Andrew Payne is a Lecturer in Foreign Policy and Security at City St George's, University of London, and a Research Associate at the University of Oxford, where he was previously the Hedley Bull Research Fellow in International Relations. His research examines the politics of US foreign policy. His first book, War on the Ballot: How the Election Cycle Shapes Presidential Decision-Making in War, was published by Columbia University Press in 2023.

I am the IKEA Foundation Research Fellow in International Relations at Lady Margaret Hall and Oxford’s Department of International Development (Refugee Studies Centre), and an Associate Member of DPIR.

Kate Sullivan de Estrada completed her PhD in Politics and International Relations from the Australian National University in 2011. Her research interests centre on the social mobility of states in world politics (with a particular focus on status and status seeking and the socialization struggles of rising powers) and, methodologically, the intersection of IR and Area Studies. Empirically, her research examines India's role and identity as a rising power, nuclear politics in South Asia, India's strategy in the Indo-Pacific, and Indian Ocean security.

Mark van Vugt is Professor of Evolutionary Psychology, Work and Organizational Psychology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands and a Research Associate at the  Department of Politics and International relations, University of Oxford. He studies and teaches about political, group and organizational behaviour from an evolutionary psychology perspective. His main research themes include leadership, hierarchy, altruism, cooperation, and intergroup relations.