Mark Menaldo
Mark Menaldo is currently a Visiting Dissertation Fellow in the Department of Political Science at Northeastern University, in Boston. Mark is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at Michigan State University. His research and teaching interests focus on the role of leadership in international relations, the history of political thought, and the study of political thought on international relations. Mark was a recipient of a competitive University Enrichment Fellowship, from 2004 to 2008, which is awarded by Michigan State University. He received a B.A. from Colorado College in 2001, in Philosophy and Sociology.
His dissertation critically examines how prevailing theories in international relations, both realist and domestic level theories, conceive of leadership. These theories suffer from a reliance on leaders' use of instrumental rationality. The realist perspective subjects leaders to the same functional necessity, state survival in the international system. Domestic theories attribute leaders' preferences to the domestic political system, the constituencies they are beholden to, and assume that their foreign policies are universally motivated by the desire to gain and remain in power.
These abstract models of action, particularly foreign policy action, based on the assumption of self-interest and the calculation of cost and benefits, are too simplistic descriptions of leader behavior.
However, this theoretical gap is poorly addressed by existing leadership theories that tend to emphasize the idiosyncratic role of personalities. Drawing on classical and modern political thinkers' treatment of leadership, Mark demonstrates the need for a more nuanced and systematic account of political leadership. In support of this argument, he examines historical case studies, including Pericles, Woodrow Wilson, Rafael Trujillo, and Saddam Hussein.
Mark has taught Introduction to American National Government. He has taught student sections in the Introduction to International Relations and in Power, Society, and Exchange, a general course in social science. Mark served as a Teaching Assistant in the Introduction to Political Philosophy and Modern Political Philosophy courses. In the department of Sociology at Colorado College, Mark served as a Teaching Assistant for Social Theory and Research Methods courses. He is interested in teaching courses on leadership in international relations, the normative study of international relations, classical and modern political philosophy, postmodernism and politics, and introduction to international relations.