Nazli Choucri

Nazli Choucri, Professor of Political Science, is Senior Faculty at the Center of International Studies (CIS), and Faculty Affiliate at the Institute for Data, Science, and Society (IDSS). She focuses on  in the areas of international relations and cyberpolitics—with special attention to sources of conflict and threats to security, on the one hand, and strategies for sustainability and global accord, on the other. She is the architect and Director of the Global System for Sustainable Development (GSSD), an evolving knowledge networking system centered on sustainability problems and solution strategies.

Dr. Choucri’s research extends the theory of Lateral Pressure, framed earlier with Robert C. North at Stanford University. By highlighting interactions among the driving variables shaping prevailing propensities for expansion—population, resources, and technology—she explores emergent international activities in three overarching “spaces” of 21st century politics, i.e. (i) the traditional geo-political arena, (ii) the natural environment, and (iii) the constructed domain of cyberspace.

Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Professor Choucri is the author and/or editor of twelve books, most recently Cyberpolitics in International Relations (2012) and International Relations in the Cyber Age: The Co-Evolution Dilemma, with David D. Clark (2019). She directs CyberWorld@MIT & and the related knowledge and networking system CyberIR@MIT. Both initiatives are rooted in the cyber-inclusive view of international relations introduced by the MIT-Harvard project on Explorations in Cyber International Relations (ECIR), for which she served as principal investigator.

Dr. Choucri’s international activities include two terms as President of the Scientific Advisory Committee of UNESCO's Management of Social Transformation Program, and many years as Associate Director of MIT's Technology and Development Program. She is a member of the European Academy of Science and has collaborated with scholars and policy analysts in many countries, including: Algeria, Canada, Colombia, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Japan, Kuwait, Mexico, Pakistan, Qatar, Sudan, Switzerland, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

Professor Choucri is the founding Editor of the MIT Press Series on Global Environmental Accord, and previously the General Editor of the International Political Science Review. She served two terms on each of the Science Board of the Santa Fe Institute and the Editorial Board of the American Political Science Review. She is on the Board of the Boston Global Forum, and a founding member of the Artificial Intelligence World Society (AIWS).

Professor of Political Science
E53-493, MIT
+1 (617) 253-6198
nchoucri@mit.edu

Assistant: 
Kathleen Searle
E53-456, MIT, 
+1 (617) 253-3119
ksearle@mit.edu

Research Websites