Based on his book, The War That Doesn’t Say Its Name: The Unending Conflict in the Congo, Jason Stearns examines why violence in the Congo has continued despite decades of international intervention. Dr. Stearns extrapolates from the dynamics of the Congolese state to other conflicts across Africa and presents a theory of conflict that highlights the interests of the belligerents and the social structures from which they arise. His talk will shed light on why certain military feuds persist without resolution.
About the speaker
Jason Stearns is a political scientist interested in dynamics of violence and other forms of social mobilization in Africa, with a particular focus on the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This research has also led him to scrutinize the impact––or lack thereof––of UN peacekeeping, international advocacy, and humanitarian relief operations on armed conflict. He has worked for Héritiers de la Justice, a Congolese human rights organization, the International Crisis Group, the Rift Valley Institute, the United Nations peacekeeping mission, and Yale University. In 2008, he was coordinator on the United Nations Group of Experts on the DR Congo. In 2010, he published Dancing in the Glory of Monster: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa (Public Affairs). In 2014, Jason founded the Congo Research Group, which has been based since then at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation. He is currently researching how recents transformations in subsaharan African countries have changed the way its citizens mobilize.
