Associate Professor Paul Poast from the Department of Political Science teaches and researches international relations and is a foreign policy fellow with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and a world affairs columnist for World Politics Review. Professor Poast talks about his career path, from potentially becoming a lawyer and athletic coach to becoming a University of Chicago professor. He compares being an academic to running a small business and credits his father for his entrepreneurial skills. Listen to the many anecdotes Professor Poast shares in this episode.
Associate Professor Paul Poast from the Department of Political Science teaches and researches international relations and is a foreign policy fellow with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and a world affairs columnist for World Politics Review. Professor Poast talks about his career path, from potentially becoming a lawyer and athletic coach to becoming a University of Chicago professor. He compares being an academic to running a small business and credits his father for his entrepreneurial skills. Listen to the many anecdotes Professor Poast shares in this episode.
Lee 00:01
Hello and welcome to The Course. I'm your host today, Lee, and I'm speaking with Associate Professor Paul Poast from the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. He teaches and researches international relations and is a foreign policy fellow with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and is a world affairs columnist for World Politics Review.
Professor Poast is here to talk to us about his career path and how he became a University of Chicago professor.
So let's start off with just a general overview of your career path, so let's begin in your undergraduate years, and then you can take me all the way to your current role at the university.
Paul Poast 00:43
Sure. I can absolutely answer that. But I think what I would do is actually step back a little bit earlier than my undergrad years, and the reason why is because what I studied in undergrad was very much in Influenced by things that happened to me when I was even younger.
And I tell this story actually to my students when I teach Intro to International Relations. I tell the students, like, why did I ever become interested in studying international politics, because that's my area of research. And what I tell them was that when I was a lot younger, I remember one summer, my older brother and I in the small town in Southwest Ohio that we grew up, that the folks in the community were giving us a hard time.
And of course, they were saying things like, oh, your dad, he's really rolling in the money now. You know, when are you going to get a new fancy car? Saying that to my older brother, for example. Now, of course, why were they saying this to us? They were, you know, teasing. Well, the reason why they were saying this is because my dad owned a gas station, right?
Service station, cars fill up at it. And that summer, the price of gasoline was going up and up and up and up. Now, of course, no, my dad was not rolling in the money because you have to pay more to be able to have that gasoline to put at the pump. But the reason why the price was going up that summer is that was the summer that Iraq amassed forces on the border with Kuwait. And then of course in August of that year, 1990, invaded Kuwait. That subsequently led to the Persian Gulf War.
Well, that really made an impression on me. That here was this event taking place on a whole, the whole other side of the world. Having a direct influence on a small town in Southwest Ohio. And so that just, that has had a huge influence on me. I'm wanting to understand how does that work? How is it that events that are taking place seeming to have nothing to do and are totally far away can influence people in other parts of the world. And in many ways, that was the motivation for me wanting to study international relations, international politics.
That informed then what I eventually studied as an undergrad student, I majored in political science, as well as economics. And in both of those majors, my courses, I picked classes that were geared more towards internationally, whether it was studying international trade as an econ major or studying international security as a political science major.
Now, of course, being that these were good majors and, you know, they had a good curriculum, I had to take courses that weren't just focused on the international, but I kept finding that my interests were going towards that. Then what that set up was following undergrad, I applied to and was able to go to a master's degree program at the London School of Economics that was focused on international political economy.
And so, for me, that was fantastic because it gave me an opportunity. To bring together the economics that I've been studying and the international relations, political science that I've been studying as an undergrad and following that experience, I knew at that point that I wanted to become an academic.
I really prior to then, prior to going beginning that master's degree, I didn't know if I wanted to be an academic. I had actually thought about law school, studying international law. So, I had this interest in international politics, but I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with it. But that experience of earning that master's degree really solidified for me that that was what I wanted to do. And so, then that became my career path.
Now, I did not go straight into a Ph.D., instead, what I did was I was very fortunate to be able to have an opportunity to teach classes as like an adjunct faculty member at the Ohio State University in the Econ Department there and it was really just a terrific opportunity.
