Sarah R.

Maxey
Department of Political Science   Loyola University Chicago

ACADEMIC POSITIONS
2018-present Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Loyola University Chicago

2017-2018 Post-Doctoral Fellow, Perry World House, University of Pennsylvania

EDUCATION
2017 Ph.D., Government, Cornell University
International Relations (major), Comparative Politics (minor)

2009 B.A., Government and Sociology, Georgetown University, Summa Cum Laude

PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS
“Finding the Water’s Edge: When National Identity Trumps Partisanship in Foreign Policy Attitudes,” Accepted
at International Politics for a special issue on Domestic Polarization and U.S. Foreign Policy.

“Limited Spin: When the Public Punishes Leaders Who Lie About Military Action.” 2021. Journal of Conflict
Resolution. 65(2-3): 283-312.

“The Power of Humanitarian Narratives: A Domestic Coalition Theory of Justifications for Military Action.”
2020. Political Research Quarterly. 73(3): 680-695.

“Mechanisms of Morality: Sources of Support for Humanitarian Intervention” with Sarah Kreps. 2018. Journal of
Conflict Resolution. 62(8): 1814-1842.

“Teaching Students to Engage with Evidence: An Evaluation of Structured Writing and Classroom Discussion
Strategies” with Steffen Blings. 2017. Journal of Political Science Education 13(1): 15-32.

SUBMITTED & WORKING PAPERS

“You and Whose Army? How Civilian Leaders Leverage the Military’s Prestige to Shape Public Opinion” with
Michael Kenwick, conditionally accepted.

“Morally Opposed? Sources of Public Opposition to Autonomous Weapon Systems.” with Michael Horowitz.

“War of Words: How Presidential Rhetoric and Anti-War Messages Compete for Public Opinion” with Stephen
Roblin

“War by Any Other Name: Humanitarian Frames and Perceptions of Success in Military Interventions.”

“Just How Humanitarian are Interventions? Peacekeeping and the Prevention of Civilian Killings during and
after Civil Wars” with Sarah Kreps

“The Humanitarian Discourse of Force: How Leaders Justify Security Interventions.” Book manuscript.

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Updated 10/2021
BOOK CHAPTERS & OTHER PUBLICATIONS
“Context Matters: The Transformative Nature of Drones on the Battlefield” with Sarah Kreps in Technology and
International Relations: The New Frontier in Global Power, eds. Giampiero Giacomello, Francesco Niccolò Moro, and
Marco Valigi. 2021. Edward Elgar Publishing.

“Americans feel a moral obligation to help humanitarian victims (like those in Syria) with military force” with
Sarah Kreps. 10 April 2018. The Washington Post: Monkey Cage.

“Moral Obligations and Military Intervention” with Sarah Kreps. 26 September 2017. East West Institute and The
Diplomat.

GRANTS & FELLOWSHIPS

2021 Rule of Law Institute at Loyola University Chicago, Scholar Grant
2016 Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant, National Science Foundation
2016 Jesse F. and Dora H. Bluestone Peace Studies Fellowship, Cornell University
2016 American Studies Research Grant, Cornell University
2015 PREPARE Writing Assessment Fellowship, Cornell University
2014-15 Graduate Fellow, Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies
2014 Institute for Social Sciences Small Grant, Cornell University, with Sarah Kreps
2014 Houston I. Flournoy Grant, Cornell University
2011-12 Sage Fellowship, Cornell University
Conference Travel Grants: 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017

TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Loyola University Chicago
PLSC 102 International Relations in an Age of Globalization (Fall 2018, Spring 2019, 2020, 2022,
Fall 2020-online)
PLSC 300D Morality in War (J-Term 2021, 2022-online)
PLSC 325 American Foreign Policy (Fall 2018, 2019, 2020-online)
PLSC 326 American National Security (Spring 2019, 2020, 2021-online)
PLSC 430 Theories of International Politics (graduate seminar, Spring 2021-online)
PLSC 431 The Formulation of US Foreign Policy (graduate seminar, Fall 2019, Spring 2022)

Cornell University
2015 Recipient of Campus-Wide Deanne Gebell Gitner ’66 Family Annual Prize for Teaching
Assistants

Instructor
AMST 1145 U.S. Foreign Policy Today, First-Year Writing Seminar (Fall 2015)
GOVT 1101 Humanitarian Intervention, First-Year Writing Seminar (Spring 2015)
Math Camp Department of Government (Summer 2014)

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 Teaching Assistant
GOVT 3877 Nuclear Security in a Changing World, with Sarah Kreps (Fall 2014)
GOVT 3837 The Cold War, with Matthew Evangelista (Spring 2014)
GOVT 3937 Introduction to Peace and Conflict Studies, with Richard Maass (Fall 2013),
Sarah Kreps (Fall 2012)
GOVT 3867 Causes of War, with Christopher Way (Spring 2013)

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
American Political Science Association Annual Meeting
2021 “War by Any Other Name? Humanitarian Frames and Perceptions of Success in Military
Interventions.”

2020 “Morally Opposed? Sources of Public Opposition to Autonomous Weapon Systems.” with
Michael Horowitz.

