Jordan Tama

Nonresident Senior Fellow, Public Opinion and Foreign Policy

Issue Expertise

About Jordan Tama

Jordan Tama is a nonresident senior fellow of public opinion and foreign policy at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. He’s an associate professor at the School of International Service at American University. He’s also a co-director of Bridging the Gap.

Tama’s research examines the politics and process of US foreign policy, including public and elite opinion, the role of Congress, partisan polarization and bipartisanship, the use of economic sanctions, national security strategic planning, and the value of independent commissions. His publications include three books: Rivals for Power: Presidential-Congressional Relations, Sixth Edition (co-edited with James A. Thurber); Terrorism and National Security Reform: How Commissions Can Drive Change During Crises; and A Creative Tension: The Foreign Policy Roles of the President and Congress (co-authored with Lee H. Hamilton). He has also authored numerous journal articles, book chapters, policy reports, and articles in major newspapers and policy magazines. He is currently working on a book entitled Bipartisanship in a Polarized Age: When Democrats and Republicans Cooperate on US Foreign Policy.

Tama’s work has been supported by the American Political Science Association, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, IBM Center for the Business of Government, Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, Raymond Frankel Foundation, Social Science Research Council, and Woodrow Wilson Center. He has been selected as a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Fellow of the Truman National Security Project.

Tama has served as a fellow on the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in the US House of Representatives, a foreign policy speechwriter to former US Representative Lee Hamilton, and a counterterrorism and intelligence policy adviser on Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign.

Tama received a B.A. in History from Williams College, and received an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.