And I got to do that for a few years until I was ready to then apply for a Ph.D. program. And I was fortunate to be able to get into the University of Michigan to then pursue my Ph. D. So that, and then once I was in the PhD program, of course, I continued to study international politics and wrote my dissertation on a subject matter in international politics.
And then that led to my first faculty position at Rutgers university. And then after being there for a few years, eventually arrived at the University of Chicago. So that's kind of in an overview of my career path, but I always like to point out that it was very much informed in my interest in the subject matter of international politics, was very much informed by this formative event for me, as a very young person that was kind of observing what was unfolding during the first Persian Gulf War.
Lee 05:30
Yeah. And tell me a little bit about what your research interests are today, Paul.
Paul Poast 05:35
Sure. So my research, as I already mentioned, it falls into the broad category of international politics. People who study international politics do have specific aspects of the international politics they look at.
Now, for me, my focus is largely in the area of international security, and even within there, I focus on kind of 2 main areas things. The first one is what I call the political economy of international security, which is in many ways, very exciting for me, because given the background that I just provided, you can see where my background was very much informed by both political science, international relations as well as economics.
And so, studying the political economy of security is a way that I brought that together, even in my own research. An example of a subject that one would study in the political economy security would be like war finance, right? How do countries pay for war? That would be an example of a subject that I've done research on.
The other area of research that I'm engaged with is what one would just call alliance politics. Now there's a lot of aspects of alliances, but this would be, for example, studying NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. I've written a couple books where key chapters in those books dealt with NATO. One of the chapters in my book titled Arguing About Alliances deals with how NATO was formed and dealt with the negotiations to actually sign the North Atlantic treaty back in 1948, 1949.
Another book that I wrote, Organizing Democracy, co authored that with Johannes Urpelainen, that one of the key chapters in that book looks at NATO's post-Cold war expansion into Eastern Europe and specifically looking at how the Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania were eventually able to gain membership.
And so NATO is, for most people, and I think most of the listeners, that would be an example of an alliance, I think a lot of people would be familiar with and indeed my research. Or a part of my research has looked at alliances and NATO specifically.
Lee 07:42
Wonderful, Paul. So, tell me a little bit about what you were like as a student when you were in high school.
Paul Poast 07:49
So in high school, I would say the number one trait that I had, I would not say that I was by any means the smartest person in the classroom. I was not valedictorian, for example, we had, you know, some other folks in my class were valedictorian and very good and they were great students, so I definitely was not the smartest person in my class.
You know, in high school, I wasn't the most athletic, but I was in sports, but the key thing that I think I had was I was very organized. And I've always been very organized to where I'd have lists, I'd have goals, I would say, okay, this is going to be my goal for this semester. This is going to be my goal for this year.
So even in high school, I remember being very goal oriented towards what I was doing in the classroom, what I was doing with extracurriculars. I was also in the Boy Scout, so I'm an Eagle Scout. I mean, these were things that, you know, I learned these skills of organizing, but I also applied these organizational skills.
And so, for me, that was always like a key part of, I think that was kind of a key characteristic or a key trait that I had that allowed me to do well as a student, was kind of staying organized. Now, again, I wasn't the smartest, I wasn't the fastest. I think one time I even said to a teacher, and maybe I shouldn't have said this, but I said, do you want it done now or do you want it done right?
I was not getting the assignment done as quickly as they wanted it done. But nevertheless, it was because I had a plan for how this could be carried out and done. So, you know, you can also extrapolate from that. I wasn't the fastest at timed tests when it came to math, for example.
But that was, you know, that was probably one of the big traits that I had as a student, was just kind of having those executive functioning skills, being able to stay organized. And that was really important, given that I was someone who was involved in extracurriculars, both sports and outside of sports and so, to me, that was the main thing.
Now, as I mentioned, when I was going through my bio, I mean, even as a high schooler, I had a lot of interest in the subject matter of international politics, political science in general. I mean, I remember, when I think I was in the eighth grade, we could do a job shadowing and, you know, a lot of students would pick, you know, a dentist or doctor, lawyer, so forth.
