All Categories - [Christian Davenport]

Death and Life Voted One of the Best Reads for 2025!

12/19/2025

From the webpage of Project Syndicate - The World's Opinion Page:

"As technological advances and geopolitical turmoil transform our economies, this year’s recommended books challenge prevailing assumptions and prompt us to reconsider what we take for granted. Ranging from scholarly analyses to literary fiction, they illuminate the choices that will define the years ahead.
As yet another turbulent year comes to an end, Project Syndicate continues its annual tradition of inviting contributors to recommend the books that most influenced their thinking over the past 12 months. From piercing analyses of geopolitical and economic trends to a vivid biography of the late foreign-policy strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski, this year’s selection features works that challenge prevailing assumptions and push readers to rethink what once seemed obvious. Through scholarship, historical narrative, and literary fiction, these books help us make sense of the centrifugal forces shaping the world today while reminding us of our shared humanity."
CARLA NORRLÖFChristian Davenport and Benjamin J. Appel, The Death and Life of State Repression: Understanding Onset, Escalation, Termination, and Recurrence, Oxford University Press, 2022.
"At a time when authoritarianism is spreading worldwide, Christian Davenport and Benjamin J. Appel show that state repression evolves in distinct stages rather than along a simple linear path. Civic protest, in their telling, initially heightens perceived threats and provokes harsher crackdowns, but later becomes the catalyst for meaningful change. Ending repression is closely tied to institutional transformation – free and fair elections, independent courts, and the resolution of civil conflicts – whereas blunt external tools such as broad sanctions or mid-crisis interventions frequently backfire. Although their data predate the rise of digital surveillance, the book’s lifecycle framework is strikingly timely, shedding light on contemporary debates over policing, electoral legitimacy, and the rule of law."

A call to end state-sponsored mass violence (or, a note on peacemaking before we aren’t going to be allowed to talk about such things),

5/6/2024

Two years ago I wrote this book with Benjamin Appel about how to stop state repression/human rights violation entitled “The Death and Life of State Repression” with Oxford University Press. The work was inspired by the fact that for 30 years researchers had been trying to figure out what (if anything) could be done to stop governments from engaging in large-scale coercion and force directed against those within their territorial jurisdiction and we realized that the community of scholars on this topic could not answer this question because of how it was being studied. There was a big problem: we were not exploring what influenced distinct aspects of what we called “the repression life/death cycle”; rather, we were lumping different aspects together. As a consequence, researchers were more likely to ask what explained variation in overall human rights violations/state repression/genocide/atrocity as opposed to asking what prevented activities from starting in the first place, what reduced the likelihood of behaviors escalating once underway, what increased the chances of terminating an ongoing spell and what decreased the likelihood of another spell starting after one had ended. Such an approach is problematic because framing things in the variation way leads researchers/policymakers to bring together distinct phenomenon that could be driven by different factors. This conflating could lead to mixed results (which it did) leading to a situation where some researchers found support for diverse policies explored while many others did not find any effects at all or, in a few cases, things were made even worse. But, there was an answer: explore the different parts of the repressive spell individually (i.e., onset, severity/lethality, duration and recurrence) and allow for a more accurate evaluation and conclusion. To conduct our investigation we examined 244 spells from 1976-2006. The outcome of this work was significant.

Unlike most research in this area, we did not find that naming/shaming, economic sanctions, signing of international agreements, military intervention and other standard policy options had any consistent/systematic impact on reducing state-sponsored repressive activity. Divestment was not considered because frankly this has not been tried enough times historically. What did have an impact was democratization brought in the wake of some form of civil resistance (mostly non-violent but some that were violent). This influence emerges because we feel that it is only under this circumstance that the cohort of individuals who imagined, ordered and implemented the repressive policy of interest would be removed. Repressive actors do not fear costs and they are not updating in their thinking. Instead, they are doubling down, insulating themselves and going after any/all that criticize them from within and without.

The implication here is important for the current context. If this work identifies a valid approach to stopping an on-going spell of human rights violation, then this would suggest that many of the efforts being put forward to stop what is taking place in Gaza have no evidence to support it. Clearly, not everything requires the type of evidence that we offer but there should be some reason why people are exerting effort and putting their time, their very lives, into something. From our work though, neither naming/shaming, economic sanctions, signing of international agreements, military intervention or other standard policy options should be pursued because they are not going to stop what is taking place. What should be undertaken, however, is a concerted effort to remove the leadership that thought of, ordered and implemented the human rights violations that people are focused on stopping. Now, such a policy seems like it would be problematic as it involves engaging in an effort to interfere with a foreign nation but the United States has had a long history of doing this type of thing. There is some humanitarian legal and moral precedent for taken such action like that articulated within the Right to Protect which requires the international community to step in when individual governments have decided to kill those under their care and not stop when asked to.

But if we, as Americans, are not allowed to discuss what is going on in the world and stand up for the protection of human life wherever it is threatened (with attempts to criminalize discussion of governments who violate human rights), then this hinders our ability to act upon as well as improve that world. Accordingly, there is no government (including our own) that should be above scrutiny and discussion. As far back as Hobbes (or even further) it was been clear that governments can have a privileged position in the international system until they violate their fundamental covenant to protect those within their jurisdiction. Once a government (any government) violates that covenant, then all bets are off regarding deference - this are theoretical, philosophical, legal and political reasons for following this course of action. Viewed as a violator, the rogue, excessively violent, illegitimate governments in question should not be given the courtesies extended to those governments who have not decided to kill those within their care. In fact these violators are expected to be targeted by individuals, governments and institutions the world over until the state-sponsored activity identified as unacceptable has ended. This is the call. This is the way.

