Philip G. Roeder (Ph. D. Harvard University, 1978) is professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego. A specialist on the politics of the Soviet successor states, Roeder has focused his recent research on the design of political institutions for countries torn apart by secessionist movements. He is the author of Where Nation-States Come From: Institutional Change in the Age of Nationalism (Princeton) and Red Sunset: The Failure of Soviet Politics (Princeton). He is the co-author of Postcommunism and the Theory of Democracy (Princeton) and co-editor of Sustainable Peace: Power and Democracy After Civil Wars (Cornell). His articles have appeared in such journals as the American Political Science Review, World Politics, and International Studies Quarterly. He is currently working on two longer-term projects:

1. Alternatives to Independence (What are the consequences of various institutional arrangements designed to avoid granting independence to secessionists?) and
2. The Tenacity of the Nation-State (Why do states almost never relinquish sovereignty willingly?)

Jacob Shapiro (speaker) is a CISAC postdoctoral fellow. His primary research interest is the organization of terrorism and insurgency. His other research interests include international relations, organization theory, and security policy. Shapiro's ongoing projects study the balance between secrecy and openness in counterterrorism, the impact of international human rights law on democracies' foreign policy, the causes of militant recruitment in Islamic countries, and the relationship between public goods provision and insurgent violence in Iraq and Afghanistan. His research has been published in International Security, International Studies Quarterly, Foreign Policy, and a number of edited volumes. Shapiro is a Harmony Fellow at the Combating Terrorism Center at the United States Military Academy. As a Naval Reserve officer he was assigned to the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Naval Warfare Development Command. He served on active duty at Special Boat Team 20 and onboard the USS Arthur W. Radford (DD-968). He holds a PhD in political science and an MA in economics from Stanford University and a BA in political science from the University of Michigan.

Jeremy Weinstein (discussant) is an assistant professor of political science at Stanford University and an affiliated faculty member at CDDRL and CISAC. Previously, he was a research fellow at the Center for Global Development, where he directed the bi-partisan Commission on Weak States and US National Security. While working on his PhD, with funding from the Jacob Javits Fellowship, a Sheldon Fellowship, and the World Bank, he conducted hundreds of interviews with rebel combatants and civilians in both Africa and Latin America for his forthcoming book, Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence. He has also worked on the National Security Council staff; served as a visiting scholar at the World Bank; was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; and received a research fellowship in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution. He received his BA with high honors from Swarthmore College, and his MA and PhD in political economy and government from Harvard University.