Philip G. Roeder (Ph. D. Harvard University, 1978) is professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego. A specialist on the politics of the Soviet successor states, Roeder has focused his recent research on the design of political institutions for countries torn apart by secessionist movements. He is the author of Where Nation-States Come From: Institutional Change in the Age of Nationalism (Princeton) and Red Sunset: The Failure of Soviet Politics (Princeton). He is the co-author of Postcommunism and the Theory of Democracy (Princeton) and co-editor of Sustainable Peace: Power and Democracy After Civil Wars (Cornell). His articles have appeared in such journals as the American Political Science Review, World Politics, and International Studies Quarterly. He is currently working on two longer-term projects:

1. Alternatives to Independence (What are the consequences of various institutional arrangements designed to avoid granting independence to secessionists?) and
2. The Tenacity of the Nation-State (Why do states almost never relinquish sovereignty willingly?)

Martha Crenshaw (speaker) is a senior fellow at CISAC and FSI and a professor of political science by courtesy. She was the Colin and Nancy Campbell Professor of Global Issues and Democratic Thought and professor of government at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., from 1974 to 2007. Her current research focuses on innovation in terrorist campaigns, the distinction between "old" and "new" terrorism, how terrorism ends, and why the United States is the target of terrorism. She serves on the Executive Board of Women in International Security and chairs the American Political Science Association (APSA) Task Force on Political Violence and Terrorism. She has served on the Council of the APSA and is a former President and Councilor of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP). In 2004 ISPP awarded her its Nevitt Sanford Award for Distinguished Scientific Contribution and in 2005 the Jeanne Knutson award for service to the society. She serves on the editorial boards of the journals International Security, Orbis, Political Psychology, Security Studies, and Terrorism and Political Violence. She coordinated the working group on political explanations of terrorism for the 2005 Club de Madrid International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security. She is a lead investigator with the National Center for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism (NC-START) at the University of Maryland, funded by the Department of Homeland Security. She was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2005-2006. She serves on the Committee on Law and Justice and the Committee on Determining Basic Research Needs to Interrupt the Improvised Explosive Device Delivery Chain of the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science. She was a senior fellow at the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism in Oklahoma City for 2006-2007.

David Laitin (discussant) is the James T. Watkins IV and Elise V. Watkins Professor of Political Science and a CISAC faculty member. He has conducted field research in Somalia, Nigeria, Spain, and Estonia. His latest book is Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Populations in the Near Abroad. He is currently working on a project in collaboration with James Fearon on civil wars in the past half-century. From that project, "Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War" has appeared in the American Political Science Review. Laitin received his BA from Swarthmore College and his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.

Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones is the well-known scholar of U.S. intelligence agencies and the author of numerous books, among them The CIA and American Democracy; Cloak and Dollar: A History of American Secret Intelligence; Changing Differences: Women and the Shaping of American Foreign Policy; and Peace Now! American Society and the Ending of the Vietnam War. His most recent book, The FBI: A History (Yale University Press, September 2007), examines the bureau's history from a European perspective and in the context of American history, including the prism of race.

Jeffreys-Jones, a professor of American History at the University of Edinburgh, received his BA from the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, and his PhD from the University of Cambridge. Other appointments have included a fellowship at the Charles Warren Center for the Study of American History, Harvard University; stipendiary, JFK Institut für Nordamerikastudien, Berlin; and Canadian Commonwealth Fellow and Visiting Professor, University of Toronto.