Blocks in the Road - Tales of Rwanda, Part 1 (Reposting for Rwanda@30; originally posted on 3/23/2013)

4/10/2024

Rwanda@30. To commemorate the end of the internationalized civil war and genocide, I will be posting a great deal of material on this site.

Between 1999-2004 I traveled around Rwanda doing research. Many things happened on my trips and it is only now that I start to share them.

In my junior year of college, I was driving back to Worcester, Massachusetts from New York City with my oldest friend – Wycuie Bouknight. Wycuie is a tall, thin, dark-skinned and occasionally chatty prince of the city that I have known since fifth grade. We had ended up at the same undergraduate institution by accident and after trying to live with other people, we ended up as roommates. After some holiday, we decided to drive back up to school – late in the evening. The ride up was a combination of jokes, music, reflections, worries, insights and aspirations.

At one seemingly deserted rest stop, we pulled up, went to the bathroom and then began to pull away. Upon doing so, I realized that I had forgotten something in the bathroom. When we turned around to go back, we were surrounded on all sides by three different police cars. After turning all the lights in the parking lot on us and pulling out their weapons, the officers approached the car; the blood quickly left my body. Although they approached us on both sides, I was glad that Wycuie was driving for he would get all the questions – or, at least, that was what I thought.

One cop came to my side, aggressively tapped the window for me to lower it and began to ask questions: “where are you going?”

“Back to school,” I replied.

“What school?”

“Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.”

“Do you have id?”

I waited because I thought they were talking to Wycuie. He repeated his request while walking even closer to the car. Scared to death, I gave him my id.

“What is your name?” He asked.

I never understood this. He has the id, why is he asking the freaking question? “Christian Davenport,” I said, barely squeezing it out.

Another car arrived and two more officers came out.

“When were you born,” he continued.

My mind was blank. I couldn’t remember my birth day. Then after a long pause, “June. In June.” I stammered. Then after another long pause, I blurtered out, “I’m a Gemini.”

At this, the police officers and Wycuie laughed in an almost uncontrollable fashion. The guns were put away, the officers left and we pulled off – never to stop or speak for the rest of the trip. We would speak of the incident later, especially repeating the comical break at the end, but the seriousness of that moment caught us both – one second, one mistake, one twitch – we were shot, it was just that simple.

I thought of this incident hitting my first roadblock in Rwanda. Many of the elements were the same: men with guns, attitude, a road that could not be passed, uncertainty, fear. Several elements were different: I did not speak the language, the guns were not handguns but machine guns, guns were not being pointed at anyone – they were just being carried in a casual fashion, the number of cops involved in the process was seemingly endless: there were the two in the middle of the road, there were the six conducting searches of stopped vehicles, there were the ten sitting on the side of the road for back up and there were another five or six taking a wiz on a tree.

This was perhaps the only time I did not mind my Mizungu status. Slow down, the driver would either know someone at the block, say something to him that would convince him that we were safe or show him papers. The guard would look in and either pull us to one side or wave us through. We were easy to spot. We currently had one person in a seat and we were spread out in the automobile. This differentiated us from the other cars that had five to six persons per seat as well as a few more holding on the outside.

The guards faces were indifferent, cold, unmoving and ready for action. The faces on that road in Worcester had been more varied. All were white but some were relaxed – enjoying the test of wills and the seriousness of the action. Some were angry – waiting for someone to start so that they could finish. Some were pleasant (rarely) – doing their job with a degree of professionalism, never acknowledging that the “Driving While Black” Christian and Wycuie takedown was the reason we had been stopped.

In contrast, I got nothing from the Rwandan faces. Clearly, however, the difference were there. Other cars, busses and vans that were stopped had their doors immediately opened, individuals were trotted out and searched on the roadside.

I was told these were standard “security measures.”

“What are they looking for,” I asked.

“Weapons,” I was told – matterfactly. “People that aren’t supposed to be where they are not supposed to be.”

“Who is that?”

To this, I hit that wall around which you could never pass in Rwanda. “So wide, you can’t get around it; so low, you can’t get under it; so high, you can’t get over it.” There is a place beyond which one cannot pass. There are questions that cannot be asked. There are places where one could not go.

Of course, things would not stay the same. On each trip to Rwanda, the roadblocks would be fewer. The guns would be less numerous. The guards less apparent from everyday life. These would normally be good signs – signals of an opening, a reduction (like the Surge in Iraq). But, what did they signal here? Something different? Something darker?

My take was the latter. One reason why you pull back security and reduce road stops is because there was nobody left to fear. Once the enemies of the government go abroad, get shot, go to jail or hide, there is nobody left to stop. With no one left to fear, the road opens. You were now partially free to move about the country – albeit slowly.

Now, a trip up to Worcester was a different matter, a different story. There are plenty of people left to stop in the states.

Divestment, State Violence and the Effective Way Forward

4/5/2024

I just came from a protest yesterday on the Diag at the University of Michigan.

I was both inspired and a little dejected at what I saw. There was 100+ students rallying around the idea that the new university policy regarding disruptive activity was restrictive, if not repressive. They suggested that they would not be deterred from their path of action: having the university divest from Israel. Why this course of action? Well, the speakers seemed interested in removing the perceived complicity with the violent behavior being enacted by the Israeli government. They did not want wolverine nation associated with genocide.

