Biography

Professor Roper went on from undergraduate study in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford to do doctoral work at the University of Kent, Canterbury and at Georgetown University, Washington D.C.  He was awarded his PhD in 1980. Appointed as a lecturer in the Department of Political Theory and Government at Swansea he then took up a lectureship in American Studies at the University.  Having helped to establish the Department of American Studies he became its Head (1996 -2007).  He also served as Deputy Head in the former School of Humanities.  He is currently the Director of Internationalisation in the School of Arts and Humanities.

Professor Roper has taught at the University of Tennessee, the University of Wisconsin and Ohio State University, and has presented papers at numerous colloquia and international conferences in Europe and the United States. He is a regular guest commentator on American political affairs for BBC Wales.

Current Research

Jon is currently researching a monograph on the development of presidential power in an historical and contemporary context.

Selected Recent Publications

• (2009) The Complete Illustrated Guide to the Presidents of the United States (London: Anness).
• (2009) 'Leadership and Power: Tony Blair, George W. Bush and the War against Iraq' in Lori Maguire,ed., The Foreign Policy Discourse in the United Kingdom and the United States in the “New World Order”, (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing) pp.277-302.
• (2009) ‘The Imperial presidency Redux: presidential power and the war in Iraq” in David Ryan & Patrick Kiely, eds., America and Iraq: Policy-making, Intervention and Regional Politics, (London: Routledge, 2009) pp.217-23
• (2007) (editor) The United States and the Legacy of the Vietnam War, (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan) 
• (2006) (eds with John Baylis) Disunited States: America and Europe Beyond the Neoconserative Divide (Taylor & Francis).

Research Supervision

• American Political Ideas 
• Presidential Leadership and the American Presidency