Home / Grants & Fellowships / Jennings Randolph Peace Scholarship Dissertation Program / Jennings Randolph Peace Scholar Dissertation Program

Jennings Randolph Peace Scholar Dissertation Program

Current Peace Scholars

Peace Scholar dissertation fellowships are awarded annually to outstanding doctoral students enrolled in recognized programs at U.S. universities. The fellowships support one year of dissertation research and writing on topics addressing the sources, nature, prevention, and management of international conflict. For further information please consult the Peace Scholar Overview page.

The 2010-2011 Peace Scholar Dissertation Fellowship is from October 1, 2011 – August 31, 2012 unless otherwise indicated.

Ahsan Butt, Goodbye or See You Later? Why States Fight Some Secessionists but not Others
 
Jennings Randolph Peace Scholar
Department of Political Science, University of Chicago
 
Ahsan Butt’s research examines the variation in state response to secessionist movements. Many secessionists provoke violent repression, as in Pakistan and Sri Lanka, but cases such as the Velvet Divorce in Czechoslovakia show that separation can be peaceful.  He explores why some states respond to secessionists with concessions, while other act aggressively.  Butt’s dissertation argues that external security is the key variable.  Secure states, unthreatened by changes in the territorial status quo, are conciliatory.  By contrast, a state that feels threatened by the seceding group, attempts to crush the movement.   His work aims to impact research on the intersection of international and internal conflict, fear and trust in international relations, and third parties in civil conflict.  It advances important policy implications, such as strategies for facilitating peaceful responses to secessionists.
 
Butt is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of Chicago.  He has won multiple fellowships and awards, including the Mellon Fellowship.  He is a blogger for the “Af-Pak Channel” at ForeignPolicy.com and has written opinion pieces for Pakistani newspapers and magazines, including Dawn and The Express Tribune. He earned his M.A. at University of Chicago in 2008 and his B.A. in international studies from Ohio Wesleyan University in 2006.  
 
 

Sheena Chestnut Greitens, Inside the Secret Police: Explaining Patterns of State Violence Under Authoritarianism
 
Jennings Randolph Peace Scholar
Department of Government, Harvard University
 
Sheena Chestnut Greitens' dissertation asks why some authoritarian regimes use intense and indiscriminate force against their own citizens, while others are more restrained.  Drawing on extensive archival and interview research, she chronicles the creation and operation of the internal security apparatus under authoritarian rule in Taiwan, South Korea, and the Philippines, and compares the different patterns of state violence that resulted.  She examines how autocrats balance inherited institutional constraints with coup-proofing incentives, and finds that how violence is organized has important consequences for how it is used against civilians.  Her work contributes to debates on the emergence of civil conflict, human rights, U.S. foreign policy toward non-democratic regimes, and security sector reform. 
 
Greitens is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of government at Harvard University and a fellow in the Miller Center for Public Affairs at the University of Virginia.  Her research interests include East Asia, security studies, and the politics of authoritarian states.  She holds a B.A. in political science from Stanford University and an M.Phil in international relations from Oxford University, where she studied as a Marshall Scholar.  
 
Publications:
  • “The People’s Republic of China at Sixty: Is it Rising?” in William C. Kirby, ed., The People’s Republic of China at 60: An International Assessment (Harvard University Press, 2011), with Alastair Iain Johnston.
  • “Is China Rising?” in Eva Paus, Penelope Prime, and Jon Western, eds., Global Giant: Is China Changing the Rules of the Game? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), with Alastair Iain Johnston.
  • “Illicit Activity & Proliferation: North Korean Smuggling Networks,” International Security, vol 32, no. 1 (Summer 2007) pp 80-111.
     

Erik Cleven, Elites, Youth and Informal Networks: Explaining Ethnic Violence in Kenya and Kosovo
 
Jennings Randolph Peace Scholar
Department of Political Science, Purdue University
 
Erik Cleven’s dissertation will contribute to understanding the mobilization of ethnic violence. In particular it will explain local variations in levels and types of violence after the 2007 post-election violence in Kenya and the March 2004 ethnic riots in Kosovo with cities in both countries as the unit of analysis. It will explore the role (or lack thereof) of civil society and political elites in the mobilization of violence. The nature of ethnic competition as well as the role of informal networks must be taken into account in order to explain the observed patterns of violence. The research will address important questions in the study of political violence, especially the scholarship on the micropolitics of ethnic violence. It will also be relevant to policy questions related to the prevention of violence and post-violence peacebuilding.
 
