James Fearon to Co-Lead the Center for International Security and Cooperation
James Fearon to Co-Lead the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Fearon, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute, will succeed Scott Sagan, who has served in the role since 2021.
The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) is pleased to announce that James Fearon will serve as the next co-director of the institute’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), effective September 16, 2026.
Fearon is currently the Theodore and Frances Geballe Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, a professor of political science, and a senior fellow at FSI, where he is affiliated with both CISAC and the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. In 2021 and 2022, he served as a senior advisor in the U.S. Department of Defense, working primarily on the 2022 National Defense Strategy and its implementation within the Department.
He is the author of several highly influential studies of the causes of interstate and civil war, signaling and bargaining in interstate disputes, and deterrence theory. Earlier this year he published the book Worse than War: The Global Costs of Violence (Princeton University Press), co-authored with Anke Hoeffler, that estimates and compares the prevalence and costs of war with the prevalence and costs of interpersonal violence. His current work includes research on how U.S. and Chinese defense postures affect risks of escalation in the western Pacific; AI and the stability of nuclear deterrence; and the organizational design of defense bureaucracies. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002, and the National Academy of Sciences in 2012. He received his PhD in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley and joined Stanford as an associate professor in 1998.
“Jim Fearon will be a superb co-director of CISAC,” said outgoing co-director Scott Sagan. “He is one of the nation's finest scholars on bargaining in crises, the causes of interstate and civil wars, and global trends in forms of violence. He combines this scholarly expertise with keen policy interests in Pentagon budgeting, grand strategy, and nuclear weapons. What a great mix of interests and expertise to address international security in a changing world.”
Sagan has served as the co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) from 2021 to 2026, though his legacy and influence at CISAC extends well beyond the last five years. He previously served as CISAC co-director from 1998 to 2012. In 2021, he returned for another term of leadership service alongside Rodney Ewing, a geologist whose multidisciplinary research led to the development of techniques to predict the long-term behavior of materials used in radioactive waste disposal. Sagan and Ewing led the center together until Ewing’s passing in 2024.
CISAC’s co-director leadership structure has been in place since its founding in 1983, and reflects the belief that it takes scholars from different disciplines with different experiences, ideas, strengths, and interests to solve the most pressing security problems.
“We’re in a new global era where security, technology, geopolitics, and policy are more interconnected than ever before,” said Colin Kahl, director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. “CISAC is crucial to understanding that intersectionality and producing the knowledge we need to create a safer and more secure world. Scott has led this center with incredible vision, and I am fully confident that Jim, with his unique talents and expertise, will lead CISAC and its community into its next era of growth and world class research.”
CISAC’s mission is to produce policy-relevant research on international security problems, teach and train the next generation of security specialists, and inform policymaking in international security.
Under Ewing’s and Sagan’s leadership, CISAC has expanded to include new programs and initiatives such as the Indo-Pacific Policy Lab, led by Oriana Skylar Mastro, whose mission is to disseminate leading academic knowledge on Indo-Pacific security issues to policymakers and build connections between scholars and industry that promote innovation and strengthen regional security and prosperity. Similarly, the new India-U.S. Security Studies Fellowship allows engineers, scientists, historians, and social scientists the opportunity to focus on issues related to Indian and U.S. security issues in collaboration with the CISAC community.
Other initiatives, such as CISAC’s longstanding program on Biosecurity and Global Health, the program on Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance, the initiative on Existential Risks, and their evolving agenda on Cyber Policy and Security, continue to have relevance and reach as global threats and politics evolve.
“It's not clear how the U.S. and global partners can best deal with the complex security dilemmas emerging on the horizon,” said Sagan. “But that’s the role of independent thinking inside a university. We’re independent from bureaucratic inertia. We’re nonpartisan. We’re free to figure out what policies and strategies will lead to a more secure and peaceful world. That’s the goal.”
CISAC’s fellowship and teaching programs are instrumental in training the next generation of security studies specialists.
“CISAC showed me how to be a rigorous and curious academic committed to building community,” said Luis Rodriguez, a former CISAC fellow now teaching at George Mason University.
Ethan Lee (BS, ‘23) feels similarly. Currently an associate in the Defense, Emerging Technology, and Strategy Program at Harvard’s Belfer Center for International Affairs, Lee is an alum of CISAC’s undergraduate honors program, which was established in 2000 as a way of providing Stanford seniors from all disciplines the opportunity to conduct rigorous, scholarly research on international security issues.
“As a student, I felt both challenged and supported at CISAC,” recalled Lee. After graduation, Lee and Sagan co-authored an article on U.S. public opinion, law, and the use of military force against Iran, which is forthcoming in the journal Security Studies. “I have benefited tremendously from Scott’s generosity, and I know I'm just one of many students who have.”
Alumni of CISAC’s undergraduate honors program and fellowships go on from Stanford to create a global network of policymakers.
“When I take students to the Pentagon or to think tanks in Washington, you meet our former fellows and honors students,” says Sagan. “In major universities across the country, the political science departments and the international security research centers are populated with scholars who came through Stanford. That's a legacy about which all the directors at CISAC should be very proud.”
Looking to the future, incoming co-director James Fearon acknowledges that while there are very real challenges ahead in international relations, there are also increased opportunities for scholars at places like CISAC to make an impact for good.
“Things are changing frighteningly fast in international security affairs, in alarming ways that are often linked with effects of rapid technological change,” Fearon acknowledges. “But CISAC has long been the place for high-quality research at the intersection of science, technology, and the politics of international security. I am excited by the opportunity and am greatly looking forward to working with a fantastic set of scholars building on this tradition in a new international context.”
To learn more about Fearon’s research and how geopolitics and technology are intersecting across borders, listen to the latest episode of the World Class podcast, hosted by FSI Director Colin Kahl.
Fearon’s co-director will be announced in November 2026.