Now, I was pleased by the rally because as a human rights scholar and concerned human being, I believe that all violence and especially state violence should be resisted in any way, shape or form possible that will be effective. I was a little dejected, however, as a social movement scholar and concerned human being because it is not at all clear that divestment actually reduces human rights, violations, and state-sponsored genocide. Perhaps the most famous case of divestment in an effort to stop state sponsored behavior is South Africa, but in this context the repressive behavior of interest was not genocide and divestment did not reduce state sponsor violence. By most accounts, the divestment effort placed a light on the topic but all it seemed to do regarding the violence was shift the manner in which the South African government and the economic actors functioned. In a sense, divestment created an even more difficult repressive regime in the sense that it prompted the South African government to be even less reliant and more independent upon actors that were otherwise able to exert some kind of influence on them. I am concerned about the divestment discussion because like symbolic representation, people seem more interested in how things looked and how people felt than on the substance of how to stop state-sponsored violence.

And on this topic, I feel compelled to revisit my last book - The Death and Life of State Repression: Understanding Onset, Escalation, Termination and Recurrence. This piece was explicitly interested in the idea of stopping state-sponsored violence and this is what is going on. I think that the use of the word/concept "war" (like in the case of "civil war" in the United States of America) is impending our ability to understand what is going on and what should be done. The creation of the relevant territories is a complex and detailed one but how can we consider war which is to be fought between nation-states when one of the states lacks the one thing that is supposed to define one: i.e., the legitimate control over coercion and force? One could of course consider the diverse forms of war put forward by the Correlates of War Project:

Non-State Wars: Between or among non-state entities.
Intra-State Wars: Predominantly take place within the recognized territory of a state.
Inter-State Wars: Occur between or among recognized states.
Extra-State Wars: Between one or more states and a non-state entity outside the borders of the state.

But I believe that they all fail to capture the situation.

One could consider "civil war" but this implies an open form of contestation between two sides that are conceptually and practically able to engage in comparable levels of violence. Think of what Sambanis' piece "What is Civil War?" discusses:

(a) The war takes place within the territory of a state that is a member of the international system with a population of 500,000 or greater.
(b) The parties are politically and militarily organized, and they have publicly stated political objectives.
(c) The government (through its military or militias) must be a principal combatant. If there is no functioning government, then the party representing the government internationally and/or claiming the state domestically must be involved as a combatant.
(d) The main insurgent organization(s) must be locally represented and must recruit locally. Additional external involvement and recruitment need not imply that the war is not intrastate. Insurgent groups may operate from neighboring countries, but they must also have some territorial control (bases) in the civil war country and/or the rebels must reside in the civil war country.
(e) The start year of the war is the first year that the conflict causes at least 500 to 1,000 deaths. If the conflict has not caused 500 deaths or more in the first year, the war is coded as having started in that year only if cumulative deaths in the next 3 years reach 1,000.
(f) Throughout its duration, the conflict must be characterized by sustained violence, at least at the minor or intermediate level. There should be no 3-year period during which the conflict causes fewer than 500 deaths.
(g) Throughout the war, the weaker party must be able to mount effective resistance. Effective resistance is measured by at least 100 deaths inflicted on the stronger party. A substantial number of these deaths must occur in the first year of thewar.41 But if the violence becomes effectively one-sided, even if the aggregate effective-resistance threshold of 100 deaths has already been met, the civil war must be coded as having ended, and a politicide or other form of one-sided violence must be coded as having started.
(h) A peace treaty that produces at least 6 months of peace marks an end to the war.
(i) A decisive military victory by the rebels that produces a new regime should mark the end of the war. Because civil war is understood as an armed conflict against the government, continuing armed conflict against a new government implies a new civil war. If the government wins the war, a period of peace longer than 6 months must persist before we code a new war (see also criterion k).

This does not appear to fit what is taking place either.

Why does classification of what is taking place matter? Well, if we do know what we are dealing with, then we cannot stop it. And in this context, I would suggest that what we are seeing in Israel is an instance of state repression; large-scale state repression (which includes not only genocide but also crimes against humanity and atrocities). This is typically defined as state behavior enacted against someone under the territorial control of the political authority for the purposes of influencing the behavior and/or thought of the target and/or some audience. I would argue that this is what we are seeing.

It is important to make this classification because stopping the behavior of interest becomes one of understanding and then perturbing the following model:

As I have summarized elsewhere in my book as well as the article ""Stopping State Repression", once we focus on an ongoing instance of state-sponsored violence (i.e., a spell), there are very few policies/actions that can stop it. From existing work, it's not naming and shaming. It's not military intervention. It's not economic sanctions. It's not getting governments to sign documents. It's not even eliminating the perceived behavioral challenger. And, it's definitely not divestment - at least not from the research on this topic that I am familiar with and that's going on 30 years worth of attention to the topic. Over this time, I have not seen a single empirical investigation of this topic. What is involved with termination of an ongoing campaign is the removal of the existing political cohort that supported the implementation of repressive behavior.

And in this context I was wondering why the students were so passionately talking about something that had no empirical basis/support for its impact on the behavior of interest. As I stood there I wondered if symbolic effort had replaced substantive. Perhaps it was just about people feeling better about themselves and doing what they felt was the right thing to do. As I stood there I thought about the ease of doing what seemed effective as opposed to the difficulty of doing what might be actually effective. Perhaps once the repertoire of what students feel they could do has been established, it is incredibly difficult to change that.

The Mobile Archive Recovery Unit - Coming Soon!

