I have a number of research projects currently in the works, spanning a few major themes:

Racialization, International Security, and U.S. Foreign Policy

My first book, The Picky Eagle: How Democracy and Xenophobia Limited U.S. Territorial Expansion, showed among other things how thoroughly racialized worldviews saturated U.S. leaders’ decision-making when considering territorial expansion through the end of the nineteenth century. Building on those findings and incorporating a wide range of interdisciplinary literature, I have developed several article projects related to racialization, IR theory, and US foreign policy. The first, Racialization and International Security, was published in International Security in 2023. The second, Whitewashing American Exceptionalism, was published in International Studies Quarterly in 2024. The third, Racialization in History and Theory: World War II and International Relations, co-authored with Robbie Shilliam, was published in the European Journal of International Relations in 2025. A fourth is currently undergoing revisions, and I am also writing a new book on this subject (under contract).

American Exceptionalism

I am co-editing with Hilde Restad a volume titled American Exceptionalism and U.S. Foreign Policy, which is forthcoming with Georgetown University Press (expected January 2027). This volume re-founds the study of American exceptionalism within academic international relations, laying conceptual foundations by examining its interactions with related concepts like liberalism, nationalism, race, and religion, and proceeding to investigate its relationship with U.S. foreign policy in various areas.

The Whitewashing American Exceptionalism article mentioned above is also related to this project, being informed by my prior work on this volume and in turn informing this volume.

The Territorial Integrity Norm

I have a paper co-authored with Kenneth Schultz (Stanford) on the strategic implications of international norms, focusing on the territorial integrity norm and U.S. foreign policy, which was the theme of my solo-authored chapter in The United States and International Law: Paradoxes of Support across Contemporary Issues, which in turn spun forward implications from my prior work on The Picky Eagle. That co-authored paper is currently under review, and a second co-authored paper following up on it is also planned.

U.S. Grand Strategy, Space Colonialism, and more

I also have working papers related to racialized dynamics in U.S. grand strategy and the international security implications of corporate colonialism in outer space, with more on the way…

I welcome correspondence on my research at RMaass@ODU.edu