Jeremy Pressman

Professor

Political Science

Director, Middle East Studies

Co-director, Crowd Counting Consortium

Fellow, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Harvard Kennedy School

Jeremy Pressman studies international relations, protests, the Arab-Israeli conflict, Middle East politics, and U.S. foreign policy. He co-founded and co-directs the Crowd Counting Consortium, an event counting project that has tallied and made publicly available data on all manner of protests in the United States since 2017. Pressman received his PhD in political science from MIT and previously worked at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He has held fellowships at Harvard University, Brandeis University, the University of Sydney, the Humanities Institute at the University of Connecticut, and the Norwegian Nobel Institute where he was a Fulbright fellow.

His most recent book is The sword is not enough: Arabs, Israelis, and the limits of military force (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2020). Pressman questions the over-reliance on military force and highlights the negative military and political consequences such as greater insecurity. Pressman has spoken at length about the book in settings ranging from an academic talk at UCLA (video) to podcasts such as “In the Moment” (Town Hall Seattle) and “Power Problems” (CATO Institute).

Pressman has written two other books:  Warring Friends: Alliance Restraint in International Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008), a part of the Cornell Studies in Security Affairs; and, with Geoffrey Kemp, Point of No Return: The Deadly Struggle for Middle East Peace (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1997). He has published journal articles in Cooperation & Conflict, Diplomatic History, International Security, Perspectives on Politics, Science Advances, Social Movement Studies, and elsewhere (journal articles). He has also published many articles and letters in the wider press such as the New York Times, Washington Post, the Boston Review, the Washington Quarterly and ForeignAffairs.com (articles and interviews). Pressman has enjoyed speaking to community groups – often about Israel-Palestine – including at public libraries, eldercare facilities, faith communities, schools, a debate camp, and (virtually) to the Tucson (AZ) Great Decisions Association. See E-IR for a 2020 interview with Pressman on his career and publications.