Charles Walldorf

Will Walldorf is a Professor in the Department of Politics and International Affairs at Wake Forest University. He focuses primarily on international relations, United States foreign policy and grand strategy. His latest book, To Shape Our World For Good: Master Narratives and Forceful Regime Change in United States Foreign Policy, 1900- 2011 (Cornell University Press, 2019), explores the ways that broad, public narratives drive major U.S. foreign policy decisions about forceful regime change. He is also the author of Just Politics: Human Rights and the Foreign Policy of Great Powers (Cornell University Press, 2008), which won the 2010 International Studies Association ISSS Award for the best book on international security. Will has published articles on topics
related to United States foreign policy and grand strategy in several edited volumes as well as International Security, The European Journal of International Relations, Security Studies, and Political Science Quarterly. His policy articles and essays have appeared in venues such as Washington Quarterly, National Interest, Defense One, Democracy Paradox, Inkstick, and Huffington Post. He is co-editor of the Oxford Companion to American Politics. Will is currently writing a book, titled America’s Forever Wars: Why So Long, Why End Now, What Comes Next, that among other things develops a comprehensive strategy for over-the-horizon counterterrorism in U.S. foreign policy. His other ongoing research focuses on the role that domestic legitimacy plays in U.S. grand strategy, especially toward rising powers. Will received his BA from Bowdoin College and his MA and PhD in Politics from the University of Virginia. He has held postdoctoral fellowships at Dartmouth College and the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. He taught at Gordon College, Dartmouth College, the University of Virginia, and Auburn University before coming to Wake Forest.