And I said, I want to shadow a politician and I remember that the, you know, the counselors and stuff over at the school told my parents, they're like, we had never gotten that request before. Like, what is it? Like, how do we find a politician for him to shadow? And they eventually found one of the county commissioners. I was able to kind of shadow him for the day, which was a great experience, but that kind of show where, you know, I did, I had this interest in like understanding politics and what was unfolding and how it was unfolding, and just even wanting to understand the day to day of it. So, for me, I think I'm pretty much pointed to how I had that interest in the subject matter, even in high school.
And so that, that's a big reason why, when I entered college, I was majoring in political science, was because I kind of already knew that that was a subject matter that was of interest to me.
Lee 11:04
Paul, why did you decide to become a professor and not, you know, a different career within your interests?
Paul Poast 11:11
Absolutely. And I hinted at this a little bit earlier when I was going through kind of the overview of my career path. But as I said, I originally hadn't thought about becoming an academic per se. I knew that I wanted to go into, you know, a field that was intellectual, but I at first thought that I wanted to go into law.
I had actually applied to law school. And specifically, I wanted to I thought I was going to study international law. So I was very intrigued by this. But as I was sharing before, it was during my program at the London School of Economics, where I came to realization that I very much enjoyed the process of researching a topic explaining a topic, teaching on a topic, and that was when I realized that it was like, you know, I find international law interesting, but I find it interesting in terms of an object of inquiry as opposed to something that I want to be a practitioner in, right, as an international lawyer. And so that was something that led me to realize that I think I actually want to go down the academic route.
Now, as I should add that as an undergraduate student, I went to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and I did write an honors thesis. So, I had that great experience as an undergrad and I think it's such a valuable experience for so many people as undergrad students to be able to write a senior thesis and I did get a chance to do that.
So I had already had some experience doing some research as an undergrad in that vein. And then, of course, in my master's program, writing a master's paper, having further experience with it, but it was really during that time that I realized. I wanted to go down the academic route. And that was part of the reason why I then started just applying for various like adjunct teaching positions because I knew that I wasn't in a position to start a PhD program.
It was for a variety of personal reasons. You know, life is complicated and we all have to balance, you know, our schooling with life, you know, getting married and spouse's career and so on and so forth. So, we had to balance it with that, but I wanted to, as much as I could already be in that academic environment.
And so that's why following my master's degree, I applied for various just like, teaching positions at universities. And just as I said, I became very fortunate, I was able to. I have an opportunity to be a lecturer at the Ohio State University in the econ department there, as well as the international studies program. Eventually even had the opportunity to teach some courses at the Fisher College of Business there. And so that, but that already allowed me to kind of be involved and be in the academic environment. Because I had already come to that realization that that was the environment I wanted to be in. So it was really at that point that I realized it.
Now what's funny is my dad says that he always knew that I was going to be a professor. So, my dad and I mean, this is my parents know me well, but they, you know, he always thought that I was going to go down that path, even though I didn't always realize I was going that path. But yeah, that was really when I came to that realization was kind of through that experience of doing my own research through the master's program that I realized this was the path I want to go down and that's very much informed advising that I give to students today.
I quite frequently suggest to students, undergrad students who are thinking about a Ph.D. or maybe consider, I said, you know, maybe think about doing a master's program first because you'll really have an opportunity to immerse yourself in that research process to realize is that something you even enjoy doing? Because in my case, it was.
Some other people might spend a year in a master's program. Do that, have a great experience with it, but say, no, that's not how I want to be spending my time. And that's great, they can then earn their masters and move on. So, but that it was during that time that I came to the realization that I wanted to be an academic.
Lee 15:10
And who supported you during the academic process during your Ph.D. and everything that it took to get you into the position that you are in today.
Paul Poast 15:21
Well, I mean, it's, it really took a village. I mean, there were so many people that I could point to, who influenced me, along the way in terms of how to be a researcher, how to be a student, setting me on a certain path. Some of these people know very well who they are, some of these folks may not have known who they were, but they just were individuals who influenced me.
