Scott Straus

Scott Straus (Ph.D. Berkeley, 2004) is Professor of Political Science and the 2023 Mahatma M.K. Gandhi Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. He studies political violence, genocide, human rights, and post-conflict politics with an empirical focus on Sub-Saharan Africa. He is the author or editor of nine books, including Making and Unmaking Nations: War, Leadership, and Genocide in Modern Africa (Cornell, 2015), which won the Grawemeyer Award for Improving World Order, the Lepgold Prize from Georgetown University, the Best Book in Conflict Processes from the American Political Science Association, and the Best Book in Human Rights from the International Studies Association. Straus also wrote The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War (Cornell, 2006), which won the Best Book in Political Science from the Association of American Publishers and Honorable Mention for the Melville Herskovits prize from the African Studies Association. He is a coeditor of Vol III of the Cambridge World History of Genocide (Cambridge, 2023), the author of Fundamentals of Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention (US Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2016), and co-author, with Barry Driscoll, Introduction to International Studies: Global Forces, Interactions, and Tensions (Sage, 2022, 2nd ed.) Straus has published articles in American Journal of Political Science, World Politics, Politics and Society, Foreign Affairs, Perspectives on Politics, African Affairs, Journal of Peace Research, Terrorism and Political Violence, Genocide Studies and Prevention, The Journal of Genocide Research, and other journals. Straus also serves as the co-editor of African Affairs, Violence: An International Journal (alongside Michel Wieviorka), and of the Critical Human Rights book series at the University of Wisconsin Press (alongside Tyrell Haberkorn). He has received fellowships from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and the United States Institute of Peace. Prior to returning to Berkeley in 2021, he was the Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Political Science and International Studies, where he also served as Chair and Associate Chair of the Department of Political Science and won the campus-wide William Kiekhofer Distinguished Teaching Award. In 2016, President Obama appointed him to the Council of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and Straus continues to serve on the Museum’s Committee on Conscience. Prior to his academic career, Straus was a freelance journalist based in Nairobi; he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his 1996 coverage of the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.