Jean-Sébastien Rioux
Institut québécois des hautes etudes internationales (HEI), and Assistant Professor of Political Science, Laval University
Canada

Jean-Sébastien Rioux holds the Canada Research Chair in International Security at the Institut québécois des hautes etudes internationales (HEI) at Laval University, where he is also an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Laval University in Québec City, where he was appointed on June 1st, 2001.

After serving three years as an infantry non-commissioned officer in the US Army’s 101st Airborne Division from 1987 to 1990, he earned his B.A. from the California State University at Los Angeles in 1992, and obtained his PhD in Political Science from the Florida State University in 1996. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Research Group in International Security (McGill University and the University of Montreal) in 1997-1998, and later was appointed Assistant Professor of International Affairs at Vesalius College, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, in Belgium, where he taught from 1999 to 2001.

His research interests focus on the determinants of foreign policy behaviour, conflict processes and third party intervention in conflict. He has published his research in several refereed academic journals, such as the Canadian Journal of Political Science, International Politics, Political Research Quarterly and Études Internationales. His most recent co-authored book on the media and foreign aid was published at Palgrave-Macmillan press in New York in 2004, and he is currently working on another book which examines the Canadian government’s decision-making processes in sending forces overseas.

He has travelled to over 30 countries in Central and South America; Europe and the Balkans; the Middle East and Africa, where he participates in peacekeeping training missions with the Lester B. Pearson Peacekeeping Center in West Africa. He is frequently called upon to comment on international events in various electronic media and has authored over 20 opinion pieces in various Québec newspapers since the events of 9-11 and the Iraq war.