Listings of all CNS staff with areas of expertise, contact information, biographies, and recent publications.

Updated: Nov 27, 2012

Jeffrey W. Knopf

Professor and Program Chair, Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies and CNS Senior Research Associate

Activities

Jeff Knopf is a Senior Research Associate at CNS and a Professor in the Graduate School of International Policy and Management, where he serves as the Program Chair for the M.A. program in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies.

Areas of Research

• Causes, consequences, and amelioration of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons proliferation
• Deterrence, assurances, and other security strategies, and their applications to threats posed by terrorism and WMD proliferation
• International security cooperation, including arms control, cooperative threat reduction, and multilateral nonproliferation regimes
• Peace movements, NGOs, and public opinion, and their influences on foreign policy
• International Relations Theory, with a focus on the interaction of domestic and international politics, psychological influences on decision-making, and the prospects for learning in international affairs

Background

Before joining the MIIS faculty, Dr. Knopf taught at the University of Southern California, the University of California-Santa Cruz, and the Naval Postgraduate School. He worked once before at CNS, where he served as Editor of The Nonproliferation Review from 1998-2000. He has also worked on national defense issues at several NGOs based in Washington, DC. In 2011, Dr. Knopf was part of a team commissioned by the U.S. Defense Department to study ways to deter and influence violent extremism.

Education

• M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University
• B.A. in Social Studies from Harvard University

Selected Bibliography

• "Nuclear Disarmament and Nonproliferation: Examining the Linkage Argument," International Security 37, no. 3 (Winter 2012/13).
• Editor, Security Assurances and Nuclear Nonproliferation (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012).
• "NGOs, Social Movements, and Arms Control," in Arms Control: History, Theory, and Policy, ed. Robert E. Williams, Jr. and Paul R. Viotti (ABC-CLIO/Praeger, 2012).
• "The Concept of Nuclear Learning," Nonproliferation Review 19, no. 1 (March 2012).
• "The Fourth Wave in Deterrence Research," Contemporary Security Policy 31, no. 1 (April 2010). Winner of the Bernard Brodie Prize for best article in the journal in 2010.
• "Three Items in One: Deterrence as Concept, Research Program, and Political Issue," in Complex Deterrence: Strategy in the Global Age, ed. T.V. Paul, Patrick Morgan, and James Wirtz (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009).
• "Recasting the Proliferation Optimism-Pessimism Debate," Security Studies 12, no. 1 (Autumn 2002).
• Domestic Society and International Cooperation: The Impact of Protest on U.S. Arms Control Policy, Cambridge Studies in International Relations no. 60 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
• "Beyond Two-Level Games: Domestic-International Interaction in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Negotiations," International Organization 47, no. 4 (Autumn 1993).