edited with Prof Michael Cox of the LSE, due out with Oxford University Press in 2008.
Selected Publications
2010 Michel Foucault: Theorising the International, London: Routledge, 2010, Doug Stokes and Nicholas Kiersey (eds.)
2009 Energy Security in the Age of Terror. In Alan Collins (ed.)  Contemporary Security Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press
2009 Doug Stokes and Sam Raphael, Global Energy Security and American Hegemony (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010).
  “This brilliant book forces us to rethink the last 70 years. It demonstrates how the Iraqi invasion "was clearly about oil;" how the quest for that oil, shepherded by the world's most powerful military machine,  has roots running back to the 1940s; and how  "lopsided"  policies termed "globalization" have been integrated into this quest.  These themes are graphically driven home in superb analyses of, among other areas, Latin America, the Middle East, and Central Asia--areas that will determine future American prosperity.” Walter LaFeber, Cornell University. 
2009 'Ideas and Avocados: Ontologising Critical Terrorism Studies’, International Relations, 23:1, 2009, pp. 85-92
2009 'The War Gamble: Understanding US interests in Iraq’, Globalizations, 6:1, 2009, pp. 105-110
2008 Marxism and US Foreign Policy: Theorising the International. In Inderjeet Parmar et al. (eds), New Directions in US Foreign Policy. London: Routledge
2008 US Foreign Policy and the World: Regions and Issues. In Doug Stokes and Michael Cox (eds), US Foreign Policy: from Republic to Hyperpower. Oxford: Oxford University Press
2008 Conceptualizing US Power. In Doug Stokes and Michael Cox (eds), US Foreign Policy: from Republic to Hyperpower. Oxford: Oxford University Press [co-authored with Michael Cox]
2007 Blood for Oil? Global Capital, Counter-Insurgency and the Dual Logic of American Energy Security. Review of International Studies 33:
2006 Iron Fists in Iron Gloves: The Political Economy of US terrorocracy promotion in Colombia. British Journal of Politics and International Relations 8/3: 368-87
2005 The Heart of Empire? Theorizing US Empire in an Era of Transnational Capitalism. Third World Quarterly 26/2: 227-46
2004 America’s Other War: Terrorizing Colombia. London: Zed Books
 

America’s Other War has received the following endorsements:

book cover

“This study provides a uniquely perceptive analysis …for understanding the past and the evolving global order.” Professor Noam Chomsky. MIT.

“For those seeking to peel back the layers of officialese and get to the heart of things this is a must read.” Professor Michael Cox, London School of Economics.

“Stokes offers a detailed and convincing analysis of the reality behind the ostensible 'war on drugs' in the 1990s.” International Affairs.

“This book fills a critical gap in the literature on Colombia and on post-Cold War inter-American relations." - William I. Robinson, University of California-Santa Barbara
2003 Why the End of the Cold War Doesn't Matter: the US War of Terror in Colombia. Review of International Studies 29/4: 569-85
2003 Countering the Soviet Threat? An Analysis of the Justifications for US Military Assistance to El Salvador from 1979–1992. Cold War History 3/3: 79-102
2001 Better Lead than Bread? A Critical Analysis of the US's Plan Colombia. Civil Wars 4/2: 59-78

Teaching

Undergraduate
Postgraduate
Research Supervision

Jean-François Bridoux
PhD in International Relations
Hegemony and the War on Terror: US Neo-conservatism and the Making of the New World Order

Asa Glock
MPhil in International Relations
The New Great Game? Post 9/11 Russian Security Discourse in Central Asia

Maurizio Tinnirello
MPhil in International Relations
NGOs in Conflict