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Dr David Blagden

Senior Lecturer in International Security

D.W.Blagden@exeter.ac.uk

2410

01392 722410

Knightley SSI

Overview

David Blagden is Senior Lecturer in International Security at the Strategy and Security Institute (SSI) and in the Department of Social and Political Sciences, having joined the University in 2015. He was previously the Adrian Research Fellow in International Politics at Darwin College, University of Cambridge. Dr Blagden’s scholarly publications have appeared in International Security, the European Journal of International Relations, Security Studies, International Studies Quarterly, Survival, International Affairs, Foreign Policy Analysis, and International Studies Review, among other outlets; he is also the editor (with Mark de Rond) of Games: Conflict, Competition, and Cooperation (Cambridge University Press, 2019). His research has been funded by organisations including the UK Economic and Social Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust, and the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. He holds a BA (Philosophy, Politics, and Economics) and DPhil (International Relations) from the University of Oxford, an MA (International Relations) from the University of Chicago, and has won the Royal United Services Institute’s Trench Gascoigne Prize for original writing on defence and security. 

Dr Blagden has worked in – and subsequently consulted for – the UK Cabinet Office, provided evidence for a number of Parliamentary Select Committees and HM Government policy reviews, and participated in various 'track-two' diplomatic exchanges. As Academic Lead for the University's research partnership with the UK Ministry of Defence's Development, Concepts, and Doctrine Centre, he is a regular participant in the Chief of Defence Staff's Strategic Forum. He has also served as Specialist Adviser to the House of Lords' International Relations and Defence Committee, and has consulted for several other UK/allied government departments/agencies, military commands, think-tanks, private firms, and political campaigns. In terms of popular media contributions, he has provided television and radio analysis for the likes of the BBC and Bloomberg, been quoted in the UK and US national press, and written for outlets including The Guardian, The Spectator, and the New Statesman. He is also an officer in the Royal Naval Reserve and, prior to his doctoral study, was an analyst with the London-based economic advisory firm BMI Research (now part of Fitch Group).

At Exeter, he has served as Politics' Senior Tutor, as SSI's Head of Research Engagement, and as the Department's Director of Undergraduate Examinations. He offers a range of undergraduate and postgraduate modules; he has served as one of the core teaching/convening staff for SSI's intensive MStrat programme since joining the University, and is also now Programme Director of the new MSc in Global Security Studies. A Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy, Dr Blagden is additionally a Visiting Fellow of the Royal Navy Strategic Studies Centre, an Associate of the Corbett Centre for Maritime Policy Studies, a Member of the UK Project on Nuclear Issues, part of the US 'Bridging the Gap' Project's Scholar Network, and on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Global Security Studies and Defence Studies. His research focuses on the following areas, and he is happy to consider applications for MPhil/PhD supervision on topics that fall within these and related fields.

  • The causes and consequences of the rise of new great powers
  • UK/allied foreign and defence policy (particularly in the context of European geopolitics and the return of multipolarity)
  • The determinants of major-power cooperation on mutually threatening issues, e.g. climate change
  • The security implications of economic globalization
  • Nuclear strategy (particularly deterrence, coercion, and disarmament/rearmament dynamics)
  • Navies and sea power
  • Domestic political and economic pressures on strategic behaviour
  • Realist international relations theory (particularly war causation, balancing theory, and offence-defence theory)
  • Philosophy of science and its implications for international-political thought.

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Research

  • The causes and consequences of the rise of new great powers
  • UK/allied foreign and defence policy (particularly in the context of European geopolitics and the return of multipolarity)
  • The determinants of major-power cooperation on mutually threatening issues, e.g. climate change
  • The security implications of economic globalization
  • Realist international relations theory (particularly war causation, balancing theory, and offence-defence theory)
  • Nuclear strategy (particularly deterrence, coercion, and disarmament/rearmament dynamics)
  • Navies and sea power
  • Domestic political and economic pressures on strategic behaviour
  • Philosophy of science and its implications for international-political thought

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Projects

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Publications

Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.

| 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 |

2023

2022

  • Rosenberg J, Zarakol A, Blagden D, Rutazibwa OU, Gray K, Matin K, de Oliveira FA, Cooper L. (2022) Debating Uneven and Combined Development/Debating International Relations: A Forum, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, volume 50, no. 2, pages 291-327, DOI:10.1177/03058298211064346.
  • Blagden D. (2022) Uneven and Combined Development: Convergence Realism in Communist Regalia?, New Directions in Uneven and Combined Development, Routledge, 109-125.

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2011

  • Blagden D, Hempson-Jones J, van der Horst L. (2011) Editorial Introduction: China’s Rise and Adapting Global Structures, St Antony's International Review, volume 6, no. 2, pages 3-9.
  • Blagden D, Gruin J, Xu J. (2011) Editorial Introduction: International Financial Institutions in an Age of Crisis, St Antony's International Review, volume 7, no. 1, pages 3-10.
  • Blagden DW, Levy JS, Thompson WR. (2011) Sea Powers, Continental Powers, and Balancing Theory, International Security, volume 36, no. 2, pages 190-202, DOI:10.1162/ISEC_c_00060.

2010

2009

2008

  • Blagden D. (2008) Modeling European Security and Defence Policy: Strategic Enablement, National Sovereignty and Differential Atlanticism, Yale Journal of International Affairs, volume 3, no. 2, pages 87-99.

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