Chase LaSpisa

About

I am from Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and I am currently a PhD candidate in political science at the University of Iowa focusing on international relations and comparative politics. I graduated from Oklahoma State University in May 2020 with a BA in political science, as well as minors in Economics and Russian Language. I also hold an MA in political science (2021) from the University of Iowa.

My research has been published in International Interactions and Foreign Policy Analysis and centers around the role of natural resources in politics, particularly conflict, cooperation, and contentious politics. My work explores the effect that natural resources have on conflict onset and conflict management, especially in the maritime context, and how natural resources influence regime behavior and social mobilization at all levels of analysis.

As countries increasingly turn to the oceans for strategic and economic reasons, my three-paper dissertation titled “Maritime Zones of Contention: The Effect of Offshore Fossil-Fuel Resources on Maritime International Conflict and Cooperation” provides insight into how specific traits of offshore oil and natural gas influence maritime international relations. With most new oil and natural gas production occurring offshore in 2024, offshore fossil-fuel resources remain key sources of economic development and hot points for states when handling issues like maritime border delimitation. My dissertation examines when, where, and why offshore oil and natural gas cause states to engage in conflictual behavior versus cooperative behavior. I develop and test mechanisms for how specific conditions under which offshore oil and natural gas are exploited, managed, and traded influence maritime conflict dynamics. I also treat offshore oil and offshore natural gas as separate resources that have different effects on international relations.

Outside of research, I love reading, traveling, and video games, and I began knitting during my time in Norway. I enjoy the fantasy and science fiction genres, and you can often find me reading in a park or coffee shop on the weekends.

You can download my CV here.

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Research

Peer Reviewed Publications:

LaSpisa, Chase. 2025. “Dangerous Development: The Effect of Offshore Fossil-Fuel Discovery and Production on Maritime Diplomatic Conflict”. International Interactions 25 (1): 29-57. [Link].

LaSpisa, Chase and Sara McLaughlin Mitchell. 2025. “Testing the Waters: Exploring Why Democracies Have More Maritime Conflict”. Foreign Policy Analysis 21 (2): 1-15. [Link].

Selected Works in Progress:

LaSpisa, Chase. The Oil-Repression Nexus: Oil Reliance and Government Incentives to Repress.

Abstract: While previous research finds that countries with significant oil reserves are more likely to use repression in response to contentious politics, I argue that oil reliance alone cannot explain repressive behavior in oil-reliant countries. I develop a theoretical framework that considers how oil reliance interacts with event-level factors, the oil-related identities of those involved in contentious political events, to shift the cost-benefit analysis governments go through when deciding to repress. I hypothesize that oil-reliant governments will be less likely to repress contentious political events when the participants are oil-related but more likely to repress when the oil industry is targeted. Using event-level data from the Social Conflict Analysis Database and multilevel logistic regression, I find strong evidence for the argument. I find that oil reliant governments repress events that involve oil-related participants consistently less on average, and I find that the most oil-reliant governments repress oil targeting events around fifty percent more on average than non-oil targeting events.

LaSpisa, Chase. The Impact of Border-Proximate Offshore Fossil-Fuel Resources on Maritime Diplomatic Conflict.

Abstract: How does the proximity of offshore oil and natural gas to maritime borders influence interstate diplomatic conflict onset? Combining insights from the onshore border-interstate conflict and the maritime conflict literatures, I argue that offshore fossil-fuel deposits that are closer in proximity to shared maritime borders provide increased incentives for states to engage in revisionist behavior and attempt to claim the resources for their own use. The nature of maritime borders and offshore fossil-fuel resources further exacerbates revisionist incentives due to increased tangible salience, offshore fossil-fuel deposits potentially spanning both sides of the border, and having fewer institutional options to help mediate maritime fossil-fuel conflict. Using GIS software and PRIO-Grid data, I develop novel measures for proximity of offshore fossil-fuel deposits to maritime borders, but I find mixed support for the theory. Only dyad-years that have offshore fossil-fuel deposits between twenty-five and fifty nautical miles have an increased risk of maritime diplomatic conflict onset. The results indicate that more complete offshore fossil-fuel data is needed as well as providing a fruitful direction for future maritime resource conflict research.

LaSpisa, Chase. From Land to Sea: The Domestic Origins of Maritime Conflict over Fossil-Fuel Resources.

Abstract: How does the domestic management of fossil-fuel resources affect a country's maritime foreign policy? From the maritime conflict literature, we know that offshore fossil-fuel resources tend to be highly contested and salient, but the impact of domestic factors in maritime foreign policy is relatively understudied and mostly focuses on public opinion. To help resolve this, I explore another relevant source of domestic pressure, the fossil-fuel industry, and whether ownership of the fossil-fuel industry substantively impacts maritime foreign policy. I argue that whether and how a country manages its domestic supply of natural resources will influence its maritime foreign policy by affecting the salience and viability of offshore fossil-fuel reserves and the relative impact of domestic pressure sources. I test this argument by empirically analyzing dyadic maritime diplomatic conflict onset using economic data detailing the ownership of domestic fossil-fuel industries. I find that dyads where both states have domestically and publicly owned fossil-fuel industries are less at risk for maritime conflict onset whereas dyads in which both states have foreign or private owned fossil-fuel industries are more at risk for maritime conflict onset. This relationship changes when ownership is interacted with regime type though. In fact, democratic dyads with publicly or domestically owned fossil-fuel industries become positively associated with maritime conflict onset while democratic dyads with foreign owned industries becomes negatively associated with maritime conflict onset. The results indicate that maritime conflict scholars should consider differences in domestic ownership of fossil-fuel industries when analyzing maritime conflict trends.

Millerd, Carly and Chase LaSpisa. When it Rains, it Pours: The Effect of Natural Disasters on Low-Scale Social Conflict.

Abstract: What is the effect of natural disasters on low-scale conflict events? Previous literature on the social conflict-disaster nexus focuses mostly on rare, large-scale events like civil wars. The literature on low-scale conflict events, like protests, strikes, and riots, emphasizes case-studies and qualitative methodology. We contribute to this body of work by conducting cross-national analyses on low-scale social conflict using the Social Conflict Analysis Dataset and the Mass Mobilization dataset. We argue that yearly number of natural disasters experienced in a state lowers government capacity, increases grievances, and decreases social cohesion. The confluence of these factors should increase the number of protests in the country. We find mixed results across the two datasets, but analyses suggest that higher number of disasters increases the risk of low-scale social conflict occurrence.

Teaching

Teaching Interests

International Relations, Interstate Conflict, Civil Conflict, Foreign Policy, Conflict Management, Maritime International Relations, Social Mobilization, Natural Resource Politics, Research Design

Teaching Experience

Primary Instructor: POLI 3512: International Conflict (Fall 2025) [Syllabus]

CV

You can download my CV here.

Elements

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