Charli Carpenter

• Ph.D., University of Oregon

• International Relations

My teaching and research interests include the politics of the laws of war, protection of civilians, humanitarian disarmament, global advocacy networks, civil-military relations, and the role of popular culture in global human security policy. I have a particular interest in the gap between intentions and outcomes among advocates of human security. I work with graduate students who have an interest in international human security norms. In the past, I have hired graduate student research assistants to help me with focus group research, survey experiments and qualitative text analysis. I have co-authored with graduate students on human security agenda-setting, public opinion on the laws of war, protection of civilians, women's human rights, and political science fiction.

• June 2024-May 2025 ($80,000): Swiss Philanthropy Foundation, for research on military attitudes toward the lawfulness of nuclear weapons
• January 2022-January 2023 ($200,000): National Science Foundation RAPID Program, for public opinion surveys regarding peace, security and human rights in Afghanistan.
• January 2022-May 2022: ($96,000): US Agency for International Development, for academicstakeholder engagement on gender programming in Afghanistan.
• August 2007-July 2010: National Science Foundation Human and Social Dynamics Initiative, for data collection, coding and analysis of advocacy websites, surveys, focus groups and interviews with human rights advocates to explore variation in issue adoption within the human rights network.
• July 2007-September 2008: National Science Foundation Law and Social Sciences grant, to study international criminal law norm creation.
• September 2004-August 2005: National Science Foundation Human and Social Dynamics Exploratory Grant, to conduct research on the humanitarian response to children born as a result of wartime sexual violence.
• November 2003-April 2005: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research and Writing Grant, to conduct research on the humanitarian response to children born of forced pregnancy in the Balkans.
• October 2003: International Studies Association Workshop Grant, to organize an interdisciplinary workshop on “Gender, Ethnicity and Children’s Human Rights: Theorizing Babies Born of Wartime Sexual Violence” at the 2004 Annual Conference of the International Studies Association, Montreal, Canada.

Please visit Prof. Carpenter's personal website for more publications, as well as her author pages at World Politics Review, Foreign Policy and The Conversation.

Books

 Forgetting Children Born of War: Setting the Human Rights Agenda in Bosnia and Beyond. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010

 Born of War:  Protecting Children of Sexual Violence Survivors in Conflict Zones, edited by Charli Carpenter. San Francisco, CA: Kumarian Press 2007.

 Innocent Women and Children: Gender, Norms and the Protection of Civilians. London: Ashgate Press 2006.

Research Articles  

“The Ethics of Human Rights Advocacy in the Ukraine War,” Ethics and International Affairs, August 2025.

“The Right to Flee the Dangers of War: Rethinking Ukraine’s Gender-Based Restriction on Civilian Men’s Freedom of Movement,” with Jenna Norosky. Human Rights Quarterly, Summer 2024.

“The First Daughter Effect, Human Rights Advocacy, and Attitudes Toward Gender-Equality in Taliban-Controlled Afghanistan,” with Kristina Becvar, Bernhard Leidner and Kevin Young, Summer 2024, PLOS One.

“Whence the Nuclear Taboo?” with Alexander Montgomery. In International Studies Perspectives, Fall 2021.

“Breaking Bad: How Survey Experiments Prime Americans for War Crimes,” with Alexander Montgomery and Alexandria Nylen. Perspectives on Politics, Fall 2020

“The Stopping Power of Norms: Saturation Bombing and American Public Opinion on the Laws of War” with Alexander Montgomery. International Security,  Fall 2020.

“Questions of Life and Death: De-Constructing Human Security Norms Through US Public Opinion Surveys,” with Alexandria Nylen. European Journal of International Security, May 2019.

“Norms for the Earth: Changing the Climate on Climate Change,” with Ronald Mitchell. Journal of Global Security Studies. April 2019.

“Does Science Fiction Influence Political Fact? Yes and No” with Kevin Young. In International Studies Quarterly. September 2018.

“The Future of Global Security Studies” in Journal of Global Security Studies, 1(1) Winter 2016.

“Rethinking the Political-/Science-/Fiction Nexus: The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots and Global Policy-Making” in Perspectives on Politics, March 2016.

“Explaining the Advocacy Agenda: Insights from the Human Security Network.” With Sirin Duygulu, Alex Montgomery and Anna Rapp. International Organization, Winter 2014.

 “You Talk of Terrible Things So Matter-of-Factly in This Language of Science”: Constructing Human Rights in the Academy.” Forthcoming in Perspectives on Politics.

 “Assessing Virtual Networks: Transnational Advocacy in Real- and Cyber-Space.” Forthcoming in Global Networks.

 “Vetting the Advocacy Agenda: Networks, Centrality and the Paradox of Weapons Norms.” In International Organization, Vol 65, No. 1 (Winter 2011)

 “IR 2.0: New Media for an Old Profession.” Co-authored with Daniel Drezner. In International Studies Perspectives, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Fall 2010).

 “A Fresh Crop of Human Misery”: Representations of Bosnian ‘War Babies’ in the Global Print Media, 1991-2006.” In Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 38, No. 1 (Fall 2009)

  “Serious ‘Games’ for Serious Times: Pax Warrior in the Global Affairs Classroom.” Journal of Information Technology and Politics, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Spring 2008).

 “Forum: Mainstreaming Gender into the International Relations Curriculum.” In International Studies Perspectives. Vol. 8, No. 3 (Summer 2007).

 “Studying Issue (Non)-Adoption in Transnational Networks.” International Organization. Vol. 61, No. 3. (Summer 2007).

  “Setting the Advocacy Agenda: Issues and Non-Issues Around Children and Armed Conflict.” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 51, No. 1 (March 2007).

 “Recognizing Gender-Based Violence Against Civilian Men and Boys in Conflict Zones,” in Security Dialogue, Vol. 27, No. 1 (June 2006).

 “‘Women, Children and Other Vulnerable Groups’: Gender, Strategic Frames, and the Protection of Civilians as a Transnational Issue” in International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 49, No. 2 (June 2005).

 “Some Other Conceptual Problems: A Reply to Winter, Thompson and Jeffrey’s Critique of the U.N.’s Approach to Harmful Traditional Practices” in International Journal of Feminist Politics, Vol. 6, No. 2 (Summer 2004).

 “Stirring Gender into the Mainstream: Feminism, Constructivism and the Uses of Theory,” in International Studies Review, Vol. 5, No. 2, (Summer 2003).

 “‘Women and Children First’: Gender, Norms and Humanitarian Evacuation in the Balkans, 1991-1995” in International Organization, Vol. 57, No. 4, (Fall 2003). Reprinted in International Security and Conflict, edited by Bruce Russett. London: Ashgate, 2008.

 “Gender Theory in World Politics: Contributions of a Non-Feminist Standpoint” in International Studies Review, Vol. 4, No. 3, (Fall 2002).

 “Beyond ‘Gendercide’: Operationalizing Gender in Comparative Genocide Studies” in International Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 6, No. 4, (Winter 2002).

 “Forced Maternity, Children's Rights and the Genocide Convention” in Journal of Genocide Research, Vol. 2, No. 2, (July 2000).

“Surfacing Children: Limitations of Genocidal Rape Discourse” in Human Rights Quarterly Vol. 22, No. 2, (May 2000). Reprinted in Women’s Human Rights: A Human Rights Quarterly Reader, edited by Bert Lockwood. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press 2006.

• Undergraduate
  • Rules of War
  • Human Security
  • Global Issues
• Graduate:
  • Global Agenda-Setting; Seminar in IR Theory, Human Security, IR Proseminar