The White Family
Sesquicentennial Assistant Professor
Inaugural Lecture
Thursday, Nov. 20, 2014 | 4 p.m.
Murray Room, Yawkey Athletics Center
Jennifer L. Erickson, Ph.D.
Department of Political Science
International Studies Program
“Dangerous Trade: Arms Exports,
Human Rights, and the UN Arms
Trade Treaty”
An expert on issues of international security, political economy, and global governance, Dr. Erickson is an
assistant professor of political science and international studies at Boston College. Her forthcoming book,
Dangerous Trade: Arms Exports, Human Rights, and International Reputation is about the spread of arms
export controls regulating small and major conventional arms transfers to human rights violators and conflict
zones.
Professor Erickson has authored numerous articles on the European arms trade, compliance with arms
embargoes, and the UN Arms Trade Treaty process. She was recently awarded the Council for European
Studies 2014 First Article Prize in the social sciences for her article, “Market Imperative Meets Normative
Power: Human Rights and European Arms Transfer Policy,” which appeared in the European Journal of
International Relations.
Professor Erickson has conducted extensive fieldwork in the United States and Europe, where she was a
research fellow at the Stiftung Wissenschaft and Politik and the Wissenchaftszentrum in Berlin. She was also a
Research Fellow at Dartmouth College in the War and Peace Studies Program at the John Sloan Dickey Center
for International Understanding.