USC.edu

Jacques Hymans

Associate Professor of International Relations
Jacques Hymans
Email hymans@usc.edu Office DMC 319 Office Phone (213) 740-8837

Center, Institute & Lab Affiliations

  • University of Tokyo Department of Advanced Social and International Studies, Visiting Scholar, Summer-Fall 2023
  • USC Center for International Studies, Affiliated faculty, 2009-present
  • USC East Asian Studies Center, Affiliated faculty, 2010-present

Video

Biography

Jacques E.C. Hymans is associate professor of international relations at the University of Southern California. Hymans’s first book, The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions, and Foreign Policy (Cambridge University Press, 2006) won the International Society of Political Psychology’s Alexander L. George Book Award for best book on political psychology and the Mershon Center’s Edgar S. Furniss Book Award for best first book on national and international security. His second book, Achieving Nuclear Ambitions: Scientists, Politicians, and Proliferation (Cambridge University Press, 2012) won the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order, the American Political Science Association’s Don K. Price Award for best book on science, technology and environmental politics, and the National Academy for Public Administration’s Louis Brownlow Award for best book on public administration. Hymans’s most recent journal article is “The Bomb as God: A Metaphor that Impedes Nuclear Disarmament,” Security Studies Vol. 33, No. 1 (2024). He has received major research grants and fellowships from the Fulbright-Hays Program, the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Social Science Research Council, and other research funding organizations. He is an editorial board member of International Theory, Journal of Global Security Studies, and Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament, among others. He received his A.B., A.M., and Ph.D degrees from Harvard University.

Education

  • Ph.D. Government, Harvard University, 11/2001
  • M.A. Government, Harvard University, 11/1996
  • A.B. Social Studies, Harvard College, 6/1994

  • Tenure Track Appointments

    • Associate Professor, USC School of International Relations, 05/2011 –
    • Assistant Professor, USC School of International Relations, 06/2008 – 05/2011
    • Assistant Professor, Smith College Department of Government, 07/2003 – 06/2008

    PostDoctoral Appointments

    • Postdoctoral Fellow, Ohio State University Mershon Center, 2002-2003
    • Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, 2001-2002

    Other Employment

    • Predoctoral Fellow, Stanford University Center for International Security and Cooperation, 2000-2001

  • Summary Statement of Research Interests

    Most of my research has focused on nuclear topics: weapons, diplomacy, energy. I also have a longstanding research agenda on the construction and representation of national identities, especially as expressed in the iconography of banknotes. More recently, I have developed a research agenda on renewable energies, notably geothermal energy.

    Research Keywords

    International security,
    Comparative foreign policy,
    Nuclear proliferation, Nuclear energy, Renewable energy, Science policy, Science diplomacy, National identity, Japan, Money, Power.

  • Contracts and Grants Awarded

    • Japanese renewable energy policies, (Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad Fellowship), Jacques Hymans, $109,100, 05/15/2023 – 12/15/2023
    • Text analysis of hibakusha testimonials, (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science), Jacques E. C. Hymans, $50,000, 2021-2022
    • Japan’s Geothermal Energy Policy, (Japan Foundation Fellowship (short-term)), Jacques E. C. Hymans, $12,000, Fall 2018
    • Japan’s Geothermal Energy Policy, (Association of Asian Studies Northeast Asia Counci), Jacques E. C. Hymans, $5,000, 05/2018 – 08/2018
    • Britain’s recognition of the sovereignty of Meiji Japan, (The Strathmartine Trust, Scotland, UK), Jacques Hymans, $1,500, 2015-2016
    • The international recognition of Japan, (National Endowment for the Humanities), Jacques Hymans, $50,400, 2015-2016
    • The Politics and Technology of Nuclear Proliferation, (Andrew W. Mellon Foundation), Jacques E. C. Hymans, $212,000, 08/2011 – 08/2013
    • The development of the non-nuclear weapon state club, (Social Science Research Council (Abe Fellowship)), Jacques Hymans, $76,269, 2008-2009

    USC Funding

    • Advancing Scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Japanese Nuclear Energy After Fukushima: The Fukushima nuclear disaster has produced more than 18 months of nuclear policy confusion and political tension in Japan. Why, and what will come next?, $11700, 2012 – 2013

  • Book

    • Hymans, J. E. (2012). Achieving Nuclear Ambitions: Scientists, Politicians, and Proliferation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. amazon.com
    • Hymans, J. E. (2006). The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions, and Foreign Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. amazon.com

    Book Chapters

    • Hymans, J. E. (2010). Nuclear Proliferation and Non-Proliferation. International Studies Encyclopedia pp. 5447-5466. London: International Studies Encyclopedia/Blackwell.