But the first person that I absolutely have to bring up is my wife, Julie Poast. And the reason why is because, you know, as I was talking about earlier, part of the reason why I decided to wait before pursuing a PhD was we were getting married and she had a career, she was in business, so forth, and we wanted to try to balance, you know, my pursuit of an academic career with her career in business.
But eventually when I did enter the Ph.D. program, you know, she continued working in business and people would joke that I was on the Julie Poast Fellowship as a graduate student, because she was working. In fact my advisor there, Jim Morrow, at the University of Michigan, that when he first met my wife, that was the first thing he said. He goes, oh, the namesake of the Julie Poast fellowship. So, you know, I absolutely have to acknowledge that a key person who supported me in this path of becoming an academic is my wife, Julie.
But in terms of other people, I mean, I already mentioned about how my parents were always very supportive of this, and my dad always knew I was going to become an academic. But in terms of other people who are themselves academics, you know. There were so many people, obviously my, the faculty I worked with at the University of Michigan were fantastic. And in many ways, you know, it goes beyond just even the direct people that were my dissertation committee members.
I very much say that I'm a product of the University of Michigan's political science department, because I just felt so well supported there by the faculty as a whole. But even going back to when I was an undergrad people like Jim Brock, he was a professor of economics at Miami university, and he very much influenced me, and he was very encouraging. Richard Hart was another professor there, very much encouraging me to, on the econ side, you know, kind of think about writing a senior thesis, which I did.
But interestingly enough, another person who had a big influence on me in undergrad was William Gracie, he was a professor of English literature because something that some people find interesting is I actually minored in English literature and I took a few classes with him and he also was someone that very much kind of helped me to think about things intellectually.
Like I had never really thought about breaking down a piece of literature in an intellectual way, in a way that you would as an academic where you kind of look for the deeper themes. Those are examples of just some of the professors throughout my career, whether it was in my PhD program, whether it was an undergrad who very much shaped and influenced how I think about being an academic and why I wanted to be an academic.
Lee 18:25
And then, Paul, what is the most fun part of the work that you do?
Paul Poast18:30
I would say that the entire job is fun. Now, I know that's a little bit of a non-answer and, you know, oh, of course, someone can say that. And so, I will give some more specifics. There are definitely things that really like highlight for me that are a lot of fun, but I really do enjoy what I'm doing.
A key reason why, and you know, we've touched on this a little bit in our conversation today, but I haven't yet fully fleshed it out is, you know, as I shared, there were other paths that I could have gone down. There were other career paths I could have gone down. Of course, I mentioned the potential of law school, but another thing that's worth bringing up that, you know, absolutely needs to be brought up is that I was also a college athlete.
I walked on the football team at Miami University and that experience of being a walk on, on the football team there absolutely shaped me as an individual. But also during that time, you know, I gave serious consideration to potentially even going into college coaching and in fact, some of the coaches who were on the team there were encouraging me to consider that and so I did actually give a serious consideration to that.
And some of the grad students now will even say that that kind of influences has rubbed off. They can see the coaching aspect of me come out. I'm the director of graduate studies in our political science department, but my point is, is that there were absolutely other career paths that I had considered and had seriously considered.
But ultimately, the academic route was the 1 that I chose to go down because it is just for me. It's a very rewarding route. It's a very rewarding career. Now, I wouldn't say it's the best job out there for everybody. It's the best job out there for someone who would enjoy this job. So, it is a job that very much requires one, you know, be comfortable having kind of a lack of structure, right? The best way that I've always described being an academic is it is running a small business where the product is you and your ideas. And so that's why I often tell people that even though I learned how to be an academic. through my PhD program and my various academic training, I actually learned how to do my job because of my dad.
And the reason why is going back to our earlier part of the conversation, remember, I said that my dad owned a gas station. My dad was a small business owner, and I remember seeing him every night, sit down with a yellow notepad and write to do at the top, and you're like, this is what I got to do tomorrow.
