Emeritus Professor of International Relations, University of Exeter and Professor of Global Politics, University of Buckingham

B.Sc (Econ), M.Sc (Econ), Ph.D. Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS); International Relations Editor, Oxford University Press Online series.

Professor Armstrong has held Chairs at the Universities of Durham and Exeter and a Readership at the University of Birmingham as well as visiting professor positions at leading American and Australian universities. He was founder-editor of the journal Diplomacy and Statecraft and editor of the leading British journal, Review of International Studies from 2003-7. At various times he has acted as Fellow of the Atlantic Council, member of the Academic Council on the UN System, Senior Associate Member, St Anthony's College, Oxford, member of the ESRC Board of Examiners, Vice Chairman Executive Committee, International Organisation Section, International Studies Association (USA), member of the national executive committee of the British International Studies Association (BISA) and British Representative, The International Centre, Tubingen.

His early research related to the international relations of East Asia and his first book was a study of the relationship between ideology and China’s foreign policy, Revolutionary Diplomacy, (California University Press, 1977). This book derived in part from an interest in the influence of ideas in international politics that is apparent in much of his subsequent work. For example, Revolution and World Order: the revolutionary state in international society (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1993) is a study of how revolutionary states from the French to the Iranian revolution came under pressure to adapt their ideological stance on various issues in the course of their participation in international relations.

After his earlier work on East Asia, he has increasingly concentrated on the role of international organisations and international law, with a continuing interest in the role played by ideas over time. As well as journal articles in leading British and American journals (including International Organization, Review of International Studies, International Affairs and Journal of Commonwelath and Comparative Politics, he has published six single and co-edited books, most recently Civil society and International Governance (Routledge 2008), A Handbook of International Law (Routledge 2008) and Force and Legitimacy in World Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2006). There are also three single and co-authored books on the history of international organisation (The Rise of the International Orgnisation, From Versailles to Maastricht, and International Organisation in World Politics all published by Palgrave/Macmillan in 1982, 1995 and 2004, respectively), a co-authored book on International Law and International Relations (Cambridge University Press, 2007) and numerous chapters in edited books. Forthcoming publications include an article accepted by the Review of International Studies on Cosmopolitanist theory and international law and the second edition of International Law and International Relations, both of which will appear in 2012.

He led a team within an earlier EU network (‘GARNET’), working on the role of civil society in global and regional governance. He sees GR:EEN as a natural successor to Garnet and its work on global and regional governance, with its focus even more relevant at a time when the world, and the EU in particular, are experiencing major new challenges to various forms of international governance.