Murphy Seminar in Political Science: Joshua Byun (Georgetown)

The Murphy Institute Seminar Series in Political Science

Each semester, The Murphy Institute proudly sponsors a dynamic series of seminars and workshops organized across key Tulane academic departments: Economics, Political Science, Sociology, Philosophy, and Law. These seminar series serve as a vital platform for faculty, visiting scholars, and researchers to present cutting-edge work on contemporary issues in political economy, public policy, ethics, and social values. The Murphy Seminar in Political Science, held in partnership with the Department of Political Science, covers all aspects of contemporary political science, including comparative politics, public policy, international relations, American politics, and normative theory. Papers are distributed beforehand to the participants who read the paper and prepare discussion questions for the presenter. 

Joshua Byun is an Assistant Professor in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University where he is a core faculty member of the Security Studies Program.. He is a scholar of International Relations, specializing in questions related to American grand strategy. His scholarship speaks to a wide range of issues that arise in debates surrounding grand strategy, including preventive war, the relationship between power politics and international norms, the performative uses of violence, and the making of political order. Some of his works have been published in leading peer-reviewed journals such as the American Political Science Review, International Studies Quarterly, Texas National Security Review, and Contemporary Security Policy. Policy analysis and commentary based on these works can be found in forums like Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and the Washington Quarterly.

Byun is the author of The Adversary’s Veto: Rival Powers, Alliance Politics, and the Limits of Grand Strategy (Cornell University Press, forthcoming 2027). It argues that leading great powers often fail to promote their desired military capabilities among smaller allies because their grand strategic demands clash with the risks presented to the allies by hostile great powers that are scrutinizing the alliance’s actions. He is also co-author, with John J. Mearsheimer, of The Two-Leviathan Problem: Why Rival Hegemons Cannot Coexist (Yale University Press, forthcoming 2027), which undertakes a theoretically grounded investigation on the question of whether the United States—which has been the sole “regional hegemon” in the international system since the late 19th century—should fear the rise of another regional hegemon in Europe or East Asia.

He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in International Studies and Political Science, summa cum laude, from Korea University. Prior to joining the Georgetown faculty, he was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Boston College. He has also held the Stanton Nuclear Security Junior Faculty Fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Global Innovation Program Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House, and the Hans J. Morgenthau Predoctoral Fellowship at the Notre Dame International Security Center. Before beginning his academic career, Byun served as the interpreter to South Korea’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.