SUMMARY

"Triadic coercion," is a situation in which one state targets another state for allowing or assisting violent nonstate actors operating from its territory. The talk will explore both the conditions under which such triadic coercion might be successful, and the reason why some states, and Israel in particular, adopt a triadic coercion strategy even when it is unlikely to succeed. This talk is based on a recently published book co-authored with Wendy Pearlman.

BIO

Dr. Boaz Atzili is an Associate Professor and the Director of Doctoral Studies at the School of International Service of American University in Washington DC. He holds a PhD in Political Science from MIT and a BA from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His research focuses on territorial conflicts and peace, the politics of borders, and deterrence and coercion, with a Middle East focus. He has published three books, Good Fences, Bad Neighbors: Border Fixity and International Conflict (University of Chicago Press, 2012), Territorial Designs and World Politics: Inside-out and Outside-in (Routledge, 2017, edited with Burak Kadercan), and Triadic Coercion: Israel's Targeting of States that Host Non-State Actors (Columbia University Press, 2018, with Wendy Pearlman). Dr. Atzili has published articles in journals such as International Security, Security Studies, International Studies Review, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, and Territories, Politics, Governance. His work has won the American Political Science Association's Kenneth N. Waltz prize for the best 2006 dissertation in the area of security studies, the Edgar S. Furniss 2014 Award for the best first book in international security, and the A. Leroy Bennett Award for the best paper presented at IS Northeast, 2015.