On February 12, Norrin Ripsman, professor in the Political Science Department at Concordia University, spoke on why regional peacemaking begins with states and ends with societies using case studies from the Middle East and beyond.

Norrin M. Ripsman is a Professor in the Political Science Department at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania in 1997.  He is currently a visiting professor at Northern Illinois University.

He is the author of Peacemaking by Democracies: The Effect of State Autonomy on the Post-World-War Settlements (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2002), a co-author (with T.V. Paul) of Globalization and the National Security State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), a co-editor (with Steven E. Lobell and Jeffrey W. Taliaferro) of Neoclassical Realism, the State, and Foreign Policy (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2009) a co-editor (with Jean-Marc F. Blanchard and Edward D. Mansfield) of Power and the Purse: Economic Statecraft, Interdependence, and International Conflict (London: Frank Cass, 2000), and the author of numerous peer-reviewed journal articles in International Security, International Studies Quarterly, Security Studies, Millennium: A Journal of International Studies, International Interactions, International Studies Review, Geopolitics, International Journal, and The Canadian Journal of Political Science.