Jordan Tama
Provost Associate Professor
School of International Service
American University

I am a Provost Associate Professor at American University’s School of International Service. I am also a Co-Director of Bridging the Gap, a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and a Faculty Affiliate at the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies.
My research examines the politics and processes of U.S. foreign policy. My publications include four books: Bipartisanship and US Foreign Policy: Cooperation in a Polarized Age (Oxford University Press, 2024); Rivals for Power: Presidential-Congressional Relations, Sixth Edition, co-edited with James A. Thurber (Rowman and Littlefield, 2018); Terrorism and National Security Reform: How Commissions Can Drive Change During Crises (Cambridge University Press, 2011); and A Creative Tension: The Foreign Policy Roles of the President and Congress, co-authored with Lee H. Hamilton (Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2002). I have also authored many journal articles, book chapters, policy reports, and articles in major newspapers and policy magazines.
My work has been supported by the American Political Science Association, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, IBM Center for the Business of Government, Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, National Science Foundation, Raymond Frankel Foundation, Social Science Research Council, and Woodrow Wilson Center. I have also served as President of the National Capital Area Political Science Association, and been selected as a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Fellow of the Truman National Security Project.
Outside academia, I have served as a fellow on the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in the U.S. House of Representatives, a foreign policy speechwriter to former U.S. Representative Lee Hamilton, a counterterrorism and intelligence policy advisor on Barack Obama's first presidential campaign, and a senior advisor to the United Kingdom's Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office.
I received a B.A. from Williams College, and received an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.
You can follow me on Twitter @ProfJordanTama.