I’m an associate professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. I’m interested in all sorts of things, but am mostly focusing these days on two projects (while starting a third project on political theory with Jack Knight).

First, I’m working with Cosma Shalizi on a hopelessly ambitious project that aims to bring together political theory, network theory, cognitive psychology, machine learning and all sorts of other things to investigate the workings of institutions. One paper from this project, which sets out a cognitive account of how democracy can work better than markets and hierarchies in solving complex problems, is available here. We hope to turn this into a book. A second paper, which uses evolutionary models to rethink institutional change should be available soon.

Second, I’m writing a book with Abraham Newman on the internationalization of homeland security. This book applies arguments that we’ve been developing about how cross-national strategic interactions are increasingly important to domestic institutional change. An article which surveys recent work on the ‘new interdependence,’ as well as setting out our own ideas, came out in World Politics in Spring 2014.

My and Abraham Newman’s piece, The Transatlantic Data War, appears in the Jan/Feb 2016 issue of Foreign Affairs. You can find an ungated copy here. My guide to good writing for undergraduate political science students is here.

I blog at Crooked Timber (general political argument, intellectual discussion, and completely non-intellectual discussion) and at The Monkey Cage (political science and its applications), which has moved to the Washington Post. My Twitter handle is @henryfarrell, and my Pinboard feed is henryfarrell. Contact me at myfirstname.mylastname@gmail.com.

I’m also co-chair (with Nick Lemann) of the Social Science Research Council’s Digital Culture Initiative, a faculty member of the MacArthur Foundation’s Research Network on Opening Governance, an affiliated scholar at Stanford University Law School’s Center for the Internet and Society, a faculty associate at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, associate editor of Perspectives on Politics and Research and Politics, and an international correspondent for Stato e Mercato.

I remember Aaron Swartz.

Recent Academic Articles

• Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman (2015), “The New Politics of Interdependence: Cross-National Layering in Trans-Atlantic Regulatory Disputes,” Comparative Political Studies, 48, 4:497-526.

• Henry Farrell (2014), “New Problems, New Publics? Dewey and New Media,” Policy & Internet, 6,2:176-191.

• Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman (2014), “Domestic Institutions Beyond the Nation State: Charting the New Interdependence Approach,” World Politics 66,2:331-363.

• Sean Aday, Henry Farrell, Deen Freelon, Marc Lynch, John Sides and Michael Dewar (2013), “Watching from Afar: Media Consumption Patterns Around the Arab Spring,” American Behavioral Scientist 57:899-919.

• Henry Farrell (2012), “The Consequences of the Internet for Politics,” Annual Review of Political Science 15:35-52.

See here for more.

Recent Popular Essays

• Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, “[The Transatlantic Data War: Europe Fights Back Against the NSA],” Foreign Affairs (Jan/Feb 2016).

• Henry Farrell, “Promoting Norms for Cyberspace,” Council on Foreign Relations Cyber Brief, April 2015.

• Henry Farrell, “Dark Leviathan: On the High Seas of the Hidden Internet,” Aeon, February 2015.

• Henry Farrell, “Ireland’s Cold War,” The Boston Review (November/December 2014).

• Henry Farrell, “Big Brother’s Liberal Friends,” The National Interest (November/December 2014).

See here for more.