Courtesy Ikenberry
Government professor G. John Ikenberry, one of the country’s leading experts on international relations and American foreign policy in the post-Cold War era, will leave Georgetown in July after accepting an offer to join the faculty at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.
Ikenberry, the Peter F. Krogh Professor of Geopolitics and Global Justice at the School of Foreign Service, serves as the Director of the Mortara Center for International Affairs. In addition to his introductory course on international relations, Ikenberry has also taught graduate-level courses and more specialized seminars such as Relations Among Advanced Industrial Societies.
“Professor Ikenberry was a great asset to Georgetown and the School of Foreign Service,” James Reardon-Anderson, chair of the School of Foreign Service Faculty, said. “He is bright, articulate and personally engaging which I am sure are attributes that came across to the students.”
Ikenberry declined an offer to teach at Yale University earlier this year in favor of returning to Princeton, where he previously taught from 1984 to 1992. Ikenberry will serve on the faculty of the Wilson School as part of the university’s goal to strengthen and rebuild its depleted international relations program. Ikenberry will be a full professor of politics and international affairs, and will teach in both the undergraduate and graduate programs.
“I am absolutely delighted that Professor Ikenberry has accepted our offer,” Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School Anne-Marie Slaughter said. “He brings great expertise in international political economy, international institutions, American foreign policy and U.S.-East Asia relations.”
According to Ikenberry, the opportunity to teach at Princeton coincided with both his personal and professional goals.
“I started my career at Princeton and met my wife there,” Ikenberry said. “Princeton has given me funding for a large, five-year project on the future of multilateralism. So that is exciting.”
Nonetheless, Ikenberry said he is sorry that he must leave Georgetown.
“I am very fond of Georgetown University, its wonderful students and faculty. It is very difficult to leave such a special place,” Ikenberry said. “I have been at other universities but Georgetown has a very unique, collective spirit.”
Robert Gallucci, dean of the School of Foreign Service, said Ikenberry was an invaluable member of the Georgetown faculty.
“He has been enormously productive while at Georgetown and I’m sure he will continue to be one of a handful of academics who will define the field in the years ahead,” Gallucci said. “I am, along with his other colleagues, very sorry to see him leave, but certainly wish him every success at Princeton.”
According to Reardon-Anderson, the loss of Professor Ikenberry is a setback for the university. However, he assured students that the School of Foreign Service will find another instructor with similar qualifications to Ikenberry’s.
“Georgetown and the School of Foreign Service remain committed to recruiting and retaining the best faculty, both as teachers in the classroom and as scholars in their special fields of expertise,” he said. “We have already begun to search for Prof. Ikenberry’s successor, and we will succeed.”
In addition to his affiliation with Georgetown and Princeton, Ikenberry also taught at the University of Pennsylvania for six years.
Outside of teaching, Ikenberry has held posts at the State Department, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Brookings Institution. His most recent publication, After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order after Major Wars, won the award for best book in international history and politics from the American Political Science Association.
Ikenberry is also a regular reviewer of books on political and legal affairs for Foreign Affairs, one of the country’s most influential publications on international affairs and foreign policy.
