Professor Sparrow studies American political development and the conjunction between the American state and the international system. He researches American territorial policies from the 18th to the 21st centuries, from the trans-Appalachian west during the founding to Puerto Rico and the Northern Marianas, among others, today. He is also researching the relationship between geographic expansion and federalism. In addition, Sparrow studies political communication and the role of the news media as a governmental institution. He is currently completing a biography of Gen. Brent Scowcroft, US national security advisor under Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, and a key actor in national security policy from the 1970s up to the present.