Program Directory

 
Columbus Metropolitan Club - Mid-East Update: Israel, Palestine and Lebanon
 
 
Professor Richard K. Herrmann, Director, The Mershon Center at The Ohio State University

Richard K. Herrmann is professor of political science and Director of the Mershon Center at The Ohio State University. He has written widely on politics in the Middle East, international security, and American foreign policy. From 1989 to 1991, Herrmann served on Secretary of State James Baker's Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State and from 1991-1996, he served as coeditor of International Studies Quarterly, the flagship journal of the International Studies Association. Herrmann has been a frequent visitor to the Middle East, lecturing and conducting research in Israel and the West Bank, as well as in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates. In 1996-97 he was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations of New York task force that produced the book Differentiated Containment: Rethinking U.S. Policy in the Gulf.

Herrmann has served on the governing council of the International Society of Political Psychology, advancing the study of images and stereotypes as they affect decision-making in international relations. Applying the insights of the academic world to the policy realm has been a special interest of Herrmann's and after serving at the State Department he served as the director of USIA's sponsored project entitled "Conflict Resolution, Arms Control, and Regional Security in the Middle East and South Asia."

Herrmann holds a Ph.D. and MPIA from the University of Pittsburgh (1981) and a BA from Miami University (1974) in Oxford, Ohio. In 1980-81 Herrmann was a Ford Foundation fellow in security studies and in 1985-86 he was a senior fellow at the Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union at Columbia University.
August 9, 2006