Dr. Godson specializes in world politics, transnational relations, and security studies. He is currently examining the security implications of globalization and changes in values and institutions, and the strategies of state and legal and illegal nonstate actors, such as organized crime and ethnic group. For over thirty years, Dr. Godson has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in security and foreign policy, intelligence, international law, and labor in world politics. He has written or edited over twenty books and numerous scholarly articles on a variety of security related subjects. His most recent books include Dirty Tricks or Trump Cards: US Covert Action and Counterintelligence; Menace to Society: Political-Criminal Collaboration Around the World; Strategic Denial and Deception: The Twenty-First Century Security Challenge; Organized Crime and Democratic Governability: Mexico and the US-Mexican Borderlands; Security Studies for the Twenty-First Century.

Dr. Godson has testified before the Congress of the United States on more than twenty occasions about emerging issues in international security, including intelligence, organized crime and corruption, and terrorism. He has been a consultant to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in the White House, the National Security Council, and the United Nations, among others.