William Curti Wohlforth (born 1959) is an American political scientist. He is the Daniel Webster Professor of Government in the

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College ( ) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, Dartmouth is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the America ...

Department of Government, of which he was chair for three academic years (2006-2009). Wohlforth was Editor-in-chief of ''

Security Studies __NOTOC__ Security studies, also known as international security studies, is an academic sub-field within the wider discipline of international relations that studies organized violence, military conflict, national security, and international s ...

'' from 2008 to 2011. He is linked to the

Neoclassical realism Neoclassical realism is a theory of international relations and an approach to foreign policy analysis. Initially coined by Gideon Rose in a 1998 '' World Politics'' review article, it is a combination of classical realist and neorealist &n ...

school and known for his work on American unipolarity.

Academic career

Wohlforth received his bachelor's degree in International Relations (summa cum laude) from

Beloit College Beloit College is a private liberal arts college in Beloit, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1846 when Wisconsin was still a territory, it is the state's oldest continuously operated college. It has an enrollment of roughly 1,000 undergradua ...

. He went on to receive his Master's and Ph.D. from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

in International Relations as well. He is the author of ''Elusive Balance: Power and Perceptions during the Cold War'' (Cornell, 1993) and editor of ''Witnesses to the End of the Cold War'' (Johns Hopkins, 1996) and ''Cold War Endgame: Oral History, Analysis, and Debates'' (Penn State, 2003). Wohlforth's 1999 article "The Stability of a Unipolar World" and the book ''World Out of Balance: International Relations Theory and the Challenge of American Primacy'' (co-authored with Stephen G. Brooks) are influential in the field of international relations. In the article and book, Wohlforth challenges the view that US supremacy following the end of the Cold War will be short-lived.Dall'Agnol, Augusto C. Vol. 7, No. 3 (2018), pp. 494-515, for further discussions and critics on Wohlforth "unipolar stability".

Publications

* ''A Measure Short of War: A Brief History of Great Power Subversion'' (Oxford, 2025) (with Jill Kastner) *
America Abroad: The United States’ Global Role in the 21 st Century
' (Oxford, 2016) (with Stephen G. Brooks) *
World Out of Balance: International Relations and the Challenge of American Primacy
' (Princeton University Press, 2008) (with Stephen G. Brooks) *
The Elusive Balance: Power and Perceptions During the Cold War
' (Cornell University Press, 1993)

References

External links

Wohlforth's biography on the Dartmouth web sitePapers by William WohlforthWorks at International Security Journal
Dartmouth College faculty American international relations scholars Political realists Neoclassical realists(international relations) Living people Academic journal editors Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Beloit College alumni 1959 births American political scientists {{US-polisci-bio-stub