Edward Weisband

Edward Weisband, Professor and Edward S. Diggs Endowed Chair in the Social Sciences, earned his PhD at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

While at SAIS, he was a recipient of the congressionally funded National Defense Foreign Language Act grant permitting him to study both French and Turkish languages and to complete his dissertation field work leading to the publication by Princeton University Press of his first book entitled, Turkish Foreign Policy:  Small State Diplomacy and Great Power Politics. This study, also published in Turkish, remains an essential text on the subject of Turkish neutrality during the Second World War and Turkey’s emergence as a regional power of strategic importance in world politics.

In 1975, his coauthored study, Resignation in Protest: Loyalty to Team Versus Loyalty to Conscience, published by Viking and by Penguin Presses received the Christopher Society Literary Award for contribution to ethical discourse in American public life. Published in the aftermath of Watergate and U.S. military involvement in Indochina, this book, comparing the resignation policies and practices of the American and British cabinets, was selected by The New York Times as one of the 100 most important books published that year.

Prof. Weisband has also authored or coauthored several studies published by Oxford University Press including Foreign Policy by Congress; Secrecy and Foreign Policy; Word Politics: Verbal Strategy among the Superpowers; and most recently The Macabresque: Human Violation and Hate in Genocide Mass Atrocity and Enemy-Making in 2018.  

His other major publications include studies of the conduct of American foreign economic policy in promoting democracy and international development. In 1992, he published, Teaching World Politics:  Contending Pedagogies for a New World Order, and his Poverty Amidst Plenty: World Political Economy and Distributive Justice, initially published in 1989, remains a widely adopted text on issues of equality and development. He is the author of Political Culture and the Making of Modern Nation-States, Routledge Press, 2014 and coeditor and contributor, Global Accountabilities: Participation, Pluralism, and Public Ethics, Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Prof. Weisband currently specializes on topics related to international political economy and multilateral institutions with an emphasis upon international normative standards, in particular, the role and effectiveness of global accountability frameworks and international monitoring regimes with respect to core international labor standards and human rights.  In this connection, Professor Weisband is the author of an often cited empirical analysis of core international labor standards and state behavior, "Discursive Multilateralism: Global Benchmarks, Shame and Learning in the ILO Labor Standards Monitoring Regime," International Studies Quarterly (2000), Vol. 44, No. 4, 643-666. 

Prof. Weisband has consistently been recognized throughout his career for distinguished teaching, especially in areas of general education and at introductory levels. He is the recipient of numerous university as well as state and national awards for teaching and service, including the 1943 Legacy Award at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, 1992 Virginia Tech Sporn Award for excellence in teaching introductory subjects.

He received the Pi Sigma Alpha Political Science Honors Society Professor of the Year award in 1991/1992 and 1999/2000. Prior to his coming to Virginia Tech, he held the position of Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University Center of the State University of New York in Binghamton, New York. During this time, Prof. Weisband was selected as the 1987 New York Professor of the Year and gold medal finalist in the national Professor of the Year competition sponsored by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. He also received several Chancellor’s awards for excellence in teaching.

Prof. Weisband has served as a senior consultant to a number of government and intergovernmental agencies, including the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. Department of Education, and in recent years, the International Institute of Human Rights, based in Strasbourg, France, and the International Labor Organization (ILO), headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.

In 1996, the ILO commissioned him to write an institutional history evaluating its largest technical program, the ILO Sectoral Activities Program.  In 1997, Professor Weisband was inducted into the Phi Beta Delta Honorary Society for International Scholars. In 1999, Professor Weisband advised the Republic of Turkey's mission to the United States with respect to the planning of a commemorative academic conference on Turkish diplomacy during World War II.