Christian Reus-Smit

Christian Reus-Smit is Professor of International Relations in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne. He earned his PhD from Cornell University and has held prestigious fellowships from the British Academy, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Leverhulme Trust. Previously, he was Chair in International Relations at the University of Queensland, where he continues as an Honorary Research Fellow. A leading scholar in international relations theory, Reus-Smit's research explores constructivism, human rights, sovereignty, international law, cultural diversity, global pluralism, and the evolution of international society. His work addresses fundamental institutions of international order, crises of legitimacy, and the social construction of rights and norms.

Reus-Smit has authored seminal books including The Moral Purpose of the State: Culture, Social Identity, and Institutional Rationality in International Relations (Princeton University Press, 1999), American Power and World Order (Polity Press, 2004), Individual Rights and the Making of the International System (Cambridge University Press, 2013), On Cultural Diversity: International Theory in a World of Difference (Cambridge University Press, 2018), and International Relations: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2020). He co-edited influential volumes such as The Oxford Handbook of International Relations (Oxford University Press, 2008), The Globalization of International Society (Oxford University Press, 2017, with Tim Dunne), Culture and Order in World Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2020, with Andrew Phillips), and The Oxford Handbook of History and International Relations (Oxford University Press, 2024, with Mlada Bukovansky, Edward Keene, and Maja Spanu). Key articles include Theories of International Relations (2005, 1797 citations), Dangerous Liaisons? Critical International Theory and Constructivism (1998, 1143 citations), Constructivism (2005, 818 citations), The Politics of International Law (2004, 576 citations), and Human Rights and the Social Construction of Sovereignty (2001, 485 citations). A Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia, he has served on the Australian Research Council College of Experts. Reus-Smit's scholarship has shaped debates on the moral purposes of states, protean power in rights revolutions, and cognitive evolution in world order theorizing, exerting substantial influence across international relations subfields.

Professional Email: christian.reussmit@unimelb.edu.au