Welcome.
I’m the inaugural James Wright Chair in Transnational Studies and Associate Professor in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College. I also direct the Political Violence FieldLab at the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth. And I’m a member of the 2020 class of Andrew Carnegie Fellows.
Broadly speaking, my research examines the drivers and effects of political violence in war. I have three current research projects: (1) understanding how inequalities (ethnic, class, race) affect the battlefield performance of armies and rebels; (2) improving humanitarian assistance in fragile and violent settings; and (3) building new approaches and tools for causal inference with very fine-grained spatial and temporal data. I’m currently completing a book manuscript on the lessons learned from the Afghan War (2001-21).
I have conducted fieldwork in Russia, Qatar, and Afghanistan, where I served as Technical Adviser for USAID’s Measuring the Impact of Stabilization Initiatives (MISTI) project for 2012-15. I currently have field projects in Estonia, South Sudan, and Ukraine.
My first book, Divided Armies: Inequality and Battlefield Performance in Modern War, was published by Princeton University Press in 2020. It received the 2021 APSA Conflict Processes Section Best Book Award for “the book making the most outstanding contributions to the study of any and all forms of political conflict…published in the past two calendar years;” the 2021 Peter Katzenstein Prize for “best first book in international relations, comparative politics or political economy;” the 2020 Joseph Lepgold Prize for “best book in international relations;” the 2020 Edgar S. Furniss Book Award “to an author whose first book makes an exceptional contribution to the study of national and international security;” and was named a “Best of 2020 Book” by Foreign Affairs.
My research has been published in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Foreign Affairs, International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Politics, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society (Series B), PNAS Nexus, and World Politics, among others. My Google Scholar page is here.
My research has been funded by AidData/USAID, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Folke Bernadette Academy, the MacArthur Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the United States Institute of Peace.
I have received the 2018 Nils Petter Gleditsch JPR Article of the Year Award; the 2013 Pi Sigma Alpha Award; the 2009 Kellogg-Notre Dame Award; the 2007 APSA Helen Dwight Reid Prize for Best Dissertation in International Relations, Law, and Politics; and the 2007 Stanley Kelley Jr. Prize for Teaching Excellence in Princeton University’s Politics Department.
I can be reached at Jason.Lyall@Dartmouth.edu