“Despite the US withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan,” says Barbara Elias, “I see that, in many ways, these wars are not over, as they continue to reverberate deeply within Iraqi, Afghan, and American politics.”
Elias, who is the Sarah and James ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Associate Professor of Government, is an award-winning international relations scholar known for her insight into counterinsurgency warfare and US foreign policy.
She is also one of the twenty-six researchers honored with a prestigious Andrew Carnegie Fellowship in the latest round of awards, part of an ongoing, nationwide project to explore different aspects of political polarization.
Elias’s winning proposal—titled “The Unexpected Home Front: Roots of Domestic Radicalization in US Counterinsurgency Wars”—investigates how foreign military occupations affect domestic politics in democratic nations through a comparative examination of American and French counterinsurgent campaigns in Algeria, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
The Carnegie Foundation provides the fellows with a stipend up to $200,000 each for research that seeks to understand how and why our society has become so polarized and how we can strengthen the forces of cohesion to fortify our democracy. It’s all part of a three-year, $18 million initiative launched last year to support interdisciplinary research into the causes of polarization and ways to mitigate it.
“My project analyzes key factors contributing to veteran radicalization and domestic polarization,” explains Elias, “including insurgent strategies designed to foster divisions, counterinsurgent strategic failures, narratives of futile sacrifice, and subsequent domestic political mobilization.”
With the support of the fellowship, Elias plans over the next two years to produce a series of articles, both academic and those written for the public more generally, to engage broadly in discussions about lost wars and their consequences on current and emerging politics in the US. “The relationship between foreign counterinsurgency operations and domestic political radicalization is an unexplored area of study,” she adds.
The winning proposals, chosen from more than 300 applications, approach polarization through a wide array of disciplines and methods, says the Carnegie Foundation in a . Projects include analyzing the causes of the increasing political divides between men and women; assessing where Americans find common ground when it comes to their health; and understanding how partisan media, consultants, and tabloid entertainment industries are driving polarization for short-term profits.
“Through these fellowships Carnegie is harnessing the unrivaled brainpower of our universities to help us to understand how our society has become so polarized,” says Carnegie president Dame Louise Richardson. “Our future grantmaking will be informed by what we learn from these scholars as we seek to mitigate the pernicious effects of political polarization.”
“The relationship between foreign counterinsurgency operations and domestic political radicalization is an unexplored area of study.”
For her part, Elias says the fellowship presents a “phenomenal opportunity” to undertake work on a fast-evolving issue in national security. “We all sense rising danger and division in the current US political climate, and I am looking forward to putting my expertise in counterinsurgency warfare to work analyzing one potential contributing factor. I sincerely appreciate ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ’s support in nominating my proposal, and the Carnegie selection committee’s decision to fund the project.”
Founded in 2015, the Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program provides the most generous stipend of its kind for research in the humanities and social sciences, representing a philanthropic investment of more than $59 million. Fellows have received honors including the Nobel Prize and a National Book Award ().
