Jeremy Pressman, Ph.D. 
Associate Professor of Political Science, Director of Middle East Studies | University of Connecticut
Storrs, CT, UNITED STATES
Dr. Pressman specializes in the Arab-Israeli peace process, US foreign policy, and the scope of political protests in the United States.
Biography
Jeremy Pressman (MIT, PhD) studies international relations, the Arab-Israeli conflict, Middle East politics, and U.S. foreign policy. He is writing a book on force and diplomacy in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Pressman has held fellowships at Harvard University, the University of Sydney, and the Humanities Institute at the University of Connecticut. Pressman previously worked at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and is a former term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Areas of Expertise (3)
Education (2)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Ph.D., Political Science 2002
Brandeis University: B.A., Politics and Near Eastern and Judaic Studies 1991
Accomplishments (1)
Alan Bennett Award (professional)
Awarded by the Department of Political Science, University of Connecticut.
Links (2)
Media Appearances (6)
Trump’s rhetoric on Jerusalem tells us a lot about what kind of Israeli-Palestinian proposal he’ll deliver
Washington Post print
2017-12-08
This week, President Trump declared that the United States would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. As expected, the move drew praise from Israel’s right-wing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and condemnation from a variety of Arab and Palestinian leaders. What will this decision mean for the possibility that the United States could lead negotiations toward a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
Three things to know about Trump’s Jerusalem gambit.
Trump’s attacks on #TakeaKnee and DACA spurred hundreds of protests in October
Washington Post online
2017-12-01
This is the 10th installment in a monthly series reporting on political crowds in the United States by Crowd Counting's Jeremy Pressman at the University of Connecticut.
Diplomat in chief: How did Trump do on his first Middle East visit?
The Conversation print
2017-03-26
As an expert on U.S. policy in the Middle East and on Arab-Israeli relations, I think it is clear that Trump’s hopes for regional stability or an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement – outcomes that require detailed policy – rest on shaky ground. Will he go beyond merely meeting Israeli and Saudi demands for positive public images and the exchange of kind words?
The Exhausting Work of Tallying America's Largest Protest
The Atlantic print
2017-01-23
A pair of political science professors are combing through news stories and individual reports to estimate the number of people who demonstrated on Saturday.
Women’s March On Washington Sets US Protest Record As Estimated 3.6-4.5 Million Marched
PoliticusUSA online
2017-01-22
"According to UConn Professor Jeremy Pressman’s Google document of crowd estimates the low-end estimate is 3.66 million marchers. The high-end estimate is 4.57 million. Whether it is the low or high estimate that is accurate the Women’s March On Washington shattered the previous record for the largest one-day protest in the United States..."
More than 1 in 100 Americans marched against Donald Trump Saturday, say political scientists
Yahoo News
2017-01-22
"Drawing on reports of 526 different marches in towns as disparate as Wichita Falls, Texas — reported turnout: 150 people — and Washington, D.C. — reported turnout: more than 500,000 — University of Connecticut professor Jeremy Pressman, working with international relations professor Erica Chenoweth from the University of Denver, estimated that 3,341,823 to 4,611,782 people turned out to march across the nation..."
Articles (6)
2017
Social scientists treat stone-throwing as a non-violent act or argue that protest movements may be primarily non-violent despite stone-throwing. However, this study of an iconic example, the first intifada (Palestinian uprising, 1987–1993), demonstrates that stone-throwing is better characterized as unarmed violence. Definitions of violence underscore that throwing rocks is a violent act. Moreover, informed observers and data collected on stone-induced injuries during four years of the intifada illustrate the bodily harm caused by stones. The throwing of stones was central to the intifada and its identity and definition. Stone-throwing was the most visible tactic Palestinians used in the first intifada. Lastly, most scholars emphasize the protestors’ perceptions when it might be that the targets’ perceptions matter more for understanding definitions of (non-)violence and subsequent policy changes. These findings challenge important social science work and the mainstream Israeli and Palestinian narratives about the first intifada.
2014
This close empirical study of decades of US efforts to bring peace between Arab states and Israel helps reflect on Arild Underdal and Oran R. Young’s leadership typologies. Distinguishing between coercive leadership based on the incentives and sanctions that robust capabilities make possible and instrumental leadership focused more on talking, skilled mediation, and policy innovation is useful...
2013
This article challenges critics of the Camp David accords who acknowledge only limited accomplishments or contend the United States was covering for Israeli settlement expansion while seeking to thwart Palestinian self-determination. President Jimmy Carter and his administration sought to create a new pathway toward peace given the unwillingness of Israel’s right-wing government under ...
2010
How to address the Arab-Israeli conflict has become a central focus of every American president since Richard Nixon. As the decades pass, the direct search for a solution has been paralleled by repeated self-scrutiny by US participants and scholars. Beyond recording the flow of events, such works have themselves pored over the historical record in an effort to understand both past failings (and avoid ...
2009
The administration of President George W. Bush was deeply involved in the Middle East, but its efforts did not advance U.S. national security. In the realms of counterterrorism, democracy promotion, and nonconventional proliferation, the Bush administration failed to achieve its objectives. Although the United States did not suffer a second direct attack after September 11, 2001, the terrorism ...
2008
This article uses the The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan (2006) to demonstrate how one type of book, a literary non-fiction book written for popular audiences, can be used in a political science course such as one on the Arab–Israeli conflict. The book concisely presents multiple Arab–Israeli perspectives and enlivens the history and infuses it with both broader and deeper meaning. After a brief ...
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