I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Vanderbilt University. I received my PhD in political science from the University of Rochester in 2014.
I study the political economy of conflict. I am especially interested in the political and fiscal foundations of state power—how a country's capacity to extract resources domestically affects its ability to fend off threats abroad, and vice versa. I also study diplomacy, focusing on the incentive problems that impede credible signaling.
Formal models are at the core of my research. I use these models to think clearly about the strategic dilemmas that arise in war, diplomacy, and state formation. I also do some work with data, including the structural estimation of game-theoretic models.
You can email me at brenton.kenkel@vanderbilt.edu, and you can find a PDF of my CV here.
Scott F Abramson, Emiel Awad, and Brenton Kenkel. 2024. "Designing Political Order." Forthcoming in World Politics. [preprint]
James Bisbee, Joshua D. Clinton, Cassy Dorff, Brenton Kenkel, and Jennifer Larson. 2024. "Synthetic Replacements for Human Survey Data? The Perils of Large Language Models." Conditionally accepted at Political Analysis. [preprint]
Brenton Kenkel and Peter Schram. 2023. "Uncertainty in Crisis Bargaining with Multiple Policy Options." Forthcoming in American Journal of Political Science. [paper] [preprint]
Brenton Kenkel and Kristopher W. Ramsay. 2023. "The Effective Power of Military Coalitions: A Unified Theoretical and Empirical Model." Conditionally accepted at Journal of Politics.
Brenton Kenkel. 2023. "Social Conflict and the Predatory State." Quarterly Journal of Political Science 18(4): 437–468. [paper]
Brenton Kenkel and Jack Paine. 2023. "A Theory of External Wars and European Parliaments." International Organization 77(1): 102–143. [paper]
Michael Gibilisco, Brenton Kenkel, and Miguel R. Rueda. 2022. "Competition and Civilian Victimization." Journal of Conflict Resolution 66(4-5): 809–835. [paper] [replication]
Mark Fey and Brenton Kenkel. 2021. "Is an Ultimatum the Last Word on Crisis Bargaining?" Journal of Politics 83(1): 87–102. [paper]
Robert J. Carroll and Brenton Kenkel. 2019. "Prediction, Proxies, and Power." American Journal of Political Science 63(3): 577–593. [paper] [replication]
Brenton Kenkel. 2019. "The Efficacy of Cheap Talk in Collective Action Problems." Journal of Theoretical Politics 31(3): 370–402. [paper]
Brenton Kenkel. 2019. "Signaling Policy Intentions in Fundraising Contests." Quarterly Journal of Political Science 14(2): 225–258. [paper]
Kevin A. Clarke, Brenton Kenkel, and Miguel R. Rueda. 2018. "Omitted Variables, Countervailing Effects, and the Possibility of Overadjustment." Political Science Research and Methods 6(2): 343–354. [paper]
Mark Fey, Jinhee Jo, and Brenton Kenkel. 2015. "Information and International Institutions Revisited." Journal of Conflict Resolution 59(1): 149–160. [paper]
Brenton Kenkel and Curtis S. Signorino. 2014. "Estimating Extensive Form Games in R." Journal of Statistical Software 56(8): 1–27. [paper]
"Competition and Free-Riding in Electoral Contests with Outside Spending" (with Mellissa Meisels).
"Diplomatic Relations and Conflict Management: A Dynamic Analysis." [2018-08-28]
Crisis Diplomacy (PSCI 2220) [spring 2022]
Causes of War (PSCI 2221) [fall 2022]
Formal Models of International Relations (PSCI 8360) [fall 2022]
Statistics for Political Research II (PSCI 8357) [spring 2023] [lecture notes]
Political Economy of War (PSC 586, University of Rochester) [spring 2018]