Dr James Strong, BA (Oxford), MRes (LSE), PhD (LSE).

Profile

Dr James Strong joined the School of Politics and International Relations as a Lecturer in September 2017, and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in October 2019. He previously spent four years as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of International Relations at LSE, where he received his PhD in 2012. He spent the 2012-2013 academic year as Head of the Director’s Office at LSE, supporting LSE Director and President Professor Craig Calhoun. In an earlier life he worked as a graduate trainee at KPMG LLP, specialising in US and UK personal tax.

Twitter: @dr_james_strong

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Undergraduate Teaching

POL260 Power and Legitimacy in British Politics (Semester A)

POL108 Background to British Politics (Semester B)

POL249 Foreign Policy Analysis (Semester B)

Research

Research Interests:

Dr Strong studies the domestic politics of British foreign policy. His first book discussed the relationship between public opinion, parliament, the press and the Blair government during the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He has written a series of articles on the role of the House of Commons in military deployment decisions, and is working on a second book project expanding this research into a historical analysis of parliamentary war powers in the UK. He has also written on how individual leader psychology and national role conceptions influence foreign policy decision-making.

Examples of research funding:

• 2020 Parliament at War: A History (British Academy/Leverhulme Small Grant, SRG1920\101468): £10,000.
• 2020 Understanding barriers to accessing online education in SPIR (Westfield Trust): £3,000.

Publications

Books

2017 Public Opinion, Legitimacy and Tony Blair’s War in Iraq (London: Routledge)

Journal Articles

2019 ‘Using role theory to analyse British military intervention in the Syrian civil war during David Cameron’s premiership’, British Politics, 14:4, pp. 372-390. 

2018 ‘Confidence and caretakers: Some less-obvious implications of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act’, The Political Quarterly, 89:3, pp. 466-473.

2018 ‘The war powers of the British parliament: What has been established and what remains unclear?’ British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 20:1, pp. 19-34.

2017 ‘Two level games beyond the United States: International indexing in Britain during the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya’, Global Society, 31:2, pp. 293-313.

2015 ‘Interpreting the Syria vote: Parliament and British foreign policy’, International Affairs, 91:5, pp. 1123-1139.

2015 ‘The rise of the awkward squad: Parliamentary war powers and Jeremy Corbyn’s foreign policy’, British Politics Review, 10:4, pp. 8-9.

2015 ‘Why parliament now decides on war: Tracing the growth of the parliamentary prerogative through Syria, Libya and Iraq’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 17:4, pp. 604-622.

Book chapters

2016 ‘La politica estera Britannica dopo le elezioni politiche del 2015’ in Baldini, Gianfranco (ed.) La Gran Bretagna Dopo la Brexit (Bologna: Il Mulino). Translated by Nicola Chelotti.

Supervision

Dr Strong is interested in hearing from prospective PhD students looking to research contemporary British politics, British foreign policy and foreign policy analysis.

Public Engagement

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Dr Strong is an established media commentator across print, broadcast and digital formats. He has conducted broadcast interviews with Al-Jazeera English News Hour, Al-Jazeera English Inside Story, Al Jazeera Arabic, CNBC European Closing Bell, CNN International, Sky News and LBC Breakfast News. He published comment pieces in Huffington Post, Newsweek, Democratic Audit, The Conversation and on Independent.co.uk, and he has been interviewed by the Financial Times, Daily Telegraph, Times, Sunday Times, New York Times, Le Figaro and Xinhua News Agency. He is interested in media inquiries on topics related to his research.

Dr Strong gave both written and oral evidence to the House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee’s inquiry into the role of Parliament in authorising military force.

Dr Strong is Convenor of the British International Studies Association Foreign Policy Working Group and (alongside Dr Javier Sajuria and Dr Nivi Manchanda) Editor-in-Chief of Politics, a journal of the Political Studies Association.