11/20/2023

Many people have material relevant to political conflict, violence and peace in their possession but they are not easily able to get somewhere where it could be archived, stored, shared and studied. After decades of both positive as well as negative experiences, in conjunction with the Literature, Science and Arts College at the University of Michigan, I have created the Mobile Archive Recovery Unit or MARU. This vehicle, which will be available to all at the University of Michigan, can be outfitted with different equipment as deemed necessary - copiers, scanners, video cameras and/or audio recording machines. There will even be a way to just open up the side like a food truck to just have people walk up like the old Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) trucks. There were a bunch of decisions made on the design that were made to facilitate this (which I will discuss another time).

MARU will allow researchers to go into the field/street and assist people throughout the Midwest with sharing their material for subsequent evaluation at the University of Michigan as well as online. The big dream is to have regionally stationed MARU's throughout the United States so that we can go into relevant communities to collect as well as to share what amazing history we have co-created together.

MARU at Michigan will be simple: sign it out, assemble what you need and then go make history. First efforts should be taking place in the new year. More coming.

My 30-year Professorversary: The University of Maryland

11/20/2023

I have now been a professor for 30 years. Hard to believe. I am often asked about my path through the profession and I finally got around to writing some of it down. I think I might have forgotten a job interview or two (likely the ones I got rejected from) but I managed to remember a great deal.

Over the next year, I will go through what I was thinking as well as what noteworthy events happened along the way. I started at the beginning when I was at the University of Houston and then moved to my next institution: The University of Colorado (where I was from 1996-1999). Today I continue to the next institution: The University of Maryland. I was prompted to think about this period and this blog by the recent football game between Maryland and the University of Michigan (which the latter squeezed by to win - in my opinion [Go Blue]). Regardless, I thought that I would get back to it. Enjoy.

The University of Maryland - College Park, 1999-2009

Soooooooooo, I had been at Colorado for three years but things changed from the period of my initial hire (as they often do). You might recall I went to Colorado to be around other people who studied political conflict and violence (most notably, Mark Lichbach and Mike Ward). While there I discovered some other people who I did not really know about ahead of time (e.g., James Scarrit, William Safran, Jeff Kopstein, Dan Drezner and Padraic Kenney in history). There was really no one at Houston who explicitly considered themselves a conflict and violence person. James Gibson was close with his work on political repression but this was not his primary interest at the time and he was incredibly busy (a good thing).

The Colorado move was good in other ways in addition to putting me in closer conversation to "my people". Similar to my time at Houston where I met and interacted with David Klinger in Sociology as well as Amilcar Shabazz in History and African American studies, I also started to interact with people from other departments (e.g., Joy James, Elisa Facio and Evelyn Hu Dehart in Ethnic Studies). This further opened my eyes to the benefits of being at a university. Not everything was the same. Unlike Houston where I taught, lectured and generally hung out with people at Shape Cultural Center or Project Row Houses (with Guggenheim genius Rick Lowe), however, I did not really establish any connections with the local community in Colorado. My affiliation with Shape and occasional interactions with Texas Southern University even facilitated my initial interactions with members of the Republic of New Africa who would often attend different events. In Colorado though, I could never find a spot that felt comfortable.

One day it all changed though (as it occasionally does). I got contacted by the famous Professor Ted Gurr. Now, folks might not be able to understand how important this was at the time but Ted was HUGE in my mind. He wrote some of the most interesting pieces of scholarship on conflict and violence (most notably Why Men Rebel which no one seemed to read completely). He ran an incredibly important project on ethnic persecution and mobilization (i.e., Minorities at Risk). And, he was trying to have an impact on the real world by consulting as well as outright working with distinct government agencies (more on this later). After some awkward beginning, Ted said that he contacted me about coming to Maryland. He had heard that I might be willing to move after Mark and Mike's departures (former colleagues of his). Not only was he telling me that he was interested in my coming to join them at Maryland but he told me straight out that he wanted me to come to Maryland to run Minorities at Risk and what at the time was the premier measure for political democracy - Polity. I was floored. I still needed to interview of course abut this sounded exactly like what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be.

This was noteworthy for me because, for the first time, I allowed myself to consider personal matters. One of the my favorite relatives was in the area and this generally put me back on the East Coast where I felt most comfortable (I was going to live in DC). Now, as anyone who has spent time in DC will tell you, it aint the East Coast but it was closer than Texas or Colorado and frankly I was willing to take anything that got be closer to the city (New York). I had not quite realized that the New York that existed was not the one that I knew and loved (which was dead) but I will get to that later. At the time I was happy to be going homeish.

After an interview, I was off to DC. In many respects, the job and living there was everything that I thought it would be. In other respects, Maryland and DC was an eye-opening train wreck that compelled me to move on. I'll get to this on the next one.

My 30-Year Professorversary: The Move to Colorado

12/14/2022

I have now been a professor for 30 years. Hard to believe. I am often asked about my path through the profession and I finally got around to writing some of it down. I think I might have forgotten a job interview or two (likely the ones I got rejected from) but I managed to remember a great deal.

Over the next year, I will go through what I was thinking as well as what noteworthy events happened along the way. The original inspiration for this came from one of my students. I thank you for putting me on the path.

The University of Colorado - Boulder, 1996-1999

Sooooo, I had been at the University of Houston for three years. It was an interesting experience. It was my first job, I had never visited let alone lived in Texas or the South (although I think that Texas is an entity onto itself and has nothing to do with Alabama, etc.). In many ways, I had carved out a decent life.

