Prof. V. Page Fortna

Pronouns: she/her(s)

Harold Brown Professor of US Foreign and Security Policy | Department of Political Science, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

International Affairs Building, Room 1329
420 W. 118th Street
New York, NY 10027
USA

BIOGRAPHY:

Page Fortna (PhD Harvard, 1998) is the Harold Brown Professor of U.S. Foreign and Security Policy in the Department of Political Science, Columbia University. Her research focuses on the international politics of climate change; terrorism; the durability of peace in the aftermath of both civil and interstate wars; and war termination.  She is currently working on projects on regional security and climate change, climate change and power in the international system, and terrorism in civil wars. Her research combines quantitative and qualitative methods, draws on diverse theoretical approaches, and focuses on policy-relevant questions.

Fortna also serves on the Executive Committee of the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies.  She is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  She has won the Karl Deutsch Award from the International Studies Association, the Columbia Provost's Award for Outstanding Faculty Mentoring, and the Lenfest Distinguised Faculty Award.  She has held fellowships at the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth, the Olin Institute at Harvard, the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Hoover Institution. She received her BA from Wesleyan University.

Professor Fortna teaches courses on the international politics of climate change, war termination and the durability of peace, terrorism, cooperation and security, and research methods.

She lives in New York (and in Portland, Oregon during summers and leaves) with her husband, Pete Beeman; her daughters, Rosina and Linden; and their dog, Amba.

PUBLICATIONS

Books

    Does Peacekeeping Work? Shaping Belligerents' Choices after Civil War.  Princeton University Press, 2008.

    Peace Time: Cease-Fire Agreements and the Durability of Peace.  Princeton University Press, 2004.


Journal Articles

    “Is Terrorism Really a Weapon of the Weak? Testing the Conventional Wisdom.” Journal of Conflict Resolution. 2022.

    “Terrorism in Armed Conflict: New Data Attributing Terrorism to Rebel Organizations.” Conflict Management and Peace Science. 2021 (online Dec 2020). With Nicholas Lotito and Michael Rubin.

    “The Astonishing Success of Peacekeeping” with Barbara F. Walter and Lise Morjé Howard.  Foreign Affairs. November 29, 2021.  https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2021-11-29/astonishing-success-peacekeeping 

    “The Extraordinary Relationship between Peacekeeping and Peace.” The British Journal of Political Science. With Barbara F. Walter and Lise Morjé Howard. 2020.  

    “Don’t Bite the Hand that Feeds: Rebel Funding Sources and the Use of Terrorism.” International Studies Quarterly. Vol. 62, No. 4. 2018, pp. 782-794.  With Nicholas Lotito and Michael Rubin. 

    “Do Terrorists Win? The Use of Terrorism and Civil War Outcomes 1989-2009.”  International Organization Vol. 69, No. 3. 2015, pp. 519-556.
        Reprinted in Snyder, Jack, Karen Mingst, and Heather Elko McKibben Essential Readings in World Politics 7th Edition. W.W.Norton, 2019

    “Is Peacekeeping ‘Winning the War on War’?” Symposium: “Has Violence Declined in World Politics? A Discussion of on Joshua S. Goldstein’s Winning the War on War: the Decline of Armed Conflict Worldwide.” Perspectives on Politics Vol. 11, No. 2, June 2013, pp. 566-570.

    With Reyko Huang. “Democratization after Civil War: A Brush-Clearing Exercise.”  International Studies Quarterly.  Vol. 56, No. 4, December 2012.

    With Lise Morjé Howard.  “Pitfalls and Prospects in the Peacekeeping Literature.” Annual Review of Political Science. Vol. 11. 2008, pp. 283-901.
        Reprinted in Graham Brown and Arnim Langer, eds Elgar Handbook of Civil War and Fragile States Elgar 2012. 
    And in Levi, Margaret, ed. Domestic Political Violence and Civil War: An Introduction ARPS 2013.
        “Interstate Peacekeeping: Causal Mechanisms and Empirical Effects.” World Politics, Vol. 56, No. 4, July 2004, pp. 481-519.

    “Does Peacekeeping Keep Peace? International Intervention and the Duration of Peace after Civil War.”  International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 48, No. 2, June 2004, pp. 269-92.  
    Reprinted in Rajat Ganguly, ed. Ethnic Conflict. Sage Publications, 2009.

     “Inside and Out: Peacekeeping and the Duration of Peace after Civil and Interstate Wars” International Studies Review, Vol. 5, No. 4, December 2003, pp. 97-114.  
    Reprinted in Suzanne Werner, David Davis, and Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, eds. Dissolving Boundaries: the Nexus between Comparative Politics and International Relations. Blackwell Publishing, 2003.
    
    “Scraps of Paper? Agreements and the Durability of Peace” International Organization, Vol. 57, No. 2, Spring 2003, pp.337-72.  
    Condensed version reprinted in International Law and International Relations Beth Simmons and Richard Steinberg, eds.  Cambridge University Press, 2006.  Full version reprinted in International Law Beth Simmons, ed. Sage Publications, 2008.

    “A Lost Chance for Peace: The Bicesse Accords in Angola” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 4, No. 1, Winter/Spring 2003, pp. 73-9.

Book Chapters 

    With Lisa Martin. “Peacekeepers as Signals: the Demand for International Peacekeeping in Civil Wars,” in Helen V. Milner and Andrew Moravcsik, eds. Power, Interdependence, and Nonstate Actors in World Politics: Research Frontiers.  Princeton University Press, 2009.

    “Peacekeeping and Democratization” in Anna Jarstad and Tim Sisk, eds.  From War to Democracy: Dilemmas of Peacebuilding. Cambridge University Press, 2008.

    “Success and Failure in Southern Africa: Peacekeeping in Namibia and Angola,” in Donald Daniels and Bradd Hayes, eds. Beyond Traditional Peacekeeping, London: Macmillan, 1995.  

    “United Nations Transition Assistance Group in Namibia,” “United Nations Angola Verification Mission I,” and “United Nations Angola Verification Mission II,” in William Durch, ed. The Evolution of UN Peacekeeping: Case Studies and Comparative Analysis, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993.

Reports

    With Laura van Assendelft, Claudine Gay, and Kira Sanbonmatsu. “Would I Do This All Over Again? Mid-Career Voices in Political Science.” Task Force Report. APSA Presidential Task Force on Women’s Advancement in the Profession. Washington DC: American Political Science Association. 2019. 
Book Reviews

    “Peace Enforcement: The United Nations Experience in Congo, Somalia, and Bosnia” by Jane Boulden (Westport: Praeger, 2001) in Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 117, No. 1, Spring 2002, pp. 163-4.

Working Papers and Papers Under Review

“Climate Change and Power in the International System.”  With Tanisha Fazal.
 
“Extremism and Terrorism: Rebel Goals and the Use of Terrorism in Civil Wars.” With Renanah Miles Joyce.

“Government Abuse and Rebel Terrorism.”  With Michael Rubin