Veni winner Lee Seymour studies leadership in civil wars
Civil wars are often conducted between groups that may have been together for a long time, but are equally likely to fall apart. What is the reason for this? Veni winner Lee Seymour travels to war zones in Somalia and South Sudan to investigate the role leadership plays.
Lee Seymour
Civil wars claim many more victims than wars between states. Experts have estimated that 20 million people have been killed in over 140 different civil wars since 1945. So why do some rebel groups stick together, while others disintegrate into different factions? And how does this influence the way conflicts develop? These are questions to which Lee Seymour, researcher in Political Science in Leiden, hopes to find an answer. His research proposal earned him a Veni grant.
Leaders
Seymour discovered that the position of leaders within a group is crucial when it comes to whether a rebel group will remain together or fall apart. This knowledge is vital, as it allows us to understand better how civil wars are conducted and how they develop.
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The Veni grant
The Veni is one of the grants awarded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) to young researchers who recently gained their PhD. Each one receives 250,000 euros to conduct three years of research. In 2010, 161 grants were awarded, one of which went to Lee Seymour.
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Interviews with former rebels
In his research, Seymour focuses on armed groups in Somalia and South Sudan. He had already done field work in these areas in 2003 and 2004. ‘Separatist groups are more than willing to talk about their conflict, so it isn’t difficult at all to make contact and glean information from them. The government in Somaliland is even made up of members of a rebel movement, which means they are wholly prepared to tell their story. Separatism, in other words, is good news for researchers.
More time for research
Seymour does not see his Veni as a ‘massive deal’. ‘I don't feel as if I have won the lottey, even though I never fail to be pleased when I notice my work as a researcher is being appreciated.’ For Seymour, the Veni grant serves a mainly practical purpose. ‘First, it provides me with a lot more time to dedicate myself to my research. Normally, I give four to five classes a year; now I only give two.’ The money, too, is more than welcome. ‘In contrast with the United States, when you are appointed to a Dutch university you get no funding for research. I have to admit that was a minor disappointment when I came to Holland.’
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Academic portrait of Lee Seymour
2001 MA Political Sciences, Dalhousie University
2005 MA Political Sciences, Northwestern University
2005 – 2006 Doctoral Studies, Sciences Po, Paris
2008 PhD Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
2008 – 2009 Postdoc Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
2009 – 2010 Lecturer Political Science Leiden University
2010 Veni grant NWO for his research ‘Factionalism in Civil Wars: Cohesion and Fragmentation in Armed Groups’
‘Pleasantly boring’
How did Seymour’s interest in conflict situations, civil war and violence start? ‘My fascination for this field might stem from my quiet childhood. I grew up in prosperous Calgary, Canada, a place where everything happens in an orderly manner; in other words: where it is pleasantly boring. Perhaps it was the very contrast that attracted me to the conflict situations in Africa. I started to wonder why there was so much political violence there.’
Fieldwork in Somalia and Southern Sudan
The 250,000 euro grant will allow Seymour to continue his research for another three years. ‘My short-term goal is to go back and do more fieldwork in Somalia and South Sudan. We are on the verge of an interesting period: on 9 January a referendum is scheduled to be held on the question of whether South Sudan is to remain part of Sudan. We can only wait and see what happens next. My research will finally result in a book covering the period 1983 to 2005.’
(7 December 2010)