I managed to get some work done and learn how to be in the profession from Raymond Duch and James Gibson. These two took me under the wings, shared grant proposals, showed me unpublished manuscripts and looked at numerous drafts of things I had put together. They were rough but always fair all the while providing incredible food and conversation. I had connected with the Department of African American studies to reconnect with black folks which had been largely absent during my time in graduate school. This was a useful experience because it provided access to black students who were not easily found in political science and it also provide some resources for work I was trying to do with Darren Davis (who was just finishing up as a graduate student there at the time). As we were basically just finishing at the same time, we bonded in a great number of ways but I was just starting and Darren was just finishing so we wee not always able to hang as we would later. I was working with some people at this amazing institution - The Shape Community Center run by Deloyd Parker, a political leader and inspiring human being. Deloyd let me teach a class on Political Education which led to my first board game - The Hood. I ended up scrapping broader conversations of politics, power and struggle to work with the students on better understanding what they saw on the way to the Cultural Center. I would later use this game in diverse detention centers. At this time, I would run across Rick Lowe - entrepreneur, artist and convener. I also reached out and interacted with some folks at Texas Southern (which was just up the block) and Prairie View (which was a little further away). The latter began my exploration into black nationalism and the Republic of New Africa through the late/great Imari Obadele, which I will discuss another time in greater detail.

While things progressed professionally, I felt a bit isolated. In Houston I was hired to teach international relations which was interesting to do as the Soviet Union was collapsing. I was trained in this topic coming from a bunch of people from the Correlates of War Project as well as the group of sociologists including Immanuel Wallerstein and Jame Petras. While interesting, I wanted more substantive interaction on my chosen topic: political conflict and violence. There was no one at Houston that really had this interest in this subject (Gibson came closest having done some stuff on civil liberties restriction but he was not a hardcore conflict/violence person). In this context, I began to look for "my people".

Initially, I re-explored an opportunity at Washington University. I had almost gone there two years before (as discussed in my last post) but I just could not get around some of the racial dynamics. Approached a second time - directly by the great John Sprague (who I regretfully cannot find any web page for) - I thought about it one more time. On this interview though, I was able to do what you rarely are able to do. I met what would have been me. I forget his name now but in the time since my interview Washington University ended up hiring their first African American in political science. We immediately bonded and in what I still view as a strange request he invited me to meet him at something like 6 or 7 o'clock in the morning because he said that he wanted to show me something. I suppose I was really curious what the hell he would want to show me that early, so I said yes. At the appointed time, we went to this stairwell as the sun was just rising. I had done weirder stuff in New York growing up and the brother seemed cool, so I was alright. He directed me to look out of the window at the parking lot and, as in some movie. during a 15-20 minute period you saw all the black workers who had been cleaning walk out and all of the white secretarial staff come in. Over some coffee, he then preceded to tell me what his (and my other life) would have been like with the sense of awkwardness and outsiderness. He also mentioned something that had not even occurred to me: every black institution in St. Louis had approached him to speak and affiliate. This was draining and he felt he had to say yes. In the wake of this burden, his scholarship suffered.

I ended up not accepting the offer but as Sprague had some familiarity with conflict and violence I did get a taste of what I would like to be around someone with knowledge in my topic of interest (John's sophistication led me to Ron Francisco and others like Phil Schrodt who were more advanced on the modeling end of conflict/violence). This opportunity happened when I was contacted by the equally great Mark Lichbach. Mark was something of a conflict/violence savant - he read everything and his ability to synthesize was exceptional. He was also from Brooklyn and jewish, so we immediately bonded in a way that only folks from the East coast might understand. Mark's pitch was simple: we have your people. Upon exploring the department and (for the first time) the university writ large, I realized that (as usual) he was right. At the time, UC - Boulder had him (protest/repression and civil war), Mike Ward (interstate and civil war, geography), Steve Chan (war), James Scarritt (ethnic conflict), Ann Contain (social movements), Jeffrey Kopstein (worker's resistance and reconciliation), Sam Fitch (civil-military relations) and William Safran (ethnicity). There were also people that did different kinds of conflict/violence outside of political science: Joy James (black oppression and resistance), Evelyn Hu-Dehart (diasporas and resistance) as well as the late/great Elisa Facio (social movements, feminism, chicana identity). I took the offer and moved to Denver - well Golden actually. Boulder was way to expensive and not as diverse as Denver. Golden let you overlook the whole valley though and there was a road along the mountains that provided a direct route to Boulder.

Now, it turned out that while the people just mentioned above all were employed by the same university, they did not see themselves as people who studied political conflict and violence. I will save that realization and experience for another time. I'll stop here for now.

The U.S. & Africa Need to Dialog About Violence This Week - both Within as well as Between, but it Ain't Gonna Happen Because That's Way Too Real

12/12/2022

After years and years of violence, there appears to be a global reckoning with its aftermath. We saw this in the various truth commissions throughout the world (e.g., South Africa, Chile and Nepal). Such a phenomenon has even come to the United States as everyone from the the city of Tulsa and Georgetown University to the state of California and Congress are trying to figure out what to do about prior violent behavior. But, yoooooooo - it's complex and this leads me to be very skeptical. Nothing reveals this than the upcoming U.S. Africa Leaders Summit.

