Stanford political science PhD student Ashley Fabrizio is a recipient of the Jennings Randolph Peace Scholar Dissertation Fellowship, awarded by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). The fellowship provides $20,000 to support her dissertation writing and research on peacebuilding and conflict management in the final year of her PhD program.

Ashley Fabrizio (Image credit: Jackie Sargent)

“It is an honor to join a distinguished community of USIP Peace Scholars working to build a more peaceful and inclusive world from positions in research, teaching and policymaking,” Fabrizio said.

Through her research, Fabrizio seeks to understand why governments repress their minority ethnic groups and how different types of repression affect large-scale political mobilization by these groups in support of their rights, autonomy and political independence. Her dissertation, Contingent Radicalization: Government Repression’s Differential Effect on Ethnonationalist Mobilization, will analyze the political mobilization and experiences of ethnic Kurds in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey since World War I.

Fabrizio recently traveled to USIP’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., to attend the annual Peace Scholar Workshop, where she shared her research project with experts and policymakers. She said she hopes her research will guide their decisions that, in turn, will help prevent violence, displacement and destruction that results from conflict.

“Before we can help civil societies and governments build sustainable, inclusive political orders, we have to understand what kinds of governance activities are counterproductive to human flourishing for all ethnic groups,” she said.

Fabrizio’s research has also been supported by the Vice Provost for Graduate Education, the Europe Center at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies and the American Political Science Association Centennial Center.

Since 1988, the USIP Peace Scholar Dissertation Fellowship program has awarded non-residential fellowships to students enrolled in U.S. universities who are writing doctoral dissertations on topics related to international conflict management and peacebuilding. The program has supported the dissertations of 320 scholars, many of whom have gone on to careers in research, teaching and policymaking.