Cleven is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Purdue University. In 2010 he was the recipient of a Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council. Prior to starting graduate school, Erik lived in Norway and worked for several NGOs on post-conflict peacebuilding and facilitated interethnic dialogue and conflict resolution seminars in Russia and the North Caucasus, all parts of the former Yugoslavia, and the Great Lakes Region of Africa. He has recently been elected a member of the board of the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation.  Cleven holds a B.A. in physics and the Norwegian language from St. Olaf College.
 
Publications:
  • “Press Freedom, Publicity, and the Crossnational Incidence of Transnational Terrorism,” with Aaron Hoffman and Crystal Shelton (Under Review)
  • “Social Capital Data on Japan for Non-Japanese Speakers,” Asian Political and Policy (Vol. 2 (3), 2010)
  • “Between Stories and Faces: Facilitating Dialogue Through Narratives and Relationship Building,” in Heidrun Sørlie Røhr (ed.) Dialog- Meren ord. Jubileumsskrift for Nansen Dialog, 1995-2005
  • "Understanding Ethnic Violence: A Bibliographic Essay," Purdue University's Center for the Study of Violence, online publication
     

Keren Fraiman, Not in Your Backyard: Coercion, Base States and Violent Non-State Actors
 
Jennings Randolph Peace Scholar
Department of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
 
Keren Fraiman’s dissertation focuses on the efficacy of coercion in inducing states to contain violent, non-state actors that reside within them.  Eliminating the bases of violent non-state actors is a critical step in reducing this global threat, and the issue has topped national security agendas worldwide.  At least rhetorically, coercing states into cleaning up their own backyards and containing the threat emanating from their borders, a strategy Fraiman calls transitive compellence, has been a preferred policy.  Fraiman conducts a systematic analysis of the conditions under which this policy has the greatest chance for success through the lens of the complex relationship between the base state and the violent group, as defined by its foreign policy and domestic relationship.  Fraiman examines this dynamic in three case studies: Israel vis-à-vis the fedayeen in Jordan and Lebanon; Turkey vis-à-vis the PKK in Iraq and Syria; and the United States vis-à-vis Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Sudan.  
 
Keren Fraiman is a PhD candidate in the department of political science and a member of the Security Studies Program at MIT.  Her main interests include international relations, security studies, the Arab-Israeli conflict, coercion, and nationalism, with a regional focus on the Middle East.  Fraiman was a researcher with the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism as well as the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University.  Prior to returning to her studies, she worked as a management consultant in the Chicago office of the Boston Consulting Group.  From 1996-1998, she also served as an officer in the Israeli Defense Forces.  Keren received her A.B. with honors in political science and Near Eastern languages and civilizations from the University of Chicago in 2002.
 
 

Kevan Harris, The Martyrs' Welfare State: The Politics of Social Policy in the Islamic Republic of Iran

Jennings Randolph Peace Scholar
Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University
 
Kevan Harris’s dissertation explores why the post-revolutionary Iranian state has endured for almost three decades amidst recurring predictions of collapse due to war, social conflict, and economic turmoil.   He argues that existing explanations focus on the state’s oil revenue or its ideological orientation, but fail to take into account the large social changes that have occurred between and within Iranian state and society.  Harris believes that the post-revolutionary regime in Iran remains resilient because its state-building project has been intertwined with a welfare-building project.  He analyzes Iran as a warfare-welfare state that generated a lasting social compact with particular social classes because of the state’s need for mobilization during the Iran-Iraq War and postwar reconstruction.  His dissertation is based on original research that includes planning documents from government archives, locally produced reports on Iran’s social policy, interviews with welfare administrators, and ethnographic observation of welfare offices in three Iranian cities.
 
Harris is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of sociology at Johns Hopkins University.  He previously served as a field economist for the U.S. Department of Labor in the Chicago branch office.  He has received numerous awards including the Social Science Research Council International Dissertation Fellowship which funded his fieldwork in 2009-2010.  Harris holds a B.A. from Northwestern University in political science and economics.
 