The dilemma for me seems straightforward. You want to give people voice but you don't want to offend folks. You want to hold people accountable but you want to facilitate dialog as well as action. The complexity and skepticism for me was first seen in President Bill Clinton's effort at Racial Reconciliation in the 1990s. It started out well. They wanted to
1. Promote a constructive national dialogue to confront and work through challenging issues that surround race;
2. Increase the Nation’s understanding of our recent history of race relations;
3. Bridge racial divides by encouraging leaders . . . to develop and implement innovative approaches to calming racial tensions;
4. Identify, develop, and implement solutions to problems in areas in which race has a substantial impact
What could go wrong, right? Well, as the late-great Charles Tilly used to say: The Devil is in the Details. In Denver, the Clinton crew came to town to promote that constructive dialog. I was at the University of Colorado Boulder at the time, so I grabbed a chair and watched the show. The panel was composed of some that traveled from place to place as well as some local notables - I suppose to lend some legitimacy to the whole affair and to get some historical accuracy. Things never got that deep though. There was a presentation from the panel (everyone just getting a few minutes) and then I recall them opening up to the floor to hear what they had to say. I don't recall them issuing a time limit up front but after the first or second soulful, detailed statement regarding the person's experience with racism, the panel limited folks to about 1-2 minutes. Watching an 80 year old black man try to condense his experiences into this time frame was simply heart-wrenching and there were 20 others behind him waiting for their turn. The panel and Clinton clearly had no idea of what they were opening up and this is one of the reasons that whole event and initiative kind of fell apart. There was so much that was left unsaid.

This is what I fear about the Leaders Summit. The objectives are again bold. According to the webpage, the convening is intended to

build on our shared values to better:

Foster new economic engagement
Advance peace, security, and good governance
Reinforce commitment to democracy, human rights, and civil society
Work collaboratively to strengthen regional and global health security
Promote food security
Respond to the climate crisis
Amplify diaspora ties
Promote education and youth leadership

This is nice but I am caught with the second and the third. I can't get past them. Many of the leaders coming to this event have been systematically undermining peace, security, good governance, democracy, human rights and civil society. I'll just take one: President Paul Kagame.

This is an individual who invaded a sovereign nation from another. We rarely now talk about the human rights situation in Rwanda prior to 1989 (before the invasion) but the situation was not dire. Looking at the Amnesty International report for 1990 which compiled information from the year before one can see that things weren't great a few thousand people were stuck in prison and trying to get out but the level of violence was not what it would be after the invasion begins.

After consolidating power after the interstate turned civil war (after pushing into the country from abroad and setting up shop) and genocide, Rwanda moved into what could best be described as a military occupation for a while. There were road blocks and checks and curfews and solidiers everywhere. This makes complete sense to me, of course. The winners the Rwandan Patriotic Front had just won a war. Interestingly, there is a moment somewhere between 1995-2000 where a vibrant civil society was coming alive. At this time, there were newspapers and human rights group and civil rights groups all compiling as well as putting out amazing pieces of information about what was taking and what should take place. Beginning in 2003/4 (around the 10th anniversary of the 1994 violence) however this vibrancy was being restricted and eliminated. Slowly Rwanda turned into something that looked more like an authoritarian, repressive nation than a democratic, peaceful one.

And, it bears mentioning that the Rwanda governments behavior has not been limited to Rwanda itself. It has reached into nearby Congo, South Africa and with the case of Paul Rusesabagina - the hero of Hotel Rwanda - it has even reached to the United States. Freedom House, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and selective academics (e.g., Judi Fever's In Praise of Blood and Michela Wrong's Do Not Disturb) document this thoroughly. Rusesabagina is especially problematic for Kagame and the Summit because Rusesabagina appears to be one of the best examples of democracy left within the country. There might not be any viable political parties to challenge the existing one but there is Rusesabagina. There may not be any free media but there is Rusesabagina. For democracy to be said to exist, there must be someone outside of the ruling group that has a political opinion and can express it freely. Thus for Kagame to have a legitimate seat at the table, it seems reasonable for him to be asked about releasing Rusesabagina - this politically and peaceful oriented being - from prison.

But before you get all "that sounds pretty straightforward" on me, I would add that this whole event is complicated by the fact that you have the United States of America hosting and potentially guiding the conversation. After reading Martin Meredith's The Fortunes of Africa (especially chapter 66; yes, 66!) regarding the re-colonialization of Africa after independence), The Looting Machine by Tom Burgis, The United States of War by David Vine as well as political science databases on coups, leadership changes and external influence on Africa, it is clear that the United States has not often played a positive role in Africa - to say the least. And here is where the global reckoning needs to occur because I would argue that before the United States can try to provide criticism and advice to leaders like Kagame, they must provide the details on how they have contributed to the problems that they need to comment on: failed democracy and successful authoritarianism, increased repression and reduced positive peace. Perhaps in this spirit, folks at the Summit as well as abroad might be more able to hear as well as act upon the suggestions put forward.

But, yes another but, don't get all "I'm sure it will all work out" because in order for all this to happen we will need to see a Vice President that we have not yet seen: one ready to take a major stand on an issue that might piss off a bunch of people. Indeed, the optics of telling a bunch of black people that they need to do something and mores that they are the reason that things are messed up in the first place is a hard one to imagine for any politician - especially for one that is trying to find their feet politically. Being a black person telling other black people might take away some of the sting but that only goes so far. The "moment" that we are in is a complex one when it comes to communication.

It Took 30 Years to Get my First African American Grad Student

10/31/2022

This year Kiela Crabtree (an amazing human, scholar and former graduate student at the University of Michigan) successfully submitted and defended her dissertation (which I will discuss a little below). Kiela has taken an amazing job at Emory University after having several interviews and numerous offers on a market that many believed to be non–existent. This is a stellar achievement and I am incredibly proud to have the opportunity to work with Kiela in some capacity. At the same time, I need to note that it has taken 30 years for me to be able to shepherd an African American to the level of PhD. I have had the honor of working with numerous women over the years and a few years ago my first latino but Kiela is my first black person. In discussing the celebration of Kiela, I would be remiss if I did not think about why this was the case and that is the topic of my first blog in quite a while (the reason to be discussed another time).

