Thucydides

Thanks for the encouraging and informative reply - I'll get back to you if I have further questions. If anyone else would care to weigh in, please feel free.

I'm considering applying for a PhD this fall, and I'm trying to crystallize the fields and research questions I'd really like to focus on. My academic background includes an undergrad in econ and a 1-year Masters in IPE (both from European universities). However, during the course of my academic and professional trajectory, my research interests basically have shifted more and more towards the security studies side of IR. In this context, I wanted to ask you guys for some direction/suggestions regarding two broad research fields that i've been looking into. 1) Considering the above background, I'm naturally quite interested in the interplay between econ/IPE and international security. I've done some work on this in my masters, and I've been fascinated by the research of scholars trying to bridge this gap (e.g. Gilpin, Mastanduno, Kirshner, Gowa, Mansfield, Ripsman, Drezner, etc.) Just to give some examples (these are quite broad; obviously I would narrow them down in my application), this would include the interdependence literature, works on economic sanctions and the economic base of influence and national power, the international politics of natural resources, and the political economy of the defense industry. I'm looking for some pointers on which universities/other academics would be specialized in these kind of issues, since I've only recently begun to explore the different niches of U.S. polsci departments. I guess that MIT would be a good example, but how about others? Also, would the splicing of IR's two main subfields provide a viable area for an academic career, or would I be at a competitive disadvantage vis-à-vis those who concentrate on the one or the other? 2) Continuing along the same lines - since I got a good basis in formal work in my econ degree, I'm also interested in exploring how a formal methodological approach applies to strategic studies and national security, à la Shelling, Carl Kaysen, etc. I don't have a lot of background on this yet, but I'm eager to get into, for example, game theoretical approaches for modeling arms races, coercion through military threats and economic sanctions, deterrence theory etc. I wanted to see if you guys had some suggestions on where to start my reading for this, in order to proceed in the right direction. Many thanks for all of your input!