Joseph W. Roberts

Photo of Joseph W. Roberts
Joseph W. Roberts, Ph.D. Chair and Professor of Politics and International Relations

Contact Information

(401) 254-3784jroberts@rwu.edu FCAS 113

Areas of Expertise

Comparative Politics, Middle Eastern Politics, International Relations, Transnational Social Movements, Computer-Mediated Political Communications, University Core

Education

Ph.D. (2006), Political Science, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah

M.A (1994), Middle East Studies - Political Science, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah

B.A (1991), Diplomatic History and International Relations: Southwest Asian and Islamic Civilizations, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee

Joseph W. Roberts is the Chair of DPIR and is a Professor of Politics and International Relations and a 2010 Presidential Fellow at Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island. Dr. Roberts received an NEH Fellowship to study Islam in Asia through the East-West Center in Hawaii in 2017. He was an inaugural Alwaleed Fellow for Oman for the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations (2015-2016). He was also a member of the 香港六合彩开奖资料 Fulbright-Hayes Egypt Fellowship in July 2011. He edited the Journal of Political Science Education (JPSE), one of the four flagship journals of the American Political Science Association (APSA)., from 2016-2022. He is the current Chair of Political Science Education section of APSA and the inaugural President of the Education and Learning in International Affairs Section (ELIAS) of the International Studies Association (ISA).

Dr. Roberts book, How the Internet is Changing the Practice of Politics in the Middle East: Political Protest, New Social Movements, and Electronic Samizdat, was published in 2009 from Edwin Mellen Press. He has published in European Political Science and has several pieces in PS: Political Science and Politics on internationalizing the curriculum in political science and conflict and conflict resolution. He has also published in Periodica Islamica. He is currently completing comparative politics textbook with two colleagues (Cambridge University Press, tentatively 2024).

Professor Roberts teaches international relations and comparative politics in addition to courses in his specialty area of Middle Eastern politics. Professor Roberts has developed several courses including Politics of the Middle East, United States in the Middle East, Suicide Terrorism, Political Islam, and Transnational Social Movements. Professor Roberts has also developed a simulation, 鈥淏okhtikkari Nationalism in Assuwa: A Simulation of Conflict Resolution in an Ethnically Divided Society,鈥 for use in a course on the politics of ethnic conflict. The simulation has been used by others at universities across the United States.
 
Professor Roberts was awarded the Excellence in Teaching Award from the University in May 2023 along with the Student Senate Professor of the Semester for the Spring 2023 semester.
 
Courses Taught
  • POLSC 120: Introduction to Comparative Politics
  • POLSC 210: Introduction to International Relations
  • POLSC 310: Pop Culture and Advanced IR Theory
  • POLSC 321: Politics of Ethnic Conflict
  • POLSC 327: Politics of the Middle East
  • POLSC 344: US and the Middle East
  • POLSC 390: Globalization and its Critics
  • POLSC 397: Playing Games with Politics
  • POLSC 442: Senior Research Seminar (IR/Comparative)
  • CORE 102: Structures of Power
  • CORE 450: Are We of It or Against It? People and the Planet in the 21st Century
Publications
Books
How the Internet is Changing the Practice of Politics in the Middle East: Political Protest, New Social Movements, and Electronic Samizdat (Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2009).
 
Articles

"Rapidly Moving Online in a Pandemic: Intentionality, Rapport, and the Synchronous/Asynchronous Delivery Decision," PS: Political Science and Politics 54, No. 1 (January 2021): 183-185. DOI:

鈥淎re U.S. Sanctions Justifiable: The Case of Iran?鈥 ABC-CLIO

鈥淚nternationalizing the Curriculum: Assessing Faculty, Departments, and Schools on their Efforts,鈥 European Political Science (25 September 2015) doi:10.1057/eps.2015.40

鈥淐onflict and Conflict Resolution鈥 PS: Political Science and Politics 48, No. 3 (July 2015).

鈥淲hat States Need to Foster Innovation and Economic Growth,鈥 The Collaborative Rhode Island (June 2015).

鈥淪trategies for a Competitive Rhode Island: Assessing Innovation Potential with Emphasis on Energy and Ease of Doing Business鈥 The Collaborative Rhode Island (March 2015). [with Suchandra Basu and Ramesh Mohan].

鈥淐onflict and Conflict Resolution鈥 PS: Political Science and Politics 46, No. 3 (July 2013). [with Agnieszka Paczynska and Daniel Wehrenfennig].

鈥淚nternationalizing the Curriculum,鈥 PS: Political Science and Politics 45, No. 3 (July 2012). [with Mark Sachleben and Deborah Ward].

鈥淚nternationalizing the Curriculum,鈥 PS: Political Science & Politics 42, No. 3 (July 2009). [with Rachel Ellett and David Kiwuwa]

鈥淣eutrality (Speech),鈥 Encyclopedia of the First Amendment, ed. David L. Hudson, David A. Schultz, and John R. Vile (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2008).
 
鈥淩efugees,鈥 commissioned essay for the Global Knowledge section of FabianGlobalForum.Net, a leading British think-tank (May 2002).
 
鈥淭he Middle East-North Africa Internet Resource Guide,鈥 Periodica Islamica 5, No. 3 (1996): 109-126.
 
In the Media
ABC6, 
ABC6, 
ABC6,
Barrington Patch,
ecoRI News, "Survey Sparks Bag-Ban Debate in Barrington"