Dr. Corey R. Payne

Corey R. Payne is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Richmond. His research examines the dynamics of historical capitalism, with a focus on war, social conflict, and global governance.

His current book project, Making Endless War: Labor, Globalization, and the Transformation of the US Military-Industrial Complex, explains the seemingly endless character of US wars today through an investigation of the changing labor relations of US war-making. The book traces how, in the late twentieth century, military-industrial elites transformed the social organization of war — on the battlefield, at the point of armaments production, and in global military supply chains — in ways that removed social and political constraints on their actions. This reorganization of war was intertwined with processes of globalization and financialization, resulting in a deep articulation of war- and profit-making that has both incentivized, and removed obstacles to, endless war in the twenty-first century.

Payne has expertise in comparative and world-historical research methods, specializing in world-systems analysis. He is the editor, with Beverly Silver and Roberto Patricio Korzeniewicz, of the book World-Systems Analysis at a Critical Juncture (Routledge, 2022).

Prior to joining the University of Richmond, Payne was a post-doctoral fellow at the Arrighi Center for Global Studies at Johns Hopkins University, where he is still involved in several collaborative research projects on global social protest, inequality and development, and innovations (including the use of artificial intelligence) in historical methods.