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Naazneen Barma

Professor

Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs

Director, Scrivner Institute

Naazneen H. Barma is the Douglas and Mary Scrivner Professor of Public Policy, Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs, and the founding Director of the Douglas and Mary Scrivner Institute of Public Policy at the University of Denver's Josef Korbel School of International Studies. She is a political scientist whose research focuses on peacebuilding, foreign aid, international development, and global governance, with regional expertise in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. She teaches courses on public policy and political economy. She is a founder and a Senior Director of Bridging the Gap, a grant-funded initiative devoted to enhancing the policy impact of contemporary international affairs scholarship.

In 2021, Barma received the Susan S. Northcutt Award from the Women's Caucus for International Studies of the International Studies Association. The award recognizes a person who actively works toward recruiting and advancing women and other underrepresented scholars in the profession, whose spirit is exceptionally inclusive, generous, and conscientious, and who has made significant contributions to the field of international studies through outstanding scholarship, teaching, and mentoring. In 2022, Barma received the inaugural Korbel Outstanding Teaching Award, a student-nominated award presented to a faculty member who exemplifies the commitment of the Josef Korbel School of International Studies to students both inside and outside the classroom.

Barma is currently collaborating on a project on transnational statebuilding networks as a major form of contemporary multilateral engagement. Her research has been supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the United States Institute of Peace, the Minerva Research Initiative, and the Berggruen Institute, among other funders. She is, most recently, author of The Peacebuilding Puzzle: Political Order in Post-Conflict States (Cambridge University Press 2017) and co-editor of The Political Economy Reader: Contending Perspectives and Contemporary Debates (Taylor & Francis 2022). Barma's recent refereed articles have appeared in International Affairs, Studies in Comparative International Development, International Studies Perspectives, and International Peacekeeping. She has also co-authored policy-oriented pieces on global political economic order that have appeared in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, Foreign Policy, and The National Interest.

Barma received her PhD (2007) and MA (2002) in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and her MA (1997) in International Policy Studies and BA (1996) in International Relations and Economics from Stanford University. From 2007-2010, Barma was a Young Professional and Public Sector Specialist at the World Bank, where she conducted political economy analysis and worked on operational dimensions of governance and institutional reform in the East Asia Pacific Region. From 2010-2020, Barma was a professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

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  • Professional Affiliations

    Sié Center, Scrivner Institute

    Public Policy

  • Books

    Barma, Naazneen H. and Steven K. Vogel, eds. 2022. The Political Economy Reader: Contending Perspectives and Contemporary Debates. (2nd edition) New York: Routledge.

    Barma, Naazneen H. 2017. The Peacebuilding Puzzle: Political Order in Post-Conflict States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Barma, Naazneen H., Elisabeth Huybens, and Lorena Viñuela, eds. 2014. Institutions Taking Root: Building State Capacity in Challenging Contexts. Washington, DC: The World Bank.

    Barma, Naazneen H., Kai Kaiser, Tuan Minh Le, and Lorena Viñuela. 2012. Rents to Riches? The Political Economy of Natural Resource-Led Development. Washington, DC: The World Bank.

    Barma, Naazneen H. and Steven K. Vogel, eds. 2008. The Political Economy Reader: Markets As Institutions. New York: Routledge.

  • Journal Articles

    Avant, Deborah, Naazneen H. Barma, George F. DeMartino, and Ilene Grabel. 2024. "The Ethics of Engaged Scholarship in a Complex World." International Affairs 100 (1), January 2024: 159-180.

    Barma, Naazneen H. 2023. "Collective Mentoring as a Tool for Inclusion." in Maria Rost Rublee, Constance Duncombe, George Karavas, Naazneen H. Barma, Cecilia Idika-Kalu, Arturo C. Sotomayor, Mariana Kalil, and Hye Yun Kang, "Promoting Diversity and Inclusion in Professional Associations: Experiences from Security Studies." International Studies Perspectives: 125-128.

    Tama, Jordan, Naazneen H. Barma, Brent Durbin, James Goldgeier, and Bruce W. Jentleson. 2023. "Bridging the Gap in a Changing World: New Opportunities and Challenges for Engaging Practitioners and the Public." International Studies Perspectives 24 (3): 285-307.

    Barma, Naazneen H. and James Goldgeier. 2022. "How Not to Bridge the Gap in International Relations." International Affairs 98 (5), September 2022: 1763-1781.

    Barma, Naazneen H. 2021. "Do Petroleum Rents Fuel Conflict in Developing Countries? A Case Study of Political Instability in Timor-Leste." Energy Research & Social Science 75, May 2021.

    Barma, Naazneen H., Naomi Levy, and Jessica Piombo. 2020. "The Impact of Aid Dynamics on State Effectiveness and Legitimacy." Studies in Comparative International Development 55 (2), June 2020: 184-203.

    Barma, Naazneen H., Naomi Levy, and Jessica Piombo. 2017. "Disentangling Aid Dynamics in Statebuilding and Peacebuilding: A Causal Framework." International Peacekeeping 24 (2), April 2017: 187-211.

    Barma, Naazneen H., Brent Durbin, Eric Lorber, and Rachel E. Whitlark. 2016. "Imagine a World in Which: Using Scenarios in Political Science." International Studies Perspectives 17 (2), May 2016: 117-135.

    Barma, Naazneen H. 2014. "The Rentier State at Work: Comparative Experiences of the Resource Curse in East Asia and the Pacific." Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies 1 (2), May 2014: 257-272.

    Barma, Naazneen H. 2012. "Peacebuilding and the Predatory Political Economy of Insecurity: Evidence from Cambodia, East Timor, and Afghanistan." Conflict, Security & Development 12 (3), July 2012: 273-298.

    Barma, Naazneen H., Giacomo Chiozza, Ely Ratner, and Steven Weber. 2009. "A World Without the West? Empirical Patterns and Theoretical Implications." Chinese Journal of International Politics 2, October 2009: 577-596.

    Barma, Naazneen H. 2006. "Brokered Democracy-Building: Developing Democracy Through Transitional Governance in Cambodia, East Timor, and Afghanistan." IJMS: International Journal on Multicultural Societies 8 (2), Fall 2006: 127-161."

  • Honoree, U.S. National Security & Foreign Affairs Leadership List, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Diversity in National Security Network (2022).

  • Korbel Outstanding Teaching Award, Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver (2022). A student-nominated award presented to a faculty member who exemplifies Korbel's commitment to students both inside and outside the classroom.

  • Susan S. Northcutt Award, Women's Caucus for International Studies, International Studies Association (2021). Recognizes a person who actively works towards recruiting and advancing women and other underrepresented scholars in the profession, whose spirit is exceptionally inclusive, generous, and conscientious, and who has made significant contributions to the field of international studies through outstanding scholarship, teaching, and mentoring.

  • Introduction to Public Policy (Graduate)

  • International Development Policy and Practice (Graduate)

  • Ph.D., Political Science, University of California, Berkeley, 2007

  • M.A., Political Science, University of California, Berkeley, 2002

  • M.A., International Policy Studies, Stanford University, 1997

  • B.A., International Relations and Economics, Stanford University , 1996

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