Studying conflict from the ground up
Western governments often issue travel warnings, alerting their citizens to the hazards of visiting countries beset by political instability, civil war, crime, violence, or terrorist activities. If Fotini Christia heeded those warnings, she would barely get any work done: Christia, an associate professor of political science at MIT, specializes in the dynamics of civil wars, local politics, and the postwar reconstruction of states, which she has studied from Afghanistan to Yemen. Starting with careful on-the-ground research, Christia weaves local insights with quantitative studies and field experiments to examine political dynamics throughout the Muslim and Arab worlds. A central finding of her work is that politics in these places is not eternally divided along ethnic or religious lines; instead, political divisions and coalitions form for more pragmatic reasons, often reflecting shifts in the balance of power. That conclusion, detailed in Christia’s book, “Alliance Formation in Civil Wars” (Cambridge University Press, 2012), has policy implications...