Research

Papers Under Review

The Anxious Public: How Anxiety Management Shapes Support for the War on Terror

Christopher Ray and Christopher Gelpi

Defense and the Dark Arts: Sorcerers and Sorcery in U.S. National Security Policy

Christopher Ray

Battle-Forged: Wartime Trauma, Narrative, and Paramilitary Evolution in Iran

Christopher Ray

Working Papers

Why the Classics Can’t Console: Thucydides and the Future of Realism’s Past

Christopher Ray

Better to Be Afraid than to Love? Anxiety Management and Threat Resolution in U.S. Foreign Policy Attitudes

Christopher Ray

Danger without a Villain: The Psychology of Climate Change as a National Security Threat

Christopher Ray

Policy Analysis and Commentary

The U.S. has been promoting vaccines through fear. Research on political anxiety suggests that’s a mistake.

The Washington Post

Screenshot of Washington Post headline and article by Christopher Ray. Headline says "The U.S. has been promoting vaccines through fear. Research on political anxiety suggests that’s a mistake." above a photo of a medical provider wearing blue latex gloves and administering a Covid-19 vaccine to a person wearing a cloth mask and a Led Zeppelin t-shirt.

Conference Presentations and Invited Talks

Battle Forged: Wartime Trauma, Narrative, and Paramilitary Evolution in Iran (2023)
America in the World Consortium Military Frontiers Symposium
The Ohio State University

Better to Be Afraid than to Love?: Anxiety Management and Threat Resolution in U.S. Foreign Policy Attitudes (2023)
Midwest Political Science Association Conference

What Are We Doing to the Children?: How Elite Policy Programs Shape Future Policymakers as Thinkers and Experts (2023)
Midwest Political Science Association Conference

Why the Classics Can’t Console: Thucydides and the Future of Realism’s Past (2022)
New Wave Realism Conference
Mershon Center for Security Studies, The Ohio State University

Panel Chair: Leadership and Personality (2021)
Midwest Political Science Association Conference

Discussant: U.S. Foreign Policy and China (2021)
Midwest Political Science Association Conference

Discussant: Future of American Grand Strategy Conference (2021)
Mershon Center for Security Studies, The Ohio State University

The Anxious Public: How Anxiety Management Shapes Support for the War on Terror (2019)
Midwest Political Science Association Conference

The Anxious Public: How Anxiety Management Shapes Support for the War on Terror (2019)
American Political Science Association Annual Meeting

Pathologies of Decision: The Psychology of State Self-Deception (2018)
International Studies Association Annual Convention