Dominic D. P. Johnson,^1,* D. Phil,^1,** Bradley A. Thayer<sup>2,***

1</sup>*Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford
²†Stjórnmálafræðideild/Department of Political Science, Háskóli Íslands/University of Iceland

^*Correspondence: Dominic D. P. Johnson, Alastair Buchan Professor of International Relations, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, St. Antony's College, 62 Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6JF, United Kingdom. Email: dominic.johnson@politics.ox.ac.uk
^**Dominic Johnson is professor of international relations at the University of Oxford. He received a D.Phil. in evolutionary biology from Oxford University and a Ph.D. in political science from Geneva University. Drawing on both disciplines, he is interested in how new research on evolution, biology, and human nature challenges theories of international relations, conflict, and cooperation. He is the author of Overconfidence and War: The Havoc and Glory of Positive Illusions (Harvard University Press, 2004), which argues that common psychological biases to maintain overly positive images of our capabilities, our control over events, and the future play a key roles in causing war, and, with Dominic Tierney, Failing to Win: Perceptions of Victory and Defeat in International Politics (Harvard University Press, 2006), which examines how and why popular misperceptions commonly create undeserved victories or defeats in wars and crises. His current work focuses on evolutionary dynamics, evolutionary psychology, and religion in human conflict and cooperation. His new book, God is Watching You: How the Fear of God Makes Us Human (Oxford University Press, 2015), examines the role of religion in the evolution of cooperation and how cross-culturally ubiquitous and ancient beliefs in supernatural punishment have helped human society overcome major challenges of collective action. Other recent work has been an International Security paper, with Monica Toft, “Grounds for War: The Evolution of Territorial Conflict,” which explores the behavioral origins of fighting over land.
^***Bradley A. Thayer is professor of political science at the University of Iceland. Much of Thayer's scholarship centers on life-sciences insights into political-behavioral topics, including the origins of war and ethnic conflict and the dynamics of suicide terrorism. He is the author of Darwin and International Relations: On the Evolutionary Origins of War and Ethnic Conflict (University Press of Kentucky, 2004). His most recent book, with Brian Mazanec, is Deterring Cyber Warfare: Bolstering Strategic Stability in Cyberspace (Palgrave, 2014).