Rate My Professor William Akoto

William Akoto is Assistant Professor of International Politics in the Department of Political Science at Fordham University. His research examines the political economy dynamics of international trade, coup d’états, and cyber conflict, with a particular focus on interstate cyber conflict, state-sponsored cyber attacks, cyber economic espionage, and how states leverage cyber and emerging technologies for national security objectives. Akoto earned his PhD in Political Science from the University of South Carolina in 2019. He also holds an MCom in Economics from Nelson Mandela University, a BCom Honors in Economics, and a BCom in Computer Science from the same university. Prior to joining Fordham, he served as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver and the One Earth Future Foundation. He has taught at the University of South Carolina and Nelson Mandela University in South Africa.

Akoto's scholarship has been published in leading journals including the Journal of Peace Research, Political Research Quarterly, Conflict Management and Peace Science, and Business and Politics. Key publications include "Who spies on whom? Unravelling the puzzle of state-sponsored cyber economic espionage" (Journal of Peace Research, 2024), "International trade and cyber conflict: Decomposing the effect of trade on state-sponsored cyber attacks" (Journal of Peace Research, 2021), "Accountability and cyber conflict: examining institutional constraints on the use of cyber proxies" (Conflict Management and Peace Science, 2022), "Trade Composition and Acquiescence to Sanction Threats" (Political Research Quarterly, 2020, with Timothy M. Peterson and Cameron G. Thies), and "State-sponsored cyber attacks and co-movements in stock market returns: Evidence from US cybersecurity defense contractors" (Business and Politics, 2025). His work has garnered over 200 citations on Google Scholar. At Fordham, he teaches Introduction to International Politics, Global Governance, and Politics of Cyberspace. Akoto has served on the Faculty Elections Committee from 2021 to 2024 and is affiliated with the Fordham Africanist Group. He received the Outstanding Graduate Student Teacher Award from the University of South Carolina Department of Political Science in 2019, along with fellowships including the Adam Smith Fellowship from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University (2016-2017) and the Thurmond-Atwater Fellowship (2015-2016).