Korbel ranked 12th best place in the world to earn a master’s degree in international relations.
Korbel ranked 20th in the world for the best undergraduate degree in international studies.
Korbel ranked 12th best place in the world to earn a master’s degree in international relations.
Korbel ranked 20th in the world for the best undergraduate degree in international studies.
Professor
Rachel A. Epstein is a professor of international relations, with a focus on both international political economy and international security. Her research spans topics from financial crises, the politics of foreign bank ownership, and financial reform to the enlargement of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and those organizations' effects on target states. With a particular focus on East Central Europe, Epstein's research has examined democratic erosion in the region, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and the developmental prospects of post-communist states for catching up in the European and global economies.
Epstein has also served as a lead principal investigator on a number of collaborative grants, including from the Carnegie Corporation of New York on responsible policy engagement. This work explores the ethical dilemmas that researchers confront as they share their scholarly findings with policymakers or become involved in policy processes directly. Epstein and her colleagues' research in this area alerts scholars to the possibility that conflicts of interest, concealed political commitments, and threats to ethical redlines may emerge in unexpected ways in the research-to-policy interface. Findings from the team also infuse the curriculum at the Korbel School and beyond. It is imperative that researchers and practitioners alike consider the ethical dimensions of traditional international relations theorizing and the ways in which methodological and research design choices elevate some interests above others.
Professor Epstein has had a number of appointments beyond the Korbel School as well as administrative positions within the School. She has served as a Jean Monnet post-doctoral fellow, a Transatlantic research fellow, and as a Senior Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. She was also a Senior Fellow at the Otto Suhr Institute of Political Science at Free University in Berlin. From 2014 to 2018, Epstein was co-editor of the Review of International Political Economy. Professor Epstein was Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Research from 2018 to 2021 and then Senior Associate Dean of the Korbel School until 2024.
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Sié Center, ICRS, Scrivner Institute
nternational Security, International Studies, Global Economic Affairs, Public Policy
2024. Speaking Science to Power: Responsible Policy Engagement for Social Scientists, editor (with Oliver Kaplan) and contributor. Oxford University Press.
2024. Russia's War against Ukraine: The Ethics of Theorizing International Affairs, editor (with Hilary Appel). A roundtable at Ethics and International Affairs, Winter.
2024. Re-evaluating the East-West Divide in the European Union, co-editor (with Clara Volintiru, Cristian Surubaru and Adam Fagan). Journal of European Public Policy, 31:3.
2023. From Duterte to Orbán: The Political Economy of Autocratic Hedging, with Alvin Camba. Journal of International Relations and Development 26, 347-372.
2017. Banking on Markets: The Transformation of Bank-State Ties in Europe and Beyond, Oxford University Press. A recipient of the 2018 Ed A. Hewett Award in political economy.
2008. In Pursuit of Liberalism: International Institutions in Postcommunist Europe, Johns Hopkins University Press.
2019. Peripheries in Competition: The Politics and Political Economy of Convergence and Divergence in the European Union, co-editor (with Martin Rhodes and Tanja Börzel) and contributor. West European Politics, 45:3.
2014. Assets or Liabilities? Banks and the Politics of Foreign Ownership versus National Control, editor and contributor. Review of International Political Economy, 21:4.
2014. Eastern Enlargement Ten Years On: Transcending the East-West Divide? Co-editor (with Wade Jacoby) and contributor. Journal of Common Market Studies, 52:1.
2008. Beyond Conditionality: International Institutions in Postcommunist Europe after Enlargement, co-editor (with Ulrich Sedelmeier) and contributor. Journal of European Public Policy, 15:6.
2020. The Economic Successes and Sources of Discontent in East Central Europe. Canadian Journal of European and Russian Affairs 13:2, 1-20.
2019. Good and Bad Banking on Europe's Periphery: Pathways to Catching Up and Falling Behind, with Martin Rhodes. West European Politics 45:3, 965-988.
2018. From Governance to Government: Banking Union, Capital Markets Union and the New EU, with Martin Rhodes. Competition and Change 22:2, 205-224.
2016. The Political Dynamics behind Europe's New Banking Union, with Martin Rhodes. West European Politics 39:3, 415-437.
2016. States Ceding Control: Explaining the Shift to Centralized Bank Supervision in the Eurozone, with Martin Rhodes. Journal of Banking Regulation 17:1/2, 90-103.
2014. Assets or Liabilities? The Politics of Bank Ownership. Review of International Political Economy 21:4, 765-789.
2014. When Do Foreign Banks 'Cut and Run'? Evidence from West European Bail-Outs and East European Markets. Review of International Political Economy 21:4, 847-877.
2014. Eastern Enlargement Ten Years On: Transcending the East-West Divide? With Wade Jacoby. Journal of Common Market Studies 52:1, 1-16.
2014. Overcoming 'Economic Backwardness' in the European Union. Journal of Common Market Studies 52:1, 17-34.
2013. Central and East European Bank Responses to the Financial Crisis: Do Domestic Banks Perform Better in a Crisis than their Foreign-Owned Counterparts? Europe-Asia Studies 65:3, 528-547.
2010. Uneven Integration: Economic and Monetary Union in Central and Eastern Europe, with Juliet Johnson. Journal of Common Market Studies 48:5, 1235-1258.
2008. The Social Context in Conditionality: Internationalizing Finance in Postcommunist Europe. Journal of European Public Policy 15:6, 880-898.
2005. NATO Enlargement and the Spread of Democracy: Evidence and Expectations. Security Studies 14:1, 63-105.
Ed A. Hewett Book Award, Associatation for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies and the University of Michigan
INTS 1500 Contemporary Issues in Global Economic Affairs
INTS 4324 International Political Economy
Ph.D., Government, Cornell University, 2001
M.A., Government, Cornell University, 1999
B.A., International Relations, Stanford University, 1992
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