Dr David Blagden

David Blagden is Associate Professor of International Security and Strategy, having joined the University in 2015. He was previously the Adrian Research Fellow in International Politics at Darwin College, University of Cambridge. Dr Blagden’s scholarly publications have appeared in International Security, the European Journal of International Relations, Security Studies, International Studies Quarterly, Survival, International Affairs, Foreign Policy Analysis, and International Studies Review, among other outlets; he is also the editor (with Mark de Rond) of Games: Conflict, Competition, and Cooperation (Cambridge University Press, 2019). His research has been funded by organisations including the UK Economic and Social Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust, and the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. He holds a BA (Philosophy, Politics, and Economics) and DPhil (International Relations) from the University of Oxford, an MA (International Relations) from the University of Chicago, and has won the Royal United Services Institute’s Trench Gascoigne Prize for original writing on defence and security.

Dr Blagden has worked in – and subsequently consulted for – the UK Cabinet Office, provided evidence for a number of Parliamentary Select Committees and HM Government policy reviews, and participated in various 'track-two' diplomatic exchanges. As Academic Lead for the University's research partnership with the UK Ministry of Defence's Defence Futures organisation, he is a regular participant in the Chief of Defence Staff's Strategic Forum. He has also served as Specialist Adviser to the House of Lords' International Relations and Defence Committee, and has consulted for several other UK/allied government departments/agencies, military commands, think-tanks, private firms, and political campaigns. In terms of popular media contributions, he has provided television and radio analysis for the likes of the BBC and Bloomberg, been quoted in the UK and overseas presses, and written for outlets including The Guardian, The Spectator, and the New Statesman. He is also an officer in the Royal Naval Reserve and, prior to his doctoral study, was an analyst with the London-based economic advisory firm BMI Research (now part of Fitch Group).

At Exeter, he serves as Programme Director of the MSc in Global Security Studies, as well as offering a range of undergraduate and postgraduate modules. A Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy, Dr Blagden is additionally a Senior Associate Fellow of the NATO Defense College, a Visiting Fellow of the Royal Navy Strategic Studies Centre, Co-Editor of the University of Exeter Press 'Exeter Strategic and Security Studies' book series, and sits on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Global Security Studies, the European Journal of International Security, and Defence Studies. His research focuses on the following areas, and he is happy to consider applications for MPhil/PhD supervision on topics that fall within these and related fields.

• The causes and consequences of the rise of new great powers
• UK/allied foreign and defence policy (particularly in the context of European geopolitics and the return of multipolarity)
• The determinants of major-power cooperation on mutually threatening issues, e.g. climate change
• The security implications of economic globalization
• Nuclear strategy (particularly deterrence, coercion, and disarmament/rearmament dynamics)
• Navies and sea power
• Domestic political and economic pressures on strategic behaviour
• Realist international relations theory (particularly war causation, balancing theory, and offence-defence theory)
• Philosophy of science and its implications for international-political thought.