When research is a passion

A photograph on the cover of Kushi’s latest book, “From Kosovo to Darfur,” which was published this year, depicts two young girls with backpacks walking side by side. They could be walking to school, but something is wrong with the picture: a large military tank looms over them.

The scene is not that far off from Kushi’s own childhood experiences in Albania. The country descended into chaos and conflict in the 1990s during the post-communist era that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In 1997, when Kushi was nine, the Albanian government collapsed, marking the beginning of a period of civil unrest and near civil war.

“It was pure domestic anarchy, so we ended up not being able to go to school,” Kushi said. “You couldn’t find health care if you were sick, and many people worried about getting ill because there was no trash management for a while, so all the trash ended up getting into the water.”

Thankfully, a United Nations peacekeeping mission led by Italy helped restore order and establish a new government. “I remember thinking, ‘Wow, isn’t the world good?’ That we’re suffering here, and these neighbors are coming in to help us with food and aid,” Kushi said.

She and her family emigrated to the United States in 1998, and she carried with her a cache of vivid memories. Ultimately, her childhood in the Western Balkans led her to the central question that “From Kosovo to Darfur” seeks to answer: Why do some violent crises inspire humanitarian military interventions while others do not?

To find a compelling answer, Kushi created a new dataset that includes every case of internal armed conflict since the end of the Cold War and any related instances of humanitarian intervention by international actors, such as the U.N. and NATO. Using statistical analysis and case studies of conflicts in Kosovo, Libya and Darfur, Kushi uncovered a striking regional dynamic.

Humanitarian military interventions “seem to be more likely and robust near the Western neighborhood and less likely outside the Western neighborhood,” Kushi said. According to her research, this regional bias stems, in part, from Western political elites’ perceptions of what is happening in a particular part of the world. “Do these elites see it as a genocide or ethnic cleansing?” she asks. “Or do they see it as just another civil war where two equally culpable groups of people are fighting each other?”

This fall, Kushi will share her expertise with Mount Holyoke students while teaching two courses in Politics: World Politics, which surveys different approaches to the study of conflict and cooperation, and American Foreign Policy, which examines U.S. foreign policy from the turn of the twentieth century. Kushi is also co-author of “Dying by the Sword: The Militarization of U.S. Foreign Policy.”

Kushi is excited about the large number of international and first-generation students and Mount Holyoke. “Around 20% of the student body is international — that’s significant for me; I really value that,” Kushi says. “And I’m a first-generation student; no one in my family went to college prior to me.” She’s also no stranger to the liberal arts experience, having attended St. John Fisher University in upstate New York, where her family settled after leaving Albania.

“The only reason I think I’ve made it this far is because I was very fortunate to go to a liberal arts college,” she said. “If I hadn’t had those professors mentoring me, showing me the ropes, believing in my abilities, I would never have thought academia was a path for me.”

As she settles into the Politics department, Kushi is ready to work closely with students and perhaps inspire a new generation of political scientists. While meeting with a group of students during a campus visit, she was struck by their passion for research. “It wasn’t a chore for them — they were doing it because they really felt it,” she says. “Their passion is going to be amazing for class discussions and debates. I can’t wait to read their work.”