First, I am not working in subfields where many African Americans have been located historically and thus it has not been easy to find students. I think it is fair to say that most have been within the field of American politics. I won’t say that they have been aggressively hindered from international relations and comparative politics (which I would view as the two fields that I have most been associated with) but they have not been as recruited and cultivated as they have in American.

For those in the room at that meeting at ISA a while back please chime in but I vividly recall a session years ago where something remarkable happened. At some point during one of the presentations, I caught the eye of Kathy Powers (a stellar unicorn as one of the first African American women in quantitatively oriented IR). We looked at one another not to say hi (because we had already done that) but rather to acknowledge that we were not the only black folk in the room (something that we had been used to at ISA). Following the session, we approached all of the students we could reach and invited them to chat for a few minutes - informally. We wanted to mark the occasion, welcome our younger colleagues and see how they were doing. This is kind of how we rolled into our Pathway program which was about recruiting, training, advising, placing and retaining black folk in comparative and IR.

The conversation was a revelation and as I recall somewhat sad. Out of the 7 or so young scholars we met, about 5 mentioned that this was likely the last comparative/IR event they would attend as they felt that there was no place for them/us in the association or subfield. They mentioned that they felt isolated in terms of the topics they were studying and that they were treated poorly whenever they talked about black folk – a relevant example they felt for many of the topics being brought up in the ISA sessions as well as their home departments. It was hard to disagree with the points they raised but I recall discussing the virtues of struggle and that there were many aspects of the problems they were discussing which it would not be possible to address within an American politics framework (e.g., the international system of capitalism, empire/imperialism and military industrial complex). By the end, the young folk were not swayed and we bid them farewell to try their luck in American (and America). We could not retain the youth in IR/comparative because the American pull was too strong. I would argue that it still is and that needs to change.

Second, I am not working in a topic area that Americanists generally felt useful/interesting (i.e., political conflict and violence) and thus it has been difficult to find students. Americanists have not generally focused on conflict and violence or at least that is what the mainstream is led to believe. Once upon a time, however, this subfield led discussions about what is power and who has it. You might recall the “three faces” discussion but this really just focused on decision-making (associated with Lukes). More relevant to coercion and force was the discussion of alternative concepts/expressions: i.e., power-to, power-over as well as power-with (associated with Mary Parker Follett). Some even tried their hand at discussing social movements as agents of change (most prominently including the Civil Rights Movement) and riots/rebellions (associated with diverse political-sociologists like Tilly, Gurr and Eisenstadt). This was pretty early on though and most don’t go back that far. This focus was even moreso developed in sociology which not only explored these same topics at the same time but they continued to explore them past the 1970s and 1980s. What we have been left with, as John McCamant argued is a field where political scientists have advocated a somewhat antiseptic conception of politics where there is essentially no place for coercion and force – even as political authorities use these activities. This has led to focus on the “inside game” (i.e., the things done within already established institutions) and it essentially led to ignoring those not on the inside as well as what they might do in order to be heard. That was then, however. Now, folks realize that the inside game is not the only game being played. Add to this revelations of U.S. enacted/facilitated torture following 9/11, the attempted insurrection during the Trump administration as well as the police response to black folk in general and the movement regarding police violence, individuals within the academy and beyond have come to focus on political conflict and violence. Those paying attention have also been motivated to focus on the topic through newer revelations about internationally used coercion and force undertaken by the US government during Afghanistan as well as throughout US history as discussed in “the United States of War,” the selective use of violence following the drone program and the development of a global police state facilitated through direct participation, training as well as grants.

Third, I needed to be in a department where enough of my colleagues were supportive of a dissertation which brought political conflict and violence into an American context and/or I was in a position where disinterested/hostile colleagues could be overrun. When I was at the University of Houston, there were not enough conflict/violence people nor enough Americanists who expressed an interest in the topic that would have allowed a committee to be created. This awareness of departmental dynamics influenced the selection of my next 4 jobs as I realized what was taking place. But, for three of these jobs, I was still not able to pull off a Kiela because I still needed to have enough students of color being brought into the department where the traditional American pull could be worked on and eventually overcome. In addition to this, I also realized that I needed to be senior enough that I could cultivate/support as well as defend/protect student interest from the numerous questions and challenges that others in the department would put forward regarding an unconventional pairing of topic area and geographic focus.

It took me 30 years to figure all this out and Kiela is to be understood in this context. She represents a newer wave of scholars who are attempting to understand the place of conflict and violence in the United States. Specifically, Kiela is interested in understanding how anti-racial/ethnic violence impacts political attitudes of those targeted and those witnessing this violence. She is also interested in comprehending how anti-racial/ethnic violence prompts individuals as well as communities to engage in political behavior. This is important work because it expands the landscape of that which is believed to be important. Americanists are seemingly more open to hearing this (although I was somewhat optimistic about new scholarship being developed on the problems of the Patriot Act) and I imagine that over the next decade or so we will see more turn in this direction. While generally hopeful about this, however, I fear that there will not be enough of a search backwards in time to extract the best/brightest ideas that have been developed on the relevant subject. Folks in political science in particular and the social sciences in general are not good at standing with those who have come before. I don’t like the phrase/image of standing on the backs of these people because it sounds like we are exploiting and using them in some way. Rather, I like to think of standing together – Follett’s “coaction”/”coactivity” – looking forward. And, I am not just talking about looking to political science. I think that it is becoming increasingly clear that studying and understanding political conflict and violence in the American context as well as the rest of the world requires that all disciplines be drawn upon: i.e., political science, sociology, economics, psychology, history, public policy, law and (dare I say) literature as well as film. Indeed, hopefully we will acknowledge that the interdisciplinary study of conflict and violence is the best and only way for the American scholarship to go. Kiela was able to pull this off in her dissertation (another reason for being proud).   Time will tell if others move in a similar direction.

