His research interests lie in the areas of international relations, political economy of conflict, and Chinese politics and East Asian relations. He has worked on military alliances and interstate conflict and is the author of Constructing International Security: Alliances, Deterrence, and Moral Hazard from Cambridge University Press (2012). His current research focuses on the role of arms markets and arms trade networks in international politics. In particular, he is studying the structure of global markets for small arms and light weapons and how they relate to political violence. In addition, he is working on the politics of interstate conventional weapons transfers. Benson is also involved in a project that examines adaptive politics of threatened small states seeking to survive in the shadow of large state foes.