PrintMichael Lund
Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow, October 2011- July 2012
Contact
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Project Focus: Democracy without Tears? Avoiding Conflict or State Failure in Post-Authoritarian Transitioning 'Semi-Democracies'
Michael Lund is a former senior specialist of conflict and peacebuilding at Management Systems International, Inc. His research at USIP examines the factors that enabled certain authoritarian regimes to transition relatively peacefully into pluralistic and stable political orders, while other such regimes succumbed to violent conflicts, state collapse, or neo-authoritarianism. Among factors he will probe are the role of the military, economic growth, elite power-sharing, indigenous bridging institutions, political leadership, popular pressures, and international influences. The research will generate guidelines about the types and sequences of policies that can both democratize and prevent violent conflict in transitioning regimes - two widely accepted policy goals that are often contradictory.
Lund has done field-level assessments in sub-Saharan Africa, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Central and East Asia, and South America regarding the sources of intra-state conflicts and the effectiveness of diplomacy, military, development, and governance programs in preventing conflicts and in post-conflict stabilization. This work was done for USAID, the U.S. Political Instability Task Force, the United Nations, the European Union, World Bank, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), Carnegie Commission for Preventing Deadly Conflicts, Council on Foreign Relations, International Development Research Centre, International Peace Institute, Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, and other organizations. Lund was a Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia and has taught at Cornell, UCLA, Johns Hopkins, the University of Maryland, and George Mason University. He completed an M.Th. at Yale University and received his M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago.
Publications:
- Talking through Transitions: Engaging Leaders for Statebuilding, Co-editor and contributor (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2012)
- Security and Development: Searching for Critical Connections, co-editor and contributor (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2010)
- Engaging Leaders for Statebuilding: The Case of the DR Congo (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2010)
- Engaging Fragile States: An International Policy Primer, Editor (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2010)