My 30 year Professorversary! A New Series

3/8/2022

I have now been a professor for 30 years. Hard to believe. I am often asked about my path through the profession and I finally got around to writing some of it down. I think I might have forgotten a job interview or two (likely the ones I got rejected from) but I managed to remember a great deal.

Over the next year, I will go through what I was thinking as well as what noteworthy events happened along the way. The original inspiration for this came from one of my students. I thank you for putting me on the path.

I actually will take a few moments right now to reflect on the beginning because I recently discovered something that was important to me at the moment but I had not realized its historical significance - think Cinema Paradiso meets some Spike Lee movie you liked.

The University of Houston (How it all began)

Coming out of graduate school from Binghamton University in 1991, I did not receive much assistance from anyone. The department in general as well as my committee in particular seemed to just be happy to have a student get an interview. No one talked to me about what to expect. There was no practice job talk. I was on my own.

My first interview was at Washington University (in 1991) and I was as nervous as one could be. I had practiced but it was a very prestigious private institution and walking onto the campus I was reminded of the private high school that I attended for a while (before being asked to leave - another story). Campus was clean and university-like but I suppose at the time I was most struck by a few things.

First, my one on ones revealed something of a holy arch of achievements and degrees. Behind the desk of each individual, I remember seeing the people sitting in the middle of what appeared to be an arch. The PhD may have always been at the top or near the top while various awards and other degrees fell off to either side. I quickly noted how many were from the Ivy League.

Second, in certain respects I remember feeling like I was in one of my comprehensive exams. It seemed clear from tones and questions that some were not content to see the cv or transcript but they literally wanted to take me through some of the details of what I had allegedly learned. I recall one interesting lunch with Andy Sobel, Charles Franklin and the late Robert (Bob) Durr. I was happy to meet them and thought a little about what would be best to order given that I might need to swallow quickly, continue talking and try not to mess up my shirt. It didn't matter though because I never got to eat a bite. I doubt they noticed. The three of them starting calmly grilling me about diverse methodological questions and how to best approach them. At one point, I just kind of pushed my food to the side and settled in to the answering. Its a happy story, of course - I got the offer in the end. It was an intense moment though. I basically had to wolf down two big bites as we left to get to the next meeting.

Perhaps what I remember most about this occasion was the first lunch. I believe that we went to the faculty club. I remember this long hallway with seemingly 8-foot tall paintings of distinguished "individuals" that had walked these same halls years before. Upon getting in the room, I was immediately struck by the fact that I was 1 of the only 2 black people sitting in the room. The other one was a black grad student from sociology (another story). The rest of the African Americans were serving food with white gloves. I recalled feeling very uncomfortable.

When I arrived in Houston, the vibe was very different. The pilot was black, there were black businessmen and hip-hoppers on the plane, in the airport and downtown. I immediately saw a vibrant latino community - complete with the music, smells and colors that I had grown accustomed to in New York. It was clear from jump, however, that these were not the Dominicans and Puerto Ricans that I grew up with. Trying to use what I had learned, they immediately tagged me as being from the east coast. Even the whites there were cool. I remember seeing amazing quality cowboy boots and hats like folks had just stepped out of the tv show Dallas. The energy was very different from what I now don't recall about St. Louis.

The interaction with the faculty on campus was generally quite pleasant and less inquisitory. There was one awkward moment - right before I gave my job talk. Just as my knees had bent enough where the body could no longer comfortably reverse direction, this theorist made the point of saying that I should feel free to sit in his office for the duration of my appointment but that since he had no interest in my being in the department, we had no reason to speak. I recall going from rage to calm in about 5 seconds. WTH! Why did he ask to speak to me? Ahhhhhh. I get it. Quickly, I turned to: "Well, I don't see what your objection might be given that studies of coercive power are central to political science and my research agenda." He bit and I managed to choke everything that I was feeling down until I could get out of that room. Again, the outcome was a good one: I got the offer, but there was a cost.

Perhaps the thing that I remember the most about the Houston interview and the thing that turned me toward Houston and away from Washington University was meeting with the president of the university. On my interview, I was told that the president wanted to meet with me. Her name was Marguerite Ross Barnett.

Now, if you do not know Dr. Barnett, you should. She was a phenomenal scholar of India but that is another story as I was not into that subject quite yet. Why you should know about her was that she was the first African American woman to run a major American university. I did not realize that until just a few days ago. To me, she was this amazing sister who brought me into her office on my interview (with her husband sitting at her desk in the back). She then proceeded to tell me something that 30 years later I remember:

Christian - people in Houston and Texas look to this institution as their school and it is their school. We don't always act like that though. Our faculty does not look like them and I want to change that. I want every faculty member to have a connection with some school k-12 in this city. I want every child to already know a professor before they get to junior high school. I want us all to be better connected and I want you to be part of this. I want you to help us become whole.

I might not remember what she told me word for word but I remember the feeling that I had at that moment and walking back across campus and getting back on the plane. I remember that feeling right now. I was like: I'm with her! She is on a mission and I wish to be on that ride. I probably made the choice to go to Houston even before I stood up from where I was sitting.

I never got a chance to tell Dr. Barnett how profoundly she impacted my life. She died a few years later and despite the best of intentions, no one could quite pull off what she began. I think that her passing was one of the reasons that I felt ready to leave Houston and continue my journey. There were other reasons, of course. But, I'll save that for another time.

Next in the series: Being the Second Youngest Professor at the University of Houston