    Journal Article

    • Hymans, J. E. (2024). The Bomb as God: A Metaphor that Impedes Nuclear Disarmament. Security Studies/Taylor&Francis. Vol. 33 (1), pp. 1-29.
    • Hymans, J. E., Uchikoshi, F. (2022). To Drill or not to Drill: Determinants of Geothermal Energy Project Siting in Japan. Environmental Politics. Vol. 31 (3), pp. 407-428.
    • Hymans, J. E., Uchikoshi, F. (2021). To drill or not to drill: determinants of geothermal energy siting in Japan. Environmental Politics/Taylor & Francis.
    • Higuchi, T., Hymans, J. E. (2021). Materialized Internationalism: How the IAEA Made the Vinca Dosimetry Experiment, and How the Experiment Made the IAEA. Centaurus: Official Journal of the European Society for the History of Science.
    • Hymans, J. E. (2021). Losing Steam: Why Does Japan Produce So Little Geothermal Power?. Social Science Japan Journal/Oxford.
    • Hymans, J. E. (2020). The Concept of Protean Power: Change We Can Believe In?. International Theory.
    • Hymans, Jacques E.C. (Ed.). (2020). Symposium on Katzenstein and Seybert’s Protean Power: Exploring the Uncertain and Unexpected in World Politics. International Theory.
    • Hymans, J. E., Fu, R. T. (2017). The diffusion of international norms of banknote iconography: A case study of the New Taiwan Dollar. Political Geography. Vol. 57, pp. 49-59. ScienceDirect
    • Hymans, J. E. (2014). Why Recognize? Explaining Victorian Britain’s Decision to Recognize the Sovereignty of Imperial Japan. Korean Journal of International Studies. Vol. 12 (S1), pp. 49-78.
    • Hymans, J. E. (2014). No Cause for Panic: Key Lessons from the Political Science Literature on Nuclear Proliferation. International Journal. Vol. 69 (1), pp. 85-93.
    • Hymans, J. E. (2013). The Threat of Nuclear Proliferation: Perception and Reality. Ethics and International Affairs. Vol. 27 (3), pp. 281-298.
    • Hymans, J. E., Gratias, M. S. (2013). Iran and the Nuclear Threshold: Where is the Line?. Nonproliferation Review/Taylor&Francis. Vol. 20 (1), pp. 13-38.
    • Hymans, J. E. (2012). Botching the Bomb: Why Many Nuclear Weapons Programs Fail–And Why Iran’s Might, Too. Foreign Affairs. Vol. 91 (3), pp. 44-53.
    • Hymans, J. E. (2011). Veto Players, Nuclear Energy, and Nonproliferation: Domestic Institutional Barriers to a Japanese Nuclear Bomb. International Security/MIT Press. Vol. 36 (2), pp. 154-189.
    • Hymans, J. E. (2011). Proliferation Implications of Civil Nuclear Cooperation: Theory and a Case Study of Tito’s Yugoslavia. Security Studies/Taylor and Francis. Vol. 20 (1), pp. 73-104.
    • Hymans, J. E. (2010). The Arrival of Psychological Constructivism. International Theory/Cambridge University Press. Vol. 2 (3), pp. 461-467.
    • Hymans, J. E. (2010). When Does a State Become a Nuclear Weapons State? An Exercise in Measurement Validation. The Nonproliferation Review/Taylor and Francis. Vol. 17 (1), pp. 161-180.
    • Hymans, J. E. (2010). East is East, and West, is West? Currency Iconography as Nation-Branding in the Wider Europe. Political Geography/Elsevier. Vol. 29 (2), pp. 97-108.
    • Hymans, J. E. (2009). India’s Soft Power and Vulnerability. India Review/Taylor and Francis. Vol. 8 (3), pp. 234-265.
    • Hymans, J. E. (2009). Britain and Hiroshima. Journal of Strategic Studies/Taylor and Francis. Vol. 32 (5), pp. 769-797.
    • Hymans, J. E. (2008). Assessing the DPRK’s Nuclear Intentions and Capacities: A New Approach. Journal of East Asian Studies. Vol. 8 (2), pp. 259-292.
    • Hymans, J. E. (2007). North Korea’s Nuclear Neurosis. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Vol. 63 (3), pp. 44-49.
    • U.S. Department of Education Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad Fellowship, 05/15/2023 – 12/15/2023
    • Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Invitational Fellowship for Research in Japan (Long-Term), 2021-2022
    • Japan Foundation Japanese Studies Fellowship, Fall 2018
    • National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship Recipient, Fellowship for Advanced Social Science Research on Japan, 2015-2016
    • Mellon Foundation New Directions Fellow, 08/2012 – 08/2014
    • Recipient of National or International Prize in Discipline, APSA Don K. Price Award for Best Book in Science, Technology and Politics published in the past three years, 2013-2014
    • Recipient of National or International Prize in Discipline, 2013 Louis Brownlow Award for best book in public administration, from the National Academy of Public Administration, 2013-2014
    • Recipient of National or International Prize in Discipline, Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order ($100,000 prize), 2013-2014
    • Social Science Research Council Abe Fellow, 2008-2009
    • Recipient of National or International Prize in Discipline, Alexander L. George Award for Best Book in Political Psychology published in the year 2006, 2007-2008
    • Recipient of National or International Prize in Discipline, Edgar S. Furniss Award for Best First Book in International Security Studies published in the year 2006, 2007-2008
    • Luce Foundation-EAI Fellow on Peace, Governance, and Development in East Asia, 2006-2007

  • Administrative Appointments

    • School of International Relations Undergraduate Honors Program coordinator, 2022-2023
    • School of International Relations Undergraduate Honors Program Coordinator, 2019-2020
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