Martha Finnemore

Who is Martha Finnemore?

Martha Finnemore is a prominent constructivist scholar of international relations, and University Professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. She is best known for her books: National Interests in International Society, The Purpose of Intervention, and Rules for the World which helped to pioneer constructivism. In 2009, a survey of over 2700 international relations faculty in ten countries named her one of the twenty five most influential scholars in the discipline, and one of the five scholars whose work in the last five years has been the most interesting; an earlier survey of over 1000 American international relations faculty also ranked her similarly in both categories. In 2011 she was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Finnemore completed her B.A. at Harvard, followed by an M.A. from the University of Sydney and a Ph.D. in 1991 from Stanford. Her husband, David Furth, is acting chief of the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission.