Robert Brathwaite is the associate dean for research and an associate professor at James Madison College with a specialization in international relations. Professor Brathwaite is also the faculty director of the James Madison College Human Rights Data Science Lab. He has a Ph.D. and M.A. in political science from the University of Notre Dame.
Professor Brathwaite's teaching and research interests include topics associated with international security, strategic competition with China, terrorism, cyberwarfare, religious violence and the conduct of civil wars. He was awarded a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship for Tenured International Relations Scholars from August 2021 – Augst 2022. During his fellowship, he worked at the Department of Defense in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy on China-related issues and is currently a consultant for the Department of Defense, Office for the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs.
He has taught courses that cover the following topics: international relations, international security, cyberwarfare, U.S. Foreign Policy, technology and politics, intra-state violence, and research methods. In his spare time, Professor Brathwaite enjoys the outdoors and is an avid snowboarder.
Assoc. Professor Robert Brathwaite Awarded Prestigious Council on Foreign Relations Fellowship
JMC Human Rights Lab Assists in Libyan Gas Oil Smuggling Investigation
"Deadly Influences: Evaluating the Relationship Between Political Competition and Sectarian Violence" Political Behavior (2023): - w/ Baekkwan Park
"Measurement and Conceptual Approaches to Religious Violence: The Use of Natural Language Processing to Generate Religious Violence Event-Data” Politics and Religion 12:1 (2019): 81 – 122. – w/Baekkwan Park
“Approaches to the Measurement of Religious Violence” in Yearbook of International Religious Demography 2018, eds. Brian J. Grim and et al., Boston, MA: Brill Publishing (2018).
“Refugees and Rivals: The International Dynamics of Refugee Treatment” Conflict Management and Peace Science 36:1 (2019): 131 – 148. – w/Shweta Moorthy.
“Dirty War: Chemical Weapon Use and Domestic Repression,” Defence Studies, 16:4 (2016): 327 – 345.
Social Distortion: Democracy and Social Aspects of Religion-State Separation,” Journal of Church and State, (First Published online – November 20, 2013): doi:10.1093/jcs/cst095
“The Electoral Terrorist,” in Violence, Elections, and Party Politics, ed. Mary Beth Altier, Susanne Martin, and Leonard B. Weinberg, New York, NY: Routledge (2013): 53 - 74.
“The Electoral Terrorist: Terror Groups and Democratic Participation,” Terrorism and Political Violence 25:1 (January 2013): 53 – 74.
Robert Brathwaite and Andrew Bramsen, “Reconceptualizing Church and State: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Separation of Religion and State on Democracy,” Politics and Religion 4:2 (August 2011): 229-263.
Robert Brathwaite, “Private Security and U.S. Foreign Policy,” Center for Security Policy Occasional Paper Series No.17 (January 2007).