Jeffrey W. Legro (born 1959 or 1960) is an American political scientist and professor at the University of Richmond, where he was also the executive vice president and provost from 2017 to 2023.
[1] He earned his bachelor's degree at Middlebury College in 1982, majoring in economics and Russian, magna cum laude, and was elected to the academic honor society Phi Beta Kappa.
At UVA's Miller Center of Public Affairs, he was the Randolph P. Compton Professor of World Politics from 2007 to 2012, as well as the co-founder of the Governing America in a Global Era Program.
[12][13] In 2017, Legro joined the University of Richmond as provost and executive vice president for academic affairs and professor of political science.
[8][9][5][30] His 2005 book Rethinking the World: Great Power Strategies and International Order analyzed several instances in history when nations fundamentally changed their foreign policy and their approach to international order, such as Tokugawa's opening to foreign trade, the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the massive realignments before and after World Wars I and II.
[31][12][32][33] With Melvyn Leffler, Legro co-edited the 2008 book To Lead the World: American Strategy After the Bush Doctrine, a collection of essays on geopolitics from writers such as James Kurth, Francis Fukuyama, David Kennedy, and Niall Ferguson.
[34][35] Legro and Leffler also co-edited 2011's In Uncertain Times: American Foreign Policy After the Berlin Wall and 9/11, a collection of essays by scholars and policymakers including Bruce Cumings, Eric S. Edelman, John Mueller, Mary Elise Sarotte, Walter B. Slocombe, Odd Arne Westad, William C. Wohlforth, Paul Wolfowitz, Philip Zelikow, and Robert Zoellick.
The book examined how dramatic events such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the fall of the Berlin Wall changed international economic and defense strategies.
The collection of essays looks ahead to an era of international multipolarity and the countries most likely to be significant powers in the future: Brazil, China, Germany, India, Israel, Russia, Turkey, and the United States.