2019 “Finding the Water’s Edge: When National Identity Trumps Partisanship in Foreign Policy
Attitudes”

“War of Words: How Presidential Rhetoric and Anti-War Messages Compete for Public
Opinion” with Stephen Roblin

2018 “Limited Spin: When the Public Punishes Leaders Who Lie about Military Action”

“The Civil-Military Divide in Public Perceptions of Foreign Policy Decision Making” with
Michael Kenwick

2017 “Knowing Your Audience: How U.S. Presidents Justify Military Interventions”

2016 “Teaching Students to Engage with Evidence: An Evaluation of Structured Writing and
Classroom Discussion Strategies”

2015 “Mechanisms of Morality: Sources of Support for Humanitarian Intervention” with Sarah
Kreps

“Measuring Justifications: A New Approach to Evaluating Presidents’ Attention to Foreign

Crises, 1990-2013”

2014 “Free to Do Good?: Humanitarian Justifications for Force and Perceptions of Norm Abuse in
Iraq, 2003-2008”

International Studies Association Annual Convention

2022 “War by Any Other Name? Humanitarian Frames and Perceptions of Success in Military
(scheduled) Interventions.”

2020 “The Civil-Military Divide in Public Perceptions of Foreign Policy Decision Making” with
Michael Kenwick (conference cancelled)

2019 “Morally Opposed? Sources of Public Opposition to Autonomous Weapon Systems.” with
Michael Horowitz.

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 “War of Words: How Presidential Rhetoric and Anti-War Messages Compete for Public
Opinion” with Stephen Roblin

2018 “Persuading Isolationists: The Mechanisms and Limits of Opposition to Military Action”

“Finding the Water’s Edge: When National Identity Trumps Partisanship in Foreign Policy
Attitudes”

2017 “Knowing Your Audience: How U.S. Presidents Justify Military Interventions”

“Deception and Democratic Accountability: The Limits of Justifications for War”

2016 “How U.S. Presidents Use Humanitarian Justifications in Contemporary Interventions”

“Mechanisms of Morality: Sources of Support for Humanitarian Intervention” with Sarah

Kreps

Midwest Political Science Association Annual Meeting

2021 Chair, Foreign Policy Section

2015 “Distinctly Humanitarian?: Sources of Change and Consistency in U.S. Presidents’ Use of
Humanitarian Justifications”

2014 “Good Intentions or Empty Rhetoric: Humanitarian Justifications and the U.S. War in Iraq”

Peace Science
2018 “The Civil-Military Divide in Public Perceptions of Foreign Policy Decision Making” with
Michael Kenwick

2014 “Mechanisms of Morality: Why the U.S. Public Supports Humanitarian Interventions” with
Sarah Kreps, Workshop on Survey Experiments in Peace Science

INVITED TALKS & PRESENTATIONS

2020 “Finding the Water’s Edge: When National Identity Trumps Partisanship in Foreign Policy
Attitudes,” Workshop on Domestic Polarization and U.S. Foreign Policy: Ideas, Institutions,
and Policy Implications, Heidelberg Center for American Studies and American University

2019 “Just How Humanitarian are Interventions? Peacekeeping and the Prevention of Civilian
Killings during and after Civil Wars,” Workshop on Political Violence, Washington University
in St. Louis

2017 “Knowing Your Audience: Domestic Coalitions and Justifications for Military Intervention,”
Harvard International Security Conference, Center for Government and International Studies,
Harvard University

2016 “The Humanitarian Discourse of Force,” Emerging Scholars in Grand Strategy Conference,
Notre Dame International Security Center, University of Notre Dame

2016 cont. “The Experience of Experiments: Some Logistics and the Utility of Mediation and Moderation
Analysis in Survey Experiments” April 2016, Methods Brownbag Colloquium, Cornell
University

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2015 “Teaching Students to Engage with Evidence: An Evaluation of Structured Writing and
Classroom Discussion Strategies” with Steffen Blings, May 2015, Classroom Research and
Teaching Symposium, Cornell University

2014 “Humanitarian Discourse and the Use of Force,” October 2014, International Studies in the
21st Century: Development, Cooperation, and Security, Stockholm University

ADDITIONAL TRAINING AND RESEARCH

2020 Online Teaching Course: Bootcamp, Office of Online Learning, Loyola University Chicago
2019 Council on Foreign Relations Educators Workshop
2015 International Laws of War Institute, Cornell University, The Hague
2015 Teaching as Research Seminar, Center for Teaching Excellence, Cornell University
2014 Teaching Writing Seminar, Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines, Cornell University
2014 Writing in the Majors, Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines, Cornell University
2014 Institute for Qualitative and Multi-Method Research, Syracuse University
2013 ICPSR Summer Program, University of Michigan

UNIVERSITY AND PROFESSIONAL SERVICE

2020-21 Chair, Foreign Policy Section, Midwest Political Science Association
2020-present Member, Research Committee, Department of Political Science, Loyola University Chicago
Member, Racial Justice Examen Committee, Department of Political Science, Loyola
University Chicago
Coordinator, Naval Academy Foreign Affairs Conference, Loyola University Chicago
2018-present Member, Graduate Student Committee, Department of Political Science, Loyola University
Chicago
Coordinator, Student Conference on U.S. Affairs, Department of Political Science, Loyola
University Chicago
2015 Co-facilitator, Pedagogy and Professional Development Group, Knight Institute for Writing in
the Disciplines, Cornell University
2013-15 Co-facilitator, Graduate Student Research Colloquium, Department of Government, Cornell
University
2012-15 Graduate Advisor, Cornell International Affairs Review, Cornell University

Chair and/or Discussant: American Political Science Association Annual Meeting (2019, 2020); International
Studies Association Annual Convention (2018, 2019)

Reviewer: American Journal of Political Science, American Political Science Review, Conflict Management and Peace Science,
Foreign Policy Analysis, International Organization, International Security, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict
Resolution, Journal of Experimental Political Science, Journal of International Relations and Development, Journal of Politics,
Journal of Political Science Education, Political Research Quarterly, Research & Politics, World Politics

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
American Political Science Association, International Studies Association