Robert Gilpin

In the final years of his career, Gilpin focused his research interests in the application of realist thinking to contemporary American policies in the Middle East. Gilpin was openly critical of the politics surrounding the 2003 invasion of Iraq in his essay "War is Too Important to Be Left to Ideological Amateurs."

These books have been translated into a number of languages. The Political Economy of International Relations won the 1987 Award for the Best New Professional and Scholarly Book in Business, Management, and Economics, as well as the 1988 Woodrow Wilson Foundation Book Award for the best book in political science

In his 1975 book US Power and the Multinational Corporation, Gilpin warned that multinational corporations could facilitate a rapid spread of advanced technologies away from the leading states to rising states, thus facilitating more rapid power transitions. Gilpin has described War and Change In World Politics (1981) as the work of his that he is most pleased with.

Gilpin was a Guggenheim fellow in 1969, a Rockefeller fellow from 1967 to 1968 and again from 1976 to 1977, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was a member of the American Political Science Association for which he served as vice president from 1984 to 1985, and he was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Early in his career, Gilpin focused on conflict and national security, in particular nuclear weapons policy. Over time, his focus shifted to international political economy.

Gilpin received his B.A. from the University of Vermont in 1952 and his M.S. from Cornell University in 1954. Following three years as an officer in the U.S. Navy, Gilpin completed his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, earning his doctorate in 1960. He joined the Princeton faculty in 1962 and earned tenure in 1967. He was a faculty associate of the Center of International Studies, and the Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination.

Robert Gilpin (/ˈɡɪlpɪn/; July 2, 1930 – June 20, 2018) was an American political scientist. He was Professor of Politics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University where he held the Eisenhower professorship.