Publications:
  • “Does the Islamic Republic Rely on a Martyrs’ Welfare State? Regime Resilience and Limits Through the Lens of Social Policy in Iran,” Comparing Authoritarianisms: Reconfiguring Power and Regime Resilience in Syria and Iran, ed. Steven Heydemann and Reinoud Leenders (Forthcoming 2011)
  • “Reorienting Iran: Following Gunder Frank’s Advice One Decade at a Time” Political Economy on a World Scale: Essays in Memory of Andre Gunder Frank, ed. Patrick Manning (Routledge, in press 2011)
  • “The Politics of Subsidy Reform in Iran,” Middle East Reports (Vol. 254, 2010)
  •  “Lineages of the Iranian Welfare State: Dual Institutionalism and Social Policy in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Social Policy & Administaration (44 (6), 2010)
  • “The Bazaar in Contemporary Iran,” The Iran Primer, ed. Robin Wright (U.S. Institute of Peace, 2010).
         
 

Marina Henke, International Security and the Politics of Interdependence
 
Jennings Randolph Peace Scholar
Department of Politics and Public Policy, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University
 

Marina Henke’s dissertation develops a theory of participation in third-party military interventions or, what she calls Security Operations. Her work involves qualitative as well as quantitative research methodologies. She has put together an original dataset of all third-party interventions conducted since the end of the Cold War. She uses this dataset to test her theory of interdependence-induced security cooperation. In addition, she has conducted interviews with over 150 decision-makers in more than 10 countries to complement her statistical work and elaborate in detail the motivations of countries joining peace as well as combat operations. 

Marina Henke is a Ph.D. candidate in politics and public policy at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School. She graduated summa cum laude from Sciences Po, Paris with a B.A. in economics, politics and Latin American studies and also holds a double-M.S.in development studies and international political Economy from Sciences Po, Paris and the London School of Economics. From 2008-2009, she was the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Public and International Affairs (JPIA). She also served as a fellow with the House Ways and Means Committee and interned with the European Commission, the European Parliament, the German Foreign Office as well as NGOs in Mexico and Argentina. She has received fellowships from the National Science Foundation, Princeton University, the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, the London School of Economics, the Paris Foundation for Political Research, the Bradley Foundation, and the French Air Force Academy, among others.

Publications:

  • “The Economic Might of the European Union” (Original title: “La Puissance economique de l’UE) in Le Taurillon (Paris, March 2006)
  • “The European Citizens’ Convention” (Original title: “La Convention des citoyens europeens) in Le Taurillon (Paris, December 2005)
     
 

Javier Osorio, Hobbes on Drugs: Understanding Drug Violence in Mexico
 
Jennings Randolph Peace Scholar
Department of Political Science, University of Notre Dame
 
Javier Osorio’s dissertation examines drug violence, which has killed more than 30,000 people in Mexico since December 2006. The drug violence was fueled by Mexican President Felipe Calderon launching a military campaign against drug cartels.  He intends to build a comprehensive database of drug-related violence in Mexico between 2000 and 2010.  It will be the first publicly available geo-referenced database of daily events of drug violence detailing the variety of tactics and actors involved in the war on drugs.  The database will contain roughly 9 million observations, when completed, and provide detailed information on who did what to whom, when and where.  By focusing on Mexico, Osorio’s research responds to the urge to check large-scale drug violence, a pervasive threat to political stability worldwide. 
 
Osorio is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of Notre Dame.  He has previous professional experience at the World Bank, the Mexican Federal Electoral Institute and as a private consultant for various organizations, including the International Transparency Fund.  He holds a B.A. in political science and international relations from Centro de Investigacion y Docenia Economicas (CIDE), Mexico.
 
Publications:
  • “Social Desirability Bias in Vote Buying: Experimental Evidence from Nicaragua,” with Ezequiel Gonzalez-Ocantos, Chad Kiewiet de Jonge, Carlos Melendez and David W. Nickerson, R&R in the American Journal of Political Science (Submitted in March 2010).
     

