Bryan Early
PhD, Political Science, The University of Georgia
BA, Politics, Washington and Lee University
About
Specialization: Sanctions, WMD Proliferation, International Relations, & Political Violence
Dr. Bryan R. Early is a Professor of Political Science at the University at Albany, SUNY and the founding director of the Project on International Security, Commerce, and Economic Statecraft (PISCES). He served as the Director of the Center for Policy Research from 2015-2019 and as Associate Dean for Research at Rockefeller College from 2019-2025.
He has published 40 peer-reviewed academic articles on topics such as economic sanctions, weapons of mass destruction, proliferation, shadow economies, and political violence. He authored the book Busted Sanctions: Explaining Why Economic Sanctions Fail (Stanford University Press, 2015) that explains why and how sanctions-busting occurs and its consequences.
As the Director of PISCES, he has obtained over 100-external awards and over $29 million in funding. His PISCES Team has worked with over 50 countries around the world on nonproliferation and economic statecraft issues on behalf of the U.S. Government. Early received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Georgia in 2009 and was a pre-doctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
Recent Policy Contributions:
Bryan R. Early. 2019. “Deterrence and Disclosure: The Dual Logics Promoting U.S. Sanctions Compliance.” Center for New American Security, June 10.
Bryan R. Early. 2018. “U.S. sanctions against Iran just got tougher. What happens now?” The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage Blog, November 3.
Robert Blanton, Bryan Early, and Dursun Peksen. 2018. “What 45 Years of Data Tell Us about Globalization’s Influence on the Shadow Economy.” Harvard Business Review, May 8.
Selected Publications:
Dursun Peksen and Bryan R. Early. Web First. "Internal Conflicts and Shadow Economies.” Journal of Global Security Studies.
Bryan R. Early and Amira Jadoon. Web First. “Using the Carrot as the Stick: U.S. Foreign Aid and the Effectiveness of Sanctions Threats.” Foreign Policy Analysis.
Bryan R. Early and Marcus Schulzke. 2019. “Still Unjust, Just in Different Ways: How Targeted Sanctions Fall Short of Just War Theory’s Principles.” International Studies Review 21(1): 57-80.
Bryan R. Early and Dursun Peksen. Web First. "Searching in the Shadows: The Impact of Economic Sanctions on Informal Economies." Political Research Quarterly.