Michael Doyle is a scholar of global constitutionalism, international affairs, and democratic peace theory. The author of a dozen books, he specializes in international relations theory, international security, international organizations, and the global regime for migration. In 2015, Doyle was named a University Professor, Columbia University's highest academic rank. He teaches at Columbia in the Law School, School of International and Public Affairs, and the Department of Political Science. Before coming to Columbia in 2003, Doyle taught at the University of Warwick; at Johns Hopkins University; and at Princeton University, where he was director of the Center of International Studies and chair of the editorial committee of World Politics.
In 1983 in a two-part article in Philosophy and Public Affairs, he developed the theory underlying the liberal democratic peace, helping to stimulate an extensive research program and a wide policy debate. He has written on international monetary relations (Alternatives to Monetary Disorder: Council on Foreign Relations, 1977, with Fred Hirsch); the history of empires (Empires: Cornell University Press, 1986); theories of international security (Ways of War and Peace, WW Norton, 1997); United Nations peacekeeping (Making War and Building Peace, Princeton Press, 2006, with Nicholas Sambanis); and the ethics of intervention (The Question of Intervention: John Stuart Mill and the Responsibility to Protect, Yale, 2015). His most recent book is Cold Peace: Avoiding the New Cold War (Liveright/WW Norton, 2023). Doyle has received two career awards from the American Political Science Association for his scholarship and public service. In 2009, he received the Charles E. Merriam Award of the American Political Science Association. The award is given biennially "to a person whose published work and career represent a significant contribution to the art of government through the application of social science research." In 2011, he received the Hubert H. Humphrey Award "for notable public service," also from the American Political Science Association. He is the second political scientist to receive both awards. In 2012 he was inducted as the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. The University of Warwick awarded him an honorary doctor of laws degree in 2014.
From 2001 to 2003, Doyle served as assistant secretary-general and special adviser for policy planning to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. In that post, he led a team that developed the Millennium Development Goals and expanded the U.N. Global Compact. He chaired the United Nations Democracy Fund from 2007 to 2013 and has been a vice president and later board member and chair of the International Peace Institute. From 2016 to 2018, Doyle led the development of the Model International Mobility Convention with a commission working to create a model treaty for all aspects of international migration.
Michael Doyle has been invited by the Collège de France assembly on the proposal of Professor Samantha Besson, Chair of International Law of Institutions.