Sarah Zukerman is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at MIT and a member of MIT’s Security Studies Program. Her interests include civil war, ethnic politics, and democratization in Latin America and the former Soviet Union. Sarah holds a BA (2003) with Distinction in International Relations from Stanford University and a MS (2004) with Distinction in Development Studies from the London School of Economics.
Sarah’s dissertation analyzes variation in demilitarized groups' post-war trajectories and ex-combatants’ reintegration success in Colombia. Her other current projects seek to explain sub-national variation in insurgency onset in Colombia; state strategies towards ethnic minorities in the former Soviet Union; repression and rebellion in El Salvador and Honduras; the effects of foreign fighters on civil wars; and the role of emotions in transitional justice.
Sarah’s research is supported by the Social Science Research Council, the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, National Science Foundation, and MIT’s Center for International Studies. She has conducted field research in Ecuador, Chile and Colombia and has spent time at the Council on Foreign Relations, World Bank, Chilean Foreign Ministry, and the Peace Research Institute of Oslo.
