May 12, 2020

Minerva-funded Researchers on COVID-19

Several of the Minerva-funded researchers are conducting research and initiatives related to COVID-19. As technical experts in their various fields, each of their research helps bring light to the long term social implications of the impact of the virus.

May 4, 2020

Mia Bloom's new article "From Pawn to Knights: The Changing Role of Women's Agency in Terrorism?"

Minerva-funded researcher, Mia Bloom's new article "Mia Bloom's new article "From Pawn to Knights: The Changing Role of Women's Agency in Terrorism?". As terrorist groups became more technologically advanced with their media campaigns, the global audience began to see pictures of women in black burkas pledging allegiance to the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and posing with guns. Although there is a backlash against such change that we see reflected in the ideologies of violent extremism; the shifts in gender relations within these groups are significant to examine.

April 30, 2020

Mariya Omelicheva's new article, "When Does the Crime-Terror Nexus Fail to Materialize? Drug Trafficking, Militants, and the State in Russia"

Minerva-funded researcher, Mariya Omelicheva's new article "When Does the Crime-Terror Nexus Fail to Materialize? Drug Trafficking, Militants, and the State in Russia". What are the conditions that obstruct the formation of a crime-terror nexus? To answer this question we carry out a quantitative and qualitative analysis of Russia's North Caucasus (2008–2016) where no durable crime-terror nexus materialized despite the presence of conditions conducive to the emergence of linkages between criminals and militants.

April 16, 2020

New Owl in the Olive Tree post "National Security Implications of the COVID-19 Crisis:The Urgent Need to Build State Capacity"

Minerva-funded researchers, Cynthia Buckley, Ralph Clem, and Erik Herron's Owl in the Olive Tree post "National Security Implications of the COVID-19 Crisis: The Urgent Need to Build State Capacity". Beyond the devastating and widely discussed humanitarian and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the current global crisis also exposes the dangers inherent in governmental shortcomings to provide for their citizens’ welfare adequately. In other words: the downside is almost universally a failure of state capacity. In its broadest sense, state capacity refers to....

April 15, 2020

Minerva-funded Researchers on COVID-19

Several of the Minerva-funded researchers are conducting research and initiatives related to COVID-19. As technical experts in their various fields, each of their research helps bring light to the long term social implications of the impact of the virus.

March 26, 2020

The Department of Defense Announced Awards Totaling $2 Million for Minerva’s Defense Education Civilian University Research (DECUR) Partnership

The Department of Defense (DoD) announced the selection of faculty teams for awards through Minerva’s FY2019 Defense Education and Civilian University Research (DECUR) Partnership, supporting fundamental research and professional military education.

March 20, 2020

Owl in the Olive Tree post "Casualties of Good Governance: How Corruption Helps Ordinary Citizens in Autocracies"

Minerva-funded researcher, Marina Zaloznaya's Owl in the Olive Tree post "Casualties of Good Governance: How Corruption Helps Ordinary Citizens in Autocracies". In forty-eight countries around the world—most of which are poor and non-democratic—at least a quarter of citizens report giving bribes to doctors, teachers, policemen, and other public officials in exchange for services (Transparency International 2019). To decrease the documented negative effects of such widespread bureaucratic corruption on economic and political health of....

March 17, 2020

Threat Enhances Aggressive Inclinations Among Devoted Actors Via Increase in Their Relative Physical Formidability

Devoted actors—those who share sacred values with a group with which they are fused—are particularly willing to self-sacrifice to defend their group or values when they are threatened. Here, we explore whether they are also prone to aggressive inclinations toward those who endanger their group or convictions.

March 11, 2020

Scott Atran's new article, "Measures of Devotion to ISIS and other Fighting and Radicalized Groups"

Minerva-funded research Scott Atran's new article, "Measures of Devotion to ISIS and other Fighting and Radicalized Groups" has been published in "Current Opinion in Psychology". Read more

March 3, 2020

Minerva-funded researcher speaks on "What I Learned From Scanning the Brains of Potential Terrorist"

Minerva-funded researcher speaks on "What I Learned From Scanning the Brains of Potential Terrorist". This research discusses how understanding the mind of a radical Islamist can prevent the next white-nationalist attack.