Richard Mansbach was born in
Brooklyn on January 3, 1943, Mansbach studied political science, history, and Spanish at
Swarthmore College and graduated in 1964. He then attended the
University of Oxford as a
Marshall Scholar. After completing his dissertation, Mansbach joined the Swarthmore College faculty, in 1967. He became an
assistant professor in 1968. Mansbach remained at Swarthmore for two years. and worked for the
Central Intelligence Agency. He later moved to
Iowa State University. From 1999 to 2004, Mansbach was a co-editor of
International Studies Quarterly, an official journal of the
International Studies Association. The ISA's Midwest Region had previously awarded Mansbach and Yale H. Ferguson the Lynne Rienner/Quincy Wright Award for their coauthored 1996 book,
Polities: Authority, Identities, and Change. In 2014, Mansbach received the ISA's
James N. Rosenau Award. In 2017, the ISA convened a Distinguished Scholar Panel to honor Mansbach and Ferguson. ISA–Midwest honored Mansbach again in 2021, with the
Quincy Wright Distinguished Scholar Award. Mansbach died on February 5, 2026, at the age of 83. ==Selected books==