Because as a small business owner, there's nobody telling you what to do the next day. You've got to figure out what to do the next day. What needs to be ordered, what needs to be supplied, who needs to be hired, et cetera, et cetera. And that's very similar to being an academic in that, you know, there are, of course, some things that you're on the clock for. Yes, I have this class that I have to teach at this time.
But a lot of what you do as an academic, when it comes to producing your research, how are you going to run a new initiative, if you're like, say you have some sort of administrative position, a lot of that is up to you setting that agenda to you deciding what needs to be done. It very much is an entrepreneurial type of occupation and I find that very rewarding and very exciting.
Now going even more specific, I mean, things I really enjoy is I do very much enjoy teaching. I have fun teaching, and I hope that that comes across when I'm teaching, whether it's the graduate classes or the undergrad class. Actually, itt's just enjoyable. I very much do enjoy teaching.
The other part of the academic experience that I find fun, and I would actually use the word fun, though. I mean, again, this wouldn't be fun for everybody, is we run a weekly seminar called the Workshop International Politics. And I actually find that fun. I find it fun to be there and hear what someone's presenting and to have like a great engagement. Sometimes I find myself even getting too excited. Like, oh, wait, wait, wait, I want to say this. I have a comment and then afterwards we go out to dinner at a nice restaurant. I really enjoy that, I always say this is like the highlight of the week. So I just, and we can kind of continue the conversation. So, for me, the fact that fun, very much tells me that I'm in the right kind of occupation.
Lee 22:57
And then, finally, Paul, talk to me about what is most fulfilling to you about the work that you do.
Paul Poast 23:04
I would say a big thing that I find very fulfilling is I've already mentioned about the teaching. I really, I mean, and the fact that I just enjoy this job in general, I mean, there's a reason I'm a, I'm an early riser kind of person. There's a reason I get excited in the morning to sit down with my coffee and work on, you know, whatever the latest research paper is that I'm working on. I actually look forward to that and so I find that very exciting and rewarding.
But for me, where I really gain a sense of satisfaction, I would say is on the public side of my job. So, you know, I've talked a lot about teaching the classes or doing my research, but another thing that I put a good amount of time into is trying to be, if you will, a public facing academic.
So I have an account on formerly called Twitter, now called X. But I have quite a number of followers there because I use that platform to share academic work about international relations. And I'm known for writing these threads on Twitter again, now called X. That we'll take like a topic and break it down academically.
So, it'll be, you know, for example. I might write a thread about like, what does it mean for there to be great powers or are we in a multipolar system or something like that. And then I break it down and I try to share research that is relevant to it. I mean, one of the most widely read threads that I had was I wrote a thread the morning that Russia launched its full invasion of Ukraine back in February of 2022, I wrote a thread about well, where's this going to go? What's going to happen? And that thread is by far my most read thread. You know, the first tweet on it has a few million views and thousands of likes and so forth.
But what it was I said, you know, what's going to happen? How could this play out? And I laid out some scenarios and those scenarios were informed by international relations scholarship. And that was very, that's a very rewarding thing to see that be relevant to people, to see that be useful for people who are not academics.
And this could be people who are in the policy space who find this useful, but I've also, I find it very satisfying when I have like high school teachers reach out and say, oh, I use your Twitter threads when I'm teaching in class and help students to understand something.
I find that very rewarding. That's also why I write a column every week for World Politics Review is kind of a similar idea, except it's a little bit more, even more, it's a little bit more policy-focused and a little bit more kind of like, here's my opinion on something versus just scholarship, but still the idea of wanting to help inform the broader public about how the scholarship we do in international politics can help us to better understand the world. And I find that to be very fulfilling and very gratifying.
Lee 26:07
Thank you, Professor Paul Poast for your time today. And Course Takers, if you enjoyed listening to today's interview, please check out the other ones. Leave us a comment, subscribe, follow, and share this episode with your friends and family. You can find out more about the University of Chicago through uchicago.edu or the University's campus in Hong Kong through uchicago.hk. Stay tuned for more and thanks for listening.