Hesham Sallam, Indispensible Arbiter: Islamists, Economic Reform and Authoritarian Renewal in the Arab World
 
Jennings Randolph Peace Scholar
Department of Government, Georgetown University
 
Based on fieldwork in Egypt, Jordan and Syria, Hesham Sallam’s project seeks to answer two related questions; namely (1) Why do some autocrats provide Islamist groups political space while others exclude them from political life? (2) How does the political participation of Islamists impact opposition to economic liberalization schemes?  He employs a multi-method research design combining cross-national, statistical analysis and qualitative research with semi-structured interviews with regime-figures, and opposition activists.   His research is the first attempt to systematically theorize autocrats’ incorporation of Islamists into politics.  It also provides insight into unexplored mechanisms through which autocrats exploit identity conflicts in order to manage the de-stabilizing consequences of economic reform and avert loss of power.
 
Sallam is a doctoral candidate in government at Georgetown University and co-editor of Jadaliyya ezine. He is former program specialist at the U.S. Institute of Peace. His research focuses on Islamist movements and the politics of economic reform in the Arab World. Sallam’s research has previously received the support of the Social Science Research Council. Past institutional affiliations include Middle East Institute, Asharq Al-Awsat, and the World Security Institute.  Sallam received a B.A. in political science from the University of Pittsburgh.
 
Publications:
  • “The New Iraq and Arab Political Reform: Drawing New Boundaries (And Reinforcing Old Ones)” in Henri Baker, Scott Lasensky, Phebe Marr (eds.) Iraq, Its Neighbors and the United States (U.S. Institute of Peace Press, forthcoming)
  • “The JMP Alliance: New Political Pragmatism in Yemen?” (with Iris Glosemeyer) in Daniel Brumberg and Dina Shehata (eds.), Conflict, Identity, and Reform in the Muslim World: Challenges for U.S. Engagement (U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 2009)
  • “Opposition Alliances and Democratization in Egypt” USIP Peace Briefing (June 2008)
  • “Think-Tanks and the Privatization of US Policymaking.” (Arabic) Global Issues (Vol. 2, No. 3, September-October 2005).
     
 

Joshua White, Conflicted Islamisms: Shariah and Anti-State Agitation Among Pakistani Islamist Parties
 
Jennings Randolph Peace Scholar
School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), John Hopkins University
 
Joshua White’s dissertation examines the decision-making behavior of Islamist parties within the Pakistani political system.  In particular, he seeks to explain how and why parties decide to support or oppose new shariah measures that challenge state authority.  These parties, while relatively small, hold outsized influence in shaping public debate on matters of religion and conflict; influence mainstream parties; and providing political cover for extremist groups, many of which are active in neighboring India and Afghanistan.  Utilizing archival research and dozens of semi-structured interviews with religious and political leaders, his research will build on the rather limited literature on Islamist parties in Pakistan, and seek to understand the internal dynamics that shape their responses to anti-state extremism.  White hopes to provide new insights to scholars and practitioners into the role in which Islamic parties play in promoting- and, at times, reining in- anti-state violence.
 
Joshua T. White is a Ph.D. candidate in South Asia Studies at The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). His research focuses on Islamic politics, governance, and political stability in South Asia. He has spent extensive time in Pakistan, including a year living in Peshawar in 2005/6 as a fellow with the Institute for Global Engagement, and later as a visiting research fellow at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) and the International Islamic University in Islamabad (IIUI). He has presented his findings in numerous academic and policy fora; has testified before the U.S. Congress; has been interviewed on Al Jazeera, BBC, Voice of America, and Geo News; has participated in several high-level U.S.-Pakistan Track II strategic dialogues; and has served on U.S.-sponsored election observer delegations to both Pakistan and Bangladesh. White graduated magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa from Williams College with a double major in history and mathematics, and completed his M.A. in international relations from Johns Hopkins SAIS, where he received the 2008 Christian A. Herter Award.
 
Publications:
  • “Syed Abul A’ala Maududi,” (with Niloufer Siddiqui), John L. Esposito and Emad El-Din Shahin (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Islam and Politics (forthcoming 2011)
  • “The Perils of Prediction,” in Pakistan’s Future: The Bellagio Papers, Brookings Institution (September 2010)
  • “Pakistan: Between Secularism and Shariah,” SAISPHERE (Winter 2009)
  • Pakistan’s Islamist Frontier: Islamic Politics and U.S. Policy in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier, Religion & Security Monograph Series, no. 1 (Center on Faith & International Affairs, 2008)
  • “Vigilante Islamism in Pakistan: Religious Party Responses to the Lal Masjid Crisis,” Current Trends in Islamist Ideology 7 (Autumn 2008)