Alex Hybel

A native of Argentina, Alex Roberto Hybel's research and teaching interests are in international relations theory, U.S. foreign policy, U.S. foreign policy decision-making, democracy, and Latin American politics. Some of the courses and seminars he teaches are: International Relations Theory; International Relations; Democracy in Latin America; Challenges to Democracy in Europe’s Mediterranean Region, U.S. Foreign Policy Towards Latin America; The New International System; U.S. Foreign Policy Decision-Making; and International Politics Through Film.

In 2012, Hybel was awarded the Nancy Batson Nisbet Rash Faculty Research Award, which provides a research fund to be presented annually to a member of the faculty for outstanding scholarly or artistic accomplishments. The Student Government Association awarded him the John King Teaching Award in 2013.

In March 2014, he published his seventh and eighth books, US Foreign Policy Decision-Making From Truman to Kennedy and US Foreign Policy Decision-Making From Kennedy to Obama. He co-authored several of the chapters in both books with eight present and former students.

Hybel's previous books are: The Power of Ideology: From the Roman Empire to Al-Qaeda (2009); The Bush Administrations and Saddam Hussein: Deciding on Conflict (co-authored with Justin Kaufman '04) (2006); Made by the U.S.A. - The International System(2001); Power Over Rationality (1993); How Leaders Reason: U.S. Intervention in the Caribbean Basin and Latin America (1990); and The Logic of Surprise in International Conflict (1986).

Professor Hybel has received research and teaching grants from the National Science Foundation, the Fulbright Commission, the Pew Foundation and the Carnegie Foundation. He was named Susan Eckert Lynch Professor of Government in 1995.

Professor Hybel served as Associate Director for Research for the Toor-Cummings Center for International Studies and the Liberal Arts (1992-94); Associate Dean of Faculty for Administration (1993-94); and Dean of National and International Programs (1994-97).

Professor Hybel has led Study Away/Teach Away (SATA) programs to Perugia, Italy (Spring 2014); Seville, Spain (Spring 2007); and Cape Town, South Africa (Fall 1998).

Professor Hybel is an avid photographer and in 2013 published his third photography book, Field of Vision.

During the 2007-08 academic year Hybel was the Fei Yi-Ming Visiting Professor at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center in Nanjing, China.

View the government and international relations department website.

Reviews of Alex Hybel's books

US Foreign Policy Decision-Making From Kennedy to Obama

"What a fascinating book. Alex Hybel puts us in the minds of five presidents and provides intimate detail about how they made some of the momentous decisions of their times in the White House. Hybel has performed a earl service to history to take us into their minds and guts." - Bob Franken, Columnist for King Features Syndicate and TV Commenter

The Bush Administrations and Saddam Hussein: Deciding on Conflict

"No activity of state demands more of its citizens or evokes more fervent emotions than does war. Yet few are subject to less hard analysis by those who make the critical decisions. This distressing axiom is splendidly illustrated by Alex Hybel and Justin Kaufman. With precision and intellectual objectivity they demonstrate on both a theoretical and practical level how emotion and wishful thinking supplanted rationality in the two Iraq wars. " 
- Foreword by Ronald Steel, author of Temptations of a Superpower

Made by the USA: The International System

"The book is perhaps the most inclusive short description yet written of how the United States became the world's primary hegemon at Cold War's end. It is also totally convincing, leaving in intellectual tatters the work of those who consider correct ideology to be determinative." 
- Review in "Parameters: Journal of the United States Army War College," Summer 2002.

Power Over Rationality

"This is a provocative book, not just because it advances a critical theory or a counter-intuitive interpretation but also because it poses important and tough questions about some crucial issues of both social science inquiry and contemporary U. S. foreign policy." 
– Foreword by James N. Rosenau